FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • More 'Game of chance' Quotes from Famous Books

... keeping up a succession of attractive airs. Making our way, not without difficulty, through the crowd, we saw before us several long, green-covered tables, surrounded by people, who appeared to be engaged in playing, on a grand scale, every conceivable game of chance. Never did I see countenances so palpably expressive of the worst passions of our evil nature. The keepers of the banks were evidently villains of the darkest dye. They sat with their revolvers on the table, guarding the heaps of gold before them, as they skilfully ...

— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston

... $20,000 from the other gambler, and he, turning round and selling them at the market price, would win from you this difference of $5,000. But in fact the transaction was not real, it was a stock gambling one; neither party owned tulips or meant to, or expected the other to; and the whole was a pure game of chance or skill, to see which should win and which should lose that $5,000 at the end of three days. When the time came, the affair was settled, still without any tulips, by the loser paying the difference to the winner, ...

— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum

... then had probably been his real purpose from the start. He had followed Beaucaire deliberately with this final end in view—of ruining him, and thus compelling the daughter to yield herself. He had egged the man on, playing on the weakness of his nature, baiting him to finally risk all on a game of chance, the real stake not the money on the table, but the ...

— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish

... who dared the impassive solitudes of the North for weary, lonesome years saw in every morsel of the gold they found a picture of what that gold would buy them in kindlier lands. And some never found any, never won the stake that would justify the gamble. It was a gamble, in a sense—a pure game of chance; but a game that took strength, and nerve, a sturdy soul, ...

— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... learning that politics is not a game of chance," observes Trueman, meditatively. "It is a science, with as much to master as the science of war, which it ...

— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams

... the implications of her speech. "I'm not tryin' to cover up me tracks," said he. "I was a gambler for thirty years. Me whole life has been a game of chance. There are many who think gambling one of the high crimes an' misdemeanors, but I think a square game between men is defensible. I am a gambler by nature. Why shouldn't I be? I grew up a fat squab of a boy rollin' about on the pavin'-stones ...

— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland

... that, and she says, Oh, dear! she's too old-fashioned! So Cousin Egbert says, why, then she should take an old-fashioned cocktail, which she does and sips it with no sign of relish. Then she says she will help the cause by wagering a coin on yonder game of chance. ...

— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson

... sacrifices which fulfilled love claims. There is a confusion of motives which now force women and men alike from their service to the race. Sex must be freed from all unworthy necessities. Courtship must be regarded, not as a game of chance, but as the opening act in the drama of life. And the woman who comes to know this must play her part consciously, realising in full what she is seeking for; then, indeed, no longer will her sex be to her a light or a saleable thing. ...

— The Truth About Woman • C. Gasquoine Hartley

... money-lenders, petty merchants, and persons of devious occupations, make speedy arrangements for attending. Indian and Ceylon coolies flock by the thousand to the coast of the Northern province, longing to play even humble roles in the great game of chance. The "tindals" and divers provide boats and all essential gear for the work afloat; while ashore the government supplies buildings and various forms of labor for dealing with the ...

— East of Suez - Ceylon, India, China and Japan • Frederic Courtland Penfield

... and self-love had been her deepest sins. Her husband, looking back at his own life, could truthfully say the same, but the details were different. He had looked upon the wine-cup and every other receptacle in which stimulants were ever served. He had tried every game of chance and gone through all other operations collectively known as "sowing one's wild oats." Respect for his wife caused him to break from all his bad habits and associations, at first haltingly and with many ...

— All He Knew - A Story • John Habberton

... against his neighbour than "cruelty" cases do of the old and just horror of the parents that hated their own flesh. A libel case has become one of the sports of the less athletic rich—a variation on baccarat, a game of chance. A music-hall actress got damages for a song that was called "vulgar," which is as if I could fine or imprison my neighbour for calling my handwriting "rococo." A politician got huge damages because he was said to have spoken to children about Tariff Reform; as if that ...

— Eugenics and Other Evils • G. K. Chesterton

... they had perished for the sake of future generations, and that thought consoled him. Finally, the man who had announced in a public address, that he considered it a moral duty never to subscribe to a lottery, nor to engage in a game of chance, petitioned the Legislature of Virginia for permission to dispose of his house and lands in a raffle, and in his memorial recapitulated his services to the country to strengthen his ...

— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various

... that he and I alone had access to the door of which the servants had no key, nor ever passed there. The same evening I availed myself of my privilege and went to my club, where over a foolish game of chance I ...

— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman

... the third beggar, tossing a gold coin in the air. "You talk as if people heard you. The secret of happiness—religion, philosophy, philanthropy?—poppycock! It is luck, sheer luck. Life is a game of chance. Heads I win, tails you lose. Will you ...

— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke

... Sails was to stand the middle watch, and that he was aggrieved that the best blood of Scotland had been bested in a game of chance by a blanked squarehead ship's carpenter, who had, it seemed, won the right to stand the earlier watch. And, in any case, it was sacrilege to violate the night's rest of a MacLean. And a sailmaker was a dash-blanked tradesman and should never be ...

— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer

... hostile Indians, who carried them off a distance of three leagues, where they determined to kill them. Some dispute arose about the division of the spoils taken from the Spaniards, whereupon the savages agreed to settle it by a game of chance. While they were thus engaged, Diego Mendez escaped, found his way to his canoe, embarked in it, and returned alone to the harbor after fifteen days' absence. What became of his companions he does not mention, being seldom apt to speak of any person but himself. This account ...

— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving

... to be no lack of spirits among them even if they were assigned the grim task of hanging a man upon the morrow. And Haym Salomon, being condemned to death by a military court, smiled his grave, gentle smile to hear their mirth. He had played the game of chance and he had lost, ...

— The New Land - Stories of Jews Who Had a Part in the Making of Our Country • Elma Ehrlich Levinger

... there to be seized and used, invaded and evacuated at a price, to be bought and sold for some empirical or commercial consideration. In the treaties of peace, princes and statesmen tossed countries and populations to each other as if they had been balls in a game of chance. ...

— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby

... wild bursts of merriment, the loud oath and light song from some gay pavilion, where young Syrian nobles were exchanging jests, and indulging in deep carousals. Yonder, in the glaring torch-light, sat a group of officers, engaged in some game of chance, and their stakes were the captives whom they were to drag at their chariot-wheels on the morrow. Each throw of the dice decided the fate of a Hebrew; at least, so ...

— Hebrew Heroes - A Tale Founded on Jewish History • AKA A.L.O.E. A.L.O.E., Charlotte Maria Tucker

... is subject.(935) The consequence of these fluctuations is, that every commercial transaction, every credit-transaction, and even every act of saving, in which money plays any part, is made to bear the impress of a game of chance;(936) a consequence of far and deep reaching influence, especially in the higher stages of civilization, where the importance of commerce, of the credit-system, and of money-economy as contradistinguished from barter-economy is so great; producing there ...

— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher

... such a run of bad luck. During the great week of the Fiesta he had tried everything from roulette to monte, but fortune's wheel had turned steadily against him. It was truly the devil's own luck and no mistake. If only the luck would turn, he would quit the game of chance forever—cast off the ungrateful Dolores, and.... He drew a much-worn pack of cards from his breast pocket and began cutting them with a dexterity acquired through long ...

— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown

... cards, and asked me to play with her at a game called primiera. It is a game of chance, but of so complicated a nature that the best player always wins. In a quarter of an hour I found that I was the better player, but she had such luck that at the end of the game I had lost twenty pistoles, which I paid on the spot. She took ...

— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... of excitement seems awfully stupid to YOU; but—no use denying it—I do like a bit of a flutter, just occasionally, you know. And one has to be in trim for it. Suppose a man sat down dead-drunk to a game of chance, what fun would it be for him? None. And it's only a question of degree. Soothe yourself ever so little with alcohol, and you don't get QUITE the full sensation of gambling. You do lose just a little something of the proper tremors before a coup, the proper throes ...

— James Pethel • Max Beerbohm

... contrived are all these minutiae of a gambling palace! They seduce even those who would gladly have never seen a game of chance, and before one is aware of his danger ...

— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe

... laughed back, sarcastically. "Do you suppose for one moment that I ever count on anyone?... I like a game of chance ... that's why I chose you. I like to triumph in spite of a poor hand ... and you have been in some ways the poorest deal I've ever risked a play on. But if I'd gotten you I'd have chuckled to my dying day ... even in spite of the fact that it would have shattered all ...

— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie

... the business men to indorse it. I suppose that the average American citizen feels that they wouldn't indorse a thing unless it was safe; and the average American citizen likes to be safe—he is cautious. As a matter of fact, business men are always taking risks, and business is a game of chance, in a certain degree. Have I made ...

— A Traveler from Altruria: Romance • W. D. Howells

... the frivolous game of chance in the butts, the proceedings at the firing-point resolve themselves into a desperately earnest test of skill. The fortnight's range-practice is drawing to a close. Each evening registers have been made up, and firing averages adjusted, with the result ...

— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay

... It is, if not a peaceful, at least a languid scene. A few voices break the stillness, mingled with the joyous chirping of crickets from the grass. Young men lie flat on their faces, basking in the sun. A group of their elders are smoking around a buffalo skin on which they have just been playing a game of chance with cherry-stones. A lover and his mistress, perhaps, sit together under a shed of bark without uttering a word. Not far off is the graveyard, where lie the dead of the village, some buried in the earth, ...

— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman

... and presented to the right persons. If T. Tembarom had been sufficiently lured by the spirit of speculation to plunge into old Hutchinson's affair, as he evidently had done, he was plainly of the temperament attracted by the game of chance. There had been no reason but that of temperament which could have led him to invest. He had found himself suddenly a moneyed man and had liked the game. Never having so much as heard of Little Ann Hutchinson, Captain Palliser not unnaturally argued after this wise. There seemed no valid ...

— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... in speakin' tharof to you-all sports who ain't really gamblers none. That's to be p'lite. But between us, among a'credited kyard sharps, a brace game is allers allooded to as "the old thing." If you refers to a game of chance as "the old thing," they knows at once that every chance is 'liminated an' said deevice ...

— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis

... she whispered under her breath. "Dear old Penny! She doesn't know the probabilities in this particular game of chance." ...

— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler

... is, to receive a guinea, or two guineas, and to pay twenty, for every ten which I shall lose in the same day, above 50, at any game of chance. I reserve the 50 for an unexpected necessity of playing in the country, or elsewhere, with women. All things considered, it is the best tie, and the tax the easiest paid, and restrictive enough, and twenty guineas you will take; and if you tie me up, I beg ...

— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue

... been taken into the confidence of his parents, he would certainly have told them to change nothing as far as concerned him. He would have been astounded by his own luck. Probably no child, born in the year, held better cards than he. Whether life was an honest game of chance, or whether the cards were marked and forced, he could not refuse to play his excellent hand. He could never make the usual plea of irresponsibility. He accepted the situation as though he had been a party to it, and ...

— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams

... grows with his teachings, his habits and beliefs. With most people it takes on the color of the community where they live. With some people the eating of pork would hurt their conscience; with others the eating of any meat; with some the eating of meat on Friday, and with others the playing of any game of chance for money, or the playing of any game on Sunday, or the drinking of intoxicating liquors. Conscience is purely a matter of environment, education and temperament, and is no more infallible than ...

— Crime: Its Cause and Treatment • Clarence Darrow

... hand, Montigny and Thevenin Pensete played a game of chance. About the first there clung some flavour of good birth and training, as about a fallen angel; something long, lithe, and courtly in the person; something aquiline and darkling in the face. Thevenin, poor soul, was in great feather: he had ...

— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Edward I., who has been deservedly styled "the greatest of the Plantagenets," he proved himself the weakest of that line of kings, spending his time in such trifling diversions as "cross and pile," a game of chance with coins. He was so utterly devoid of self-respect that he even borrowed money of his barber to carry on this frivolous pastime, such items as the following being found in his wardrobe rolls:—"Item, paid to Henry, the king's barber, for money which he lent the king to play at cross ...

— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson

... don't blame the Englishman. Even shorn of the charm of a game of chance, there is many a place in Greenwich Village which might easily capture a susceptible temperament—not merely for weeks, but ...

— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin

... more nor less. But with the '0' and '00' the bank sweeps the board every so often. It is only a question of time when, after paying our money back and forth among ourselves, it has all filtered through the 'O' and 'OO' into the bank. It is not a game of chance for the bank—ah, it is exact, mathematical—c'est une question d'arithmetique ...

— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds

... desertions. Mr. Seddon and Mr. Stanton at Washington are engaged in a singular game of chance. The harsh orders of both cause mutual abandonments, and now we have the spectacle of men deserting our regiments, and quite as many coming over from the ...

— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones