"Madman" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of Socrates to force the Eugenist to tell him (at least) whether Midias was segregated because he was curable or because he was incurable. The meanest Thomist of the mediaeval monasteries would have the sense to see that you cannot discuss a madman when you have not discussed a man. The most owlish Calvinist commentator in the seventeenth century would ask the Eugenist to reconcile such Bible texts as derided fools with the other Bible texts that praised them. The ...
— Eugenics and Other Evils • G. K. Chesterton
... For there is nothing splendid about the establishments in question; and, not only are there no heaps of gold to be seen lying on their tables, but also there is very little money to be seen at all. Of course, during the season, some madman or another may make his appearance—generally an Englishman, or an Asiatic, or a Turk—and (as had happened during the summer of which I write) win or lose a great deal; but, as regards the rest of the crowd, it plays only for petty gulden, ...
— The Gambler • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... in one, make as near an approach to what we may imagine the positive Divine capacity as can be devised on earth by earthly intelligences. If, on the other hand, such an absurd doctrine as that formulated in the fanatic madman Khosrul's 'Prophecy' could be imagined as actually admitted, and proclaimed to the nations, it would have very few followers, and the sincerity of those few might well be open to doubt. For the Deity it speaks of is supposed to be an immortal ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... him, and he would start up to rush to the side of the wife he loved, to clasp her to his heart, and defy earth and Hades to part them. Sometimes anger held the day, and he would pace up and down like a madman, raging at her, at himself, at ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... "Like Macedon's Madman, my glass I'll enjoy, Defying hyp, gravel, or gout; He cried when he had no more worlds to destroy, I'll weep when my liquor is ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley
... he was very polite and courteous to his literary friends in private, he made bitter attacks upon them in print. Dibdin says of him that 'his habits were indeed peculiar: not much to be envied or imitated; as they sometimes betrayed the flights of a madman, and sometimes the asperities of a cynic. His attachments were warm, but fickle both in choice and duration. He would frequently part from one, with whom he had lived on terms of close intimacy, without any assignable cause; and his enmities, once fixed, ...
— English Book Collectors • William Younger Fletcher
... she. "I would not tell you all he said, for on the eve of a battle in which you were to fight side by side, I did not wish to make you angry with your friend and companion: but had a raging madman, just escaped from his keepers, come to offer me his hand, his conduct could not have ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... a little alarmed. The professor was strangely excited. His eyes sparkled in the reflected light of the lamp. Jack and Mark thought they might have been brought to the abode of a madman. They shrank back a little. But they were reassured a moment later when, with a pleasant ...
— Through the Air to the North Pole - or The Wonderful Cruise of the Electric Monarch • Roy Rockwood
... battle of Waterloo, on June 18th, he fought with the same reckless bravery as ever. He had five horses killed under him, and his clothing was riddled with bullets. Napoleon said, not without truth, that he behaved like a madman. After his fifth horse was shot he fought on foot until forced from the field by the rush of fugitives. He had done his best to die on the field of battle, but almost miraculously ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2 of 8 • Various
... window of Mr. Trunnell's room. He was stunned by the fall, and I hastened down to seize him before he could recover. Just as I gained the main deck, however, he gave a snort and started to his feet. Then he let out a yell like a madman and closed with me, my right hand luckily reaching his wrist ...
— Mr. Trunnell • T. Jenkins Hains
... one of the most monstrous productions, the mind of man ever groaned withal. Never did melancholy madman labouring under the horrors of an inflammation of the brain—never did a wretch fevered with gluttony and intemperance, and writhing under the pressure of the night-mare, dream of more horrible circumstances than those which Mr. Lewis has offered ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... the chimney. At this sight, the marchioness rushed out of the room, her hair standing on end; and while the marquess seized his sword, exclaimed "Who is there?" and receiving no answer, thrust like a madman in all directions, she hastily packed up a few articles of dress, and made the best of her way towards the town. Scarcely, however, had she proceeded a few steps, when she discovered that the castle was on fire. The marquess had, in his distraction, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 487 - Vol. 17, No. 487. Saturday, April 30, 1831 • Various
... his strained nerves any longer began to pray plaintively in the tongue of his forefathers. "Shma Isroel! Shma Isroel!" ... His comrades did not understand him and glanced at him in terror, as at a madman, but from the opposite side another frightened and plaintive voice answered him in ...
— The Shield • Various
... Desgrais, rubbing his brow like a man tormented by hateful thoughts, "your excellency may call me a madman or an insane ghost-seer, but it was just as I have told you. I was standing staring at the wall like one petrified when several men of the patrol hurried up breathless, and along with them Marquis de la Fare, ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... was to the moment opportune. If ever a man was in the mood for war, it was the big, square-jawed pioneer. He was reckless and desperate for the first time in his life, and he joined with Burr against the room, with the abandon of a madman. ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... its writhing storm-whirl, night despairingly black; Night with its hours of terror, numb and endlessly long; Night with its weary waiting, fighting the shadows back, And ever the crouching madman ...
— Ballads of a Cheechako • Robert W. Service
... becomes obvious enough—a meaning which receives its fullest expression in the Prophetic Books. It was only natural that the extraordinary nature of Blake's utterance in these latter works should have given rise to the belief that he was merely an inspired idiot—a madman who happened to be able to write good verses. That belief, made finally impossible by Mr. Swinburne's elaborate Essay, is now, happily, nothing more than a curiosity of literary history; and indeed signs are not wanting that the whirligig of Time, which left Blake for ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... agility in running and leaping, the natural disposition and propensity of savage wild beasts. The neighboring villages held this man in so great fear that, whenever he entered one of them, all the people fled from him as from a wild beast, believing him to be a violent madman; and by such compulsion he took, without any resistance, all that he desired from the houses. I saw this man, who unexpectedly came toward me of his own accord; he was naked, his only covering being a wretched breech-cloth; he wore in his girdle a dagger, and carried in his hands his ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XII, 1601-1604 • Edited by Blair and Robertson
... however, before another individual now present shall atone for the insult he has dared to pass upon me." Colonel Kamworth's passion at this declaration knew no bounds; he cursed and swore absolutely like a madman, and vowed that transportation for life would be a mild sentence ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... His eyes flamed as he rushed across the room like a madman. Before she could get out of his way he struck her a brutal blow that felled her to the floor, and kicked her as she struggled. He reached for the empty bottle and brandished ...
— Little Lost Sister • Virginia Brooks
... him, but did it in person: yet he never forgave me, and, as opportunity offered, made me sensible of his resentment. But now that he had me in his power, he expressed his feelings; for he came to me like a madman, as soon as he saw me, and thrusting his finger into my right eye, pulled it out, and thus I became ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... thought him simply drunk she was not in the least afraid; but the idea that she was conversing with a madman sent a chill over her. She reached back her hand preparatory to shutting the door, when Mr. O'Rourke, with an agility that might have been expected from his previous gymnastics, set one foot on the ...
— A Rivermouth Romance • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... un sot a triple etage[Fr], sot; jobbernowl[obs3], changeling, mooncalf, gobemouche[obs3]. dotard, driveler; old fogey, old woman, crock; crone, grandmother; cotquean[obs3], henhussy[obs3]. incompetent (insanity) 503. greenhorn &c (dupe) 547; dunce &c (ignoramus) 493; lubber &c (bungler) 701; madman &c 504. one who will not set the Thames on fire; one who did not invent gunpowder, qui n'a pas invente' la poudre [Fr]; no conjuror. Phr. fortuna favet fatuis[Lat]; les fous font les festinas et les sages les mangent [Fr]; nomina stultorum parietibus harrent [Lat]; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... for a moment—but he, as if also surprised, drew back; I felt quite sick with sudden terror—I really thought some ruffian had broke into the house, or a madman. ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... and "Jacobin,'' man of the world and mystic, he was to his contemporaries a riddle which each read according to his own temperament. Napoleon thought him a "shifty Byzantine,'' and called him the Talma of the North, as ready to play any conspicuous part. To Metternich he was a madman to be humoured. Castlereagh, writing of him to Lord Liverpool, gives him credit for "grand qualities,'' but adds that he is "suspicious and undecided.'' His complex nature was, in truth, the outcome of the complex character of his early environment and education. ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... exposing myself to suspicions of the grossest superstition by questioning the sufficiency of Darwin; maintaining the reality of the Holy Ghost; declaring that the phenomenon of the Word becoming Flesh was occurring daily, he would have regarded me as the most extravagant madman our family had ever produced. Yet it was so. In 1906 I might have vituperated Jehovah more heartily than ever Shelley did without eliciting a protest in any circle of thinkers, or shocking any public audience accustomed to modern discussion; but when I described Darwin ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... take us to another spot farther up the coast he was too ill to be moved, so we rigged up a bit of a tent and I was left to nurse him till the boat returned again. It was a weird experience, alone in that desolate spot with a madman for company; for though he quieted down after the others had gone he still had the hallucination of being followed and watched; and especially in the night, when I wanted to sleep, he would seize me by the arm and point through the tent ...
— A Rip Van Winkle Of The Kalahari - Seven Tales of South-West Africa • Frederick Cornell
... as a madman, then," she said coldly. "I know that you are Miss Lesley's promised husband. Therefore, you are either false to her or insulting to me. In either case the companionship of Magdalen Crawford is not ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... relic of the Roman times,—armor, fosses, and praetoria,—and found, with much that was real, many a fraud or delusion. It was an age which, in the words of old Walter Charleton, "despised the present as an innovation, and slighted the future, like the madman who fell in love ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... naturally he meant to make the most he could out of him, for the sake of the Republican party, as well as for the sake of the sacred cause of "liberty, equality, and fraternity." But he soon saw that he was dealing with one who was a cross between a mountebank and a madman, as we learn from a letter of Madison to Jefferson, written within two months of Jefferson's first interview with Genet. "Your account of Genet," says the letter, "is dreadful. He must be brought right if possible. His folly will ...
— James Madison • Sydney Howard Gay
... lying there, on the rim of the pit. She had fainted at sight of the ghost-shape, whose white-hot folds flapped there, reaching to engulf her in their all-consuming embrace. Carr babbled like a madman as he pulled her away from the horrible thing that pulsated with eager flutterings not three feet away, its hot breath singeing ...
— Creatures of Vibration • Harl Vincent
... go and pull that old madman down," cried the bailiff. "Now, once for all," he continued, shaking ...
— Three Boys - or the Chiefs of the Clan Mackhai • George Manville Fenn
... might be reached by circumnavigating the globe. If we picture to ourselves the mental condition of the age and the state of science, we shall find no difficulty in conceiving the scorn and incredulity with which the theory of Columbus was received. We shall not wonder that he was regarded as a madman or a fool; we are not surprised to remember that he encountered repulse upon repulse as he journeyed wearily from court to court, and pleaded in vain to the sovereigns of Europe for aid to prosecute his great design. The marvel is that when door after door was closed against him, when ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... fellow would not have sat in your presence ten minutes knowing that you had palmed off your child as his, without taking your throat in his hands for a death squeeze. His wife would not have escaped death from the madman had he ever encountered her. Here are your orders now; it is late and I must not keep you from your beauty sleep; take the child as soon as the Endicott woman sends him to you, and leave New York one hundred miles behind you. If you are found in this city any time ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... what I think about that, mother. I'm not going to have him joy-riding over the country, breaking his neck and getting into trouble. I've seen him driving Wallace Sayre's car, and he drives like a fool or a madman." ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... good friend, could I only command my temper; and yet to fall into a passion with a madman is almost a mark of madness. But his manner and his conduct are so provoking and so puzzling, that I cannot altogether repress my irritability. And that ridiculous incognito! Why I sometimes begin to think ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... at first mortified, when she saw what a perfect madman her husband had become, was so shocked that her feelings overcame her, and she was carried fainting from the room. O, how bitter was her momentary repentance of her blind folly, ere her bewildered ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur
... his lips wreathe in a sinister artificial smile, and his wild eyes glare through and through her with such cunning understanding of himself and her, that, for the first time in her life, she quailed and felt frightened, as if in the power of a madman. She turned hastily away ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... 'The madman sat, and hard, dark Henry looked at him between half-shut eyes. We others stared like oxen, all but De Aquila, who watched Rahere as I have seen him watch a far ...
— Rewards and Fairies • Rudyard Kipling
... were routed, and Pompeius seeing the dust conjectured what had befallen the cavalry, what reflections passed in his mind, it is difficult to say; but like a madman more than anything else and one whose reason was affected, without considering that he was Magnus Pompeius, without speaking a word to any one, he walked slowly back to his camp, so that one may properly ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... too small a personage, and too poor a devil, to be worth a serious thought of Miss Brandon. As soon as she felt sure that her abominable tricks had set my head on fire, and that I had become an idiot, a madman, a stupid fool—on that very day she laughed in my face. Ah! I tell you, she played with me as if I had been a child, and then she sent me off as if I had been a lackey. And now I hate her mortally, as I loved her ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... the subject of a new piece written by the latter, and presented for acceptance to the former by. Mr. Splitlungs, the intermediate friend of both. I discovered the title of this master-piece of dramatic literature to be no other than 'The Methodical Madman, or Bedlam besieged.' A little further on sat Dr. Staggerwit, who passes for a universal genius: he is a great chemist, and a still greater gourmand, moreover a musician, has a hand in the leading Reviews, a share m the most prominent ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... hero, confident of his courage to face his father, came forth pale and weak, only to be stoned as a madman by the people. His father locked him up in the house, but the tenderer compassion of his mother released him from his bonds, and he found refuge with the priest. When his father demanded his return, Francis tore off his clothes and, as he flung the last rag at ...
— A Short History of Monks and Monasteries • Alfred Wesley Wishart
... what is beyond the world, exercises a curious fascination over them. Everywhere you will meet with traces of it, and I have in another chapter told some of the principal phases of these. But the religion has kept itself pure. No hysteric visions, no madman's dreams, no clever conjurer's tricks, have ever shed a tawdry glory on the monkhood of the Buddha. Amid all the superstition round about them they have remained pure, as they have from passion and desire. ...
— The Soul of a People • H. Fielding
... Bishops. There's a gentleman come down but now from London, who says 'twas like a triumph as the Bishops sat in their barge on the way to the Tower; crowds swarming along the banks, begging for their blessing, and they waving it with tears in their eyes. The King will be a mere madman if he dares to touch a hair of their heads. Well, when I was a lad, Bishops were sent to the Tower by the people; I little thought to live to see them sent thither ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... bed, rushed to the gaming table, and lost all the money he had with him. He tried to borrow more, but was refused. He went home. His wife had taken the precaution to lock the drawer that contained their last money. Vain obstacle! The madman broke it open, carried off two thousand crowns—to take his revenge, as he said, but in reality to lose the whole ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... dress was made of coloured shreds and patches, and his general appearance was wild and uncouth. "Whither away, nun?" he asked. She explained that she was collecting subscriptions for the casting of a great image of Buddha, and had come all the way from Shantung. "Throughout my life," remarked the madman, "I was ever a generous giver." So, taking the nun's subscription-book, he headed a page with his own name (in very large characters) and the amount subscribed. The amount in question was two cash, equivalent to a small fraction ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner
... between an infidel and a madman? The only difference is, that the madness of the infidel is wilful, while the madness of the poor lunatic is entirely involuntary. The one arouses our compassion, while the other excites ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller
... to die! He, the mighty, the rich, the noble Count Schwarzenberg! He whose name all Germany revered, he before whom all bowed in humility, who had had control over millions! He was to die by the hand of a madman, to die alone, unwept! If his son were only with him, his dear, his only son, who loved him, who—"Have you prayed?" asked Gabriel Nietzel, who had ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... greeted Olof as he appeared in the doorway and stood a moment, unable to get through the press. His brain cleared a little—after all, he could not drive the guests from the house like a madman with a ...
— The Song Of The Blood-Red Flower • Johannes Linnankoski
... behind, the Philistines before him, and he made the plunge and took refuge in Gath. But the move was a fatal one, his identity was at once discovered, to have his life he resorted to the least heroic trick of his whole life. Pretending to be a madman, he raved and stormed and twisted about with horrible contortions, pounded upon the gates of the city, let the spittle run down on his beard, and acted his insane part so perfectly that he completely deceived the King, who laughed at the report that this ...
— Ten Boys from History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... back. He made threats of what he would do if she refused to obey him. He shook his fist at her. He behaved like a man temporarily robbed of his reason; his eyes, as he came up glaring at her, were the eyes of a madman. ...
— Jean of the Lazy A • B. M. Bower
... Friend of Humanity!' How they must have jeered behind my back if they thought me sincere! How they must have despised me if they thought me nothing but an advertising quack! Zora Middlemist, for heaven's sake tell me what you have thought of me. What have you taken me for—a madman or a charlatan?" ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke
... platform was a basin of purest water that flashed like a mirror. He pleased himself with these sights for a while, and then went back to the garden and hid himself from the gardeners and passed the night. Next morning he put on the appearance of a madman and wandered about till he came to a lawn where several peri-faced girls were amusing themselves. On a throne, jewelled and overspread with silken stuffs, sat a girl the splendour of whose beauty lighted up the place, and whose ambergris ...
— The Brown Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... rage of Tylo, who understood the danger, knew no bounds; and he would have succeeded in saving his master, if the Cat had not thought of calling in the Ivy, who till then had kept his distance. The Dog pranced about like a madman, abusing everybody. He ...
— The Blue Bird for Children - The Wonderful Adventures of Tyltyl and Mytyl in Search of Happiness • Georgette Leblanc
... the championship. The idea flashed across his mind almost immediately after he had hit the ball, and with a promptness of action that was really beyond all admiration he dropped his bat and ran like a madman in pursuit ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 24, 1914 • Various
... statue of Francesco Sforza broken to pieces; his sculpture lost; his Palazzo Vecchio battle cartoon perished; this picture only a sketch. Even after long years the evil fate still persists, for in 1911 his "Gioconda" was stolen from the Louvre by madman ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... staring for some time thoughtfully at the floor and then at the arches of the ceiling. His chest rose and fell heavily, and he wiped the perspiration now and then from his damp brow. Frau Schimmel watched him anxiously, and she could not say whether he looked more like a madman or a saint as he finally lifted his arms towards heaven and cried: "I have found it, Father, Bianca!—I ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the foot of the conqueror, whoever he may be. Let us desire to establish it in our customs, let us be eager to consecrate it in our ideas. Let us give it for a starting point, patriotic charity, love! It is the part of a madman to think that one issues from a battle with respect for human rights. All civil war has brought forth and will bring ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... neither be understood nor regarded by those to whom he might appeal. The return trail would be easily accounted for by Vizcarra—if he should deign to take so much trouble—and the accusation of Carlos would be scouted as the fancy of a madman. No one would give credence to it. The very atrociousness of ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... quack to talk like this, or a madman," laughed Dr. Silence. "But never mind that. I have come to help you, and I can help you if you will do what I tell you. It is very simple: you must leave this house at once. Oh, never mind the difficulties; we will deal with those together. I can place another house at your disposal, ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... appointed Francis Van der Hulst to be inquisitor-general for the Netherlands. This man, whom Erasmus called a "wonderful enemy to learning," was also provided with a coadjutor, Nicholas of Egmond by name, a Carmelite monk, who was characterized by the same authority as "a madman armed with a sword." The inquisitor-general received full powers to cite, arrest, imprison, torture heretics without observing the ordinary forms of law, and to cause his sentences to be executed without appeal. He was, however, in pronouncing definite judgments, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... From that moment he threw in his lot with the party of the Maid and the Dauphin. It was not the Maid's prophecies concerning the realm of France that attracted him to her. The world was too near its end for him to take any interest in the re-establishment of the madman's son in his inheritance. But he expected that once the kingdom of Jesus Christ had been established in the Land of the Lilies, Jeanne, the prophetess, and Charles, the temporal vicar of Jesus Christ, would lead the people of Christendom to deliver the Holy Sepulchre. That would ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... Sinclair, the magnitude of the undertaking. At first I thought that I had been made the victim of a madman, and was tempted to return to England at once, and have nothing to do with the affair. But the amount of money placed at my disposal in the bank settled all scruples and started me forth upon my strange quest. I even began to enjoy the adventure of the whole thing, and the mystery attached ...
— Under Sealed Orders • H. A. Cody
... the madman, chained and tortured by dark powers, from whom all fly, As the tombs, that were his dwelling, echo to his savage cry, Rushes forth and falls adoring, when he ...
— The Hymns of Prudentius • Aurelius Clemens Prudentius
... too soft. Himself he was quite ready to murder in any way at any moment.... But others—no. 'There's no making him out,' his comrades said of him; 'he's a flabby creature, a poor stick—and yet such a desperate fellow—a perfect madman!' I chanced in later days to ask Misha what evil spirit drove him, forced him, to drink to excess, risk his life, and so on. ...
— A Desperate Character and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... bundle of blackness, into the wood-box, nothing being visible to us but two long quivering feet and five black fingers. But in a moment after, with his still unloaded gun in his hand, he sprang up like a madman, jumped over the table, and, not trying to open the door, burst through the window, smashing half a dozen ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston
... dragged its "slimy length along," the scenes in the court room at times beggared description. Harrington, badgered by the attorneys for the defense, raved like a madman, and generally ended by sending one or more of the attorneys for Brown to jail. He refused to permit any evidence to be introduced for the purpose of impeachment. Disinterested men were brought from Tule ...
— Reminiscences of a Pioneer • Colonel William Thompson
... suspecting doubtless, that he was but a tool in the hands of the Extremists. Martin was brought to the Minister, who questioned him and at once perceived that the poor creature was in no way dangerous. He spoke to him as he would to a madman, endeavouring to regard the subject of his mania as if it were real, ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... I would like to do it. I could imagine the stare, the squawk, the rustling furbelows, as madam fled from this grave madman. She ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... do much to mar it in ourselves, and through us for others. Hitherto the one perennial idolatry of the world has been destruction; and if one thing has escaped this insanity less than another, it is the human body. But for all that, we do not deny that a picture may be a work of genius, because any madman could destroy it in less time than it takes ...
— Men in the Making • Ambrose Shepherd
... of the people. It is conceivable that every child shall come under the care of the administrative assembly. The right of the child is not interwoven with parental responsibility. They are separate considerations. Only a madman will hold that in the event of its parents being unmindful of their duties a helpless little one should be allowed to suffer. The fact of its being is the child's title to whatever provision society is able to make for it."[943] "Socialism therefore teaches men to ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker
... no argument, but dashed out of the room like a madman. But perhaps these details are familiar to you, and God knows they are ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Denmark, Poland, and Russia all sought to snatch away his territories. He fought the Danes and defeated them. He fought the Saxon Elector who had become king of Poland. Soon both Poland and Saxony lay crushed at the feet of the "Lion of the North," as they called him then—"Madman of the North," after his great designs had failed. Only Russia remained to oppose him—Russia, as yet almost unknown to Europe, a semi-barbaric frontier land, supposedly helpless against the strength and ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... Boabdil to himself, "what do they teach? to despise wealth and power, to hold the heart to be the true empire. This, then, is wisdom. Yet, if I follow these maxims, am I wise? alas! the whole world would call me a driveller and a madman. Thus is it ever; the wisdom of the Intellect fills us with precepts which it is the wisdom of Action to despise. O Holy Prophet! what fools men would be, if their knavery did not eclipse ...
— Leila, Complete - The Siege of Granada • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... that chicken of a Babu—to break a sick boy by force out of an old trot's house. It seems that I stand by while a young Sahib is hoisted into Allah knows what of an idolater's Heaven by means of old Red Hat. And I am reckoned something of a player of the Game myself! But the madman is fond of the boy; and I must be very reasonably ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... men," said the engineer coolly. "It will make a job for the carpenters and the masons; but if the madman, or the man with the brains of a mischievous monkey, thinks he is going to stop our great enterprise by such an act as this, he is greatly mistaken. You, Bargle, be here to meet me at daylight with a double gang. Get the piles up here at once, and if we work hard we can have the piles ...
— Dick o' the Fens - A Tale of the Great East Swamp • George Manville Fenn
... she declared. "We cannot have this madman go back to London to spread about slanderous tales. Major Forrest will stand away from that door, Lord Ronald, as soon as you pass your word that what has happened to-night will ...
— Jeanne of the Marshes • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... was far advanced before we were able to snatch a hasty luncheon at a restaurant. A news-bill at the entrance announced "Kensington Outrage. Murder by a Madman," and the contents of the paper showed that Mr. Horace Harker had got his account into print after all. Two columns were occupied with a highly sensational and flowery rendering of the whole incident. Holmes propped it against ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... who always releases the prisoners from their fetters during the great festivals; one wretched individual, however, we noticed more heavily manacled than even a murderer of the worst kind. He was, we were informed, a dangerous madman, though, poor devil, he looked harmless enough, slouching round and round the yard. The primitive custom of confining dangerous lunatics (for the harmless are allowed their full liberty outside) in the common prison is soon to be done away with. A ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... were punished by fire during this period; and no other reign, since the reformation, had been free from the like barbarities. Stowe says, that these Arians were offered their pardon at the stake, if they would merit it by a recantation. A madman, who called himself the Holy Ghost, was without any indulgence for his frenzy, condemned to the same punishment. Twenty pounds a month could, by law, be levied on every one who frequented not the established worship. This rigorous law, however, had one indulgent ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... stupid as you are scoundrelly. Ah, do you imagine that it is for your paternal contentment that your master has burdened himself with that wolf-cub? Do you know what your master said to me? 'I have only one means of subduing that savage beast you sold me, you egregious cheat.—The chances are, that madman loves his little one. I'll keep the wolf-whelp in a cage, and the son will answer to me for the father's docility.—At the father's first, and least offence, he will see the tortures which he will make his cub suffer, under ...
— The Brass Bell - or, The Chariot of Death • Eugene Sue
... conceit and assurance rather than as a prophet; and that his commonplaces about "olive leaves," "calumets," "universal brotherhood," "fatherland," etc., have no more influence than the maudlin rigmarole of the madman whose preternatural force is lost in senility. It is time for Elihu Burritt to go back to his shop: the world wants ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... "especially when you have just resumed the whole series of social conventionalisms, together with that strait-bodied coat. I would as lief open my heart to a lawyer or a clergyman! No, no, Mr. Coverdale; if I choose a counsellor, in the present aspect of my affairs, it must be either an angel or a madman; and I rather apprehend that the latter would be likeliest of the two to speak the fitting word. It needs a wild steersman when we voyage through ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... oblig'd to believe him. But then I have made the Curate Perez assist at the ridiculous Ceremony of Don Quixot; I have so—what then?—but I have made him have wit enough, however, to know Don Quixot for a Madman; but then Sancho, by way of Proverb, tells him, Ah—Consider dear Sir, no Man is born wise: to which briskly replies the Doctor, What if he were born wise, he might be bred a Fool. [Footnote: Collier, ...
— Essays on the Stage • Thomas D'Urfey and Bossuet
... only the metaphysics of physics; nature is everything, and I give you leave to consider as a madman whoever tells you that he has made a new discovery in metaphysics. But if I went on, my dear, I might appear rather obscure to you. Proceed slowly, think; let your maxims be the consequence of just reasoning, and keep your ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... glistening eyes and continually moving brows, with only his underclothes and stockings on, came up with quick, soft steps, looked at the convict and then at Nekhludoff, and burst into loud laughter. This was a madman who was being kept ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... His Dick, also, was a remarkably good dog. Earlier specimens which have left their names in the history of the breed were Hinks's Old Dutch, who was, perhaps, even a more perfect terrier than the same breeder's Madman ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... himself for Alice Endicott's plight. He raved and cursed like a madman, and for long periods was silent, his eyes hot and burning with the intensity of his hate for Purdy. Gradually the hopelessness of picking up the trail among the rocks and disintegrated lava, forced itself upon him. More than once in utter despair and misery of soul, he drew ...
— Prairie Flowers • James B. Hendryx
... me a madman when we come to a lock," said he; "but who cares? I'm bound to get you out of this ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... which seemed to him beautiful as clear depths of water, and obtained leave to visit her the next day; when he was bent on telling her that he adored her, and on asking her to marry him. He knew that this was like the sudden impulse of a madman—incongruous even with his habitual foibles. No matter! It was the one thing which he was resolved to do. He had two selves within him apparently, and they must learn to accommodate each other ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... QUEEN. Madman! To what rude boldness my indulgence leads! Know you, it is the queen, your mother, sir, Whom you address in such presumptuous strain? Know, that myself will to the king report This ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... with grim gaze spake Achilles fleet of foot: "Hector, talk not to me, thou madman, of covenants. As between men and lions there is no pledge of faith, nor wolves and sheep can be of one mind, but imagine evil continually against each other, so is it impossible for thee and me to be friends, neither shall be ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... 10. fanatick. A madman. Will Wimble suspects the Spectator of unsoundness in politics, that is, of not being ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... authority in such a case, for any man, or set of men, is either a folly or a revelation. Such an authority is not human, but divine: if any man pretends to possess it, let him show God's clear warrant for his pretension, or he must be regarded as a deceiver or a madman. ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold
... 31st.—Next morning I was too weak to speak moderately, and roared more like a madman than a rational being, as, breaking his faith, he persisted in bullying me. The day after, I took pills and blistered my chest all over, still Lumeresi would not let me alone, nor come to any kind of terms until the 25th, when he said he would take a certain ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... like a madman; he would cheerfully have killed them—he told me that, himself—but he couldn't. When he swung a chair over his head one sprang in the air and caught it, two threw themselves bodily upon him and forced him to the floor; it was only the work of ...
— Herland • Charlotte Perkins Stetson Gilman
... others in any culpable sense; and moralists have from time to time discussed the question whether there may not be circumstances in which to tell a verbal lie is even a moral duty—e.g. in order to prevent a murderer or a madman from discovering the whereabouts of his intended victim. But casuistical problems of this kind do not very frequently arise, and in all ordinary circumstances strict literal veracity is the right course to pursue. [Footnote: Of course such social conventions as "Not at home," "No ...
— Religious Reality • A.E.J. Rawlinson
... as to the many things in which Nero acted like a madman, out of the extravagant degree of the felicity and riches which he enjoyed, and by that means used his good fortune to the injury of others; and after what manner he slew his brother, and wife, and mother, from whom his barbarity spread itself to others ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... The best poet will so paint his pictures that his readers will see the originals reflected as in a mirror. If his imagination be vivid, words grow eloquent, he feels all that he sees: he is impelled onward like a madman, and he must follow whither his madness leads. This frenzy need not be inspired by any real object, but it must kindle his imagination to arouse a real emotion. A new conception delights the fancy. The newest is the most marvelous. To this must ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... not hear from Carew or the Duke Of Suffolk, and till then I should not move. The Duke hath gone to Leicester; Carew stirs In Devon: that fine porcelain Courtenay, Save that he fears he might be crack'd in using, (I have known a semi-madman in my time So fancy-ridd'n) should be in ...
— Queen Mary and Harold • Alfred Lord Tennyson |
