"Nonsensical" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to go on with the Pole, and is perfectly nonsensical, uncle," began Amy, petulantly, and ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... opposition to Italian operas, it is sung by some cast singers, two Italians, and a French girl, and the chapel boys; and to regale us with sense, it is Shakspeare's Midsummer Night's Dream, which is forty times more nonsensical than the worst translation of any Italian opera-books. But such sense ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... distinguished from the youths. Consequently, in their weddings, banquets, and revelries one will see old men with white hair, mixed with the lads; and slouchy old women with their scapularies, clapping their hands and singing nonsensical things with the lasses. Scarcely is there an Indian who knows his age, and many [172] do not know the baptismal names of their wives, after they have been ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin
... of its possible use for baptismal purposes: this sea was composed of the blood that had been shed by piety in furthering the kingdom of the Prince of Peace, and was reputed to be the largest ocean in existence. And it explained the nonsensical saying which Jurgen had so often heard, as to Hell's being paved with ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... light, and prove him to be one of the silliest old gentlemen in his dominions; but I believe he is mad, for yesterday he gave a great dinner to the Jockey Club, at which (notwithstanding his cares) he seemed in excellent spirits; and after dinner he made a number of speeches, so ridiculous and nonsensical, beyond all belief but to those who heard them, rambling from one subject to another, repeating the same thing over and over again, and altogether such a mass of confusion, trash, and imbecility as made one laugh and ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... of authoresses that come after you here daily, and, in defect of you, hive and cluster upon us, are the shadows. You encouraged that mopsey, Miss Wesley, to dance after you, in the hope of having her nonsense put into a nonsensical Anthology. We have pretty well shaken her off, by that simple expedient of referring her to you; but there are more burrs in the wind. I came home t'other day from business, hungry as a hunter, to dinner, with ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... recognise our own law-abiding character in people who make laws that neither they nor anybody else can abide. We congratulate them on clinging to all they have cast away, and on imitating everything which they came into existence to insult. And when we have established all these nonsensical analogies with a nonexistent nation, we wait until there is a crisis in which we really are at one with America, and then we falter and threaten to fail her. In a battle where we really are of one blood, the blood of the great white race throughout the world, when we really have ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton
... nonsensical allegory," said Varvara Petrovna, getting angry at last. "You haven't answered my question, why? ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... twelve years when he was brought to me showed the mental powers of a stupid child of four. In a silly way he repeated every question which he heard without answering it; he talked steadily to himself in a nonsensical manner, mostly repeating nursery rhymes without end, never holding his attention to anything in the room, giving the impression that there was no attention whatever. The boy was a child of rich parents; he had his own teachers, but was for a large part of the year under the ...
— Psychotherapy • Hugo Muensterberg
... to retreat. Looking straight into her cold eyes with his own shining gray ones, he said bravely, but with a trembling voice, "Do you need any babies here, if you please?" (Need any babies! What an inappropriate, nonsensical expression, to be sure; as if a baby were something exquisitely indispensable, like the breath of life, ...
— Timothy's Quest - A Story for Anybody, Young or Old, Who Cares to Read It • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... make you a copy on the typewriter. Now, here's a silly one. I mean nonsensical, you know. But ...
— Marjorie at Seacote • Carolyn Wells
... person' was nonsensical, and, in that respect made speak properly, I hope, only he was cut short in the middle of his performance by the exigencies of the post. So, never mind what such persons say, my sweetest, because they know nothing at all—quod erat demonstrandum. ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... turning from Hesper, went, with a kind of loitering, strolling pace toward the door, glancing round more than once, each time with a fresh bubble rather than ripple in her laughter. Whether it was all nonsensical merriment, or whether the author of laughter without fun, Beelzebub himself, was at the moment stirring in her, Hesper could not have told; as it was, she sat staring after her, unable even to think. Just as she reached the door, however, she turned quickly, and, with the smile ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... mist, "Here I is." "What are you doing there, boy?" barked the officer, "I told you not to move." "I hain't moved, sir," replied the invisible Joe, up to his neck in water, "the river done riz." An occasional unforeseen circumstance arises in which it is nonsensical, or even impossible, to adhere to the letter of regulations, as of orders. It is then essential that an officer use plain common sense, acting according to the spirit of the regulation, so that it is clearly manifest he did the best possible thing within the ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... call us double-lived; but God alone could tell how long you were going to loiter abroad. Well, well! You are a fine fellow—a very fine fellow. I dare say you can still lift ten poods[A] with one hand, as you used to do. Your late father, if you'll excuse my saying so, was as nonsensical as he could be, but he did well in getting you that Swiss tutor. Do you remember the boxing matches you used to have with him? Gymnastics, wasn't it, you used to call them? But why should I go on cackling like this? I shall only ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... of that nonsensical education! The boy really does not know how to behave like a common mortal. He has some paltry appointment, or is mad after some ridiculous idea of his own, and everything must be sacrificed to it! That's what Austin calls concentration of the faculties. I think it's more likely to lead to ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... combinations of harmony should sound absolutely false and nonsensical to the ear of one generation, which to the ear of another age sounded beautiful and natural—this is a puzzling fact. The shrill and unprepared dissonances which we now often consider very effective were thought to be ear-splitting ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... afforded, the clothes, as soon as they are taken off at night, ought to be well aired, so as to free them from the perspiration, and that they may be ready to put on the following morning. It is truly nonsensical to endeavour to harden a child, or any one else, by putting on ...
— Advice to a Mother on the Management of her Children • Pye Henry Chavasse
... pains to provide against the rejection of his application. He strove to please. To adopt the metaphor of his nonsensical phrase, he laid brick upon brick on the tall chimney of his devoirs until, at length, the structure was stable and complete. The manners of the best society come around finally to simplicity; and as the girl's way was that naturally, ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry
... any smitten swain who had so far entered the lists against him. As a companion, Anne honestly acknowledged nobody could be so satisfactory as Gilbert; she was very glad, so she told herself, that he had evidently dropped all nonsensical ideas—though she spent considerable time secretly ...
— Anne Of The Island • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... relieved and gratified the overcharged bosom of Ferdinand. He pursued the subject with enjoyment. Anybody but Glastonbury might have thought that he had lost his senses, he laughed so loud, and talked so fast about a subject which seemed almost nonsensical; but the good Glastonbury ascribed these ebullitions to the wanton spirit of youth, and smiled out of sympathy, though he knew not why, except that ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... and your lines of life.' We shall never forget Esmeralda. She looked so earnestly as we regarded attentively the line of her open hand." (Mr. Petalengro does not say that tears were to be seen trickling down those lovely cheeks of Esmeralda while this fortune-telling, nonsensical farce was being played out.) "Then we took her step by step through some scenes of her supposed future. We did not tell all. The rest was reserved for another day. There was a serious look on her countenance as we ended; but, reader, such secrets should ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... you did it, Judy, come, now!" said Norton. "It's no such thing; it's only nonsense. Now Pink, don't be nonsensical!" ...
— The House in Town • Susan Warner
... thirsty; but if I was not here in time, you must blame the clock of Notre Dame; it could not have struck right, I am sure. So be calm, signor: you know that your anger makes no impression on me. Make haste and tell me what you want me to do. We lose precious time in this nonsensical sort of talk. I left some friends to come and receive your orders, and I must add that I intend returning to them as soon as I have fulfilled your commands. You need not shake your fist at me, nor get into a passion; ...
— The Amulet • Hendrik Conscience
... Bayport. It was an innovation for our village, and frowned upon by many of the older and stricter inhabitants. However, most of the captain's boy friends were permitted to attend; young Cy was not. His father considered dancing a waste of time and, if not wicked, certainly frivolous and nonsensical. So the boy remained at home, but, in spite of the parental order, he practiced some of the figures of the quadrilles and the contra dances in his comrades' barns, learning them at second hand, ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln
... business, I shall listen to you, of course; but if it's some nonsensical love affair, you must go to Colonel Sword. I never trouble myself ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... the company, who had heard every syllable of the conversation, began to perform the most extraordinary antics, much to the delight of Poinsinet. One asked a nonsensical question, and the other delivered an answer not at all to the purpose. If a man asked for a drink, they poured him out a pepper-box or a napkin: they took a pinch of snuff, and swore it was excellent wine; and vowed that the bread was the most delicious mutton ever ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... laugh'd at the gay nonsensical speech, In my merry pride at being his wife; I sat at his feet, and I bade him teach A neophyte ...
— Harry • Fanny Wheeler Hart
... "I am glad to hear such good accounts of you from all quarters, and especially from the town clock yonder, which speaks in your commendation every hour of the twenty-four. Only get rid altogether of your nonsensical trash about the beautiful, which I nor nobody else, nor yourself to boot, could ever understand,—only free yourself of that, and your success in life is as sure as daylight. Why, if you go on in this way, I should even venture to let you doctor this precious old watch ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... honest and more liberal to have brushed away the nonsensical indictment in a sentence. Would the Treasury have put Shakespeare on trial for "Hamlet" or "Lear," or would they have condemned the writer of "The Song of Solomon" for immorality, or sent St. Paul to prison for his "Epistle to ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... Gaylord. He is an old man, and while he would not believe his son guilty of theft, still it would worry him. There is something else that happened that night—entirely uncriminal—but which we do not wish him to hear about. Therefore I am not going to let you go to him with this nonsensical tale ...
— The Four Pools Mystery • Jean Webster
... purposes of the hoaxers that Mr. Pucker's trepidation prevented him from making a calm perusal of the paper; he was nervously doing his best to turn the nonsensical English word by word into equally nonsensical Latin, when his limited powers of Latin writing were brought to a full stop by the untranslatable word "bosh." As he could make nothing of this, he gazed appealingly at the benignant features of Mr. Verdant Green. The appealing ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... supernatural Being, and what none can conceive none ought to worship, or even assert the existence of. Who worships a something of which he knows nothing is an idolater. To talk of, or bow down to it, is nonsensical; to pretend affection for it, is worse than nonsensical. Such conduct, however pious, involves the rankest hypocrisy; the meanest and most odious species of idolatry; for labouring to destroy which the Universalist is called 'murderer of the human soul,' 'blasphemer,' and other foolish names, ...
— Superstition Unveiled • Charles Southwell
... could not tell. She sat so still, with wistful eyes looking out beyond the stars. But Diana, on the other hand, exceeded herself; and in doing so she made van Hert exceed himself also. She was brilliant, mischievous, reckless, serious, satirical, nonsensical, all in a breath. She drove him hither and thither; led him on one moment, and withered him with her satire the next. It was obvious the man very soon left off treating her with any careless levity; if he did he was outwitted in no ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... from whom it takes its name, is too detestable a picture of human meanness and depravity to be fit for farce, the proper effects of which, however nonsensical it may be, ought to be to enliven and not create disgust. We cannot bear to see a respectable actor in it. Blisset, a favourite son of Momus, played the Sheepstealer. Mr. West, whom we have mentioned in ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... substantial form in the slips we make in conversation and in writing, and in the things we laugh at; but clearest of all in dreams. I say the meaning is clear to the initiated because it does require special training and experience to analyze these seemingly nonsensical slips of tongue and pen, these highly elaborated and apparently meaningless dreams, into the wishes (instinct and habit impulses) which gave them birth. It is fortunate for us that we are protected in this way from having to face openly many ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... Such a nonsensical and infantile rejoinder deserved no answer, and it received none. Shortly afterwards Maud entered and whispered that Nellie was wanted upstairs. As soon as his wife had gone Edward ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... and throughout your life, show your affection for her, and your admiration of her, not in nonsensical compliment; not in picking up her handkerchief, or her glove, or in carrying her fan or parasol; not, if you have the means, in hanging trinkets and baubles upon her; not in making yourself a fool by winking at, and seeming pleased at, her ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett
... am not going to attend to nonsensical gossip. Georgina is what she was then, and the same is right for me now as was right last year. I am not ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... your magic, common-sense Nonsensical appears, And stars of sober influence Shoot madly from their spheres. You lure us from the beaten track, From minding P.'s and Q.'s, To paths where white is always black And pies ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug 15, 1917 • Various
... it is, and that there would be temptation; but there is a great deal to help one to keep right. And, oh! to have one's work in real good to Christ's poor, or in missions, instead of in all these outside silly nonsensical diversions that one doubts about all the time. If you would only let me go back with dear Sister Beata and Sister ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... pronunciation as to deprive them of all meaning. The transposition of letters and words, and the failure to observe marks of punctuation, point to the same thing. In other words, all the reading of the stupid subject is with material which to him is more or less nonsensical.[66] ...
— The Measurement of Intelligence • Lewis Madison Terman
... such Writings depends a great deal. I have known those among us who think, if they every Morning and Evening spend an Hour in their Closet, and read over so many Prayers in six or seven Books of Devotion, all equally nonsensical, with a sort of Warmth, (that might as well be raised by a Glass of Wine, or a Drachm of Citron) they may all the rest of their time go on in whatever their particular Passion leads them to. The beauteous Philautia, who is (in your Language) an ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... him now, no need! I've changed my mind. It was a nonsensical idea of mine. I won't give him anything, not a penny, I want my money myself," cried the old man, waving his hand. "I'll crush him like a beetle without it. Don't say anything to him or else he will begin hoping. ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... the New York Magazine, Carey's Museum, and the Universal Asylum, though at this time he "lamented that the editors of the different gazettes in the Union do not more generally and more correctly (instead of stuffing their papers with scurrility and nonsensical declamation, which few would read if they were apprised of the contents,) publish the debates in Congress on all ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... to have one's father murdered, but to tell you the truth we think she must be a little off her head. (Violent exclamations from Helen). Referring to your letter again I see that you are determined not to Marry James. Now Gladys you must see for yourself how very nonsensical this idea is. James has every means of making you happy and what is more he is very very rich and is by no means stingy with his money, as proof the lodgings you are now in. I am sure he loves you very ...
— Daisy Ashford: Her Book • Daisy Ashford
... stable, was a queer fellow who went by the name of Andy. His real name was Anderson. He was weak-minded and childish, his lack of intellect taking the form of silliness rather than of stupidity. Indeed, he was bright and quick in his way, but it was a very foolish and nonsensical way. He was famous among all the boys of the neighborhood, for using strange and amusing words, and especially for a system of spelling on which he prided himself, and which is not laid down in any of the dictionaries. He ...
— Oscar - The Boy Who Had His Own Way • Walter Aimwell
... angrily; "I should think the reasons for regret are plain enough. You threw over a man who was devoted to you, and could have given you the finest position in the county, for the most nonsensical reasons in the world—reasons that by now, I am ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... butter fly," said Kingdon, and then they all laughed again. Indeed, they were quite ready to laugh at anything. For a Hallowe'en party is provocative of much merriment, and the most nonsensical speeches ...
— Marjorie's Busy Days • Carolyn Wells
... nothing about the Bible, had never even heard the name of Jesus except in swearing. Christmas Day was unheard of, and Thanksgiving a riddle; and when I asked the father if we might not have a hen for dinner on that occasion, he said there were none to spare for such nonsensical purposes." ...
— Heart of Gold • Ruth Alberta Brown
... that he wouldn't do as a husband for Una, you are right, but I don't think for a moment that any such nonsensical idea ever crossed their minds. I like Neal. He's a fine, straightforward ...
— The Northern Iron - 1907 • George A. Birmingham
... travelled it is quite extraordinary what an appalling mass of nonsensical rubbish can be supplied to the public by politicians, by newspaper penny-a-liners, and by home royal geographo-parasites at large, who base their arguments on such unsteady foundation. It is quite sufficient for some people ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... ennobling Monsieur Jourdain is performed in dance and music, and comprises the Fourth Interlude.) [The ceremony is a burlesque full of comic gibberish in pseudo-Turkish and nonsensical French, in which Monsieur Jourdain is made to appear ludicrous and during which he is outfitted with an ...
— The Middle Class Gentleman - (Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme) • Moliere
... like a little painted miniature in the trideo, with a very slowly moving spangled background. A faint superimposed image of Mars appeared. The announcer was talking about forces, vectors, and other navigational terminology, plus nonsensical chatter of probability factors. The picture faded and was replaced with an artist's animated conception of the impending tragedy. It showed the present location of the ship, the calculated course and trajectory of the ship through the atmosphere to the point ...
— Jack of No Trades • Charles Cottrell
... I mustn't stay," said Henderson; and, pressing his friend's hand, he hurried out of the room to indulge in a burst of grief which he could not contain; for, under his trifling and nonsensical manner, Henderson had a very warm and susceptible and feeling heart, and though he had always made Daubeny a subject of ridicule, he never did it with a particle of ill-nature, and felt for him—dissimilar as their characters were—a most ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... not have wasted three sheets of paper upon such a nonsensical request as that," observed the turnkey. "Old Jackson wouldn't shell out sixpence to save her or ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... going to save you two lads, no matter how idiotically you act or talk. I like you, in spite of your ridiculous ascetic airs and your nonsensical assumption of austerity. You can't make me angry nor lose my protection, no matter how rude and chilly you are. If you two don't appreciate the kind of entertainment we are offering you and haven't sense enough and manners enough to accept it and be thankful, you can sleep ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... affects not indeed the pronunciation, or does it in a very slight degree. Hence, however, some who judge of the language only from its appearance in writing, have taken occasion to vilify it, as unfixed and nonsensical[27]. A proper attention to the affinity which the Scottish Gaelic bears to some other languages, particularly to other dialects of the Celtic, might contribute to fix the orthography in some cases where it appears doubtful, or ...
— Elements of Gaelic Grammar • Alexander Stewart
... scales, and the multiplication table always in his pocket, sir, ready to weigh and measure any parcel of human nature, and tell you exactly what it comes to. It is a mere question of figures, a case of simple arithmetic. You might hope to get some other nonsensical belief into the head of George Gradgrind, or Augustus Gradgrind, or John Gradgrind, or Joseph Gradgrind (all supposititious, non-existent persons), but into the head of ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... Miss Pross, "that I should ever want to understand your nonsensical language; but I would give all I have, except the clothes I wear, to know whether you suspect the truth, ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... tyranny on the other, would have passed away. Only let woman attire her person fitly for the whole battle of life—that great and often rough battle, which she is as much bound to fight as man is, and the common sense expressed in the change will put to flight all the nonsensical fancies about her superiority to man, and all the nonsensical fancies about her inferiority to him. No more will then be heard of her being made of a finer material than man is made of; and, on the contrary, no more will then be heard of her being but the complement of man, and of its taking ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... bad day for England when that time comes," the financier said. "If only the people could study evolution and the meaning of things there would not be any of this nonsensical class hatred. The immutable law is that no one long retains any position unless he, or she, is suitable for it. Nothing endures that is not harmonious. It is because England is now out of harmony, ...
— The Reason Why • Elinor Glyn
... with thy cursed nonsensical reformado rote, of dying, dying, dying! and, having once got the word by the end, canst not help foisting it in at every period! The devil take me, if I don't think thou wouldst rather give her poison with thy own hands, rather than she should recover, and ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... Do they afford us the smallest ground for refusing to educate women as well as men—to give women the same civil and political rights as men? No mistake is so commonly made by clever people as that of assuming a cause to be had because the arguments of its supporters are, to a great extent, nonsensical. And we conceive that those who may laugh at the arguments of the extreme philogynists, may yet feel bound to work heart and soul towards the attainment ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley
... I tell him," Jane declared. "Of course your aunt's an old woman, an' 'tain't surprisin' she should harbor a grudge against us. But Martin's younger, an' had oughter be more forgivin'. It's nonsensical feelin' you've got to be just as sour an' crabbed as your grandfather was. I don't humor him in it—at least not more'n I have to to keep the peace. But Mary an' 'Liza hang on to every word Martin utters. If he was to say blue ...
— The Wall Between • Sara Ware Bassett
... nonsensical,' said Hautaine; 'you told me yourself, the other evening, when you were talkative, that you had never had a ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat
... killed Phadrig the O'Donoghoe in single combat at the fight of Shoch-knockmorty, and bit off his nose, calling it a sweet morsel of revenge, what does he do but tell me I was mad, and that he would have none of my nonsensical tales of the savage Irish. So I said I couldn't stand to hear my family insulted, and then—would you believe it? he would have it that it was I that was insolent, and when I was not going to apologize ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... ought to be named after them, although many there are who, in their theology, lay great stress on this supposition, ascribing them rather to God than to nature, which is but idle talk. We dislike such nonsensical gossip as is not supported by symptoms, but only by faith—a thing which is not human, whereon the gods ...
— The Black Death, and The Dancing Mania • Justus Friedrich Karl Hecker
... grounds. Those were the early days of agrarian agitation in the Highlands—an agitation which was vehemently applauded by the Radical press of London. One Radical correspondent reported in tones of triumph that the duke had been openly cursed by his tenants on his own private platform. The nonsensical nature of such statements is sufficiently illustrated by what happened on the occasion here in question. A number of tenants were gathered together on the platform for the purpose of receiving the duke, not with ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... shortly. Somehow, I did not like the suggestion. "Betty is a child yet. For pity's sake, Sara, don't go putting nonsensical ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Clare, mentally; but aloud he added, "Come, now, Marie, what do you think of the likeness? Don't be nonsensical, now." ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... anything about your nonsensical dream, Tom," said I, affecting contempt, really in a panic; "let us talk about something else; but it is quite plain that this dirty old house disagrees with us both, and hang me if I stay here any longer, to be pestered with indigestion and—and—bad ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 1 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... Shower, which were first published in the Tatler, are among the most delightful of the contents of that very delightful work. Swift shone as one of the most sensible of the poets; he is also distinguished as one of the most nonsensical of them. No man has written so many lack-a-daisical, slip-shod, tedious, trifling, foolish, fantastical verses as he, which are so little an imputation on the wisdom of the writer; and which, in fact, only shew ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... comi-tragical, tragi-comical, or pastoral; godly, or profane songs or ballads; sermons high or low, popish or protestant, dissenting, independent, enthusiastical, Brownistical, heterodox, or orthodox; Philadelphian, Muggletonian, Sacheverelian, or Bangorian, quaking, rhapsodical, prophetical, or nonsensical; legends golden or plain; breviaries, graduals, missals, pontificals, ceremonials, antiphonaries, statutes, spelling-books. Or, secondly and lastly, tracts, treatises, essays; pandects, codes, institutes; primers, rosaries, ...
— Ebrietatis Encomium - or, the Praise of Drunkenness • Boniface Oinophilus
... advisable, as Admiral of the Fleet, to lay some facts before you to enable you to see clearly that it is absolutely nonsensical and untrue that the German naval bill is to provide a navy meant as a challenge to British naval supremacy. The German fleet is built against nobody at all; it is solely built for Germany's needs in relation with that country's rapidly growing trade. The German naval bill was ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various
... of his humorous talk. His letters to the New York Tribune from Long Branch, Saratoga, etc., were widely read. He knew that he wrote absolute nonsense at times, but nonsense is greatly needed in this world, and exquisitely droll nonsensical nonsense is as uncommon as common sense. The titles of his various books are inviting and informing, as Seaweed and What We Seed. He wrote several parodies on sensational novels of his time. Griffith Gaunt, he made fun of as "Liffith Lank"; St. ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... ever was known. The collection of all his speeches, letters, sermons, (for he also wrote sermons,) would make a great curiosity, and, with a few exceptions, might justly pass for one of the most nonsensical books ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... "How nonsensical!" exclaimed Alexia impatiently. "If Mr. Whitney says you are not needed, isn't that enough? Beside he wrote it for Mrs. Whitney; ...
— Five Little Peppers Grown Up • Margaret Sidney
... in another. You have heard those queer stories of her husband. Well, they are all nonsensical—probably with one exception. He is generally a harmless old fellow, but peculiar. He has performed some wonderful surgical operations. The people in his neighborhood are ignorant, and they fear him and wish to be ...
— The Ape, the Idiot & Other People • W. C. Morrow
... one time in the trenches is any more tense than another. One cannot take any one particular hour and call it, in modern nonsensical talk, "typical hour in the trenches.'' The routine of the trenches has gone on too long for that. The tensest hour ought to be half an hour before dawn, the hour when attacks are expected and men stand to. It is an old convention ...
— Tales of War • Lord Dunsany
... sung, by way of novelty, behind the Curtain, by TURIDDU,—(what a name! like the commencement of a comic nonsensical chorus! TURIDDU ought to have been in love with Tulla Lieti and have behaved badly to Tralala. "But this is another story.")—the choruses, and most of the concerted pieces are charming; and, above all, the intermezzo, which, were the piece in two Acts, would ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, December 19, 1891 • Various
... They are very like that grey and gaping head of stone that I found overgrown with the grass. Yet I will venture to make even of these trivial fragments the high boast that I am a medievalist and not a modern. That is, I really have a notion of why I have collected all the nonsensical things there are. I have not the patience nor perhaps the constructive intelligence to state the connecting link between all these chaotic papers. But it could be stated. This row of shapeless and ungainly ...
— Alarms and Discursions • G. K. Chesterton
... can, but I thought you might like a show. You may have your choice of the two. Miss Rae, by the way, says she's wild to know you; thought you were the most provoking man she ever saw; and that you were—nonsensical idea—engaged to Mae. All because you wouldn't look at her the other day when she passed you two, But you can go with Miss Hopkins, if ...
— Mae Madden • Mary Murdoch Mason
... heroism, your aspirations virtue, just as you did on earth; but here there are no hard facts to contradict you, no ironic contrast of your needs with your pretensions, no human comedy, nothing but a perpetual romance, a universal melodrama. As our German friend put it in his poem, "the poetically nonsensical here is good sense; and the Eternal Feminine draws us ever upward and on"—without getting us a step farther. And yet you ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... days more," replied his aunt, as she munched away. "The Duke's a fool, and she's worse. Haven't the ghost of an idea, either of 'em, how to mix people, you know. And what with their horrible charades, and their nonsensical round games, and their everlasting bridge, I'm pretty well at the end of my tether. Never was among such a beef-witted set of addlepates since I was born. The only man among 'em who isn't a hopeless booby's a Socialist, and he's been twice ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour
... gratify their avarice or revenge; whoredoms and ravishments, adulteries and sodomy, are committed to please a vicious appetite, and have always alluring objects; and generally all vices have some previous cause, and some visible tendency. But this, of all vicious practices, seems the most nonsensical and ridiculous; there is neither pleasure nor profit, no design pursued, no lust gratified, but is a mere frenzy of the tongue, a vomit of the brain, which works by putting a contrary upon ...
— An Essay Upon Projects • Daniel Defoe
... I heard a man who called himself a sailor say that "it would require three men to do what it was claimed" that I did alone, and what I found perfectly easy to do over and over again; and I have heard that others made similar nonsensical remarks, adding that I would work myself to death. But here is what the ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum
... exactly what they did. Some had what purported to be interviews with Sullivan, denying that he had said he was going to support Reilly. Others showed, editorially and otherwise, how nonsensical it would be for Sullivan to throw his influence to any ...
— Larry Dexter's Great Search - or, The Hunt for the Missing Millionaire • Howard R. Garis
... self-defense, before she began the song, "sang anything so stupid. And that is saying much when one thinks of all the nonsensical words that people set to music! It's a marvel how any one can like this stuff. Do tell me what there is in it?" she added, turning to Gerard, who ...
— Jacqueline, Complete • (Mme. Blanc) Th. Bentzon
... divine the majesty of the gods. Febrer recalled his jests of other times, on nights of feasting, seated before a plate of fresh oysters, in the fashionable Parisian restaurants. His elegant companions thought him mad as they listened to the nonsensical ideas aroused by wine, the sight of the shell fish and the recollection of certain fragmentary reading in his youth. "We're going to eat our grandfathers like the merry cannibals that we are." The oyster is one of the primitive manifestations of life on the planet—one of the earlier ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... a corner on a divan, was still thinking of Adrienne, of those night-sessions, of those expositions, of those agricultural competitions invented by Sulpice, and caught but snatches of the conversation, jests, and nonsensical stories which were made at the cost of the colleagues of ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... they were princes, but I did not know them.' Do you conceive now why I placed the king's picture before my store? why I burnt a lamp beneath it? I think this glorious portrait is more deserving of a sacred lamp than the Pope's nonsensical bull." ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... give a racy flavour to the letters; and although they may occasionally call forth a smile, they will, no doubt, be appreciated by those who with Sterne "can see the precise and distinguishing marks of national character more in these nonsensical minutiae than in the most important matters ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... expounded Taste and the laws of the Picturesque. Some extracts from the work of one of these, Thomas Whately, whose Observations on Modern Gardening appeared in 1770, will show to what excesses the whole nonsensical business had been carried. "In wild and romantic scenes," says Whately, "may be introduced a ruined stone bridge, of which some arches may be still standing, and the loss of those which are fallen may be supplied by a few planks, with a rail, thrown ...
— Romance - Two Lectures • Walter Raleigh
... writers we possess a treatise by SCRIBONIUS LARGUS (47 A.D.) on Compositiones Medicae, which is characterised by Teuffel as "not altogether nonsensical, and in tolerable style, although tinged with the general superstition of the period." The critic Q. ASCONIUS PEDIANUS (3-88 A.D.) is more important. He devoted his life to an elaborate exegesis of the ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... their names down except Paulsberg, who curtly refused. A man who wrote as much as he did could not sign his name to nonsensical notes, he said. And he rose and walked away in ...
— Shallow Soil • Knut Hamsun
... handkerchiefs? That's a novelty now!" laughed the boy. "Why, you see that wouldn't be a seventh part of one of these bits of magnificence,—not a scrap large enough for a respectable doll. We really couldn't do it, ma'am. The owner of this establishment has a nonsensical way of ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 4, February 1878 • Various
... that women of title, working women, domestic servants, tradesmen's wives, professional workers, had all been meeting together and working together in a common cause, working with an unprecedented capacity and an unprecedented disregard of social barriers. One noted the nonsensical by-play of the movement; the way in which women were accustoming themselves to higher standards of achievement was not so immediately noticeable. That a small number of women were apparently bent on rendering the Vote impossible by a campaign of violence and malicious mischief very completely ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells
... be administered with violence, offices may be bestowed exclusively upon those who have no other merit than that of carrying votes at elections,—the commerce of our country may be depressed by nonsensical theories, and public credit may suffer from bad intentions; but so long as we have an independent judiciary, the great interests of the people will be safe. Neither the president, nor the legislature, can violate their constitutional rights. Any such attempt would be checked by the judges, ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... the usual course of human nature. The rather wild vagaries of the converts, too, aroused distrust and disgust in the sober minds of the western pioneers. At religious meetings converts would often arise to talk in gibberish—utterly nonsensical gibberish. This was called a "speaking with tongues," and could be translated by the speaker or a bystander in any way he saw fit, without responsibility for the saying. This was an easy way of calling ...
— The Forty-Niners - A Chronicle of the California Trail and El Dorado • Stewart Edward White
... do is to take the bits out of the box, look at them, and put them back again. Or, returning to Richard Middleton's excellent example: there is no such thing as London, there are only houses. No man has seen London at any time; the very word (meaning "the fort on the lake") is nonsensical; no human eye has ever beheld aught else but a number of houses; it is clear that this "London" is as mythical and monstrous and irrational a concept as many others of the same class. Well, people who talk ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton
... received me very kindly, and made a little nonsensical speech. He then unfolded a paper which he handed to Madame Guerard, asking her to read it and then to sign it. This paper was my contract, and mon petit Dame explained that ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... not trouble Little Billy with a recital of MacLean's outburst. The poor fellow's mind was feverish enough without being bothered with the old Scotchman's wild, nonsensical raving. Martin knew the hunchback would consider gravely, and be disturbed, if he spoke. Little Billy apparently had some faith ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... according to taste. In the second place, he began to discover that his kind-hearted employer was a monomaniac. In other words, that, although sane enough in all other matters, he was absolutely mad in regard to mechanical discoveries and inventions, and that most of the latter were absolutely nonsensical. ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... other words, they declaim against it. They tell us that suicide is the greatest piece of cowardice; that only a madman could be guilty of it; and other insipidities of the same kind; or else they make the nonsensical remark that suicide is wrong; when it is quite obvious that there is nothing in the world to which every mail has a more unassailable title than to his own ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Studies in Pessimism • Arthur Schopenhauer |
