"Fool" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... iglesia church; iglesita (dim.). ignorar to be ignorant of, not know. igual equal. ilimitado limitless. iluminar to illuminate. ilusion f. illusion. ilustre illustrious. imaginar to imagine. imbecil imbecile, foolish; m. fool. imitar to imitate. impaciente impatient. impedir to impede, prevent, hinder. imperar to rule. imperio empire, authority. imperioso imperious. imperterrito intrepid. impio impious. imponente ...
— Novelas Cortas • Pedro Antonio de Alarcon
... the door, and a ring at the bell. Not John; or Bella would have flown out to meet him. Then who, if not John? Bella was asking herself the question, when that fluttering little fool of a servant fluttered in, saying, ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... machine which will work without effort on the part of the people, we can sit at home while elections run themselves so well that only what the good people desire in political action will necessarily result. We want the equivalent of what, in the slang of practical mechanics, we call a fool-proof machine, because anybody can run it and no fool can interfere with its normal operation. So these political reformers are hunting a corrupt-politician-proof machine for government. It does not and cannot exist. No government can exist which does not depend upon the activity, the honesty ...
— Ethics in Service • William Howard Taft
... Christian. If they, for their amusement, were to request you to cut off your right hand, you would not feel bound to comply with them. Do not, for their gratification, expose yourself in the condition of a fool, or an idiot. Do not, in order to please a party of thoughtless revellers, incur the displeasure of Almighty God, and run the ...
— Advice to a Young Man upon First Going to Oxford - In Ten Letters, From an Uncle to His Nephew • Edward Berens
... as I was Lucas's guardian. And it's serious for him. If he goes and plays the fool, it may spoil his ...
— Dolly Reforming Herself - A Comedy in Four Acts • Henry Arthur Jones
... to stop," said Booverman angrily. "I'm not going to make a fool of myself. I'm going right up to the tee, and I'm going to drive my ball right smack into the woods and end it. And I ...
— Murder in Any Degree • Owen Johnson
... to hear The praise he whispers in her ear, Herself, not him, she holdeth dear - Oh, fool! to ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... 'Curious fool, be still; is human love the growth of human will?' saith the poet. So, god-mother dear, for aught we can say, they must e'en join the legion of impossible unions. But we are both weary, and had best to bed and ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny
... by his clothing—and at the outset one will be astonished to find how much he has hitherto been depending on the latter. It must be the same with criminals, too, unless your criminal is an amateur or a fool, in which event you will "land" him without the trouble of disguising. A detective furthermore should not be a handsome man or a man of striking appearance in any way; the ideal plain-clothes man is the little insignificant ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck
... observing, reflecting being; you have ceased to be aware of yourself; you exist only in that quiet, steady thrill that is so unlike any excitement that you have ever known. Presently you get used to it. "What a fool I should have been if I hadn't come. I wouldn't have missed this ...
— A Journal of Impressions in Belgium • May Sinclair
... Buonaparte, for example!" he goes on. "That man's a babe compared to me, and see what he's done already. He's conquered Egypt and Austria and Italy—oh! half Europe!" he says, "and now he sails back to Paris, and he sails out to St Cloud down the river here—don't stare at the river, you young fool!—-and all in front of these pig-jobbing lawyers and citizens he makes himself Consul, which is as good as a King. He'll be King, too, in the next three turns of the capstan—King of France, England, and the world! Think o' that!" he ...
— Rewards and Fairies • Rudyard Kipling
... your pardon—I didn't quite hear." (Then louder) "I say is there sheltering near" But the post was as dumb as Death. "What can't you answer a question pray You will not—No—Then I'll say good-day." And flirting his tail he walked away. "You'r a fool." (this under ...
— Pepper & Salt - or, Seasoning for Young Folk • Howard Pyle
... said, "or too large. His rank is not equal to ours. I think him stupid. He is a fool—his nose is ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... stars in her ears, opened vistas on the beyond. Save for him she would have been quite happy. But his remark annoyed her. It caused her to revise her opinion. Instead of an inoffensive insect he was an offensive fool. None the less, as the concert progressed, she revised it again. On entering the box she had seen his name on the door. The memory of that, filtering through the tinted polenta from the ancient cupboards, softened her. A man ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... splendidly Pagan. In Pater we have Ruskin without the prejudices, that is, without the funny parts. I may be wrong, but I cannot recall at this moment a single passage in which Pater's style takes a holiday or in which his wisdom plays the fool. Newman and Ruskin were as careful and graceful stylists as he. Newman and Ruskin were as serious, elaborate, and even academic thinkers as he. But Ruskin let himself go about railways. Newman ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton
... your jug? I don't know 'at I keer to hev one o' my neighbors abused all night jest bekase I've been an' let an entire stranger make a fool ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, October 1878, No. 12 • Various
... collision with her; but Eleanor found her little sister's society was no more to be had. Mrs. Powle would assuredly have sent Julia quite out of the house to get her away from mischievous influences, but that she could not prevail on her husband. No daughter of his, he declared, should be made a fool of in a boarding-school, while he had a foot above ground to ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner
... said, after a while, "Is affection ever entirely wasted? My love for that young fool enlarged my heart. There was a time he did me ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... past him with a soft rustle and a faint breath of perfume. He did not follow, but drew the window to behind her and continued his promenade alone until he was summoned to dinner. All his glorious air-castles had fallen in ruins about his feet, and he rated himself as a fool for having come to Beverly Farms to meet this girl who evidently ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... "They're down in my territory now, plotting to undermine my business in various ways. They have the belief that I am not up to their plans; but I know more than they give me credit for." His voice rose a little, and grew harsher. "Well, I'm not such a fool as they fancy I am, perhaps. I'm going to show 'em! I'm in this game, and I'm going to fight, and to fight hard. I'm not going to let 'em score. The play won't be over till the whistle blows. I tell ...
— Making People Happy • Thompson Buchanan
... you a 'fool,' Mr. Page," said a laughing voice just behind me. "But, really, you are just a little ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... that would be to punish the innocent and to reward the guilty. His wealth would become the gilding of adultery, and her joy would become perfect in his death. Imagine him asleep in the grave, while she laughed over his ashes, crying to herself: always a fool. He might kill her, or him, or both; a short punishment for a long treason, and then the trail of viperous blood over the name of Endicott forever; not blood but slime; not a tragedy, but the killing of rats in a cellar; and perhaps a place for himself in a padded ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... a spiteful tone that I thought he was going to round off with the words: 'You fool' ... and perhaps he meant to. But what he finished sharply with was: 'Shut ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... and hats, and after inviting Ridley to come with them, which he emphatically refused to do, exclaiming that Rachel he expected to be a fool, but Helen surely knew better, they turned to go. He stood over the fire gazing into the depths of the looking-glass, and compressing his face into the likeness of a commander surveying a field of battle, or a martyr ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... roadway to escape the peril, and came back: "Don't grieve about me, Miss Lisle. It couldn't be helped, and I have no right to complain." These were his spoken words: his unspoken thought was that it served him right for being such a fool as to trust her father. "It's worse for you, I think, and harder," he went on; "and if you are ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... a man! But remember, a bargain's a bargain. If you fail to win the lady, you must, with heaven's help, keep yourself for the gallows. No self-slaughter, no flinging away your life on some other fool's sword. I give you the moon, but I want ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... friend Captain Dobbin. "A governess is all very well, but I'd rather have a lady for my sister-in-law. I'm a liberal man; but I've proper pride, and know my own station: let her know hers. And I'll take down that hectoring Nabob, and prevent him from being made a greater fool than he is. That's why I told him to look out, lest she brought an ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... and then, as the big, infuriated miner took a step toward him, said: "All right! Come on," and started toward a roadway that, half ruined, led off and was lost at a turn. Cursing softly and telling the burros that it was a shame they had to go farther on account of a fool, the prospector followed, and the little procession resumed ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... had passed at the cottage, I could not help believing that I had been too hasty in my conclusions. I had certainly acted imprudently. It was apparent that my conversation had interested the father in my behalf, and I was a fool in having exposed my person to the horror of his children. I ought to have familiarized the old De Lacey to me, and by degrees to have discovered myself to the rest of his family, when they should have been prepared for my approach. But I ...
— Frankenstein - or The Modern Prometheus • Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley
... defy me!" the negro cried in a paroxysm of rage, as Omar was brought up. "This is because I was fool enough to allow your white-faced friend to accompany you. Our country is no place for whites, but he will make a good sacrifice to Zomara when our journey is ended. You have both refused to accompany us, therefore we ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... that was stricken with a catalepsy, she was, by her father's orders, girded in a white gown and girdled and garlanded with white roses, and in such guise Messer Folco and Messer Simone between them—with my curse on them for a fool and a knave—led their helpless victim from the Portinari house into the open air. There a litter awaited her, into which she went unresisting, and so with the people of her father's household about her, wearing her father's crest ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... chicken alont. 'Tain' no use yo' rilin' yo'se'f 'bout dat. Hit's done en it's been done. Hit don't becomst de quality ter fluster demse'ves over de gwines on uv er low-lifeted fowl. You des' bresh yo'se'f down an steddy like hit ain' been fool you ef you knowed yo'se'f. You des' let dat ar chicken be er little act uv erdultery betweenst you en me. Ef'n ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... make you feel a little more cheerful, but only for a brief period; for the next moment you think what a fool you must be to imagine for an instant that anybody would be sorry at anything that might happen to you. Who would care two straws (whatever precise amount of care two straws may represent) whether you are blown up, or hung up, or married, or drowned? Nobody cares for you. You never have been ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... it is instructive to remark how heartily men, as they grow towards middle age, despise themselves as they were a few years since. It is a bitter thing for a man to confess that he is a fool; but it costs little effort to declare that he was a fool, a good while ago. Indeed, a tacit compliment to his present self is involved in the latter confession: it suggests the reflection, what progress he has made, and how vastly he has improved, since then. When a man informs us that he was a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... while I dig my plot, What if your grandam's tales be true? Thinks I, be they true or not, What's the odds to a fool like you? ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various
... confounded, and never open thy mouth any more, because of thy sins, when I am pacified towards thee for all that thou hast done.' If you would bring a man to know how bad he is, do not brandish a whip before his face, or talk to him about an angry God. You may bray a fool in a mortar, and his foolishness will not depart from him. You may break a man down with these violent pestles, and you will do little more. But get him, if I may continue the metaphor, not into the mortar, but set him in the ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... at his ease; he was distinctly dissatisfied with his surroundings, and with himself for being so. "What have I to fear?" he thought. "This is ridiculous and disgraceful; I will not be so great a fool." But courage does not come of saying, "I will be courageous," nor of recognizing its appropriateness to the occasion. The more Jarette condemned himself, the more reason he gave himself for condemnation; the greater the number of variations which he played upon the simple theme of the ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... world is a mere dream to the idle. Only the fool fears death, for what is there of life that does Not die once, sooner or later? Man has to die once and once only; He should make ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... no such fool. Jim had put all ready for you, Jim had called at your house, a-dressed up in his new wedding clothes, and a- smiling like the sun; Jim had told the parson, had got the ringers in tow, and the clerk awaiting; and then—you was GONE! ...
— The Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid • Thomas Hardy
... to the house of the foeman when hunger made me a fool; And the foeman said, 'Thou art weary, lo, set thy foot on the stool;' And I stretched out my feet,—and was shackled: and he spake with a dastard's smile, 'O guest, thine hands are heavy; now rest them for a while!' So I stretched out my hands, and the hand-gyves lay ...
— The House of the Wolfings - A Tale of the House of the Wolfings and All the Kindreds of the Mark Written in Prose and in Verse • William Morris
... detected by the sense of hearing, and by the same means my shape can be exactly ascertained. Behold me—I am a Line, the longest in Lineland, over six inches of Space—" "Of Length", I ventured to suggest. "Fool," said he, "Space is Length. Interrupt me ...
— Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (Illustrated) • Edwin A. Abbott
... That kid thought a lot of me. Well, I made him go back. 'If you don't go, the doctor will come, an' then you got to go,' I said. 'You better get out. I'm goin' away, anyhow,' I said. I was figuring on my accounts, an' I didn't want to be bothered with no fool kid. ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... with their instructions. "What shall Santa Claus bring you this time, my darlings?" Mr. Anderson asked, a week or so before the great day arrived; and Willie, aged six, at once cried out: "What a fool you are, daddy! It is all tosh about old Claus, there's ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell
... recalls Hopi methods of forming their plural, but is not characteristic of them, and the word Totonteac has a Hopi sound. The supposed derivation of Tonto from Spanish tonto, "fool," is mentioned, elsewhere. The so-called Tonto Apache was probably an intruder, the cause of the desertion of the "basin" by the housebuilders. The question whether Totonteac is the same as Tusayan or Tuchano is yet to be satisfactorily answered. The map makers of the sixteenth century regarded ...
— Archeological Expedition to Arizona in 1895 • Jesse Walter Fewkes
... had a friend at court?"—he observed. "It is fool luck that you, with your girl's mouth, and velvet cheeks, should get nearest the only woman in camp—and have a secret with her! It is high ...
— The Flute of the Gods • Marah Ellis Ryan
... and when they are under the influence of liquor yield to very slight provocation. As a result of a rash blow, the Maggugan's territory is invaded and his settlement is surrounded. He is an arrant coward as a rule, and, hot-headed fool as he is, jumps from his low, wall-less house only to meet the foeman's lance. Thus it happens that thousands and thousands of them have been killed. If we may believe the testimony of a certain Jesuit missionary, as stated in one of the Jesuit letters, the Maggugan ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... which they prescribe are now useless. They maintain that each age of the world has its own special revelation and that in this age the Tantra-sastra is the only scripture. Thus in the Mahanirvana Tantra Siva says:[702] "The fool who would follow other doctrines heedless of mine is as great a sinner as a parricide or the murderer of a Brahman or of a woman.... The Vedic rites and mantras which were efficacious in the first age have ...
— Hinduism And Buddhism, Volume II. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... child was a fool. Had she been, the wise woman would have only pitied and loved her, instead of feeling sick when she looked at her. She had very fair abilities, and were she once but made humble, would be capable not only of doing ...
— A Double Story • George MacDonald
... will. But I'll tell you what. I shall get into some desperate scrape about her. Of course she'll marry, and that soon. Then I shall make a fool of myself. When I hear that she is engaged I shall go and quarrel with the man, and kick him,—or get kicked. All the world will turn against me, and I shall be called ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... be she, for she is ours." Here Sir Gervaise laughed heartily at his own humour, and all near him joined in, as a matter of course. "But la Minerve has been a frigate time out of mind. The Goddess of Wisdom has never been fool enough to get into a line of battle when she has had it in her power ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... thank God, we've been free from that, except maybe with hired girls and farm-hands. Trouble enough with these foreign farmers; if you don't watch these Swedes they turn socialist or populist or some fool thing on you in a minute. Of course, if they have loans you can make 'em listen to reason. I just have 'em come into the bank for a talk, and tell 'em a few things. I don't mind their being democrats, so much, but I won't stand having socialists around. But thank God, we ain't got the labor trouble ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... fool of a policeman came up and wanted to know what the matter was. I lost my head. I admit it freely. The policeman grasped my shoulder, ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... death on him was powerless) heal'd the wound. Accurs'd was he, of daring over-bold, Reckless of evil deeds, who with his bow Assail'd the Gods, who on Olympus dwell. The blue-ey'd Pallas, well I know, has urg'd Tydides to assail thee; fool and blind! Unknowing he how short his term of life Who fights against the Gods! for him no child Upon his knees shall lisp a father's name, Safe from the war and battle-field return'd. Brave as he is, let Diomed beware He meet not some more dangerous foe than thee. Then fair AEgiale, ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... simple verse from the Scriptures. Ahasuerus and his boon companions rounded out the banquet with prurient talk. The Persians lauded the charms of the women of their people, while the Medians admitted none superior to the Median women. Then "the fool" Ahasuerus up and spake: "My wife is neither a Persian nor a Median, but a Chaldean, yet she excels all in beauty. Would you convince yourselves of the truth of my words?" "Yes," shouted the company, who were deep in their cups, "but that we may properly judge of her ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... he replied, when asked; "no one but a fool sounds a trumpet before him to give notice of his approach, that the enemy may be ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... thou? in what arrogance Darest thou thus insult Pelasgia's realm? Deemest thou this a woman-hearted town? Thou art too full of thy barbarian scorn For us of Grecian blood, and, erring thus, Thou dost bewray thyself a fool in all! ...
— Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays • AEschylus
... Jud for his cowardice, now the ghost for its infernal riding. "Damn you, fool! Stay an' see it. Stay an' see it." And then, "Damn Bodkin an' his dead wife! If he rides this way, he stops here or he goes ...
— Dwellers in the Hills • Melville Davisson Post
... had a great subject, and he rises to the level of his theme and makes the most of it. At times I have wondered if Boswell were not really a genius so great and profound that he was willing to play the fool, as Edgar in "Lear" plays the maniac, and allow himself to be snubbed (in print) in order to make his telling point! Millionaires can well afford to wear ragged coats. Second-rate man Boswell may have been, as he himself so oft admits, yet as a biographer he ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... guffawed the old fellow. It was a tremendous laugh, so loud and hollow, it astonished and almost frightened Martin to hear it. "Well I never!" he said. "He ain't no fool, neither. Now, old Jacob, just you take your time and think a bit afore you makes ...
— A Little Boy Lost • Hudson, W. H.
... wall before. There came across him then a sharp memory of the boding words which Stone-face had spoken last night, and he felt as if he were now indeed within the trap. But presently he laughed and said: 'I am a fool: this comes of being alone in the dark wood and the dismal waste, after the merry faces of the Dale had swept away my foolish musings of yesterday and the day before. Lo! here I stand, a man of ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... domestic economy? Well, I hack out the tonguey bits every day. True, I usually have to eat the bully beef parts next meal, but—a la guerre comme a la guerre—I always might have been casualtied between meals, and then think what a fool I'd feel over my failure to make the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 150, February 2, 1916 • Various
... peremptorily; then, to Mr. Stewart: "Could Sir William place her, think you, or does that half-breed swarm of his fill the house? It seemed right enough to bring her out from the Palatine country, but now that she's out, damme! I almost wish she was back again. What a fool not to leave her ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... words of a fool, or of a man of genius,' said the Duke. And when he had once seen and spoken to Leonardo he saw at once which of the two ...
— Knights of Art - Stories of the Italian Painters • Amy Steedman
... hitherto lived in the clouds, surrounded by an atmosphere of purity and peace—but she has been the companion of man in health, in sickness, and in death, in his highest and in his lowest moments. She has worshiped him as a saint and an orator, and pitied him as madman or a fool. In Paradise, man and woman were placed together, and so they must ever be. They must sink or rise together. If man is low and wretched and vile, woman can not escape the contagion, and any atmosphere that is unfit for woman to breathe is not fit for man. ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... youth departed, leaving Michael to write the letter which he had advised as written. As he drew the writing materials towards him he cursed his brother officer quietly and politely for a meddling young fool. He wrote a formal letter to the Company—the old East India Company which administered an empire with ledger and daybook—calling their attention to the mistake in the newspaper, and begging them not to trouble to give the matter publicity, ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... Nan. "Think of it! Him—rich! But he gets the best of the Fifth Avenue crowd just because he keeps his joint in that rotten hole. They think they're getting the real thing in antiques! He's a queer old fool. Afraid people would know he had money if he kept it in the bank—afraid of a bank, too. Understand? We found out that every once in a while he'd change a lot of small bills for a big one—five-hundred-dollar bills—thousand-dollar ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard
... sir. In my opinion, the cheesemonger was a fool, and the justice who sided with him was ...
— Crotchet Castle • Thomas Love Peacock
... fear Yates is playing the fool with me. Still evasive, though plausibly so. I have just had an interview. To-morrow I must and will come to a ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... most of this unexpected chance; why had he not made desperate love to her? A conscientious ass! And yet—the whole thing was absurd! She was so young! God knew he would be glad to be out of it. If he stayed he was afraid that he would play the fool. But the memory of her words: "You have been very sweet to me!" would not leave him; nor the memory of her face, so puzzled, and reproachful. Yes, if he stayed he would play the fool! He would be asking ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... think I am a fool! I did not mean to let you know that I had been here, so I put them back, of course. I supposed that I could get out through the cellars, but you have put a ...
— The Heart of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... Lon'on, How this new play an' that new sang is comin'? Why is outlandish stuff sae meikle courted? Does nonsense mend like whiskey, when imported? Is there nae poet, burning keen for fame, Will try to gie us songs and plays at hame? For comedy abroad he need nae toil, A fool and knave are plants of every soil; Nor need he hunt as far as Rome and Greece To gather matter for a serious piece; There's themes enough in Caledonian story, Would show the tragic muse in a' ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... would indeed be an inert and irrational affair. That any rational and worthy activity entails the encounter of opposition and the removal of obstacles is an observation commonplace enough. A preestablished harmony of foreseen happy issues—a fool's paradise—is scarcely our ideal of a rational world. Just as a game is not worth playing when its result is predetermined by the great inferiority of the opponent, so life without something negative to overcome loses its zest. But the process of overcoming ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... "Fool!" he cried. "What would you do? Kill—," and then of a sudden he realized his daughter's presence and the necessity for keeping the origin of the young giant from ...
— The Monster Men • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... quit; exercised and quit; gone on the waterwagon and fallen off; had fussed round a good deal, spending a lot of money in the attempt, and I was getting fatter all the time. I hated to admit that fact. I tried to fool myself into the conviction that I wasn't getting any larger—and all the time I knew I was. I even went so far as to stop getting on the scales; and when anybody—as almost everybody did—said, "Why, you're getting bigger, ain't you?" I always replied: "No, I think not. I stick along about two ...
— The Fun of Getting Thin • Samuel G. Blythe
... same way!" She sank, trembling, into her chair. "Oh, no, no," she continued, shaking her head, "'tis not Miche Vignevielle w'at's crezzie." Her eyes lighted with sudden fierceness. "'Tis dad law! Dad law is crezzie! Dad law is a fool!" ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable
... "Pretty cowardly fool I should have looked if father had asked me at breakfast if—Bother it all. Why didn't I take off ...
— First in the Field - A Story of New South Wales • George Manville Fenn
... to vex the good Medland. Gaspard regretted this; he would have liked to combine public and private advantage in the job. But a man must not ask everything, or he may end by having to take nothing. Here sat a drunken fool with five hundred pounds; opposite to him sat a sober sharp-wit with only five. The situation was full of suggestion. If the five hundred could be got from the fool without violence, well and good; but really, thought Mr. Gaspard, their transference to the sharp-wit must ...
— Half a Hero - A Novel • Anthony Hope
... be laughed at by you chaps and called a fool," he said. "I'm not stupid enough as it is to believe he has any ...
— A Dash from Diamond City • George Manville Fenn
... Christ. If you ask any warrant, we think there should be no such questioning, when you are in so great necessity. If a man were starving without a city, and it were told him there is plenty within, were he not a fool that would make any more business, but labour to enter in? This is enough to cross all your objections; you are in extreme necessity, and like to perish within yourself; "he is able to save to the uttermost all that come to him." What would you more? ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... to "speak as a fool," the plans of God came to being defeated by human enterprise is illustrated by unquestioned facts. The fact of medieval exploration, colonization, and even evangelization in North America seems now to have ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... the time," he said, "but how could a feller be expected to know when you talked the fool way ...
— Phyllis - A Twin • Dorothy Whitehill
... were now swollen and very painful. The stranger carried my gun, and in a couple of hours we overtook my comrades. As I got on to my mule I thought what a fool I had been to go alone so far on a wild-goose chase. That day's experience ended my hunting at any considerable distance ...
— In the Early Days along the Overland Trail in Nebraska Territory, in 1852 • Gilbert L. Cole
... the old man and the young girl reached Paris, and the doctor went at once to consult his notary. Political events were then very threatening. Monsieur Bongrand had remarked in the course of the preceding evening that a man must be a fool to keep a penny in the public funds so long as the quarrel between the press and the court was not made up. Minoret's notary now indirectly approved of this opinion. The doctor therefore took advantage of his journey to sell out his manufacturing ...
— Ursula • Honore de Balzac
... Kling, "and so am I glad. Dot dog is more as a brudder to my Masie, ain't he, Beesvings? And now you run avay, dear, and play, and take Fudge vid you and say 'Good morning' to Mrs. Cleary, and maybe dot fool dog of Bobby's be home." He stooped and kissed her, caressing her cheek with his thumb and forefinger, as he pushed her toward the door, and again turned to the stranger. "And now, vot about dot chair you ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
... be stopped. You have called in a number of men from the most distant tribes to listen to a fool, who speaks not the words of the Great Spirit, but those of the devil and of the British agents. My children, your conduct has much alarmed the white settlers near you. They desire that you will send away those people, and if they wish to ...
— Four American Indians - King Philip, Pontiac, Tecumseh, Osceola • Edson L. Whitney
... some extent, have thrown Dick over. And then, as soon as he was on shore, he did feel somewhat ashamed of himself in regard to Mrs. Smith. Was it not manifest that any closer alliance, let the alliance be what it might, must be ruinous to him? As it was, had he not made an absolute fool of himself with Mrs. Smith? Had he not got himself already into a mess from which there was no escape? Of course he must write to her when the month was over. The very weight of his thoughts on this matter made him tamer with Dick ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... neither pack nor rifle; only a knife and pouch. He is a wood-running fool!" I said, disgusted. "Why do they send us such a forest-running battman, when they have Oneidas at headquarters, and Coureurs-de-Bois to ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... terrible little fool you are! That fellow's a millionaire—he's a nephew of old Van Skittles himself. And he was talking on the level, too. Have you gone ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... let's hike out o' this, pronto!" he said in a low tone. "You ain't got no time to fool with a ...
— A Fool For Love • Francis Lynde
... rate book-keeper, or something similar. Imagine, if you please, one such, who never had brains or self-command sufficient to control himself, placed in command of thirty-five thousand men. Being a fool he could not help being an infliction to them, even with the best of intentions, and Wirz was ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... all together, form a happy compound of the sot, the gamekeeper, the bully, the horse-jockey, and the fool. But as no two leaves off the same tree are quite exactly alike, so these ingredients are differently mingled in your kinsmen. Percie, the son and heir, has more of the sot than of the gamekeeper, bully, horse-jockey, ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... or the Brazilian tribes who think that an eclipse consists in an attempt on the part of a monstrous jaguar to swallow the sun—have as much right to their opinion as he has, he would consider the person who advanced such an argument either a wag or a fool. Only a wag or a fool, again, would argue that a Fijian has just as much right as we have to his opinions on medical matters, or on the morality of polygamy, infanticide, and cannibalism. Yet when we come across a dirty, malodorous savage, ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... words, and shall you rule The world? What is it but the tongue That doth proclaim a man a fool, So that his best songs go unsung, So that his dreams are sent to school And ...
— Twenty • Stella Benson
... got away and strayed into the theatre, where it ran around until the audience got seated for the evening performance, when the pig began to fool around under the seats, probably looking for the lady that owned it. On the front row in the dress circle was a young man and woman from Waukesha. Whether the Guinea pig mistook the girl for its owner or not is not positively known, but the animal was seen to go under the seat ...
— Peck's Sunshine - Being a Collection of Articles Written for Peck's Sun, - Milwaukee, Wis. - 1882 • George W. Peck
... transformed in that worthless book into a slightly-dissipated, it is true, but upon the whole brave, generous and amiable being; and Harrison, the English Regulus, honest, brave, unflinching Harrison, into a pseudo-fanatic, a mixture of the rogue and fool. Harrison, probably the man of the most noble and courageous heart that England ever produced, who when all was lost scorned to flee, like the second Charles from Worcester, but, braved infamous judges and the gallows, ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... it isn't. Somehow the kind of help over here don't seem to need managin'. They manage me more than I do them. There's Mrs. Wigham, the cook. Mrs. Cole told me she was a 'superior' person and I guess she is—at any rate, she's superior to me in some things. She knows what a 'gooseberry fool' is and I'm sure I don't. I felt like another kind of fool when she told me she was goin' to make one, as a 'sweet,' for dinner to-night. As nigh as I can make out it's a sort of gooseberry pie, but I should ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... speedy motion to the pen, When Prague shall mourn her desolated realm. There shall be read the woe, that he doth work With his adulterate money on the Seine, Who by the tusk will perish: there be read The thirsting pride, that maketh fool alike The English and Scot, impatient of their bound. There shall be seen the Spaniard's luxury, The delicate living there of the Bohemian, Who still to worth has been a willing stranger. The halter of Jerusalem shall see A unit for his virtue, for his vices No less ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... at the altar, and a solemn stillness fell upon that brilliant multitude as the vows which were to unite that man and woman for all time were uttered. Even Elsie looked on with shadowy sadness in her eyes; as for Tom—the noble-hearted fellow made a fool of himself of course, and was compelled to shake the tears surreptitiously from his eyes, before he dared to look up from the long survey he had been taking ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... poor Is like a sacred book that's never read, T' himself he lives, and to all else seems dead. This age thinks better of a gilded fool, Than of thread-bare saint ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 404, December 12, 1829 • Various
... meditating on his great merit, coveting and admiring his rare talents, and cursing my own unlucky stars, that did not call me to so happy a life. How little did I then know of myself! mine had been a thousand times more delightful, had I not been such a fool, or known ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... pipe-smoker, and so was Rossetti. Browning also smoked, but not, I think, a pipe. Swinburne, on the other hand, detested tobacco, and expressed himself on the subject with characteristic extravagance and vehemence—"James I was a knave, a tyrant, a fool, a liar, a coward. But I love him, I worship him, because he slit the throat of that blackguard Raleigh who invented this filthy smoking!" Professor Blackie, in a letter to his wife, remarked: "The first thing I said on entering the public room was—'What ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson
... flesher, "if ye'll be my servant a' day, I'll gie ye a leg o' mutton at night." "I'll be that," quo' Jock. He got a leg o' mutton at night. He ties a string to it, and trails it behind him the hale road hame. "What hae ye been doing?" said his mither. He tells her. "Hout, you fool, ye should hae carried it on your shouther." "I'll mind that ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous
... and if I hadn't been a fool and a coward I might have done it a week ago, and spared myself a good deal of delicious torment. 'How sweet must be Love's self possessed, when but Love's shadows are so rich in joy!' ...
— A Cathedral Courtship • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... are in the habit of laying it down as a self-evident proposition, that no people ought to be free till they are fit to use their freedom. The maxim is worthy of the fool in the old story, who resolved not to go into the water till he had learned to swim. If men are to wait for liberty till they become wise and good in slavery, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... dollars, told me to write to him in care of his Paris bankers if I ever needed his help, wished me good luck, and bade me good-by. All this he did almost coldly; and I often wondered whether he was in a hurry to get rid of what he considered a fool, or whether he was ...
— The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man • James Weldon Johnson
... as a blessing when put in a mill, As a blight and a curse when run through a still. Make me up into loaves, and your children are fed; But made into drink, I will starve them instead. In bread I'm a servant the eater shall rule, In drink I'm a master, the drinker a fool. Then remember my warning; my strength I'll employ, If eaten, to ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... myself: That little fire which glows star-like across the dark-growing moor, where the sooty smith bends over his anvil, and thou hopest to replace thy lost horse-shoe,—is it a detached, separated speck, cut off from the whole Universe; or indissolubly joined to the whole? Thou fool, that smithy-fire was primarily kindled at the Sun; is fed by air that circulates from before Noah's Deluge, from beyond the Dogstar; therein, with Iron Force, and Coal Force, and the far stranger Force of Man, are cunning affinities ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... sorcery of a Lombard monk as a miserable, and in its consequences terrible, piece of knavery, but he also describes with unaffected indignation the disasters which never cease to pursue the credulous fool. 'A man hopes with "Solomon's Key' and other magical books to find the treasures hidden in the bosom of the earth, to force his lady to do his will, to find out the secret of princes, and to transport himself in the twinkling of an eye from Milan to Rome. The more often he is deceived, the ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... the 27th March, 1625, and left his successor no very pleasant prospects in any part of his kingdom. He was pronounced by Sully to be "the wisest fool in Europe;" Henry IV. styled him "Captain of Arts and Clerk of Arms;" and a favourite epigram of the age ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... say, in justice to myself, though it is also in excuse, that if I had known him intimately a few years earlier, I should have found it all but impossible to fool myself. For he had not long been in a position where he could keep wholly detached from the crimes committed for his benefit and by his order, and where he could disclaim responsibility and even knowledge. The ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips
... be a fool—his life would pay the penalty for a pretty girl's whim. Unfortunately, perhaps, my life is too precious to some one other than myself, to admit of the sacrifice. I am willing to do much for Lady Ruth, but I decline to be made ...
— Miss Caprice • St. George Rathborne
... a fool, Sarah," he replied faintly and peevishly. "If I could do as I please, I would take my property with me, for you will surely spend it. But there is another condition, another promise you must give me. Now, don't interrupt me again. We ...
— Turns of Fortune - And Other Tales • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... indifferent to you?" asks the viduschaka. "Fool!" she replies; "I desire only my husband's happiness, and give up my own for that. Judge for yourself whether I ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... ready to contribute more than I promised—any amount to put you over. But if you give out a statement against suffrage you're a damn fool and I withdraw every cent. A man with no more political sense and skill than that isn't worth helping. You should ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.
... this terrible being, all the more terrible to me now that I saw capabilities of feeling in her. "She is young and has her whole life before her. If you pursue the claims of justice as you call them, her future will be wrecked. It is no fool she has married but a proud man, the proudest of his race. If he had known she had for a brother one whom his own country had sentenced to perpetual imprisonment, he would not have married her ...
— The Mill Mystery • Anna Katharine Green
... circus once: The fool was in the middle. Loud laughed contemptuous Common-sense At ...
— Thoughts, Moods and Ideals: Crimes of Leisure • W.D. Lighthall
... how are you, old man? You look well. Couldn't fool me with that beard. Come in and ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland
... you honestly," he said gruffly, "that if you knew what was good for you, you'd scoot back along that road a good deal faster than you came. If you're such a headstrong fool as to want to come with me, however, I reckon you may do it. One thing, though, I'll have ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... country, they turned to each other indignantly, and said "What use are tickets for California to us? We are not going to California. No! we are too good, too respectable, to go so far from home. The man is a fool!" One of these ornaments of the vestry complained to the doorkeepers, and denounced the lecture as an imposition; "and," said the wealthy parishioner, "as for the panorama, it's the worst painted thing I ever ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 1 • Charles Farrar Browne
... foight for fight; o-noite, foil, coil, hoil, for note, foal, coal, hole; loyne for lane; o-nooin, gooise, fooil, tooil, for noon, goose, fool, tool; spwort, scworn, whoam, for sport, scorn, home; g-yet ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... "What fool-trick are they up to, then, putting a gilt cage on the high road in the blazing sunshine? They might use the sense they were born with. Steady, old lady, steady!" cried Cornelia, soothingly, as the mare pricked up her ears and shied uneasily ...
— Flaming June • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... already given orders for the movement up the south side of the Appomattox for the purpose of heading off Lee; but Meade was so much impressed by this man's story that he thought we ought to cross the Appomattox there at once and move against Lee in his new position. I knew that Lee was no fool, as he would have been to have put himself and his army between two formidable streams like the James and Appomattox rivers, and between two such armies as those of the Potomac and the James. Then these streams coming together as they ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... Bradshaw, a recently elected member of the Union Club. The little, finicking man addressed no one in particular, but seemed much concerned lest we should not fully comprehend his respectability, though in truth he might have passed easily enough for a fool. The man of the tall figure, and whose frank and manly manner was enough to banish the sorrow excited by the effeminacy of the other, pressed forward with his hand extended, and ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... big as elephants, or an earthquake that would destroy the world, would never wake Gibson and Jimmy. It was difficult to get the horses to the place where the water was, and we could only manage three at a time. There was fortunately just enough water, though none to spare. One old fool of a horse must needs jump into an empty rock basin; it was deep and funnel shaped, so that he could not stand when he got there, so he fell, and had knocked himself about terribly before we could get him out. Indeed, ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... long as he likes or hire other labour on the spot. Whether Unionism has had much effect in producing a general rise of wages is very doubtful. Mr. Brassey's book, "Work and Wages," goes far to prove that it has not, and that while, on the one hand, the unionists have been in a fool's paradise, the masters, on the other, have been crying out before they were hurt. No doubt the general rise of wages is mainly and fundamentally due to natural causes: the accumulation of capital, the extension of commercial enterprise, and the opening up of new countries, which have ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... the things he admired had always been away out of his reach: a college education, a gentleman's manner, an Englishman's accent—things over his head. And Thea was farther out of his reach than all the rest put together. He had been a fool to imagine it, but he was glad he had been a fool. She had given him one grand dream. Every mile of his run, from Moonstone to Denver, was painted with the colors of that hope. Every cactus knew about it. But now that it was not to be, he knew the truth. Thea was never ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... on in a changed voice, "I have been a fool and my folly has worked you ill. Forgive me since I acted for the best, only until the end no one ever knows what is the best. Now here is the house and I go to meet my wife and to make certain arrangements. By dawn perhaps you will be ...
— The Ancient Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... this is a reasonable rate.[12127] "No complaint can now be made, since these funds are an annuity on Your Majesty's life."—"What do you mean by that?"—"I mean that the Empire has become so great as to be ungovernable without you."—"If my successor is a fool so much the worse for him!"—"Yes, but so much the worse for France!" Two years later, M. de Metternich, by way of a political summing up, expresses his general opinion: "It is remarkable that Napoleon, constantly disturbing and modifying the relations of all Europe, has not yet taken a ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine |
