"Better half" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... word!—Why should you speak so contemptibly of the better half of mankind? I'll stand up for the honour ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott
... d'Aspura. It happened to be the same rooms as were occupied twenty-seven years ago by the teacher of languages, to whom I had gone for lessons while I was with Cardinal Acquaviva. The landlady was the wife of a cook who only, slept with his better half once a week. The woman had a daughter of sixteen or seventeen years old, who would have been very pretty if the small-pox had not deprived her of one eye. They had provided her with an ill-made artificial eye, ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... obvious one was that of the courteous host, flattered to receive such a visitor on any terms, especially proud and cordial in view of the prospect of a connection between the families. He maintained a penitential attitude under the depressing shadow of the absence of his better half, which certainly was made the most of by both; somewhat artificially, a perceptive visitor might have said, if one had been there to see. The jeremiads over this unfortunate misadventure must have lasted fully ten minutes before a lull came; for the gentleman could catch no other wind in his sails, ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... halves looked on from across the street. Kye had Sym down and was doing some good work with his right, when his wife called to him, "Now, Kye Mayabb, you come right away from there before you get into trouble." Whereupon the valiant better half of him who was being beaten to death called out cheerily, "Don't let him scare you, Sym!" The boys made it up afterward, but our little street was quite lively ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... future home, may never be your property, and it is right enough that a feeling for ownership should begin to shape your daily life. But let it not misshape it. You know that ownership is not all of life nor the better half of it, and it is quite as good for you to give the fact due recognition by gardening early in life as it was for Adam ...
— The Amateur Garden • George W. Cable
... myself, little woman," he said, smiling down at her; "it will turn a tiresome business trip into a pleasure excursion. I have always found my enjoyment doubled by the companionship of my better half." ...
— Elsie's New Relations • Martha Finley
... and the nearer to his mark, often the farther is he from a sober self; he is more the arrow of his bow than bow to his arrow. This we pay for scheming: and success is costly; we find we have pledged the better half of ourselves to clutch it; not to be redeemed with the whole handful of our prize! He was, however, learning after his leaping fashion. Nataly's defective sympathy made him look at things through the feelings she depressed. A shadow of his missed Idea on London Bridge seemed to ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... hitherto preserved him from the natural consequences of his ignorance, his meanness of mind, his transports of infirm fancy, and his guilt. Let us hasten to redeem ourselves. The field is open for a commanding British military force to clear the Peninsula of the enemy, while the better half of his power is occupied with Austria. For the South of Spain, where the first effort of regeneration was made, is yet free. Saragossa (which, by a truly efficient British army, might have been relieved) has indeed fallen; but leaves ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... between an early rise to see the Taj by moonlight, and an early rise to drive fifteen miles to a place where black buck do abound. My primeval instinct prevails against the perhaps better suggestion of my better half. At 5 A.M. the carriage has not yet come so I have twenty minutes to make a lamplit study and reflections generally—Have rifle ready, some soda water, tobacco, and a new stock of hope and faith ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... should cross the water or not, she resolved to return, and weep away her vexation in London. Not long afterwards, however, she plucked up courage, and taking advantage of a smooth sea she ventured over the Straits, and set off for Milan, if not to recover her fugitive better half, at all events to terrify her rival and disturb their joys. The advent of the Cannizzaro woman was to the Visconti like the irruption of the Huns of old. She fled to a villa near Milan, which she ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... had a Fireside that suited him nearly to Death until the Better Half began to read these Magazines that tell how to ...
— People You Know • George Ade
... a sort of nocturnal illumination, and shuffling away, in the loose shoes, to the keeping of which on her feet the better half of the best energies of her life were directed, gave out that she ...
— Chanticleer - A Thanksgiving Story of the Peabody Family • Cornelius Mathews
... Demented individuals are met in no small numbers inside of hospitals and asylums, and outside as well, who owe to this vice their awful condition. Plenty of half-witted men whom one meets in the every-day walks of life have destroyed the better half of their understanding by this ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... call me so; for we had but one heart, but one soul, between us; and now my better half is torn ...
— Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... don't be thinking of those two pigs, but bring your better half with you, and let's see how you can behave as ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... been born and bred in Nottingham, I believe all about it. You must know that some time, since bold Robin Hood ranged through Sherwood Forest, at all events between his days and ours, there dwelt within it, some ten miles away, a worthy knight and his dame. The better half of the knight was a shrew, and led him a wretched life. He had a son, on whom he bestowed all the affection which his wife might have shared. At length death relieved him of his tormentor. The dame died and ...
— John Deane of Nottingham - Historic Adventures by Land and Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... he believed to be a stern reproach, the page frightened ran away, leaving the books, the task, and all. Thereupon, the seneschal's better half added this prayer to the litany—"Holy Virgin, how difficult children ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac
... back half distracted, and scarce to be known again. You may easily believe that my own distress does not prevent my doing all in my power to alleviate his. Whithed, that best of hearts, had forgiven all his elder brother's beastliness, and has left him the Norton estate, the better half; the rest to the clergyman, with an annuity of one hundred and twenty pounds a year to his Florentine mistress, and six hundred pounds to their child. He has left Mr. Chute one thousand pounds, which, if forty times the sum, would not comfort him, and, little as it ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... 'For,' said his better half, standing before him with a great loaf clasped to her bosom, 'if you turn a horse from the stable between full and half full, like as not he will return of ...
— Privy Seal - His Last Venture • Ford Madox Ford
... was in the act of thrusting her antagonist aside, which operation he was performing somewhat rudely, when he was collared from behind by his neighbour, Thomas Callender, who naturally enough enrolled himself at once on the side of his better half. ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... noble-minded English gentlemen, you will never condemn an unfortunate and industrious native graduate and barrister to make a cripple of his career, and burden his friends and his families with such a bone of contention as a European better half, who will infallibly plunge him into the pretty pickle of innumerable family jars! I shall now vacate the witness-box in favour of my intimate friend and fatherly benefactor, Hon'ble Sir CHETWYND CUMMERBUND, ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... of the book perhaps, as far as good novel-matter is concerned (for Jerome himself is not much more than a stalking-horse for satire), is Malvina, his first left-handed and then "regularised" spouse, and very much his better half. Malvina is Paul de Kock's grisette (like all good daughters, she is very fond of her literary father) raised to a higher power, dealt with in a satiric fashion unknown to her parent, but in perfectly kindly temper. She is, though just a little ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... the essence of much of her mate's philosophy; but, in the following to Sterling, she somewhat bitterly protests against her own absorption: "In spite of the honestest efforts to annihilate my I—-ity or merge it in what the world doubtless considers my better half, I still find myself a self-subsisting, and, alas, ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol
... call to speak to a leading farmer in the district, and found his rival, a Democratic candidate, there on the same errand. The farmer was away from home, so each of the candidates did his best to gain the good-will of the farmer's "better half," who was on her way to milk the cow. The Democrat seized the pail and insisted on doing the work for her. Lincoln did not make the slightest objection, but improved the opportunity thus given to chat with their hostess. This he did so ...
— The Story of Young Abraham Lincoln • Wayne Whipple
... barn, promising to return shortly, and, with trembling steps, again sought the apartment where her lord and master was reposing. A very decided snore met her ear. She stood by the bedside, and looked at the tassel, which was the only portion visible of her better half. She sat down on a chair; she got up again; she fussed about the room; she even opened the drawers and took out the Sunday attire of that Somnus before her. But nothing she could ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... And his main policy. To enthral the sluggard nature in ourselves Is, in good truth, the better half of the secret To enthral the world: for the will governs all. 40 See, the sky lowers! the cross-winds waywardly Chase the fantastic masses of the clouds With a wild mockery of ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... you. I'm hearty. How's all your kith an' kin? I thought of coming down to the island, to see you, but now you're here, I'll put off the trip a week or so. Jist say to the boys I'm making a crossgun for 'em. Give my regards to your better half, and I wish you'd tell Scipio that the melon he sent me was luscious. I'm here on a kind o' important business; came clear up from town to inquire about this expedition. You're managing the colony matters, and you're the codger to give ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... whole business of the emancipation of woman is one well adapted to drive a philosopher, to say nothing of the father of a family, crazy. Naturally I wish my daughters to become all that they ought to be. On the other hand, if a paterfamilias cannot trust his better half on this particular subject, he may as well imitate the example of certain savage tribes, and make mince-meat of the girls. Perhaps I seem to be worked up on the subject? Well, I am. The din of the moralists, and of the people who have never had a chance to go anywhere, is in my ears, ...
— The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant
... Smokes, she'd never do as a career man's wife. He could just see the Boss' ultraconservative better half inviting them to dinner. It would happen exactly ...
— Status Quo • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... men to the stains of celibacy, and the profanations of marriage. They begin to write about it and lecture about it. It is the tendency now to endeavor to help the erring by showing them the physical law. This is wise and excellent; but forget not the better half. Cold bathing and exercise will not suffice to keep a life pure, without an inward baptism, and noble, exhilarating employment for the thoughts and the passions. Early marriages are desirable, but if ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... a shade more cautious in our reasonings. Woman needs equal rights, not because she is man's better half, but because she is his other half. She needs them, not as an angel, but as a fraction of humanity. Her political education will not merely help man, but it will help herself. She will sometimes be right in her opinions, ...
— Women and the Alphabet • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... humbly to earn that heritage of interest by developing a thorough understanding of its source. In this way, perhaps, he may grow aware of certain truths of life which are materials for fiction. If so, he will have accomplished the better half of his work: he will have found ...
— A Manual of the Art of Fiction • Clayton Hamilton
... picturesque days when, as shown in Ujvary's great panorama of the sister towns in 1680, Buda was by far "the better half," and Pesth was a tiny spot. You may visit the tomb of Gul Baba, father of the roses, a shrine of pilgrimage to all good Turks. You may find a good quarter of an hour in the Church of St. Matthias, whose spire ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... 21st Bengal Native Infantry, was among those selected to join the expeditionary force appointed to "uphold the prestige of the British Raj"; and, as was the custom at that time, Lola, mounted on an elephant (which she shared with the colonel's better half), and followed by a train of baggage camels and a pack of foxhounds complete, accompanied her husband to the frontier. The other ladies included Mrs. McNaghten and Mrs. Robert Sale and the Governor-General's two daughters. It is just possible that Macaulay had a glimpse of Lola, ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... contraction of the pupil is requisite to every exertion of vision. Attention then is to consciousness what the contraction of the pupil is to sight, or, to the eye of the mind what the microscope or telescope is to the bodily eye. It constitutes the better half of all ...
— A Series of Lessons in Raja Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... The knight with honest pride forbore to crave, Till at the last, his substance all forespent, From his lord's court the hopeless liegeman went. No leave he took, he told no mortal wight, Scarce had he thought to guide his steps aright, But all at random, reckless of his way, He wander'd on the better half of day. Ere evening fell he reached a pleasant mead, And there he loos'd his beast, at will to rest or feed; Then by a brook-side down his limbs he cast And, pondering on the waters as they pass'd, The while his cloak his bended arm sustain'd, Sadly he sat, and much in thought complain'd. ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham
... who was fond of an occasional private interview with my grandfather's brandy-glass, had not succeeded in getting to the bottom twice, when he beheld the glass bowing very low to him. "Satan take you, let us make the sign of the cross over you!"—And the same marvel happened to his better half. She had just begun to mix the dough in a huge kneading-trough when suddenly the trough sprang up. "Stop, stop! where are you going?" Putting its arms akimbo, with dignity, it went skipping all about the cottage—you may laugh, but it was no laughing matter to our grandfathers. ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... arrived when demands for a recognition of the personal, civil and political rights of one-half—unquestionably the better half—of the people cannot be laughed down or sneered down, and recent indications are that they cannot much longer be voted down. It was quite clear on Friday and Saturday, when petitions from the best citizens of twenty-three ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... I will take all the blame upon myself, or, which will do just as well for you, throw it all upon my better half. My Lord Delacour would not pay for my new carriage. The coachmaker, insolent animal, would not let it out of his yard without two hundred guineas in ready money. Now you know I had the horses, and what could I do with the horses without the carriage? Clarence Hervey, I knew, could ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... justice, they found that two trials were about to go on, and would of course take precedence of theirs. The first was between a taleb or learned man, and a peasant. The point in dispute was the taleb's wife, whom the peasant had carried off, and whom he asserted to be his own better half, in the face of the philosopher who demanded her restoration. The woman, strange circumstance! remained obstinately silent, and would not declare for either; a feature in the case which rendered its ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... Lambert," remarked his better half, "that I think Janice would get more discipline ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... officers had much time to attend to their guests. The last person to arrive on board was Major Bubsby, commanding the troops; and Jack was not a little taken aback when he found that he had brought his wife and two tall daughters on board. The lady was almost twice the height of her better half, and the daughters promised to grow into the same proportions. The major was undoubtedly a short man, although not a small one either in girth or in his own estimation. He had a rubicund countenance, huge mustachios, and small, ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... Next, his better half took courage; SHE would have her picture taken. She came dressed beyond description, Dressed in jewels and in satin Far too gorgeous for an empress. Gracefully she sat down sideways, With a simper scarcely human, Holding in her hand a bouquet Rather larger ...
— Phantasmagoria and Other Poems • Lewis Carroll
... the highest degree, not to say engrossed them: and indeed he got the most by them! for I will venture, (contrary to the custom of profound historians, who always assign deep causes to great events,) to ascribe the better half of the Duke of Marlborough's greatness and riches to those graces. He was eminently illiterate, wrote bad English, and spelled it still worse. He had no share of what is commonly called parts; that is, he had no brightness, nothing shining in his ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... is sad, When her spring-time of life is far advanced and she still occupies a vacant inner-room. A girl feels wounded in her heart, When she regrets having allowed her better half to go abroad and win a marquisdom. A girl is glad, When looking in the mirror, at the time of her morning toilette, she finds her colour fair. A girl is joyful, What time she sits on the frame of a gallows-swing, clad in ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... oft-repeated use, should be avoided. The following hackneyed phrases will serve to illustrate: "The staff of life," "gave up the ship," "counterfeit presentment," "the hymeneal altar," "bold as a lion," "throw cold water upon," "the rose upon the cheek," "lords of creation," "the weaker sex," "the better half," "the rising generation," "tripping the light fantastic toe," "the cup that cheers but does not inebriate," "in the arms of Morpheus," "the debt of nature," "the bourne whence no traveler returns," "to shuffle off this mortal coil," "the devouring ...
— Slips of Speech • John H. Bechtel
... Cardinal, "desired her husband to retire to rest and he, tired with his day's work, quickly undressed himself, blew out his candle, and deposited himself, like a loving husband, by the side of his dear spouse. Awakening in the middle of the night, he complained of being excessively thirsty, and his better half, roused from her slumbers, got up in the dark, and groping about for something wherewith to quench his thirst, her hand encountered the invigorating philter, which it truly proved to be, for I came into the world precisely nine months after ...
— Aphrodisiacs and Anti-aphrodisiacs: Three Essays on the Powers of Reproduction • John Davenport
... gather from it that a caution from their worships was what she chiefly desired. Having arrived at this point, Lord Lathon ruthlessly stopped her, and dismissed the case, with a few stern words to the elderly reprobate, who departed muttering threats against his better half which, for her bodily comfort, it is to be hoped that he ...
— The New Tenant • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... you have lurch'd your friends of the better half of the garland, by concealing this part of the plot: but much good do it thee, thou deserv'st it, lad. And, Clerimont, for thy unexpected bringing these two to confession, wear my part of it freely. Nay, sir Daw, and sir La-Foole, you see the gentlewoman that has done you the favours! ...
— Epicoene - Or, The Silent Woman • Ben Jonson
... coughing again," says a thin, shrewish woman, with a kind of triumphant scowl at her better half; "but you would have her ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... me out, for that's not all. I went ashore to-day and shot five geese, and here they are, all of them, not one spared, though I could have well fancied a bit of goose to my supper, but I brought all to you, and more than that, even, for here is the better half of a buck we found in the wood ready shot to our hand. The Indians had cut off his horns and carried them away, and doubtless were gone for help to carry the carcase home when we came upon it; haply they saw us coming and made a run ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... me." The audience roared, and Aunt Nannie was furious, but poor dear Bishop Chilton had spoken but the literal truth, that he could not spread the wings of his eloquence in the presence of his "better half." ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... I consoled him by promising to pay his wages for another quarter if he failed to find a place by New Year's. The girl is quite useless except in cooking, of which more orally. I cannot enumerate all the little trifles, and certainly Kahle does not belong to the better half of gardeners. * * * I feel so vividly as if I were with you while writing this that I am becoming quite gay, until I again recollect the three hundred and fifty miles, including one hundred and seventy-five without a railroad. Pomerania is ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... avail, I see nothing left us, but to truck and barter our goods, like the wild Indians, with each other, or with our too powerful neighbours; only with this disadvantage on our side, that the Indians enjoy the product of their own land, whereas the better half of ours is sent away without so much as a recompense in bugles, ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... been struck off from the limbs of its possessor. Whether the sacred name of liberty ever set his soul aglow with a generous fire; whether he had more than the most elementary ideas of love, friendship, patriotism, religion,—things which are half, and the better half, of life to us; whether he even realized, except in a vague, uncertain way, his own degradation, I do not know. I fear not; and if not, then centuries of repression had borne their legitimate fruit. But in the simple human feeling, and still more in the undertone of sadness, which pervaded his ...
— The Conjure Woman • Charles W. Chesnutt
... lovable and endearing quality, the present race of Yankee women are the women of the earth! [Applause.] And I trust that we shall yet have a Republic which, instead of disfranchising one-half its citizens, and that too by common consent its "better half," shall ordain the political equality, not only of both colors, but of both sexes! I believe in a reconstructed Union wherein every good woman shall have a wedding-ring on her finger, and a ballot ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... you good-day," said Yakov, leading his old woman into the consulting room. "You must excuse us, Maxim Nikolaitch, we are always troubling you with our trumpery affairs. Here you see my better half is ailing, the partner of my life, as they say, excuse ...
— The Chorus Girl and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... ages and our own, more were performed before the age of thirty than after; and this ofttimes in the very lives of the same men. May I not confidently instance in those of Hannibal and his great rival Scipio? The better half of their lives they lived upon the glory they had acquired in their youth; great men after, 'tis true, in comparison of others; but by no means in comparison of themselves. As to my own particular, I do certainly believe ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne |
