"Quarrelsome" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... both whenever she could. What a strange, unaccountable character!—for with all these symptoms of profligacy at ten years old, she had neither a bad heart nor a bad temper, was seldom stubborn, scarcely ever quarrelsome, and very kind to the little ones, with few interruptions of tyranny; she was moreover noisy and wild, hated confinement and cleanliness, and loved nothing so well in the world as rolling down the green slope at ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... Albrecht, of quarrelsome repute, Stirs right and left a war intense, And drubs about with fist and foot, As once he ...
— Enamels and Cameos and other Poems • Theophile Gautier
... philosopher with a taste for what is called low life. His first marriage with the daughter of the noble Binkie had been made under the auspices of his parents; and as he often told Lady Crawley in her lifetime she was such a confounded quarrelsome high-bred jade that when she died he was hanged if he would ever take another of her sort, at her ladyship's demise he kept his promise, and selected for a second wife Miss Rose Dawson, daughter of Mr. John Thomas Dawson, ironmonger, of Mudbury. ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... degree of self-control; dire experience has forced upon him the necessity of compromise, and habit has inclined him (the individual) to prefer a quiet, orderly life. But by instinct he is still a quarrelsome creature, and he gives vent to the impulse as far as it is compatible with his reasoned interests—often, to be sure, without regard for that limit. The average man or woman is always at open discord with some one; the great majority could not live without ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing
... well, if you will be quarrelsome and not let me have my own way, you may sleep alone in your smoky old hut!" and she shot through the door like an arrow, and ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... and money rise. He thought of the firm, of the place in the office which he secretly still considered his own, and of the letter written by Mr. Baumann, telling him how gloomy the principal looked, and how quarrelsome the clerks had become. ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... with me in the STREET," said Rosa, cunningly implying that he was the quarrelsome one. "I am going on the beach. Good-by!" This adieu she uttered softly, and in a hesitating tone that belied it. She started off, however, but much more slowly than she was going before; and, as she went, she turned her head with infinite grace, ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... a priest who left his cure under grave charges, and a quarrelsome character. His attack on Montucla was a case of the pot calling the kettle black; for while he was a brilliant writer ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... ever have been handsome is more than doubtful. Early in his youth the quarrelsome and vain Torrigiani broke his nose with a blow of the fist, when they were drawing from Masaccio's frescoes in the Carmine together.[340] Thenceforth the artist's soul looked forth from a sad face, with ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... face that they will take the responsibility, and that he need not concern himself with the matter. It is on this occasion that Buddha says, "Truly, these fools are infatuate," leaves them, and goes into solitude, rejoicing to be free from souls so quarrelsome and contentious. Again these tracts give a picture of how they should live that are truly Buddha's disciples. Buddha finds three disciples living in perfect harmony, and asks them how they live together so peaceably and lovingly. In quaint and yet dignified language they reply, and tell him ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... was a Scotchman, who occupied a conspicuous position on a bank of earth, overlooking the audience, and who, fortunately being blessed with strong lungs, shouted, "Order, order," whenever the miners grew too quarrelsome, or had more than two fights going on at the ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... little hens and two little cockerels, one black and one as white as snow, with yellow legs, bright eyes, and a tiny red comb on his head. This was Cockyloo, the good chick; but the black one was named Peck, and was a quarrelsome bad fowl, as ...
— The Louisa Alcott Reader - A Supplementary Reader for the Fourth Year of School • Louisa M. Alcott
... well, I don't mind, If Members who're worthy of payment I find. But then all this quarrelsome cackle must cease— If my M.P.'s I pay—like my Smiths—by the piece, I may yet get good work; but 'twere folly, nay, crime, To pay seven hundred praters for wasting ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, February 18, 1893 • Various
... with her, and that she thought it quite a trial to be left with Aunt Barbara even for a few moments. Were all changed, or was the change in herself? When she thought all around her severe, cross, or quarrelsome, must not the fault have been in a ...
— Hatty and Marcus - or, First Steps in the Better Path • Aunt Friendly
... sullen. And the next night after a long period alone in the study in which I had managed at last to get my mind on my work, I found Jerry in the dining-room quite drunk with the brandy bottle beside him. He was ugly and disposed to be quarrelsome, but I got him to bed at last, suffering myself no graver damage than a bruised biceps where his great fingers had grasped me. Jack Ballard's remark about Frankenstein was no joke. That night a monster Jerry was; from the bottom of my ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... transplantation to Australia, except in patches of suitable soil. For instance, when bar-loafer meets pimp, at 1 a side, then comes the raw-meat business. The back-country man, though saturnine, is very rarely quarrelsome, and almost never a pugilist; nevertheless, his foot on his native salt-bush, it is not advisable to assault him with any feebler weapon than rifle-and-bayonet. There is a radical difference, without a verbal distinction, between his and the Englishman's notions of fair-play. Each is willing to ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... fallen a great quarrel, And a striving within the doors, And quarrelsome words have the Bailies said, And eke ...
— The Scarlet Gown - being verses by a St. Andrews Man • R. F. Murray
... Rome saw nothing in Martin Luther but a vulgar, insubordinate, quarrelsome monk. Could the Inquisition have laid hold of him, it would have speedily disposed of his affair; but, as the conflict went on, it was discovered that Martin was not standing alone. Many thousands of men, as resolute as himself, were coming up to ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper
... man be envious that hath no children; let him be neither downcast nor quarrelsome on account of it. For a father, though great, may be grieved; as to the mother of children, she hath less peace than another. Verily, each man is created [to his destiny] by the God, Who is the chief of a tribe, ...
— The Instruction of Ptah-Hotep and the Instruction of Ke'Gemni - The Oldest Books in the World • Battiscombe G. Gunn
... Cape St. Vincent. It seemed it was a tradition in the family to wind up with a belated girl. In 1804, at the age of sixty, Gilbert met an end that might be called heroic. He was due home from market any time from eight at night till five in the morning, and in any condition from the quarrelsome to the speechless, for he maintained to that age the goodly customs of the Scots farmer. It was known on this occasion that he had a good bit of money to bring home; the word had gone round loosely. The laird had shown his guineas, and if anybody had but noticed it, there was an ill- ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ, in these parts of the world.... We are truly come into a day, which by being well managed might be very glorious, for the exterminating of those, accursed things,... But if we make this day quarrelsome,... Alas, O Lord, my flesh trembles for fear of thee, and I am afraid of thy judgments." [Footnote: ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams
... butler very audibly to open a bottle of the 1906 Lanson, he slipped his arm through the Poet's and led him, sullenly murmuring, into the dining-room. With the second bottle of champagne, his guest ceased to be aggrieved and became quarrelsome; when the port wine appeared, he had the Iron King ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy
... departed when Martha asked the general to let her leave, saying she would find work elsewhere. The general saw no way of keeping her; and he did not even wish to do so, thinking her only a quarrelsome, ill-tempered woman. The confidential servant left the house, and even the city. And immediately her revenge and torture of the general began, cutting straight at the root of his happiness, his health, even his life. He began to receive, ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... rude and coarse and swore like a trooper, so his sons could not be expected to excel him in refinement. Bill Sizer, the eldest, was a hard drinker, and people who knew him asserted that he "never drew a sober breath." The other sons were all quarrelsome in disposition and many a free fight was indulged in among them whenever disputes arose. They were industrious farmers, though, and the three girls and their mother worked from morning till night, so the farm prospered and the Sizers were ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces on Vacation • Edith Van Dyne
... Like a quarrelsome man worried in his sleep by a noise, Dudley suddenly woke up, as it were, with a start, in a half-suppressed exasperation, and shook her off with a jerk and a muttered curse, as she whisked involuntarily into a chair, with more violence ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... it was, his son could see from his excited, quarrelsome manner that the old man had been drinking. The habit had grown upon him of late, and it was seldom now ...
— The Doings Of Raffles Haw • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the conversation broke off suddenly, and Patty and Roger stared in stupefied amazement as they saw Bertha and Winthrop walk in smiling, and hand in hand, from exactly the opposite direction from which their quarrelsome voices had sounded. ...
— Patty's Summer Days • Carolyn Wells
... petitioner is to the rich. The landlord of the small house in which Tchartkoff lodged, was no bad type of the class of house-owners in such quarters as the fifteenth line of the Vasilievskue Ostrov. In his youth, he had been a captain in the army, where he was noted as a noisy quarrelsome fellow; transferred thence to the civil service, he proved himself a thorough master of the art of petty tyranny, a bustling coxcomb and a blockhead. Age had done little to improve his character. He had been some time a widower, had long retired from the service, was ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... standin' nigh by us talkin' about the last news from Russia, and I sez to Miss Curzon, "It is too bad about the war, hain't it?" And she sez, "Yes indeed!" She felt dretful about it, I could see, and I sez, "So do I. You and I can't stop it, Miss Curzon; a few ambitious or quarrelsome or greedy politicians will make a war and then wimmen have to stand it. There hain't nothin' right in it, seein' they are half of the world, and men couldn't have got into the world at all if it hadn't been for wimmen, and ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... sent travelling in search of health. He liked Italian women much and many, but it was in Berlin that he made his declarations to a Jewish contralto, for whose voice he wrote six studies. But he married Maria Petrovna Ivanof, who was young, pretty, quarrelsome, and extravagant. She brought along also a dramatic mother-in-law, and he set out again for his health. His wife married again, and the scandal of the whole affair preyed on him so that he went to Paris and sought diversion ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes
... the mastery throughout the livelong day in that wonderful waterway, the English Channel; two always setting east, relieving each other in turn, and two west, with a cross-tide coming atop of them, twice in every twenty-four hours, trying fruitlessly to soothe the differences of the quarrelsome quartette! ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson
... kings, a calm old man, now addressed me as follows:—"Is this indeed Taji? he, who according to a tradition, was to return to us after five thousand moons? But that period is yet unexpired. What bring'st thou hither then, Taji, before thy time? Thou wast but a quarrelsome demi-god, say the legends, when thou dwelt among our sires. But wherefore comest thou, Taji? Truly, thou wilt interfere with the worship of thy images, and we have plenty of gods besides thee. But comest thou to fight?—We have plenty of spears, ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... presently, "I should think now, Adam, you never have any struggles within yourself. I fancy you would master a wish that you had made up your mind it was not quite right to indulge, as easily as you would knock down a drunken fellow who was quarrelsome with you. I mean, you are never shilly-shally, first making up your mind that you won't do a thing, and then doing it ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... the place, but on the way some of his canvases went astray. He made such a fuss that the station-master asked Mr. Chase who was his companion: "Who is that quarrelsome little man? He's really ...
— Whistler Stories • Don C. Seitz
... thee now, and thou mayst put Jeanne after 'my well-beloved' at the top, an' thou wilt. Art satisfied now, thou quarrelsome fellow?" ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... given to luxury. A white mark on the nail bespeaks misfortune. Persons with very pale nails are subject to much infirmity of the flesh, and persecution by neighbours and friends. People with narrow nails are ambitious and quarrelsome. Lovers of knowledge and liberal sentiment have round nails. Indolent people have generally fleshy nails. Small nails indicate littleness of mind, obstinacy, and conceit. Melancholy persons are distinguished ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... approached the parties indicated, who were, however, not more quarrelsome than usual: Fanny was only struggling with Ralph for the string of the kite. The contention ended in mutual laughter; and as a horn at that moment sounded for the servants to stop work for dinner, the party determined to return ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke
... with the fast set. But Duke Jones, who could carry more strong liquors than any man in the crowd, said of him, "Dick is no good; when he goes to town with us he's a thousand miles away, and every glass makes him more stuck-up and quarrelsome." ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke
... disposition, temper. So in The Merchant of Venice, I, ii, 143: "If he have the condition of a saint and the complexion of a devil, I had rather he should shrive me than wive me." Cf. the term 'ill-conditioned,' still in use to describe an irascible or quarrelsome disposition. In l. 236 'condition' ...
— The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare
... paid for my birth-pains, for few have borne such a man as thou. Think of me at times, for without me thou hadst never been. Be not led astray of women, nor lead them astray, or ill shall overtake thee. Be not quarrelsome because of thy great might, for there is a stronger than the strongest. Spare a fallen foe, and take not a poor man's goods or a brave man's sword; but, when thou smitest, smite home. So shalt thou win honour, and, at the last, peace, that is more ...
— Eric Brighteyes • H. Rider Haggard
... again to hold a private dialogue with—which, however, he does, irresistibly attracted by the white muslin figure. She must, of course, look a little gracious again now, lest his mood should turn from sentimental to quarrelsome—no impossible contingency with the yeoman-soldier, as her quick ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... was smuggled on board the train, and, as a natural consequence, men became troublesome. A morose man named Sutherland, who was apt to grow argumentative and quarrelsome in his cups, made an assertion in reference to something terrestrial, which had no particular interest for any mortal man. Simkin contradicted it. Sutherland repeated it. Simkin knocked Sutherland's helmet overboard. Sutherland ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne
... Mount of the Moon is small. That is good. There will be no disturbance of the brain, no propensity towards lunacy. Mars is not excessive, but it is strong, and he will be bold and courageous, but not quarrelsome." ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... at schooil, Or rayther slow at play; He may be rough an quarrelsome,— Mischievous in his way; He may be allus in a scrape, An cause noa end o' bother; But ther's summat gooid an honest In the ...
— Yorkshire Lyrics • John Hartley
... when they came to town from their reservation about five miles away, and here also, I regret to say, they would sometimes get drunk, and add what Martha Penney calls "a revolving animosity to the scenery." The squaws, however, would generally secure the knives and guns before the quarrelsome stage was reached. Not unfrequently the ladies would bring the weapons to Mrs. Moore or myself to hide away till their lords and masters should be sober. Then, feeling secure that no great harm could happen, they would look on with the utmost placidity at the antics of their ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... vice? No, sire, you did them honor; And as for shepherds, I desire, That over us their false empire Should cease, and we have all we want Of sheep and fleece." So said the fox, flatterers applaud, The tiger, bear, and other powers they laud, Even for their most violent offence. All quarrelsome people, Down to the mastiffs, Were little saints. But when the donkey's turn came on, They heard him with many ifs. He said, "I now remember That by a monk's garden passing, (It was late in December, And my strength soon faints,) I ate a leaf of some dry ...
— Aesop, in Rhyme - Old Friends in a New Dress • Marmaduke Park
... enough. And so was the music of the "blank" or unrhymed five-stress lines of Marlowe and Shakspere and Milton, and as we listened it was easy to believe that "stress" and "quantity" and "syllable," all playing together like a chime of bells, are concordant and not quarrelsome elements in the harmony of modern English verse. Only, to be richly concordant, each must be prepared to yield a little if need be, ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry
... be rid of that quarrelsome and dangerous man, Burgsdorf," he said complacently, as he sank apparently exhausted into an easy chair. "I have rendered him harmless and shoved him aside without his being really conscious of it. He does not ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... in whisky toddies, was not known unto all men. His name was W—. He was a quiet sort of a man when sober, lively and chatty under the effect of a single glass, argumentative and offensively dogmatic after the second toddy, and downright insulting and quarrelsome after getting beyond that number of drinks. We liked him and disliked ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur
... Nassau street yesterday. He was lounging about in rags, doing nothing. He asked me to lend him five cents. I asked him why he was not at work. He said his mother took all his money and spent it for drink. Then she got quarrelsome and beat him." ...
— Slow and Sure - The Story of Paul Hoffman the Young Street-Merchant • Horatio Alger
... usual," smirked Hippy. "Neither of us will ever outgrow it. You see we once lived in a town called Oakdale and associated daily with a number of very quarrelsome people. I wouldn't like to mention their names, but if some day you should happen to go to Oakdale just ask any one if David Nesbit and Reddy Brooks ever reformed. They'll understand ...
— Grace Harlowe's Problem • Jessie Graham Flower
... not joined by the rest of the party till we had taken three or four turns around the room; and then they were so quarrelsome, that Mrs. Mirvan complained of being fatigued and proposed going home. No one dissented. Lord Orville joined another party, having first made an offer of his services, which the gentlemen declined, and we proceeded ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... waterfall to La Salle and Tonty and Hennepin—an impeding, noisy, hostile object. And to the half-mutinous, quarrelsome workmen (French, Flemings, Italians) it was a demon, no doubt, whose very breath froze their beards into icicles. It was, in reality, potentially the most beneficent single, incarnate force bounded by any ...
— The French in the Heart of America • John Finley
... true that to be a Christian does take some of the fight out of a person, but it is the quarrelsome kind of fighting that has neither beauty nor strength in it which it takes out of one. But when you come to read history you will find that some of our bravest soldiers were Christians. John Havelock, a British general who fought in India for the sake of his country, was called ...
— Fifty-Two Story Talks To Boys And Girls • Howard J. Chidley
... One of the most quarrelsome of all Sandy Chipmunk's neighbors was Rowdy Red-Squirrel. He was happiest when he was fighting. But perhaps that was because he had never lost a fight. If Rowdy had had a sound beating, maybe fighting would not have ...
— The Tale of Sandy Chipmunk • Arthur Scott Bailey
... industry, dexterity, and strength at work, and still more for his kindly and pleasant temper. But he never settled down anywhere for long because about twice a year, or even oftener, he had a drinking bout, and then besides spending all his clothes on drink he became turbulent and quarrelsome. Vasili Andreevich himself had turned him away several times, but had afterwards taken him back again—valuing his honesty, his kindness to animals, and especially his cheapness. Vasili Andreevich did not pay Nikita the eighty rubles a year such a man ...
— Master and Man • Leo Tolstoy
... were spread over their weary, beautiful limbs, and a troop of eunuchs took good care that the dreamy repose of the entire body should not be disturbed by quarrelsome or petulant individuals. Their efforts, however, were seldom so successful as to-day, when every one knew that a disturbance of the peace would be punished by exclusion from the banquet. They had probably been lying a full hour ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... attempt the business on his own account the result is direful; women of his creating are always noisy and quarrelsome. ...
— The Euahlayi Tribe - A Study of Aboriginal Life in Australia • K. Langloh Parker
... good-looking, smartly dressed, smooth-checked as yet, curly-haired, with a roguish eye, a sagacious wink, a ready tongue, as I soon found out; and as I learned could catch a ball on the fly with any boy of his age; not quarrelsome, but, if he had to strike, hit from the shoulder; the pride of his father (who was a man of property and a civic dignitary), and answering to ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... harvested their corn or maple sugar the men arrogate the right to dispose of it as they please. He relates that in case of a domestic quarrel the husband shoulders his gun and goes away a week or so. The neighbors naturally say that his wife is quarrelsome. All the odium consequently falls on her, and when he gets back she is only too willing to drudge for him more than ever. Heckewelder naively gives the Indian's recipe for getting a ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... King do honour him vastly especially since he pinked a strutting, quarrelsome gentleman through the sword-arm in St. James's Park, and him a ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... had to adjudicate have generally been caused by nagging women. It is claimed in the press that these colonists are literally without scandals, and that the life led by young and old is a most peaceful and happy one. People who are hard at work are not likely to be quarrelsome: good wholesome food, much exercise in play and labor, and an abundance of fresh air and sunshine are conducive to happiness, especially as the clothing may be of a primitive kind, or need not conform to the dictates ...
— Three Acres and Liberty • Bolton Hall
... suffer the cucking-stool—this is a tumbrel, the name of which is composed of the French word coquine, and the German stuhl. English law being endowed with a strange longevity, this punishment still exists in English legislation for quarrelsome women. The cucking-stool is suspended over a river or a pond, the woman seated on it. The chair is allowed to drop into the water, and then pulled out. This dipping of the woman is repeated three times, "to cool her anger," ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... them into the country—one may as well practise when one has the opportunity. Besides, sportsmen are often quarrelsome; and if it is known that one shoots well,—it ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... farmers, returning from a neighbouring market, a set of people naturally boorish, and at that time elevated with ale to an uncommon pitch of insolence; that one of them, in particular, called Prickle, was the most quarrelsome fellow in the whole county; and so litigious, that he had maintained above thirty lawsuits, in eight-and-twenty of which he had been condemned in costs. He said the others might be easily influenced in the way of admonition; but there was no way of dealing ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... understand you," said Tom Long, stiffly. "I am not of a quarrelsome disposition, as any of my brother ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... harder, neglected his business, got quarrelsome. And one night, when the heavens was curtained with blackness, like a pall let down to cover the accursed scene, he left Cicely with her pretty baby asleep on her bosom, went down to the saloon, got into a quarrel with that very friend ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... not a quarrelsome boy, but this repeated insult was too much for him. He seized Tom by the collar, and tripping him up left him on the ground howling with rage. As valor was not his strong point, he resolved to be revenged upon Frank vicariously. He was unable to report the case to his father till the next ...
— The Cash Boy • Horatio Alger Jr.
... James Kay Shuttleworth's state of health is the cause-a cause, I fear, not likely to be soon removed. . . . Once more, then, I settle myself down in the quietude of Haworth Parsonage, with books for my household companions, and an occasional letter for a visitor; a mute society, but neither quarrelsome, nor vulgarising, nor unimproving. ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... times the meeting resolved itself into a number of quarrelsome disputes between the Liberals and Tories that formed the crowd, which split itself up into a lot of little groups and whatever the original subject might have been they soon drifted to a hundred other things, ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... moustache, and features of almost feminine delicacy; such was the gallant and ill-fated Lamoral Egmont. The Count of Horn; too, with bold, sullen face, and fan-shaped beard-a brave, honest, discontented, quarrelsome, unpopular man; those other twins in doom—the Marquis Berghen and the Lord of Montigny; the Baron Berlaymont, brave, intensely loyal, insatiably greedy for office and wages, but who, at least, never served but one party; the Duke of Arschot, who was to serve ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... wagon-load of gold with me? My dear chap, I did! That is to say, I got the gold all right. But, unfortunately for me, I had a partner in the expedition, a Boer named Van Raalte, who was cursed with an outrageously quarrelsome disposition and a vile temper, especially where natives were concerned; and it was he who spoiled everything. Our expedition—which had originally been a hunting trip, pure and simple, you must understand— had been brilliantly successful; ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... to keep a large amount of placer gold there; all that he had done was to acquaint himself with the best means of getting it. But his ruminations were soon dissipated by Rance, who had come so close that their feet almost touched, and was speaking in a voice that showed the quarrelsome frame of mind that ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco
... nearer to its ideal of life.... The Lutheran Reformation had been most truly religious and creative when it embraced the whole of human life and enlisted the enthusiasm of all ideal men and movements. When it became "religious" in the narrow sense, it grew scholastic and spiny, quarrelsome, and impotent to awaken high enthusiasm and ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair
... help you to commit a breach of the peace," said Paul with great dignity. "Go away, you quarrelsome young ruffian! Get one of your schoolfellows to fight you, if you must fight. I don't want to be mixed up with ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... the authority of the sovereign. This was a formidable undertaking, requiring great sagacity and firmness, but it would doubtless be promotive of the welfare of Russia to be under the sway of one general sovereign, rather than to be exposed to the despotism of a hundred petty and quarrelsome princes. Ivan III. was anxious to accomplish this result without violating any treaty, without committing any arbitrary or violent act ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... out of her thoughts, declined. He insisted, and as she could not be persuaded, Julien made a gesture of annoyance. She feared to arouse his ugly, quarrelsome temper, and although she was very unhappy at the thought that she should not see Paul until the next day, ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... and buying the commission of mestre de camp in 1655, he went to serve under Turenne in Flanders. He served there for several campaigns and distinguished himself at the battle of the Dunes and elsewhere; but he did not get on well with his general, and his quarrelsome disposition, his overweening vanity and his habit of composing libellous chansons made him eventually the enemy of most persons of position both in the army and at court. In the year 1659 he fell into disgrace ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... together on one small island, so that their intercourse (one would have thought) must be as close as that of prisoners who shared one cell of the Bastille; the same in language and religion; and yet a few years of quarrelsome isolation—a mere forenoon's tiff, as one may call it, in comparison with the great historical cycles—has so separated their thoughts and ways that not unions, not mutual dangers, nor steamers, nor railways, nor all the king's horses and all ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and depreciatory. Here are some of them. Every holiday fool in England, we learn from Trinculo in The Tempest, would give a piece of silver to see a strange fish, though no one will give a doit to relieve a lame beggar. The English are quarrelsome, Master Slender testifies, at the game of bear-baiting. They are great drinkers, says Iago, 'most potent in potting; your Dane, your German, and your swag-bellied Hollander are nothing to your English'. They are epicures, says Macbeth. They will eat ...
— England and the War • Walter Raleigh
... you whether, putting aside his discourse, you would choose to resemble your master, and be as passionate, as sordid, as quarrelsome, ay, and as addicted to pleasure (though that trait of his is not generally known). Why no answer, Hermotimus? Shall I tell you a plea for philosophy which I lately heard? It was from the mouth of an old, old man, who has quite a company of young disciples. He was angrily demanding his fees ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... buffalo tapeworm!" said Joe, alighting on the side of the pony opposite to his quarrelsome companion, and then going forward and opening ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... wife. He told them to exercise the privilege they were so fond of while on earth. They immediately commenced a quarrel of words. They raged at each other with such violence that their tongues and eyes ran out so far they could neither see nor speak. This, said they, is the punishment of quarrelsome and disputing husbands and wives. Let such also take warning, and lie together in peace and harmony. Next he called up a woman who had been a witch. First he plunged her into a caldron of boiling liquid. In her cries of distress she begged the evil-minded to give her some cooler place. He then immersed ...
— Legends, Traditions, and Laws of the Iroquois, or Six Nations, and History of the Tuscarora Indians • Elias Johnson
... habits of neither were good; both were apt to drink hard and to live low lives; but the Bostonian suffered less than the Virginian. Commonly the Bostonian could take some care of himself even in his worst stages, while the Virginian became quarrelsome and dangerous. When a Virginian had brooded a few days over an imaginary grief and substantial whiskey, none of his Northern friends could be sure that he might not be waiting, round the corner, with a knife or pistol, to revenge ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... eyes ceiling-ward and complained: "I can't understand why I should be chosen by Providence to act as peace-maker between jealous lovers, or quarrelsome husbands and wives. It is one of the most thankless ...
— Polly's Business Venture • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... this sudden change in the deportment of his friend behind the shoulder of shale. The sandpiper, a bit startled, had gone back to the edge of the river and was running a race with himself along the wet sand. And the two quarrelsome jays had brought their family squabble to the edge of ...
— The Flaming Forest • James Oliver Curwood
... kinds, which are of great name abroad; that he may be able to tell how the life agreeth with the fame. For quarrels, they are with care and discretion to be avoided. They are commonly for mistresses, healths, place, and words. And let a man beware how he keepeth company with choleric and quarrelsome persons; for they will engage him into their own quarrels. When a traveler returneth home, let him not leave the countries where he hath traveled altogether behind him; but maintain a correspondence by letters with those of his acquaintance which are of most worth. And ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume III (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland I • Francis W. Halsey
... of Philip to greatness from such small and humble beginnings; the mistrustful and quarrelsome attitude of the Hellenes towards one another; the fact that his growth out of what he was into what he is was a far more extraordinary thing than would be his subjugation of all that remains, when he has already secured so much;—all this and all similar themes, upon which I might speak at length, ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 2 • Demosthenes
... observances attached to these animals appear to be current throughout the kingdom, and by no means suffer any diminution in this county. Among others of less common occurrence, we have the belief that they will not thrive in a quarrelsome fammily. ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 41, Saturday, August 10, 1850 • Various
... his body: "Any one who knew him well, must bear witness to this—that he was a very kind man, gracious, friendly, and affectionate in all conversation, and by no means insolent, stormy, obstinate, or quarrelsome. And yet with this went a seriousness and courage in words and actions, such as there should be in such a man. His heart was loyal and without guile. The severity which he used in his writings against the enemies of the Gospel came not from a quarrelsome and malicious spirit but ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... irritable than his own. Under the terms of the new Constitution the members excluded in the preceding year took their places again in the House; and it was soon clear that the Parliament reflected the general mood of the nation. The tone of the Commons became captious and quarrelsome. They still delayed the grant of supplies. Meanwhile a hasty act of the Protector in giving to his nominees in "the other House," as the new second chamber he had devised was called, the title of "Lords," kindled a ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green
... equipped him with its excellent qualities. He was quick at his work, nimble with his fingers, ready with his tongue, clear in his thoughts. And, moreover, full of fun, good-natured and brave, kind and quarrelsome, inquisitive and a chatterbox. A madcap, he never could show more respect to a burgomaster than to a beggar! But he had a heart; he fell in love every other day, and confided in ...
— Invisible Links • Selma Lagerlof
... to Monsieur de Breuilly, reproaching him with his quarrelsome disposition, and affirming that there had been no trace of defiance either in the attitude or the features of Monsieur de Mauterne when he had passed ...
— Led Astray and The Sphinx - Two Novellas In One Volume • Octave Feuillet
... live here always," she said. "Then Tib, Frisk, and Kitty would not be able to tease me as they do. It is very annoying to be tormented all the time, and if one says a word in one's own defence, one gets blamed for being quarrelsome. The idea of my quarrelling with any one: ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... land. The sailors had set the sails and a good breeze filled the black canvas of the pirate ship. The pirates themselves, still surly from having eaten and drunk too well after the fight of the day before, were quarrelsome and tired and lay about in sprawling groups on the deck far below. Looking aft, Chris saw Simon Gosler hobbling from the Captain's cabin, and Osterbridge Hawsey's graceful, overdressed figure outlined ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson
... demi-pique. The nags are ponies some ten hands high, ragged and angular, but hardy and sure-footed. As most of the equines in this part of Africa, they are, when well fed, intensely vicious and quarrelsome. Like the Syrians, they have only three paces, the walk, the lazy loping canter, and the brisk hard gallop; the trot is a provisional passage from slow to fast. Yet with all their shortcomings I should prefer them to the stunted bastard barb, locally ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... to our well-being. Of course, we cannot settle in lands already occupied by the Vril-ya; and if we take the cultivated lands of the other races of Ana, we must utterly destroy the previous inhabitants. Sometimes, as it is, we take waste spots, and find that a troublesome, quarrelsome race of Ana, especially if under the administration of Koom-Posh or Glek-Nas, resents our vicinity, and picks a quarrel with us; then, of course, as menacing our welfare, we destroy it: there is no coming to terms of peace with a race so idiotic that it is always changing the ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... eat? Put out crumbs or scraps of meat and see if the bird will eat them. What sounds does the bird make? Does it sing? Imitate as many of its sounds as you can. Determine from its actions what its disposition is. For example—Is it courageous? Is it quarrelsome? Is it inclined ...
— Bird Day; How to prepare for it • Charles Almanzo Babcock
... with noble houses, their births and marriages, he was good for nothing. Nobody was so flabby in body and mind, no one so weak, so timid, so open to deception, so led by the nose, so despised by his favourites, often so roughly treated by them. He was quarrelsome in small matters, incapable of keeping any secret, suspicious, mistrustful; fond of spreading reports in his Court to make mischief, to learn what was really going on or just to amuse himself: he fetched ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... dates but a few weeks after the king's departure, and is of especial interest as showing a decided progress since the more vague provisions of the Assize of Clarendon. A possible source of danger to a successful ministry lay in the quarrelsome and self-assertive Archbishop of York, the king's brother Geoffrey; but soon after Richard's departure Hubert deprived him of power by a sharp stroke and a skilful use of the administrative weapons with which he was familiar. ...
— The History of England From the Norman Conquest - to the Death of John (1066-1216) • George Burton Adams
... waist. On the boatswain giving one a cut with his cat, the boy struck the one before him, and each one did the same, beginning gently, but, becoming irritated, they at last laid on in earnest. Also, a nautical punishment for quarrelsome fighters was, that two offenders, similarly fastened, thrashed each other until one gave in. The craven was usually additionally punished ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... black clerical garb held the next group together. He was in some trouble, owing to a pig-headed and quarrelsome Scotchman in the front rank, who objected to each statement that fell from his lips, thus interfering seriously with the effect of his peroration. If the Irishman had been more convincing, I suppose the crowd would have ...
— Penelope's English Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... I fulfilled my father's last wish by uniting myself to a girl who was also a distant relation of our family. She was poor, unprovided, unprotected, had grown up amid straits without any kind of education; at the same time she was hideously ugly, and her temper was so morose and quarrelsome, that I never spent a pleasant hour with her, and had very few peaceful ones so long as she ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... position described) I see several negroes under Gorilla domination. Well treated by their masters. Frog-eating Gorillas across the Salt Lake. Bull-headed Gorillas—their mutual hostility. Green Island Gorillas. More quarrelsome than the Bull-heads, and howl much louder. I am called to attend one of the princesses. Evident partiality of H. R. H. for me. Jealousy and rage of large red-headed ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... was blowzy and freckled, with a small pug nose and a quarrelsome mouth. The other (the face on what, with ordinary persons, was the back of the head) was dark and forbidding, its nose a large brick-colored pug, the mouth underneath shaped most extraordinarily—not unlike a barrette, for it was wide ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates
... and it was an absolute necessity for the fair rider to clasp her arms round the waist of the man who sat before her, and, when the road was rough, to cling pretty tightly. It was therefore desirable that the pair should be at least reasonably civil to one another, and should not get on quarrelsome terms. There was little likelihood of Maude's quarrelling with Bertram, her friend of twenty years' standing; but she did not share his evident light-heartedness as he rode carolling along, now breaking out into a snatch of ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt
... now in undisguised alarm. Who was this nameless Stranger who had invaded her house during her absence, and had apparently stolen the heart of her discreet and dignified Margaret, in one interview, by the mere sight of his charms? Young, handsome, quarrelsome; who could he be? What had brought him to Swarthmoor to destroy ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... spent at a place called Pena Blanca, which differed in no essential from Gatun. We slept there in small sheds, along with twenty or thirty of our ship's companions wedged tightly together. A dozen other similar sheds adjoined. We were all quarrelsome and disinclined to take much nonsense either from the natives or from each other. Also we needed and wanted food; and we had difficulty in getting it. A dozen incipient quarrels were extinguished because the majority of the crowd would not stand ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... is a tortoise-shell, yellow and black, With a lot of white about him: If you tease him, at once he sets up his back: He's a quarrelsome Tom, ne'er doubt him! I think we shall call him this— I think we shall call him that; Now, don't you fancy "Scratchaway" A nice name ...
— The Nursery, April 1877, Vol. XXI. No. 4 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... carrying a large pocketknife; as he did not understand a word of English our friend was glad when he left. He gave place to a Norwegian sailor, who had lost half an ear in a drunken brawl, and who proved to be quarrelsome, cursing Jurgis because he moved in his bunk and caused the roaches to drop upon the lower one. It would have been quite intolerable, staying in a cell with this wild beast, but for the fact that all day long the prisoners were put at ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... of one night with some old cronies of the Elysian Club, and his merry time of the night was subsiding into a quarrelsome time in the morning. He was able, when he was sober, to smother his resentment towards Albert, for there is no better ambush than an entirely idiotic giggle. But drink had destroyed his prudence. And so when Albert stepped on the piazza of the ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston
... here and there. "He told me," she went on, "that seven invisible colors live together in a sunbeam, but when they pass this magic door they must go in single file, and then we may see them. Not all are good colors. Some are bad and quarrelsome, and some are good when they are alone, but not when they are with colors they do not like. But when they live together in peace they make the beautiful clear daylight, and we see the world ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... of Amram, here on the spot of the Holy and High?" When Moses heard his voice, he grew exceedingly frightened, his eyes shed tears, and soon he would have fallen from the cloud. But instantly the pity of God for Moses was awakened, and He said to Hadarniel: "You angels have been quarrelsome since the day I created you. In the beginning, when I wanted to create Adam, you raised complaint before Me and said, 'What is man that Thou are mindful of him!' and My wrath was kindled against you and I burned scores of you with ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME III BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... to all quarrelsome and turbulent scenes, and has never been engaged in any mere personal broils or encounters, except on one single occasion, which he sometimes modestly describes to his friends. The narrative is fully confirmed by an eye-witness, of whose presence at the time he was not aware, ...
— Christopher Carson • John S. C. Abbott
... present my little gift. Your brother and I are not cordial friends. I offered him some advice in the beginning, as an elder might reasonably give to an inexperienced person, which he resented quite indignantly, and he prefers to use his own wisdom. I am not quarrelsome, and so we are comfortable business compeers, but hardly calling friends, and since you are in his house I must deny myself the pleasure. Do you not sometimes go to walk? I know ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... nothing very serious in that, but Dick Lee was more than ordinarily averse to anything like physical pain, and the crab which had seized him by the toe was a very muscular and vicious specimen of his quarrelsome race. ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, July 1878, No. 9 • Various
... remember, I find the side that uses force, or that uses the most force, invariably turns me against it. If, as I read, I find that both sides are using force, I find myself against both sides. I find myself wishing, in spite of my dislike of Socialism, that the nation had the power, when a quarrelsome industry turns to the people in the street and stops them in what they are doing, and tells the people in the street that they cannot ride, or that they shall not sleep, or that they cannot eat—when a quarrelsome industry insists ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... stared. Was this Annixter who spoke—the Hotspur of the League, the quarrelsome, irascible fellow who loved and sought a quarrel? Was it Annixter, who now had been the first and only one of them all to suffer, whose ranch had been seized, whose household possessions had been flung ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... time of year, and every one was overworked and nervy after a year's being cooped up in offices; and then the great heat came and finished them. They were cross, like overtired children, cross and quarrelsome. How cross I was too, tormented by those flies! After this month, when everybody has been away at the sea and in the forests, they'll be different, and as full of kindliness and gentleness as these gentle kind skies are, and ...
— Christine • Alice Cholmondeley
... to certain animals, and of certain dogs to men. Now, I never looked at Rab without thinking of the great Baptist preacher, Andrew Fuller. [Footnote: Fuller was, in early life, when a farmer lad at Soham, famous as a boxer; not quarrelsome, but not without "the stern delight" a man of strength and courage feels in their exercise. Dr. Charles Stewart, of Dunearn, whose rare gifts and graces as a physician, a divine, a scholar, and a gentleman, live only ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... tempers, and luxurious in their daily habits, imagining themselves great princes, and pampered in their conceit by the flattery of the barbarians, when all these conflicting pretensions now came together, were soon found to be exacting and quarrelsome one with another, while all alike unmeasurably flattered the Macedonians, giving them money for revels and sacrifices, till in a short time they brought the camp to be a dissolute place of entertainment, and the army a mere multitude of voters, canvassed ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... Richard's pig-headedness; and she would at once have grown cheerful and good-natured had he burned his finished and unfinished scores and written "something popular." She was, I say, impossible. Cosima, for her part, found Buelow impossible. A splendid character in many ways, he was as wayward and quarrelsome a man as has lived. So Richard and Minna drifted apart, and Buelow and Cosima drifted apart, and in the end Richard and Cosima drifted together. The censures that still are passed at times on their conduct ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... other stoutly. "On the contrary, if a boy can put on a pair of gloves and harmlessly pound another boy about a bit—or get pounded about—it satisfies the desire for fistic encounter that's a part of every fellow's make-up, and he's a lot less likely to be quarrelsome. Besides, Horace, it's a fine exercise for the body and ...
— Left Tackle Thayer • Ralph Henry Barbour
... intermittent attacks of self-importance to which all youth is exposed, to have in his case become chronic. He stood up and worshipped his creator aloud, after a manner which seemed to say in every tone: "Behold I am he that worshippeth Thee! How mighty art Thou!" Then he read the Bible in a quarrelsome sort of way, as if he were a bantam, and every verse were a crow of defiance to the sinner. Then they sang a hymn in a fashion which brought dear old Scotland to Hugh's mind, which has the sweetest songs in its cottages, and the worst singing in its churches, ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... words agree in being disyllabic, but otherwise they are a tiresome and quarrelsome people. For their diversity in spelling some can make a defence, since 'horror', 'pallor', 'stupor' came straight from Latin, but 'tenor', coming through French, should have joined hands with 'colour', 'honour', 'odour'. The short vowel is inevitable in ...
— Society for Pure English Tract 4 - The Pronunciation of English Words Derived from the Latin • John Sargeaunt
... a mocker, strong drink makes one quarrelsome, And whoever is misled by it is not wise. Who cries, "Woe"? who, "Alas"? Who has quarrels? Who complains? Who has wounds without cause? Who has redness of eyes? They who linger long over wine, They who go in to ...
— The Children's Bible • Henry A. Sherman
... constitution as of the exercise he takes, and habitual continence in food and sexual indulgence." His temperance and manual industry and his "extraordinary blamelessness in life and in every action" had been his source of preservation. He was miserly, suspicious, quarrelsome and pessimistic, but the effects of these faults were balanced by his better habits of thought and action. That he, like most great men, felt keenly the value of health, is evidenced not only by his own practice, but by his oft repeated warnings to his nephew when choosing ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86
... lived in a poor little hut adjoining the church—the poorness of it pleased him; but all day he was at it, doing things for people—now visiting a sick man to pray over him, now making peace between quarrelsome people, now blessing oils, that they might bring healing to the sick; preaching sermons, talking to people, and explaining Holy Scripture in the way he could do so wonderfully; visiting his priests, or listening to the worries and troubles ...
— Stories of the Saints by Candle-Light • Vera C. Barclay
... morning; and such a service! The very air is alive with the gathering; our ears are deafened by the whistling sounds of flight, from a plaintiff treble to a resonant bass, mingled with cries of joy and greeting and quarrelsome chatter. It is the chit-chat of ...
— Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The Searchlight • Mathew Joseph Holt
... been told of the civil things which Sir John Joram had said; and though he did not quite believe all, he was convinced that Bagwax was supposed to have distinguished himself. If there was anything to be known he would like to know it. Nor was he naturally quarrelsome. Bagwax was his old friend. 'I don't mean to be hard,' he said. 'Of course one does feel oneself fretted when one has been obliged ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... that have been secured by planting reds and blues in rows, alternating with rows of white. This method keeps the quarrelsome colors apart, and affords sufficient contrast to heighten the general effect. Still, there is a formality about it which is not entirely satisfactory to the person who believes that the flower is of first importance, and the shape of the bed, or the arrangement ...
— Amateur Gardencraft - A Book for the Home-Maker and Garden Lover • Eben E. Rexford
... make a second caricature, representing Lady Gammon and Jemima in a fantastical park, surrounded by three gardeners, three carriages, three footmen, and the covered cyar. He would have no joking concerning them. He became moody and quarrelsome of habit. He was for some time much more in the surgery and hospital than in the mess. He gave up the eating, for the most part, of those vast quantities of beef and pudding, for which his stomach used to afford such ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... already been pointed out, was by nature restive, impulsive, and quarrelsome. That he did not make every seigneury a hotbed of petty strife was due largely to the stern hand held over him by priest and seigneur alike, but by his priest particularly. The Church in the colony never lost, as in France, the full ...
— The Seigneurs of Old Canada: - A Chronicle of New-World Feudalism • William Bennett Munro
... lost no time in making his way toward Hank Handcraft's tumble-down abode. He found its owner in, and likewise disposed to be quarrelsome. ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Eagle Patrol • Howard Payson |
