"Giraffe" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... fish, you have eyes and dont want to see, you will lose your eyes. If you like eating the tender tops of trees enough to make you concentrate all your energies on the stretching of your neck, you will finally get a long neck, like the giraffe. This seems absurd to inconsiderate people at the first blush; but it is within the personal experience of all of us that it is just by this process that a child tumbling about the floor becomes a boy walking erect; and ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... do you wish to go to bed without your supper, as has been promised you?" said the young man, while the beautiful Reine was trying to recover her countenance. "Now, then, sing us a little song instead of staring at me as if I were a giraffe. Your little cook has a nice voice, Madame Gobillot. Now, then, mein herr, give us a little German lied. I will give you six kreutzers if you sing in tune, and a flogging if ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... Charleston to-day says: "Iron steamer Columbia, formerly the Giraffe, of Liverpool, with cargo of shoes, blankets, Whitworth guns, and ammunition, arrived yesterday." I suppose cargoes of this nature have been arriving once a week ever since the war broke out. This cargo, and the ship, belong ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... himself between the metals! The newcomer has but a theoretical knowledge at best of all these animals; and he is intensely interested in identifying the various species. The hartebeeste and the wildebeeste he learns quickly enough, and of course the zebra and the giraffe are unmistakable; but the smaller gazelles are legitimate subjects for discussion. The wonder of the extraordinary abundance of these wild animals mounts as the hours slip by. At the stops for water or for ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... to place confidence in someone, and it has reference to a person. I say that I know that there is an animal called the horse, and that it has such and such characteristics, because I have seen it; and I say that I believe in the existence of the giraffe or the ornithorhyncus, and that it possesses such and such qualities, because I believe those who assure me that they have seen it. And hence the element of uncertainty attached to faith, for it is possible that a person may be deceived or that ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno
... beard; Whistle to the cockatoos, and mock the hairy-faced baboon; Worship mighty Mumbo Jumbo in the mountains of the moon. I myself, in far Timbuctoo, leopard's blood shall daily quaff; Ride a tiger hunting, mounted on a thoroughbred giraffe." ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... "cut" and the huge Jeekie blundered along after him, the paraphernalia with which he was hung about rattling like the hoofs of a galloping giraffe. Nor for all his load did he ever turn a hair. Whether it were fear within or a desire to save his master, or a belief in the virtues of Little Bonsa, or that his foot was, as it were, once more upon his ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... There is a large rock in the river, and hills thickly tree-covered, 2' East and West, down a steep descent and camp. Came down River Mpokwa over rough country with sore feet, to ruins of a village Basivira and sleep. 21st.—Rest. 22nd.—Rest. Mr. Stanley shot two zebras yesterday, and a she giraffe to-day, the meat of the giraffe was 1000 lbs. weight, the two zebras ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... striatum), or, in the language of hunters, "moose-wood." He peels off the bark from old trees of this sort, and feeds upon it, as well as upon several species of mosses with which the arctic regions abound. It will be seen that in these respects he resembles the giraffe: he may be regarded as the giraffe ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... sight. Lions, bears, tigers, monkeys, a giraffe and a donkey, were followed by clowns, acrobats, trapeze performers, ...
— Patty Blossom • Carolyn Wells
... of the heavenly bodies were represented. Michael Scott, his astrologer, translated Aristotle's "History of Animals." Frederick studied ornithology, on which he wrote a treatise, and possessed a menagerie of rare animals, including a giraffe, and other strange creatures. The popular dialect of Italy owed much to him, being elevated into a written language by his use of it in his love-sonnets. Of the poems written by himself, his son Enzio, and his friends, several have been preserved, while his chancellor, Peter de Vincis, is said to ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris
... following your meteoric career in the papers! As I nibble at my toast of a morning I prop the New York Herald against the water giraffe and read, spilling my coffee down my neck: 'The life of the party was Right Tackle Thayer. Seizing the elongated sphere and tucking it under his strong left arm, Thayer dashed into the embattled line of the helpless adversary. ...
— Left Tackle Thayer • Ralph Henry Barbour
... first. The crowd was surging out and the place nearly empty before they found their tongues. And then there was so much else to see. The various stuffed animals, the giraffe with his three-story neck, the mermaid, the wax figures, the birds and beasts and serpents, and a model of Paris, of London, and of Jerusalem. The place looked quite gorgeous all ...
— A Little Girl in Old New York • Amanda Millie Douglas
... a pretty name,' snarled Slivers, prodding the ground with his wooden leg, as he always did when angry. 'Neither are you. What do you mean by banging into my office like an insane giraffe?'—this in allusion to ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... forms that survive accidental destruction, succumb in the second struggle for life in which the determining factor is some slight individual variation, e.g., a little longer neck in the case of the giraffe, or a wing shorter than usual in the case of an insect on an island. The whole theory of struggle, as formulated by Darwin, is, therefore, a violent assumption. Men of science now recognize that "egoism and struggle play a very subordinate part in organic development, in comparison ...
— At the Deathbed of Darwinism - A Series of Papers • Eberhard Dennert
... and her Friends pinned up their Garments and put Resin on their Hands and cut loose. They did the Grizzly Bear and the Mountain Goat and the Turkey Trot and the Bunny Hug and the Kangaroo Flop and the Duck Waddle and the Giraffe Jump and the Rhinoceros Roll and the Walrus Wiggle and the Crocodile Splash and the Apache and the Comanche and the Bowery Twist and the Hula Hula ...
— Knocking the Neighbors • George Ade
... of wild excitement, because his pumpkins had taken first prize, and Davy's only second. On the other hand, Keturah, his cow, had taken only third; but old Sandy McKitterick had said that Spectacle John was judge, and that he didn't know a cow from a giraffe. And Isaac and Rebekah had taken first, anyhow, and the doctor must come and see the red tickets on them. Gilbert started off through the crowd, but fell a captive by the way. As he passed a Gaelic-speaking group of checked ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... I'd been out for a little leg-work and I was just joggin' into the park again, when I hears all kinds of a ruction goin' on over behind the stonewall. There was screams and yells and shouts, like a Saturday-night riot in Double Alley. I pokes up a giraffe neck and sees a couple of women runnin' across the lawn. Pretty soon what they was chasin' comes into view. It was the Commodore. He was pushin' the tea-wagon in front of him, and in the top of that, with just his legs and arms stickin' out, ...
— Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... get back with his left, either out of the pocket of a man who isn't looking, or out of the envy of the poor neighbour who IS looking, but can't afford the figure. The seats are cheap. Why should A People, fabulous and lofty giraffe, want to charge or pay high prices? If it were THE PEOPLE now.—But it isn't. It isn't Plebs, the proletariat. The ...
— Touch and Go • D. H. Lawrence
... of Darwin's theory of racial inheritance or evolution, was that changes in animal life, wild or domestic, were brought about by the addition of very slight, perhaps imperceptible, variations. He argued that the giraffe with the longest neck could browse on higher leaves in time of drought and hence left offspring with slightly longer necks than ...
— The Dollar Hen • Milo M. Hastings
... all examples of gravitation: or that the purifying of the blood by breathing, the burning of a candle, and the rusting of iron are all cases of oxidation: or that the colouring of the underside of a red-admiral's wings, the spots of the giraffe, the shape and attitude of a stick-caterpillar, the immobility of a bird on its nest, and countless other cases, though superficially so different, agree in this, that they conceal and ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read
... giraffe are next door, but separated by a high wire fence, so that even the long neck of the giraffe cannot bend over and touch the hippos. Of all animals, the giraffe is, perhaps, the most odd, his neck is so very long, and his markings so rich. ...
— The Children's Book of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... its biologic aspect of positivism—or the wild, fantastic, grotesque, monstrous things it conceived of, sometimes in a frenzy of effort to break away abruptly from all preceding types—but failing, in the giraffe-effort, for instance, or ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort
... with considerable certainty whether it will be more conducive to his happiness to sing, "Croppies Lie Down," or "The Battle of Ross." As for Billy Crow, long life to him! you might as well attempt to pass a turkey upon M. Audubon for a giraffe, as endeavor to impose a Papist upon him for a true follower of King William. He could have given you more generic distinctions to guide you in the decision than ever did Cuvier to designate an antediluvian ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... the picture of a {illust.}. It is a giraffe It is part of the old sign-language out of which the ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon
... long neck, and short wings, useless for flight. One specimen that has been found is upward of thirteen feet in height. There is no reason why some should not have been much taller. More compares its height to that of a giraffe. The Maoris call this bird the Moa, and their legends and traditions are full of mention of it. When they first came to the island, six or seven hundred years ago, they found these vast birds everywhere, and hunted them for food. To my mind the dinornis is the opmahera of More. As to riding on ...
— A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder • James De Mille
... visiting the cages first. I do not complain of your natural wish to begin with the giraffe, because it has such an absurdly long neck and may possibly mistake Pamela's straw-hat for a bunch of hay and try to eat it, and because you will be able to see the hippopotamus on the way. As a matter of fact you will find that the giraffe ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, June 2, 1920 • Various
... twenty-four prancing steeds with manes, tails, and feathered heads tossing in the breeze; the clowns, the tumblers, the strong men, and the riders flying about in the air as if the laws of gravitation no longer existed. But, best of all, was the grand conglomeration of animals where the giraffe appears to stand on the elephant's back, the zebra to be jumping over the seal, the hippopotamus to be lunching off a couple of crocodiles, and lions and tigers to be raining down in all directions with their mouths, wide open and their tails ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... under the winter snows of the Parry Islands. The wapiti and heavy large-headed elk or moose, retreat before the advancing civilisation of North America. The Indian mountains and plains have noble races of deer. No species, however, is more celebrated than our red deer. The giraffe is closely allied to the stag family. The Arabs name it the seraph, and indeed, that is the origin of its now best-known English name. Visitors should beware of going too near the male, for we have seen the dent made by one of the giraffe's bony knobs on a pannel ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... pulled Nelly Martin's hair, and was sent down three. Then I was fourth, and my pencil squeaked my slate and I was sent down six. Then Cyril had to spell 'giraffe,' and I said 'one r and two f's,' and she ...
— An Australian Lassie • Lilian Turner
... darned dynamic. She looks at you as if you were a giraffe or something and she would like to take a pot ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... Evening Tattler! Latest Edition! Awful murder! Bank clerk absconded! Powder-mill explosion, and great strike of the Latin School boys!' roared Ted, going to meet his cousin with the graceful gait of a young giraffe. ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... species of animals that inhabit the country around them—even the strong heavy rhinoceros is not feared by them, though the latter frequently foils and conquers them. Young elephants sometimes become their prey. The fierce buffalo, the giraffe, the oryx, the huge eland, and the eccentric gnoo, all have to succumb to ...
— The Bush Boys - History and Adventures of a Cape Farmer and his Family • Captain Mayne Reid
... you where the great tusker elephants are," he said, "and let you shoot the giraffe and rhinoceros. We ...
— Off to the Wilds - Being the Adventures of Two Brothers • George Manville Fenn
... times I have seen it so black for miles that we could scarcely see the grass. There were all sorts of them, springbucks in myriads, blesbok and quagga and wildebeeste in thousands, sable antelope, sassaby and hartebeeste in herds, eland, giraffe and koodoo in troops; while the forests were full of elephant and the streams of sea-cow. They are all gone now, the beautiful wild creatures; the guns of the white men have killed them out or driven them away, and I suppose that it is as well that they are gone, for while the game is in such ...
— Swallow • H. Rider Haggard
... the woodpecker and the humming-bird have got their peculiarly long tongues from the habit of extracting their food with their tongues from deep and narrow folds or canals; the frog has developed the web between his toes by his own swimming; the giraffe has lengthened his neck by stretching up to the higher branches of trees, and so on. It is quite certain that this use or disuse of organs is a most important factor in organic development, but it is not sufficient to explain ...
— The Evolution of Man, V.1. • Ernst Haeckel
... most magnificent sense of its limited dimensions, had from the first opined would not hold more than two enormous portmanteaus in some odd corner out of sight (portmanteaus which could now no more be got in at the door, not to say stowed away, than a giraffe could be persuaded or forced into a flower-pot): that this utterly impracticable, thoroughly hopeless, and profoundly preposterous box, had the remotest reference to, or connection with, those chaste and pretty, not to say gorgeous little bowers, sketched by a masterly hand, in the highly ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... camel stem appeared in North America. In the Pliocene arose a llama with the long neck and limbs of a giraffe, whose food was cropped from the leaves and branches of trees. Far more generalized in structure was the Oreodon, an animal related to the camels, but with distinct affinities also with other lines, ...
— The Elements of Geology • William Harmon Norton
... Ticeum and B. Phoolum's 'Great Moral Show,' with 'six tigers, five elephants, a giraffe, hippopotamus, kangaroo, in-nu-mer-a-ble monkeys, wild men of Borneo, living skeleton, educated bull, and a ship of the desert,' would come to a mean little village like this? Skowhegan's the town it's going to move through, and it will pass Tucker's Corner at five o'clock ...
— Harper's Young People, July 13, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... that swift giant from the New World, had already flung her on canvas, with a brace of sisters. She outstands there, a virgin poplar-tall; hair like ravelled flax and coiffed in the fashion of the period; neck like a giraffe's; lips shaped for kissing rather than smiling; eyes like a giraffe's again; breasts like a boy's, and something of a dressed-up boy in the total aspect of her. She has arms a trifle long even for such height as hers; fingers ...
— A Christmas Garland • Max Beerbohm
... they make saddle-cloths of 'em for the band of the forty-ninth Hussars. Your Majesty may have reckonized 'em; most people think it's giraffe skin, but it's really our ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... or zomer of the ancient Jews, has by different authors been described as the camelopard or giraffe. The Syriac version renders the original term into one which signifies the mountain-goat, and so far coincides with our common translation of the Scriptures, though it is extremely doubtful whether the chamois or the ibex was to be found in any district of Palestine. Dr. Shaw holds the opinion ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell
... far as the organs of flight are concerned, would convert it into a bat." "The framework of bones being the same in the hand of a man, wing of a bat, fin of a porpoise, and leg of a horse, the same number of vertebrae forming the neck of the giraffe and of the elephant, and innumerable other such facts, at once explain themselves on the theory of descent with slow ...
— Samuel Butler's Canterbury Pieces • Samuel Butler
... I am quite clever," said Saltash, as again his hand met Jake's. "Too clever sometimes. I needn't ask if all goes well with you, Jake. Your prosperity is obvious, but don't wax fat on it. Bunny now—he's as lean as a giraffe. Can't you do something to him? He looks as if he'd melt into thin ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... cakes were floating past, accumulating at the bend below the town and raising the water level well above the top of the Marquis's dam. The river was what Joe Ferris had a way of calling "swimmin' deep for a giraffe." ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... intercrossing of existing forms, and above all to the actual efforts of animals themselves. In other words, he had not discovered natural selection, the cardinal idea of Charles Darwin's epoch-making book. For him, the giraffe had acquired its long neck by constant reaching up to the boughs of trees; the monkey had acquired its opposable thumb by constant grasping at the neighbouring branches; and the serpent had acquired its sinuous shape by constant wriggling through the grass of the meadows. Charles Darwin ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... N. height, altitude, elevation; eminence, pitch; loftiness &c adj.; sublimity. tallness &c adj.; stature, procerity^; prominence &c 250. colossus &c (size) 192; giant, grenadier, giraffe, camelopard. mount, mountain; hill alto, butte [U.S.], monticle^, fell, knap^; cape; headland, foreland^; promontory; ridge, hog's back, dune; rising ground, vantage ground; down; moor, moorland; Alp; uplands, highlands; heights &c (summit) 210; knob, loma^, pena [U.S.], picacho^, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... she had to wait here some time; for the usher begged her to have patience until the merchants' audience was over. They were the last who would be received that day. He invited her to rest on the couch on which was spread a bright giraffe's skin, but she preferred to walk up and down, for her heart was beating violently. And while the usher vanished from the room, one of the warriors turned his head to look about him, and directly he caught sight of Melissa he gave his comrade ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... she began to laugh At the wondrous creatures she saw; There were dancing bears, and a tall giraffe, ...
— The Fox and the Geese; and The Wonderful History of Henny-Penny • Anonymous
... chevrotains,[10] llamas, and camels. All these, from their practice of "chewing the cud," are called "ruminants," and they are multitudinous in kinds. The great plains of Southern Africa are the special home of most kinds of antelope, and the giraffe is exclusively African. Deer have their head-quarters in Asia, though they exist in South America as well as throughout ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various
... to learn in the way of sanitation, and yet more as to the advisability of a daily bath, for while even in hotels they give one an enormous carafe, which might be called a giraffe, its neck is so long, filled with drinking water surrounded by endless tumblers, the basin is scarcely bigger than a sugar bowl, while the jug is about the ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... placed us in a position to move again immediately. The question now arose as to whether it would be best to remain where we were a few days longer to gain more experience, or to trek at once over the Mau, with a chance at giraffe on the way, and so on into the Sotik country, with its alluring promises of both rhino ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine |
