"Castle in the air" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... at least be valuable to the extent of thirty pounds, which I had engaged to pay on his behalf. But I have reason to fear that his Dutch riches turned out to be Dutch gilt, or fairy gold, and his English country-seat a mere castle in the air,—which I exceedingly regret, for he was a delightful companion and a very ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... of her life had been spent; here that she had watched the ways of birds and flowers and insects; here that she had listened to Peter's tales of olden times; and here that she had dreamed dreams of her father, and built many a castle in the air. She was glad when she saw that this beloved garden was casting its charm upon her friend. It was looking very lovely in the afternoon sunshine. Butterflies were flitting amongst the flowers, and the hum of bees and many insects made the air musical with sound of happy life. A gorgeous ...
— Hunter's Marjory - A Story for Girls • Margaret Bruce Clarke
... just at sunsetting, she ran over the One Hair Bridge, and ran, and ran, and ran until she came to the giant's house looking for all the world like a castle in the air, all ruddy and golden and glinting. She could scarce believe such a dreadful double-faced giant lived within. However, she knew he did; so she slipped into the house unbeknownst, stole up to the giant's room, and crept in below the giant's bed. By and by the giant ...
— English Fairy Tales • Flora Annie Steel
... must not even remember a home. So far from his house being his castle, he must not have even a castle in the air. He must have no memories; that is why he is taught no history. Why is he told none of the truth about the mediaeval civilisation except a few cruelties and mistakes in chemistry? Why does a mediaeval burgher never appear till he can appear in a shirt ...
— Eugenics and Other Evils • G. K. Chesterton
... were hurrying towards the sea with the velocity of a cataract, were precipitated against it with a noise like thunder, and the tremendous pressure from above forcing block upon block with a loud hissing noise, raised, as if by magic, an icy castle in the air, which, ere its pinnacles had pointed for a second to the sky, fell with stunning violence into the boiling flood from whence it rose. In a short time afterwards the mouth of the river became so full of ice that it stuck there, and in less than an hour the water rose ten or fifteen feet, nearly ...
— Hudson Bay • R.M. Ballantyne
... common sense upon religious opinions, and will bestow on this inquiry the attention that is commonly given to most subjects, will easily perceive that Religion is a mere castle in the air. Theology is ignorance of natural causes; a tissue of fallacies and contradictions. In every country, it presents romances void of probability, the hero of which is composed of impossible qualities. ...
— Good Sense - 1772 • Paul Henri Thiry, Baron D'Holbach
... man's castle in the air; his clever, selfish son soon demolished it. 'This sum of money,' he said, 'is only a lucky windfall. If you indeed wish it to become the foundation of my fortune, give me one hundred florins besides, and let me return to Amsterdam: ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 420, New Series, Jan. 17, 1852 • Various
... sowing their first corn—was being set afoot in North Carolina by a body of men who figure in the early history of Kentucky as the Transylvania Company. The leader of this organization was Judge Richard Henderson. * Judge Henderson dreamed a big dream. His castle in the air had imperial proportions. He resolved, in short, to purchase from the Cherokee Indians the larger part of Kentucky and to establish there a colony after the manner and the economic form of the English ...
— Pioneers of the Old Southwest - A Chronicle of the Dark and Bloody Ground • Constance Lindsay Skinner
... build the walls and make the doors is just as necessary as the work of the men who decorate the cornice. None of them would be of much use without the architect, and the plans of the architect would come to nothing, his building would be a mere castle in the air, if it were not for the other workers. Each part of the work is equally necessary, useful and indispensable if the building is to be perfected. Some of these men work harder with their brains than with their hands and some work harder with their hands than with their brains, BUT EACH ONE ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... ended and rude was the awaking. The idea of helping her fellows had grown to be a passion with her and very fair had been the castle in the air of which she was the Princess. A home, not rich or stately but full of a delightful homeiness which should soothe and cheer those who, walking through the world amid a storm of tears, call earth a wilderness, while their desolate hearts echo the mournful question,—"Is there any sorrow like unto ...
— A Beautiful Possibility • Edith Ferguson Black
... our Richmond dreams had come true,' she wrote once—'as though our favourite castle in the air were built. "Not really, mother? you don't think this beautiful house and garden belong to us really?" asks Mollie, in her stupid way. You know what a literal little soul she is. "Oh, go away, Mollie!" I exclaim ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... hindquarters. Up a rickety stair were two rooms. The floor rocked as we walked over it, and every moment we expected to go through and be precipitated into the manure below. The walls and floor were so loosely made that the wind blew through in all directions, and we called it the "castle in the air." We supped on chickens which we had brought from Scutari, and Whatmough and Elmer made a fire in the yard and got us cocoa. By this time we were all getting fed up with romantic surroundings, and wanted something more solid. The swarthy countenances about the bonfire, the queer costumes in the ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... one side of the Strait to the other!*[2] Far different were the feelings of the engineer who had planned this magnificent work. Its failure had been predicted; and, like Brindley's Barton Viaduct, it had been freely spoken of as a "castle in the air." Telford had, it is true, most carefully tested every part by repeated experiment, and so conclusively proved the sufficiency of the iron chains to bear the immense weight they would have to support, that he was thoroughly convinced as to the soundness of his principles of construction, and ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles
... being cut off, I now turned my eyes towards Leipzig. There Ernesti appeared to me as a brilliant light: Morus, too, already awakened much confidence. I planned for myself in secret an opposition-course, or rather I built a castle in the air, on a tolerably solid foundation; and it seemed to me quite romantically honorable to mark out my own path of life, which appeared the less visionary, as Griesbach had already made great progress in a similar way, and was commended for it by every one. The secret ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe |
