"Scoff" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... would by no means scoff at the counsel of our Ahitophels. A glance at the newspapers of last month, and their interminable advertising columns, is quite enough to convince us that the thing may be overdone. True, not one out of five—nay, perhaps, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... scoff, and I stay to pray," said Jarvis, cryptically. "God bless you, Bambi!" he added, ...
— Bambi • Marjorie Benton Cooke
... Hall the saint may chide, The sinner may scoff outright, The Bacchanal steep'd in the flagon's tide, Or the sensual Sybarite; But NOLAN'S name will flourish in fame, When our galloping days are past, When we go to the place from whence we came, Perchance to find ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... sister, shout! Yes, my Lord; My sister she's er shoutin' Caze she hyears sweet Jordan roll. "Oh, moan, you monahs, moan! Yes, my Lord; De monahs sobbin' an' er weepin', Fur ter hyear sweet Jordan roll. "Oh, scoff, you scoffers, scoff! Yes, my Lord; Dem sinners wat's er scoffin' ...
— Diddie, Dumps, and Tot • Louise-Clarke Pyrnelle
... fleshless face of fear-painted death! Is that Voltaire? He who, with wit, thought to shear the Son of God of all His beams?—with wit, to loosen the dreadful fastenings of the Cross?—with wit, to scoff at Him who hung thereon, while the blood and water came from the wound in His blessed side?—with wit, to drive away those Shadows of Angels, that were said to have rolled off the stone from the mouth of the sepulchre of ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... came with better grace from those who had the power to enforce them; and, with a brutal scoff, the Croatian bade her merit their indulgence by frank discoveries and voluntary confessions. He insisted on knowing the nature of the connection which the imperial colonel of horse, Maximilian, had maintained with the students of Klosterheim; and upon other ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... they might open the Negroes' eyes to the hitherto forbidden glories of modern civilization and take care that the spiritual was not lost sight of in the new maze of world wonders. Withered indeed must be the soul that could scoff at such moral heroism, and yet that is just what Mr. Dixon does. He suggests that the people who produced a Washington and a Jefferson hardly needed missionaries to perform work among the Negroes ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs
... through the errors or crimes of its advocates variously—probably quite as much as through the brazen, gross, and licentious wickedness of its enemies. Alas! what is it but a mutilated, feeble, discordant, and half-expiring instrument, at which Satan and his children, legally and illegally, scoff! Of ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... line of the surrounding buildings. It seemed at that moment to stand as a symbol of the life of the Mother Country, a life fenced in by convention, by forms and ceremonies sanctified to every Englishman by centuries of association; forms at which he may at times smile or scoff, but which he would no sooner demolish than he would tear away the clustering ivy which clothes his walls. Before him lay the broad river, its mouth widening to the sea: to that free, untrammelled waste of waters, which were a fit symbol ...
— Flaming June • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... Bostock's. It was a record Christmas for Bostock's. The electric cars were thundering over the frozen streets of all the Five Towns to bring customers to Bostock's. Children dreamt of Bostock's. Fathers went to scoff and remained to pay. Brunt's was not exactly alarmed, for nothing could alarm Brunt's; but there was just a sort of suspicion of something in the air at Brunt's that did not make for odious self-conceit. People seemed to become intoxicated ...
— The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... now hear them, as becomes men with such feelings, express more cheering and bolder hopes rising from a confidence in the supremacy of justice,—hopes which, however the Tyrant from the iron fortresses of his policy may scoff at them and at those who entertained them, will render their memory dear to all good men, when his name will ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... precepts and the Prophet's versus. The sinner was a scrupulous follower in the presence of the faithful; but when their backs were turned, I know few who relished a porker more lusciously, or avoided water with more scrupulous care. Yet why should I scoff at poor Ali? Joseph and I had done our ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... dare say, But when we took you in our team to play 'Twas for your bowling. I don't want to scoff At chance bad luck, but you have not come off! Now, BALFOUR doesn't give "no balls" and "wides," Or make it hot for knuckles, shins, and sides, As you've been doing lately. "Extras" mount When you are bowling, and your blunders count To ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, August 16, 1890 • Various
... you were slain. You boast of your strength and power. See, you follow the motion of my hand, as a dog would. See, you kneel before me, and prostrate yourself in the dust at my feet, at my bidding. Lie there, and think well whether you are able to scoff any more. You kneeled to the king of your own will; you kneel to me at mine, and though you had the strength of a hundred men, you must kneel there till I ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... "Practically that. Don't scoff—please. You see, there's a big future in this business. My father growled at first, but he's come clean around. The land was mine, and we are using it this way. The American public are going in for this thing. They want amusement and they want it quick. And the thing is to provide them with ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... is man That thou art mindful of him! Though in creation's van, Lord, what is man! He wills less than he can, Lets his ideal scoff him! Lord, what is man That thou art mindful ...
— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... multitudinous changes; in fact, without change, we could have no cognisance of our surroundings, we should have no consciousness of living. We have become so accustomed to certain sensations that we are apt to take them, as facts, and scoff at the suggestion that they are non-realities. I propose, however, to show that what we perceive are not Realities, and true conception of our surroundings depends upon the knowledge which we can bring to bear to interpret the meaning of these sensations. It is only in response ...
— Science and the Infinite - or Through a Window in the Blank Wall • Sydney T. Klein
... honest doubters whose sincerity we recognize and respect, but occasionally I find young men who think it smart to be skeptical; they talk as if it were an evidence of larger intelligence to scoff at creeds and to refuse to connect themselves with churches. They call themselves "Liberal," as if a Christian were narrow minded. Some go so far as to assert that the "advanced thought of the world" has discarded the idea that there is a God. To these ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... to scoff and jeer whenever Geraint's name was spoken. 'The Prince is no knight,' they said. 'The robbers spoil his land and carry off his cattle, but he neither cares nor fights. He does nothing but wait on the ...
— Stories of King Arthur's Knights - Told to the Children by Mary MacGregor • Mary MacGregor
... garden came a rushing wind Thundering a paean as of victory. Then that dead man came forth . . . oh, Claudia, If thou couldst but have seen the face of him! Never was such a conqueror! Yet no pride Was in it . . . naught but love and tenderness, Such as we Romans scoff at, and his eyes Bespake him royal. Oh, my Claudia, Surely he was no ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... newspaper writer, who speaks to and for the million; he simply scorns every Christian precept. How can he but scorn a thing so unpractical? Nay, I notice that he is already throwing off the hypocrisy hitherto thought decent. I read newspaper articles which sneer and scoff at those who venture to remind the world that, after all, it nominally owes allegiance to a Christian ideal. Our prophets begin openly to proclaim that self-interest and the hardest materialism are our only safe guides. Now and then such passages amaze, appal ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... among the maidens, Gay with paint and decked with feathers, She would look on him with kindness That the others might not scoff him; She would smile upon his weakness, Though she did ...
— The White Doe - The Fate of Virginia Dare • Sallie Southall Cotten
... Unrighteousness, among the magistrates of the Gentiles, and among their mighty men; and it shall come to pass that Darsie Latimer shall be delivered, even if it were at the expense of half my substance." And I said, "Nay, my brother, go not, for they will but scoff at and revile thee; but hire with thy silver one of the scribes, who are eager as hunters in pursuing their prey, and he shall free Darsie Latimer from the men of violence by his cunning, and thy soul shall be guiltless of evil towards the lad." ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... body, every power of my soul, gasps to mock you—you Gracious Monster on High. I tell you, I would, if I could, breathe it into every human soul, every flower, every leaf, every dewdrop in the garden! I tell you, I would scoff you on the day of doom, and curse the teeth out of my mouth for the sake of your Deity's boundless miserableness! I tell you from this hour I renounce all thy works and all thy pomps! I will execrate my thought if it dwell on you again, and ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... Here, then, poor Rip was brought to a stand. He again called and whistled after his dog; he was only answered by the cawing of a flock of idle crows, sporting high in air about a dry tree that overhung a sunny precipice; and who, secure in their elevation, seemed to look down and scoff at the poor man's perplexities. What was to be done? the morning was passing away, and Rip felt famished for want of his breakfast. He grieved to give up his dog and gun; he dreaded to meet his wife; but it would not do to starve among the mountains. He shook ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... at Angelo for marrying Rosalina but he began to hang about his discarded mistress again and scoff at her choice of a husband. But Rosalina gave him the cold shoulder, with the result that he became more and more insulting to Angelo. Finally one day our client made up his mind not to stand it any longer, secured a revolver, sought out Tomasso in his barber shop and put a bullet through ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train
... denunciation await that man who stands unawed before it, seeing in it but an ugly little idol. And I guess what will be dealt out to him who not only refuses to bow the head, but openly scoffs. And yet I am going to scoff and say ugly words about this fetish of ours. I am going to say that it represents ignorance, hides and causes hypocrisy, stands in the way of progress, drags low the standard of individual excellence, perpetuates ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 2, April 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various
... whispered aside in her delicate ear, A sentence of warning,—it might be of fear: "Don't stand in a draught, if you value your life." (Nothing more,—such advice might be given your wife Or your sweetheart, in times of bronchitis and cough, Without mystery, romance, or frivolous scoff.) But hark to the music: the dance has begun. The closely-draped windows wide open are flung; The notes of the piccolo, joyous and light, Like bubbles burst forth on the warm summer night. Round ...
— East and West - Poems • Bret Harte
... I've got an appetite. I could scoff iron-filings an' horseshoe nails an' thank you kindly, ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London
... cheeks as she spoke, and Wilhelm was not sufficiently blase to scoff at the doting nonsense of a love-sick woman. Love has enormous power, and at its heat all firmness, all resistance, melts away. Pilar's affection filled Wilhelm with heartfelt emotion and gratitude. He denied himself the right ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... elaborate finishing schools in which the daughters of rich people are turned into hothouse plants by sycophants and parasites and sent out into the world the most perfect specimens of superautocracy, to patronize their parents, scoff at discipline, ignore duty and demand the sort of luxury that brought Rome to its fall. With admiration and amusement she watched her say good-by to one woman after another as the various tables broke up. It really gave her quite a moment to see the way ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... Espouscado, is a bitterly indignant protest against those who would suppress the dialect, against the regents and the rectors whom "we must pay with our pennies to hear them scoff at the language that binds us to our fathers and our soil!" And the poet cries out, "No, no, we'll keep our rebellious langue d'oc, grumble who will. We'll speak it in the stables, at harvest-time, among the silkworms, among lovers, among neighbors, etc., etc. It shall be the language ...
— Frederic Mistral - Poet and Leader in Provence • Charles Alfred Downer
... training quarters, innumerable times; and this continues so long that by the time the "group" is ready for the stage, behold! the cubs with which the patient and tireless trainer began have grown so large that to the audience they now seem like adult and savage animals. Those who scoff at the wild animal mind, and say that all this displays nothing but "machines in fur" need to be reminded that this very same line of effort in training and rehearsal is absolutely necessary in the production ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... considerable deliberation. He had argued with himself and had made up his mind to find out for himself just what these people did. He was finding out, certainly. His motives were good and he had come with no desire to scoff, but, for the life of him, he could not help feeling like a criminal. Incidentally, it provoked him ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... At church with meek and unaffected grace, His looks adorn'd the venerable place; Truth from his lips prevail'd with double sway, And fools who came to scoff remain'd to pray. The service past, around the pious man, With steady zeal each honest rustic ran; E'en children follow'd with endearing wile, And pluck'd his gown to share the good man's smile. His ready smile a parent's warmth exprest, ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... how hard it is to climb The steep where Fame's proud temple shines afar? Ah! who can tell how many a soul sublime Has felt the influence of malignant star, And waged with Fortune an eternal war— Check'd by the scoff of Pride, by Envy's frown, And Poverty's unconquerable bar— In life's low vale remote has pined alone, Then dropp'd into the ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... sign of the times, that it has been permitted to exist for one day. It appears to me, my Father, that the days of your sway are numbered in Spain; that you will not be permitted much longer to plunder her, to scoff at her, and to scourge her with scorpions, as in bygone periods. See I not the hand on the wall? See I not in yonder letters a 'Mene, mene, Tekel, Upharsin'? Look to ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... completed, When the wondrous tale was ended, Looking round upon his listeners, Solemnly Iagoo added: "There are great men, I have known such, Whom their people understand not, Whom they even make a jest of, Scoff and jeer at in derision. From the story of Osseo Let us learn the ...
— The Song Of Hiawatha • Henry W. Longfellow
... the Temple of Nemesis has been opened again," answered Socrates. "Aristophanes has never been ingenuous hitherto; now he is so with a vengeance. Very well, Aristophanes, I sympathise with you that you can no more scoff at me. I pardon you, but I cannot help you to stage your comedies. That is asking too much. Now I follow ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg
... beings, who, unseen themselves, may yet be surveying our conduct. St. Paul charges Timothy by the elect Angels[2]; and elsewhere he declares that the Apostles were made "a spectacle unto the world, and to Angels, and to men[3]." Are we then afraid to follow what is right, lest the world should scoff? rather let us be afraid not to follow it, because God sees us, and Christ, and the holy Angels. They rejoice over one sinner that repenteth; how must they mourn over those who fall away! What interest, surely, is excited among them, by ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VII (of 8) • John Henry Newman
... dead, Flick-Flack, if it had not been for you and me," said Cigarette, while she wetted his lips with more brandy. "Ah, bah! and he would be more grateful, Flick-Flack, for a scornful scoff from Milady!" ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... nothing, for I know what thou would'st say. I have said it to myself many times already. Oh! wo is me! too late! too late! But I have come hither, now, upon a brief and a pleasant errand. For it is pleasant, let them scoff who will! I say, it is pleasant to do right, let what may come of it. Would God, that ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... what am I? The victim of infidelity and you, the bearer of a cursed existence, the scoff and scorn of the world, the monument of a broken vow and a guilty life, a being scourged by the scorpion lash of conscience, blasted by periodical insanity, pelted by the winter's storm, scorched by the summer's heat, withered by ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... by Plato to an ideal or imaginary one, is very singular to us. The most extreme democracy of modern times has never thought of leaving government wholly to chance. It was natural that Socrates should scoff at it, and ask, 'Who would choose a pilot or carpenter or flute-player by lot' (Xen. Mem.)? Yet there were many considerations which made this mode of choice attractive both to the oligarch and to the democrat:—(1) It seemed ...
— Laws • Plato
... are many ignorant people who would scoff at such a matter, and call it superstition. But you will always notice that they are people who have never traveled with a gray mare and a preacher. I went down the river once in such company. We grounded at Bloody Island; we grounded at Hanging Dog; we grounded ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... to me since we've come to be such close neighbors. But"—with a note of solemn warning in her voice—"you must never forget that she's an Episcopalian, a lost soul, dead in forms and ceremonies and trespasses and sins." So his mother scoffed at Ardea's faith; and Ardea—no, she did not scoff, her contempt was too generous for that; but it was there, just the same. And the Methodists fellowshiped neither, and the Baptists excluded the Methodists, and the Catholics retorted to the Protestant ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... all other truths, must slowly win its way to general acceptance. While large numbers of people still scoff at it, even as the world not so very long ago scoffed at hypnotism as a fantastic theory with no foundation in fact, there is nevertheless a large and rapidly growing number who personally know the truth about clairvoyance. There is every conceivable grade of clairvoyant power ...
— Elementary Theosophy • L. W. Rogers
... to feel that yore own strength Has cleaved fur you the way To heights to which you were not born, But struggled day by day. What though the thousands sneer an' scoff, An' scorn yore humble birth? Kings are but puppets; you are king ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... tell you, but I cannot hide it. My poor mother denies herself the consolation of religion—never addresses herself to Heaven in prayer—never opens the book of Life and Truth—never enters church. In her own mistaken way she has brought up poor little Jennet, who has been taught to make a scoff at religious truths and ordinances, and has never been suffered to keep holy the Sabbath-day. Happy and thankful am I, that no such evil lessons have been taught me, but rather, that I have profited by the sad example. ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... daughter from the only assistance which I ever had; deprived by time of my patron and friends; a kind of stranger in a new world, where curiosity is now diverted to other objects, and where, having no means of ingratiating my labours, I stand the single votary of an obsolete science, the scoff of ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... lake, which other people thought so lovely, was, in that mind which affected to scoff at the unseen, a ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... What would I have? Is it my intention or my desire to make her wretched? What! Sink her whom I adore in the estimation of the world; and render her the scoff of the foolish, the vain, and the malignant?—I!—I ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... respect, esteem, and affection, as a divine and Christian gentleman, and cherish his past relations to me, yet I have in these letters written to him, and of him, just as I would have done had he lived in France or Germany, a stranger to me, and given to the world the refined scoff of the one, or the muddy transcendentalism ...
— Slavery Ordained of God • Rev. Fred. A. Ross, D.D.
... separation destroy that greatness. Once disunited, we are no longer great. The nations of the earth who have looked upon you as a formidable Power, and rising to untold and immeasurable greatness in the future, will scoff at you. Your flag, that now claims the respect of the world, that protects American property in every port and harbor of the world, that protects the rights of your citizens everywhere, what will become of it? What becomes of its glorious influence? It is gone; and with it the protection ...
— American Eloquence, Volume III. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various
... continued Monsieur Bernard paying no attention to the expression in Godefroid's eyes, "even I, a child of the eighteenth century, fed on Voltaire, Diderot, Helvetius,—I, a son of the Revolution, who scoff at all that antiquity and the middle-ages tell us of demoniacal possession,—well, monsieur, I affirm that nothing but such possession can explain the condition of my child. As a somnambulist she has never been able to tell us the cause of her sufferings; she has never perceived it, and all ...
— The Brotherhood of Consolation • Honore de Balzac
... certain people always grow splenetic— Why, goodness knows—at everything pathetic, And scoff it down. We all know how, of late, An unfledged, upstart undergraduate Presumed, with brazen insolence, to declare That "William ...
— Love's Comedy • Henrik Ibsen
... we be true children of those old worthies, whom Tacitus saw worshipping beneath the German oaks; we shall have but one answer to that scoff:— ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... Deity to whom you ascribe unlimited power, and from whom you say you receive life and everything. An eastern despot would take off the heads of those who treated him in such a style; and a republican politician would scoff at the idea of giving office to such lukewarm followers. Why, here in Christian Chicago the will of God is no more heeded by the majority than that of the Emperor of China, and the Bible might as well be the Koran. Looking ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... William Knox and of —- Sinclair, his wife, {2a} unlike most Scotsmen, unlike even Mr. Carlyle, had not "an ell of pedigree." The common scoff was that each Scot styled himself "the King's poor cousin." But John Knox declared, "I am a man of base estate and condition." {2b} The genealogy of Mr. Carlyle has been traced to a date behind the Norman Conquest, but of Knox's ancestors nothing is known. He himself, in 1562, when he "ruled ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang
... 'Ho! for the voyage to Stupid Land,' The captain cried, with a terrible noise, As he seized the frightened and struggling boys And threw them into the dark ship's hold; And off and away sailed the captain bold. They vainly begged him to let them out, He answered only with scoff and shout. 'Boys that don't study or work,' said he, 'Must sail one day down the Ignorant Sea To Stupid Land by the No-Book Strait, With Captain Time on ...
— Poems of Purpose • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... Yourselves devilishly greedy for profits, yet you scoff at us because we go chasing after business. You fetch heaps of money across the sea, and then turn up your sublimely snuffing ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... rather triumph over me, than keep my secret. Mr. Lovelace, whose pride already so ill brooks my regrets for meeting him, (when he thinks, if I had not, I must have been Mr. Solmes's wife,) would perhaps treat me with indignity: and thus, deprived of all refuge and protection, I should become the scoff of men of intrigue; a disgrace to my sex—while that avowed loved, however indiscreetly shown, which is followed by marriage, will find more excuses made for it, than generally ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... But I wasn't able to tell you that. You had begun by saying that you believed in palmistry, and then you proceeded to scoff at it. While you scoffed I saw myself as a man with a terribly good reason for NOT scoffing; and in a flash I saw the terribly good reason; I had the whole story—at least I had the broad outlines ...
— A. V. Laider • Max Beerbohm
... our allies the affair may appear a trifle, father; and such white planters as cannot refuse to hear the tidings may scoff at them; but Jean Francais, a negro and a slave—is it possible that ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... her reckoning, that she feels her self quick, and begins to provide and take care for the Childs and Child-bed linnen. Then you need not fear the turning of the tide, or that a mischance will happen; wherewith all people, seeing no other issue, laugh and scoff unmeasurably; and think that the Midwife hath been greased in the fist (as it oftentimes happens) because she should say, that it was a full created child, and no collection of ill humors, or ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh
... it, of course they will. You surely cannot suppose I should, in cold blood, sit down to write a story in which nobody was to fall in love or be in love! Sir, scoff as you may, love is the one vital principle in all romance. Not only does your cheek flush and your eye sparkle, till "heart, brain, and soul are all on fire," over the burning words of some Brontean ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... this solemn hour, if it were only by repeating the Pater Noster and Ave Maria. Carbajal, to rid himself of the ghostly father's importunity, replied by coolly repeating the words, "Pater Noster," "Ave Maria"! He then remained obstinately silent. He died, as he had lived, with a jest, or rather a scoff, upon ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... been one of those That danced for bread in flesh-color'd hose, With Rosina's pastora bevy, The jeers it had met,—the shouts! the scoff! The cutting advice to "take itself off" For sounding but ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... scoff at all things it may be a great amusement to detect the secret of a woman, to know that her chastity is a lie, that her calm face hides some anxious thought, that under that pure brow is a dreadful drama. But there are other souls to whom the sight is saddening; and many of ...
— Ferragus • Honore de Balzac
... That's your motto, is it? Well, that's sense. Now, look here, ma'am, I ain't beautiful like you; but I'm good, and I'll give you warrant for it. Get me a noggin of rum, and suthin' to scoff, and a penny pipe, and a half-a-foot of baccy; and there's a guinea for the reckoning. There's plenty more in the locker; so bear a hand, and be smart. I don't like waiting; it ain't my way. (Exit MRS. DRAKE, R. PEW sits at the table, R. The settle ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XV • Robert Louis Stevenson
... play such pranks to draw people who scoff? It is They to whose critical words you are deaf. Though in your country you are not a prophet, is This how you make one, that's spelt ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, April 9th, 1892 • Various
... of one-half; but above all, the interest and principal of such bonds to the planters could have been paid in coin, and a specie circulation thus been made, instead of the fatal and endless paper issues that rendered Confederate credit a scoff, and weakened the confidence of the southern people in the ability and integrity ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... attempt to turn aside this appeal which I now make to you with a laugh or a sneer. This is the Lord's word, and the word of the Lord is not to be put aside with a sneer. Do not scoff at this as a water of salvation. You certainly will not scoff at the ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler
... of war; yet the pirates, fighting with the bravery of desperate men, were victorious, and the city fell into their hands. Then followed days of murder, plunder, and debauchery. Morgan saw his followers, maddened by liquor, scoff at the idea of discipline and obedience. Fearing that while his men were helplessly drunk the Spaniards would rally and cut them to pieces, he set fire to the city, that the stores of rum might be destroyed. After sacking the town, the vandals packed ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... the people came to "believe a lie." He will, not unnaturally, indulge in a little sarcasm, when he comes to consider the occupation of Southern professors of ethics, compelled by their position to scoff at the "rights" of man, and Southern professors of theology, compelled by their position to teach that Christ came into the world, not so much to save sinners, as to enslave negroes. He will be forced to class these among ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... Then he tried to scoff these thoughts away and when they would not leave him, he called himself a simpleton, scolded himself for his fastidious taste, and resolved to start ...
— The Silver Lining - A Guernsey Story • John Roussel
... a woman, scoundrel! You killed a boy! (His Wife sobs. Man softly strokes her hair with his trembling hand) Don't cry, my dear, don't cry. He will scoff at our tears, just as He scoffed at our prayers. And you—I don't know who you are—God, Devil, Fate, or Life—I ...
— Savva and The Life of Man • Leonid Andreyev
... de load en fergit de distress, En dem w'at stan's by ter scoff, For de harder de pullin', de longer de res', En de bigger ...
— Uncle Remus • Joel Chandler Harris
... religious gravity and decorum. If we went out, the make-believe continued even in the street; the two hermits would say the Rosary, using their fingers to count on, so as not to display their devotion before those who might scoff. One day, however, the hermit Therese forgot herself—before eating a cake, given her for lunch, she made a large Sign of the Cross, and some worldly folk ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)
... oh Muse, if it be right to esteem the most honest and illustrious of our comic writers at his proper value, permit our poet to say that he thinks he has deserved a glorious renown. First of all, 'tis he who has compelled his rivals no longer to scoff at rags or to war with lice; and as for those Heracles, always chewing and ever hungry, those poltroons and cheats who allow themselves to be beaten at will, he was the first to cover them with ridicule and to chase them from ...
— Peace • Aristophanes
... well-known affection of the rural mind in England; and if in one half it points to an infirmity not far off from legendary superstition, in the other half it wears the grace of chivalry and legendary romance. Any malignant scoff, therefore, against the peerage of England, such as calling the House of Lords a Hospital of Incurables, has always been a town-bred scurrility, not only never adopted by the simple rural laborer, but not even known to him, or distinctly intelligible ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey
... that with the same natures, the same passions, the same understandings, no better proof against deception, we, like they, are not entangled in what, at the close of another era, shall seem again ridiculous? The scoff of Cicero at the divinity of Liber and Ceres (bread and wine) may be translated literally by the modern Protestant; and the sarcasms which Clement and Tertullian flung at the Pagan creed, the modern sceptic returns upon their own. Of what ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... great vigour. Such had been the case with Mrs Winterfield. No woman ever lived, perhaps, with more conscientious ideas of her duty as a woman than Mrs Winterfield of Prospect Place, Perivale. And this, as I say it, is intended to convey no scoff against that excellent lady. She was an excellent lady unselfish, given to self-restraint, generous, pious, looking to find in her religion a safe path through life a path as safe as the facts of Adam's fall would allow her feet to find. She was a woman fearing much for ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope
... worship, mother mine. A great curiosity drew me—I desired to see with my own eyes, and hear with mine own ears, this adoration of the Christ, at which my teachers scoff. But I was caught up in a mighty wave of organ-music that surged from this low earth heavenwards to break against the footstool of God in the crystal firmament. And suddenly I knew what my soul was pining for. I knew the meaning of that restless craving that has ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... from the cities, in a lone place where none came to scoff or criticize. When it was finished, I took my place and sealed the port by which I had entered. The Adventurer spurned the Earth beneath its cradles, and in the middle of the Twenty-second century, as time is computed on Earth, man ...
— The God in the Box • Sewell Peaslee Wright
... can scoff at them, may scoff at me. Such are we, that the giver of all good Shall, in the heart he purifies, possess The latest love—the earliest—no, not there! I've known the firm and faithful—even from these Life's eddying spring shed the first bloom on earth. I pity them, ...
— Count Julian • Walter Savage Landor
... defence! It weakens, not defends; and oversea Swoln France's despot and his myrmidons This moment know it, and can scoff thereat. Our people know it too—those who can peer Behind the scenes of this poor painted show Called soldiering!—The Act has failed, must fail, As my right honourable friend well proved When speaking t'other night, whose silencing By his right honourable vis a vis ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... because thou hear'st Men scoff at Heaven and Fate, Because the Gods thou fear'st Fail to make blest thy state, Tremblest, and wilt not dare to trust the ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... caitiff hound, A reptile fool, is he who fawns on men Before their faces, while his heart is black With malice, and, when they be gone, his tongue Backbites them. Openly Polydamas Flung back upon the prince his taunt and scoff: "O thou of living men most mischievous! Thy valour—quotha!—brings us misery! Thine heart endures, and will endure, that strife Should have no limit, save in utter ruin Of fatherland and people for thy ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus
... Let the scoffer scoff on, while I hereby proclaim, That flight may be courage, and fear but a name; That boasting is good, when 'tis good for the cause, But, in sight of cold steel, we should honour the laws; That powder and shot ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... every call, He watch'd and wept, he pray'd and felt for all; At church, with meek and unaffected grace, His looks adorn'd the venerable place; Truth from his lips prevail'd with double sway, And fools, who came to scoff, remain'd to pray. The service past, around the pious man, With steady zeal, each honest rustic ran; Ev'n children followed with endearing wile, And pluck'd his gown, to share the good man's smile. His ready smile a parent's warmth ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... and for loud hymns, Chanted by kneeling multitudes, the wind Shrieks in the solitary aisles. When he Who gives his life to guilt, and laughs at all The laws that God or man has made, and round Hedges his seat with power, and shines in wealth,— Lifts up his atheist front to scoff at Heaven, And celebrates his shame in open day, Thou, in the pride of all his crimes, cutt'st off The horrible example. Touched by thine, The extortioner's hard hand foregoes the gold Wrung from the o'er-worn poor. The perjurer, Whose tongue was lithe, e'en now, and voluble Against his ...
— Poems • William Cullen Bryant
... of the race will scoff and say they never heard of such a thing as a singing and religious red man. Those who know him well will say, "Yes, but you have given to your eastern Indian songs and ceremonies which belong to the western tribes, and which are of ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... and ceased to scoff. Money is a great dignifier, and Jim and 'Lias were making money. There had been some sniffs when the latter had hinged the front gate and whitewashed his mother's cabin, but even that had been accepted now as ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... because thou hear'st Men scoff at Heaven and Fate; Because the gods thou fear'st Fail to make blest thy state, Tremblest, and wilt not dare to ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... "You scoff already, senor? But will you, at these stains of blood? Then let me say to you, senor mio, they make me remember one shameless deed for which the ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... myself, Steve," he cried. "It wasn't for what I might get out of it, or—or what it might bring me, I used to scoff at whatever others considered big and fine and clean, but I played it straight, just the same. I played it as well as I knew how—straighter than you'd believe. I thought it would make her happier, because I tried that hard. And she . . . Steve, if I had been a woman—a woman ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... [smile] [scowl], and a [glass] [howl], and a [toast] [scoff], and a [cheer] [sneer], For all [the good wine, and we've some of it here] [strychnine and whiskey, and ratsbane and beer] In cellar, in pantry, in attic, in hall, [Long live the gay servant that laughs for us ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... him in a vision world; but across the clearness of the vision now somehow obtruded the quiet cynicism, the genial scoff of the Senator's arguments, leaving fierce physical unrest and confused cross-currents of desire. A mist seemed to blurr all life. The hemlocks no longer chanted riotous gladness. There was a dirge to-night of futility, ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... to have added fuel to the flame. You were to have presented Matilda to my arms, more beautiful, more tender, more kind, than she had ever appeared. From this moment then, let the name of trust be a by-word for the profligate to scoff at! Let the epithet of friend be a mildew to the chaste and uncorrupted ear! Let mutual confidence be banished from the earth, and men, more savage than the brute, ...
— Italian Letters, Vols. I and II • William Godwin
... New York state there are many men who think they "know," who indignantly scoff at the idea that our shore birds need a five-year close season to help save them from annihilation. The writer's appeal for this at a recent convention of the New York State Fish, Game and Forest League fell upon deaf ears, and ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... the temple laid His desperate hands, and in its overthrow Destroyed himself, and with him those who made A cruel mockery of his sightless woe; The poor, blind Slave, the scoff and jest of all, Expired, and ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... their tea alone, nor could they talk of any other subject than madame, and her most unexpected call for Doctor Moran's services." It was always the Dutch Doctor Gansvoort she had before," said Mrs. Moran; "and she was ever ready to scoff at all others, as pretenders.—I do wonder what keeps your ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... prefer to take the risks, and remain chief of the guard yourself?" she said with an angry scoff. "Truly there did not seem to be many thrusting forward to strip you of the office. I shall have a fine sorting up of places in payment for this night's work. But for the ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... Candide to some young schoolmaster who thinks the only thing worth knowing is the date of the Battle of Salamis. So I returned to S. Alfio and asked whether he always answers all prayers; they said the people believe he does or they hope he will. One of them, thinking I was inclined to scoff, ...
— Castellinaria - and Other Sicilian Diversions • Henry Festing Jones
... a tendency to scoff, or to laugh, at the eugenic movement. It was regarded as an attempt to breed men as men breed animals, and it was thought a sufficiently easy task to sweep away this new movement with the remark that love laughs at bolts and bars. It is now beginning to be better understood. None ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... shall see Jesus Christ face to face, and have your whole outer and inner history, as it is known to God, minutely revealed to your own mind, and to the assembled jury of the universe? Will your thinking, or saying, that the whole is a fiction, make it so? Will your scoff at God's revelation of the future prevent the dead from rising, or the Judge from appearing? Will a foolish jest, or a proud callousness, or a subtle argument, or a brave indifference to what others fear, enable you, on the resurrection ...
— Parish Papers • Norman Macleod
... Doctor Watson. We are wont to scoff in a patronizing manner at that humble follower of the great investigator; but as a matter of fact we should have been just as dull ourselves. We should not even have risen to the modest height of ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... skies. Yet o'er her bright and beauteous brow Shade after shade is passing now, Like clouds across the pale moon glancing, As thought on rapid thought advancing, Thrills through the maiden's trembling breast, Not doubting, and yet not at rest. Not doubting! Man may turn away And scoff at shrines, where yesterday He knelt, in earnest faith, to pray, And wealth may lose its charm for him, And fame's alluring star grow dim, Devotion, avarice, glory, all The pageantries of earth may pall; But love is of a higher birth ...
— Mazelli, and Other Poems • George W. Sands
... his club. Then, coming to the middle of the bridge, the giant's great weight broke it down, and he tumbled headlong into the water, where he rolled and wallowed like a whale. Jack, standing by the moat, laughed at him all the while; but though the giant foamed to hear him scoff, and plunged from place to place in the moat, yet he could not get out to be revenged. Jack at length got a cart rope and cast it over the two heads of the giant and drew him ashore by a team of horses, and then cut off both his heads with his sword ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... conforming to the older ideals are recognized as exceptional. The city draws the village and rural family to itself, and the contagion of its customs and ideals spreads through the villages and affects the forms of living there. Youths become city dwellers and do not cease to scoff at the village unless later years give them wisdom to appreciate its higher values. The standard of domestic organization is established by the city; that type of living is the ideal toward which nearly all ...
— Religious Education in the Family • Henry F. Cope
... steady gaze?— Was there a look that harshly fell To scoff her?—or a syllable Of anger?—or the bitter phrase That myrrhs the honey of love's lips, Or curdles blood as poison drips? What made their breasts to heave and swell As billows under bows of ships In broken seas on stormy days? We may not ...
— Green Fields and Running Brooks, and Other Poems • James Whitcomb Riley
... ear. The very act of advising to the commission of a crime is of itself unlawful. The presumption of law is that advice has the influence and effect intended by the adviser, unless it is shown to have been otherwise; as that the counsel was received with scoff, or was manifestly rejected and ridiculed at the time it was given. It was said in the argument that Jewett's abandoned and depraved character furnishes ground to believe that he would have committed ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker
... wished also to deprive the freemen of their guild qualification. Lord Palmerston had no relish for the subject. His predilections, in fact, leaned in quite the opposite direction. If his manner was genial, his temper was conservative, and he was inclined to smile, if not to scoff, at politicians who met such problems of government with other than a light heart. He was therefore inclined at this juncture to adopt Lord Melbourne's attitude, and to meet Lord John with that statesman's famous remark, 'Why can't you let ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... uninterrupted labour. Men spoke of his eccentricity, of his ignorance of the world, of his neglect of all the customs of society, of the disgrace he cast on the artist's profession by his dress, which was beneath his station, and by his frugality, which was almost penury. He cared nothing for scoff and reproach. Regardless of the world's comments, he gave himself up to his art. Unweariedly did he haunt the galleries; hour after hour, day after day, he stood before the works of the great masters, striving ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... races is sought to be destroyed, through misleading appeals to the weaknesses and prejudices of readers; writings in which the violation of actual truth cannot, save by stark stupidity, be attributed to innocent error; writings that scoff at humanitarian feeling and belittle the importance of achievements resulting therefrom; writings which strike at the root of national manliness, by eulogizing brute force directed against weaker folk as a fit and legitimate mode of securing the ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas
... colouring it by the lights of his wonderful fancy, until at last it became something quite different from the original paradox, and full of truth and wisdom. But when such a paradox went off in a letter, there it remained unqualified; and they who, not having known him, scoff at his friends who claim for him the honours of a great critic, ...
— Old Familiar Faces • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... Would Plato scoff at such a formulation of the artist's mission? He would rather condemn it, as fostering illusion and falsehood in men's minds. But we moderns are perhaps more world-weary, less sanguine about ideal truth than the ancients. With one of our war poets, ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... blasted Paradise, and seek shelter in the lower world." But Carlyle held to the "banner with a strange device," and was either deaf or indignant. The visits passed, with satirical references from both host and hostess; for Mrs. Carlyle, who could herself abundantly scoff and scold, would allow the liberty to no one else. Jeffrey meanwhile was never weary of well-doing. Previous to his promotion as Lord Advocate and consequent transference to London, he tried to negotiate for Carlyle's appointment as his successor in the editorship of ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol
... you; You scoff even at your own calamity— And such calamity! how wert thou fallen 20 Son of the Morning! and ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... passing fair! As if a breath of spring Had permeated all the air, And touched each living thing With thankfulness for such a boon— Discounting with a scoff The almanac's report that "June Is yet ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard
... The doubter may scoff, and the pessimist may croak, but even they must take hope at the picture presented in the simple and touching incident of eight Grand Army veterans, with their silvery heads bowed in sympathy, escorting the lifeless body of ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various
... inextricable Gordian knot, which his sword could not divide. He dared not approach the Sacrament, he dared not pray, and sometimes he felt wild impulses to tread down in riotous despair every fragment of a religious belief which seemed to live in his heart only to torture him. He had heard priests scoff over the wafer they consecrated,—he had known them to mingle poison for rivals in the sacramental wine,—and yet God had kept silence and not struck them dead; and like the Psalmist of old he said, "Verily, I have cleansed my heart ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... second division—those who are seeking; some of you with more earnestness, some of you with less earnestness. But I believe that to-night, if I should ask all those who wish to find the way to heaven to rise, and the world did not scoff at you, and your own proud heart did not keep you down, there would be a thousand souls who would cry out as they rose up: "Show me the way to heaven!" That young man who smiled to the one next to him, as though he cared for none of these things, would be ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... had told him all about Thorberg, he did not scoff, nor laugh, nor take it seriously either. He just considered it, with one large hand grasping his beard. "Well," he said, "some people have the gift, there's no doubt, and if your Thorberg had it not, all her mummeries would avail her nothing. You set them up for ...
— Gudrid the Fair - A Tale of the Discovery of America • Maurice Hewlett
... how now, saucy Jade; Sure the Wench is tipsy! How can you see me made [To him.] The Scoff of such a Gipsy? Saucy ...
— The Beggar's Opera • John Gay
... Avenue, lined here with red brick dwellings and the sunny white bulk of the old Brevoort House. Far off, the sky-scrapers begin to loom, whipping out flags and steam plumes. It is a treeless vista, yet it is hazed with spring! Imagination, you scoff—and dust. Yet you look again, and it is not imagination, and it is not dust. It is the veil of spring, cast with delicate hand over the city. These laughing sight-seers atop the green 'bus now going under the arch feel it, too. These children screaming ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton
... knowledge in use: the knowledge of arms, and the knowledge of books. The first is the scoff if the wise, whilst the last is ...
— The Talking Beasts • Various
... three were impaled, you may know it didn't pass off So quietly as was wont? That Galilee carpenter's son Who boasted he was king, incensed the rabble to scoff: I heard the noise from my garden. This piece is the one he was on . . . Yes, it blazes up well if lit with a few dry chips and shroff; And it's worthless for much else, what with ...
— Late Lyrics and Earlier • Thomas Hardy
... kill them all if she could and if she dared. She never seeks the houses of the Busnees but for the purpose of prey; for the wild animals of the sierra do not more abhor the sight of man than she abhors the countenances of the Busnees. She now comes to prey upon you and to scoff at you. Will you believe her words? Fools! do you think that the being before ye has any sympathy for ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... and old gods are at strife; we dwell in the midst thereof, And they are but foolish who curse, and they are but shallow who scoff. Let hate die out, take rest, poor workers, be all at peace; Let the angry battle abate, and the barren bitterness cease! Ah, pleasant and pastoral picture! Thrice welcome whoever shall bring The sunshine of love ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, April 30, 1892 • Various
... perfectly that through all their lives her pupils never dissociated herself from the righteousness which she taught and upheld and practised. And this attitude was wholly good for girls born in a century when it was the fashion to sneer at hero-worship and to scoff at authority when the word obedience in the Marriage Service was accused of redundancy, and the custom of speaking evil of ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
... man in the broad-brimmed hat grew grave. Scoff as he might among the men of the district when the serious ones voiced their fears to him, his own thoughts always came back to those fears. From the Red River Valley to the foothills long-smouldering indignation was ...
— Deep Furrows • Hopkins Moorhouse
... religion. Suppose he had proved to the world's satisfaction that all religion is a hoax, and all men professing it are liars, how does that comfort me in my hour of sorrow? Scoffing will not sustain a man in his solitude, when he has nobody to scoff at; and disbelief is only a bottomless tub, which will not float me across the dark river. If Infidels intend to convert the world, they must give us some positive system of truth which we can ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... Quarter was only the Montparnasse Quarter. Nevertheless, it sufficed. It had its own boulevards, restaurants, cafes, concerts, theatres, palaces, shops, gardens, museums, and churches. There was no need to leave it, and if you were a proper amateur of the Quarter, you never did leave it save to scoff at other Quarters. Sometimes you fringed the Latin Quarter in the big cafes of the Boulevard St. Michel, and sometimes you strolled northwards as far as the Seine, and occasionally even crossed the Seine in order to enter the Louvre, which lined ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... throng! You, who dared in the dark eclipse,— When the pygmy heir of a giant name Dimmed the face of the land with shame,— Speak the truth with indignant lips, Call him little whom men called great, Scoff at him, scorn him, deny him, Point to the blood on his robe of state, Fling back ...
— Music and Other Poems • Henry van Dyke
... intention of disrespect, and begged her pardon for any words susceptible of such construction. It was evident that her interruption produced a most favorable impression upon Court, jury and spectators, and if any came to scoff at the weakness of the "woman attorney" they remained to admire the strength of the female advocate. The district attorney continued, warmed into greater determination to make a lasting impression upon the jury as to the guilt of ...
— An American Suffragette • Isaac N. Stevens
... the lie and made mock of him. Whilst this was going on, behold, up came a merchant riding on a she-mule and followed by two black slaves, and brake a way through the people, saying, "O folk, are ye not ashamed to mob this stranger and make mock of him and scoff at him?" And he went on to rate them, till he drave them away from Ma'aruf, and none could make him any answer. Then he said to the stranger, "Come, O my brother, no harm shall betide thee from these folk. Verily they have no shame."[FN18] So he took him and carrying him to a spacious and ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... For deservedly high as the whale-shallop ranks as a sea boat; still, in a severe storm, the larger your craft the greater your sense of security. Wherefore, the thousand reckless souls tenanting a line-of- battle ship scoff at the most awful hurricanes; though, in reality, they may be less safe in their wooden-walled Troy, than those who contend with ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... its worth, No matter how strong or clever, Some one will sneer if you pause to hear, And scoff at your best endeavour. For the target art has a broad expanse, And wherever you chance to hit it, Though close be your aim to the bull's-eye fame, There are those ...
— Poems of Sentiment • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... the patience to accompany me through these pages devoted to Miss Dickinson will surely own, whether in scoff or praise, the essentially American nature of her muse. Her defects are easily paralleled in the annals of English literature; but only in the liberal atmosphere of the New World, comparatively unshadowed by trammels of authority and standards of taste, could they have ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... 'Scoff and chafe, Baird, but look at his work. Look at Normandy, freed from misrule and exaction, in peace and order. Look at this land. Was ever king so loved? Or how durst he act ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... governed wholly by cold commonsense, and whose souls hold no spark of vitalizing imagination, scoff at moon-witchery and lunar madness. Let them declare that the earth's haunting satellite is merely a dead world which cannot even shine with its own light. Magic it does wield. And, just as it distorts and magnifies all ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... And then he fell to wondering if it really was a principle, after all. If so, it was evil overcoming evil. But would the world believe that both he and Rosendo had been cured by—what? Faith? True prayer? By the operation of a great, almost unknown principle? Or would it scoff at such ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... too, sir. Never did I behold a more obdurate heretic. He did not scruple to scoff ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... that Fyodor Pavlovitch was by no means touched, but, as usual, was beginning to scoff. At that moment Smerdyakov, who was standing by the door, smiled. Smerdyakov often waited at table towards the end of dinner, and since Ivan's arrival in our town he had done ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... process of educating public opinion in their favor was slow, for it is difficult to make men see that the children of a modern city have different needs from the country or village children of a generation ago. Men remember their own boyhood, and scoff at the idea of organized and supervised play in a made playground. Women have no memories of the old swimming-hole. They simply see the conditions before them, and they instinctively know what must ...
— What eight million women want • Rheta Childe Dorr
... I cannot get rid of at my pleasure, not a desire that I do not scoff at, not a hope that does not make me smile or laugh. I ask myself why I stir, why I go hither or thither, why I give myself the odious trouble of earning money, since it does not ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... Hast thou not said, 'Be virtuous, be good, be just, for the sake of mankind: but there is no life after this life'? Mankind! why should I love mankind? Hideous and misshapen, mankind jeer at me as I pass the streets. What hast thou done to me? Thou hast taken away from me, who am the scoff of this world, the hopes of another! Is there no other life? Well, then, I want thy gold, that at least I may hasten to make ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... the prince's father, of all noble sympathy and generous feeling. Doubtless, he also, whose blood received a mingling tide from his proud mother—he, the acknowledged focus of the kingdom's wealth and nobility, had been taught to repeat my father's name with disdain, and to scoff at my just claims to protection. I strove to think that all this grandeur was but more glaring infamy, and that, by planting his gold-enwoven flag beside my tarnished and tattered banner, he proclaimed not his superiority, but his debasement. ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... that you scoff? Verily, you do an unconsidered deed. When one remembers all the liquids, medicinal, soporific, insipid, poisonous, which flood the throat of humanity, one may deem himself a favorite of Fortune to be placed so high in the catalogue. Though upon his ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... were never to be realized. And perhaps all was for the best; for we are all creatures of circumstance. Not one in a thousand follows out his plans through life. Half of our existence is imaginary; and wise-acres may scoff as much as they please at what they term 'castle-building,' I believe all mankind indulge in it more or less; and it is an innocent, harmless pastime, which injures no one. I consider it the 'unwritten poetry,' the romance of life, which ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various
... dreams, to inspire him, as he calls it. He persuades women that they may do this for their own purpose whilst he really means them to do it for his. He steals the mother's milk and blackens it to make printer's ink to scoff at her and glorify ideal women with. He pretends to spare her the pangs of childbearing so that he may have for himself the tenderness and fostering that belong of right to her children. Since marriage began, the great artist has been known as ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... sides oppose him in the world: they come unsummoned to the room and will not be expelled; they peer over the shoulder, and tug at the hand which fain would write; they turn images upside down, and distort the thoughts; and here and there, from ceiling and wall, they grin, and scoff, and oppose: and what was just gushing as an aspiration from the soul, is converted to ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German (V.2) • Various |
