"Gumption" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... warn't satisfied wid rentin', so I buyed a piece ob lan', an' I'se glad now I'se got it. Lindy's got a lot ob gumption; knows most as much as a man. She ain't got dat long head fer nuffin. She's got lots ob sense, but I don't like to ...
— Iola Leroy - Shadows Uplifted • Frances E.W. Harper
... men's souls—that proclaim of what metal they are made. Faith, Hope and Charity are man's triune transcendent—"and the greatest of these is Charity." A pharisee is either a pious fraud or a hopeless fool—he's either short on "gumption" or long ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... work—never. The noose tightened well out on the tongue, an' when the strain came the wagon turned in toward the sidewalk, runnin' in a big circle on the outside wheels. The jerk had lifted ol' Uncle Brewer, who didn't have gumption enough to squat, plumb out in the middle o' the street, an' just as the wagon climbed the curb an' dove into the basement office of a Jew doctor the rope tightened up with me an' the brewer square behind. It didn't last long; the' was only one ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... young lady, who was helping her to alight on the steps. "He's over head and ears, and I thought we would give them their chance. You stay close to me, lovey. What a fine strong arm you have! There! Alice hasn't a bit of gumption—as if Matty wanted Alice to walk with her! Alice, come back and help your mother. I'm quite giddy from the motion of the water. Come back, ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... dump it right into the barrel. Condemmit! Ain't you got no gumption?... So Sim Smith, he held the watch. Sim was a mighty good hand t' work with; he was about the only man I ever sawed with who didn't ride the saw. He could jerk a crosscut saw.... Now let him in again, now, he-ho, once again! ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... you've earned enough in a very slow-going place to put you through your business-college term, so I am sure you are the man I'm looking for. I believe in helping those who have 'gumption' enough to help themselves, so we'll call it a ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... balloon and float away into space. But I don't eat apples that way—not now. Some who read these pages may think it very strange, yet it is quite true that there really are persons suffering with "nerves" who have not gumption enough to follow this simple rule of chewing all food to a cream. I despair of ever helping those people. They still continue to dispose of a big meal in fifteen minutes, and then insist they have chewed all their food carefully. I have ...
— How to Eat - A Cure for "Nerves" • Thomas Clark Hinkle
... which I can only translate by a word as underivable as God—I mean Gumption. But it is part of their religion that there should be no temple to Gumption, nor are there priests or professors of Gumption—Gumption being too ineffable to hit the sense of human ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... And in some kinds of weather. You might pit me For height Against Kean; But in a grand tragic scene I'm nothing:— It would create a kind of loathing To see me act Hamlet; There'd be many a damn let Fly At my presumption If I should try, Being a fellow of no gumption. ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... at night shall our portals be cloged, And thy lips thou shalt place to the bottle On our chimley, when so thou'rt dispoged; We have pickled 'intensely' our salmon; To thy moods are great cowcumbers dressed, O Daughter of Gumption and Gammon, ...
— Rhymes of the East and Re-collected Verses • John Kendall (AKA Dum-Dum)
... out to go to the diggings, and maybe with an eye to make up to myself; but the news he brought me made me change all my plans and return to Scotland. He told me that the grandmother was dead, and that the old man, who never had half the gumption of his wife, was not able to control the five youngsters; so that they were getting out their heads at no allowance. Tam, in particular, he said, was a most camsteery callant; but the old man, he said, was fairly off all work, and not one of his own ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... after beating up the clay, is getting the head into position; this will be easy enough should it be cut off from the body, otherwise the head must be propped up on the table, whilst the greater part of the body rests on boxes, or trestles, somewhat lower than the table. A very little "gumption" will enable the learner to cope with these small difficulties, always remembering, however, that both body and head must be immovably fixed during the process ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... the gal's rayther young, and may expect it—and I s'pose it's the way. But I'd sooner you'd step up to the Doctor, bein' as I can only take him when he comes here to me loaded and primed. He's mighty cute and sharp, but if you've got any gumption, we'll be ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... but hardly so good for Jeremy's equilibrium. He is one of those handsome, perpetually youthful fellows, whose heads have been a wee mite turned by the sunshine of the world's warm smile. I don't mean by that that he isn't a tophole man, or a thorough-going friend with guts and gumption, who would chance his neck for anyone he likes without a second's hesitation, for he's every bit of that. He has horse sense, too, and isn't fooled by the sort of flattery that women lavish on men who have laughing eyes and a little ...
— Affair in Araby • Talbot Mundy
... of course I couldn't go out of Bessie's family—of course it must be either Gertrude, or Linda, or Katie. Now Linda and Katie are very well, but they haven't half the gumption ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... the matter. Mr. Montagu saved my life last night, but I give you the word of Donald Roy Macdonald that if I am not satisfied in the end I will plant six inches of steel in his wame for him to digest, and there's gumption for ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... found myself immediately in a scrape; but how to get out of it baffled my gumption. It set me all a shivering; yet I thought that, come the worst when it should, they surely would not hang the father of a helpless small family, that had nothing but his needle for their support, if I made a proper affidavy, about having tried to make ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... considerable gumption," was the opinion Luther volunteered, of his own previous knowledge—for Mrs. Battis was an old schoolmate and ...
— Faith Gartney's Girlhood • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... the more one sees, the more suspicious one grows. One does not have gumption till one has been properly cheated—one must be made a fool very often in order not ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19. No. 534 - 18 Feb 1832 • Various
... a great deal of gumption!" said Mrs. Derrick, her heart quite expanding with the pleasure of hearing Faith talk once more. "Now half the boys in town would have blurted that right out to me and Dr. Harrison together,—and I wouldn't trust him for not asking questions. But I'm sure I'm glad, child—it seems as if ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... had escaped. That letter was from a queer kind of sour, unsuccessful woman called Iona Allen, who boarded once at the same house with me on Springfield Street,—the languishing kind of critter that I never could stand, who hadn't the gumption of a half-drowned chicken, who'd never stuck to anything or put any elbow-grease into the work on hand, and whined all the time, and was looking out for some one to support her. I guessed she'd heard of my money and was writing me a sweet letter of congratulations, along ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... looks of her; and a passel of lubberin' furriners aboard, by the way she was worked. I seed her miss stays twice myself: so when Jonathan turns up wi' this tale, I says to myself, 'tis the very same. Though 'tis terrible queer he never heard nowt; but he ain't got a ha'porth o' gumption, let alone that by time he's been cloppin' round his seven mile o' beat half a dozen ships ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... your dear man. Cut that guff—don't dearie me. I'm a big rough fellow, but I've got some gumption. You ...
— The Ghost Breaker - A Novel Based Upon the Play • Charles Goddard
... of the Times remains to be mentioned. Lord Balfour of Burleigh, a dour Scot with a lot of gumption in his head, was chairman of one on Imperial versus local taxation. My easy task was to show the excess of the latter in Kerry, which is the highest taxed county in the ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... yes. But really, I'm his apprentice, and I'm learning his trade. I study his methods, and I add some gumption of my own, and if I can help him, I'm glad and happy. And ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells
... was going to expect that Pig and Mak were going to dodge us like they did? But all the same we did show some gumption, only we let ourselves get our heads full of fancies; and here have we been standing in the dark all this time with each a box of matches in ...
— Dead Man's Land - Being the Voyage to Zimbambangwe of certain and uncertain • George Manville Fenn
... wondering if you had gumption enough to appreciate being up where you could watch the mountains all the while, and see them by day and by night and get really acquainted with them, so that they would tell you things they remember about the world a thousand years ago. I wondered ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... her that he sent the letter to; he'll ken brawly that Meg hadna the gumption to send him that!" ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... Josh; "and I'm biling young Will in the hot water o' adversitee along with the cutch o' worldly knowledge, and the gambier o' fisherman's gumption, till he be tanned of a good moral, ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn
... branches. There was a muddy pool of water before the bars that Mr. Harry was letting down, and he got his feet wet in it. "Confound that Englishman," he said, backing out of the water, and wiping his boots on the grass. "He hasn't even gumption enough to throw down a load of stone there. Drive in, Laura, and I'll put up the bars." Fleetfoot took us through the opening, and then Mr. Harry jumped into the buggy and took up ...
— Beautiful Joe - An Autobiography of a Dog • by Marshall Saunders
... will come to pass, before many years are over, as are little dreamt of now, and all through your wanting to swallow that dose of cyanide at No. 36 Rue des Ursulines Blanches, and my having the gumption to prevent you! ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... a good deal o' chaffin' among 'em, and some fightin', too, now and then; for I needn't tell you that a Rooshan and a Tartar are jist about as fond of each other as a Rooshan and a Turk. Now-a-days, the masters have had the gumption to change the hours of work, and keep 'em out of each other's way; but in my time there was a scrimmage nearly every week, though nothin' like this 'un ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... Deputies would place in the mouth of Khalid for the good of all concerned. Ay, for his good, too, if he but knew. If he but looked behind him, he would have yielded a whit, this Khalid. The deep chasm between him and the Deputy, however, justifies the conduct of each on his side: the lack of gumption in the one and the lack of depth in the other render impossible any sort of understanding between them. While we recommend, therefore, the prudence of the oleaginous Ahmed, we can not with justice condemn the perversity of our fretful Khalid. For he who makes loud boast of spiritual ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... than the Five Towns!... And here young Lawton has the impudence to begin to preach to me on Knype platform, and to tell me I'm wise in going! He's the President of the local Law Society, you know! No end of a President! And hasn't even got gumption enough to keep his father's practice together! Stupid ass! Well, I let him have it, and straight! He's no worse than the rest. They've got no brains in this district. And they're so narrow—narrow isn't the ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... are some things I can tell you that may be useful to you. I know your record. You are a smart man, and I like dealing with smart men. I don't know if I have that detective sized up right, but he strikes me as a mutt. I would answer any questions he had the gumption to ask me—I have done so, in fact—but I don't feel encouraged to give him any notions of mine without ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley
... making for the waterfall as fast as they can hoof it, but none of them look back—and if they were all your dearest friends you couldn't catch a glimpse of their faces—unless, I suppose, you had the gumption to start off by sitting up at the waterfall and waiting for 'em—which nobody has, of course. The point of the story, if you can call it a point, is that the last man in the procession isn't dead at all. He's a sort of false spook of the living—taking his first turn in with them—because as ...
— The Dark Tower • Phyllis Bottome |
