"Foolhardiness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to them and to me; yet in the extreme doubt which possesses me whether that condition will be ever fulfilled, and consequently whether I am not writing what no one will ever read, I find it very difficult to say anything. Something charges me with foolhardiness, and something with presumption; but there is a something else, which is stronger, that overthrows the charges and bids ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner
... without sufficient reason is foolhardiness. To expose ourselves needlessly to disease; to put ourselves in the range of a cannon, to jump into the stream, with no worthy end in view, or for the very shallow reason of showing off how brave we can be, is folly and madness. ...
— Practical Ethics • William DeWitt Hyde
... straits they were, and they felt that the situation was desperate; for they had no hope that they would ever escape from the peril. Then the king of the Ephthalitae sent some of his followers to Perozes; he upbraided him at length for his senseless foolhardiness, by which he had wantonly destroyed both himself and the Persian people, but he announced that even so the Huns would grant them deliverance, if Perozes should consent to prostrate himself before ...
— History of the Wars, Books I and II (of 8) - The Persian War • Procopius
... the Trojans and their allies now followed the counsel of Polydamas but Asius, son of Hyrtacus, would not leave his horses and his esquire behind him; in his foolhardiness he took them on with him towards the ships, nor did he fail to come by his end in consequence. Nevermore was he to return to wind-beaten Ilius, exulting in his chariot and his horses; ere he could do so, death of ill-omened name had overshadowed him and he had ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... Morok, seeing the general attention fixed upon himself and Sleepinbuff, "I was only joking; for if my comrade (pointing to Jacques) had the imprudence to accept my offer, it would be an act, not of courage, but of foolhardiness. Luckily, he has sense enough to renounce a piece of boasting so dangerous at this ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... not amiss. To keep the new year up they run away! [He soliloquizes as he begins tearing open the dispatches.] Nor Pitt nor Fox displayed such blundering As glares in this campaign! It is, indeed, Enlarging Folly to Foolhardiness To combat France by land! But how expect Aught that can claim the name of government From Canning, Castlereagh, and Perceval, Caballers all—poor sorry politicians— To whom has fallen the luck of reaping in The harvestings ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... relates how Julius II ventured into Perugia, although Giampolo Baglione had gathered a large number of troops there, and how the latter, overawed by the Pope, surrendered the city to him. His comment is verbatim as follows: "People of judgment who were with the Pope wondered at his foolhardiness, and at Giampolo's cowardice; they could not understand why the latter did not, to his everlasting fame, crush his enemy with one blow and enrich himself with the plunder, for the Pope was accompanied ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius
... seams, and every one was drowsy, excepting Nelly, Marion, Tom, Fred, and myself. We were plotting mischief in the shadow of the Ariadne's anchors, right in the eyes of the ship. I forget the immediate cause of this piece of foolhardiness, but I remember Fred's hated fluency about 'dolphin-strikers,' 'martingales,' and what not; and, finally, my own assertion that I would touch the ship's forefoot, where we saw it gleaming below the glassy surface of the water, and Fred's mocking ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... these very seas—nearly fifty years before—the hero of Trafalgar encountered this Arctic tyrant, and, when missed from his ship, was discovered with a comrade attacking a large specimen, separated from them by a chasm in the ice. On being reprimanded by his captain for his foolhardiness, "Sir," said the young middy, pouting his lips, as he used to do when excited, "I wished to kill the bear that I might carry ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... valley of Todmorden, and drawing near the dangerous defile before mentioned, some misgivings crossed him, and he almost reproached himself with foolhardiness in venturing within it at such an hour, and wholly unattended. Several recent cases of robbery, some of them attended by murder, had occurred within the pass; and these now occurred so forcibly to the squire, that he was half inclined ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... satisfaction was of short duration: the foolish girl was soon to repent of her foolhardiness in dismissing her escort. She little knew that her words to Evans had been overheard, and that behind the dripping shrubbery she had been watched and followed. Scarcely had she taken refuge under the green porch, ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... for you to go and get trapped too? It's different with you. They've got it in for you down there. It's just foolhardiness for you to go back," she told ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... recklessness; here young and old, married and unmarried, are uniformly and almost avowedly self-indulgent spendthrifts. One sees this reckless character marring and vitiating the nobler traits of their nature. Their gallantry in the face of danger is akin to foolhardiness; their power of intense labour is seldom exerted except to compensate for time lost in idleness and revelry; their readiness to make 'gatherings' for their sick and married comrades seems only to obviate the ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... nostrils expanded or contracted according to the chances of the game; and the melancholy man, who usually sat with his head bowed down as though overburdened, was of a sudden seized by a spirit of audacity, of rashness, of foolhardiness, that not seldom gained him splendid success, and reminded me of the saying, "Good luck is with the rash man." It certainly is ...
— Major Frank • A. L. G. Bosboom-Toussaint
... Rangitata towards the south, and the Waimakiriri towards the north, of Christchurch, are most difficult, and always liable to sudden freshes. The general mode of crossing the larger rivers is by a boat, with the horse swimming behind; but accidents constantly occur from the foolhardiness of people attempting to ford them alone on horseback: they are lost in quicksands, or carried down by the current, before they can even realize that they are in danger. The common saying in New Zealand is, that people only die from drowning and ...
— Station Life in New Zealand • Lady Barker
... circle in which Cecilia and Nick moved, had heard of the marriage with amazement. If Nick was amazed he did not show it, but his pranks held less of gaiety, more of a grim foolhardiness. Father O'Brady no longer chuckled over their recitation. Maybe because they mainly reached his ears from outside sources. Nick, who was not of his fold, seldom sought his society in these days. Later he heard them not at all, ...
— Antony Gray,—Gardener • Leslie Moore
... have the discrimination between real courage and mere foolhardiness or recklessness. There are some vocations which require courage. There are others which require an element of recklessness. It requires courage to drive the locomotive of a railroad train at a speed of eighty miles ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... milk-and-water euphemism could have expressed Cambronne's defiance and contempt. Of course John Bull pitilessly shot to death that heroic fragment of the Old Guard, which forgot in its supreme hour that while foolhardiness may be magnificent, it is not war. I would have put a cordon of soldiers about that pathetic remnant of Napoleon's greatness and held it there to this good day rather than have plowed it down as a farmer plows jimson weeds into a pile of compost; ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... lines resulted in a series of hard-won victories for our troops in every instance; until, finally, the flag of the United States floated triumphantly over the city of Mexico. It was not this country, but Mexico, which was the aggressor, and it was her foolhardiness and outrageous insult which brought about the war. There is not a power in Europe which would not have done precisely as this country did when thus attacked. The author knows very well that it is the fashion to berate our government for the punishment it inflicted upon ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou
... apprentice of my own age, and the like; but the space at my disposal obliges me to conclude. Very little of the heroic enters the sailor's life. The risks he runs, the adventures he encounters, have, as a rule, nothing of the romantic in them; they are mainly brought about by his own foolhardiness, by the proverbial carelessness that is utterly irreconcilable with the stern obligations of vigilance, alertness, and foresight imposed upon him by the nature of his calling, by the imbecility of shipmates, and much too often by drink. Yet no matter what the cause of most of the perils ...
— The Honour of the Flag • W. Clark Russell
... real good qualities in a false light of shame, and bantering them as ill ones. So generosity may be treated as prodigality; oeconomy as avarice; true courage as foolhardiness; and so of ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... Mrs. Fancy. Had she, even then, rested satisfied with her acumen, maintained silence and awaited the immediate fulfilment of her prediction, what must have happened can hardly be in doubt. But she was seized by that excess of bravery which is called foolhardiness, and driven by it to that peculiar and thoughtless vehemence of action which sometimes wins V.C.'s for men who, in later days, conceal amazement under the cherished decoration. She suddenly laid down the ice-wool shawl upon a neighbouring sociable, walked ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens
... friend. My faith! 'twas on only foolhardiness caused me to grant that devilish prosecutor another sight of my scarlet device. I knew what you maniacs would be after, so I came across in the Daydream,just to see if I couldn't get my share of ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... breeze that Marjory had spoken of; but if it didn't come to any more, he might pull through all right. Thus once again was illustrated the truth of the old saying that "Fools rush in where angels fear to tread." How many lives are lost through ignorance and foolhardiness! ...
— Hunter's Marjory - A Story for Girls • Margaret Bruce Clarke
... not to be reckless, but he persists in his foolhardiness, and goes up to the Yellow Chamber (or whatever colour the haunted room may be) with a light heart and a candle, and wishes them all good-night, ...
— Told After Supper • Jerome K. Jerome
... shall leave my key in the hole in the wall,—you know; take care of it when you come in. You were out late last night, my poor fellow. Very wrong! Look well to yourself, or who knows? You may be clutched by that blackguard resurrection-man, No. 7. Well, well, to think of that Jason's foolhardiness! But he's the worse devil of the two. Eh! what was I saying? And always give a look into my room every night before you go to roost. The place swarms with cracksmen, and one can't be too cautious. Lucky dog, you, to have ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... seemed more difficult; he could not go among the people without being recognised, and though, as far as himself was concerned, he would have dared anything for a sight of Helene, loyalty to his uncle stood in the way of foolhardiness. ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... man more fairly caught. In the language of the West, Jack Everson had the drop on him, and none could be more alive to the fact than the fellow who was thus taken at disadvantage. It was merited punishment for his foolhardiness in inviting his own discomfiture. At first the chances of the two were equal, but the white man was ...
— The Jungle Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... brought to account for his contempt of the law. Wade forced his way into the jail and released his foreman at the point of a gun. Even so, I feel sorry for Wade and I am a little apprehensive of the consequences that will probably develop from his foolhardiness." ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony
... snow—storm, and the people are training the bull—dogs fore and aft. Why, this is downright, stark staring lunacy, Obed; we shall be smashed like an eggshell, and all hands of us whipped off to Davy, from your cursed foolhardiness." ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... neighbor's house when you wanted to ask him if he was going to the pioneer supper, and just think of having no "hello girl" to flirt with. The condition seems appalling. But what they lacked in knowledge and in indolent conveniences we beg to announce that they made up in foolhardiness which they called bravery. Well, if it can be called brave to make a needless target of oneself to a bunch of savage Indians, why then they had the ...
— Skookum Chuck Fables - Bits of History, Through the Microscope • Skookum Chuck (pseud for R.D. Cumming)
... for the wonderful cunning and shrewd courage of Simpson, who had kept close to the heels of the flying horse. It was when the crisis came—when the Apaches were closing around the fugitive, and it seemed inevitable that he should reap the natural reward of his own foolhardiness that Sut had acted. When the warriors were confident of their success, he discharged his rifle with marvelous quickness, and with a more important result than the mere tumbling over of ...
— The Cave in the Mountain • Lieut. R. H. Jayne
... and through the efforts of Dyke Darrel he and his uncle had been detected in crime and sent to the Missouri State prison for a term of years. It was a mere accident that the detective came upon the escaped young counterfeiter, or rather it was through the young villain's own foolhardiness that he was again in ...
— Dyke Darrel the Railroad Detective - Or, The Crime of the Midnight Express • Frank Pinkerton
... coasting steamers, which usually hug the shore so closely, kept well to seaward, and but few fishing boats were in sight. The only sail noticeable was a foreign schooner with all sails set, which was seemingly going westwards. The foolhardiness or ignorance of her officers was a prolific theme for comment whilst she remained in sight, and efforts were made to signal her to reduce sail in the face of her danger. Before the night shut down she was seen with sails idly flapping ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... to Major Grant were merely to reconnoitre the country in the neighborhood of Fort Duquesne, and ascertain the strength and position of the enemy. He conducted the enterprise with the foolhardiness of a man eager for personal notoriety. His whole object seems to have been by open bravado to provoke an action. The enemy were apprised, through their scouts, of his approach, but suffered him to advance unmolested. Arriving at night in the neighborhood ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... down to his knees. The flap of his sou'-wester, also, comes half way down his back. He is a wonderful object to look upon; yet he has the audacity, (so it seems to me), to take us in charge, and our captain has the foolhardiness to allow him. ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... never met with anything equal to it. My son-in-law, Lenoble yonder, is a generous foo—fellow enough; but then, since infancy, he has never known the want of money. And generosity from that kind of man is no more of a virtue than the foolhardiness of a child who pokes his finger into the candle, not knowing the properties of the thing he has to deal with. But anything like generosity from you, from a man reared as you were reared, is, I freely confess, a little ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... kept above water, he began to believe that if he could stick it out his judgment and seamanship would be justified ... though human ingenuity backed by generosity could by no means contrive adequate excuse for his foolhardiness. ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... he sleeps at night, when he thinks such a man as I am after his life. And I allow him, to boot, all his walks and hiding-places." Then Ada began to implore him not to be too rash. She endeavoured to teach him that no good could come from such foolhardiness. If his life was of no value to himself, it was of great value to others;—to his mother, for instance, and to his sister. "A man's life is of no real value," said the Captain, "until he has got a wife and family—or at any ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope
... I did, I found myself behind the blacks, and, without waiting to even calculate their numbers or the foolhardiness of my venture, I charged swiftly across the chamber and fell upon them from the ...
— The Gods of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... presumption, foolhardiness, over-confidence, rashness, hardihood, precipitancy, recklessness, hastiness, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... had other things in store for me. I never saw such wild animals! They came at me like so many fiends, and after trying in vain to quiet them, and I may say I have some skill with wild beasts, I thought discretion the better part of foolhardiness, and—made for ...
— The Boy Ranchers Among the Indians - or, Trailing the Yaquis • Willard F. Baker
... on a box to-day," said I; "and I never knew him to go to sleep standing up behind us on a sleigh." But Minora was not to be appeased, and muttered something about seeing no fun in foolhardiness, which shows how alarmed she ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp
... Myndert: "but this foolhardiness will one day bring as pretty a brigantine as ever sailed in the narrow seas, to condemnation; and then will there be rumors abroad, and characters cracked, till every lover of gossip in the Americas shall ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... wreck his own life and happiness or that of the innocent girl he is deceiving; with never a heed of the ill-starred, diseased, puny or idiotic progeny his act may bring into being, a burden to the community, a curse to himself and a constant reminder of the parent's foolhardiness—ay, even crime! ...
— Manhood Perfectly Restored • Unknown
... shook his head at my apparent foolhardiness, but was too polite to argue further. He said that his party would be off in an hour and asked me if I possessed a road-map that he might consult. I gladly showed him the one we had bought with H. the day of our hasty trip from Paris, since ...
— My Home In The Field of Honor • Frances Wilson Huard
... without the osteopathic treatment. I recommended the attendance of an osteopathic physician in order to ease the burden of responsibility on the part of the parents. If the child had died, they would have been blamed by friends and relatives for their seeming foolhardiness. ...
— Nature Cure • Henry Lindlahr
... adorned with a black eye, he never ceased, during the remainder of the voyage, to declaim against Chubb's foolhardiness and uphold his own proceedings on the eventful night. For his own discomfiture he sought consolation in rum, protesting that it was a miracle that any of us had survived to taste another drop of ...
— Under the Dragon Flag - My Experiences in the Chino-Japanese War • James Allan
... is not conquered yet. Ocean has still a strength beyond ours. Ships are not unsinkable; and Death will still take his toll of bold men's lives in the future as he has done in the past. We know that cowardice costs more than courage, but it is not so tragically costly as blind foolhardiness. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... I said I would go with my mother, and of course they all cried out at our foolhardiness, but even then not a man would go along with us. All they would do was to give me a loaded pistol lest we were attacked, and to promise to have horses ready saddled in case we were pursued on ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... determine in what manner she would crush him. But when the audacious Thomas, having reached the gate, seated himself beside his mistress on the stone bench, the girl sprang to her feet in fright and indignation. She began to realize the extent of her foolhardiness in going to that secluded spot ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major
... said I would go with my mother; and of course they all cried out at our foolhardiness; but even then not a man would go along with us. All they would do was to give me a loaded pistol, lest we were attacked; and to promise to have horses ready saddled, in case we were pursued on our return; while one lad was to ride ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... skimmed the ground beneath its feet, as only a horse can fly when, panic-stricken, it ravishes its perishing rider along with it. None, no none, could get anywhere near it; even Martin was left many yards behind in mid-course. The crowd gaped in amazement at the fury of the steed and the foolhardiness of the rider, especially when, in the midst of his mad career, the long chaplet of flowers fell from the youth's head, and was trampled to pieces beneath the hoofs of the other horses panting after him. He himself did not notice the loss of his chaplet ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai |
