"Good-for-nothing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... she wrote with this gryphon's feather. "So here is the recipe for the Tuyla incantation with which to give life to your images. It may comfort you a little to perform that silly magic. It, anyhow, will prevent such good-for-nothing minxes as may have no more intelligence than to take you seriously, from putting on too many airs and graces around the images which you will make of me with my hair done ...
— Figures of Earth • James Branch Cabell
... heart of a mother is almost as invariably set to the prosperous daughter as to the good-for-nothing son; there is a subtle philosophy in it, but quite aside from the interest of ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... Norton, the vicar's wife, smilingly stopped Mavis and spoke as if she had been addressing a social equal; then they received greetings from old Mr. Bates, the corn merchant, and from young Richard Bates, his swaggering good-for-nothing son. And then, as passengers gathered more thickly, it became quite like a public reception. "Ma'arnin', sir." "Good day, Mr. Dale." "I hope I ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... leaned, and grabbed a handful of slatey mane. "Oh, you Blue-dog!" she said, for that was his full name. "Life is livable, after all, as long as a fellow has got you and can ride. You good-for-nothing old ten-dollar hoss! I—wonder would it be wicked to sing? What do you think, Blue? You'd sing, I know, at the top of your voice, if you could. Say, Blue! Don't you wish, you were a donkey, so you could stick out your neck and go Yee-ee-haw! Yee-ee—haw? Try it once. I ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... B——, the other a "gentleman of means" named Wilson. Both were passionately fond of music, and the latter devoted many of his leisure hours to the study of the violin. One fine afternoon our clerical friend was in his study, deeply engaged in writing, when there came along one of those good-for-nothing little Italian players, who planted himself under his study window, and, much to his annoyance, commenced scraping away on a squeaky fiddle. After trying in vain for about fifteen minutes to collect his scattered thoughts, the Doctor descended to ...
— Toasts - and Forms of Public Address for Those Who Wish to Say - the Right Thing in the Right Way • William Pittenger
... rap.—"Hold your tongue! Don't dare!" Piotr Andreitch kept repeating to his wife, as soon as she tried to incline him to mercy: "He ought to pray to God for me forever, the pup, for not having laid my curse upon him; my late father would have slain him with his own hands, the good-for-nothing, and he would have done right." At such terrible speeches, Anna Pavlovna merely crossed herself furtively. As for Ivan Petrovitch's wife, Piotr Andreitch, at first, would not allow her to be mentioned, and even in reply to ...
— A Nobleman's Nest • Ivan Turgenieff
... and the "Zephir," a violent quarrel broke out. Rouget called La Queue a thief, while the latter called Rouget a good-for-nothing. The men even took up their oars to beat each other down, and the adventure lacked little of turning into a naval combat. More than this, they engaged to meet on land, showing their fists and threatening to disembowel each other as soon as they ...
— The Fete At Coqueville - 1907 • Emile Zola
... in his house. I obtained from my captain a French soldier to serve me, and I was well pleased when I found that the man was a hairdresser by trade, and a great talker by nature, for he could take care of my beautiful head of hair, and I wanted to practise French conversation. He was a good-for-nothing fellow, a drunkard and a debauchee, a peasant from Picardy, and he could hardly read or write, but I did not mind all that; all I wanted from him was to serve me, and to talk to me, and his French was pretty good. He was an amusing rogue, knowing by heart a quantity ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... retorted the other. "The Commissary swears to his own signature on the identity book. The concierge at the Abbaye swears that he knows Mole, so do all the men of the Surete who have seen him. The Commissary has known him as an indigent, good-for-nothing lubbard who has begged his way in the streets of Paris ever since he was released from gaol some months ago, after he had served a term for larceny. Even your own man Hebert admits to feeling doubtful on the point. You have had the nightmare, citizen," ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... Harte, of a purely personal nature, was of an occurrence in 1866, when he was dramatic critic of the Morning Call at the time I was doing a little reporting on the same paper. It happened that a benefit was arranged for some charity. "Nan, the Good-for-Nothing," was to be given by a number of amateurs. The Nan asked me to play Tom, and I had insufficient firmness to decline. After the play, when my face was reasonably clean, I dropped into the Call office, yearning for a word of commendation from Harte. I thought he knew ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... are taking off the heads and other good-for-nothing parts which are sold for glue stock. Nothing is wasted in a tannery, let me tell you! After the skins leave this room they will be sent to the beamhouse, where they will be soaked in water until all the dirt and salt is out of ...
— The Story of Leather • Sara Ware Bassett
... this time," she said. "Hello! It is that good-for-nothing young Cooper fellow from the next block. They say he is a millionaire. Well, he isn't even going to see the ...
— The Christmas Angel • Abbie Farwell Brown
... any one who goes meddling in my brush cupboard now that I've just put all in order against the prying and nozzling of the good-for-nothing baggage what's coming along ...
— Six Plays • Florence Henrietta Darwin
... the only word he made intelligible, that he was almost everywhere overwhelmed with injurious accusations. On no fewer than four occasions the police were called in to receive denunciations of Mr Meagles as a Knight of Industry, a good-for-nothing, and a thief, all of which opprobrious language he bore with the best temper (having no idea what it meant), and was in the most ignominious manner escorted to steam-boats and public carriages, to be got rid of, talking all the while, like a cheerful and fluent Briton ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... cried Billy, smiling a stern smile of triumph; "I smashed the nose off him! He wont sass me again for nothing this while! Uncle Teddy, d'ye know it wasn't a dog-fight, after all? There was that nasty, good-for-nothing Joe Casey, 'n Patsy Grogan, and a lot of bad boys from Mackerelville; and they'd caught this poor little ki-oodle and tied a tin pot to his tail, and were trying to set Joe's dog on him, though he's ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... Clinton was not an unkind man. Long service in the police force and a mistaken notion of the proper method of procedure in treating his prisoners had hardened him and made him brutal. Secretly he felt sorry for this plucky, energetic little woman who had such unbounded faith in her good-for-nothing husband, and was ready to fight all alone in his defense. Eyeing her with ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow
... sheep till they are dead!" she exclaimed when that fact had been gestured into her understanding. "Absurd! There's another specimen of masculine stupidity. I'll warrant you, if the women had the management of things, the good-for-nothing brutes would be ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... mightly glad you've come to help an old man die! Yes, I am dying, Job; the old man's near the end. I'll no more hang around the Miners' Home and beg a drink from the stranger. Curse the rum, Job! It's brought me here where you find me, a good-for-nothing, dying without a friend in the world—yes, one friend, Job; you're my ...
— The Transformation of Job - A Tale of the High Sierras • Frederick Vining Fisher
... too, so that he can hand it on to his sons and daughters and say, 'There's my father's name, I've never disgraced it; now it's your turn to use it well.' But suppose that the son doesn't value his father's good name. Suppose that he chooses an idle good-for-nothing life and his own pleasure, rather than to work hard and live honestly; what happens then? Why, then, men soon leave off trusting him, and say, 'He's not the man his father was;' and so the name of Darvell, which used to be so honoured and respected, comes to be connected with ...
— Our Frank - and other stories • Amy Walton
... her through the interstices of my chair-back—so excited my girlish risibilities, that fear became stifled in suppressed laughter. "Amen" was scarce pronounced, when a shrill voice called out—"Come here, you little good-for-nothing—what's your name?" The inviting smile conveyed to me with these startling tones left no doubt who was addressed, and I instantly obeyed the really fervent call. Both the stout arms of my aunt were opened ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... said her mother's voice, sternly, "thou good-for-nothing! Thou'st let the syrup burn, and the smell is all over the house. Charles, what dost thou mean by loafing indoors at this hour of the day? Go about ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... years ago, in the poor little village of Waldorf, in the duchy of Baden, lived a jovial, good-for-nothing butcher, named Jacob Astor, who felt himself much more at home in the beer-house than at the fireside of his own house in the principal street of the village. At the best, the butcher of Waldorf must have been a poor man; for, at that day, the inhabitants ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... not going to hide you, like that good-for-nothing, finicky, sneery gentleman. You shall be my pride and my chum. Isn't that better than rotting on an island for the pleasure of a gentleman, till ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... flying in the face of Providence. When Ted drew attention to the fact that he had passed first in Comparative Anatomy, his uncle James told him that stupidity was excusable, and that his abilities only proved him a lazy good-for-nothing fellow. He then offered him a berth in his office, with board and lodging in his own house; and as Ted was in low water, there was nothing for it but to accept. Mr. James Pigott remained master of the situation, without ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair
... "the light of Duty shines on every day for all." "We always have as much light as we need, though often not as much as we would like," and if you honestly want to do your next duty, you will have light enough to do it by. Come to me, by all means, if you like, and say, "I feel idle and good-for-nothing, and don't particularly want to see my Duty!" but do not moan about Life being all perplexity! It is always nobler to do your duty than to leave it undone: make this principle your sheet-anchor, and spiritual ...
— Stray Thoughts for Girls • Lucy H. M. Soulsby
... he was, Gus took him by the collar, and shoved him back, and said, "Look at the lady, you brute, and hold your tongue!" And when he looked at my wife's situation, Captain Sparr became redder for shame than he had before been for anger. "I'm sorry she's married to such a good-for-nothing," muttered he, and fell back; and my poor wife and I walked out of the court, and back to our dismal room in ...
— The History of Samuel Titmarsh - and the Great Hoggarty Diamond • William Makepeace Thackeray
... come home, you lazy good-for-nothing hussy," she screamed. "Where have you been? You don't care how hard I have to work so long as you can go a pleasuring. There's plenty for you to do here. Set about washing these plates if ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... put to bed, then a doctor was sent for, and when the doctor had gone Gertrude wrote to the best woman she knew. This person used to be a great friend of Gertrude's until she made up her mind to have nothing more to do with such idle, good-for-nothing people. So she went away from her friends and spent her life nursing poor folk who were sick. Well, this person, whose name ought to have been Sister Benevolence, agreed to take care of Lucy until the child ...
— The Bountiful Lady - or, How Mary was changed from a very Miserable Little Girl - to a very Happy One • Thomas Cobb
... little daughter should marry some English good-for-nothing? Look, then, I would rather see her white and cold in the dead-chamber. In a word, I will have no Englishman among the Van Heemskirks. There, let us sleep. To-night I ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr
... failure. It wasn't even the loss of a good-for-nothing chorus-girl. It was a loss far more subtle. The recognition of it lamed Robert Stonehouse, knocked the power out of him, as though someone had struck and paralysed a vital nerve centre. He ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... usefulness, for they are richly endowed, just because they are made to be women. They should not be made to feel that it is degrading to be a woman, to feel, as a man expressed it to me the other day, that "women are such good-for-nothing creatures." I love noble, "strong-minded," and strong-hearted women. I wish we had more of them. I know of no way to make them but to give our girls more active Employment. Every girl should have a trade, a business, a profession, or some honorable and ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver
... season gets colder, or a night-march has miscarried. Then you never wish to see the sun rise again. There was a time when a man who boasted that he had never seen the sun rise was branded as a lazy sloth, an indolent good-for-nothing, who willingly missed half the pleasures of life. After twenty months continuous trekking in South Africa one is not sure that one's opinions on this subject fall into line with those of the majority. For ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
... to erect the sides of the squatty shelter by driving stakes into the ground, "is that I hope we haven't come all the way up here on a reg'lar fool's errand. It'd cost Mrs. Hopewell a pretty good sum, and be a real disappointment to her, if after all we didn't find that good-for-nothing nephew of hers, Roland Chase. Honest to goodness now, I'm a little inclined to believe he'll be leading us a wild-goose Chase, if ...
— At Whispering Pine Lodge • Lawrence J. Leslie
... brought him! You did, hey? Well, did n't I tell you to let no lazy, loafing bumboat-man set foot on board? Do you laugh at my orders, you good-for-nothing scum of the sea? And above all things why did you ever drag such a creature as this down between decks to disgrace the whole of His Majesty's navy? Get ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... does she work so? Look and see, There in the corner, children three! Plump and furry and full of fun, (A good-for-nothing is every one.) And all those kittens ...
— On the Tree Top • Clara Doty Bates
... Nothing shall ever make me speak to him again;—not if he married her three times over; nor to her. She is a nasty, sly, good-for-nothing thing!" ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... was, all right. He took sides with that good-for-nothing scoundrel who had shot a man that was almost his father. Why, I never saw such a case of ingratitude ...
— Sandy • Alice Hegan Rice
... of the life her mother had led,—a long series of nights spent in orgies, and of days without bread; that life of distress and disgrace, when she depended on the whims of a good-for-nothing, or the suspicions of a police constable,—Sarah felt the cold perspiration break ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... while soundness stops at a certain point and then retrogrades. And when I wanted to change what was wrong in the habits of this household, I was always met with "But mother said," and therefore it was true; "Mother used to do this way," and therefore it was right. And to you I became a good-for-nothing when I was kind, a miserable creature when I was sensitive, and a scamp when I let you all have your ...
— Plays: Comrades; Facing Death; Pariah; Easter • August Strindberg
... been after them Irishers again?' exclaimed the owner of the red face. 'The idle vagabonds! I vow to goodness that all our money, and food and clothing, too, I believe, go to feed a set of good-for-nothing, ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... should the gracious lord know such a good-for-nothing fellow?" interrupted Jankiel. But the lord of Kamiorika ...
— An Obscure Apostle - A Dramatic Story • Eliza Orzeszko
... you'll take us in we'll promise to stand by you to the end, no matter what comes. We know they've got the best of it—having the ship's stores—but we don't care for that. They are a drunken, good-for-nothing crowd, and we are ...
— The Rover Boys on Land and Sea - The Crusoes of Seven Islands • Arthur M. Winfield
... the ground before the terrible old chief and quavered a recital of the facts. Her good-for-nothing boy Lamai had picked the dog from the water. It had been the cause of much trouble in her house. But now Lamai had gone to live with the youths, and she was carrying the dog to Agno's house ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... the constant object of reproof. The boy was accused of negligence, wasting his time, of spending three hours over a task which might have been done in less than one. When Derues had convinced the father, a Parisian bourgeois, that his son was a bad boy and a good-for-nothing, he came to this man one day in a state of ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - DERUES • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... you what Mr. North knows—which will be more to the purpose, perhaps. For a year or more you have been figuring on some kind of a scheme to pull the company's financial leg in behalf of your good-for-nothing narrow gauge. A month ago, for example, you went all over the old survey on the other side of the mountains and verified the original S. L & W. preliminaries and ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... been done to death in this "buying a home" swindle. They would be almost sure to get into a tight place and lose all their money; and there was no end of expense that one could never foresee; and the house might be good-for-nothing from top to bottom—how was a poor man to know? Then, too, they would swindle you with the contract—and how was a poor man to understand anything about a contract? It was all nothing but robbery, and there was no safety but in keeping out ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... points. There is no way possible of discovering what the best progenitors are except by records of performance. Very often varieties of high cultural value are worthless in breeding because their characters seem not to be transmitted to their progeny and, to the contrary, a good-for-nothing variety in the vineyard is often ...
— Manual of American Grape-Growing • U. P. Hedrick
... to all people's infirmities but his own, not to miss the voice and the 'old familiar face' that he had been accustomed to for forty years. And I met with what struck me as an affecting instance of Kant's yearning after his old good-for-nothing servant in his memorandum-book: other people record what they wish to remember; but Kant had here recorded what he was to forget. 'Mem.: February, 1802, the name of Lampe must now ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... she cried out with vexation, for the cakes were burned and spoiled. "You lazy, good-for-nothing man!" she said, "I warrant you can eat cakes fast enough; but you are too lazy to help me ...
— Famous Men of the Middle Ages • John H. Haaren
... now; now my time is over—but in my young days.... But you know it was not an easy matter in my position. It's not suitable for people like us to go trailing after noblemen. Certainly you may find in our class some drinking, good-for-nothing fellow who associates with the gentry—but it's a queer sort of enjoyment.... He only brings shame on himself. They mount him on a wretched stumbling nag, keep knocking his hat off on to the ground ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I • Ivan Turgenev
... she saw that he was coatless, had only her jacket on, brought no parcel, stood there silent, and seemed ashamed, her heart was ready to break with disappointment. "He has drunk the money," thought she, "and has been on the spree with some good-for-nothing fellow whom he has brought ...
— What Men Live By and Other Tales • Leo Tolstoy
... was gone now. The house having collapsed, its members appeared to him only in their true natures, a good-for-nothing young man, tainted with a mortal disease, a foolish mother, a devout spinster threatened with religious mania, and the last descendant of the great old race, one little girl-child not likely to live, and perhaps better dead. ...
— The Heart of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... me, Shemuel!" moaned Simcha, wringing her hands. "You'd give away the shirt off your skin to a pack of good-for-nothing Schnorrers." ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... read the papers," replied Lady Mary, very demurely, casting down her eyes once more, "the property does not belong to my good father, the Earl, but to the good-for-nothing young man named O'Ruddy. I think that my father, the Earl, will find that he needs your signature before he can call the estate his own once more. It may be I am wrong, and that your father, by leaving possession so long in the hands of the Earl, ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... of Jerry Koswell and Bart Larkspur?" asked Dick, wishing to know something of those former good-for-nothing ...
— The Rover Boys in the Air - From College Campus to the Clouds • Edward Stratemeyer
... to, you good-for-nothing trash! I've been that worried about you I didn't know what to do. Your traps has been here ever so long, and I've had supper cooked fresh about four times so as to have it hot and good when you come, till at last my patience is just plumb wore out, and I declare I—I—why ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... news. There must be something the matter. She was going into town at the top of her speed to send a telegram, intending to stop as she came back. She might have stopped anyway if it had not been for that good-for-nothing Maria Port. She hated Maria, and he hated her himself, at this moment, as she stood by his side, asking him what was the matter ...
— The Captain's Toll-Gate • Frank R. Stockton
... and they were brave, able boys. But Jack was the youngest, a gauchy, dawnie sort of a lad that was good for nothing only feeding fowls and doing odd turns about the house. When they grew up to be men, Teddy and Billy one day said they'd go away to travel and see the world, for they'd only be good-for-nothing omadhauns if they'd stay here all their lives. Their father said that was good, and so off the both of them started. And that night when they halted from their travelling, who does they see coming up after them, but Jack; for it seems he commenced ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... were both moderately young and well matched, for they thoroughly agreed in everything conceivable—or otherwise. In the length and breadth of the Settlement there could not have been found a lazier or more good-natured or good-for-nothing couple than La Certe and his spouse. Love was, if we may venture to say so, the chief element in the character of each. Love of self was the foundation. Then, happily, love of each other came next. Rising gracefully, the superstructure may be described as, ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... and like most really worthless young men he exercised an extraordinary charm on every one who knew him, both women and men. For to be a real good-for-nothing, without being a criminal, implies a native genius for wasting other people's time as agreeably as one's own, and for helping rich men to get rid of their money with infinite pleasure and no profit at all, and for making every woman believe ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... King heard this, he said to her, "You have struck your own foot with the axe, you have made your own fetters, you have sharpened the knife and mixed the poison; for no one has done this lady so much harm as yourself, you good-for-nothing creature! Know you that this is the beautiful maiden whom you wounded with the hairpin? Know you that this is the pretty dove which you ordered to be killed and cooked in a stewpan? What say you now? It is all your own doing; and one who does ill may expect ill in ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... a certain EARL RICHARD DE CLARE, called STRONGBOW; of no very good character; needy and desperate, and ready for anything that offered him a chance of improving his fortunes. There were, in South Wales, two other broken knights of the same good-for-nothing sort, called ROBERT FITZ-STEPHEN, and MAURICE FITZ-GERALD. These three, each with a small band of followers, took up Dermond's cause; and it was agreed that if it proved successful, Strongbow should marry Dermond's daughter EVA, and be declared ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... you been about, you good-for-nothing?" he shouted. "Why didn't you stay with the others? You might have lent me a hand with ...
— "Us" - An Old Fashioned Story • Mary Louisa S. Molesworth
... forth, not to go into deep water, for fear a great greedy pike or some other great fish might be there and swallow him up at a mouthful. He kept away from the shallow places in hot weather, lest the sun should dry them up. When he saw a shadow on the water, he said to himself, 'Halloo! here are the good-for-nothing fishermen with their nets!' and immediately he sculled away and got under the banks, where he sat trembling in all his scales; and when he saw a tempting fly skimming on the water, or a nice fat worm, he did not dare to bite, although ...
— The Fairy Nightcaps • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... said, sharply; "over to the tavern, I s'pose, as usual. There never was such a shiftless, good-for-nothing man. I'd better have stayed unmarried all the days of my life than have married him. If he don't get in by ten, I'll lock the door, and it shall stay locked. 'Twill serve him right to stay out doors ...
— Paul Prescott's Charge • Horatio Alger
... "is quite in harmony with my own views. Come along then with me to the palace of the Monitory Vision Fairy, and let us deliver up this good-for-nothing object, and have done with it! And when the company of pleasure-bound spirits of wrath descend into human existence, you and I can then enter the world. Half of them have already fallen into the dusty universe, but the whole number of them have not, ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... the old house should tumble in, it would bury under its ruins a precious lot of good-for-nothing people, unfit to live! Heavens! what a flash of lightning! Oh, Cap, Cap, my darling, where are you in this storm? Mrs. Condiment, mum! if any harm comes to Capitola this night, I'll ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth
... meaning, in the slang of the day, "good-for-nothing." "You would take my house by storm! Do you think it is a Boche dugout you charge when you ...
— Ruth Fielding at the War Front - or, The Hunt for the Lost Soldier • Alice B. Emerson
... Bates. "Look in the wash room! Why aren't the clothes on the line? Where is that good-for-nothing Kate?" ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter
... the presumption, the lack of respect for superiors, the pride that the spirit of darkness infused in the young, the lack of manners, the absence of courtesy, and so on. From this he passed to coarse jests and sarcasm over the presumption which some good-for-nothing "prompters" had of teaching their teachers by establishing an academy for ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... into the middle of the room, turned round, and began to laugh ecstatically. "Do you know where it is, you little good-for-nothing? Have you put ...
— Wild Kitty • L. T. Meade
... should she be here? D'ye think I've not had enough trouble and care put upon me bringing up my own girls, let alone you and your good-for-nothing brother, without having ...
— The Devil's Disciple • George Bernard Shaw
... said Helen. "Give me my cloak; I will fetch some more apples myself, or else that good-for-nothing wretch will eat them all on the way. I shall be able to find the mountain and the tree. The shepherds may cry 'Stop,' but I shall not leave go till I have ...
— Fairy Tales of the Slav Peasants and Herdsmen • Alexander Chodsko
... departed from me forever, with what glowing words I ought to have spoken! upon a wondrous ladder of trophes, metaphors and recondite allusions, to what stylistic heights of Asiatic prose I ought to have ascended! and instead, I twaddled like a schoolmaster. Decidedly, Lisa is right, and I am good-for-nothing. However," Jurgen added, hopefully, "it appeared to me that when I last saw her, a year ago this evening, Lisa was somewhat less outspoken ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... his captain! And Mossieu Daspry pretends that, with kindness and patience, he succeeds in turning Duvauchel and fellows of his kidney into his best soldiers! What humbug! As though there were any way of taming those beggars, short of discipline! A pack of good-for-nothing scoundrels, who would fly across the frontier the moment the first ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc
... five years Ma Parker had another baby—and such a one for crying!—to look after. Then young Maudie went wrong and took her sister Alice with her; the two boys emigrated, and young Jim went to India with the army, and Ethel, the youngest, married a good-for-nothing little waiter who died of ulcers the year little Lennie was born. ...
— The Garden Party • Katherine Mansfield
... not on the table, and I went into the store to see if the mail was ready. Mr. Barkspear was there, engaged in telling Captain Fishley that his good-for-nothing "help" had run away ...
— Down The River - Buck Bradford and His Tyrants • Oliver Optic
... ingenious application of the principle that certain things belong of right to female jurisdiction, I find myself, through my easy compliances, insensibly stripped by degrees of one masculine prerogative after another. In a dream I go about my fields, a sort of lazy, happy-go-lucky, good-for-nothing, loafing old Lear. Only by some sudden revelation am I reminded who is over me; as year before last, one day seeing in one corner of the premises fresh deposits of mysterious boards and timbers, the oddity of the incident at length begat serious meditation. "Wife," ...
— I and My Chimney • Herman Melville
... or two with the niece of her former guardian, her old friend, the companion of her convent school days in Rome? Would his Eminence tell her why not? His Eminence replied by saying that he had never approved of Bianca's marriage; that Prince Corleone was, in his opinion, as great a good-for-nothing as ever had appeared in Neapolitan society, and was at present known to be leading a dissipated life in Paris and London. Veronica answered that all these things were to the discredit of Corleone, but that Bianca was to be pitied, since she had been so unlucky as to marry a scoundrel, ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... he begged her for a little, and she sent him about his business; las, alas! ever since then his peace has been gone; he cannot sleep, he can only think of her, and follow her about; he has become quite good-for-nothing as to his field work,—yet he hears all the people around laughing and saying, "Of course Vallera will get her." Only she will pay no heed to him. She is finer to look at than the Pope, whiter than the whitest ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. I • Vernon Lee
... who had just brought us in some loads of wood. There is often, it seems to me, a sort of refrain in conversation, which one catches everywhere as one comes and goes. Figure my astonishment when I heard from the lips of my good mother the same words with which that good-for-nothing Jacques Richard had made the profession of his brutal faith. 'Go!' she cried, in anger; 'you are all the same. Money is your god. De grosses pieces, that is all you think of ...
— A Beleaguered City • Mrs. Oliphant
... Tibb," said Elspeth; "and turn the broach even, thou good-for-nothing Simmie,—thy wits are harrying birds' nests, child.—Weel, Tibb, this is a fasheous job, this Sir Piercie lying leaguer with us up here, and wha ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... Where it is almost inconceivable, that the poet could have failed to see the application which might be made of the passage, especially as he allows the confidant to answer, J'ai tout vu. That Attila should treat the kings who are dependent on him like good-for-nothing fellows: Ils ne sont pas venus, nos deux rois; qu'on leur die Qu'ils se font trop attendre, et qu' Attila s'ennuie Qu'alors que je les mande ils doivent se hter: may in one view appear very serious and true; but nevertheless it appears exceedingly droll to us from ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... intellectual basis: he regards knowledge as something instantaneously attainable when it comes at last; he believes he will have a vision, and that everything will be revealed to him. His devotion to his object is admirable, when he is a genuine ascetic and not, as is generally the case, a good-for-nothing who makes his piety pay for his subsistence; but it is devotion of a very low intellectual order. The true adept thinks the training of the mind in intellectual pursuits no less necessary than the moderate and reasonable mortification ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford
... "They're just snooping round to see if there's anything in it. And automobiles ain't so common round here that you can pick one up every time you feel like hunting treasure, either. I own the only one in town and I loaned it to-day to a good-for-nothing guy ...
— Across the Mesa • Jarvis Hall
... of the Apostles? Despair. For these volumes were a torment to men who denied Christ's birth of a Virgin, and who pretended that the Spirit then first descended upon Christians when their peculiar Paraclete, a good-for-nothing Persian, made his appearance. What induced the Ebionites to reject all St. Paul's Epistles? Despair. For while those Letters kept their credit, the custom of circumcision, which these men had reintroduced, was set aside as an anachronism. What induced ...
— Ten Reasons Proposed to His Adversaries for Disputation in the Name • Edmund Campion
... good woman when Gerry began to dilate upon their forlorn condition. "Jimson weeds I call 'em. Of all the shiftless, good-for-nothing lots! They can't be much worse off now ...
— The King's Daughter and Other Stories for Girls • Various
... only in folly, and steady in the purpose of being foolish. How beautiful, and how ugly! What a lovable, detestable, desirable, proud, wilful, arrogant, supercilious, laughing, passionate, tender, cruel, loving, hating, good sort of a good-for-nothing he is! He believes everything—he believes nothing; and, like Mary's Son, questions and mocks the doctors to their beards in the very temple. Patience! he must have his time, and room to grow in, develop, and shape out. Let him have coral ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... you good-for-nothing fellow, if you do not bring me the water immediately, I will complain ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... the one runs away, and t'other abandons thee to my care. Now to-morrow I shall ask the good people that bring me my food to fetch some nice eggs and milk for thee as well; for bread is good enough for poor old good-for-nothing me, but not for thee. And I shall teach ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... people to sell their own free children into slavery; and, as there are good-for-nothing white as well as coloured persons everywhere, no one, perhaps, will wonder at such inhuman transactions: particularly in the Southern States of America, where I believe there is a greater want of humanity and high principle amongst the whites, than among any other ...
— Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom • William and Ellen Craft
... seek you out, and make a bet with the Great Dipper that he'll have you off in forty winks, and the orchestra of the spheres whispers through its million strings and sings your soul to rest. For I tell you here and now, Matilda Anne, I, poor, puny, good-for-nothing, insignificant I, have heard that music of the spheres as clearly as you ever heard Funiculi-Funicula on that little Naples steamer that used to take you to Capri. And when I'd crawl out from under that old wagon-box, like a gopher out of his hole, in the first ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... them!" said Vernon. "Worse than good-for-nothing. She esteems such talents very lightly, and I shall even lose the small solace to my sorrows I had hoped they would have afforded me. Even this sad consolation is denied me. My Mary is indifferent to poetry—she holds sonnets upon hopeless love in utter contempt—entertains no higher opinion ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... and his inspired words on the threshold of eternity moved my conscience and caused a feeling of respect and pity for him in my breast as well as in others of our party. When Juan de Dios Carasco, who was known and despised by all for being a good-for-nothing thieving coward, drew his gun to shoot the Navajo in the back, I could not control my anger. 'Stop,' I shouted, 'you miserable hen thief, or you die at my hands, and now. This Indian should die, but not in such a manner. Senores, you have made me your capitan. Now I shall enforce my orders at ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann
... and his want of all real respect for gods or men. It was very hard on Socrates that the faults of his pupils should be charged against him; but Aristophanes had set all Athens laughing by a comedy called "The Clouds," in which a good-for-nothing young man, evidently meant for Alkibiades, gets his father into debt by buying horses, and, under the teaching of Socrates, learns both to cheat his creditors and to treat respect for his father as a worn-out notion. ...
— Aunt Charlotte's Stories of Greek History • Charlotte M. Yonge
... what is called a "good old good-for-nothing darky." The whole district allowed that he had no other merit beyond that of sawing the fiddle; and this merit, which is not one in our own eyes, was highly valued, however, by all the colored people, and even by the whites who lived for ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... good-for-nothing brute! You're only fit for the knacker's yard. You wanted to look handsome, did you? Hold your tongue, or I'll break my halter and be at you—with your ...
— At the Back of the North Wind • George MacDonald
... another one of them good-for-nothing schoolboys?" bellowed the stout individual. "If you are, I want you to understand you can't run this train—not as far as I ...
— Dave Porter in the Far North - or, The Pluck of an American Schoolboy • Edward Stratemeyer
... spite of all," said the woman, "and by my own silliness. But I seed my little Nan alive fust, and that was all I wanted. And I don't know who she was, nor what she was. She tole me she was a outcast and a tramp and a good-for-nothing. But there's never been anybody yet, be they who they may, as done for me what she done. She'd have give me the skin orf her back if she could 'ave took it orf. And it worn't as if I knowed her. I'd never set eyes on 'er ...
— The Lowest Rung - Together with The Hand on the Latch, St. Luke's Summer and The Understudy • Mary Cholmondeley
... "It is all very well for that good-for-nothing fellow of whom you have made a friend, but not for you, ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... d'you call it, what d'you call it," and he doesn't know himself what he means. Peter Ignatitch, don't listen to me, but go yourself and ask any one you like about the girl, everybody will say the same. She's just a homeless good-for-nothing. ...
— Redemption and Two Other Plays • Leo Tolstoy et al
... cups, and put them away in the cupboard, wrung out the dishcloth according to orders, and hung it on its nail. When this was finished she looked about with pride. The children were unusually peaceful; altogether, the day promised well. "Mother'll not say that I'm a good-for-nothing girl this time," thought Mell, and tried to recollect ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... style already?" she called out. "The supper stood waiting for you a whole hour: now I have put it away. Go to your bedroom; and if you turn out a good-for-nothing and a scamp, it is no fault of mine. I don't know any thing that I had not rather do than look ...
— Rico And Wiseli - Rico And Stineli, And How Wiseli Was Provided For • Johanna Spyri
... "Thou good-for-nothing imp!" exclaimed Mary Antony, her old face crinkling with delight. "Thou little vain man, in thy red jerkin! Beshrew thine impudence, intruding into a place where women alone do dwell, and no male thing may enter. I ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay
... Jeremiah," said the eccentric old gentleman, "you have no poor relations now, nor ever had; but your father had a good-for-nothing elder brother, who left home at an early age, after your grandmother's death, and was enticed to go abroad by fair promises, which were not fulfilled. So, not having anything agreeable to write about, he didn't write at all, like a young scamp as he was, and ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... away, if she would incline her heart to God, and lead a pious, honest life for the rest of her days. And much more the worthy man preached to her; but she interrupted him, having found her tongue at last, and exclaimed in wrath, "What! has the good-for-nothing old churl written this? Let me see it; ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... good-for-nothing, you mean?" he said, with a kind of resentful bitterness. "No! I dare say I should not. Money!" he cried impetuously as he jumped to his feet, and burying his hands in the pockets of his breeches he began pacing the path up and down in front of her. "Money! always money! Always ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... written to my brother, who has always held that I'm a good-for-nothing. And he may see in this predicament of mine a good chance to be rid of me permanently. But I believe Worth has a bank account at home. He is close-mouthed about his affairs. He received some letters yesterday, but when I quizzed him he made out he didn't hear me. I didn't crowd him. Hope ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... sort, and I have watched them when they danced in the big ballroom, and watched them, too, when their sweethearts came along, and seen—oh, yes, many, many things have I seen, and many, many things have I heard of those fair young ladies of quality. She belongs to them, and she likes that good-for-nothing, pert little Susy Hopkins! Yet it don't matter to me. Susy shall have my good graces if she has secured those of ...
— The Rebel of the School • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... this kind happened almost every day. About the same time, the Donatists of Hippo made a great noise over the rebaptizing of another apostate from the Catholic community. This was a good-for-nothing loafer who beat his old mother, and the bishop ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... grandfather's life, the passion of an idea, however essentially false and meretricious and perilous to all that was worth while keeping in life, set her pulses beating now. As a child her pulses used to beat so when she had planned with her good-for-nothing brother some small escapade looming immense in the horizon of her enjoyment. She had ever distorted or inflamed the facts of life by an overheated fancy, by the spirit of romance, by a gift—or curse—of imagination, which had given her also dark visions of a miserable end, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... moreover, the voice had hands, lean and hard, which clutched the boy's shoulder, and shook him roughly; and at last, briefly, it appeared that it was time to get up, and that if the boy John did not get up that minute, like the lazy good-for-nothing he was, Mr. Scraper would give him such a lesson as he would not forget ...
— Nautilus • Laura E. Richards
... way. He had been supplied again with money and put into the hospital, from which he came out apparently cured, but fell again. The plan for him to come to the hospital seemed to the doctor a rather dangerous one, for the man was a positive good-for-nothing. But in the meantime Anna had returned from America, and was, with her sister, willing to try him; for it seemed his last chance, and the mother had begged so hard for him. So he came to the hospital—a poor ...
— Notable Women Of Modern China • Margaret E. Burton
... waiting to breakfast with him. Mrs. Maitland declared, with an approving smile on her placid, aging face, that he was the same good-for-nothing boy. But Alice said, as she sat down to the little table with Philip, "It is different, mother, with us city folks." They were in the middle room, and the windows opened to the west upon the river-meadows and the wooded hills beyond, and ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... cried Billy, smiling a stern smile of triumph; "I smashed the nose off him! He won't sass me again for nothing this while! Uncle Teddy, d'ye know it wasn't a dogfight after all? There was that nasty good-for-nothing Joe Casey 'n' Patsy Grogan and a lot of bad boys from Mackerelville; and they'd caught this poor little ki-oodle and tied a tin pot to his tail and were trying to set Joe's dog on him, though ...
— A Brace Of Boys - 1867, From "Little Brother" • Fitz Hugh Ludlow
... years since I promised thee the island. I believe now thou wouldst have all the money thou hast of mine go in thy wages. If so, and if that be thy pleasure, I give it to thee now, once and for all, and much good may it do thee, for so long as I see myself rid of such a good-for-nothing squire I'll be glad to be left a pauper without a rap. But tell me, thou perverter of the squirely rules of knight-errantry, where hast thou ever seen or read that any knight-errant's squire made ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... ladyship retorted with corresponding spirit.' You impudent, good-for-nothing fellow! D'you hear me? You are an impudent, good-for-nothing fellow, Dunborough, for all your airs and graces! Come, you don't swagger over me, my lad! And as sure as you do this that I hear of, you'll smart for it. There are Lorton and Swanton—my lord can do as he pleases ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... got all my rent on your back, and so you've had every Sunday for three months, you cheat!—you low fellow!—you ungrateful chap! You're a-robbing the widow and fatherless! Look at me, and my six fatherless children down there, you good-for-nothing, nasty, proud puppy!—eugh! it makes me sick to see you. You dress yourself out like my lord mayor! You've bought a gold chain with my rent, you rascally cheat! You dress yourself out?—Ha, ha!—you're a ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... 'Happen and he is gone.' I pulled him by the hand; he opened his eyes and said: 'I feel better now.' Then he remained quite still for about five paters and aves, and smiled toward the ceiling. This made me angry, and I says: 'Oh, you good-for-nothing, how can you laugh at my misery? But he only smiled at death, not at my misery, for he began breathing very hard, and that was all he did until ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... to be loosed. On turning round to come aft, he pretended surprise at seeing the master on deck. This would not do. The captain was too "wide awake'' for him, and, beginning upon him at once, gave him a grand blow-up, in true nautical style: "You're a lazy, good-for-nothing rascal; you're neither man, boy, soger, nor sailor! you're no more than a thing aboard a vessel! you don't earn your salt! you're worse than a Mahon soger!'' and other still more choice extracts from the sailor's vocabulary. After the poor fellow had taken this harangue, he was sent into ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... great good fortune that among the Bolsheviki the good-for-nothing shoemaker of yesterday is the Governor of today and scientists sweep the streets or clean the stables of the Red cavalry. I can talk with the Bolsheviki because they do not know the difference between 'disinfection' ...
— Beasts, Men and Gods • Ferdinand Ossendowski
... he sold as being good-for-nothing. This fellow, by some accident, was afterwards purchased by one of Caesar's men, and became a shoemaker to Caesar. You should have seen what respect Epaphroditus paid him then. "How does the good Felicion? ...
— The Golden Sayings of Epictetus • Epictetus
... threaten to foreclose a mortgage, and the youth suddenly realized his responsibilities. Leaving school, he secured a job in the roundhouse at Stanley Junction. Here, notwithstanding the plots, hatred and malice of a worthless, good-for-nothing fellow named Ike Slump, whose place he took, Ralph made fine progress. He saved the railroad shops from wholesale destruction, by assisting John Griscom to run an engine into the flames and drive a car of ...
— Ralph on the Engine - The Young Fireman of the Limited Mail • Allen Chapman
... should not carry Joe Fairstairs. But Joe and her daughter together were too clever for her. When the boats went off she found herself to be in that one over which Mr Cheesacre presided, while the sinning Ophelia with her good-for-nothing admirer were under the more mirthful protection ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... father was a lascivious, egotistical crank, married a man absolutely devoid of will power and energy. She was gifted; the marriage a failure. Of the two children, one was an indolent, thoroughly useless, good-for-nothing boy, whose only thought was of wasting money on pretty neckties and the like and of flirting with the girls, of which art he was a past-master. The other one, a girl, betrayed the same characteristics and disposition. The mother was in despair and inconsolable, cursing her ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... all that. You are not worthy of Anne Mordaunt's love, and therefore have never presumed to imagine that she could bestow it on such a poor, miserable, worthless, good-for-nothing a fellow as yourself. I have a great deal of the same very proper feeling; but, at the same time, each of us is quite confident of his own success, or he would have given up the ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... head to express a denial. "I am not at all unwell," she said, when she came near. "I guessed Crossjay's business in running up to you; he's a good-for-nothing, officious boy. I was tired, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith |
