"Pugilistic" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... again yesterday morning, and shall to-morrow. I feel all the better for it, in spirits, though my arms and shoulders are very stiff from it. Mem. to attend the pugilistic dinner:—Marquess Huntley is ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... Wilson was the mate, bareheaded, his gray locks lying in rings upon his bronzed brow, and his keen eye scanning the crowd as if he knew their every thought. His frock hung loosely, exposing his round throat, mossy chest, and short and nervous arm embossed with pugilistic bruises, and quaint with many ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... and a clergyman, consequently a Republican and a Christian—the hero of the Russian Campaign, of Waterloo, etc., after his retirement to the Rock, became deeply interested in theology, fighting being no longer a pastime he could indulge in unless by pugilistic assault on the British guards, which, contrary to his past experience, would have been entirely at his own expense, hence uncomfortable. And here we find him talking so well—this grand disturber of the world's peace—so profoundly, ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... thoughts were far from pugilistic. He was thinking of the immediate past and the future. Every man in his crew was aware of the fact that 35 per cent of the output of these mines went to the homeless starving ones of the most hopelessly wrecked nation on the face ...
— Panther Eye • Roy J. Snell
... slipped his hand into his girdle, and drew forth a short knife. So menacing was his look, so brightly gleamed the blade, that Stratonice, who was used only to that fashion of battle which we moderns call the pugilistic, started ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... with odd sensations, as of seeing sparks, and a kind of electrical or ozone-like odor, half-sulphurous in character, and which has given rise to a very vulgar and profane threat sometimes heard from the lips of bullies. A person not used to pugilistic gestures does not instantly recover from this surprise. The Koh-i-noor, exasperated by his failure, and still a little confused by the smart hit he had received, but furious, and confident of victory over a young fellow ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... was formed in an open space, and at it we went. I soon found that my antagonist's pugilistic education did not come up to mine. In fact, he was no match for me, and was compelled to give up the pig. So I took Master Murphy under my arm, feeling that I had in some degree wiped out ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... inner man and washing the dust out of our throats. In some way the conversation turned on the doings of various fighters and I expressed myself pretty freely concerning their merits and demerits, for having taken boxing lessons, I was naturally anxious to set myself up as an authority on matters pugilistic. ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson
... unsympathetic about pugilism, amongst them the late Rev. Whitwell Elwin, who, in the Quarterly Review (January-April, 1857), wrote: "Mr. Borrow's notions of what constitutes cant have not always been the same. In his 'Gypsies of Spain' he speaks of pugilistic combats as 'disgraceful and brutalizing exhibitions,' but in the Appendix to 'The Romany Rye' we find that he now considers such language to be cant. This is one of the cases in which second thoughts are worst." Another reviewer deprecates Borrow's glorifying attitude towards ...
— Souvenir of the George Borrow Celebration - Norwich, July 5th, 1913 • James Hooper
... didn't run to The Road. He was not a success at throwing his feet, and he stowed away one night on a barge and went down river to San Francisco. I met him, only a week ago, at a pugilistic carnival. He has progressed. He sat in a place of honor at the ring-side. He is now a manager of prize-fighters and proud of it. In fact, in a small way, in local sportdom, he is quite a ...
— The Road • Jack London
... you remember saying just now that the trainer is not to be accused or banished if the pugilist makes a wrong use of his pugilistic art; and in like manner, if the rhetorician makes a bad and unjust use of his rhetoric, that is not to be laid to the charge of his teacher, who is not to be banished, but the wrong-doer himself who made a bad use of his rhetoric—he is to ...
— Gorgias • Plato
... cried the excited seaman, leaping to a perpendicular rock, against which he placed his back, and raised his fists in a pugilistic attitude. "Keep one or two in play with your broken toothpick, an' I'll floor 'em one after another as they comes up. Now, then, ye black baboons, come on—all at once if ye like—an' Jo Bumpus'll shew ye wot ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... light-weight in the previous year, but, by reason of putting on a stone since the competition, was now no longer eligible for that class. O'Hara had not been up before, but the Wrykyn instructor, a good judge of pugilistic form, was of opinion that he ought to stand an excellent chance. As the prize-fighter in Rodney Stone says, "When you get a good Irishman, you can't better 'em, but they're dreadful 'asty." O'Hara was attending the gymnasium every night, in order to learn to curb ...
— The Gold Bat • P. G. Wodehouse
... advanced to the bedside of Mrs. Belmont, and threw himself into an approved pugilistic attitude, as if challenging that lady to take a 'set to' with him; while Bloody Mike stumbled over the prostrate form of the lady's maid, who occupied a temporary bed upon the floor. Forgetting his assumed part, he yelled out for something to drink, and forthwith began to sing in ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... in a voice of thunder, turning to Hugh, who still stood in a pugilistic attitude, with very little respect ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... pugilistic champion of the British navy cast all ring ethics to the winds. He struck, kicked and clawed and sought to wreak what damage he could upon his enemies without regard for the niceties of fighting. He knew that they would ...
— The Boy Allies at Jutland • Robert L. Drake
... when a youth, was remarkable chiefly for his leaping, putting, and wrestling. Some of the greatest divines were distinguished in their youth for their physical energies. Isaac Barrow, when at the Charterhouse School, was notorious for his pugilistic encounters, in which he got many a bloody nose; Andrew Fuller, when working as a farmer's lad at Soham, was chiefly famous for his skill in boxing; and Adam Clarke, when a boy, was only remarkable for the strength displayed by him in ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... possible, and he will remain healthy, delightful in his manners, and preternaturally intelligent. The dog of the day is the fox-terrier, and a charming little fellow he is. Unfortunately it happens that most smart youths who possess fox-terriers have an exalted idea of their friends' pugilistic powers, and hence the sweet little black, white, and tan beauty too often has life concerted into a battle and a march. Still no one who understands the fox-terrier can help respecting and admiring him. If I might hint a fault, it is that the fox-terrier lacks balance of character. The ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... as that windictive Bounder, the 'Brummagem Bantam,' has bin a letting out wicious like at his old pals, the 'Arwarden Old 'Un and his Pugilistic Company. 'They was muffs and muddlers,' he sez. Well, he ought to ha' said 'we,' considerin' as he wos one on 'em!!! The Old 'Un was his first patron, and me and other members of the Company his pertikler ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, November 7, 1891 • Various
... graphic and need but little annotation. Other pugilistic activities crop up at not infrequent intervals in the text,[113] and in Ps. 135 ff. Ballio generously plies the whip. In the lacuna of the Amph. after line 1034, Mercury probably bestows a drenching on Amphitruo.[114] In As. III. ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • William Wallace Blancke
... in his blackest and most pugilistic mood that morning. As a general rule he was the most peaceful of men; but at times, some strain inherited from a remote ancestor who, if he disliked a man's face hit it hard with a club, resurrected ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
... he shows a cut-throat countenance, typical of the State Penitentiary; cheeks bloated as from excessive indulgence in drink; eyes watery and somewhat bloodshot; lips thick and sensual; with a nose set obliquely, looking as if it had received hard treatment in some pugilistic encounter. His hair is of a yellowish clay colour, lighter in tint upon the eyebrows. There is none either on his lips or jaws, nor yet upon his thick hog-like throat; which looks as if some day it may need something stiffer than a beard ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... animal is withdrawn, and another is put forward in his place. These are cruel pastimes, though they may be thought not more so than dog-fighting and cock-fighting, which were formerly so much practised in Britain; and not so barbarous as a pugilistic combat between two hired ...
— Trade and Travel in the Far East - or Recollections of twenty-one years passed in Java, - Singapore, Australia and China. • G. F. Davidson
... Turkey rose to his feet and threw his arms into a pugilistic position. He was hurrying away to make good his promise, when I detained him, alarmed at the effect of incautiously rousing ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... and his incomparable Countess. They have been received with a rudeness which we deplore but pardon. One was threatened with a cane; another, in the pursuit of his official inquiries, was saluted with a pail of water; a third gentleman was menaced in a pugilistic manner by his Lordship's porter; but being of an Irish nation, a man of spirit and sinew, and Master of Arts of Trinity College, Dublin, the gentleman of our establishment confronted the menial, and having severely beaten him, retired to a neighboring hotel much frequented by the domestics ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... laugh at the thought of the handsome, immaculate young man before her in a pugilistic ...
— The First Soprano • Mary Hitchcock
... be confessed that John Brown—or to be polite and up-to-date—John Carew-Brown surveyed the pupils of Wygate School with a fighting eye, which is to say, he considered them carefully with regarded to their pugilistic abilities, and he decided very soon that he "could make them all ...
— An Australian Lassie • Lilian Turner
... Duff Charringtons have been backing the little Redd girl? Miss Evelyn Redd, I suppose? It sounds a little like a horse race or a pugilistic encounter." ...
— The Doctor - A Tale Of The Rockies • Ralph Connor
... somewhat the worse for a poor article of strychnine whiskey, made himself very conspicuous and exceedingly obnoxious by the continual iteration of his intense desire to fight some one. He was fearful that he would "ruin," if his pugilistic wants were not immediately attended to, and in manner more earnest than agreeable invited one and all to "come ashore and have the conceit taken out" of them. From the descriptive catalogue he gave of his own merits, the passengers ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... brought his experience and art to bear; put aside those heavy roundabout blows, and darted in his own, quick and sharp—supplying the due momentum of pugilistic mechanics to the natural feebleness of his arm. Ay, and the arm, too, was no longer so feeble: so strange is the strength that comes ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... adjust the greater portion of her hair so that the coil cannot be seen above the crown of her head. The low bang brings into striking relief all the hard lines of her face and gives the impression that she has pugilistic tendencies. ...
— What Dress Makes of Us • Dorothy Quigley
... greatest honor to his benevolent discrimination. His lordship extended his goodness to little Rawdon: he pointed out to the boy's parents the necessity of sending him to a public school; that he was of an age now when emulation, the first principles of the Latin language, pugilistic exercises and the society of his fellow-boys would be of the greatest benefit to the boy.... All objections disappeared before the generous perseverance of the marquis. His lordship was one of the governors of that famous old collegiate institution called the White Friars. It had been a ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various
... The latter, without a word, made a rush for him, grasped him by the throat, and, much to the amusement of a group of Americans, who immediately began to bet on him, administered to the detective a perfect volley of blows, which proved the great superiority of French over English pugilistic skill. ...
— Around the World in 80 Days • Jules Verne
... promised to grow into a much bigger man. His hair was uncompromisingly red, and grew in such irregular fashion that the comb was not made which could subdue it. He had the wide-open, fighting blue eyes of the Chief Inspector, and when he smiled the presence of two broken teeth lent him a very pugilistic appearance. ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... supposed to grow out of the English habit of settling school quarrels by boxing, after the fashion of prize-fighters in the ring. But I do not think it would have been a very safe experiment for one of these pugilistic young gentlemen to offer an insult to a Hofwyl student, even though the manhood of this latter had never been tested by pounding another's face with his fist. Brutality and cowardice are often close allies; and his anger, when roused, is most to be dreaded, who so bears himself as ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... dead. When the sons of Dhritarashtra got up to the boughs of a tree for plucking fruits, Bhima used to shake that tree, by striking it with his foot, so that down came the fruits and the fruitpluckers at the same time. In fact, those princes were no match for Bhima in pugilistic encounters, in speed, or in skill. Bhima used to make a display of his strength by thus tormenting them in childishness ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... one of John Wilson's fancies to affect a love of boxing, and it was a favorite theme in the 'Ambrosial Discussions.' From this some have imagined that he was of a pugilistic turn, whereas he knew nothing of the 'science,' and only affected the ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... the Greek encomiums. Our fiddles or piano do duty instead of the Greek dithyrambs, hyporchems, and other dancing songs. Our warriors are either left unsung, or celebrated in verse that reads much better than it sings. The members of the "Benevolent Pugilistic Association" do not stand so high in the British opinion as the wrestlers of old stood in the Greek; and our jockeys have fallen frightfully from the grand position which the Greek racers occupied in the plains of Olympia. Very few in these days would think the champion of England, or the winner ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... would have given Villiers credit for being the man of penetrative and almost classic refinement he really was,—he looked far more athletic than aesthetic. Broad-shouldered and deep-chested, with a round, blunt head firmly set on a full, strong throat, he had, on the whole, a somewhat obstinate and pugilistic air which totally belied his nature. His features, open and ruddy, were, without being handsome, decidedly attractive—the mouth was rather large, yet good-tempered; the eyes bright, blue, and sparklingly ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli |
