"Hard knocks" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... correctly, or sung that phrase to suit yourself, pass it over for the moment with a wave of the hand or a smile; but don't become discouraged. Go right on! I knew a beautiful American in Paris who possessed a lovely voice. But she had a very sensitive nature, which could not endure hard knocks. She began to worry over little failures and disappointments, with the result that in three years her voice was quite gone. We must not give way to disappointments, but conquer them, and keep right along the path we ...
— Vocal Mastery - Talks with Master Singers and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... system. Now, I won't deny that this primitive Kantian and Laplacian evolutionism, this nebular theory of such exquisite concinnity, here reduced to its simplest terms and most elementary dimensions, has received many hard knocks from later astronomers, and has been a good deal bowled over, both on mathematical and astronomical grounds, by recent investigators of nebulae and meteors. Observations on comets and on the sun's surface have lately shown that it contains in all likelihood ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... but you must remember that I am having a share of hard knocks. I have been wounded twice now, to say nothing of being stunned and taken prisoner; so you see I am having my share of bad luck, as well as good. Now at present you have never had as much as a scratch, and when your bad luck comes, it may come ...
— With Frederick the Great - A Story of the Seven Years' War • G. A. Henty
... was a singular one for a boy brought up as he had been. Thrown upon his own resources when he was hardly more than twelve, he had received some pretty hard knocks from the world. But the hardness of these had not cultivated, a like hardness ...
— Two Boys and a Fortune • Matthew White, Jr.
... when it was necessary for the purposes of loot, or of escape from those who, like Doria, interfered with their particular method of gaining a livelihood; but, on the other hand, they were no fools, they did not covet hard knocks and the possibility of defeat from such a one as the admiral of the Emperor, when by the exercise of a little ingenuity they could keep out of his way. Dragut was not going to fight a general action at sea merely to please Doria; in this summer his luck stood ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... not mean to suggest that men, to succeed, should NECESSARILY undergo repeated poundings and hammerings, although, as a matter of fact, the really great men of the world have undergone such grinding and polishing and hard knocks as no diamond was ever submitted to. But we do say distinctly that almost every man needs in the course of his life ...
— Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers • Arthur Brisbane
... of his factory grind, starts out to win fame and fortune as a professional ball player. His hard knocks at the start are followed by such success as clean sportsmanship, courage and honesty ought ...
— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London
... suddenly. "You're a brick! I've never seen any woman stand up to hard knocks as you do. They generally want to be carried over the rough places. But you—you stand ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... think I'll toddle along home. I am tired, I guess. I ought to be; I've had nothing but hard knocks all day." ...
— Colonel Carter's Christmas and The Romance of an Old-Fashioned Gentleman • F. Hopkinson Smith
... big man, flowing over with health and vigor, with a big voice and a broad chest and shoulders, and, until I fell in love, I never set a great deal of value on good looks in a man. But there was I, a great hulking fellow who had passed all the best part of his life in the giving and receiving of hard knocks, a fellow who could not for the life of him help feeling that he carried the flavor of the camp about with him. What was there, in the name of Heaven, I used to ask myself in those first days of ...
— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray
... of fire, and makes the flames smite the vapor for driving train or ship. The child errs in handling the sharp tool, and cuts himself; thenceforth he lifts up the axe upon the tree. The child mistakes the weight of stone, or the height of stair, and, falling, hard knocks teach him the nature and use of gravity. Daily the thorns that pierce his feet drive him back into the smooth pathway of nature's laws. The sharp pains that follow each excess teach him the pleasures of sound and right living. ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis
... calls it; but however soothing his words may prove to his ill-used Swedish friends, we have considerable doubts as to their emollient effect upon the Countess, supposing always that she condescends to read them. He hits that lady some very hard knocks, not all of them, perhaps, entirely undeserved; makes out an excellent case for the Swedes, and proves, much more satisfactorily to himself than to us, that Madame Hahn-Hahn is of a very inferior grade of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... replied Big Jerry with the grim humour of the whole-hearted man, who gives hard knocks and takes ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... code of honour in our game, old man," he said, "and there are lots of men in the German secret service who live up to it. We give and take plenty of hard knocks in the rough-and-tumble of the chase, but ambush and assassination ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... stepmother, did for the two men all that their mothers had not been able to do for them; Poverty taught them thrift and worldly wisdom; Poverty gave them her grand rough education, the lessons which she drives with hard knocks into the heads of great men, who seldom know a happy childhood. Fritz and Wilhelm, being but ordinary men, learned as little as they possibly could in her school; they dodged the blows, shrank from her hard breast ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... off the young butcher in good style and short order—the other b'hoys, with that love of fair play which honorably distinguishes the Anglo-Saxon race all over the world, remaining impartial spectators of the fight. Travis had never equalled this feat, but he had seen a good deal of low life and hard knocks on the sly, proper and fashionable as he always ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... was enough; and that Harry, after all these gymnastics, would go home like a boy that had some sense pounded into him by all these hard knocks. Not at all. Up he sprang, ran to Lightfoot, and jumped for the ...
— The Big Nightcap Letters - Being the Fifth Book of the Series • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... camp to-day to repair our boats, which have had hard knocks and are leaking. Two of the men go out with the barometer to climb the cliff at the foot of Whirlpool Canyon and measure the walls; another goes on the mountain to hunt; and Bradley and I spend the day among the rocks, studying an interesting geologic fold and collecting fossils. Late ...
— Canyons of the Colorado • J. W. Powell
... our friend here of the offer I make you. I desire a band of six men on whom I can rely for an adventure which promises large profit. Don't suppose that I am going to lead you to petty robberies on the road, in which, as you learned to your cost the other day, one sometimes gets more hard knocks than profit. Such adventures may do for petty knaves, but they are not suited to me. The way to get wealthy is to strike at the rich. My idea is to establish some place in an out-of-the-way quarter where there is no fear of prying neighbours, and to carry off and ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty
... weaker minerals are ground to powder, and when cut and polished, spinel will wear well in any jewel. The author has long worn a ruby spinel in a ring on the right hand and has done many things that have subjected it to hard knocks, yet it is still intact, except for a spot that accidentally came in contact with a fast-flying carborundum wheel, which of course abraded ...
— A Text-Book of Precious Stones for Jewelers and the Gem-Loving Public • Frank Bertram Wade
... She was styled Madame Seraphine, and was for the time being mistress of an incarnate rheumatism in the shape of a peer of France, who gave her fifty louis a month, which she shared with a counter-jumper who gave her nothing but hard knocks. Rodolphe had pleased her, she hoped that he would not think of giving her anything, and took him off ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... associates, but years had never reconciled him to Latin or Greek or, for that matter, to mathematics in simple or aggravated form. He had been the bully of his village out in northern Iowa, and when a stranger came, he trounced him first, and cemented the friendship afterward. He liked hard knocks, give and take. He liked the school because there was the long football season in the autumn, with the joy of battling, with every sinew of the body alert and the humming of cheers indistinctly heard, as he rammed ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... adventure, yet thankful to find that I could go about my day's business, a little stiffened from my fall, a trifle weaker than usual, and with an aching and somewhat misshapen head. But a detective learns to bear occasional hard knocks with fortitude, and I was thankful to be out of the affair ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch
... Egyptian rather despised soldiering as a profession. He thought it was rather a miserable, muddled kind of a job, in which, unless you were a great officer, you got all the hard knocks and none of the honours; and I am not sure that he was far wrong. His great idea of a happy life was to get employment as a scribe, or, as we should say, a clerk, to some big man or to the Government, to keep accounts and write reports. ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Ancient Egypt • James Baikie
... thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might." And keep on doing it—persist—persist—persist. Again the Bible: "Seest thou a man diligent in his business? he shall stand before kings." Do not fear hard knocks. They are no sign that you will not finally win the battle. Indeed, ability to endure in silence is one of the best evidences that you will ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... "True it is that we have whiles driven prey in your country, yea, and had some hard knocks therein; but all that was in playing the game of war, and now since we are to fight side by side, we will be paid by our foes and not by our friends; so neither hair nor wool will we have of yours, whatever we may ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... a good deal of the Bishop, and as you have always exhorted me to be a good boy, take an opportunity to set him right as to my real dispositions towards him, and exhort him, as he has gained the victory, to forgive a few hard knocks." ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... begin to tell you all I went through with that boy, for he was brave as a lion and got many hard knocks. We marched, and camped, and fought, and suffered, but we never ran away, and when at last a Minie ball came smashing through the red cushion (which Dick often carried in his pocket as a sort of charm to keep him safe, for men seldom use pins), I nearly lost my head, for the stuffing ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Vol. 5 - Jimmy's Cruise in the Pinafore, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... finally, with his retreat before the enemy into the Thames. Monk, however, did not bear himself like a beaten man. He spoke of the long battle as, at the worst, an indecisive engagement, and said he had given the Dutch as many hard knocks as he had taken, and now knew how to defeat them. He had sufficient influence at Court to be able to retain his command, and so could look forward to trying his ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale
... and inviolable to Affghans. How could such a privilege clothe the species or subdivision, when even the Dooaraunee or entire genus was submitted to with murmurs under the tyranny of accident. In what way had they won their ascendency? By thumps, by hard knocks, by a vast assortment of kicks, and by no means through any sanctity of blood. Sanctity indeed!—we should be glad to see the Affghan who would not, upon what he held a sufficient motive, have cut the throat of any shah or shahzade, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... San Francisco, 1881. Education; grammar school and seventeen years' supplementary schooling in University of Hard Knocks. In fire insurance business for nearly twenty years. First story, "An Invasion," San Francisco Argonaut, Oct. 8, 1910. Gave up business, 1916, to devote himself to ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... all of that swelling out of the new man's head. Then, most likely, the new man has never had any home training in being really manly. Here, he must be a man or get out. It takes some training, some probation, some hard knocks and other things to make a man out of the fellow. He has to be a man, if he's going to be fit to ...
— Dick Prescott's Second Year at West Point - Finding the Glory of the Soldier's Life • H. Irving Hancock
... affair, brush, fight; battle, battle royal; combat, action, engagement, joust, tournament; tilt, tilting [Mediev.]; tournay^, list; pitched battle. death struggle, struggle for life or death, life or death struggle, Armageddon^. hard knocks, sharp contest, tug of war. naval engagement, naumachia^, sea fight. duel, duello [It]; single combat, monomachy^, satisfaction, passage d'armes [Fr.], passage of arms, affair of honor; triangular duel; hostile meeting, digladiation^; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... solicitude he feels for "Mr. Lamotte's pride," he has given it some pretty hard knocks, but he looks quite innocent, and incapable of any sinister intent, and Mr. Lamotte, after gnawing his lip viciously for a moment and favoring his vis-a-vis with a sharp glance of ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... of all my uncle's advisers, did not concur in this determination respecting me. He set forth, with an eloquence that certainly converted me, that my head was better calculated for bearing hard knocks than unravelling knotty points, that a shako would become it infinitely better than a wig; and declared, roundly, that a boy who began so well and had such very pretty notions about shooting was positively thrown away in the Four Courts. My uncle, however, was firm, and as old Sir Harry ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... were poor Italian workers. Both came to this country like all our countrymen in search of peace and work and plenty. Both found only hard work and hard knocks. Sacco was a shoe-worker. Vanzetti had followed many trades after his arrival here in the summer of 1908. He worked in mines, mills, factories. Finally he landed in a cordage plant in Plymouth, Massachusetts. That ...
— Labor's Martyrs • Vito Marcantonio
... for a few days, and you'll be all right," said Dr. Gale. "You girls are as bad as boys about getting hard knocks. It looks as though basketball were about as ...
— Grace Harlowe's Sophomore Year at High School • Jessie Graham Flower
... that we shall find out by hard knocks that the government cannot perform everything now expected of it. Nevertheless, under the influence of a greater fraternal spirit, we have done a great deal. The housing statutes, the safety appliances both for passengers and employees, the restrictions on the hours of ...
— Ethics in Service • William Howard Taft
... often attacked," the merchant replied. "There is little to be got from them but hard knocks. The country is not fertile, the cold is too great, and they have only the necessities of life. Except for slaves, and for sacrifice to the gods, there is nothing to ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty
... nothing like putting the springs of life into property. Makes it worth fifty per cent. more; and then ye'll get the hard knocks out to a better profit. Old southerners spoil niggers, makin' so much on 'em; and soft-soapin' on 'em. That bit o' property's bin spiled just so-he points to Harry, crouched in the corner-And the critter thinks he ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... more elastic, more enduring and shrinks less than pine or any other light wood used as boat siding. As one of the best builders in the country says, "It has been thoroughly demonstrated that a cedar canoe will stand more hard knocks than an oak one; for where it only receives bruises, the oak streaks will split." And he might add, the pine will break. But I suppose it is settled beyond dispute that white cedar stands at the head for boat streaks. I prefer it then, because it is the best. And I prefer ...
— Woodcraft • George W. Sears
... farmers and in the service of the police;—and when the internal contradictions of his own system shall drive the chief of the "Society of December 10" across the French frontier, that Army will, after a few bandit-raids, gather no laurels but only hard knocks. ...
— The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte • Karl Marx
... two of these attractive musical items, and he strolled down to the Hall. Now, this sort of alibi is usually very difficult to prove, but Dame Fortune, oddly enough, favoured Mr. Ireland on this occasion, probably to compensate him for the hard knocks she had been dealing him pretty freely ...
— The Old Man in the Corner • Baroness Orczy
... more. And my little duchess—for that woman is a born duchess, on my soul!—kept her word. She restores you your Hector, madame, virtuous in perpetuity, as she says—she is so witty! He has had a good lesson, I can tell you! The Baron has had some hard knocks; he will help no more actresses or fine ladies; he is radically cured; cleaned out ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... reached New York. Peace had then been declared; but none the less were Stewart and his men feasted and honored. The old frigate had won for herself a name ever to be remembered by the people of the nation, in whose service she had received and dealt so many hard knocks. "Old Ironsides," they called her; and even to-day, when a later war has given to the navy vessels whose sides are literally iron, the "Constitution" still holds her place in the hearts of the American people, who think of her lovingly by the well-won ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... pointed. "She's only a frigate, though a good big one," he remarked. "She's not long since been in action, too, with the enemy. Look at her topsails and top-gallant sails; they are pretty well riddled. I can count wellnigh a score of shot-holes in them; and her side, too, shows the hard knocks she has been getting. Just run to the top of the beach, and see if any other ships are following. Maybe the fleet has had a brush with the enemy, and yonder frigate has been sent on ahead with news of ...
— The Rival Crusoes • W.H.G. Kingston
... begin to look well already. Equal rights for all, and no man better than his neighbour; that is hugely to my liking. And from what I can learn there is no collecting of debts in this country, and no taxes; better still, no shivering in winter, no sickness, no hard knocks from one's betters. All is peace. The tables are turned: the laugh is with us poor men; it is the rich that make moan, and ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... or chandeliers, or anything but stocks - Nay stocks, when they're in flowerpots—the cat expects hard knocks: Should ever anything be missed—milk, coals, umbrellas, brandy - The cat's pitch'd into with a boot or any ...
— Fly Leaves • C. S. Calverley
... High School had been met and defeated, by the score of 15 to 6, and the football team had entered on its third week. Clint still hung on, sometimes much discouraged, and took his share of hard knocks and gruelling labour. Tyler having returned to his position on the second, Clint told himself that his last chance to make that team had vanished. But, just when he had about given up hope of advancement, a fortuitous combination of briskness on the part of the weather and "ginger" on the ...
— Left Tackle Thayer • Ralph Henry Barbour
... of spoils, no mention is made of their Mahratta allies. They were left out of account altogether, and the reason is not far to seek. Experience had shown that, in the coming military operations, the Mahrattas would count for nothing. All the hard knocks would fall on the English, and it was but fair that they should have the prize-money; the Mahrattas would gain a substantial benefit in the possession of Gheriah, which was to be made over to them ...
— The Pirates of Malabar, and An Englishwoman in India Two Hundred Years Ago • John Biddulph
... left his job in the cook tent, never to return to it. After many hard knocks and some heavy falls he succeeded in so mastering the act that he was able to go through with it without great risk of serious injury to himself. The educated mule and the boy became a feature of ...
— The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... this up with Alton Locke, dealing especially with the life and conditions of work of the journeymen tailors, and the Chartist riots. Both sides receive some hard knocks, for Kingsley was a born fighter, and his courage and fearlessness won him many friends, even among the most ...
— Queen Victoria • E. Gordon Browne
... was a very unhappy one. He describes himself in one of his essays as "a very queer, small boy," and his biographer tells us that he was very sickly as well as very small. He had little schooling, and numberless hard knocks, and rough and toilsome was the first quarter of his journey through life. Many of the passages in 'David Copperfield' are literally true pictures of his own early experiences, and much of that work may be accepted as autobiographical. ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... National Debt, poor Majesty; nothing else to speak of. His poor Army, fighting never so well in Foreign quarrels,—and generally itself standing the brunt, with the co-partners looking on till it is time to run (as at Roucoux again next season, and at Lauffeld next),—can win nothing but hard knocks and losses. And is defined by mankind,—in phraseology which we have heard again since then!—as having "the heart of a Lion and the head of an Ass." [Old Pamphlets, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... "little wad o' money" when he left the camp and started for La Crosse, but he had been robbed in his hotel the first night in the city, and was left nearly penniless. It was a great blow to him, for, as he said, every cent of that money "stood fer hard knocks an' poor feed. When I smelt of it I could jest see the cold, frosty mornin's and the late nights. I could feel the hot sun on my back like it was when I worked in the harvest-field. By jingo! It kind o' made my toes ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... the road alternated, but now that Tom had seen of what mettle his car was made, he did not spare it as much as he had on the first trip. He saw that his machine would stand hard knocks, and the way the battery and motor was behaving was a joy to him. He knew that if he could make that eighty-mile run in safety he stood a good chance of winning the prize, for no harder test could have ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Runabout - or, The Speediest Car on the Road • Victor Appleton
... from the girl of sixteen to the very verge of womanhood. She had grown tall, round, and her face had the loveliness of perfect complexion, beautiful eyes and hair and an added touch from within that might have been called comprehension. It was a compound of self-reliance, hard knocks, heart hunger, unceasing work, and generosity. There was no form of suffering with which the girl could not sympathize, no work she was afraid to attempt, no subject she had investigated she did not understand. These things combined ...
— A Girl Of The Limberlost • Gene Stratton Porter
... that is the only kind of money that will buy him any experience worth while. No young man ever learned a great deal when some sentimental old fool footed the bill for his tuition fees in the college of hard knocks." ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... William is mighty. No more autocratic influence proceeds from any other monarch or ruler. But you will say how about our President in time of war? Great power can safely be given to a president. Our presidents have all risen from the ranks. Usually they have gone through the school of hard knocks. And there are ways of keeping them ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... and demi-culverin against Spaniards and Dutchmen—with hand-grenade and sabre, and musket and bayonet, under Rodney and St. Vincent, Wolfe and Moore, Nelson and Wellington, they have carried their lives in their hands, getting hard knocks and hard work in plenty—which was on the whole what they looked for, and the best thing for them—and little praise or pudding, which indeed they, and most of us, are better without. Talbots and Stanleys, St. Maurs, and such-like folk, have led armies and made laws time ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... another, though my father holds that there are rare differences between them; but it is a nobler craft to work on iron, and next to using arms the most pleasant thing surely is to make them. One can fancy what good blows the sword will give and what hard knocks the armour will turn aside; but some day, Master Geoffrey, when I have served my time, I mean to follow the army. There is always work there for armourers to do, and sometimes at a pinch they may even ...
— Saint George for England • G. A. Henty
... him from these guns. During these daily engagements the Essex was hulled twenty-three times, besides being frequently struck above her decks, and had received severe injury. The mortar-schooners also came in for their share of hard knocks, and their captains were all specially commended ...
— The Gulf and Inland Waters - The Navy in the Civil War. Volume 3. • A. T. Mahan
... 'I am used to hard knocks,' said I, unbuttoning my tunic, and showing my two musket wounds. Then I bared my ankle also, and showed the place in my eye where the ...
— The Exploits Of Brigadier Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... of the world had gained an irresistible mastery over him; he yielded to it, and departed secretly. A natural longing took him to his birthplace in Biscay, where he had seen his surviving relatives. There he met the Cardinal of Burgos, who took him into his service, promising him profit, hard knocks to give and take, and plenty of adventure. Some time after, he left the cardinal's household for that of his brother, who, much against his will, compelled him to follow him to the war and bear arms ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... presumably benevolent business, like to be paid much for it—and by chance. I never can make out how it is that a knight-errant does not expect to be paid for his trouble, but a pedlar-errant always does;—that people are willing to take hard knocks for nothing, but never to sell ribands cheap; that they are ready to go on fervent crusades, to recover the tomb of a buried God, but never on any travels to fulfil the orders of a living one;—that they will go anywhere barefoot to preach their faith, but must be well bribed to practise it, ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... metaphysics, come out of the cloud in which you have hid yourself in your dreamy speculations, I will furnish you with a case in point, showing that a man may get into a very unpleasant predicament, where he runs a great risk and gets some hard knocks, and yet be able to thank God for it, in perfect earnestness of spirit. A case of the kind came under my own observation, and while there was not much philosophy, or abstract speculation about it, there was a great deal of hard practical ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond
... stricken one. Physical courage is not an outstanding quality of the New York gangsman. His personal preference is for retreat when it is a question of unpleasantness with a stranger. And, in any case, even when warring among themselves, the gangs exhibit a lively distaste for the hard knocks of hand-to-hand fighting. Their chosen method of battling is to lie down ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse
... easygoing men. Hard knocks are a good medicine for vicious hearts. And you didn't misjudge my character, as far as you went—only, every woman has more than one character. Don't ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... men, trained and educated as scientific foresters, and he brought them into the work. A year or two in the forests, mapping, scaling, estimating, and studying the western timber conditions, made them practical as well as scientific. The old sawmill men, themselves educated in the college of "Hard Knocks," first laughed at these college-bred foresters, but soon learned to respect and trust them. They began to adopt their plans and follow their suggestions, and to-day one of the most serious embarrassments the forester has to meet is ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... yet, Felicia," my father remarked; "and it will take more than a few hard knocks to make ...
— Daisy in the Field • Elizabeth Wetherell
... there wasn't someone here whom you could trust to do the work for you," said Marcy. "I am here to bear the hard knocks now." ...
— True To His Colors • Harry Castlemon
... His three divisions were compact and strong, well commanded, admirable on the defensive, but slow to move or to act on the offensive. His corps (the Fourteenth) had sustained, up to that time, fewer hard knocks than any other corps in the whole army, and I was anxious to give it a chance. I always expected to have a desperate fight to get possession of the Macon road, which was then the vital objective of the campaign. Its possession by us would, ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... southern shore to look at the ruins of a fort built in the War of 1812. The sun was setting beyond the high bluff that backed the fort, and the place lay blurred in the shadow; but apparently time, and perhaps the hard knocks of war, had not left much of Fort Powhatan. Two creeks that enter the James near the old fort received our close scrutiny, for every side stream tempted us. We would wonder how far Gadabout could follow each winding way, and what she might ...
— Virginia: The Old Dominion • Frank W. Hutchins and Cortelle Hutchins
... despair! Heaven knows I have had hard knocks enough, and yet I never learn," she burst out. "Seven years ago I used to come in here to you, and rage because I was so helpless! Well, I've had experience since, bitter experience, and yet here I am, helpless and ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris
... the back if he did not ride fast and so escape his ponderous foe. There were other forms of this sport, which is so ancient that its origin has been lost in antiquity. Queen Elizabeth was very much amused at Kenilworth Castle by the hard knocks which the inexpert riders received from the rotating sand-bag when they charged "a comely quintane" in her royal presence ...
— Old English Sports • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... station, or if he sulks when tossed in a blanket—such a lad, in after life, is very apt to do the same thing when he has to knuckle under to a business rival, or to go into a passion when he receives the hard knocks of life. So, then, hazing, if not carried to extremes, has its uses in adversity, and Andy had sense enough to realize this. So he was ready for ...
— Andy at Yale - The Great Quadrangle Mystery • Roy Eliot Stokes
... hard knocks, we are left to die this way, with nothing but a Paddy's prayers to help us, I guess Christians are rather ...
— Hospital Sketches • Louisa May Alcott
... Eastern scholar, and Pete began to understand each other. Pete, who had at first considered the young Easterner affected, and rather effeminate, slowly realized that he was mistaken. Forbes was a sincere and manly fellow, who had taken his share of hard knocks and who suffered ill health uncomplainingly—an exile of his chosen environment, with little money and scarce a companion ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... nurse is no bed of roses; but neither is anything else. To be dependent in the present stage of civilization is worse, and nothing real is accomplished in life without work and its accompaniment of hard knocks. Nursing is not only a natural vocation for a woman, but an occupation which increases her matrimonial chances about eighty per cent. Nor is it as arduous after the first year's training is over as certain other methods of ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... game were distributed liberally to all the messes; wine was not refused by the old kellermeister, who rightly considered that some thanks, and smiles of courteous acknowledgment, might be a better payment than the hard knocks with which military paymasters were sometimes apt to settle their accounts. And, upon the whole, it was agreed that no such evening of comfort, and even luxurious enjoyment, had been spent ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... make the riddles plain. When I went to sea I was worth nothing—as poor as a ship's cat after the crew had been paid off for a month. Well, I began fighting away as hard and fast as I could, and the more I fought, and the more hard knocks I gave and took, ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... I felt that it would be useless for me to resist. Tom was strong, and I was wholly in his power—taken by surprise, and at a disadvantage which I could not overcome. I lay still, therefore, and thus saved some hard knocks. ...
— Seek and Find - or The Adventures of a Smart Boy • Oliver Optic
... especially the higher politics. That means the juggling and wire-pulling of the Chancelleries, and the Front has an uneasy conviction that at the subtleties and craftiness and cunning of the diplomatic game we cannot compete with "The Bosche." Hard knocks and straight fighting the Front does understand, and at that game are cheerfully confident of winning ...
— Raemaekers' Cartoons - With Accompanying Notes by Well-known English Writers • Louis Raemaekers
... oftenest reappear in them are Maccus, Bucco, and Pappus; the first of these is prefixed to the special title, e.g. Maccus miles, Maccus virgo. He seems to have been a personage with an immense head, who, corresponding to our clown or harlequin, came in for many hard knocks, but was a general favourite. Pappus took the place of pantaloon, and was the ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... ourselves—heavily enough armed and manned to admit of their venturing, without much risk, over to our side of the Channel, on the look-out for homeward-bound British ships. To encounter such a customer as this would mean plenty of hard knocks, without very much profit, and with just the chance of losing one or the other of our prizes. We were, therefore, heartily thankful to find a clear horizon all round us when the fog cleared away. We were destined, however, to have another bout with ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood
... lies in the charge. Dash and fire are what he possesses in the highest degree. His highly-strung temperament chafes under delays and disappointments. He hasn't the solid, bull-dog courage that enables the British soldier to take hard knocks, even severe punishment, and come up smiling again to renew the battle that he will only allow to end in one way, and that ...
— Tommy Atkins at War - As Told in His Own Letters • James Alexander Kilpatrick
... rough men came and peered at them, but Godolphin was wrapped in a cloak, and the appearance of those with him showed that hard knocks, rather than booty, would be the result of interfering with them. On reaching Lord Godolphin's house they placed the sedan ...
— In the Irish Brigade - A Tale of War in Flanders and Spain • G. A. Henty
... becoming painfully evident that a fledgling free lance should, if he is wise, depend for a while upon a local newspaper for the larger part of his income. In a school of hard knocks I learned to sell "stories" of purely local interest to the Kansas City market, topics of state-wide interest to the St. Louis Sunday editors, and contributions whose appeal was as wide as the Gulf of Mexico to newspapers ...
— If You Don't Write Fiction • Charles Phelps Cushing
... along at first, but just good enough; the boy who does not cry when he gets hurt, and goes into all the dangerous games there are going, and goes in to win; the boy who loves his girl with the same earnestness that he plays football, and who takes the hard knocks of work and play until he becomes hardened to anything that may come to him in after life; the boy who will investigate everything in the way of machinery, even if he gets his fingers pinched, and learns how to make the machine that pinched him; the boy who, ...
— Peck's Uncle Ike and The Red Headed Boy - 1899 • George W. Peck
... have expected him to make up his mind and there an end, and not fret himself into a pother and Mr. JOHN FOSTER'S story into a most inartistic anti-climax over such a subtlety. All the same a rattling good tale, full of hard knocks as well as bright eyes, and with more ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152. January 17, 1917 • Various
... been saving a life, has he, and got some hard knocks doing it, hey, Susan Posey? Well, well, Clement Lindsay is a brave fellow, and there is no need of hiding his name, my child. Let me take the letter again a moment, Susan Posey. What is the date of it? ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... birds in the outdoors do give their young lessons in flight, but if the bantlings were left to themselves, they would acquire that art through their original endowment, although more slowly and with many more hard knocks. ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... of the party had their heads bandaged up; one had his arm in a sling; several others had marks of hard knocks, and Julian a pair of black eyes. When the little murmur that followed the entry of the prisoners had subsided, and the crier had called out "Silence in court," ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty
... Broad-minded, bright, vivacious, and not half bad to look at. Seemed to take my advice in good part. Those great, deep brown eyes are pathetic. That's the kind of a girl to be shielded and guarded from all the hard knocks in ...
— The Spinster Book • Myrtle Reed
... some hard knocks to-day, poor child," he said to himself, "but she has plenty of sense and plenty of pluck. At any rate I hope so, for she will need both, I fancy, in the time that ...
— Kitty Trenire • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... year. In the districts of Wohlau and Guhrau the image of Death used to be thrown over the boundary of the next village. But as the neighbours feared to receive the ill-omened figure, they were on the look-out to repel it, and hard knocks were often exchanged between the two parties. In some Polish parts of Upper Silesia the effigy, representing an old woman, goes by the name of Marzana, the goddess of death. It is made in the house ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... over her question. "I guess fighting does," he answered at last. "Getting on in spite of hard knocks, and smashing things that stand in your way. I like the feeling that comes after you've put through a big deal or got the better of the desert or the mountains. I got joy in Arizona out of my first silver mine; but I didn't get the joy exactly ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... silver spoon in his mouth, as we sometimes say, and fortune smiled upon him, he was never spoiled; but on the contrary he early developed a capacity for hard work, and a willingness to take rather than avoid hard knocks. These, as we shall see, insured ...
— Modern Americans - A Biographical School Reader for the Upper Grades • Chester Sanford
... And yet That sentimental generation With an austere compassion set Its face and faith to the occasion. Then there were hate and strife to spare, And various hard knocks a-plenty; And I ('twas more than my true share, I ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... Ethelred the Unready, was calling for the help of all sturdy fighters to win back his heritage and crown from young King Cnut, or Canute the Dane, whose father had seized the throne of England. Quick to respond to an appeal that promised plenty of hard knocks, and the possibility of unlimited booty, Olaf, the ever ready, hoisted his blue and crimson sails and steered his war-ships over the sea to help King Ethelred, the never ready. Up the Thames and straight ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... Major-General Webb gave and received about as hard knocks as any that were delivered in that action, in which Mr. Esmond had the fortune to serve at the head of his own company in his regiment, under the command of their own Colonel as Major-General; and it was his good luck to ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... half-mile, and ran half a mile more in easy water to the head of a very bad place, one of the worst we had seen, where we made another let-down. There was never any difficulty about landing when we desired, which made the work comparatively easy. The Canonita got some hard knocks and had to be repaired at one place before we could go on. The total distance made was only about three miles, but we could have gone farther had we not stopped for investigations, and to mend ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... the neighborhood to be invited to take a table, and everyone was much interested in the matter. Amy was asked, but Jo was not, which was fortunate for all parties, as her elbows were decidedly akimbo at this period of her life, and it took a good many hard knocks to teach her how to get on easily. The 'haughty, uninteresting creature' was let severely alone, but Amy's talent and taste were duly complimented by the offer of the art table, and she exerted herself to prepare and secure appropriate ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... newspaper claimed the complete trip in his canoe some five years ago, but his own guide and others told us that his Dolly Varden never was above Brainerd, and that his portages above were frequent. So we may well feel an honest pride in our Rushton-built Rob Roys and our hard knocks, and may remember with pardonable gratification that upon our own feet and keels we have penetrated the solitudes lying around the source of the world's most remarkable river, where no men live and where, probably, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... easier to run then than after my leg grew stiff," laughed Winona. "I suppose it's the excitement that keeps one up. Don't make such a fuss, we've all had hard knocks in our time. Agnes Smith got a black eye ...
— The Luckiest Girl in the School • Angela Brazil
... exclaimed. "Hast thou been in the wars again?" for Edred was something famed for getting hard knocks and ugly scratches in his mimic encounters with his more skilled and dexterous brothers. "Why, boy, but this is a worse business than usual. I am sorry for it, for I had something purposed to take thee with me to Windsor on the next morrow, ...
— The Secret Chamber at Chad • Evelyn Everett-Green
... written on poor Methuen's. So you must figure to yourself a small army, an army almost all infantry, and an army tied to the railway on this march; and if we bring off no brilliant strategy, but simply plod on and take hard knocks, well, what else, I ask, under the circumstances can ...
— With Rimington • L. March Phillipps
... writers of the Arthur story had made a great deal of manly strength: it was often little more than a tale of hard knocks given and taken. Later it became softened by the thought of courtesy, with the idea that knights might give and take these hard knocks for the sake of a lady they loved, and in the ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... Assailed in the same manner as the squire, and naturally attributing the attack to their nearest neighbours, they waited for no explanation, but fell upon each other. Richard Assheton and Roger Nowell endeavoured to interfere and separate the combatants, and in doing so received some hard knocks for their pains; but all their pacific efforts were fruitless, until the squire appeared, and telling them they were merely the sport of hobgoblins, they desisted, but still the blows fell heavily on them as before, proving the truth of ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... approve of fighting, and did not think it a proof of either manliness or courage for two lads to pommel one another for the amusement of the rest. All sorts of hardy games and exercises were encouraged, and the boys were expected to take hard knocks and tumbles without whining; but black eyes and bloody noses given for the fun of it were forbidden as a foolish and ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... selected by no means calculated to afford a fair idea of the contents of the work. A book, however, like "The Bible in Spain" can scarcely be published without exciting considerable hostility, and I have been so long used to receiving hard knocks that they make no impression upon me. After all, the abuse of the Times is better than its silence; it would scarcely have attacked the work unless it had deemed it of some importance, and so the public will think. All I can ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... speaker the author admits, that how to get a grip on his hearers outweighed the grammar of language; that the ring of sincerity and truth in presenting a proposition appealed to him more than relation of pronoun or preposition; besides in the "high school of hard knocks" from which he graduated artistic taste in literature ...
— Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures • George W. Bain
... army. Now this Thomas Stewart had very foolishly left a pretty estate in Kincardine, together with a wife and two sturdy boys, to march under the banner of the Princeling, as he conceived to be his duty, and after giving and taking many hard knocks, here he was in the enemy's hands, and Charles Stuart a fugitive. They had one and all been declared by Parliament rebels and traitors to the Commonwealth, so the most distinguished of the captives ...
— A Soldier of Virginia • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... the trapper found a faint echo in Houston's heart. "I'm not whipped yet, Ba'tiste. But I'm near it. I've had some pretty hard knocks." ...
— The White Desert • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... of the world at a time when the local color had the charm of novelty. The story is often credited with being autobiographic, as a novelist's first book is likely to be; since, by popular belief, there is one story in all of us, namely, our own. Its description of the hero's hard knocks does, indeed, suggest the fate of a man so stormily quarrelsome throughout his days: for this red-headed Scot, this "hack of genius," as Henley picturesquely calls him, was naturally a fighting man and, whether as man or author, attacks or repels sharply: there ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... given you all the advice you need. Nobody is more competent than he to instruct a young man setting out to see the world. His young days were the days of hard knocks, as everybody knows. But as I was thinking of your journey, there came into my head an old tale a monk told me once—for, like your father, I was never too much of a Huguenot to get what good I might out ...
— The Bright Face of Danger • Robert Neilson Stephens
... it was a bitter wind, and seemed to blow to the very heart of a man whose blood, heated but now with rapid riding, was the more sensitive to the chilling blast. Will was a daring fellow, and cared not a jot for hard knocks or sharp blades; but he could not persuade himself to move or walk about, having just that vague expectation of a sudden assault which made it a comfortable thing to have something at his back, even though that something were ...
— Master Humphrey's Clock • Charles Dickens
... others are girls. Girls aren't so easily ruined somehow. They don't get such hard knocks later on, so it ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... the open door in the next room, and in obedience to Sir George's command one of them went to seek the forester. I feared that John would die from the effects of the blow; but I also knew from experience that a man's head may receive very hard knocks and life still remain. Should John recover and should Sir George learn his name, I was sure that my violent cousin would again attempt the personal administration of justice and would hang him, under the old Saxon law. In that event Parliament would ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major
... two!" commanded Tad. "We've had all the fighting we want for one night. Get busy and help strike this camp. Guess none of this outfit could truthfully be called a tenderfoot. We've all had our share of hard knocks, and we'll have enough to look back to and think about when we get home and have time to go over our experiences ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in New Mexico • Frank Gee Patchin
... never came down to the tops of his shoes, and, instead of stockings, you could always see "twelve inches of shinbones," sharp, blue, and narrow. He laughed much, was always ready to give and take jokes and hard knocks, had a squeaky, changing voice, a small head, big ears—and was always what Thackeray called "a gentle-man." Such ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... of course, had the benefit of the latest improvements. I was quite amazed to see on what high principles of art some exceedingly simple things were done. But your Gaul is scientific about everything; what other people accomplish by a few hard knocks, he delights in achieving by a complex arrangement of the ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... doubtful of that. If Miller goes to Lima, it's a proof there are hard knocks about. And high time too! According to the talk, the war should have been ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... you make no scruple to break your promise. It is true that our easy temper has occasioned this, but that shall not excuse you, for your proceedings are very unhandsome. As she spoke these words, she gave three hard knocks with her foot, and, clapping her hands as often together, cried, Come quick! Upon this a door flew open, and seven strong sturdy black slaves, with scimitars in their hands, rushed in; every one seized a man, threw him on the ground, and ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... Black Creek valley seemed to stimulate their imagination as they discoursed loudly and elaborately on the present and future state of the oxen, consigning them without hope of release to the remotest and hottest corner of Gehenna. But the complacent old oxen, graduates in the school of hard knocks and mosquitoes, winked solemnly, switched their tails and ...
— The Black Creek Stopping-House • Nellie McClung
... trials, she apparently decides to give up and turn her attention to those of the less positive, the less forceful, therefore the less determined, types of mind and of life. Circumstance has received some hard knocks from men and women of this type. She has grown naturally timid and will always back down whenever she recognises a mind, and therefore a ...
— The Higher Powers of Mind and Spirit • Ralph Waldo Trine
... the Englishmen singled out an opponent, and treated him much in the same way, all this time many of the Spanish officers standing by and not attempting to interfere. The Spanish seamen, finding that nothing was to be obtained but hard knocks, retreated to secure their share of the liquor. Often had Jack and Adair cast their eyes round the horizon in the hopes of discovering a sail by which they might escape from the rock, but none appeared. Meantime ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... by devoting his son to heroism at the baptismal font, and by subsequently buying him a commission in a crack regiment—General TEMPEST was, in the days of which I speak, a hospitable veteran whose amiability and good-nature had survived many severe campaigns in which he had taken and given hard knocks wherever hard knocks were to be found. His benevolence and hospitality were proverbial far beyond the limits of Dansington, and his daughter CLARA was one of the prettiest girls ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, March 5, 1892 • Various
... reasonable and do not quarrel over an accident. If any corn is knocked down I'll get Tom to fix it up, if it's broken down we will see what it would cost to replace it. But the boys did not do it purposely, and it was worse for Tom than anyone else, for he's all black and blue from the hard knocks ...
— The Bobbsey Twins in the Country • Laura Lee Hope
... world wants to know why Great Britain does not keep him in order. If there is a military mutiny in Egypt, or a Jehad in the Soudan, it is still Great Britain who has to set it right. And all to an accompaniment of curses such as the policeman gets when he seizes a ruffian among his pals. We get hard knocks and no thanks, and why should we do it? Let Europe ...
— A Desert Drama - Being The Tragedy Of The "Korosko" • A. Conan Doyle
... proved to be a profane and brutal fellow. And how my heart bled for some poor Islanders whom he had on board! They knew not a word of English, and no one in the vessel knew a sound of their language. They were made to work, and to understand what was expected of them, only by hard knocks and blows, being pushed and pulled hither and thither. They were kept quite naked on the voyage up; but, when nearing Sydney, each received two yards of calico to be twisted as a kilt around his loins. A most pathetic spectacle it was to watch these poor ...
— The Story of John G. Paton - Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals • James Paton
... him for opinions he has never held. This may be a better reason than either given why authors do not take part in politics with us. They are a thin-skinned race, fastidious often, and always averse to hard knocks; they are rather modest, too, and distrust their fitness to lead, when they have quite a firm faith in their convictions. They hesitate to urge these in the face of practical politicians, who have ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... the live-long day—weak gin always—every hour from morn till a cruel Legislature compels the closing of the shutters. He is never intoxicated—it is simply a habit, a sort of fuel to feed the low cunning in which his soul delights. So far from intoxication is he, that there is a fable of some hard knocks and ill usage, and even of a thick head being beaten against the harder stones of the courtyard behind, when the said thick head was helpless from much ale. Such matters are hushed up in the dark places of the earth. ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... all for his reception. His amazement grows when St. Peter at length appears and makes it plain that the gate is not going to be opened, and that there is no room in heaven for Julius with his record of wars and other unchristian deeds; whereupon there is a fine set-to, and each party receives some hard knocks. ...
— The Age of Erasmus - Lectures Delivered in the Universities of Oxford and London • P. S. Allen
... we were not above two or three miles from this, and surrounded by loose ice, there was no time to deliberate. We presently wore; got our tacks on board; hauled to the south, and soon got clear; but not before we had received several hard knocks from the loose pieces, which were of the largest sort, and among which we saw a seal. In the afternoon the wind increased in such a manner, as to oblige us to hand the top-sails, and strike top-gallant-yards. At eight o'clock we tacked and ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook
... had been out of regular commission, doing duty on coast-guard service, or cruising under letters of marque. She was not an ill- looking craft; though, to judge by her looks as she rode at anchor, her lines were better adapted to fast sailing than hard knocks. ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed
... to be a flower-strewn journey of tinselled prince to embowered princess. Before our return to Styria, Max would probably receive what he needed to make a man of him—hard knocks and rough blows in the real battle of life. Above all, he would learn to know the people of whom this great world is composed, and would return to Hapsburg Castle full of all sorts of noxious heresies, ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... interfering with his chief officer when the crew was sending up a new topmast, or generally when busy about, what he called, "a heavy job." He was meddlesome with perfect modesty; if he knew a thing or two there was no merit in it. "Hard knocks taught me wisdom, my boy," he used to say, "and you had better take the advice of a man who has been a fool in his time. Have another." And "my boy" as a rule took the cool drink, the advice, and the consequent help which Lingard felt himself bound in honour to give, so as to back up his ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad
... under me. I hallooed for some time like a lusty fellow, without getting any answer, which made me begin to think my chance was bad. And, God forgive me for it! I could not help thinking it a sad thing, that after so many fierce frays and hard knocks with the British and tories, I should come at last to be choked like a blind puppy, in this dirty swamp: but God be praised for his good angel, who had brought me through six dangers, and now took me out of the seventh. For, as I was near giving out, ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... originally a town house of the Lords Clifford, ancestors of the Earls of Cumberland, given to them by Edward II., was first let to the students of law in the eighteenth year of King Edward III., at a time when might was too often right, and hard knocks decided legal questions oftener than deed or statute. Harrison the regicide was in youth clerk to an attorney in Clifford's Inn, but when the Civil War broke out he rode off and joined the ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... Punch's specialty, generating his purest fun and consecrating his versatile talents to highest ends. Wherever he catches meanness, avarice, selfishness, force, preying upon the humble and the weak, he is sure to give them hard knocks with his baton, or home-thrusts with his pen and pencil. His practical kindness is charmingly comprehensive, too. He speaks for the dumb beast, pleads for the maltreated brutes of Smithfield Market, craves compassion for skeleton omnibus-horses, with the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... at the young man; but seeing that his demeanor and that of his followers was resolute, that they carried pistols at their holsters and heavy swords, and deeming that nothing but hard knocks would come of an attack upon them, he surlily bade his company follow him, and rode on ...
— Friends, though divided - A Tale of the Civil War • G. A. Henty
... this blending of antiquity and modernity, and gives one something of the thrill of romance, which most of us have in our make-up to a greater or lesser extent; but, on the other hand, romance gets some hard knocks when one finds a Roman sarcophagus used as a watering-trough; or a chapel as an automobile garage, as he often ...
— The Automobilist Abroad • M. F. (Milburg Francisco) Mansfield
... Mrs. Rooke said. "Godfrey will be good to Nelly, Sir Denis. He has always been so trustworthy. And he has had so many hard knocks. He deserves happiness in ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan
... be all right, Nan. Men know how to give and take hard knocks and still be friends. We challenged each other to this duel when there ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon
... with me, Dawson—that's a good fellow. Walk around with me awhile. I never went to pieces like this before, and I've had a good many hard knocks. Do you think you could hustle something in the way of a little lunch, old man? I'm afraid my nerve's too far ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... care they now when all the world is with them? March on, suffragists, the victory is yours! The trail has been long and winding; the struggle has been tedious and wearying; you have made sacrifices and received many hard knocks; be joyful to-day. Our final victory is due, is inevitable, is almost here. Let us celebrate to-day, and when the proclamation comes I beg you to celebrate the occasion with some form of joyous demonstration in ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... hurried out of one of the apartments to greet Howard. She was a vivacious brunette of medium height, intelligent looking, with good features and fine teeth. It was not a doll face, but the face of a woman who had experienced early the hard knocks of the world, yet in whom adversity had not succeeded in wholly subduing a naturally buoyant, amiable disposition. There was determination in the lines above her mouth. It was a face full of character, ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow
... the wisest course, Bob," he finally said. "The West is a great country, and you have qualities about you that I think will bring you success. Of course, you will probably be obliged to stand a good many hard knocks, but they won't hurt you, my boy. Hard knocks are good for any man. The only thing to be careful about is that they do not sour you and cause you to feel anger and ...
— Bob Chester's Grit - From Ranch to Riches • Frank V. Webster
... anguish of the poor little beggar! Can any one who has not been through it imagine it! Reduced to its actualities, what was it? Gibes and jeers that, after all, break no bones. A few pinches, kicks and slaps; at worst a few hard knocks. But the dreading of it beforehand! Terror lived in every street, hid, waiting for me, round each corner. The half-dozen wrangling over their marbles—had they seen me? The boy whistling as he stood staring into the print shop, would I get past ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... well- to-do Quebecer, whose partner in business I subsequently was, lived at what I should call No. 1 Fabrique street (the house lately vacated by Behan Bros). I was born in a house in St. John street. I loved to roam—have travelled the world over and received some hard knocks in my day. As to that part of my career, which seems particularly to interest you—the war of 1812—I regret I cannot tell you as much as you wish to know. In 1812 I joined Capt. the Hon. Matthew Bell's Volunteer Cavalry; we numbered between 90 to 100 men. Our uniform was blue coat, red collar,—silver ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... out!" Arline was compelled to gulp twice before she could say even that much. "I don't shine nowhere—inside er out. I know that well enough. I never had no chancet to shine. It's always been wore off with hard knocks. But I like shiny folks all right—when ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower
... talents in reading and expounding, Scripture Stephen, and Bible Butler) was a stanch Independent, and received in its fullest comprehension the promise that the saints should inherit the earth. As hard knocks were what had chiefly fallen to his share hitherto in the division of this common property, he lost not the opportunity which the storm and plunder of a commercial place afforded him, to appropriate as large a share of the better things of this world as he could possibly compass. It ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... The two seemed to have nothing in common, except inexhaustible courage. Grey had been trained in the theory of war, and any part he took therein was as leader. Atkinson had picked up a practical knowledge of bush-fighting by exchanging hard knocks with the Maoris as a captain of militia. Grey was all courtesy; the other almost oddly tart and abrupt. Grey's oratory consisted of high-pitched appeals to great principles, which were sometimes eloquent, sometimes empty. His antagonist regarded Parliament as a place for the transaction ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... of excellence. A continuous course of victory, won mainly by seamanship, had made the English sailor overweeningly self-confident, and caused him to pay but little regard to manoeuvring or even to gunnery. Meanwhile the American learned, by receiving hard knocks, how to give them, and belonged to a service too young to feel an over-confidence in itself. One side had let its training relax, while the other had carried it to the highest possible point. Hence ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... for a place in life, and how gradually he obtained it. When he was a boy he would rather read than work. But he became a great student. He had to work after he was twelve years of age. In those days we were all poor, and it took hard knocks to get on. He worked clearing the fields yonder with his brother, and then cut cord-wood, and did other farm labor to get the necessities of life for ...
— From Canal Boy to President - Or The Boyhood and Manhood of James A. Garfield • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... reverses to make success. It takes hard knocks to polish you. This is a book of experiences, not ...
— Dollars and Sense • Col. Wm. C. Hunter
... time that day, the steward lay senseless on the ground. Though Mr. C. Augustus Ebenier was not wanting in intelligence, his skull seemed to have a capability for enduring hard knocks which was really surprising. Doubtless his head was his strong place; if it had not been, his brains must have been dashed out. According to the tradition, it was safer for him to strike on his head than on his shins. Certainly he was not badly injured, and if reduced ...
— Freaks of Fortune - or, Half Round the World • Oliver Optic
... graduate of the University of Hard Knocks; he also took several post-graduate courses at the same institution. Very early in life we see that he possessed the fine, eager, receptive spirit that absorbs knowledge through the finger-tips; and the ability to think and to absorb is all that even college can ever do for a man. I doubt whether ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... they kept handy in the shop, in case of bruises while working. But he did not think it good policy to disturb the entire bunch again in order to relieve the slight pain of Elephant who must sooner or later grow used to hard knocks, if he ever expected to face ...
— The Airplane Boys among the Clouds - or, Young Aviators in a Wreck • John Luther Langworthy
... waters, while avalanches, continually increasing in size and number, thundered down the heights, and vast cataracts leaped and poured from the precipices. It was a mercy that we were so situated that the avalanches could not reach the car. But we received some pretty hard knocks before the stream became deep and steady enough to float us off. Shall ...
— A Columbus of Space • Garrett P. Serviss
... head that was used to hard knocks, and it required more than one to put him down and ...
— With Links of Steel • Nicholas Carter
... I'm just a country boy but I'm as smart as the next man. Just because some of you eggheads spend half your life in college don't mean you've got any monopoly on good common sense. I went to the school of hard knocks, understand, and I got plenty of diplomas to prove it. Take it easy ...
— The Common Man • Guy McCord (AKA Dallas McCord Reynolds)
... most of his neighbours because he was too clever for them and kept on getting richer. His hard side was for the world and his soft side for his family. Not that he was really soft in any respect. He had had to fight his life-battle alone, beginning with nothing, and the many hard knocks had hardened him, but the few who knew him best could testify to the warm Irish heart that continued unchanged within him, albeit it was each year farther from the surface. His manners, even in the house, were abrupt and masterful. There was no mistaking ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... don't mind a hard knock now and again," Andrew said carelessly. "I suppose, one of these days, we shall have to go out under Sir John's banner, and the more hard knocks we have now, the less we ...
— In Freedom's Cause • G. A. Henty
... society, whose chief occupation was fighting, and whose dominant ideals were faith in God, loyalty to feudal family ties, and bravery in battle. Woman's place is comparatively obscure, and of love-making there is little said. It is a poetry of vigorous manhood, of uncompromising morality, and of hard knocks given and taken for God, for Christendom, and the King of France. This poetry is written in ten- or twelve- syllable verses grouped, at first in assonanced, later in rhymed, "tirades" of unequal length. It was intended for a society which was still homogeneous, and to it at the outset doubtless ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes |
