"Fool" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... monk, "laevi sicco folio levior," to borrow Martyr's words, though more knave than fool probably, filled Joanna with absurd hopes of her husband's returning to life, which, he assured her, had happened, as he had read, to a certain prince, after he had been dead fourteen years. As Philip was disembowelled, ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... over her with drawn sword. A hundred thoughts chased each other through her mind. She wondered if the King would be sorry afterwards; she wondered what the minstrels would sing of her, and if her diary would ever be made public; most of all she wondered why she had been such a fool, such ...
— Once on a Time • A. A. Milne
... handing his hat to an attendant as the rent of a working-man's flat. He complains brightly that he is hard up, and that if somebody or other at Westminster does not look out the country will go to the dogs. He is no fool. He has the shrewdness to float with the current because it is a labour-saving process, but he has sufficient pluck to fight, if fight he must (a brief contest, for he would soon be toppled over). He has ...
— The Admirable Crichton • J. M. Barrie
... the other. "Ah! you are laughing at me, because you think I look a fool! I never yet heard of such a recipe for ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - DERUES • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... to fool her, Jack, than to let her deal with people who would treat her honestly. If she thought they were helping her, and trying to earn a reward, if there is one, she and her father would be unlikely to go to anyone else. And as long as they could convince her that ...
— The Boy Scout Fire Fighters - or Jack Danby's Bravest Deed • Robert Maitland
... Miss Charlotte; "lend my clothes to such a dirty Cinderwench as thou art! I should be a fool." ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... a great deal of candy, and she was afraid of—But one cannot catalogue Mrs. Cyrus's fears. They were as the sands of the sea for number. And these two men were governed by them. Only when the secrets of all hearts shall be revealed will it be understood why a man loves a fool; but why he obeys her is obvious enough: Fear is the greatest power in the world; Gussie was afraid of thunder-storms, or what not; but the Captain and Cyrus were afraid of Gussie! A hint of tears in her pale eyes, ...
— Quaint Courtships • Howells & Alden, Editors
... in a strange land, and so forth, till Mr. O., hearing the hubbub, came out to them from the house, when they reviled him foully, swearing that he meant to cheat them; and one Edward Stiles, a Wapping man, mad with drink, dared to say that he was a fool for not giving up the prisoners to the negroes, and what was it to him if the lady roasted? the negroes should have her yet; and drawing his sword, ran upon the captain: for which I was about to strike him through the body; but the captain, not caring to waste steel on such a ribald, ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... to sit. First, let me tell you how you are not to sit. Don't, in your horror of a sentimental amiable look, put on yourself the air of a Diogenes, or you will be like nothing human—and if you shun Diogenes, you may put on the likeness of a still greater fool. No man living can look more wise than you; but if you fall out with wisdom, or would in your whim throw contempt on it, no one can better play the fool. You are the laughing or crying Philosopher at pleasure—but sit as neither, for in either character you will set the painter's house in a roar. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... a fool, as you often say! But look for yourself: if that man is not an enemy, I will disgrace father and mother, call myself an Indian, and ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... limits of moralism, progressivism, and optimism. John Barclay, the rich man, when his evil course is run, hastily, unconvincingly divests himself of his spoils and loses his life in an heroic accident. Thomas Van Dorn, the fool, finally arrives at desolation because there has been no God in his heart, but he has no more instructive background for a contrast to folly than the spectacle of a nation entering the World War with ...
— Contemporary American Novelists (1900-1920) • Carl Van Doren
... at all that have. And in that I but follow the examples of the wisest and wittiest men in all ages, these poets and philosophers whom you naturally hate, for just such another reason; because they abound in sense, and you are a fool. ...
— Love for Love • William Congreve
... doesn't matter now. Betty, you were right, as you always are. I have played the part of a silly fool. I would have my own way in the matter. Well, I have this worthless paper. At least I can frighten the duke, and ...
— The Princess Elopes • Harold MacGrath
... don't think I'm such a fool as to catch my death of cold, and let the horses catch their death too, as we should ha' done if we'd stopped there. No! I put th' horses up in th' stables at th' Spread Eagle, and went mysel, and got a glass or two by th' fire. They're driving a ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... with what he does. If ever a sage troubles him he will buzz Like a beehive to conclude the tedious fray: And the sage, who knows all languages, runs away. Yet Lob has thirteen hundred names for a fool, And though he never could spare time for school To unteach what the fox so well expressed, On biting the cock's head off,—Quietness is best,— He can talk quite as well as anyone After his thinking is forgot and done. He first ...
— Poems • Edward Thomas
... up all for thee; myself, my fame, My hopes of fortune, ay, my very soul! And thou hast been my ruin! Now, go on! Laugh at my folly with thy paramour, And, sitting on the Count of Lara's knee, Say what a poor, fond fool ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... he would hide first, and let both girls hunt for him. He thought he could hide so well that he could fool them both, and still get "home safe" before ...
— The Bobbsey Twins on Blueberry Island • Laura Lee Hope
... have I said? what have I done? Pity me, O God of Joseph, for it was in ignorance that I spoke against him. Did I not call him a Canaanitish labourer's son? and lo, now he has come into our house like the sun out of heaven. Fool that I was to rail against him as I did! If only my father would give me to him as his slave and drudge, I would serve him till I ...
— Old Testament Legends - being stories out of some of the less-known apochryphal - books of the old testament • M. R. James
... father saw him he fumed terribly, cursing like a pagan, and asking whether his son were a roysterer fit for the gallows as well as a fool fit for a cassock. On hearing which complaint the son very ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... but came in the natural course of things. A people ground down by heavy taxation and forced labour, to keep up the luxury of a court containing all that disgusting crowd of wives and concubines, was ripe for revolt, and when the sceptre fell into the hands of a headstrong fool, and there was a capable leader on the other side, discontent soon became rebellion, and rebellion soon became triumphant. It all flowed as naturally as possible from the same fountain as the idolatry of which it was the punishment; and so it teaches once more the great truth ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... charm, or the reasonableness of her request that he commit burglary merely to assist her in settling a family row. Mary could not understand it; Humpy paced the room nervously, shaking his head and muttering. It was their judgment, stated with much frankness, that if he had been a fool in the first place to steal the child, his character was now blackened beyond any hope by his later crimes. Mary wept copiously; Humpy most annoyingly kept counting upon his fingers as he reckoned the "time" that was in store for ...
— A Reversible Santa Claus • Meredith Nicholson
... wish to have, he yet did not approve of cake being given to dogs. The Fyne dog was supposed to lead a Spartan existence on a diet of repulsive biscuits with an occasional dry, hygienic, bone thrown in. Fyne looked down gloomily at the appeased animal, I too looked at that fool-dog; and (you know how one's memory gets suddenly stimulated) I was reminded visually, with an almost painful distinctness, of the ghostly white face of the girl I saw last accompanied by that dog—deserted by that dog. I almost heard her distressed ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... should be ashamed if I couldn't persuade ever so many men to do any right thing I wanted. Shouldn't I be a fool to swap off that influence for the rights that only ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... convenient." "Convenient, indeed," repeats Mother, and falls a weeping. Thereon I must needs weepe too, but she says, "Begone to Bed; there is noe Neede that you shoulde sit by to heare your owne Father confesse what a Fool ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning
... yourself up ag'in to them murdering savages, Deerslayer!" he said, quite as much in angry remonstrance, as with generous feeling. "Twould be the act of a madman or a fool!" ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... voice. "I would take you to the police, court if there was anything to be got out of you; but it would only be throwing good money away after bad. Get you gone to the ditch where you'll die! You guzzling, muzzling fool, to leave my house without a shilling ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... "Don't you fool round any more. You can't love that fellow,—think you never did now,—and he's given you no reason to be very nice to him. You just drop him where you are, and start out alone and make the best of it. You can't do that in Chicago now. Get out of Chicago to-morrer. Go east. Take your maiden ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... would have thought me a blockhead. You know that he has depicted me as a rogue and fool. Since I am neither, it was not serious; therefore it was ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg
... said it would have brought her beauty. She might have secured his admiration, respect, and even love, instead of his pity. What could be more absurd than to imagine that he could give aught else to one like herself? "Oh, what a blind fool I have been!" she moaned—"blind to the wants of my own heart, blind to the truth that a man needs a strong, genial companion, and not ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... "A fool is bent upon a twig, but wise men dread a bandit," - Which I know was very clever; but I ...
— Fifty Bab Ballads • William S. Gilbert
... so often fail to see, that mysterious something, I know not what, which makes success. When you spoke to me, in your slow, monotonous tones, when you fixed upon me your melancholy gaze, I should have been able to read in your eyes that you were only a fool. The devil take thee and thy gun, thy gun and thee; hollow head, head full of chimeras, ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez
... barren isle, or ocean waves, could bind The master of the universe—the monarch of mankind? I tell thee, fool! the world itself is all too small for me; I laugh to scorn thy bolts and bars—I burst them, and ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... thoughts of dead men; but from the Bible down to Mother Goose's Melodies, how much complacency, think you, you would feel in your womanhood? The philosopher, the poet, and the saint, all combine to make the name of woman synonymous with either fool or devil. Every passion of the human soul, which in manhood becomes so grand and glorious in its results, is fatal to womankind. Ambition makes a Lady Macbeth; love, an Ophelia; none but those brainless things, without will or passion, are ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... her dear friend, "you will make nothing of that man yonder. He is absurdly suspicious, and he is a mean curmudgeon, an idiot, a fool; you would never ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... act of a coward, who raises his arm to strike, but has not courage to give the blow. I will not call him villain, because it would be unparliamentary, and he is a privy counsellor. I will not call him fool, because he happens to be chancellor of the exchequer. But I say he is one who has abused the privilege of Parliament, and the freedom of debate, by uttering language, which, if spoken out of the House, I should answer only with a blow. I care not how ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... for a soft-headed fool, he went to deliver a stinging rebuke to somebody for not having blocked Z-40 off ...
— The Planetoid of Peril • Paul Ernst
... regions of utter death, I should have said—"It looks like that"; but no one said anything, and we only looked round uneasily, until the comfortable-souled Singlet made the unfortunate observation that he "smelt blood." {185} We all called him an utter fool to relieve our minds, and made our way towards the second island. When we got near enough to it to see details, a large village showed among the trees on its summit, and a steep dwarf cliff, overgrown with ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... fool that you are! Do you not know that astrology is an affair of state, and that you must not play upon that string? I have often told you that you are getting a great deal too bold, and that you take certain liberties which will bring trouble upon you. You will see that some day ...
— The Magnificent Lovers (Les Amants magnifiques) • Moliere
... with her old man and she didn't never think she would meet a big league pitcher and talk to them and she says she wondered if she ever seen me pitch. Well I guess if she had she would remember it specially in N. Y. because there was one club I always made them look like a fool and they wasn't the only club at that and I guess they's about 6 other clubs in the American League that if they had seen my name in the dead they wouldn't shed off enough tears ...
— The Real Dope • Ring Lardner
... hundred dollars. I was right away for economizing, for managing, for turning to some other position. But father, I tell you, was in a perfect rage. When I mentioned finances to him he got up and shouted. "Money!" he yelled at me. "What's money? Who wants money? It's a fool's game to get money; anybody can do it." When he saw that I doubted he told me to pack up that very day and he'd show me; he'd show the world. The new University man named him an old fogy, did he? He'd show him. Didn't he know more ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... shake me, I should fall to pieces. I have, like many of you, my friends, since inhabiting this garret, been abused and made fun of, by children. I was once put upon the head of a donkey, while a boy with a fool's cap on his head rode him, and took a love letter to a young man. I was also put upon the head of a great monkey brought to the house for exhibition, who took me off his head and threw me at the boys. Once, as you know, I was made to ...
— The Talkative Wig • Eliza Lee Follen
... such conflicting statements, respecting public measures, I believe never were before made by a body of persons dwelling within limits so confined as those of Harmony. Some of the ci-devant "communicants" call Robert Owen a fool, whilst others brand him with still more opprobrious epithets: and I never could get two of them to agree as to the primary causes of ...
— A Ramble of Six Thousand Miles through the United States of America • S. A. Ferrall
... reached Paris, and the doctor went at once to consult his notary. Political events were then very threatening. Monsieur Bongrand had remarked in the course of the preceding evening that a man must be a fool to keep a penny in the public funds so long as the quarrel between the press and the court was not made up. Minoret's notary now indirectly approved of this opinion. The doctor therefore took advantage of his journey to sell out ...
— Ursula • Honore de Balzac
... legal details; she calls upon her husband now and then, takes tea with him, makes an off-hand remark or two about some picture-gallery which he had been visiting, and tells him that he has made a fool of himself, with the calmness of a lady dismissing a troublesome servant, or a schoolmaster parting from an ill-behaved pupil. And meanwhile, in queer contrast, Hazlitt was pouring out to his friends letters which seem to be throbbing ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... out of all that money," as the avaricious Moody had muttered to his friend Handy, "by an old fool saying that he can write his own name like ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... can find you several beautiful ladies—beautiful, that is to say, with the aid of one of the costumers up the street and a liberal supply of cosmetics—who will inveigle any young man you want dealt with into any sort of situation, provided he is fool enough and the pay is good. I'm an all-round man still, Wingate, but my nose is a little closer to the ground ...
— The Profiteers • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... simpleton, as did the superintendents, and all the other citizens; they derided him therefore, laughing at him, and turning away; they bade him discourse of something else, for that this was the talk of a fool or madman, as he was. Therefore Filippo, thinking he had cause of offence, replied, 'But consider, gentlemen, that it is not possible to raise the cupola in any other manner than this of mine, and although ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 3 of 3) • S. Spooner
... the man saw clearly that his request was an unreasonable one, but if I had merely told him that he was a fool to want a store on Cut Bank, he would never have been satisfied, for his experiences were so limited that he could not have reasoned the ...
— Blackfoot Lodge Tales • George Bird Grinnell
... at the vociferous Slavs, and then at the door of the Assembly Hall. "All at one another's throats; all hurling accusations; all getting telegrams from home about each other; all playing the fool. And there are some people who say there is no need for a League of Nations in ...
— Mystery at Geneva - An Improbable Tale of Singular Happenings • Rose Macaulay
... I returned to the dockyard, where I found every thing going on with Lotus—Leaf as I could wish. So I returned, after a three days sojourn on board, to Kingston, and next afternoon mounted my horse, or rather a horse that a friend was fool enough to lend me, at the agent's wharf, with the thermometer at ninety—five in the shade, and cantering off, landed at my aunt Mrs Palma's mountain residence, where the mercury stood at sixty—two at nightfall, just in time to dress for dinner. I need not say ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... not coddin,'" he went on. "I mean every word I say. It's not Home Rule for Ireland that's needed—it's Irish Rule for England; an' I'll maintain that 'til my dyin' day.... But that's neither here nor there. I think you're a fool, John Marsh, to go about dreamin' of an Irish Republic ... you don't mind me callin' you a fool, do you? ... but you love Ireland, and I'd forgive a man a great deal for that, so if you'll come an' be tutor to my son, I'll ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... "honourable," to which she had no claim. Her affection and anger were alike demonstrative, her temper never for an hour secure. She half worshipped, half hated, the blackguard to whom she was married, and took no steps to protect her property; her son she alternately petted and abused. "Your mother's a fool!" said a school companion to him years after. "I know it," was his unique and tragic reply. Never was poet born to so much illustrious, and to so much bad blood. The records of his infancy betray the temper which he preserved through ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... imagine that Mr Engels and our communists are so blind as not to see that force also dominates property, and that the injustice in the property relations is only maintained by force. I call that person a fool and a coward who cherishes animosity towards a bourgeois because he is accumulating money, and leaves a king in peace because he has acquired power," ...
— Selected Essays • Karl Marx
... here asleep during the call to dawn-prayer and this is all we know of the matter, but where diddest thou lie last night?" [FN434] "By Allah, O good people," replied he, "I lay last night in Cairo." Said somebody, "Thou hast surely been eating Hashish," [FN435] and another, "He is a fool;" and a third, "He is a citrouille;" and a fourth asked him, "Art thou out of thy mind? thou sleepest in Cairo and thou wakest in the morning at the gate of Damascus- city!" [FN436] Cried he, "By Allah, my good people, one and all, I lie not to you: indeed I lay yesternight in the land of Egypt ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... provoked conflicts, encouraged ambitions, and had lured some nations to destruction—as we know. He—man or people—who, boasting of long years of familiarity with the sea, neglects the strength and cunning of his right hand is a fool. The pride and trust of the nation in its Navy so strangely mingled with moments of neglect, caused by a particularly thick-headed idealism, is perfectly justified. It is also very proper: for it is good for a body of men conscious of ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad
... time of Martin Luther. To those who try to get out of it it is not unfitting to quote Thomas Huxley's famous sentence: "He who will not reason is a bigot; he who dare not reason is a coward; he who can not reason is a fool." ... ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... broke out," he said to Thompson at the coach steps, "if you had proposed to go I should privately have considered you a damned idealistic fool. Now I envy you. You will never have to make apologies to yourself for yourself, nor to your fellows. If I strike a blow that a free people may remain free to work out their destiny in their own fashion, I must do it by proxy. I wish you all the luck there is, Wes Thompson. I hope ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... was a long time before Simmonds could get him to believe that the accident in Down Street wasn't a put up job. Then, he was sure you stopped in Symon's Yat just in order to throw Mr. Marinny off your track. Simmonds is no fool, my lord, an' he guesses that the Frenchman brought Mr. Vanrenen hot-foot ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... black fellow drive wagon," said Joeboy, still gazing through the glass, as if he could see those of whom he spoke. "'Nother big fool black fellow vorloper. Both fast sleep under wagon. Boss Val talk like ...
— Charge! - A Story of Briton and Boer • George Manville Fenn
... too," laughed Dunlavey. "It ain't no secret. The Cattlemen's Association is running things in this here county and it ain't wanting anyone to buy the Circle Bar except me. And nobody is fool enough to antagonize the Association. That's the why, if you want to ...
— The Coming of the Law • Charles Alden Seltzer
... better of him in the woods, that he has died there, and that the priest Ivan, who has also been dead a long time, takes him to the great Tayon—the god of the woods—to be judged for his former deeds. Even there his natural knavery does not forsake him; he tries to fool Tayon. But the latter has everything that Makar has ever done, both good and bad, written down, and becoming angry, he says: "I see that you are a liar, a sluggard, and ...
— Contemporary Russian Novelists • Serge Persky
... such an insult practised on a gentleman and a soldier before? Would that I only knew his name! Why, if the tale should get abroad, I shall be the standing joke of the mess- table, until some greater fool than myself can be found. It would cost me at least six duels to get rid of it. No, no; not a trigger will I pull in my own regiment about the silly affair: but I'll have a crack at some marine in very revenge; for that is no more than ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... and I suppose I shall have to find out. But what the deuce does the old man want writing to her? A nice thing if they were to discover the lost Miss Carol and present her to the world as Vane's half-sister, and then the rest of the story came out. What an almighty fool I was to do that. If I'd only known that Enid really would have me—but it's no use grizzling over that. I shall have to find out what that young woman wants down in this part of the world, and why Sir Arthur should be writing ...
— The Missionary • George Griffith
... know now what I never knew before—the meaning of the common saying, A fool you can neither bend nor break. Pray heaven I may never have a wise fool for my friend! There is nothing more intractable.—"My resolve is fixed!"—Why so madman say too; but the more firmly they believe in their delusions, the more they ...
— The Golden Sayings of Epictetus • Epictetus
... everywhere on land, that's all. Don't you realize you're an old fuss budget with your steam and your boiler and your fire and what not? You're tied to your rails and if everything about your old tracks isn't kept just so you tumble over into a ditch or do some fool thing. Now I'm the one that can endure real hardships. Sparks and gasoline! you just sit right there, you baby, you railclinger, and watch me take that hill! Honk, honk!" And he was off ...
— Here and Now Story Book - Two- to seven-year-olds • Lucy Sprague Mitchell
... fine Lord de Adhemar; a fool, a rattle-head, a booby; but he is handsome, and a jolly lover. Our queen likes handsome men, and everybody knows that she is one of the laughing kind, a merry fly, particularly since the carousals on ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... happiness, if you have strength enough to castigate a little the various impulses that sway you in turn. Why then is the martyr, who sacrifices everything to one attraction, distinguished from the criminal or the fool, who do the same thing? Evidently because the spirit that in the martyr destroys the body is the very spirit which the body is stifling in the rest of us; and although his private inspiration may ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana
... explain. He was a black-eyed and dangerous-looking rascal, and when the subject of mines and mining was broached, he opened up the flood-gates of an amazing reservoir of profanity. He was through with that game—Hal or any other God-damned fool might have his job for the asking. It was only because there were so many natural-born God-damned fools in the world that the game could be kept going. "Dutch Mike" went on to relate dreadful tales of mine-life, and to summon before him the ghosts of one pit-boss ...
— King Coal - A Novel • Upton Sinclair
... to all that a woman asserts, or contends for, especially in contradiction to her husband; and a very pernicious fashion it is. It is, in fact, not to pay her a compliment worthy of acceptance, but to treat her as an empty and conceited fool; and no sensible woman will, except from mere inadvertence, make the appeal. This fashion, however, foolish and contemptible as it is in itself, is attended, very frequently, with serious consequences. Backed by the opinions of her ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett
... by goin' on in that there fashion all the mornin', a-botherin' everybody, and makin' a fool ...
— Fighting the Whales • R. M. Ballantyne
... thing for 'em," muttered Joshua. "It's bad enough to see a man make a fool of hisself without having to ...
— White Lilac; or the Queen of the May • Amy Walton
... "are wretched ones. Keimer is a compound of fool and rogue. But this young man is manifestly of great promise and ought ...
— Benjamin Franklin, A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago - American Pioneers and Patriots Series • John S. C. Abbott
... than that to make me cry," she snorted. "I wonder what fool wanted to leave Jean money. Such an unpractical creature! She'll simply make ducks and drakes of it, give it away to all and sundry, pauperise the ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... best medicine was the news I got about old Strangwyn.—There, by Jove! I've let the name out. The wonder is I never did it before, when we were talking. It doesn't matter now. Yes, it's Strangwyn, the whisky man. He'll die worth a million or two, and Ted is his only son. I was a fool to lend that money to Ted, but we saw a great deal of each other at one time, and when he came asking for ten thousand—a mere nothing for a fellow of his expectations—nobody thought his father could ...
— Will Warburton • George Gissing
... they wou'd have been at us with the like impudence, and in a trice one of them, his coat tuck'd under his girdle, laid hold on Ascyltos, and threw him athwart a couch: I presently ran to help the undermost, and putting our strengths together, we made nothing of the troublesome fool. Ascyltos went off, and flying, left me expos'd to the fury; but, thanks to my strength, I ...
— The Satyricon • Petronius Arbiter
... were in Paris at the time. It would not have been prudent to let you suspect that Mademoiselle Madeleine was aware of your sojourn in the metropolis. But, when the postmark induced Maurice to start for Dresden, I saw what a fool I had been. It was just like me to commit some absurdity,—I always do! I could not dissuade Maurice from going to Dresden; but Mademoiselle Madeleine wrote a note which I enclosed to my friend, and desired to have it left at the hotel where Maurice ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... "According to reason there aren't any ghosts, I know. But it gets on my nerves too much-my imaginings!" She held out the lantern with a trembling hand. "I will wait here. You go on in!" she begged. "Please do and show me what a fool I am! Show that it is all a woman's hysteria—for we are all hysterical, aren't we? Go into ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... few thick, stammering words and the stupid drooping of the jaw at the end of each short speech. Perhaps Squire Hall was the only one in Lewes Hundred who mis-doubted that Hiram was half-witted. He had had dealings with him and was wont to say that whoever bought Hiram White for a fool made a fool's bargain. Certainly, whether he had common wits or no, Hiram had managed his mill to pretty good purpose and was fairly well off in the world as prosperity went in southern Delaware and in those days. No doubt, had it come to the ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... answered Winter in low, fierce accents; "but he swore he knew naught of it, and that with so bold a front and so open an air that for very doubt of his guilt we could not smite him. There may be other traitors in the camp. There was that lad thou, or thy fool of a servant, Catesby, once brought amongst us. I liked it not then. He should not have been let go without solemn oath taken on pain of death. Trevlyn, methinks, was the name. I hear he has been ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... wrote one before, and never read very many; and, of course, know mighty little about that. Will it be on the authorship of the book?—this I claim, and I'll hang on to it, like a wax plaster. The whole book is my own, and every sentiment and sentence in it. I would not be such a fool, or knave either, as to deny that I have had it hastily run over by a friend or so, and that some little alterations have been made in the spelling and grammar; and I am not so sure that it is not the worse of even that, for I despise ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... if she found she cared for him. Now she was with him she knew, of course, that she did not care at all. What had made her so wretched—no, so angry that she had actually cried, was simply the idea that she had been made a fool of. That she had kept the tryst and he hadn't. Now he had come she was quite calm. She did ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... of a Mason, entitled to relief Fellow Craft, rights of they formerly constituted the great body of the Fraternity formerly permitted to speak, but not vote Finishing candidates of one lodge in another Fool cannot be a Mason Free, a candidate must be, at the time of making Free-born, a Mason must be reason for the rule Funds of extinct lodges revert ...
— The Principles of Masonic Law - A Treatise on the Constitutional Laws, Usages And Landmarks of - Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey
... offered for this course of poor stratagems, so unworthy of his genius, was to obtain time and seclusion for writing his Apology, or Vindication of his Voyage, which has come down to us in his "Remains." "The prophet David did make himself a fool, and suffered spittle to fall upon his beard, to escape from the hands of his enemies," said Rawleigh in his last speech. Brutus, too, was another example. But his discernment often prevailed over this mockery ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... moaned with the racking pain of it, raving deliriously through her score or more of roles. She had gone dancing off with the Faery Child to the Land of Heart's Desire; she had sat beside the bier in "The Riders to the Sea"; she had laughed through "The Full o' Moon," and played the Fool while the Wise Man died. The nurses and doctors had listened with open-eyed wonder and secret enjoyment; she had allowed them to peep into a new world too full of charm and lure to be denied; and then of a sudden she had settled down to ...
— Seven Miles to Arden • Ruth Sawyer
... gloves? And what of that? I had one,. . .remnant of an old worn pair, And, knowing not what else to do with it, I threw it in the face of. . .some young fool. ...
— Cyrano de Bergerac • Edmond Rostand
... to cover his trail carefully now," he said, swallowing huge slabs of bacon. "He has a good start. You will have to fool him. He sleeps by day and travels by night, you will see. You are working too hard and your horses will be dead. You should have slept last night. Now you will lose today because you must ...
— The Heart of the Desert - Kut-Le of the Desert • Honore Willsie Morrow
... trouble—Ascham's not a criminal lawyer. And then he's a friend. What a fool I was to talk to a friend! Even if he did believe me, he'd never let me see it—his instinct would be to cover the whole thing up... But in that case—if he DID believe me—he might think it a kindness to get me shut up in an ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 1 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... much frost and fog, and wind and rain, to be pleasant. But bad as it was, I thought there was a worse place to be in, and that was aboard my own ship. We never know when we are well off. I don't think I was right, do ye see; but rather, I am very well convinced, that I was a fool. Young men sometimes don't find that out till it's too late. Howsomedever, I found another fool as big as myself, which is never very difficult when you look for him, and he and I agreed to run from the ship. Now, before I go on with my story, I'll just ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... presence of that fellow"—and again he signed to Marche-a-Terre—"as good as tells me he is on our back. But they can't teach an old monkey to make faces; and you've got to help me to get my birds safe into their cage, and as quick as a flash too. A pretty fool I should be if I allowed that ci-devant, who dares to come from London with his British gold, to trap me like ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... is a blamed fool to have anything to do with critters of his caliber," was Ephraim's decision. "I feel like I'd kinder lowered myself somehow. Thutteration! what if ...
— Frank Merriwell's Son - A Chip Off the Old Block • Burt L. Standish
... tampered with, and the trusting maids betrayed. At first they laughed with us; then they sneered, and then they grew wroth, and went apart in deep dismay. The dining-hall resounded with our hollow mirth; like the scriptural fool, we were laughing at our own folly. The ladies solemnly re-entered; our hostess, the spokeswoman, said, with the voice of an oracle, "You will regret this before morning." Still feigning to be merry, we went speedily to bed, but there was no night-cap sent to soothe us; and ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard
... that he would choose to escape. A half-breed girl who was almost pure Indian in her manners—and Peggy seemed that to him now—could never be a fitting companion for an educated white man. He'd been something more than a fool to marry her. The entire business was a farce, from start to finish; and then he remembered that nearly every ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson
... remarks like that durin' the mornin', an' of course I agreed with 'im. I mostly does agree with an officer an' most especial a young 'un. If you don't, 'e always thinks 'e's right an' you're just that much big a fool not to know it. An' the younger 'e is, the more right 'e is, an' the bigger fool ...
— Between the Lines • Boyd Cable
... she think he was—a fool, a loafer, a uniformed nonentity? Didn't she know that for every half hour of pinlighting, he got a minimum of two months' ...
— The Game of Rat and Dragon • Cordwainer Smith
... blue pyjama'd sleeve appeared, carefully depositing the sheaf of bows and arrows outside the door. "I say, Norah, or Bridget there, some of you take those infernal things away. And look out, will you, for the arrowheads are deadly poison. The fool who got 'em didn't know they were African, and not Indian at all! And hold on!" The hand vanished, and presently reappeared holding two rifles. "And take these away, too! They're loaded, capped, and NOT on the half-cock! A jar, a fall, the ...
— Sally Dows and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... "And you needn't preach to me, Sis," he wrote. "I'm all right, and I'm not going to get into the trouble which you cheerfully predict. I shall not get into any scrapes that I can't skin out of; but a fellow would be a fool who didn't squeeze as much fun as possible ...
— The Quilt that Jack Built; How He Won the Bicycle • Annie Fellows Johnston
... said. "I know it was the wrong answer. But don't be a fool. He'll kill you, and I'm afraid to be ...
— Master of the Moondog • Stanley Mullen
... an hour before lunch," he said. "Can I convince you in that time, I wonder, that I'm not an absolute fool?" ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... there was no warning voice To whisper in his ear, Thou art a fool in leaving Cheap To go and hunt ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 393, October 10, 1829 • Various
... Agricola had said that it was dangerous to preach the Law without the Gospel, because it was a ministry of death (ministerium mortis). Luther answered in his Report to Brueck: "Behold now what the mad fool does. God has given His Law for the very purpose that it should bite, cut, strike, kill, and sacrifice the old man. For it should terrify and punish the proud ignorant, secure Old Adam and show him his sin and death, so that, being humiliated, he may despair of ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... huge mirror that reflected his own independence. Yet no one ever said harder or fiercer things of his own fellow-craftsmen. His description of Charles Lamb as "a pitiful rickety, gasping, staggering, stammering tom-fool" is not an amiable one! Or take his account of Wordsworth- -how instead of a hand-shake, the poet intrusted him with "a handful of numb unresponsive fingers," and how his speech "for prolixity, thinness, endless dilution" excelled all the other speech that Carlyle had ever heard from mortals. ...
— Escape and Other Essays • Arthur Christopher Benson
... "Well, what a fool I must have been!" thought he. "Who ever saw a ram jump into one's mouth of his own ...
— More Russian Picture Tales • Valery Carrick
... Lyons, held under the Pope's authority, than he could be in one held in defiance of it, resolved to brave the Emperor's anger and refuse that offer. Napoleon, contenting himself with calling Fesch a fool, offered it to Cardinal Maury, who became titular Archbishop of Paris. There are few things in the history of the French Revolution that make one blush more for human nature than the falling off of that man whose opening career had ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler) |
