"White-livered" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... his 'Lives of the Lord Chancellors of Ireland', tells us that a member for Galway, attacking an opponent when he knew that his sister was present during the debate, denounced the whole family—"from the toothless old hag that is now grinning in the gallery, to the white-livered scoundrel that is shivering ...
— Cicero - Ancient Classics for English Readers • Rev. W. Lucas Collins
... Andrew, of Massachusetts, for having called out the militia promptly in the flurry of May 26th. After fairly exhausting its jeering and sneering on this subject, that portion of the Northern Fourth Estate which would be termed Satanic and traitorous were it not too utterly white-livered and cowardly to be complimented with such forcible indices of even bad character, had a cruel extinguisher clapped upon it on May 29th, by a letter to the Boston Journal from Lieutenant-Colonel Harrison Kitchie, A.D.C., in which Governor Andrew is most effectually ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... as well as a fool," he said afterwards in the bosom of his family; "a white-livered fool who hasn't the nerve to look at a ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... and white-livered, out of bed, I opened the door, and met one of the warders on the threshold. The man looked scared, and his lips, I noticed, were set ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... the Highlands; she meets beggars in her rides at Windsor; she writes verses in albums, or draws sketches, or is mistaken for the house-keeper by some blind old woman, or she runs up a hill as if she were a child. Who finds fault with these things? he would be a cynic, he would be white-livered, and would have gall for blood, who was not struck with this graceful, touching evidence of the love her subjects bear her. Who could have the head, even if he had the heart, who could be so cross and peevish, who ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... that loafer, Si Martin, his lazy wife, and their eight badly brought-up children, with instructions to be generous to any additions to said children through matrimony or natural causes; Fanny Wood and that poor, white-livered creature she married, thereby proving her own idiocy if it needed proof; Uncle James's cross-eyed third wife and her two silly daughters; Rebecca's sister's scoundrelly second husband, with his foolish wife and their little boy with a face like a pug dog; Uncle Jason, who has needed a ...
— At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern • Myrtle Reed
... black curs go," exclaimed the Professor as he polished his blue spectacles and mopped his face. "They are a white-livered lot of sneaks. Look! There she is, creeping off to the left. If we run round that sand-hill we shall ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... guess you know, all right," and Curly grinned. "She's pretty, isn't she? But she has no use for me. She prefers a white-livered sucker ...
— Glen of the High North • H. A. Cody
... will plant. Can fear strike a CAESAR—a Russian to boot? Can a ROMANOFF stoop to mere cowardly cant? Forbid it traditions of Muscovite pride! An Autocrat's place is the Conqueror's car, But he who that chariot in triumph would ride, Must not earn a name as the White-livered CZAR! ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 100, 13 June 1891 • Various
... out and shut up. Valencia's liver is whiter than paper; it's as Pastiri says. Brave enough when it comes to exploiting boobs like you and the other tramps and low lives,... but when he bucks up against a chap that's all there, hey? Bah! He's a white-livered wretch, that's what." ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... on the table and exploded. "Then sit here, damn ye! But why the hell should any one want to make friends with a white-livered pup like you? I thought you was Jack Beaudry's son, but I'll niver believe it. Jack didn't sit on a padded chair and talk about law and order. By God, no! He went out with a six-gun and made them. No gamer, whiter man ever strapped ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine
... a street drab of uncommon stature and powers of expression and command of expletive. Winding up a three-minute speech with the remark, "I could pick ye up and ate ye, only the taste would turn me stomach, you white-livered, blue-bellied son of a scut," the lady had to pause for breath, and the soldier looked up from under his hat-brim and mildly remarked, "Madam, you're prejudiced," whereat even some of her sympathizers forgot their rancor and roared with laughter, and the ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King
... and come to the point," urged the junior member of the firm impatiently. "It is no news to me that your brain is diseased and your heart rotten. What is it you want me to do? Calm yourself, you white-livered maniac. I gather that I am in some way to meddle with this mine. If I but had your head for my very own along with the sand in my craw, I'd tell you to go to hell. Having only brains enough to know what I am, I'm cursed by having to depend upon you. ...
— Copper Streak Trail • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... educational in character, he is frequently allured into a relapse. If a prisoner endeavours to behave himself in gaol and keep aloof from evil contagion, he is bullied by his fellow-prisoners, and even his keepers regard him with suspicion. The one twit him with being a white-livered coward, the other consider him to be either a sneak or a "deep fellow." He is almost sure to fall and identify himself with the ranks of crime. An instance that the writer has personal knowledge of is that of a man, passionate ...
— A Plea for the Criminal • James Leslie Allan Kayll
... despite of her cries; when Cariharta, starting to her feet, hurried away, and hid herself in the room where the bucklers were hung up. There, bolting the door, she bawled from her refuge, "Drive out that black-visaged coward, that murderer of innocents, that white-livered terror of house-lambs, who durst not look a ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... sergeant, in a whisper, "you're right about the chaplain's sermon. It's the duty of every man who can carry a gun to fight for his country. I saw the chaplain looking straight at you, and he was as mad as fire. A white-livered coward stands a mighty poor chanst of salvation, is what ...
— Betty at Fort Blizzard • Molly Elliot Seawell
... Let him deny that he is a cheat—that he goes about with his notions and other rogueries—that he doesn't manufacture maple-seeds, and hickory nutmegs, and ground coffee made out of rotten rye. Answer to that, Jared Bunce, you white-livered lizard." ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... vassal; History holds her iron stylus as his scribe; Lachesis awaits his word to close or to suspend her fatal shears;—but the moment his vote is cast, he becomes the serf of circumstance, at the mercy of the white-livered representative's cowardice, or the venal one's itching palm. Our only safety, then, is in the aggregate fidelity to personal rectitude, which may lessen the chances of representative dishonesty, or, at the worst, constitute ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various
... swarthy face, which made you think he had nigger blood in him and got him his name of 'Black Harry.' A powerful man and a good foremast hand; but an all-fired lazy devil about work, and as sulky as a bear when he didn't get his grub regular. He was no coward though; and no skulker in danger, as some white-livered chaps are who ought to be ashamed to ship as sailors, for he'd venture aloft sometimes when no one else would dare, and was the first man at the weather-earing when it was 'Reef topsails!' But he had a temper as skittish as the cap'en's, and couldn't stand being swore at. I've heard ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... when most moved. "I reckon," he went on, and the rolling intonation fell from his tongue like a faint breath from the green isle itself, "I reckon I did it just to show my friends what a measly, coyote, white-livered, tackey, ornery, spavined, colicky, mangy, blitherin' sort of a beast I am. Sure, now, Judge, I just wanted everybody to know what a gee-whillikined damn fool I can be if I try. And they know, now. Oh, ...
— With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly
... to yourself for those words, you white-livered frog-spawn, with a speck in the middle for the black heart of you! You're going? Well, here's the bones of my fist and the toe of my boot, to ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason |
