"Fakir" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... misinterprets the thing seen, sometimes innocently, and again wantonly. The nature fakir is always on the alert to see wonderful phenomena in wild life, about which to write; and by preference he places the most strained and marvellous interpretation upon the animal act. Beware of the man who always sees marvellous things in animals, for he is a dangerous guide. There ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... show was over they walked up the street toward the Turkish village. Here a number of people were gathering around a Turkish fakir who was at the side of the street loudly proclaiming the merits of his wares and shouting out some tirade that his employer had taught him as a means of attracting a crowd. Johnny had seen the fellow before and he drew his friends up close to him ...
— The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair - Their Observations and Triumphs • Charles McCellan Stevens (AKA 'Quondam')
... apparently incapable of expressing any sentiment, either of pleasure or pain. His dress consisted of a cloth wrapped round his waist, a scarf over his shoulder, and a turban on his head—the upper part of his body and his legs being completely exposed. The man was a fakir, one of a class of religious fanatics, who, ignorant of a God of love and mercy, believe that holiness can be obtained by practising the most rigid self-denial and the infliction of every variety ...
— The Young Rajah • W.H.G. Kingston
... rhetoric. He danced around, and punched us in the back, and tried to climb John Tom's leg. 'This is John Tom, mamma,' says he. 'He's a Indian. He sells medicine in a red wagon. I shot him, but he wasn't wild. The other one's Jeff. He's a fakir, too. Come on and see the camp where we ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... gas and bad air. They laughed at us and our exertions, all in the way of good humour, but it was not wholesome from parents. Mary tried to make me confess that we were coming home in a self- complacent fakir state of triumph in our headaches, much inferior to her humble revelling in cool sea, sky, and moonlight. It was like the difference between the BENEDICITE and the TE DEUM, I could not help thinking; while Emily said a few words to Martyn as to ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge
... to any period of history. It is simply innate in every intelligent man, woman, and child that has ever lived, though it is always showing itself in different forms; whether the individual be a Sphinx of Egypt, a Samson of Hebrew lore, an Indian fakir, a Chinese philosopher, a mahatma of Tibet, or a European mathematician makes ...
— The Canterbury Puzzles - And Other Curious Problems • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... dimensions of a remarkable banyan or burr tree, near Manjee, twenty miles west of Patna in Bengal. Diameter 363 to 375 feet. Circumference of shadow at noon 1116 feet. Circumference of the several stems, in number fifty or sixty, 921 feet. Under this tree sat a naked Fakir, who had occupied that situation for twenty-five years; but he did not continue there the whole year through, for his vow obliged him to lie, during the four cold months, up to his neck in the waters of ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... a young woman, a young man, a crippled boy, two young girls, and an old man, were singing "Nearer, My God, to Thee." Opposite the Board of Trade building on the edge of the river a street medicine-fakir had drawn a crowd to his wagon. To the beat of the Salvation Army's tambourine rose the thrum ...
— The River's End • James Oliver Curwood
... agree. But I can't do any of these things any more. I can no longer play the man in the hair shirt, let alone the dervish or the fakir, who dances himself to death in the midst of his self-accusations. And inasmuch as all such things are impossible I have puzzled out, as the best thing for me, to go away from here and off to the coal black fellows ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... added. Ingenuity was taxed to find new means of personal infliction. A hermit who never permitted himself to sleep more than an hour without being awakened endured torments not inferior to those of the modern fakir, who crosses his arms on the top of his head and keeps them there for years, until they are wasted to the bone, or suspends himself to a pole by means of a hook inserted in the flesh of ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... "phenomena," and that mesmerism was known and daily practised in China from time immemorial under the name of "gina." In India they fear and hate the very name of the spirits whom the Spiritualists venerate so deeply, yet many an ignorant fakir can perform "miracles" calculated to turn upside-down all the notions of a scientist and to be the despair of the most celebrated of European prestidigitateurs. Many members of the Society have visited India—many were born there and ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... to Indiman, who stood at his elbow. "A fakir," he growled, disgustedly. "Now, I'll ...
— The Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen
... sunset, had been near the place where Mark was resting at the time he thought he saw the porcupine, a Fakir might have been seen sitting on the identical spot. He appeared to be in deep meditation, but, as soon as it was dark, he crept cautiously to the entrance of the cave into which Mark thought the ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various
... was so impressed with the wonderful narrative and the unique beauty of the character of our Lord, that he surrendered himself to him as his Saviour and found in him peace and rest. Sometime later he met a Hindu fakir, named Chet Ram, who was earnestly in search of the truth. The Mohammedan convert joyfully told him of his newly found Saviour and gave him his copy of the New Testament that he might find for himself the same blessing. The Holy Spirit carried the Gospel message of ...
— India's Problem Krishna or Christ • John P. Jones
... trade union leaders are not so corrupt as those of America? Are they not? As a matter of fact, the corruption is tenfold greater. The difference is that here it is legalised and respectable. In America the corruption takes the form of a wad of dollar notes pushed into the fakir's hands in a dark corner. In this country our trade union leaders are openly corrupted in the face of day by positions on conciliation boards, Justiceships of the Peace, Cabinet positions" [this is a hit at Mr. John Burns], "and well-paid jobs in the Labour Department of the Board of Trade. ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker
... that a poor old fakir came to the King and said, "Your prayers are heard, your desire shall be accomplished, and one of your seven ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... firebrand and M. Gillenormand who was the bellows. Marius quivered in every limb, he did not know what would happen next, his brain was on fire. He was the priest who beholds all his sacred wafers cast to the winds, the fakir who beholds a passer-by spit upon his idol. It could not be that such things had been uttered in his presence. What was he to do? His father had just been trampled under foot and stamped upon in his presence, but by whom? By his grandfather. How was he ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... and callous to those who seem to them to feel no interest in their afflictions. An instance of this kind I will here mention; it is one of thousands that I have met with in my Indian rambles. It was mentioned to me one day that an old 'fakir',[14] who lived in a small hut close by a little shrine on the side of the road near the town of Moradabad, had lately lost his son, poisoned by a party of 'daturias', or professional poisoners,[15] that now infest every road throughout India. I sent for him, and requested ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... 10th of April a fine was levied upon the caravan by the Mek of Damer, which lies a little south of the tributary Mogren (called Mareb by Bruce). This is a well-kept and cleanly Fakir village, which contrasts agreeably with the ruins and filth of Berber. The Fakirs give themselves up to the practices of sorcery, magic, and charlatanism. One of them, it is said, could even make a lamb bleat in the stomach ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... I'll bet you never heard of it. Yo're only a woman-conning dope-shooter! Else you'd have known that niphablepsia ain't permanent! I've bin' gettin' my sight back ever sence I left Seattle. An' now, damn you for a moldy hearted, slimy souled fakir, stand up an' say ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn
... pride: "Since you write, you must understand. And you surely must have gained knowledge of men and things from sacred books, which are closed to the rest of us, and you must have passed your life in meditation, according to the rules of your caste. Very well. Then explain to me the words of the Fakir, who, according to the inscrutable decision of the Gods, is bearing up the universe ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... the streams of strangers that had been flowing into town were eddying at the street corners. The balloon-vender wormed his way through the buzzing crowd, leaving his wares in a red and blue trail behind him. The bark of the fakir rasped the tightening nerves of the town. Everywhere was hubbub; everywhere was the dusty, heated air of the festival; everywhere were men and women ready for the marvel that had come out of the ...
— The Court of Boyville • William Allen White
... in vain. In the usual time, the woman appeared to be lifeless, and he therefore left her, acknowledging that he could not be of any further service. On his reaching my bungalow, some of my servants stated, that in the neighbourhood a fakir, or wandering mendicant, resided, who could charm away the bites of snakes; and begged, if the doctor had no objection, that they might be permitted to send for him. He answered: 'Yes, of course: if the poor people would feel any consolation ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 457 - Volume 18, New Series, October 2, 1852 • Various
... India in 1504, whose report is given by Assemani, heard that the church had begun to be occupied by some Christian people. But Barbosa, a few years later, found it half in ruins and in the charge of a Mahomedan Fakir, who ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... delicate boy, whose parents took a house at Littlehampton, and with whom he lived. His father was a fire-eating Irish baronet, who might have walked out of the pages of one of Lever's novels. His diet was as meager as that of an Indian fakir, though not otherwise resembling it. It consisted of rum and milk; and his favorite amusement was lying down on his bed and shooting with a pistol at the wick of a lighted candle. His wife—a lady ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... columns on unhappy wives, careless of the cost of his sensation in blood and tears! And now they'd write him up—Naylor would attend to that editorial himself, and do it in his most virtuous style—and brand him as a fakir, a liar, ...
— The False Gods • George Horace Lorimer
... make your judgment the sole guide of your actions, but your judgment itself is the result of forces and influences unsuspected by yourself and depending on them. Well! you want to lead the life of a fakir, to unloose the ties binding you to other men, that is one of several ways to secure peace and happiness, which to me also is an object in life. The principal thing is not to be superficial, but to consider both what one requires and what one gives up ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... further down the street, another fakir was giving an exhibition. He placed a small native boy in a basket that was a tight fit and put down the basket cover. Then after making mysterious signs and muttering invocations, the fakir drew ...
— Baseball Joe Around the World - Pitching on a Grand Tour • Lester Chadwick
... the old hypnotic fakir tricks upon me, Baroudi," she added, pushing up the cushions against the rock behind her. "I know quantities of hysterical European women make fools of themselves out here, but I am not hysterical, I ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... a living by the sweat of one's brow, for this place is the limit. If I should write anybody a letter from South Clark street, Chicago, the recipient would know I had gone wrong, and was located in the midst of a bad element, and the inference would be that I was the worst fakir, robber, hold-up man or assassin ...
— Peck's Bad Boy Abroad • George W. Peck
... the Four, but no fiend appeared. The operation was repeated ineffectually a second time, and John Campbell determined upon the Grand Rite, which began by each person spinning on his own axis, and in this manner circumambulating the temple in procession. Whenever they passed an embedded fakir, they obtained an incantation from his lips, but still Baal-Zeboub failed. Thereupon the native Grand Master suggested that the evocation should be performed by the holiest of all the fakirs, who was produced from a cupboard more fetid than the temple itself, and proved ...
— Devil-Worship in France - or The Question of Lucifer • Arthur Edward Waite
... have been frank with him? He reviewed her in the flooding new light upon her character, this light that revealed her as mercilessly as flash of night-watchman's lantern on guilty, shrinking form. "She—Why, she always was a fakir!" he exclaimed, stupefied by the revelation of his own lack of discernment, he who had prided himself on his acuteness, especially as to women. "From childhood up, she has always made herself comfortable, no matter who was put out; she has gotten whatever she wanted, ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... repulsiveness to the normal attractiveness of costume. "Thus," says Dr. Mercier, "we find that the self-sacrificial vagaries of the rejected lover and of the religious devotee own a common origin and nature. The hook and spiny kennel of the fakir, the pillar of St. Simeon Stylites, the flagellum of the monk, the sombre garments of the nun, the silence of the Trappists, the defiantly hideous costume of the hallelujah lass, and the mortified sobriety of ...
— Religion & Sex - Studies in the Pathology of Religious Development • Chapman Cohen
... he noticed the captain's gathering of wanderers, but thinking it to be the result of a street preacher or some patent medicine fakir, was about to pass on. However, in crossing the street toward Madison Square Park, he noticed the line of men whose beds were already secured, stretching out from the main body of the crowd. In the glare of the neighbouring electric light he recognised a type of his own kind—the figures whom ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... direct authority from the English Government, and reigned there very quietly for some months, until, to appease the jealousy of the Turks, Lord Elgin despatched a frigate to dethrone the new sovereign. Afterwards he traversed India in the dress of a fakir. He is now eighty ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... failed him; fire was kindled in his vitals and he returned to his lodging, where he passed the rest of the day in ceaseless trouble and anxiety, without finding ease or patience, till night darkened upon him, when his transport redoubled. So he put off his clothes and disguising himself in a fakir's habit, set out, at a venture, under cover of the night, distraught and knowing not whither ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume IV • Anonymous
... hope down the wind and take despair to his bed and heart, and win courage from his harsh companion. Happiness is not essential to the artist: happiness never creates anything but memories. If Oscar would work and not brood over the past and study himself like an Indian Fakir, he might yet come to soul-health and achievement. He could win back everything; his own respect, and the respect of his fellows, if indeed that were worth winning. An artist, I knew, must have at least the self-abnegation of the hero, and heroic resolution to strive and strive, or he will ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... beard floating in the wind, the bronzed naked figure, like some weird old Indian fakir, still climbed on steadfastly up the mizzen-chains of the ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... about this hour an intermittent stream of figures in quaint neglige passed and repassed to their toilets. Inside the bathroom itself song and the splashing of water drowned all other sounds. The owner of the enlarged biceps was seated, fakir-wise, cross-legged in one of the shallow, circular baths in a corner, bailing water over himself from an ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... disgrace keenly. Even the cab-horses, on whom he used to look with disdain, eyed him scornfully. Skipper stood it as long as possible and then one day, while the apple fakir was standing on the back step of the cart shouting things at a woman who was leaning half way out of a fourth-story window, he bolted. He distributed that load of apples over four blocks, much to the ...
— Horses Nine - Stories of Harness and Saddle • Sewell Ford |
