"Bad-tempered" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... bullfinch, to which she had taken an affection because it could no longer whistle or draw water, and which was afflicted with a swollen neck; a quiet and exceedingly timid little dog, called Roska; a bad-tempered cat, named Matros; a dark-complexioned, lively little girl of nine, with very large eyes and a sharp nose, whose name was Shurochka[A]; and an elderly lady of about fifty-five, who wore a white cap and a short, ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... regretted," she said. "I ought to be glad that a little thing can stir me—some people need catastrophe. If it had not been for that sudden fear, I might have been bad-tempered and spoiled the day for myself ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... pale, cold cheek to be kissed by her aunt, and it was agreed that they should go to Countess Monaco's for the harmless purpose, as they expressed it, of "just walking through the rooms," leaving thereafter as soon as practicable for the ball; and Mrs. Stanmore, who was good-hearted if bad-tempered, trusted "dear Maud would think no more of what she had said in a moment of irritation, but that they would be better friends than ever after ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... annoyances outside, serious annoyances, and they have made me bad-tempered, so much so that I have been unpleasant and aggressive in my behavior ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... in Toledo at the great festivals. I heard the Walkyria in the pit of the Real Theatre, another night I went to a concert; but the greatest night of all was the one on which I heard the Ninth Symphony of that ugly old fellow, of that deaf, bad-tempered genius who is listening ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... to the cottage, and to every traveler who passed that way they offered a drink of milk from the wonderful pitcher, and if the guest was a kind, gentle soul, he found the milk the sweetest and most refreshing he had ever tasted. But if a cross, bad-tempered fellow took even a sip, he found the pitcher full of sour milk, which made him twist his face ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... hoarse. Of all the spoilt, bad-tempered little ruffians you ever encountered, they are the worst, and there is not a soul on board who can manage them except myself. Yesterday they got so cross that I was almost in despair, and it was only by pretending to be a wild buffalo, and letting them chase me and dig pencils into me ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey
... have been called a bad-tempered people, but this is to judge of them by their manifestations; whereas an examination into causes might prove them to be no worse tempered than that man is a bad sleeper who lies in a biting bed. If ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... conclusion that I am becoming unduly interested in our bad-tempered doctor, for I'm not. It's just that he leads such a comfortless life that I sometimes long to pat him on the head and tell him to cheer up; the world's full of sunshine, and some of it's for him—just as I long to ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster
... last two days have been to poor Vi!" exclaimed Rosie, "even in spite of the home-coming of her husband, which has always before this made her so happy. In fact, it has been a dreadful time to all of us; and nobody to blame except that bad-tempered Lulu. ...
— Elsie's Kith and Kin • Martha Finley
... that I might now be in a really dangerous place. For it is one thing surprising a Bear that has no family responsibilities, and another stirring up a bad-tempered old mother ...
— Johnny Bear - And Other Stories From Lives of the Hunted • E. T. Seton
... wish you wouldn't, Neddy. It makes you bad-tempered, and a man doesn't want to be bad-tempered ...
— The Secret of the Tower • Hope, Anthony
... completely in her family's hands and without the counsel of two experienced and disinterested merchants, has a somewhat sinister air. The intrigues went on, and three days later the agent writes again. It is pleasant to observe that bad-tempered old Mistress Croke, Dame Elizabeth's mother, was not unmindful of Betson's forbearance during those visits when she had railed upon ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... gates, when Mr. Douglas had shaken hands, hoping to "run across us" when he gets leave for Edinburgh, Mrs. West walked up to me. "I've begged Mr. Somerled's pardon," she said, with her pretty smile which never changes, "and he has forgiven me, so you mustn't go on thinking me an ill-natured, bad-tempered person, please; I'm not really. Only we writing people have 'temperaments,' just as artists have—Mr. Somerled himself, for instance. My brother scolded me, and I deserved it. He is so interested in you and your talent for writing, and wants ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... spoken to him cheerfully, ignoring his mood, and he had replied irritably, like a bad-tempered child who resents some unnecessary claim upon its attention. But she did not observe him closely. Had she done so, she might have noticed a curious glazing of the eyes as they lifted to follow her—shining and depthless like ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... splinters, and fire could not burn him, and water could not drown him, and weapons could not wound him, and there was no way to kill him but by giving him three blows of his own club. And he was so bad-tempered that the other giants called him Sharvan the Surly. When the giant spied the red cap of the little fairy he gave the shout that sounded like thunder. The poor fairy was shaking ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy
... Amity Street. The spacious, old-fashioned parlours were a little out of date, but had been elegant in their day. Lily laid off her mourning, and fell heir to some handsome gowns that Chris helped her remodel. Mrs. Nicoll was queer and bad-tempered; and the difficulty had been to keep servants who would submit to such exactions. Matters went a little smoother; but poor ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas
... cured the little thing, and when Carl came home, he found it quite well again. One day, just after he got back, Mrs. Montague drove up to the house with canary cage carefully done up in a shawl. She said that a bad-tempered housemaid, in cleaning the cage that morning, had gotten angry with the bird and struck it, breaking its leg. She was very much annoyed with the girl for her cruelty, and had dismissed her, and now she wanted Carl to take her bird and nurse it, as ...
— Beautiful Joe • Marshall Saunders
... work should be prevented from earning even a day's victuals by the bad temper of a gardener. But his mistress did not want to send the man away. She had found him scrupulously honest, as is many a bad-tempered man, and she did not like changes. The cook on her part had taken such a fancy to Clare that she did not want him set to garden-work; she would have him at once into the house, and begin training him for a page. Now Miss Tempest ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... burden of an old song with the truth that "a merry heart goes all the day, but your sad ones tires a mile a!" and what he says any one may notice, not only in ourselves, but in the inferior animals also. A sulky dog, and a bad-tempered horse, wear themselves out with half the labor that kindly creatures do. An unkindly cow will not give down her milk, and a sour sheep will not fatten; nay, even certain fowls and geese, to those who observe, ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... who had returned from a German university, whom I met in Boston last year on my way from England to Germany, truly summed up the situation of athletics in German schools by saying, "German boys are bad-tempered ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin
... mean some favor from me," said Leonore. "I don't like children who want to be bribed out of their bad temper. Nice little boys are never bad-tempered." ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... know whether I dare to meet him," says Atli, "he is bad-tempered, and may be that I shall let another's wound be ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous
... was time to be stirring, if anything were to be done. If it had been Jane Miranda I don't know that I'd have bothered; but Lizzie Pye wouldn't have done for a stepmother for Althea's boys at all. She was too bad-tempered, and as ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... dogs who bark constantly are not bad-tempered; This dog does not bark constantly; Therefore he is ...
— The Making of Arguments • J. H. Gardiner
... his advent the new servant was the cause of considerable discussion, and, regrettably, of not a little controversy, among the members of the household of Greenwood. The squire maintained that "the fellow is a bad-tempered, lazy, deceitful rogue, in need of much watching." Mrs. Meredith, on the contrary, invariably praised the man, and promptly suppressed her husband whenever he began to rail against him. To Janice, with the violent ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... told them to take care of us, and bring us along with him, as he was marching with the chief part of his army to the northward. I must say that our captors were not bad-tempered fellows, and we soon got into their good graces by talking and laughing, though they could not understand much more of what we said than we could of their language. They got us each a horse, which was much pleasanter than riding behind them, and at night we lay down to sleep ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... believed that it was. The knowledge that thousands of other places, no whit less happy than themselves, or even more happy, were in existence would have made the Ulians quite bad-tempered. And beyond doubt they were in need of no other cause to excite their anger, for had they ...
— The Flamp, The Ameliorator, and The Schoolboy's Apprentice • E. V. Lucas
... The officials were getting bad-tempered with that snarling, loud-talking mob of harpies who wore them out every morning with their quarrelsomeness and unreasonable haggling. Every one of them shouted at you as if you had no ears, reenforcing every other word with an interjection from ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... if I seem bad-tempered and strange. I love you just the same; I have come here more than once to kiss you when you were asleep. Do you remember how angry you made me when you asked if you had come between that man and me, and if I were sorry? You did come between ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... began, with MacFee at the head, and a dozen troopers pounding behind, weary, hungry, bad-tempered, ready to exact payment ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... organisations which exercise a peculiarly attractive influence on youth. He had been the hero of the debating club at Cambridge, and many believed in consequence that he must become prime minister. He was witty and fanciful, and, though capricious and bad-tempered, could flatter and caress. At Cambridge he had introduced the new Oxford heresy, of which Nigel Penruddock was a votary. Waldershare prayed and fasted, and swore by Laud and Strafford. He took, however, a more eminent degree at Paris than ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... out her hand; "Oh, Allan, I am so very bad-tempered. I seem always determined to quarrel," she said, with a laugh ...
— Mr. Pat's Little Girl - A Story of the Arden Foresters • Mary F. Leonard
... with a very long stick. She looked about six years old, and she had great trouble to keep her little brown feet inside the wooden shoes, which were many sizes too large for her. How was it that those big, and perhaps bad-tempered, animals allowed themselves to be driven and beaten by that child, whereas they would have turned upon a dog double her size, and done their best to toss him over the chestnut trees? What is it that the brutes see below ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... back to our shelter, among the horses. Every now and then a surly soldier with two huge revolvers came and looked over the ledge at us, and growled out: Was machen Sie denn hier? followed by some doubting remarks as to our right to be on the premises. As he was evidently very drunk and bad-tempered I was not at all sure that he would not decide on his own responsibility to take no chances and put us out of our misery. After several visits, however, he evidently found something else more interesting, and came back to trouble ...
— A Journal From Our Legation in Belgium • Hugh Gibson
... growing grizzled. But his long upper lip was shaved. He had a weather-beaten face—ruddy and deepening to purple about the cheek bones—with eyebrows, rough as bent grass, over deep-set, sulky eyes of reddish brown. His mouth was underhung, giving him a pugnacious and bad-tempered appearance. Nor did his looks appear to libel the old sailor. To Brendon, at any rate, he showed at first no ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts
... of the barrow the floor of it naturally ceased to be straight, and the flower-pot toppled over and cracked itself slightly against the side of the barrow, while the boughs of the tree, with their gay decorations, took the opportunity to entangle themselves in the bad-tempered leaves of the holly that stood there, ...
— Oswald Bastable and Others • Edith Nesbit
... hops, and had gone into the school business because he had lost all of his own and his wife's money and had no other way to live. He was fat and spoke always in a whisper, and he was so cruel and bad-tempered that not only the boys, but his wife, too, was ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives
... intelligence, docility, and good temper under the most trying conditions, stand out pre-eminently amongst his virtues. Not that all camels are perfect—some are vicious and bad tempered; so far as my experience goes these are the exceptions. Some few are vicious naturally, but the majority of bad-tempered camels are made so by ill-treatment. If a camel is constantly bullied, he will patiently wait his chance and take his revenge—and pick the right man too. "Vice or bad temper," says the indignant victim; "Intelligence," ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie
... order to drive a wagon well, Shomolekae needed to be able to manage sixteen oxen all at once, and keep them walking in a straight line. He needed to know which were the bad-tempered ones and which were the good, and which pulled best in one part of the span and which in another; and how to keep them all pulling together and not lunging at ...
— The Book of Missionary Heroes • Basil Mathews
... I made a bad-tempered noise, full of incredulity and baffled urgency. And yet I was not wholly surprised; 4792 makes wall-papers up to 7 P.M., and then ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, August 5th, 1914 • Various
... May I introduce my daughter, Lady Moors and—and Lord Moors?" The girl took my hand, and the young man bowed from his place; but if that poor old man had known, peace was not to be made so easily between two such bad-tempered women as Mrs. Thrall and myself. We expressed some very stiff sentiments in regard to the weather, and the prospect of the yacht getting off with the next tide, and my husband joined in with that manly gentleness of his, but we did not sit down, much less offer to stay ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells
... divine compulsion to "cry aloud and spare not," but because his digestion is upset, or his temporal concerns are awry, or even because his personal ambitions have been disappointed and himself unappreciated. There is such a thing as bad-tempered, ill-natured preaching, in which the weapons of the Bible armoury are borrowed for the expression of the preacher's chagrin and spite. In a literal sense every word he speaks may be true, but the spirit of the message ...
— The Message and the Man: - Some Essentials of Effective Preaching • J. Dodd Jackson
... part of the programme. The shape of her dark head inclined over the violin was fascinating, and, while resting between the pieces of that interminable programme she was, in her white dress and with her brown hands reposing in her lap, the very image of dreamy innocence. The mature, bad-tempered woman at the piano might have been her mother, though there was not the slightest resemblance between them. All I am certain of in their personal relation to each other is that cruel pinch on the upper part of the arm. That I am sure I have seen! There ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... it was wonderful how it acted as a check upon him. He would not at first believe but that I exaggerated, when the picture was held up to his view and he was again calm. My father was not naturally a bad-tempered man, but having been living among a servile race, and holding high command in the army, he had gradually acquired a habit of authority and an impatience of contradiction which was unbearable to all around. Those who were high-spirited and sensitive ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat
... sat his horse with dignity; while a huge red moustache and piercing eyes that flashed through his pince-nez lent him an aspect of considerable fierceness. Vogt thought to himself, "He looks strict, but not exactly bad-tempered," when the little corporal turned round once more and said: "Boys, that was your ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... not like dear Father to be called bad-tempered. He comes home cross sometimes, and then we have to be very quiet, and keep out of the way; and sometimes he goes out rather cross, but not always. It was what Chris said about that that pleased Lady Catherine ...
— Last Words - A Final Collection of Stories • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... seemed a commonplace, good sort of fellow, popular, fairly competent, a little bad-tempered perhaps. And then suddenly he did something so extremely blackguardly that everything was at an end. It's no good repeating details, and I hate to think about it. We know little about our neighbours, and I'm not so sure that we know much about ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... a dry winter, and the Unionists started trouble cutting my horses' throats, and burning woodsheds and firing the only good grass on my run that I could rely upon. I didn't say much about it, but I have no doubt that it made me bad-tempered and less pleasant to live with.... That was just before the time Biddy went away. Afterwards, the sales I'd counted on turned out badly—cattle too poor for want of grass to stand the droving and the worst luck in the ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... Knightley, still making believe to joke—and, by George! if he could laugh then, he could sing a song with a bullet through him—'you're getting bad-tempered since you used to be horsebreaking for Mr. Lowe. Don't you remember that chestnut Sir Henry colt that no one else could ride, and I backed you not to get thrown, and won a fiver? But I'm a man of the world and know how to play a losing game at billiards as well ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... without a trial," Vincent said shortly. "It is about the finest horse I ever saw; and if it hadn't been for its temper, it would be cheap at five times the sum you gave for it. I have ridden a good many bad-tempered horses for my friends during the last year, and the worst of them couldn't ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... violence," Frere went on. "I'm bad-tempered, and I didn't like my wife interfering. Women, don't you know, don't see these things—don't understand these scoundrels." North again bowed. "Why, d—n it, how savage you look! Quite ghastly, bigod! I must have said most outrageous ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... I had never seen in my life until it was all settled. Just a man who is so ugly and so bad-tempered and so repugnant to every girl whom he knows that nobody would have him—but just a man who wanted a wife. The rabbi at Arad knew about him and he spoke about him to father—it seems that he is quite rich—and father has given ...
— A Bride of the Plains • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... a bad-tempered man that I'm afraid he will hurt you for this," said she, stepping hastily to the door, where she drew in the latch-string, thus locking the humble cabin against intruders. When she sat down, with her scared look and her words of misgiving on her ...
— Camp-fire and Wigwam • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... walking soft-footed accompanied me to the door of the room. He shook hands with a melancholy smile. "This is a very frightful situation. My poor wife will be quite distracted. She is such a patriot. Many thanks, Don George. You relieve me greatly. The fellow is rather stupid and rather bad-tempered. Queer creature, but very honest! Oh, ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... always bad-tempered when we come to the Court," she said. "For all its grandeur it is not a hospitable house. Jennings will have to go without his tea ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan
... grooms make nervous, bad-tempered horses; rough and noisy cattle-men, fidgety cows; ill-trained dogs and savage shepherds, sheep wild and difficult to approach; so does the bad-tempered, impatient, or slovenly master make men with the same bad qualities, when a smile or a ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... familiarity. Like all women of spirit and independence, Aunt Nancy possessed a considerable fund of humor, and it stood her in good stead now. She contrived to thoroughly interest the Tories, and it was not long before they were in the most jovial frame of mind imaginable. They had expected to find a bad-tempered, ill-conditioned woman; and they were agreeably surprised when they found, instead, a woman who could match their rude jests, and ...
— Stories Of Georgia - 1896 • Joel Chandler Harris
... were plowing along before the trade wind, but it soon panned out and we had light, shifty airs from all directions, with rain—regular Gulf Stream weather. It made us bad-tempered, and Pango and Gleason had a fight. It was a bad fight, and we couldn't stop them; both were powerful men, and as they brushed into me in their whirling lunge along the deck, locked tight, they knocked me six feet away. When I got to my feet, Pango had Gleason down ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson
... the sea-wall on the other side of the road turn their heads towards the cottages. She would go in slowly at the front door, and a moment afterwards there would fall a profound silence. Presently she would reappear, leading by the hand a man, gross and unwieldy like a hippopotamus, with a bad-tempered, ...
— To-morrow • Joseph Conrad
... did not make him good. I went, with many others, to see him the next morning. On the way over to the elephant camp, I saw the huge trees which he had smashed down in his rage lying about in all directions, and on reaching his standing-place, found him looking decidedly vicious and bad-tempered. It was quite evident that any one venturing within reach of his trunk would receive harsh treatment and no mercy. A small red spot in his great forehead showed that our Director's aim had been a fairly good one, though it had not hit the deadly ...
— The Eagle Cliff • R.M. Ballantyne
... he muttered. "Talk about a bad-tempered horse, why he's an angel compared to a camel! Of all the disagreeable, whining, sour, vicious things that ever breathed, they seem about the worst. Gritty, that's what they are. Get the sand into their tempers when they're ...
— In the Mahdi's Grasp • George Manville Fenn
... father bade him. Brought up with all the ideas of a rural skinflint, he thought no decent person could object to marrying an ugly bad-tempered woman, so long as she had plenty ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... twenty-four year old daughter Amelia, the only member of the family with which the reader is not acquainted; and Tom, grown into a lazy, bad-tempered and slouching young man. Old Mrs. ...
— The Silver Lining - A Guernsey Story • John Roussel
... quickly. Dight, to wipe. Dight, winnowed, sifted. Din, dun, muddy of complexion. Ding, to beat, to surpass. Dink, trim. Dinna, do not. Dirl, to vibrate, to ring. Diz'n, dizzen, dozen. Dochter, daughter. Doited, muddled, doting; stupid, bewildered. Donsie, vicious, bad-tempered; restive; testy. Dool, wo, sorrow. Doolfu', doleful, woful. Dorty, pettish. Douce, douse, sedate, sober, prudent. Douce, doucely, dousely, sedately, prudently. Doudl'd, dandled. Dought (pret. of dow), could. Douked, ducked. Doup, the bottom. Doup-skelper, bottom-smacker. Dour-doure, stubborn, ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns |
