"Bosh" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... all bosh. John knew that well, thanks to his present sophistication. But the lure of the present set him to thinking. Couldn't he—providing of course that maternal permission was given—go down town and do his shopping Saturday afternoon and wander around ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... he make a jolly schoolmaster?' exclaimed Reginald. 'Boys would get on capitally with Jardine. They'd never try to bosh him.' ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... half Spain. All those stories about me and Tonet are lies of people who don't know how else to make trouble in a good family.... Tonet went with me before Pascualo and I were married. Well, was it wrong to marry his brother? Bosh! Was I the first to do a thing like that? Well, why else should people talk? No ... all I want is to be let alone, and not be plagued all the time. Keep Tonet away, no. I won't be mean to him. However, if I have seemed to be too intimate, I'll be more careful ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... ever stops to think about it, but keeps right on filling the minds of their children with stuff that never benefits them a particle. How many boys of to-day want to read 'Mother's Brave Little Man,' or 'Jerry the Newsboy'? Bosh! Boys of to-day want 'True Tales of an Indian Trapper,' or 'Boy Scout Adventures,' or good clean stories—school life, or outdoor sports. It's LIFE ...
— The Blue Birds' Winter Nest • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... spark of commonsense left, we are not really in love. That is so, I tell you; and no will, no amount of energy, can do any thing with it. There are people who tell you soberly that they have been in love without losing their senses, and reproach you for not keeping cool. Bosh! Those people remind me of still champagne blaming sparkling champagne for popping off the cork. And now, my dear fellow, have the kindness to accept this cigar, and let ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... parties—stalked the places for hours and days, tried to convince the natives that it is all bosh. But they insist it's all true, and stay away—and loss of man power means loss of money they both need this year. Both of them think the stories are just the usual ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... of port, I'm there; if it's Sir Roger de Coverley, I'm there; I'll do anything to add to the general Schwaermerei. What the modern litterateur thinks it fine to write about Christmas being all sham sentiment is simply insufferable bosh. Christmas isn't in the least bit played out—though the magazinist may be, or may pretend to be. I think it's a grand thing to have a season for sending good wishes, for recollection of absent ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... opposition to Maurice's suit. "I should like nothing better—for my own part; but we are both bound to consider Lesley. You know you are a shocking bad match for her. Oh, I know you are the descendant of kings and all that sort of bosh, but as a matter of fact you are only a young medico, a general practitioner, and his lordship is bound to think that I am making something for ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... speech,' said the Phoenix, 'even Bosh. I know not this Boshland, but be assured that its tongue is not ...
— The Phoenix and the Carpet • E. Nesbit
... Maura changed a five-pound note,' put in Fergus; 'and when I told him to shut up, for it was all bosh, ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... don't think the exception's always the rule—eh? don't you find that?' And his neighbour replied that she thought he had hit upon a profound philosophical truth, and then spoilt it by laughing. After which the young man, thinking internally 'it sounded all right, wonder if it was such bosh as she seems to think,' had fled to Mabel for sanctuary and plunged into an account of his ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... novels you read, or out of the operas we sing. Nonsense that poets write and callow boys swallow like so many boobies and try to transplant into real life! The trouble is we singers are in the secret, and laugh at such bosh. Well, now you know—good friends, and the soft pedal on sentiment and drama, eh? In that way we'll get along very well and ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... "Bosh!" Macloud answered. "I've got more money than I want, let me have some fun with the excess, Croyden. And this promises more fun than I've had for a year—hunting a buried treasure, within sight of Maryland's capital. ...
— In Her Own Right • John Reed Scott
... plainly said, "See here, ladies, see me, I am the result of twenty years of constant howling at man's tyranny," there would never have been another "howl" uttered in Detroit. Or, if she had plainly said, in so many words, "I am going to lecture on bosh, for the sake of that almighty half-dollar per head—take it as bosh," people would have admired her candor, though forming the same conclusions ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... I must go on chasing them until I marry—then I am done with literature and all other bosh,—that is, literature wherewith to please the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... it that the sectarian scientist methodically declining, as he does, to recognize such "facts" as mind-curers and others like them experience, otherwise than by such rude heads of classification as "bosh," "rot," "folly," certainly leaves out a mass of raw fact which, save for the industrious interest of the religious in the more personal aspects of reality, would never have succeeded in getting itself recorded at all. We know this to be true already ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... Saviour, because His birth and life appear to them to be like that of the Rommany. There is a collection of a number of words now current in vulgar English which were probably derived from Gipsy, such as row, shindy, pal, trash, bosh, and niggling, and finally a number of Gudli or short stories. These Gudli have been regarded by my literary friends as interesting and curious, since they are nearly all specimens of a form of original narrative ...
— The English Gipsies and Their Language • Charles G. Leland
... translation, and proved—proved beyond doubting—that each translator had failed in this or in that; this or that being alike essential. Then, having worked out his sum, he sat down and translated a bit or two of Homer to encourage us, and the result was mere bosh." ...
— Brother Copas • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... "Bosh! You and I are both going on shore—back to the Somerset House. Anything very strange about that?" demanded Radwin. "We're tired out from the day's cruise, and want to be off the water. So we're going to the Somerset. We'll drift in, get something to eat, and then start upstairs. You can ...
— The Submarine Boys' Lightning Cruise - The Young Kings of the Deep • Victor G. Durham
... opinion of him is by no means favorable. Why, would you believe, that though he is as thin as a rail and as pale as a ghost, he won't admit that he is even slightly indisposed. If I ask him about his symptoms, he gets angry; and if I offer him any of my specifics, he has the ill-manners to exclaim: 'Bosh! Oh! that man is a wicked fellow; I ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... whether he smokes or don't smoke, drink or don't drink. As for training on raw chops, giving up wine, living like the very deuce and all, as if you were in a monastery, and changing yourself into a mere bag of bones—it's utter bosh. You might as well be in purgatory; besides, it's no more credit to win then than ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... Dornroeschen (thorn-rose) and Schneewittchen (snow-white) were meant originally for the sleep or death of nature in her snow-white shroud, and the return of the sun; but woe to the boy who on first learning these stories should have declared that they were mere bosh, or, as Sir Walter Scott says, the detritus ...
— My Autobiography - A Fragment • F. Max Mueller
... sneer on Alec's face, not pleasant to see, as he answered, roughly: "Bosh! That's all right for people who can believe in such things, but I'm past such Robinson ...
— Flip's "Islands of Providence" • Annie Fellows Johnston
... fools than one in the world. Here is where he has turned down a leaf. Now just read that bosh ...
— Sandy • Alice Hegan Rice
... Lady Dunborough ejaculated in scorn. Nevertheless she lowered the cane and, raising her glass, addressed herself to the window. 'Not accepted him? Bosh, man!' ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... to church, and you've been thinking things over, I know. I was there. I heard it all, peace on earth, goodwill to men. Bosh. Peace, when there is no peace. Good will! I don't want your ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... believe a word of it. She said he wasn't such a flat as to believe all that bosh. But as she spoke there came a great blast of wind through the arch, and set the barrel rolling. So they made haste to get out of it, for they had no notion of being rolled over and over as if they had been packed tight and wouldn't hurt, like ...
— At the Back of the North Wind • George MacDonald
... said Mr. Bingle, arising hastily. "Let it be bosh and ridiculous, just as you like. I would have been willing to take this small amount, just as I have said, and, what's more, I might have been willing to divide the estate into four equal parts—if ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... "Bosh!" scoffed Gavin. "You'll get over it. Self-forgiveness is the easiest blessing to acquire. You're better of it, already, or you couldn't talk so glibly about it. Now, about this treasure-business: ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... "Bosh!" exclaimed the colonel, snapping his fingers. "You needn't tell me any young man—any man, could resist that ...
— The Last Trail • Zane Grey
... "Bosh and nonsense! You know, Miss Ames, what I think of that sort of thing! You know how I played on people's gullibility when I used to do that ...
— Raspberry Jam • Carolyn Wells
... wouldn't go, my friend! punishment or no punishment! Why, I can scarcely make my own fellows go! Bosh! I know boys; school ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... cried. "Good Lord! is this street serious? Are these damned Chinese lanterns serious? Is the whole caboodle serious? One comes here and talks a pack of bosh, and perhaps some sense as well, but I should think very little of a man who didn't keep something in the background of his life that was more serious than all this talking—something more serious, whether it was ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton
... confounded fool of a plumber!' said George, irritably, when they were in the street again; 'wonder if he thinks I'm going to employ him after that! Not that it isn't all bosh, of course—— Why, Ella, ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... "Bosh!" growled the Bellows, who was beginning to get a little short-winded with his labors, and, therefore, a trifle out of temper. "How on earth will reciting your poem help ...
— Andiron Tales • John Kendrick Bangs
... the picture over, and there under the inscription, "H. Supposed photo of the missing woman," was written in a bold hand, "Bosh! Read my description of the girl; this is evidently some Paris ...
— Jennie Baxter, Journalist • Robert Barr
... with fine contempt. "You managed to live on Kerguelen Land without things, so I don't see why you can't get married without them—though, for the matter of that, I will get anything you want in six hours. I never did hear such bosh as women talk about 'things.' Listen, dear. For Heaven's sake let's get married and have a little quiet! I can assure you that if you don't, your life won't be worth having after this. You will ...
— Mr. Meeson's Will • H. Rider Haggard
... mean," he told her easily, a smile in his shrewd eyes. "You're a young woman—and I'm an ineligible man. So Lady Farquhar thinks we oughtn't to meet. That's all bosh. I'm not intending to make love to you, even though I think you're a mighty nice girl. But say I was. What then? Your friends can't shut you up in a glass cage if you're going to keep on growing. Life was made to ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine
... breakfast, and has been covertly dodging about ever since. He inquired his way to Hartledon. The landlord of the Stag asked him what he wanted there, and got for answer that his brother was one of the grooms in my lord's service. Bosh! He went up, sneaking under the hedges and along by-ways, and took a view of the house, standing a good hour behind a tree while he did it. I was ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... "Oh, bosh!" ejaculated Joshua Barnes. "It's all in your fool imagination. Grow up and be a man, Whitney. You have given me your word and I expect you to make good. And by the way, son, there is my old friend Charley Calker's girl, just out of college. I ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie
... is bosh. Just as much as what you're always saying, that Sylvia has the world at her feet. They happen to be particularly pretty, and Felicity's jolly clever. But after all, they have only one or two each—admirers, I mean. And they—the ...
— The Twelfth Hour • Ada Leverson
... endeavoring to live like a Christian, by conceding to his wife all this latitude of indulgence; and he meant to go through it like a man and a philosopher. To be sure, in his eyes, it was all so much unutterable bosh and nonsense; and bosh and nonsense for which he was eventually to settle the bills: but he armed himself with the patient reflection that all things have their end in time,—that fireworks and Chinese lanterns, bands of music and ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... None but a very few of the richest planters lived in the profusion described on page four. As for the enrolment in colleges between 1859 and 1860, and the incomes of the higher institutions, that is all bosh. Francis Lieber was a German by birth, found his service in South Carolina very uncongenial, and stood by the union. To compare slavery to apprenticeship is an affront. The day's work set down by Murat (whose history ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various
... Borah if you have no Dirzee? In the spirit of fair play, however, I must mention that my wife does not endorse all this. On the contrary, she tells me (she has a terse way of speaking) that it is "rank bosh." She declares that the Dirzee is the bane of her life, that he is worse than a fly, that she cannot sit down to the piano for five minutes but he comes buzzing round for black thread, or white thread, or mother-o-pearl buttons, or hooks and eyes, that every evening for the last ...
— Behind the Bungalow • EHA
... does your cheek flush and your eye sparkle, till "heart, brain, and soul are all on fire," over the burning words of some Brontean Pythoness, but when you open the last thrilling work of Maggie Marigold, and are immediately submerged "in a weak, washy, everlasting flood" of insipidity, twaddle, bosh, and heart-rending sorrow, you do not shut the book with a jerk. Why not? Because in the dismal distance you dimly descry two figures swimming, floating, struggling towards each other, and a languid soupon of curiosity detains you till you have ascertained, that, after ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... helplessly into your hands, down there in Massachusetts, you told me you were using Christian Science treatment, and asked me if I objected. I thought it all 'bosh'; but, as you know, told you I didn't care, provided the method brought right results. I thought that if things did not go O. K. you would slip back to the old way, so I felt perfectly safe. But now I begin ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... "Oh, bosh! Stop all that," said Carrie in her rudest voice. "I have come here to help you, and I see that I must explain myself. You ...
— Wild Kitty • L. T. Meade
... is, Sybil! Bosh! who cares for such double-dealing wretches, who flatter us before our faces and abuse us behind our backs?" exclaimed Beatrix, as she quickly finished her Puritan toilet, and ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... "Bosh!" roared Cadet Holmes in a great rage. "The resignation is written, signed, and—-it sticks!" returned Dick Prescott ...
— Dick Prescotts's Fourth Year at West Point - Ready to Drop the Gray for Shoulder Straps • H. Irving Hancock
... people make asses of themselves sometimes, Lords as well as Commons. I don't see how a man is to go on talking for ever about laws and landleagues, and those sort of things without doing so. It is all bosh to me. And so I should think it must be to you, as you don't do it. But I do not think that father is worse than anybody else; and I think that his words are ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope
... I stated and restated to him my plans. The fellow, evidently jealous of my superior financial ability, constantly interrupted me with ejaculations of "Pish!" "Bosh!" "Pshaw!" "No go!" and finally, with a loud thump on a table, covered with such costly but valueless objects as books and plates, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... "Bosh!" said Blandford, pitching half a sovereign to the waiter; "take it out of that, and this coffee too, and come along into the smoking- room, ...
— Reginald Cruden - A Tale of City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... exclaimed Mrs Masterman impatiently; "I can't stand all that bosh about higher powers, and developing magnetism. Of course there are a set of people who'd believe anything that seemed to give them a superior organisation; it's only another way of pandering to human vanity. Spiritualism is perfect rubbish. I've seen and heard ...
— The Mystery of a Turkish Bath • E.M. Gollan (AKA Rita)
... JACOB. Of course it's bosh. The doctors must invent something, or else what are they paid for? There's one comes to us every day. Comes,— talks a bit,—and ...
— Redemption and Two Other Plays • Leo Tolstoy et al
... "Die, bosh!" exclaimed Mrs. Roberts; "he frightened Elizabeth by his ravings; it is the most absurd nonsense,—he a penniless school-teacher, and the Lord only knows what besides! I only wish I'd been there to talk to him, for I don't think he'd have frightened ...
— King Midas • Upton Sinclair
... fine capers perposed by the papers? These 'ints about lassos and butterfly nets? To turn scorcher-catchers the old pewter-snatchers In 'elmets must take fewer stodges and wets! Wot, treat hus like bufflers or beetles! The scufflers In soft, silent shoes, turn Red Injins? You're wrong! It's all bosh and bubble! I'm orf—at the double!— ...
— Mr. Punch Awheel - The Humours of Motoring and Cycling • J. A. Hammerton
... to wait seven years for a settlement, and meanwhile they could be kicked out of their holdings at one day's notice. The people who bought under Ashbourne's Act are happy, prosperous, and contented. The people who are beside them are the contrary. Home Rulers, bosh! Farmers know as much about Home Rule as a pig knows about the Sabbath Day. The land, the land, the land! Let the Tories take this up and dish the Liberals. Easiest thing alive. How? Compulsory sale, compulsory purchase. Leave nothing to either party. Then you'll hear no more of Home Rule. ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... "Dangerous—bosh!" Denise retorted. "I'm a writer, Dick. All this means to me is material. It's just experience, and ...
— The Ideal • Stanley Grauman Weinbaum
... "Oh, bosh!" Jules Keaveney, the Skilk Resident-Agent, at the head of the table, exclaimed. "You soldiers are all alike—begging your pardon, General von Schlichten," he nodded in the direction of the guest of honor. "If they don't ...
— Uller Uprising • Henry Beam Piper, John D. Clark and John F. Carr
... the why and wherefore of the whole thing. In doing so we can fortify ourselves with another maxim, that "Principle is not limited by Precedent." When we spread the wings of thought and speculate as to future possibilities, our conventionally-minded friends may say we are talking bosh; but if you ask them why they say so, they can only reply that the past experience of the whole human race is against you. They do not speak like this in the matter of flying-machines or carriages that go without ...
— The Law and the Word • Thomas Troward
... listen to bosh of that kind I can not imagine! What can it matter to you what he disbelieves or why he disbelieves it? And it is beastly cheek of him ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
... make bosh of the Gospel, And it's sport to make gospel of Bosh, While divorcees hurrah For the Sayings of Pshaw And ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... that's the way the wind sets! My! I must say that's the fakiest thing I ever heard about Mrs. Markham. We all know that a medium's born. This dark room developin' seance work is bosh to stall the dopes along. Still, Mrs. Markham has always played a lone hand. She's never mixed with other mediums, which is why I'll be safe in goin' into her house—she won't recognize me. Probably she's kept some fool notions that the rest of us lost long ago. ...
— The House of Mystery • William Henry Irwin
... "That's all bosh," Anton declared. "Mr. Levin and I were talking over that just the other day. There hasn't been any change of weather. The winters to-day average the same that they did fifty years ago. There's some ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler
... "Bosh. Travellers don't read the names over the doors, when they go into pubs. You're an entire stranger to him. Call him 'Boss'. Say 'Good-day, Boss,' when you go in, and swing down your swag as if you're ...
— On the Track • Henry Lawson
... know. Georgian may have drowned herself. That is credible enough. But that the girl we read about in the papers and whom she evidently induced to come to this place with her should be the dead girl we called Anitra—why, that is all bosh—a tale to deceive the public, and possibly you, but not one to deceive me. The ...
— The Chief Legatee • Anna Katharine Green
... "Oh, bosh!" I exclaimed, impatiently. "This is nonsense and you know it, Hephzy. She'll have to be told and you and I must tell her. DON'T look at me like that. What ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... if it's immense bosh. If he has hold of something that can't be got into a letter he hasn't hold of THE thing. Vereker's own statement to me was exactly that the 'figure' WOULD fit ...
— The Figure in the Carpet • Henry James
... system, but if now our toil is o'er, We leave twaddle as sole token of the swelling words we've spoken. Public faith in us is broken! Bah! I quit, I "bust", boil o'er! Take my seat, sign your Report, about such bosh my ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, April 5, 1890 • Various
... MSS. there where I am sitting, and resolve, with might and main, to finish the last few scenes. I think until I sweat, and re-read from the beginning, but make no progress. No bosh! I say—no obstinacy, now! and I write away at my drama—write down everything that strikes me, just to get finished quickly and be able to go away. I tried to persuade myself that a new supreme moment had seized me; I lied right royally to myself, deceived myself knowingly, ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... right. We can stand it if the Revenoo can. On the same principle young men should continer to get drunk on French brandy and to smoke their livers as dry as a corn-cob with Cuby cigars because 4-sooth if they don't, it will hurt the Revenoo! This talk 'bout the Revenoo is of the bosh boshy. One thing is tol'bly certin—if we don't send gold out of the country we shall have the consolation of knowing that it is in the country. So I say great credit is doo the wimin for this patriotic move—and to tell the trooth, the wimin genrally ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 2 • Charles Farrar Browne
... shown much wish to leave it for anyone else," Jim said drily. "Neither you nor Tommy strikes this district as a loafer. Just stop talking bosh, old man, and think what Tommy's going to say ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... an angry tone, and then he blew his nose loudly. "Velasco—bosh! He is only a trickster! There is a fad nowadays among the ladies to run after him." He bowed to the three ladies in turn mockingly, "My friends here tried to get tickets last week in St. Petersburg, but the house was sold out. Bosh—I tell you! I wouldn't cross the street to hear a virtuoso ...
— The Black Cross • Olive M. Briggs
... what next to break the peace occurred— What act uncivil, what unfriendly word? The god of Bosh ascending from his pool, Where since creation he has played the fool, Clove the blue slush, as other gods the sky, And, waiting but a moment's space to dry, Touched Bonynge with his finger-tip. "O son," He ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... I'm not going to stay to listen to you talking bosh any more," said Peter roughly. "There's the next ...
— Helena • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... "Bosh!" She was angry. "And what will be your attitude toward me if you do succeed in preventing the marriage? Will you take me back as I was before this thing came up? Will you make me your wife, just as if nothing had happened? In view of my deliberate ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... "Bosh," amused himself by juggling with a banana, two oranges and a walnut, relics of his dessert. His performance was being lazily watched by the Sub from the depths of the arm-chair which he had drawn as near to the glowing ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... "Bosh!" interrupted Steelman, cheerfully. "Catch a cold! Here I've been knocking about the country for the last five years—sleeping out in all weathers—and do you think a little damp is going to hurt me? Pooh! What do you take me for? Don't you bother your head about ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... "What bosh!" I said. "Besides, even if it were to come true, I am sorry to say I've killed lots of men in the way of business and ...
— Finished • H. Rider Haggard
... "Pooh! that is high-flown bosh. You need not say what you do or do not believe. All you have to do is to throw the onus ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... Nos. 1, 2, 3 and 4, form one complete plant, with stacks seventy-five feet high, sixteen feet diameter of bosh. Steam is generated in forty boilers, fired by furnace gas, for eight vertical direct-acting blowing engines. Nos. 5 and 6 blast furnaces form together a second plant with stacks seventy-five feet high, nineteen feet diameter of bosh. No. 5 has iron ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... wear gloves, and on her beautifully manicured hands she wore no rings except a magnificent ruby on the left little finger. It was her caprice to refuse an alliance. "Wedding rings!" she had said to Stanislass. "Bosh! they spoil the look. Sometimes it is chic to have a good jewel on one finger, sometimes on another, but to be tied down to that band ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn
... speech—the huggermugger morality of timorous, whining, unintelligent and unimaginative men—envy turned into law, cowardice sanctified, stupidity made noble, Puritanism. And in the theoretical field there is an even more luxuriant crop of bosh. Mountebanks almost innumerable tell us what we should believe and practice, in politics, religion, philosophy and the arts. England and the United States, between them, house more creeds than all the rest of the world together, and they are more absurd. They rise, they ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... was an ambitious one; too much so, as we were afterwards to discover. From the first Old Colonial objected to it. It was too far from the river, he said, and would necessitate such an amount of "humping." Bosh about humping! returned the majority. It was only a temporary affair; in a year or two we should be having a regular frame-house. Old Colonial gave way, for he perceived that, as our acknowledged boss, he would have but little of the humping to do himself. ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... HAUSER. Their meetings—bosh! Their sort only couple their nonsense with a few self-evident generalities which no one would really oppose. No, first of all they must be educated and that ...
— Moral • Ludwig Thoma
... that's all bosh. Those newspaper fellows got hold of it for the Silly Season and ran it to death, but it's the best possible place in the world. No end of good training for a fellow to command ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, Jan. 2, 1892 • Various
... may have the theory, while Civilizationica reads the essay. Then change about. Ponder them well, and while we walk to the Museum later, tell me their errors. Then I will show you the preserved ears of the first man found in Boshland by P. T. Barnum, jr.' Oh, bosh," said Mae suddenly, letting fly her streamers, "what a dry set of locusts you nineteenth century leaders are. You are devouring our green land, and some of us butterflies would like to turn our yellow wings into solid shields ...
— Mae Madden • Mary Murdoch Mason
... hearing, Doubting, dreaming dreams of Spooks, Mahatmas, Esoteric lore; But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token. Hist! there were two words soft spoken, those stale words, "Obstructive Bore." Bosh! I murmured, and some echo whispered back, "Obstructive Bore": Merely ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., August 23, 1890. • Various
... an old gentleman, and a determined advocate of the institution. He said, "Your remarks are all bosh; the African race were born slaves, and have been so for centuries, and are fit for nothing else."—I replied, "I am quite aware of the effect of breeding; we have a race of dog in England which, from their progenitors of many successive generations having had their tails cut off in puppyhood, ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... young cub sent me a message that brought me down post-haste, expecting to find him in a state of collapse. Instead of which I found him gaily awaiting me at the station to tell me he had run himself out—or some bosh of the kind—and it was now my innings, and I was to go in and win. On my soul, Olga, he was enjoying himself up to ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... chance in the picture gallery of an old castle, there fell from their eyes, as it were, scales, and they beheld as in a vision each the other's soul, and recognized in each fellow-helper and comrade of the spirit. To all this the practical man cries out "Bosh"! Yet Montreal is no bosh, but a stately city, and it sprang from the dreams—"fool dreams," enemies would call them—of these two men, the Sulpician priest and the Anjou ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... said Captain Rik firmly. "They talk a deal of stuff about it, more than nine-tenths of which is lies—pure fable. I don't believe in electricity; more than that, I don't believe in steam. Batteries and boilers are both bosh!" ...
— The Battery and the Boiler - Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables • R.M. Ballantyne
... "God bless it, and the children who come to live in it!"—There is surely something strange in that, don't you think so? Then when father died last year we had to find a cheap and quiet place to live, and I remembered the Yellow House in Beulah and told mother my idea. She does not say "Bosh!" like some mothers, but if our ideas sound like anything she tries them; so she sent Gilbert to see if the house was still vacant, and when we found it was, we took it. The rent is sixty dollars a year, as I suppose Bill Harmon told you when he ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... "Bosh! Your Lady Beltham is anything you like: what do I care for Lady Beltham? I shall never play women's parts, shall I? She does not stand for anything. But Gurn, now! There's a type, if you like! What an interesting, characteristic face! He has the head of the assassin of genius, ...
— Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... write you a few words before I go to sleep. I have just gone through Gabriel's poems, and am beside myself with wonder. Constance, the creature is a genius. I marvel at my happiness, that I should have touched his life. No, I'll not write; I feel that, if I do, I shall write bosh. Good-night; I hope you are sleeping fast at ...
— The Wings of Icarus - Being the Life of one Emilia Fletcher • Laurence Alma Tadema
... as you'll see. And does anybody want to say that a two-inch pipe is going to run a water wheel with force enough to turn a generator that will drive thirty or forty lights? Bosh!" ...
— Radio Boys Cronies • Wayne Whipple and S. F. Aaron
... the article," said he, when Rodney asked him what he thought of it, "and it is nothing but the veriest bosh." ...
— Rodney The Partisan • Harry Castlemon
... characters conform to the established antecedents of greatness. These established antecedents of greatness have for the most part been created out of superstitions, credulities, blank idealism, and mere dogmatic bosh. No living, active men have ever conformed, or could conform, to the standards which the logicians, the philosophers, and the priests have fixed up for them; and if any of them should conform to such a standard, their place under classification ...
— The Arena - Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897 • Various
... whispered, and the business of the day began. There were eight in all to read essays—nice looking girls, and much like the Lasells and Wellesleys we used to know. As for the essays—well, there was either a good deal of bosh in them, or a profundity of learning and thought to which Jack Harcourt never attained. But the people cheered like mad whenever one was ended, and sent up flowers, while I grew hotter and hotter, and when ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... own fault—the beasts! Fighting for their liberty and patriotism, they call it. They won't submit to being slaves to the Queen. Such bosh! Slaves indeed! Did you ever feel that you led the life of a slave under the reign of our ...
— Charge! - A Story of Briton and Boer • George Manville Fenn
... "Bosh!" growls de Vere, "as if anybody couldn't gallop about from the shed to the washpen, and carry messages, and give half of them wrong! Why, Mr Gordon said the other day, he should have to take you off and put on a Chinaman—that he couldn't ...
— Shearing in the Riverina, New South Wales • Rolf Boldrewood
... sea," cried young Spinner, the knowing. "Bosh, I say. See! we're going directly for her. Think what it might be in a fog! Lane routes! Pure ...
— The Face And The Mask • Robert Barr
... pacha, almost gasping, "all these are words, wind— bosh. By the fountains that play round the throne of Mahomet, but my throat feels as hot and as dry with this fellow's doubts, as if it were paved with live cinders. I doubt whether we shall be able ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... said, quickly. "I tell you he will never speak all you wish. That is rot—bosh. But he would be most good to make to see things. Suppose now we pretend that it was only play"—I had never seen Grish Chunder so excited—"and pour the ink-pool into his hand. Eh, what do you think? I tell you ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... pleasing it lies in the positive fact that it prefers not to be pleased. It undoubtedly objects to the very sensations which an artist aims to give. If I have heard once, I have heard fifty times resentful remarks similar to: "I'm not going to read any more bosh by him! Why, I simply couldn't put the thing down!" It is profoundly hostile to art, and the empire of art. It will not willingly yield. Its attitude to the magic spell is its attitude to the dentist's gas-bag. ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett
... my opinion, both parties will nail anti-trust planks in their platforms. But this talk is all bosh with both parties. Neither one is honest in its cry against trusts. The one making the more noise in this direction may get the votes of some unthinking persons, but every one who is capable of reading and digesting what he reads, knows full well that the leaders ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... "Bosh!" Freddy said. "I do wish he was more ordinary, less of a crank about these things! How can he think he isn't as good a man as that fair-tongued, lying Mohammed Ali, for instance, or any of these lying sensualists? It's the ugliest ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... Washington; and by doing this these would-be statesmen prove how ignorant they are of history in general, and specially ignorant of the policy of European cabinets. Before a struggle decides a question a recognition is bosh, and I ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski
... "Oh, bosh, it isn't coming to that; but I wish he were in better shape. He is broken up badly without this hole ...
— The Sky Pilot • Ralph Connor
... because I have my little revenge. I have called you Peter Prosper, and you can't stand it. You haven't spirit enough to call me Matty Thoroughbung in reply. But good-bye, Mr. Prosper,—for I never will call you Peter again. As to what I said to you about money, that, of course, is all bosh. I'll pay Soames's bill, and will never trouble you. There's your letter, which, however, would be of no use, because it is not signed. A very stupid letter it is. If you want to write naturally you should never copy a letter. Good-bye, Mr. Prosper—Peter that never shall be." Then ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... their diminished incomes. The short-sighted thrift-preachers would naturally be astounded at the outcome. The measure of their failure would be precisely the measure of the success of their propaganda. And, anyway, it is sheer bosh and nonsense to preach thrift to the 1,800,000 London workers who are divided into families which have a total income of less than 21s. per week, one quarter to one half of which must be ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London
... released the trigger for firing. With hasty fingers he tore off the sleeve of Jimmie's shirt, and bound up his arm tightly with a bandage from his kit; then he raised up over the rock and cursed the sockray Bosh and began to fire. Jimmie got up the nerve to peer out, and there were the grey figures, much nearer now, and he knew they were Germans because they were like the pictures he had seen. They were running at him, firing ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... Christianity, and all which, if it is true, must be more important than anything else. I have tired of art for the same reason. How can I be anything but a wretched dilettante, when I have no principles to ground my criticism on, beyond bosh about 'The Beautiful'? I did pluck up heart and read Mr. Ruskin's books greedily when they came out, because I heard he was a good Christian. But I fell upon a little tract of his, 'Notes on Sheepfolds,' and gave him up again, when ...
— Phaethon • Charles Kingsley
... "Oh bosh," said Toby. "Push him over, Mizzen." And the Sly Old Fox was in fact somewhat rudely pushed ...
— The Old Tobacco Shop - A True Account of What Befell a Little Boy in Search of Adventure • William Bowen
... up as the speaker paused and mopped his forehead with a red handkerchief. But the applause was suddenly stilled by the sound of the emphatic "Bosh!" which Frank shouted at the top of his voice. Every one turned round, and shouts arose of "Who is that?" "Down with him!" "Turn him out!" "Knock him down!" The orator ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... (flippantly). Ooooh! what bosh! One patient in six weeks! What difference does it make ...
— You Never Can Tell • [George] Bernard Shaw
... strange man, savagely. "You are like the rest of the world, and next week you would be as ready to kick me as any other man would be, if you dared to do so. You needn't stop any longer to talk that sort of bosh to me. It will do for Sunday Schools ...
— The Yacht Club - or The Young Boat-Builder • Oliver Optic
... on the telephone, and he'd have had whatever he asked for in a few hours. That's not boasting, Mr. Chestermarke—that's just plain truth. My uncle a thief! Mr. Chestermarke!—there's only one word for your suggestion. Don't think me rude if I tell you what it is. It's—bosh!" ...
— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher
... "Bosh! I told you before I knew an honest face when I saw it, and I'll wager he's as honest as the day is long. Dare," continued Mr. Joyce, turning to Richard, "just go outside in the store ...
— Richard Dare's Venture • Edward Stratemeyer
... when the men came in afterwards, he crossed over to us, and Jane introduced him to me when he had talked a little. He is quite a sort of gentleman, and is very much at home with every one. He laughed at everything I said. Mrs. Smith (such bosh putting "de Yorburgh" on!) sat on a big sofa with Lord Valmond, and she opened and shut her eyes at him, and Jane Roose says she takes every one's friend away; and Lord George Lane came up, and we talked, and he wasn't such an idiot as at dinner, and he has nice teeth. All ...
— The Visits of Elizabeth • Elinor Glyn
... ever woven, For a clumsy lout, with a wooden leg, To come with his endless Peg! Peg! Peg! Peg! With a wooden leg, Till countless holes I'm drove in. ("Drove," I have said, and it should be "driven"; A hearthrug's blunders should be forgiven, For wretched scribblers have exercised Such endless bosh and clamour, So improvidently have improvised, That they've utterly ungrammaticised Our ungrammatical grammar). And the coals Burn holes, Or make spots like moles, And my lily-white tints, as black as your hat turn, And the housemaid ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... "Bosh and tommyrot!" Buckton fairly glowed. "Never, never, when the case is like ours. We are simply doing our duty to ourselves. Love you? Why, I adore you! You have saved my life, darling. I would have killed ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben |
