"Empty-headed" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... times, when I see the crowd of young, empty-headed fortune-seeking jackanapes, who dare to aspire to your ladyship's hand ... I have asked myself whether perchance I had the right to remain silent, whilst they poured their farrago of nonsense into your ear. ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... all other ideals as they are more substantial? He poses, to be sure, as a depreciator of woman. "Just like a woman," "women's frivolity," "useless little feminine trinkets," are phrases always on his lips. But watch his caressing expression as he listens to the chatter of Cousin Thisbe, the most empty-headed little creature who ever wore glowing cheeks and bright curls. Let anybody get into trouble with his wife or sweetheart, and my uncle straightway takes up the cudgels for the lady. The merits of the case don't matter: a lady is ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various
... at last! Well, Sary refused absolutely to be left at home when she found Jeb was going with the family to help Polly carry the bags. "What," she exclaimed to Mrs. Brewster the night before, "you-all mus' think Ah'm empty-headed to let Jeb go t' Denver alone. Ah've hearn say how gals go about them streets lookin' fer a handsome young beau! No-siree! Ef Jeb goes, Ah goes too!" ...
— Polly and Eleanor • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... charming Lady ——," &c. Forster, following the exact precedent of Mrs. Prig in the quarrel with her friend, would break into a scornful laugh, and, though he did not say "drat Lady ——," he insisted she was a foolish, empty-headed creature, and that Browning praised her because she had a title. This was taken seriously, and the Poet requested that no disparaging remarks would be made on one of his best friends. "Pooh," said Forster, contemptuously, "some ...
— John Forster • Percy Hethrington Fitzgerald
... condition that it would seem that if Mark King had had his wits about him he must have realized it. And yet had he glimpsed that which should have been so obvious he would have been startled, somewhat shocked, and would have grieved over his friend's empty-headed daughter, holding her unmaidenly—when she was but dallying with dreams which mean so much ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... to the blue jay, two monstrous giants fighting to the death. All the other forest people had fled away in terror, but the empty-headed blue jay, held by the terrible fascination, remained on his bough, watching with dilated eyes. He saw the great beads of sweat stand out on the face of each, he could hear the muscles strain and creak, he saw the two fall to the ...
— The Riflemen of the Ohio - A Story of the Early Days along "The Beautiful River" • Joseph A. Altsheler
... thinkin', too. 'Who in thunderation are you?' sez he. 'You're Bill Brayton, of Tennessee, fightin' in the rebel army, when you ought to know better,' says I. 'Now, who in thunderation am I?' 'Sufferin' Moses!' says he, 'that voice grows more like his every time he speaks. It can't be that empty-headed galoot, Dan Whitley, who never knew nothin' 'bout the rights an' wrongs of the war, an' had to go ...
— The Sword of Antietam • Joseph A. Altsheler
... ever possessed the gift of fascinating an audience to the degree that she does. Your Excellency may take my word for it, she is a very clever woman. My own interviews with her sufficed to convince me of that fact. And I need not tell your Excellency, that little as some of the empty-headed young gentlemen in the stalls may suspect it, talent,—not only the special talent of song but general talent,— has much to do with the power of fascination that a gifted ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... God gives babies to children, the children forget their other dolls, and the Princess, when the babies came, put away her other dolls, and played with the toys that came alive. And she spanked them and fondled them and scolded them with the same empty-headed vanity that she used to devote to ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White
... was a King by accident, having been born to that high station. Also the King was empty-headed by the same chance, being ...
— Rinkitink in Oz • L. Frank Baum
... babies. She would monopolize the conversation, so far as she could, and direct it all the time. At the risk of utterly losing the good opinion of one of Cousin Julia's most valued friends, of appearing forward, conceited, tiresome, she would rattle on like the empty-headed society girl in certain modern plays. She would introduce utterly impersonal subjects, such as—at the moment she couldn't think of anything but prohibition, which would last about two minutes—and chatter foolishly and fast upon them, one after another. Then, if she exhausted ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray
... somewhat aggressively burst into a guffaw of derisive laughter. "Miss Loomis is just one of those admirable women," said he, "that empty-headed idiots prate about. I wish other people had half her sense." A luckless way of essaying the defence of the absent, for it reflected ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... by instinct, all thy stuff is dear: Their loud claps echo to the theatre: From breaths of fools thy commendation spreads, Fame sings thy praise with mouths of loggerheads. With noise and laughing each thy fustian greets, 'Tis clapt by choirs of empty-headed cits, Who have their tribute sent, and homage given, As men in whispers send loud ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... The empty-headed cannot be expected to perceive the magnitude of this upward step in the evolution of man, and its machinery may not run smoothly for a span; we nor our children's children may not know much benefit from what it symbolises, but shall we who are comfortable in rights wrested ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... tell me that you have done so if you want to make me a little more happy than I have been this last day or two. There has been too much thinking in the heads of both of us. Be empty-headed for once when you write next: whether you write little or much, I am sure always of your full heart: but I cannot trust your brain to the same pressure: it is such a Martha to headaches and careful about so many things, and you don't bring it here to be ...
— An Englishwoman's Love-Letters • Anonymous
... or six children of various ages. As we drew nigh, the whole party, without rising, uttered a wild scream of welcome, accompanied by that loud laughter which always seems to escape so readily from this light-hearted and empty-headed people. ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... and that makes matters worse, for his grandson, Sirajuddaula, who'll probably succeed him, is no better than a tiger. He lives at Murshidabad, about one hundred miles up the river. He's a vain, peacocky, empty-headed youth, and as soon as the breath is out of his granddad's body he'll want to try his wings and take a peck or two at us. He may do it slyly, or go so far ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... indifferent to the question of whom he had chosen. Certainly, at first, the choice of Blanche Evers seemed highly incongruous; it was difficult to imagine a young woman less shaped to minister to Gordon's strenuous needs than the light-hearted and empty-headed little flirt whose inconsequent prattle had remained for Bernard one of the least importunate memories of a charming time. Blanche Evers was a pretty little goose—the prettiest of little geese, perhaps, and doubtless the most amiable; ...
— Confidence • Henry James
... guessed it yet? It was all a sham; don't you see? When I came back from college and found out exactly how things were going, I realized at once that something must be done. You were miserable and neglected, and Mother was under the influence of Mrs. Black and that empty-headed, ridiculous Chapter and would-be society crowd of hers. I tried at first to reason with her, but that was useless. She was too far gone for reason. So I thought and thought until I had a plan. I believed if I could show her, by my own example, how silly and ridiculous the kind of people she associated ...
— Cap'n Dan's Daughter • Joseph C. Lincoln
... other partakers in a mystery. It makes them feel bigger. Even the Freemasons, who have been shown up to satiety, preserve a kind of pride; and not a grocer among them, however honest, harmless, and empty-headed he may feel himself to be at bottom, but comes home from one of their coenacula with a ...
— An Inland Voyage • Robert Louis Stevenson
... durable peace among the nations. It is also the only defense against that deadly and destructive war of classes with which Bolshevism threatens the whole world. The spirit of Bolshevism is atheism and enmity; its method is violence and tyranny; its result would be a reign of terror under that empty-headed monster, "the dictatorship of the proletariat." God save us from that! It would be the worst possible outcome of the war in which we have offered and sacrificed so much, and in which God has given us the opportunity to make "a covenant ...
— What Peace Means • Henry van Dyke
... marriage has changed you a little?" asked Alice. "It usually does. It changed me from an empty-headed little fool to a woman with oh, such a tremendous desire to be worthy ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... are,' answered Evdoksya; 'but they're all such empty-headed creatures. Mon amie, Odintsova, for instance, is nice-looking. It's a pity her reputation's rather doubtful.... That wouldn't matter, though, but she's no independence in her views, no width, nothing ... of all that. The whole system of education ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... "An empty-headed man, or one who always doubts and argues, would be useless," he replied sharply. "You shall ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard
... disappointment. A change had come over her whole being, one of those subtle changes that a moment of crisis can produce. The fickle, light-hearted girl had disappeared, the injured woman came to the front. There is this peculiarity about Australian girls. Outsiders consider them empty-headed and frivolous, for they have a light, lackadaisical manner of spending their lives, but lying dormant beneath is a nature with a purpose which once roused is relentless in its desire for exacting satisfaction. May Goodchild was a typical daughter of her land. ...
— Australia Revenged • Boomerang
... Dominion, and sincerely grateful, for being enabled to see with our own eyes the works of those much-abused monks, who in general are so frequently defamed by the thoughtless boys who write for the secular press, and by the equally empty-headed old women—of both sexes—who write for that class of periodical which by a curious misnomer is designated religious. These are the people, who, it is to be feared, shut their eyes to the truth, lest they should be ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 1, January 1886 • Various
... Blois, the chateau, and the town were guarded, Christophe was prepared to find spies and traps everywhere; and he therefore resolved to conceal the importance of his mission and the tension of his mind under the empty-headed and shopkeeping appearance with which he presented himself to the eyes of young Pardaillan, the officer of the guard, and the ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... many men in more advanced life seem to me to sow no crop of any kind. There are empty fools at all ages; but "an old fool," &c., (musty as the proverb is, it is rather from neglect than over-application.) I have known men by the dozen, who in their youth were either empty-headed coxcombs or noisy sots; does my reader think that any given number of additional years has made them able statesmen, sound lawyers, or erudite divines? that because they have become honourable by a seat in Parliament, learned ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... brother, that it was not; but, then, what is the business for me? But if you had seen Kurbyev! Do not, pray, fancy him as some empty-headed chatterer. They say I was eloquent once. I was simply nothing beside him. He was a man of wonderful learning and knowledge,—an intellect, brother, a creative intellect, for business and commercial enterprises. His brain seemed seething with the boldest, the most unexpected ...
— Rudin • Ivan Turgenev
... should have gone out of my mind. Well, it's an old story: I was so bored that I got into an affair with a singer. Everyone was enthusiastic about her, the devil only knows why; to my thinking she was—what shall I say?—an ordinary, commonplace creature, like lots of others. The hussy was empty-headed, ill-tempered, greedy, and what's more, she ...
— The Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... he agreed, in his hearty manner. 'If I had had any brains instead of being a great empty-headed fool of an attorney, I should have seen to that before,' and, linking his arm in mine, he led me in spite of all protests on my part, to his great touring car ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... which had been no whit controlled, which indeed had now made itself master of her, came to a head, and, bursting through the floodgates of the eye, came rolling down, and in its fall, wetted her hand as it lay on her lap. "What a fool! what an idiot! what an empty-headed cowardly fool I am!" said she, springing up from ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... world, should be consecrated to less secular employment. Her vivacity during the earlier years of their acquaintance exposed her to an occasional rebuff. "She does not gain upon me, sir; I think her empty-headed," was one of his remarks; and it was to her that he said, according to Mrs. Thrale, though Boswell reports a softened version of the remark, that she should "consider what her flattery was worth, before she choked him with it." More frequently, ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... 15, 1778.] was certainly, according to Croker, Hannah More. Another ill-natured sentence about a Bath lady ["He would not allow me to praise a lady then at Bath; observing, 'She does not gain upon me, sir; I think her empty-headed.'"] whom Johnson called "empty-headed" is ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... it is possible for a man ever to thoroughly understand a woman?" he asked, with a retrospective slowness, directed, I was sure, towards that empty-headed sweetheart ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... to call himself. These afflicted ones, these peculiar ones—Mme. Poussette kept the secret well. But two days ago he sent for me and told me everything; how he was properly married in the parish of Sault au Recollet to Artemise Archambault, she, the half-witted, the empty-headed—God knows whether that was the charm or what—and of the birth of the child, he told me. What could you expect from the union of two such natures? If you marry, mademoiselle, mate neither with a bad ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... struck him that all this refined simplicity and nobility and wit and personal dignity might possibly be no more than an exquisite artistic polish. The majority of the guests—who were somewhat empty-headed, after all, in spite of their aristocratic bearing—never guessed, in their self-satisfied composure, that much of their superiority was mere veneer, which indeed they had adopted unconsciously and ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... with a passionate emphasis, which to many people would seem out of all keeping with the subject; but I am young, and a girl, so I understood. There are many empty-headed women in whom the craving for pretty things is as strong as the masculine craving for drink and cards. Circumstances have compelled these women to wear the plainest, most useful of clothes, while every shop window ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... upon her majority appeared in his court and he had had occasion to lecture her about the nature of the fortune he was handing over to her. Then his harsh tone had been due to a sense of futility in having been at great pains to preserve for this foolishly dressed and apparently empty-headed young woman a very great property. To him had come then acutely the disheartening realization of the underlying irony of life, when such power and privilege could be put into such futile hands. And he—the conscientious ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... CASSEL (Count), an empty-headed, heart less, conceited puppy, who pays court to Amelia Wildenhaim, but is too insufferable to be endured. He tells her he "learnt delicacy in Italy, hauteur in Spain, enterprise in France, prudence in Russia, sincerity in England, and love in the wilds of America," for ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... people fancied from this look of his that he was an empty-headed fop they soon found ...
— Tenterhooks • Ada Leverson
... be an 'owling cad; Or be gowing to the bad; Or a hoary centenarian, or empty-headed lad; Or the merest trifle mad— If there's rhino to be had, Why, a modern girl will tyke you—yes, and only be ...
— Punch Among the Planets • Various
... would under no circumstances become a wife, but at the same time she was firm in her heart never to have a husband. So she followed the politician's common plan: she compromised. She allowed her hand to be sought by every empty-handed and empty-headed and hollow-hearted prince or noble in Europe, determined that each in his turn should go empty away; and so she played off princes against her own people, until the course of years had left no doubt that she had become, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... dear, that your fate should resemble mine! I read your feelings far more plainly than you do yourself. You have a kind, generous, noble heart deeply attached to you. Don't be a fool, as I was; don't throw him over for the sake of an empty-headed, flirting, good-for-nothing roue, who will forget you in a fortnight. Strong language, Kate, is it not? But think over what I have told you. Good-night, dear. What would I give to yawn as honestly as you do, and to sleep sound once again, as I ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... morning, after a sleepless night, when he had tossed and turned on his uneasy bed, and risen unrefreshed, he hired a horse, for he had none in town, and went for a long ride. Coming back he turned into Rotten Row. He could not tell why he did so, for such places, affected by the gay, empty-headed votaries of fashion, were little consonant to his present state. He was barely in it when a lady's horse took fright: she was riding alone, with a groom following; Lord Hartledon gave her his assistance, led her horse until the animal was calm, and rode ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... but all the time we are hungering for him to say the one thing demanded by the logic of the situation: to wit: "Whatever the abstract rights and wrongs of the case, this man would be an imbecile to elope with this woman, who is an empty-headed, empty-hearted creature, incapable either of the passion or of the loathing which alone could lend any semblance of reason to a breach of social law." Similarly, in The Profligate, Sir Arthur Pinero no doubt intended us to reflect upon the question whether, in entering upon marriage, ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... as much of that gentleman as the reader does, he would probably have displayed considerably more interest in his new acquaintance than he did. As it was, he would have been glad of an excuse to avoid shaking hands with either him or his empty-headed companion, Mr Pillans. He went through the ceremony as stiffly as possible, and ...
— Reginald Cruden - A Tale of City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... master spoke of social advantages. The empty-headed Irish woman who had all the quick wit and cleverness of tongue characteristic of her race was determined that her girl Annette should learn to be as stylish as "them that tho't themselves her betters." So the children were kept at school by their fondly ...
— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor
... their children, and indifferent to their interests, that for the sake of a paltry saving, they prefer worthless teachers for their children, practising a vile economy at the expense of their children's ignorance. Apropos of this, Aristippus on one occasion rebuked an empty-headed parent neatly and wittily. For being asked how much money a parent ought to pay for his son's education, he answered, "A thousand drachmae." And he replying, "Hercules, what a price! I could buy a slave for as much;" Aristippus answered, "You shall have two slaves then, your son and the ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch |
