"Ridiculous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that it would answer the purpose perfectly well for which it was designed, but fearing that it would increase the executive power: thus making it at once King Log and King Serpent. One party called it a ridiculous imbecility; the other, a dangerous giant, that might subvert the Constitution. These varied arguments, contradicting, if not refuting, one another, convinced me of one thing at least,—that the bill would not be adopted, ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... the appearance of rudeness, I would have looked away, but I found myself for an instant unable to do so. It was ridiculous to fancy it, and yet I could not help imagining that the girl's exquisite face lighted up with an expression akin to interest as ...
— The House by the Lock • C. N. Williamson
... talons of the demon of gambling, giving rise to consequences prejudicial to their morals, as well as to their studies. A great deal of money among the richer of them changed hands upon the result of bets, often the most frivolous, if not altogether ridiculous. Now, we are not to say that, abstracted from the love of money, the act of betting is unqualifiedly bad, if rather we may not be able to say something for it, insomuch as it sometimes brings out, and stamps ingenuity or sagacity, while it represses and chastises arrogance. But the ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, XXII • various
... Monsieur had not had a moment's consciousness since his attack. A ray of intelligence came to him for an instant, while his confessor, Pere du Trevoux, went to say mass, but it returned no more. The most horrible sights have often ridiculous contrasts. When the said confessor came back, he cried, "Monsieur, do you not know your confessor? Do you not know the good little Pere du Trevoux, who is speaking to you?" and thus caused the ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... University, to use an introductory prayer for the founder of, and principal benefactors to, the preacher's individual college, as well as for the officers and members of the university in general. This, however, would appear very ridiculous when "he comes down to his friends" or, in other words, ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... without annoyance, "but you'll just have to make up your mind to lose that salmon. It was a magnificent forty-pounder, and, if it hadn't been for your ridiculous interruption, we should have landed him splendidly in another ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, April 30, 1892 • Various
... evident, than that it is society alone, which has added even to love itself as well as to all the other passions, that impetuous ardour, which so often renders it fatal to mankind; and it is so much the more ridiculous to represent savages constantly murdering each other to glut their brutality, as this opinion is diametrically opposite to experience, and the Caribbeans, the people in the world who have as yet deviated ...
— A Discourse Upon The Origin And The Foundation Of - The Inequality Among Mankind • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... in English a rather ridiculous paper called the ContinentalTimes, owned by an Austrian Jewess who had been married to an Englishman. The Foreign Office, after the outbreak of the war, practically took over this sheet by buying monthly many thousand ...
— My Four Years in Germany • James W. Gerard
... quietly, "it is absolutely childish and ridiculous for you to make the assertions you have. No one of us has the slightest curiosity as to either you or your arrangements. This is not the first time that you have publicly accused us of meddling. Now I want you to understand once and for all that ...
— Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School - or The Parting of the Ways • Jessie Graham Flower
... of life, whether in humanity or in external nature. His natural outbursts of feeling are rare, but delicious as caviare, with a certain quaver of piquancy. 'Give me health and a day, and I will make the pomp of emperors ridiculous. The dawn is my Assyria; the sun-set and moon-rise my Paphos and unimaginable realms of faerie; broad noon shall be my England of the senses and the understanding, and night shall be my Germany of mystic philosophy and dreams.' Only a fantasy, and yet how he bends Nature to suit the curve ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... "We will leave this ridiculous package in the express office and squeeze up a bit. You simply can't ...
— Torchy As A Pa • Sewell Ford
... amuse myself? You have stamina in you, and will force your way; but I want strength: the world will never hear of me." That overweening conceit which seems but natural to the young man as a playful disposition to the kitten, or a soft and timid one to the puppy, often assumes a ridiculous, and oftener still an unamiable, aspect. And yet, though it originates many very foolish things, it seems to be in itself, like the fanaticism of the Teetotaller, a wise provision, which, were it not made by nature, would leave most minds without spring enough to effect, ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... to town I found an invitation to go to a Bohemian ball, and I decided to accept. Vive la joie! So I put on a white dress and went with Roberta Vallis and that ridiculous poet Kendall Brown. It was the first time I had danced since my husband ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett
... quilting party despite their possession of written permission from their several masters. The Court said of the quilting party: "The occasion was a perfectly innocent one, even meritorious.... It would simply seem ridiculous to suppose that the safety of the state or any of its inhabitants was implicated in such an assemblage as this." And of the patrol's limitations: "A judicious freedom in the administration of our police laws for the lower order must always have respect for the confidence ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... certain the office would always be held by men as large as yourself (how cleverly he shunned the use of either "great" or "grand!") or Mr. Wynkopp there, it would be appropriate enough! But, if by chance a President as small as my opposite neighbor should be elected, his high mightiness would be ridiculous!" ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... it be worth while to tell what followed, for it was very ridiculous; but I shall venture at it, for as it is not foreign to this matter, so some good use may be made of it. There was a Jester standing by, that counterfeited the fool so naturally that he seemed to be really ...
— Utopia • Thomas More
... that our mild protest is rather mixed and muddled. But what we darkly feel is this: that no author "belongs," or "understands," or is "definitely an artist" who merely makes the phantoms of his imagination paltry or ridiculous. They may be paltry, but they must also be pitiable; they may be ridiculous, but they must also be tragic. Many authors have fallen from the sublime to the ridiculous; but, as Mr. Chesterton magnificently ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... [Sidenote: Ridiculous traditions. ] But by reason of traditions, which either they or their predecessors haue deuised, they accompt some things indifferent to be faults. One is to thrust a knife into the fire, or any way to touch the fire with a knife, or with their knife to ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries - Vol. II • Richard Hakluyt
... mistake!" I cried; "a ridiculous mistake! I beg your pardon ten thousand times! They are for the Widow Jones. Here is what I intended for you, dear, dear Belle," and I thrust ...
— The Blunders of a Bashful Man • Metta Victoria Fuller Victor
... most outrageous form, the despotism and brutality of the Caesars and their favorites, had so undermined the moral sentiments and religious feelings of the masses that scepticism, fraught with shocking vices and unnatural crimes, coupled with contemptible hypocrisy and ridiculous superstition, demoralized the masses and brought truth itself into ill-repute. To add to all this there came the steady decline of the Jewish state, the growing demonstration of fast-approaching ruin, and, in consequence thereof, the growth ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... "It is indeed ridiculous," interposed the Taoist. "Never before have I heard even the very mention of restitution by means of tears! Why should not you and I avail ourselves of this opportunity to likewise go down into the world? and if successful in effecting the salvation ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... man of the world and of the world's affairs, understand or appreciate Villon the poet, Villon who had lifted the whole literature and poetry of France to the highest level it had yet reached? It was preposterous, ridiculous, unthinkable, the one as great a blunder as the other. So Stephen La Mothe gilded his gold, painting his lily lover-fashion time out of mind, and whitewashed into a pleasant greyness all the ugly smirchings with which Villon ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... a dignified silence; but he was thinking, I fancy, how very pleasant it would be for him to pay three or four hundred dollars for the Splash; not that he would care much for the money, but it would make him appear so ridiculous in the eyes of ...
— Breaking Away - or The Fortunes of a Student • Oliver Optic
... could get into the house easily enough," he said. "Now that I have learned the secret of the cellar, there will be no difficulty about that. Still, don't you think it seems rather ridiculous to try this sort of thing when your wife is in a position to tell you the ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White
... phenomena. "I have not leisure for physical speculations," he said, with characteristic irony, "and I will tell you why: I am not yet able, according to the Delphic inscription, to know myself, and it seems to me very ridiculous, while ignorant of myself, to inquire into what I am not concerned in." Weary of disputes about the origin of the universe, he turned to the one field in which the current method of abstract reasoning could be fruitfully ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... [pace Madame de Remusat], and I am confident will eclipse, in the eyes of posterity, all the crowned wiseacres that have crushed him by their overwhelming confederacy. If anything could place the Prince Regent in a more ridiculous light, it is Bonaparte suing for his magnanimous protection. Every compliment paid to this bloated sensualist, this inflation of sack and sugar, turns to the ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... ungracious or discourteous things about life, the episodes in the piece seem to be saying all the time, inarticulately: 'Note what a silly poor thing human life is; how childish its ambitions, how ridiculous its pomps, how trivial its dignities, how cheap its heroisms, how capricious its course, how brief its flight, how stingy in happinesses, how opulent in miseries, how few its prides, how multitudinous its humiliations, how comic its tragedies, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... coarse Scotsman, full of pretension and conceit, who assured us that if any of us should have occasion to have our legs or arms amputated he could do it without any pain. He used to feel our pulses after dinner with ridiculous gravity, and after examining our tongues tell us we should take great care and not eat salt junk too quickly, for it seldom digested well on young stomachs, and, added he with great consequence, "I have a specific for sair heeds if ye ha' any." As ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... I clearly comprehended all this, it struck me as ridiculous. Through a whole series of doubts and searchings, I had arrived, by a long course of thought, at this remarkable truth: if a man has eyes, it is that he may see with them; if he has ears, that he may hear; and ...
— What To Do? - thoughts evoked by the census of Moscow • Count Lyof N. Tolstoi
... that Sunday night arose from the sense not of what he clung to, but of what he had given up. He had turned his back on serious work, so that pottering was now all he could aspire to. It couldn't be fruitful, it couldn't be anything but ridiculous, almost ignoble; but it soothed his nerves, it was in the nature of a secret dissipation. He had never suspected he should some day have nerves on his own part to count with; but this possibility had been revealed to ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... flattery had decreed the surname of Desired to a prince, whom the nation had neither called nor expected, moved, that the title of Saviour should be decreed to Napoleon, who had come to save France from regal slavery. This ridiculous motion, smothered by ironical laughter, gave rise to a multitude of sarcasms and offensive reflections, which were reported to Napoleon, and which, without personally wounding him, for he had too high a sense of his glory, to think it affected by such clamours, injured him in the ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. II • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... work, as we have already pointed out, in decorative art; in which 'a redundancy of useless or ridiculous ornament is called richness, and the inability to appreciate simple and beautiful, or grand and noble forms, receives the name of genius.' The connection is curious, likewise, between this ingenuity of poetry and that of the machinery which gives a distinguishing character to our ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 443 - Volume 17, New Series, June 26, 1852 • Various
... offence at my noticing those base superstitions which have been adopted in explanation of what is called by the Magi, the Evil Principle. Was there ever received into a human creed, a being so mean—almost so ridiculous—as the Christian Satan? A goatish figure and limbs, with grotesque features, formed to express the most execrable passions; a degree of power scarce inferior to that of the Deity; and a talent at the same time scarce equal to that of the stupidest of the lowest order! What is ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... Fat-cake, n. ridiculous name sometimes applied to Eucalyptus leucoxylon, F. v. M., according to Maiden ('Useful ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... confiding public drew it, and immense quantities of BULMER's ale, almost simultaneously, and the result was that, in a very short time, BULMER might have rolled in money if he had felt disposed—as, to do him justice, he never did—to render himself ridiculous. Now what is there in the fact that BULMER has made a fortune in beer that should inflate him to so insufferable an extent? Can it be that there is some mysterious property in the liquid itself, some property which, having escaped even ...
— Punch, Volume 101, September 19, 1891 • Francis Burnand
... its nature on examination. It is so disguised that one fails to recognise it, so subtle that it deceives the scientific, so elusive that it escapes the doctor's eye: experiments seem to be at fault with this poison, rules useless, aphorisms ridiculous. The surest experiments are made by the use of the elements or upon animals. In water, ordinary poison falls by its own weight. The water is superior, the poison obeys, falls downwards, and takes ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... wonderful instinct for organization, their attachment to particular localities, their occasional journeys in large numbers over mountains and across rivers, their obstinate assertion of supposed rights, and the ridiculous caricature which they exhibit of all that is animal and emotional in man, would naturally create a deep impression.{HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS} Indeed the habits of monkeys well deserve to be patiently studied; not as they appear in confinement, when much that is revolting in their nature is developed, ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... authority in the Hyde family, a bad-humored, good-tempered old maid,—it was, indeed, the little Southerner's only amusement,—to make the polish and mustiness of those dreary front-parlors gay and fragrant with flowers; and though Judge Hyde's sense of the ridiculous was not remarkably keen, it was too much to expect of him that he should do otherwise than laugh long and loud, when, suddenly returning from Taunton one summer day, he tracked his wife by snatches of song into the "company rooms," and found her on the floor, her hair ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... could hardly walk. I made him show me his hands again, and this time they were blistered. So I told him to remember his manners in the future, and I let him go. But he was a man of prominence in the country, and when the story got known he became rather ridiculous." He turned with a smile to ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason
... mountain sheep in company. At last, when night was far advanced, and the last bottle of claret had been emptied, the colonel wrung the lieutenant's hand once more and wished him good-night, expressing his hope that an acquaintance, which had begun in such ridiculous fashion, might be continued. They parted, and each went ...
— Columba • Prosper Merimee
... To Hugh the idea was preposterous. Why, Slade had made every society on the campus; he had been given every honor that the students could heap on him—and he envied Hugh, an almost unknown sophomore. Why, it was ridiculous. ...
— The Plastic Age • Percy Marks
... notably during the eighteenth century, by the development of a new feeling of social equality, chiefly initiated in France, which, in an atmosphere of public intercourse largely regulated by women, made the ostentatious assertion of the husband's headship over his wife displeasing and even ridiculous. Then, especially in the nineteenth century, there began another movement, chiefly initiated in England and carried further in America, which affected the foundations of the husband's position from beneath. This movement consisted in a great number of legislative ...
— Little Essays of Love and Virtue • Havelock Ellis
... the English what their intentions were, had their expedition succeeded, they replied, "To extirpate the whole from the island, at least all heretics (as they called the protestants,) and to send their souls to hell." Strange infatuation! Ridiculous bigotry! How prejudiced must the minds of those men be, who would wish to destroy their fellow-creatures, not only in this world, but, if it were possible, in that which is to come, merely because they refused to believe on certain subjects as the ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... fortunate minority who are independent of daily necessities, so that he was free to go about the world under its direction. It led him far. It led him into situations that bordered upon the fantastic, it made him ridiculous, it came near to making him sublime. And this idea of his was of such a nature that in several aspects he could document it. Its logic forced him to introspection and to the making of ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... had been spending the first four months of 1745 in preparing 8,000 men, the French authorities in Louisbourg, whose force was less than 2,000, had been wasting the same precious time in ridiculous councils of war. It is a well-known saying that councils of war never fight. But these Louisbourg councils did not even prepare to fight. The news from Boston was not heeded. Worse yet, no attention was paid to the ...
— The Great Fortress - A Chronicle of Louisbourg 1720-1760 • William Wood
... a decided impression, but on no one so much as on himself. "What a fool I have been!" he thought; "in spite of appearances this has been very far from her thoughts, and perhaps annoyance at the ridiculous rumour is what makes her so much ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... immediately." ...[24] "Words have no value for us unless followed at once by action. But all is not action that goes under that name: for example, the modest and too-cautious organization of secret societies without some external manifestations is in our eyes merely ridiculous and intolerable child's play. By external manifestations we mean a series of actions that positively destroy something—a person, a cause, a condition that hinders the emancipation of the people. Without sparing our lives, without pausing before any threat, any obstacle, any danger, etc., ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter
... seems to us the gem of the book:—'One day they must needs hear me play upon my German flute. To have told my honest natural visitants, 'Really, gentlemen, I play very ill,' and put on such airs as we do in our genteel companies, would have been highly ridiculous. I therefore immediately complied with their request. I gave them one or two Italian airs, and then some of our beautiful old Scots tunes, Gilderoy, The Lass o' Patie's Mill, Corn Riggs are Bonny.' The pathetick simplicity and pastoral gaiety of the Scots musick will always please ...
— James Boswell - Famous Scots Series • William Keith Leask
... ridiculous, I dare say," interrupted Eugenia, adding, that "there was more than one Mrs. Elliott in the world, and she'd no idea that so elegant a lady as Mr. Hastings's sister ever troubled herself to look after ...
— Dora Deane • Mary J. Holmes
... Brahmoism is universal religion, it is impossible to communicate a universal form to it. It must wear a particular form in a particular country. Aso-called universal form would make it appear grotesque and ridiculous to the nation or religious denomination among whom it is intended to be propagated, and would not command their veneration. In conformity with such views, the Adi Samaj has adopted a Hindu form to propagate Theism among Hindus. It ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... in especial, many of the rules were extremely irksome. At more than sixteen and a half, she felt it ridiculous to be obliged to ask permission to go out and buy a lead pencil at the stationer's. "It's like living in a convent!" ...
— The Luckiest Girl in the School • Angela Brazil
... have cause to be sorry. It was you who put these prying, and for all I know, thieving creatures into my house, and it was as mean a trick as ever one man played another. You and this precious cousin of yours thought you could bring about a marriage; you put her up to her ridiculous antics. Faugh! The very thought of it all makes ...
— He Fell in Love with His Wife • Edward P. Roe
... curious may sometimes refer, but which have now lost all their significance and interest. His quarrels with editors and publishers were notorious; and an altercation with Mr. Black, the well-known editor of the "Morning Chronicle," eventuated in a duel so bloodless as to be ridiculous. David's pebble did not reach Goliath, and Goliath was equally merciful to David. In these pamphlets he violently assailed the whole body of editors, sub-editors, reporters, etc., of most of the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... existence of the treasure. He had promised the nurse that he would search for the money, and he did so; but he felt that the task was like "looking for a needle in a hay-mow," and he abandoned it before he had made himself ridiculous in his own estimation. He wrote a letter to the nurse, who had given him her address in New York, informing her of the ill success of his endeavors. She answered the letter, giving him further instructions, saying that the money was buried not more than a foot ...
— The Coming Wave - The Hidden Treasure of High Rock • Oliver Optic
... addition they do their full share of the evil work of bird extermination, wherein they have active allies in the rats and wild cats. On the whole, however, though acclimatization has given the Colony one or two plagues and some minor nuisances, it would be ridiculous to pretend that these for a moment weigh in the scale against its good works. Most of the vegetable pests, though they may flourish abnormally for a few years in the virgin soil, soon become less vigorous. With the growth of population even the rabbit ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... more beautiful than ever, and serenely scornful of the King, since he had not even dared to use the power she had put into his hands, in order to tell her his mind, and speak out his reproaches; and he was more ridiculous than ever in her eyes. From that time she paid no more attention to him than if he had not existed, for she despised a man who would not ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... at the command to be perfect. That finite man may be perfect in this sinful world sounds ridiculous to many unregenerated hearts. This is because they do not understand God nor his power to deliver man from sin. With the many exhortations and commands to perfection contained in the Holy Scriptures is it not singular that man will yet say, "We can not be perfect in this life"? Many people who oppose ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr
... much—the place is made impossible by laughter ... No; it is very seldom that happiness is refined or pleasant to see—merriment that is produced by wine is false merriment, and there is no true merriment without it ... Laughter is profane, in fact, where it is not ridiculous. ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... follow the long and wearisome questionings and to record the replies given by the several brethren of the Temple during their trial in London. One and all agreed in denying the existence of the horrible and ridiculous rites which were said to be used at the reception of new members; and whether they had been received in England or abroad, detailed the ceremonies that were used, and showed that they were substantially the same everywhere. The candidate was asked what he desired, and on ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... considered, must be at least twenty miles distant, altogether too far to dream of swimming to it, although I rather prided myself upon my prowess as a long-distance swimmer. But twenty miles! The idea was ridiculous, especially in that heavy sea, in my exhausted condition, without food, and with no means of getting any. I looked rather longingly at the smaller fragments of wreckage floating in my neighbourhood; if I could but secure ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... not make you to dance with him and lavish so much attention upon him; you will oblige me very much, Clara, by not dancing any more with him and making yourself so ridiculous." ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... destined for immortality by the assassin's dagger, very seldom are jokers—John Brown and his like do not jest. Of all the emancipators of men, Lincoln alone stands out as one who was perfectly sane. An ability to see the ridiculous side of things marks the man of ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... and excellence, nor could I, but for your letters so lately sent me, have had any notion of either. I don't question, but if you have recited my passionate behaviour to you, when at the hall, I shall make a ridiculous figure enough; but I will forgive all that, for the sake of the pleasure you have given me, and will still farther give me, if you ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... fact that a man so full of kindness, who took pleasure in the innocent companionship of children, could with positive eagerness witness the hanging of a thief at Tyburn, has been a cause of surprise. When one is conversant with the history of the time the astonishment is ridiculous. The sight of a man on the gallows no more disturbed the serenity of the most good-natured of men at the end of the eighteenth century than do the dying flutters of a partridge the susceptibilities of the most cultured of modern sportsmen. Selwyn was ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... analyze in human nature together. I know it is true, but it is not true for me. No, I would never understand it in you. I know myself too well, I am jealous of everything of the past—oh, insanely jealous. I know that no sooner are you gone than I will be tortured by the most ridiculous doubts. I will see you in the moonlight all across that endless sea with other men near you. I will dream of other men with millions, ready to give you everything your eyes adore. I will imagine men of big minds that will fascinate you. I will even say to myself that now that you ...
— Murder in Any Degree • Owen Johnson
... altogether, to found an Irish republic as closely as possible upon the model then offered for their imitation in France, anything like mere constitutional opposition seemed not contemptible merely, but ridiculous. ...
— The Story Of Ireland • Emily Lawless
... protest, her pretty face clouded, and she did me the honor to say that half the enjoyment was removed by my absence. Once she even went so far as to declare that Plato was a "horrid man," and that she believed I thought more of him than of her—a most ridiculous conclusion but so essentially feminine that I forgave her at once. And, when she came to me, and put her arms around my neck and urged me to go with her to a tennis match—a foolish game where grown-up people knock little balls over a net with a battledore—I pointed ...
— The Romance of an Old Fool • Roswell Field
... cried the lady.—"aren't they different from us in every way? To be sure, they dress up in their ridiculous best when they go out, but you couldn't expect us to let them use the front elevator? I don't want to go up and down with my own cook, and I certainly don't ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells
... quarto volume, containing the ritual, was published at Caen, in 1622, by the order of Laurence de Budos, then abbess. It was probably from pride at a privilege of this nature, and from a confidence in their strength, that the nuns persisted in celebrating the ridiculous, or, it might almost be called, blasphemous Fete des Fous, for a hundred years after the Council of Basle had decreed the suppression of it throughout Christendom. In imitation too of the Boy-Bishops of Bayeux, Salisbury, ...
— Architectural Antiquities of Normandy • John Sell Cotman
... what the answer to this mocking shout from the ramparts was, David did the impossible, and took the city. Courage built on faith has a way of making the world's predictions of what it cannot do look rather ridiculous. David wastes no words in answering the taunt; but it stirs him to fierce anger, and nerves him and his men for their desperate charge. The obscure words in verse 8, which he speaks to his soldiers, do not need ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... would like to rub a magic lamp, like Aladdin, and wish yourself there with our merry young sextette. For California is a lovely land and a strange one, even at this late day, when her character has been nearly ruined by dreadful stories, or made ridiculous ...
— A Summer in a Canyon: A California Story • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... Later, Count Marlanx appeared at the castle for his first lesson in poker. He looked so sure of himself that Beverly hated him to the point of desperation. At the same time she was eager to learn how matters stood with Baldos. The count's threat still hung over her head, veiled by its ridiculous shadow of mercy. She knew him well enough by this time to feel convinced that Baldos would have to account for his temerity, sooner or later. It was like the cat ...
— Beverly of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... together in despair. "You do not believe me, then," she said to the king, who still remained silent, while poor La Valliere's features became visibly changed at his continued silence. "Therefore, you believe," she said, "that I settled this ridiculous, this infamous plot, of trifling, in so shameless ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... wife were so low and commonplace that she influenced his career by antithesis. His soul was ahungered for the bread of life, and stones were given him in way of the dull, the ugly, the affected, the smug, the ridiculous. Wagner's life was a revolt from the ossified commonplace, a struggle for right adjustment—a heart tragedy. And all this reaching out of the spirit, all the prayers, hopes, fears and travail of his soul, are told and told again in his poetry and ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... him draw you on," he whispered to his master; "this may be some trick." Then to the rest he said in a contemptuous tone: "Don't make fools of yourselves and make Germany ridiculous." ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... no conversation. I've never discovered a single topic on which she'd anything to say beyond 'Do you think so? I dare say you're right.' I really thought her reticence about the fall of the Ribot Ministry was ridiculous, considering how much her dear mother used to visit Paris. This bread and butter is cut far too thin; it crumbles away long before you can get it to your mouth. One feels so absurd, snapping at one's food in mid-air, like a ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... young man can be a master, especially of humor and human nature. Don Quixote himself is a character of the most complex kind. His single-heartedness, his enthusiasm, his utter want of the sense of the ridiculous, his power of adding romantic charms and romantic attributes to a frowsy servant-girl, are developed and used by the author with a variety of power that has never been equalled. Don Quixote's life is entirely ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... my ridiculous journey without one pang of regret,—so hardened was I in heart and conscience,—carrying with me only a change of clothing, and having in my pocket only one small piece of bread, and two small pieces of silver. It was ...
— Cast Away in the Cold - An Old Man's Story of a Young Man's Adventures, as Related by Captain John Hardy, Mariner • Isaac I. Hayes
... of the past, infatuated, intoxicated with his own ideas, he went on talking of himself. "People pretend that we are not patriots because we don't leave troops of children behind us. But that is simply ridiculous; each serves the country in his own way. If the poor folks give it soldiers, we give it our capital—all the proceeds of our commerce and industry. A fine lot of good would it do the country if we were to ruin ourselves ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... gold, to paint the Lily, To throw a perfume on the Violet, To smooth the ice, or add another hue Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light To seek the beauteous eye of Heaven to garnish, Is wasteful and ridiculous excess. ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... the remembrance of this strange accident sticketh at this day fast in the minds of all the inhabitants of this country." A malicious and bigoted monk, who discharged the office of chief legend-maker to the Benedictine Abbey, in the vicinity of Mascon, fabricated this ridiculous story for the purpose of bringing the Governor into disrepute. An account of another diabolical visitation, suggested, it is probable, by the one just described, was issued from the press, under the title of ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... "His story is so ridiculous that I wouldn't blame anybody who did not know Kincaid for not believing it. He says he was playing with his dog Curly, when Curly grabbed the cap and made off with it. The dog came back without the cap, and Kincaid could not find it. That's all he says, except that he was not in the thicket at ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White
... Miss Mavis had been engaged. In the blank of our common detachment things that were nobody's business very soon became everybody's, and this was just one of those facts that are propagated with mysterious and ridiculous speed. The whisper that carries them is very small, in the great scale of things, of air and space and progress, but it's also very safe, for there's no compression, no sounding-board, to make speakers responsible. And then repetition at sea is somehow not repetition; monotony is in the air, the ...
— The Patagonia • Henry James
... basket, till she opened it and showed the spoon inside. There were many mock quarrels, in one of which Marcey sent her a letter by the Company's courier, covered with great seals, saying, "I return you the hairpin, the egg-shell, and the white wolf's tooth. Go to your Laforce, or whatever his ridiculous name may be." ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... laugh, to the surprise of the dog. She has a keen, very keen, sense of the ridiculous; and some time or other she will ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... of the large sums his mother had not been ashamed to wring from him during the last six months. Letty—George's wife—was to go without comforts and conveniences, without the means of seeing her friends and taking her proper position in the world, because George's mother—a ridiculous, painted old woman, who went in for flirtations and French gowns, when she ought to be subsiding quietly into caps and Bath chairs—would sponge upon his very moderate income, and take what ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... know it is supremely ridiculous," she returned, more coldly; "yet if I did not believe you spoke with some degree of honesty I should deem your words a deliberate insult, and treat them accordingly. As it is, I prefer regarding your speech merely as an evidence of temporary insanity. Ned Winston making love to Beth Norvell! ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... had been alone, or if Cutler had not been an attache to the embassy, before whom she was afraid of making herself ridiculous, I am confident that Mrs. Berry would have fainted away on the spot; and that all Berry's courage would have tumbled down lifeless by the side of her. So she only gave a martyrised look, and left the room; and ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... there alone one rainy night about a year ago," he said. "I didn't see or hear anything unusual. Such stories are ridiculous; and even if there was a little truth in them, noises can't harm you as much as sleeping out in the storm. I'm going to encroach once more upon the ghostly hospitality of the Squibbs. Better ...
— The Oakdale Affair • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... His ridiculous stories, which tend to prove that girls are NATURALLY attentive to their persons, without laying any stress on daily example, are below contempt. And that a little miss should have such a correct taste as to neglect the pleasing amusement of making O's, merely ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... be disposed to agree with Heylin, who says of the Letany that it was "so silly and contemptible that nothing but the sin and malice which appeared in every line of it could have possibly preserved it from being ridiculous." But the Letany is really a most important contribution to the history of the period. Nothing is more graphic than Bastwick's account of the almost regal reverence claimed for the Archbishop of Canterbury, the traffic ...
— Books Condemned to be Burnt • James Anson Farrer
... more. If in spite of every care antipathies to certain articles of food appear and persist, we must be content to bide our time. When the child grows of an age to reason, we should seize every opportunity to make him feel that his persistent refusal is a little ridiculous and childish. Little by little the seed is sown, and will germinate till one day we shall note with surprise that he has taken of his own accord that which he has neglected for so long and with ...
— The Nervous Child • Hector Charles Cameron
... the fall, as the sand was soft and the last landing had been in the water, and, as they had all been so frightened at the Captain's adventure a moment before, they became hysterical in their laughter over this last ridiculous accident. ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... for fear of damaging the Government, or that Mr. Chamberlain could afterwards have the effrontery to publicly and solemnly deny all knowledge of the business in the presence of gentlemen who had connived at the suppression of the proofs that he did know? Such a supposition is ridiculous, and yet it is involved in the theory that the Commission refrained from pushing their examination because they were afraid of showing their country to ...
— The War in South Africa - Its Cause and Conduct • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the search for the end of art is ridiculous, when it is understood of art as art. And since to fix an end is to choose, the theory that the content of art must be selected is another form of the same error. A selection from among impressions and sensations implies that these are already ...
— Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic • Benedetto Croce
... immovably to the ends of their respective rods, and turning with them (merely to show revolutions in orbits), perform each a simultaneous revolution on their axis, when such claim would be simply ridiculous, since the only revolution, in each case, has its focus outside of the ball, therefore orbital only; and so, too, with the moon, whose motion is precisely analogous, and prejudice alone can retain such an unphilosophical hypothesis as ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... with renewed interest. The resemblance was remarkable. It was plainly traceable even in the skull and in the proportions of the skeleton generally, while in the small, dry preparation of the head the likeness was ridiculous. It was most regrettable that he should have refused my invitation to come in. As a companion preparation, illustrating the physical resemblances in degenerate families, he ...
— The Uttermost Farthing - A Savant's Vendetta • R. Austin Freeman
... Medicis and Capets give no clew. Imagine, if you can, a Lorenzo or a Grand Louis in a tightly-buttoned frock coat! There must be some logical connection between the habit and the age, since crimson velvet and gold brocade would have made Eldon Parr merely ridiculous. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... scorn. "Appeal to her heart in the last resort I grant you, but only thus: Lady, will you have me? An she will not, what would your servility gain? An she will, it is needless. In either case it is ridiculous. Trust me, a woman sets more store by the man who compels her admiration than by him who sues for it. If he breaks the bones of other men to win her, that is compliment enough and mark you well, Ricciardo, it is all that I demand ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... imprisoned for commenting on certain appointments made by the President. A half-dozen or more insignificant country editors were caught in the Federalist drag-net, serving only to make the law more ridiculous. ...
— The United States of America Part I • Ediwn Erle Sparks
... him is revealed. But however ludicrous mediaeval and vulgar superstitions may have made the notion, and however incredible the tremendous figure painted by the great Puritan poet has proved to be, there is nothing ridiculous, and nothing that we have the right to say is incredible, in the plain declarations that came from Christ's lips over and over again, that the world, the aggregate of ungodly men, has ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren
... the later judgment of the nation. His action demonstrated what a President may do in resisting by his constitutional authority some transitory wave of popular opinion, and it has proved a precedent of no mean value. Johnson's vetoes became ridiculous. Grant's veto compensates for ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes
... Maurice held to his conviction that war was the only policy. In the secret letter of the French ambassador there is not a trace of suspicion as to his fidelity to the commonwealth, not the shadow of proof of the ridiculous accusation that he wished to reduce the provinces to the dominion of Spain. Jeannin, who had no motive for concealment in his confidential correspondence with his sovereign, always rendered unequivocal homage to the purity and ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... but I think I comprehend the spirit of your precepts, and trust I shall be able to profit thereby. Details, situations which I do not understand and cannot personally inspect, I would not for the world meddle with, lest I should make even a more ridiculous mess of the matter than Mrs. Trollope did in her Factory Boy. Besides, not one feeling on any subject, public or private, will I ever affect that I do not really experience. Yet though I must limit my sympathies; though ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... despise their own country for being without a system of morals, but that the Japanese, who were acquainted with their own ancient literature, should pretend that Japan too had such a system, simply out of a feeling of envy, is ridiculous. ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... we anything to boast of in our own happy land in comparison with France? Our natural resources so far exceed those of any old country that a comparison would be ridiculous; and the monometallists tell us, when they are trying to prove that gold is not enhanced in value, that, by reason of inventions, a day's labor will produce at least twice as much as in 1870, and in many lines a ...
— If Not Silver, What? • John W. Bookwalter
... perhaps a year she had not definitely looked at her husband. She regarded his table-manners. He violently chased fragments of fish about his plate with a knife and licked the knife after gobbling them. She was slightly sick. She asserted, "I'm ridiculous. What do these things matter! Don't be so simple!" But she knew that to her they did matter, these solecisms and mixed tenses of ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... sympathy explains one, it is, it would seem, an antipathy or the absence of sympathy which produces the other. "The thing at which we laugh," says Aristotle, "is a defect or ugliness which is not great enough to cause suffering or injury. Thus, for example, a ridiculous face is an ugly or misshapen face, but one on which suffering has not marked." Bain says likewise, "The laughable is the deformed or ugly thing which is not pushed to the point where it is painful or injurious. An occasion for laughter is the degradation of a person of dignity ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... relieve my mind, if you will go," Dr. Rannage retorted. "It is absolutely ridiculous that I should be talked to in this manner, especially after what I have ...
— The Unknown Wrestler • H. A. (Hiram Alfred) Cody
... subjects than love are few, and almost exclusively descriptive. Our sense of the humorous gives us a delight in queer and odd characters, in which the Greeks probably would not have participated. Though they had an abundance of wit, and a keen perception of the ridiculous, no songs have reached us which are intended to please by their pure absurdity and good-natured foolishness. Archilochus and Hipponax wrote many a jocular song; but the fun of the thing would have been lost, had the sting ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... of brown tissue. There was no waist line. The chest appeared to fit down upon the thighs like a lid. The legs hung from the hips like trouser-legs, and seemed to fit into the feet like poles into their sockets. The turned-in toes were ridiculous and exasperating. There was no shaping of breasts, stomach, knees and ankles. There was nothing in this image of clay to show the loving caress of the Creator's hand. It had been modelled by a wretched bungler in ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... up to us, and seeing the situation at a glance, he took out his tobacco-pouch, opened it, pinched out a piece, and pointing to the salmon, offered the cut-up herb to the Indian, who now stood out in front of the young pines. I thought it ridiculous to offer what I considered a pinch of rubbish for the salmon; but the Indian laughed, darted back, and returned holding another quivering fish by the tail, threw it down, and held out his hand for the tobacco, evidently well ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... world, you must comply with its maxims; because nothing is more unprofitable than the wisdom of those persons who set up for reformers of the age. 'Tis a part a man can not act long, without offending his friends, and rendering himself ridiculous.—St. Gosemond. ...
— The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872 - A Typographic Art Journal • Various
... ideals. The two measures which are now commonly put forward for the attainment of eugenic ends—health certificates as a legal preliminary to marriage and the sterilization of the unfit—are excellent when wisely applied, but they become mischievous, if not ridiculous, in the hands of fanatics who would employ them by force. Domestic animals may be highly bred from outside, compulsorily. Man can only be bred upwards from within through the medium of his intelligence and will, working together under the control ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... we give due weight to this argument, there is one often referred to by our correspondents, and which we often see stated in newspapers, as ridiculous as the one we have noticed is forcible. It is that when, in such boilers, water, by carelessness or otherwise, is allowed to fall below any of the tubes, the steam which surrounds them is decomposed, and becomes an ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various
... this superiority in value the prohibition which forbade the deposits of gold and silver for bills, at Paris, was taken off, so that notes could be procured at the bank for coin. This permission was simply ridiculous, for no one now wished to exchange specie for paper, even at par. But this was not all; the decree declared that thereafter silver should not be used in payments of over one hundred francs nor gold in those over three hundred francs. This was forcing the circulation ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... everyone wanted to meet the Bellamys' friend, and Harriet saw that it pleased him, for some inscrutable reason, to continue his ridiculous conversation with the flattered Ward, and to accept names and greetings absently, in an aside, as it were, smiling perfunctorily and briefly at the eager girls and women, and returning immediately to his concerned and passionate undertones with ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris
... did, it was impossible to take his assumption of the role of an outraged husband seriously. They saw, only too clearly, the ridiculous figure he made in the false light with which he had invested himself. But when he was gone, with his threat still echoing through their brains, they began to doubt their ...
— The Substitute Prisoner • Max Marcin
... trumpery at the gorgeous shrines of the saints, in chapels that are incrusted with gems, or marbles almost as precious; they put pasteboard statues of saints beneath the dome of the Pantheon; in short, they let the sublime and the ridiculous come close together, and are not in the least troubled by the proximity. It must be that their sense of the beautiful is stronger than in the Anglo-Saxon mind, and that it observes only what is ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... exterminated without mercy. As soon as the extermination had been accomplished, as soon as cattle were as safe in the Perthshire passes as in Smithfield market, the freebooter was exalted into a hero of romance. As long as the Gaelic dress was worn, the Saxons had pronounced it hideous, ridiculous, nay, grossly indecent. Soon after it had been prohibited, they discovered that it was the most graceful drapery in Europe. The Gaelic monuments, the Gaelic usages, the Gaelic superstitions, the Gaelic verses, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... self. In the energy of her purpose she began to walk faster and faster. "There now, Ella Bodine," she muttered, "since it's your duty to ostracize and bake, ostracize and bake, and be done with your ridiculous fancies." And she swiftly turned the corner of a street, as if, under the inspiration of a great purpose, she was entering upon a new and wiser course. The result was, she nearly ran over George Houghton. Looking up, she saw him standing, ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... There is nothing more ridiculous than the various opinions of authors about the seat of Paradise. Sir. Walter Raleigh has taken a great deal of pains to collect them, in the beginning of his History of the World; where those, who are ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... importunate for impeachment, the business element of the country at large was tiring of it and its depressing effect upon the commercial activities. Even Senators and Congressmen were being moved to a sense of the obstructive and somewhat ridiculous phases the impeachment movement was beginning to take on—and not a few of those who in its earlier stages had honestly favored the movement, inside as well as outside the membership of both Houses of Congress, had begun to realize the actual nature and purposes, as also the ...
— History of the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson, • Edumud G. Ross
... getting his shoes, his handkerchief, and his hat; but an attempt to take off his cravat had awoke the sleeper. In this case, the prisoner was marched off under sundry severe threats of vengeance; for the robbee was heated with the run, and really looked so ridiculous that his anger was ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... ceiling, the style of Louis XIV and its parent the Renaissance share the looking glass between them. Transformed, shifted or mutilated, such elements of art still carry their history plainly stamped upon them.... It is thus even with the fashion of the clothes men wear. The ridiculous little tails of the German postilion's coat show of themselves how they came to dwindle to such absurd rudiments; but the English clergyman's bands no longer so convey their history to the eye, and look ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... But, oh! what a ridiculous dream!—and she sat there, the penniless Hilary Leaf, listening to Miss Balquidder, the rich lady, whose life seemed so easy. For the moment, perhaps, her own appeared hard. But she had hope, and ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... you that the Bourbons and the Montmorencies and other French gentlemen must lower their armorial bearings before him, who is a Gaul, and more—a Gaul of an old family! In fact, this name 'De Balzac' is a patronymic name (patronymically ridiculous and Gaulish). He has always been De Balzac, only that! while the Montmorencies—those unfortunate Montmorencies—were formerly called Bouchard; and the Bourbons—a secondary family who are neither patronymic nor Gaulish ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... ready for everything, and prepared for everything. He had recovered from that stupor which the discovery of his crime had produced in him, and from the rage in which he had been thrown by the loss of his bank-notes. Now there appeared, under the odious personage of the murderer, the pretentious and ridiculous orator of the streets and prisons, who is accustomed to make himself heard, and displays his eloquence ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... paper, and it was an absurdity. The huge hall and porch added on by the builder of Queen Anne's time, at the very extremity of the house, were almost a monstrosity. The passages and staircases, and internal arrangements, were simply ridiculous. But there was not a portion of the whole interior that did not charm; nor was there a corner of the exterior, nor a yard of an outside wall, that was not in ...
— Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite • Anthony Trollope
... Sam—"do you wait on them? Do you have to submit to their complaints and whinings and ingratitude?" He glared at the unhappy convalescents as though by that glance he would annihilate them. "It's not fair!" exclaimed Sam. "It's ridiculous. I'd ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... Leigh! what a ridiculous question! I do not presume to take any side, for I do not pretend to understand or appreciate all the arguments advanced; but I am anxious to acquaint myself with the bearings of the controversy. The idea of my 'taking sides' on a subject ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... child was suffering from heat. Mr Parker was a good-natured, though rather weak man, and in reality slightly feared Miss Grundy. On this occasion, however, he did not take sides with her but said, "It was ridiculous to have such works, and that if Mary wanted whipping, he ...
— The English Orphans • Mary Jane Holmes
... course!—if only this obstinate little person can get her way! Do you suppose I am going to make myself ridiculous before my whole staff, to let people think that I am a man to be swayed by all sorts of outside influence? I should very soon feel the consequences of it, I can tell you. And besides, there is one thing that makes it quite impossible for me to have Krogstad in the ...
— A Doll's House • Henrik Ibsen
... all seems to me very droll—you splashing along there barefoot, why" (she drew back a little to get the better view, laughing excitedly), "you've no idea how ridiculous you look; and Mrs. Halsey stalking along like a dignified ghost, afraid that you and I will kiss one another if we take to whispering, and this woman dying here with her head resting on a sack of potatoes, and the impudent little person you've just christened intruding herself ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... unabashed, and his discourse splashes on in its dialectical march, every stepping-stone an unquestioned idea, every stride a categorical assertion. Does he deny this? Then his very denial, in its promptness and heat, audibly contradicts him and makes him ridiculous. Honest criticism consists in being consciously dogmatic, and conscientiously so, like Descartes when he said, "I am." It is to sift and harmonise all assertions so as to make them a faithful expression of actual ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... reason for fear," said M. Galpin; "for a terrible charge has been brought against you. And it may be, that on your answer to my question, ridiculous as it seems to you, your honor may depend, and perhaps ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... details about a personage that played an important role in the history of the last emperor of the French, and has not had much cause to be proud of the gratitude of his patron. This personage was the famous tame eagle that accompanied Prince Louis in his ridiculous expedition to Boulogne, and which was taught to swoop down upon the head of the pretender—a glorious omen to those who did not know that the attraction was a piece of salted pork! This unfortunate eagle was captured ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... When once he sees you, he will forget all his ridiculous pride, and throw himself, like a ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... Killenhall has done me, or you, out of that," said Miss Wickham. "The check I gave her was to have been filled up for the amount of the usual weekly bills—twenty pounds or so. Ten thousand? Ridiculous!" ...
— The Middle of Things • J. S. Fletcher
... our thoughts, because it seemed that our fate was determined by man and for man. But how inferior are these authors to two little girls, known as Sweetheart and Darling—otherwise Renee and Louise. Ah! my love, what wretched plots, what ridiculous situations, and what poverty of sentiment! Two books, however, have given me wonderful pleasure—Corinne and Adolphe. Apropos of this, I asked my father one day whether it would be possible for me to see Mme. de Stael. My father, mother, ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... moment have reconciled us to such inconveniences. As it was, I occasionally called out to C., in the back carriage, to be sure and take good care of the fur coat; which always brought shouts of laughter from the whole party. The idea of a fur coat seemed so supremely ridiculous to us, there was no making us believe we ever should or ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... consider desirable in a leader. Whatever office-seekers, partisans, traitors, and public enemies may find in Mr. Johnson, it is certain that they find in him nothing to respect. He is cursed with that form of moral disease which sometimes renders a man ridiculous, sometimes infamous, but which never renders him respectable,—namely, vanity of will. Other men may be vain of their talents and accomplishments, but he is vain of the personal pronoun itself, utterly regardless ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... "I am never ridiculous," he said; "it is my only merit; and you may be certain this shall be a scene of marriage a la mode. But when I remember the beginning, it is bare courtesy to speak in sorrow. Be just, madam: you would think me strangely uncivil to recall these days ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson |
