"Quarrelsome" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... tell his townsmen. He related to me the following minute anecdote of this period: 'In the last age, when my mother lived in London, there were two sets of people, those who gave the wall, and those who took it; the peaceable and the quarrelsome. When I returned to Lichfield, after having been in London, my mother asked me, whether I was one of those who gave the wall, or those who took it. Now it is fixed that every man keeps to the right; or, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... although not without intellect, yet was he deficient in self-command to restrain himself when necessary. Altogether, his character was bad, and scarcely presented to any one a favorable aspect. When affected with liquor he was at once quarrelsome and cowardly—always the first to provoke a fight, and the first, also, to sneak ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... where you belong," growled Woods, his under jaw thrust forward, his whole attitude charged with quarrelsome intent. "Over at the White Rat's with the ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory
... judged rather from the young people), very superstitious, brave, with much power of enduring pain, cruel, not more revengeful perhaps than is usual among uncivilised natives, friendly one with another, not quarrelsome, but untrustworthy and not over-faithful even in their dealings with one another, though honest as regards boundaries and property rights and in the sense of not stealing from one another within their own communities (this being regarded as a most shameful offence), ...
— The Mafulu - Mountain People of British New Guinea • Robert W. Williamson
... quarrelled with Grant and Wilson, and Colfax and Blaine, and Andrew, and Sumner, and the Washburnes, and Bingham, and Schenck, and Dawes, because he is quarrelsome. They have been compelled, each in his own way, to chastise and punish him because he ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... fight then,' said the doctor. 'Got one on the brow, then falling into the grave has bruised the back of the head. He's suffering from concussion, but nothing more, so far as I can see. Was he a quarrelsome fellow?' he inquired. 'Strange place in any event to come to blows in—and with whom? for we're a peaceable folk here save perhaps at the annual horse fair when gipsies and others congregate in numbers, and ...
— Border Ghost Stories • Howard Pease
... ventures to hold them up to the publick Eye. This he does at the Risque of his own Reputation; for it is a thousand to one but those whose Craft he puts at Hazard, will give him the odious Epithets of suspicious dissatisfiable peevish quarrelsome &c, and honest, undiscerning Men may be indued for a time to believe them pertinent; but he solaces himself in a conscious Rectitude of Heart, trusting that it will sooner or later be made manifest; perhaps ...
— The Original Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 4 • Samuel Adams
... are exemplary in this relation.) Does he drop his part of poet, of reveler of the meadows, I wonder, and come down to the sober prose of stuffing baby mouths? Are bobolinks always this jolly, delightful crowd? Are they never quarrelsome? Alas! it would take much more than one day, however sunny and however long, to tell all ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... description were apt to think first of glory and let the profits go hang, for there was no cargo to be looted in a King's ship. Other privateersmen, however, were not so valiant or quarrelsome, and there was many a one tied up in London River or the Mersey which had been captured without very savage resistance. Yet on the whole it is fair to say that the private armed ships outfought and outsailed the enemy as impressively ...
— The Old Merchant Marine - A Chronicle of American Ships and Sailors, Volume 36 in - the Chronicles Of America Series • Ralph D. Paine
... news from Russia, and I sez to Miss Curzon, "It is too bad about the war, hain't it?" And she sez, "Yes indeed!" She felt dretful about it, I could see, and I sez, "So do I. You and I can't stop it, Miss Curzon; a few ambitious or quarrelsome or greedy politicians will make a war and then wimmen have to stand it. There hain't nothin' right in it, seein' they are half of the world, and men couldn't have got into the world at all if it hadn't been for wimmen, and then when wimmen has got 'em here, and took ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... silly and vain, and will pretty surely therefore be fond of dress; and she must, disguise it as she will, be perpetually miserable and brooding over her fall, which will cause her to be violent and quarrelsome. ...
— Catherine: A Story • William Makepeace Thackeray
... said, though she knew well enough that he had not guessed the secret. Being only a man, he had not noticed how fashionable the cows had become. And since no cow can be a fine, fashionable dame if she is rude, noisy and quarrelsome, they simply had to be on their best behavior ...
— The Tale of the The Muley Cow - Slumber-Town Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... with his amiable and gentle wife, for whom, however, as well as for his daughter—now fifteen years of age, and growing rapidly into womanhood —he was by no means wanting in affection. Nor was his return home THEN purely a matter of choice. Although neither quarrelsome nor dissipated in his habits, he had had the misfortune to kill, in a duel, a young lawyer of good family who had accompanied him to Kentucky, and had consequently fled. Great exertions were made by the relatives of the deceased to have him arrested on the plea that the ...
— Hardscrabble - The Fall of Chicago: A Tale of Indian Warfare • John Richardson
... Philip to greatness from such small and humble beginnings; the mistrustful and quarrelsome attitude of the Hellenes towards one another; the fact that his growth out of what he was into what he is was a far more extraordinary thing than would be his subjugation of all that remains, when he has already ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 2 • Demosthenes
... rose to such a height—men, women, and even children, on both sides, taking part in it—that the bystander would have thought it impossible they could separate without a fight. But matters always came to a peaceable conclusion, for the French are by no means a quarrelsome people. ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles
... tremens is an untranslateable term. Who ever sees in China a tipsy man reeling about a crowded thoroughfare, or lying with his head in a ditch by the side of some country road? The Chinese people are naturally sober, peaceful, and industrious; they fly from intoxicating, quarrelsome samshoo, to the more congenial opium-pipe, which soothes the weary brain, induces sleep, and ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles
... when he heard of the proposed visit. Of all the wrangling, quarrelsome party, Dmitri was the only one who could regard the interview seriously. All the others would come from frivolous motives, perhaps insulting to the elder. Alyosha was well aware of that. Ivan and ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... Virginia are usually represented to be more quarrelsome than those of any other American state; and, when they come to blows, they fight like wild beasts. They bite and kick each other with indescribable fury; and endeavour to tear each other's eyes out ...
— Travels in North America, From Modern Writers • William Bingley
... hens and two little cockerels, one black and one as white as snow, with yellow legs, bright eyes, and a tiny red comb on his head. This was Cockyloo, the good chick; but the black one was named Peck, and was a quarrelsome bad ...
— The Louisa Alcott Reader - A Supplementary Reader for the Fourth Year of School • Louisa M. Alcott
... Chronicle of the Counts of Anjou. It is accepted, and rightly so, as an historical document, but that is no reason for thinking that the truth may not have been manipulated and adorned. The Counts of Anjou were not saints. They were proud, quarrelsome, violent, rapacious, and extravagant, as greedy as they were charitable to the Church, treacherous and cruel. Yet their anonymous panegyrist has made them patterns of all the virtues. In reality it is both a history and in some sort a romance; especially is it a collection of ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... had come to such a pass that she rather welcomed his absence. She preferred the sweet, amiable companionship of her little sister to that of a man who had suddenly become exacting, over-bearing and quarrelsome. ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow
... a country remarkably similar in its physical characteristics to the Blue Ridge Region of our own South, with the same warm summers and the same brief, cold winters, peopled by the same poverty-stricken, illiterate, quarrelsome, suspicious, arms-bearing, feud-practising race of mountaineers, and you will have the best domestic parallel of Albania that I can give you. Though during the summer months extremely hot days are followed ...
— The New Frontiers of Freedom from the Alps to the AEgean • Edward Alexander Powell
... ceremonies and observances attached to these animals appear to be current throughout the kingdom, and by no means suffer any diminution in this county. Among others of less common occurrence, we have the belief that they will not thrive in a quarrelsome fammily. ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 41, Saturday, August 10, 1850 • Various
... told me," she went on, "that seven invisible colors live together in a sunbeam, but when they pass this magic door they must go in single file, and then we may see them. Not all are good colors. Some are bad and quarrelsome, and some are good when they are alone, but not when they are with colors they do not like. But when they live together in peace they make the beautiful clear daylight, and we see the world ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... were their characters? Schwartz and Hans were rich but very miserly; they were quarrelsome, drunken, and cruel. Gluck was kind, ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Literature • Ontario Ministry of Education
... sport. They sat down in the sun on some flat rocks at the water's edge, and said they would have something to drink before setting to work. They got out some of the bottles from the wagon, and began to take long drinks from them. Then they got quarrelsome and mischievous, and seemed to forget all ...
— Beautiful Joe - An Autobiography of a Dog • by Marshall Saunders
... anything, so that they might have something to do. Lilly made a stipulation about having time to pick up shells, before she finally capitulated; and the boys having been very good up to this minute, neither troublesome or quarrelsome, but on the contrary very useful, turned round completely, became naughty and rude, declaring that lessons were humbug, French a bore, German a nuisance, and almost openly ...
— Yr Ynys Unyg - The Lonely Island • Julia de Winton
... eleven shillings a week, if anybody would employ you, which I don't think they would with those hands of yours. But whether they would or not, if you are of a quarrelsome nature, you must not go to Chester; you would be in the castle in no time. I don't know how to advise you. As for selling you my stock, I'd see you farther ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... population from the lower town. They are all canal hands, and mostly a very bad lot. The men generally drink—not enough to be really intoxicated (one rarely sees that in France), but enough to make them quarrelsome; and the women almost all slatternly and idle. They were standing at their doors, babies in their arms, and troops of dirty, ragged, pretty little children playing on the road, and accompanying us to the green, begging for "un ...
— Chateau and Country Life in France • Mary King Waddington
... 4. NOT QUARRELSOME.—She is not dissatisfied, querulous nor envious. On the contrary, she is, for the most part, singularly content, patient and serene,—more so than many wives who have household duties and domestic cares to ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... all. I was not comfortable. I was always feeling too well-bred. You never saw such colours in your life. Their drawing-rooms are quite a happy family of the most quarrelsome tints.' ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... was a fellow, a stranger, had been in and out there all day since morning, drinking; and though he wouldn't say the man was what you'd rightly call drunk, still he'd had a skinful, and he was in there again, and they wouldn't serve him, and he was getting quarrelsome and abusive, and in the middle of it had pulled out a purse that another man who was in there vowed and declared, aside, to Macfarlane, was Abel Crone's. So I got a couple of constables and went back with Macfarlane, and there ...
— Dead Men's Money • J. S. Fletcher
... appeared in that beautiful phenomenon. But what shall I say of the pendiment, or caubeen, which is a perfect gem of its kind? The villain who wore it, I have been told by the person who acted as factor for me in its purchase, was one of the most quarrelsome rascals in Ireland, and seldom went without a black eye or a broken pate. This, I suppose, accounts for the droop in the leaf, which covers the left eye so completely, as well as for the ventilator, ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... "Now, you quarrelsome black rascals!" exclaimed the captain confronting them, "what the dickens do you mean by kicking up all this bobbery? I don't allow ...
— The White Squall - A Story of the Sargasso Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... "We are quarrelsome people," he continued in his most Cheerful and hearty tone. "When Giovanni and I were young—we were young together, you know—we quarrelled every day as regularly as we ate and drank. I believe it was very good for us. We generally made it up before night—for the sake of ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... northern India, but from the fact that they have become large landholders in the Central Provinces and in former times their leaders exercised quasi-sovereign powers. Many Lodhis are fine-looking men and have still some appearance of having been soldiers. They are passionate and quarrelsome, especially in the Jubbulpore District. This is put forcibly in the saying that 'A Lodhi's temper is as crooked as the stream of a bullock's urine.' They are generally cultivators, but the bulk of them are not very prosperous as they are inclined to extravagance and display ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... applied his mind to nothing else, but getting all he could scrape together?" "We ought not to have anything to do with him neither," answered Critobulus, "for he would be good to no man but himself." "If we found a quarrelsome man," continued Socrates, "who was every day like to engage all his friends in new broils and squabbles, what would you think of him?" "That he ought to be avoided," answered Critobulus. "And if a man," said Socrates, "were free ...
— The Memorable Thoughts of Socrates • Xenophon
... three sons he bequeathed one. Each then thinking that he had obtained the true talisman, they began violently to quarrel, and after long contention agreed to carry their dispute before the judge. But the judge said: "Quarrelsome fellows! You are all three of you cheated cheats. Your three rings are alike counterfeit. For the genuine ring is lost, and to conceal the loss, your father had made these three substitutes." At this unexpected denouement the Sultan breaks out in exclamations of delight; ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... was never out of her thoughts, declined. He insisted, and as she could not be persuaded, Julien made a gesture of annoyance. She feared to arouse his ugly, quarrelsome temper, and although she was very unhappy at the thought that she should not see Paul until the next day, she ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... of the will over moods of the mind is very noticeable in children. Children often rise in the morning in any thing but an amiable frame of mind. Petulant, impatient, quarrelsome, they cannot be spoken to or touched without producing an explosion of ill-nature. Sleep seems to have been a bath of vinegar to them, and one would think the fluid had invaded their mouth and nose, and eyes and ears, and had been absorbed by every pore of their sensitive skins. In ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... history of this unfortunate family. The tragedy began with Chanty, who was the boldest little cockadoodle who ever tried to crow. Before he had a feather to his bit of a tail, Chanty began to fight, and soon was known as the most quarrelsome chick in the farm-yard. Having pecked his brothers and sisters, he tried to do the same to his playmates, the ducklings, goslings, and young turkeys, and was so disagreeable that all the fowls hated him. One day, a pair of bantams arrived,—pretty little white birds, with red ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... Viscount James de Rohan, and Archduke Maximilian of Austria, all three believed themselves to have hopes of success, and prosecuted them assiduously. Sire d'Albret, a widower and the father of eight children already, was forty-five, with a pimply face, a hard eye, a hoarse voice, and a quarrelsome and gloomy temper; and Anne, being pressed to answer his suit, finally declared that she would turn nun rather than marry him. James de Rohan, in spite of his powerful backers at the court of Rennes, was likewise dismissed; ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume III. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... and when it was over Webb sat down by me in disgust, and helped himself lavishly to punch by way of consolation. I told Webb that he had taken Lambert's seat, because Lambert for some other reason had also been helping himself lavishly to punch, and had become argumentative and almost quarrelsome. Webb, however, said that he was not going to move, and when Lambert returned Dennison had to play the piano very lustily to drown the discussion which took place. Lambert was six feet two and angry, Webb was the same height ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... said Joe, alighting on the side of the pony opposite to his quarrelsome companion, and then going forward and opening the gate ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... Turkish fortress which seems to spring directly from the bosom of the Danube at a point where three curious and quarrelsome races come into contact, and where the Ottoman thought it necessary to have a foothold even in times of profound peace. To the traveller from Western Europe no spectacle on the way to Constantinople was so impressive as this ancient and picturesque fortification, suddenly affronting the vision ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... and making good roads, and endeavouring to mitigate the ferocity of the people. But they have many things to contend against, and Corsica is still behind the other provinces of France. The people are idle, haughty, umbrageous, fiery, quarrelsome, fond of gipsy life, and retentive through generations of old feuds and prejudices to an almost inconceivable extent. Then the nature of the country itself offers serious obstacles to its proper colonisation and cultivation. The ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... are deep-water sailors, and their excuse is that they did not know anything about her or her captain. And those who do know, whisper that the hunters, while excellent shots, were so notorious for their quarrelsome and rascally proclivities that they could not ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... character, after about four to six months out here one seems to see his fellows in all the nakedness of truth. I have seen the genial man turn irritable, the generous man mean, the good-tempered man quarrelsome, the smart and particular man slovenly, the witty man dull, the bow-and-arrow ideal (looking) sabreur anything but dashing in action, the old-womanly man indifferent to danger, and the objectionable man the best of comrades. These and other changes have I noted, and often fearfully thought ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross
... want to fight Weeks, I'm sure; for I was not of a quarrelsome disposition, besides which my father had cautioned me against ever having any disputes with my comrades, if I could avoid such; although he told me also at the same time always to act courageously in the defence of my principles and of my rights, or when ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... now to human proofs of the dignity of learning, we find that among the heathen the inventors of new arts, such as Ceres, Bacchus, and Apollo, were consecrated among the gods themselves by apotheosis. The fable of Orpheus, wherein quarrelsome beasts stood sociably listening to the harp, aptly described the nature of men among whom peace is maintained so long as they give ear to precepts, laws, and religion. It has been said that people would then be happy, ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... Spain twelve of his seventeen ships. He did not send back in them to the king, and queen, the gold he had promised. He sent back the letters that promised gold; he sent back as prisoners for punishment some of the most discontented and quarrelsome of his colonists; and, worst of all, he sent to the king and queen a note asking, them to permit him to send to Spain all the Indians he could catch, to be sold as slaves. He said that by doing this they could make "good Christians" of the Indians, while the money that came from selling the ...
— The True Story of Christopher Columbus • Elbridge S. Brooks
... sustained, was difficult to the point of impossibility. She needed a witness, visible and material, to the fact of those former happier conditions; and found it, quaintly enough, in the untidy person and humorous, quarrelsome, brick-dust coloured face—as much of the said face, that is, as was discoverable under the thick stiff growth of sandy hair surrounding and invading it—of the Irish doctor, as he sat by her bed, ministered to and soothed her ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... habitant, as has already been pointed out, was by nature restive, impulsive, and quarrelsome. That he did not make every seigneury a hotbed of petty strife was due largely to the stern hand held over him by priest and seigneur alike, but by his priest particularly. The Church in the colony never lost, as in France, the full confidence of the masses; the higher dignitaries ...
— The Seigneurs of Old Canada: - A Chronicle of New-World Feudalism • William Bennett Munro
... quarrelsome and of an unsettled temper; more decorous and less attentive in his undertakings, and consequently meets with many disappointments. Such gentlemen"—now you listen to this, Mr. GAGGS!—"will now know their weaknesses, which should induce them to take ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. October 17, 1891 • Various
... of England, and his love of peace, are said to be the only obstacles to, a violent rupture. But they are prepared for these obstacles at length giving way. "The Emperor," they are told, "is getting tired of his insolent, and hostile, and quarrelsome allies. He is getting tired of a peace which is more expensive than a war. Some day the cup will flow over. 'Il en finira avec eux,' will dictate a peace in London, will free the oppressed Irish nationality, will make England pay the expense ...
— Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Vol. 2 • Alexis de Tocqueville
... green-bag carrier, you murderer of unfortunate causes, the clerk's ink is scarce off of your fingers." In the same drama, making much play with the green bag, Wycherley indicates the Widow Blackacre's quarrelsome disposition by decorating her with an enormous green reticule, and makes her son the law-student, stagger about the stage in a gown, and under a heavy ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... good military conduct which his natural energy might have produced. I cannot help reading his controversial correspondence in the light of my personal observation of the man, and my conviction is that his quarrelsome mode of dealing with the War Department was the result of a real weakness of will and purpose which did not take naturally to an aggressive campaign that involved great responsibilities and risks. Being really indecisive in fixing his plan of campaign and acting upon it, his ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... save such unsought spoil as the carcase of an Egyptian ass, a basket-full of gravel and slime of no substantial utility, or quantities of stones and mud, fit for nothing but for use as missiles among quarrelsome boys. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, February 4, 1893 • Various
... conditions are bequeathed a heritage that will have a demoralizing effect upon their whole after life. Children, who every day hear quarrels and strife between those they should honor, lose something of the beauty of life; they become hardened and quarrelsome. Of course these divorces must not be granted promiscuously; for in bringing children into the world, parents assume an obligation that cannot be neglected. In considering a separation, the parents' first thought should be, "What is best for my children?" The duty ...
— Herself - Talks with Women Concerning Themselves • E. B. Lowry
... the British perfidious, and suspected them of not entertaining any honest intention of concluding a peace. On December 12, after an exceedingly quarrelsome conference, he records his belief that the British have "insidiously kept open" two points, "for the sake of finally breaking off the negotiations and making all their other concessions proofs of their extreme moderation, to put upon us the ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse
... but with tenderness and affection, now began, especially when influenced by drink, to give manifestations of temper that grieved her to the heart. Abroad, however, he was the same good-humored fellow as ever, with a few rare exceptions—when he got quarrelsome and fought with his companions. His workmen all were perfectly aware of his accessibility to flattery, and some of them were not slow to avail themselves of it: these were the idle and unscrupulous, who, as they ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... of the officers of the regiment, indeed with all except one, Ronald was on excellent terms. The exception was a lieutenant named Crawford; he was first on the list of his company, and had, indeed, been twice passed over in consequence of his quarrelsome and domineering disposition. He was a man of seven or eight and twenty; he stood about the same height as Ronald and was of much the same figure, indeed the general resemblance between them had often ...
— Bonnie Prince Charlie - A Tale of Fontenoy and Culloden • G. A. Henty
... their hearts that genius should be produced in town or country. One man, with opinions pretty well ossified on this subject, having been challenged for his statement that Mrs. Browning was born at Hope End, rushed into print in a letter to the "Gazette" with the countercheck quarrelsome to the effect, "You might as well expect throstles to build nests on Fleet Street 'buses, as for folks of genius to be born in a big city." As apology for the man's ardor I will explain that he was a believer in the Religion of the East and ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard
... the scissors. She clutched at some one—always through those baffling veils—who was putting her into the bath by the bedside, and fought frantically. It appeared to her that this some one was the rather stout woman who had supped at Sylvain's with the quarrelsome Englishman, four years ago. She could not rid herself of this singular conceit, though she knew it to be ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... blood; pent up together on one small island, so that their intercourse (one would have thought) must be as close as that of prisoners who shared one cell of the Bastille; the same in language and religion; and yet a few years of quarrelsome isolation—a mere forenoon's tiff, as one may call it, in comparison with the great historical cycles—has so separated their thoughts and ways that not unions, not mutual dangers, nor steamers, nor railways, ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... into the country—one may as well practise when one has the opportunity. Besides, sportsmen are often quarrelsome; and if it is known that one shoots well,—it keeps ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... train, it was evident that Algernon had torn up the one addressed to Diva, when the Contessa heard whom she was to meet the next evening.... Or Susan might easily have insinuated that they would have two very pleasant tables of bridge after dinner without including Diva, who was so wrong and quarrelsome over the score. Any of these explanations were quite satisfactory, and since Diva would not be present, Miss Mapp would naturally don the crimson-lake. They would all see what crimson-lake looked like when it decked a suitable wearer and was not parodied on the other ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... Street and found ourselves in a new world. A broad, dingy street, lined by shabby brown houses and pushbutton apartments, led in a gentle descent toward the river. The neighbourhood was noisy, quarrelsome, and dirty. After a long, bitter March the thaw had come at last: the street was viscous with slime, the melting snow lay in grayish piles along the curbs. Small boys on each side of the Street were pelting sodden snowballs which ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley
... together. That makes the good and bad of manners, namely, what helps or hinders fellowship. For, fashion is not good sense absolute, but relative; not good sense private, but good sense entertaining company. It hates corners and sharp points of character, hates quarrelsome, egotistical, solitary, and gloomy people; hates whatever can interfere with total blending of parties; whilst it values all peculiarities as in the highest degree refreshing, which can consist with good fellowship. And besides the general infusion of wit to heighten civility, ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... from the sand, and was looking quite bright, strutting about the leaf in a threatening attitude, with her mandibles wide apart. She was not attacked by these last inspectors, though still looked upon a little suspiciously. I then returned the two quarrelsome ants: they immediately walked up to their unfortunate comrade, and now seemed to be satisfied that she was a respectable ant, and admitted her into the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... audibly to open a bottle of the 1906 Lanson, he slipped his arm through the Poet's and led him, sullenly murmuring, into the dining-room. With the second bottle of champagne, his guest ceased to be aggrieved and became quarrelsome; when the port wine appeared, he had the Iron King cowed and broken ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... justices' commission in definite form that has come down to us dates but a few weeks after the king's departure, and is of especial interest as showing a decided progress since the more vague provisions of the Assize of Clarendon. A possible source of danger to a successful ministry lay in the quarrelsome and self-assertive Archbishop of York, the king's brother Geoffrey; but soon after Richard's departure Hubert deprived him of power by a sharp stroke and a skilful use of the administrative weapons with ...
— The History of England From the Norman Conquest - to the Death of John (1066-1216) • George Burton Adams
... quarrelsome, oneasy, ongrateful, tobaccer-chawin', hoss-racin', high-bettin', big-braggin', nigger-stealin', wimmin-whippin', yaller son of the devil, is South Car'lina, and ef she doant come back and behave herself ...
— Among the Pines - or, South in Secession Time • James R. Gilmore
... thine, yet I am well paid for my birth-pains, for few have borne such a man as thou. Think of me at times, for without me thou hadst never been. Be not led astray of women, nor lead them astray, or ill shall overtake thee. Be not quarrelsome because of thy great might, for there is a stronger than the strongest. Spare a fallen foe, and take not a poor man's goods or a brave man's sword; but, when thou smitest, smite home. So shalt thou win honour, and, at the last, peace, that ...
— Eric Brighteyes • H. Rider Haggard
... Superficial and quarrelsome people, all situations requiring pretence, and everything that confines and restricts his physical activity should ...
— How to Analyze People on Sight - Through the Science of Human Analysis: The Five Human Types • Elsie Lincoln Benedict and Ralph Paine Benedict
... and quarrelsome, had been a veritable demon when drunk, and drunk she had been whenever she could, by hook or crook, raise the price of whiskey. Never, to Billy's recollection, had she spoken a word of endearment to him; and so terribly had she abused him that ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... strife between us?" said the Wolves to the Sheep. "It is all owing to those quarrelsome dogs. Dismiss them, ...
— Fantastic Fables • Ambrose Bierce
... their own fashion, rivals for leadership in the forecastle, and each man had his own partisans, every one of whom instantly took up the quarrel of his own favourite, and in another moment the whole of them were at each others' throats, like so many quarrelsome dogs. ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... her part to the life, being as pretty, pert, and inquisitive as any French soubrette. These three were all the characters; and the success of the piece depended on the spirit and skill with which the quickly changing moods of the quarrelsome lovers were given, their witty speeches made to tell, and by-play suited to the courtly period in ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... any more truth for us, having put on a habit of mind to which induction is impossible; and is thenceforth to be passed by with a kindly but a pitying smile. And so, indeed, it happened with these quarrelsome Alexandrian grammarians, as it did with the Casaubons and Scaligers and Daciers of the last two centuries. As soon as they began quarrelling they lost the power of discovering. The want of the inductive faculty in their ...
— Alexandria and her Schools • Charles Kingsley
... said Mr Bos; "they are all shoe-makers, and of course quarrelsome and contradictory, for where was there ever a shoemaker who was not conceited and easily riled? No, I have little to say in favour of Northampton as far as the men are concerned. It's not the men but the women that make me speak in praise of Northampton. The men all are ill-tempered, ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... fair-play doesn't stand transplantation to Australia, except in patches of suitable soil. For instance, when bar-loafer meets pimp, at 1 a side, then comes the raw-meat business. The back-country man, though saturnine, is very rarely quarrelsome, and almost never a pugilist; nevertheless, his foot on his native salt-bush, it is not advisable to assault him with any feebler weapon than rifle-and-bayonet. There is a radical difference, without a verbal distinction, ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... Irish got mixed up in a deal like that, which somehow did not seem to be in line with his character. And he wished, a bit vindictively, that this Spikes Weber could meet Irish. He rather thought that Spikes needed the chastening effects of such a meeting. Weary, while not in the least quarrelsome on his own account, was ever the staunch ...
— The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories • B. M. Bower
... objection and gave up his seat to Mattheson when the moment came, but on December 5, for some reason or other, he refused, to the surprise and indignation of the composer. German musicians in those days were a quarrelsome crew; at the court of Stuttgart the musicians were so much given to knocking each other on the head with their instruments, even in the august presence of His Serene Highness, that there was hardly one left undamaged. It was only to be expected that the friends of Handel ...
— Handel • Edward J. Dent
... "Confessions" of Rousseau, but a mirror of Christian experience,—tells us that until he was sixteen he was obstinate, lazy, neglectful of his studies, indifferent to reproach, and abandoned to heathenish sports. He even committed petty thefts, was quarrelsome, and indulged in demoralizing pleasures. At nineteen he was sent to Carthage to be educated, where he went still further astray; was a follower of stage-players (then all but infamous), and gave himself up to unholy loves. But his intellect was inquiring, his nature ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV • John Lord
... advised Mother Wit. "Let us not be quarrelsome. We don't want Mrs. Morse to think we are female ...
— The Girls of Central High in Camp - The Old Professor's Secret • Gertrude W. Morrison
... said, "that is not stated clearly enough in our history-books, and it is worth knowing. But certainly the people of those days must have been a curiously lazy set. We are not either fidgety or quarrelsome now, but if any one tried such a piece of folly on us, we should use the said waterways, whoever gaidsaid us: surely that would be simple enough. However, I remember other cases of this stupidity: when I was ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris
... The wind, of late breathed gently forth, Now shifted east, and east by north; Bare trees and shrubs but ill, you know, Could shelter them from rain or snow. Stepping into their nests, they paddled, Themselves were chill'd, their eggs were addled. Soon every father bird and mother Grew quarrelsome, and peck'd each other, Parted without the least regret, Except that they had ever met, And learn'd in future to be wiser Than ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... Latin, I was up to several things which my class-mates were not, and as I did my best to learn, I soon caught up a number of them. My friend Tony was in the class above me, and he was always ready to give me any help. Though not quarrelsome, I had several battles to fight, and got into scrapes now and then, but not often, and altogether I believed I was getting on pretty well. Tony, my first acquaintance, remained my firm friend. Although now and then we had quarrels, we quickly made them up again. ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston
... unhappily some cases where a gentleman must vindicate his honour yet where I have known such things happen they might have been prevented with honour if the parties had not allowed their passions to get the better of their reason; and you must remember there is never honour to be acquired by being quarrelsome, but the reverse, and that your life ought now to be devoted to the service of your King and country. I know you will not be sparing ...
— A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs - The Story of a Hundred Years, 1761-1861 • George M. Wrong
... interested in most of the quarrels. The British colonies are also much more scattered than the possessions of any of the other powers, and consequently England has more neighbors to dispute with than the others, and from this fact appears to be more quarrelsome ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 53, November 11, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... no letter or advices of the state of affairs with Portugal, it seemed to me in the year 80, that we should live with great care and circumspection on account of what might happen, as the Portuguese are so quarrelsome, and especially if Don Antonio, the Prior of Crato, [3] should come here. In order to try to ascertain the state of affairs at Maluco and at Macau, the post held by the Portuguese in China, I have sent for this purpose to the islands of Maluco the sub-lieutenant Francisco de Duenas with ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803, Volume V., 1582-1583 • Various
... descended from Aeneas, the astronomer, unpractical in daily life as he gazes on the stars, the old man amorous, rose in buttonhole, playing on a viola, the Jewish marriage-brokers, the country bumpkin, the lazy peasant lying by the fire, the poor but happy gardener and his wife, the quarrelsome blacksmith with his wife the bakeress, the carriers jingling along the road and amply acquainted with the wayside inns, the aspiring vil[a]o, the peasant who complains bitterly of the ways of God, the lavrador with his plough who did not forget his prayers and was charitable to ...
— Four Plays of Gil Vicente • Gil Vicente
... after her marriage that we became acquainted with her. The accident of a storm caused us to take refuge in the inn, where we witnessed the brutal and quarrelsome behaviour of her husband, and her patient endurance. Her lot was not a fortunate one. Her first lover had returned with the hope of making her his own, and met her by accident, for the first time, as the mistress of his country inn, ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... well, if you will be quarrelsome and not let me have my own way, you may sleep alone in your smoky old hut!" and she shot through the door like an arrow, and rushed ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... assertive rotundities, thought that he would be indeed a quarrelsome fellow who should ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... (the front) was blowzy and freckled, with a small pug nose and a quarrelsome mouth. The other (the face on what, with ordinary persons, was the back of the head) was dark and forbidding, its nose a large brick-colored pug, the mouth underneath shaped most extraordinarily—not unlike a barrette, for it was wide and long, and square at the corners, ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates
... again, he found the house, yard, and garden filled with children, in all not less than a hundred. Not one was larger than the other; but each was more quarrelsome, bolder, more mischievous and noisier than the rest. And, in some way, God made Stan feel and know that they all belonged to ...
— Roumanian Fairy Tales • Various
... "If I am quarrelsome, then I had better leave you." He halted suddenly, and she stood beside him. "Here comes Dave Harney. He will see you ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... drink as he pleased—they nodded to each other when about to drink, and on setting down the calabash commonly said Berka ("Thank you"). Both men and women appeared to be somewhat intoxicated, but they were far from being quarrelsome. ...
— Travels in the Interior of Africa - Volume 1 • Mungo Park
... instructor in the ways of life. A very jaunty, knowing young gentleman he was, good-looking, smartly dressed, smooth-checked as yet, curly-haired, with a roguish eye, a sagacious wink, a ready tongue, as I soon found out; and as I learned could catch a ball on the fly with any boy of his age; not quarrelsome, but, if he had to strike, hit from the shoulder; the pride of his father (who was a man of property and a civic dignitary), and answering to the name ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... to live here always," she said. "Then Tib, Frisk, and Kitty would not be able to tease me as they do. It is very annoying to be tormented all the time, and if one says a word in one's own defence, one gets blamed for being quarrelsome. The idea of my quarrelling with any one: it ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... understood him best, told Harding that he had been trapping in the neighborhood. His tribe lived some distance off, and though there were some Stonies not far away, he would not go to them for supplies. They were, he said, quarrelsome people. ...
— The Intriguers • Harold Bindloss
... escort. Both grasped their arms, whereupon one Pizaguerra, also in the service of the illustrious Don Sigismondo, happening to ride by on his horse, wounded Stefano's hostler on the head. Thereupon Stefano, who is naturally quarrelsome and vindictive, became so angry that he declared he would accompany the cavalcade no farther. About this time we reached the castle of Spoleto, and he passed the illustrious Don Sigismondo and Don Ferrante without speaking to them or even looking at them. ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius
... frequenters of the turf are distrustful and inclined to be quarrelsome. No one is above their suspicions when they lose nor above their wrath when they are duped. And this Domingo affair united all the losers against Valorsay; they formed a little battalion of enemies who were no doubt powerless for the time being, but who were ready ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... the contrary, if a boy can put on a pair of gloves and harmlessly pound another boy about a bit—or get pounded about—it satisfies the desire for fistic encounter that's a part of every fellow's make-up, and he's a lot less likely to be quarrelsome. Besides, Horace, it's a fine exercise for the body and ...
— Left Tackle Thayer • Ralph Henry Barbour
... his sons could not be expected to excel him in refinement. Bill Sizer, the eldest, was a hard drinker, and people who knew him asserted that he "never drew a sober breath." The other sons were all quarrelsome in disposition and many a free fight was indulged in among them whenever disputes arose. They were industrious farmers, though, and the three girls and their mother worked from morning till night, so the farm prospered and the Sizers were ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces on Vacation • Edith Van Dyne
... always in progress even in the most civilised nations. Malefactors are executed, or imprisoned for long periods, so that they cannot freely transmit their bad qualities. Melancholic and insane persons are confined, or commit suicide. Violent and quarrelsome men often come to a bloody end. The restless who will not follow any steady occupation—and this relic of barbarism is a great check to civilisation (17. 'Hereditary Genius,' 1870, p. 347.)—emigrate to newly-settled countries; where they prove useful pioneers. Intemperance is so highly destructive, ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... somewhere in New England, stopping occasionally to earn money to pay his way. There was something rather ludicrous in his physiognomy and aspect. He was very free to talk with all and sundry. He made a long eulogy on his dog Tiger, yesterday, insisting on his good moral character, his not being quarrelsome, his docility, and all other excellent qualities that a huge, strong, fierce mastiff could have. Tiger is the bully of the village, and keeps all the other dogs in awe. His aspect is very spirited, trotting massively along, with his tail elevated and his head likewise. "When he sees a dog that's ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... about five miles away, and here also, I regret to say, they would sometimes get drunk, and add what Martha Penney calls "a revolving animosity to the scenery." The squaws, however, would generally secure the knives and guns before the quarrelsome stage was reached. Not unfrequently the ladies would bring the weapons to Mrs. Moore or myself to hide away till their lords and masters should be sober. Then, feeling secure that no great harm could happen, they would look on with the utmost placidity at the antics of their ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... visit it; paintings very beautiful; palace; inquisition; left Avignon for Beaucaire; river uninteresting; thence to Nismes by railway; poor country; asses and mules used; women shoeing them; people athletic, but very passionate and quarrelsome. ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... protest, kissing her hand and shedding weak tears. But as soon as she had nursed him back into better health he would seize the first opportunity when she was out of the way to slip off "for a constitutional," which would invariably end at the inn in the High Street; and in the evening he would return quarrelsome and abusive, or else groaning and ready to take to ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... moral in his deportment. In a letter written from California, in 1847, introducing Carson as the bearer of dispatches to the government, Col. Fremont says: 'with me, Carson and truth mean the same thing. He is always the same—gallant and disinterested.' He is kind-hearted, and averse to all quarrelsome and turbulent scenes, and has never been engaged in any mere personal broils or encounters, except on one single occasion, which he sometimes modestly describes to his friends. The narrative is fully confirmed ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... be rid of that quarrelsome and dangerous man, Burgsdorf," he said complacently, as he sank apparently exhausted into an easy chair. "I have rendered him harmless and shoved him aside without his being really conscious of it. He does not suspect ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... (at Jenin in Palestine) our dragoman told us that the people of the village were so quarrelsome and thievish that it was never safe to stop a night there without an extra guard, and he had engaged the brother of the sheik of the village to occupy this responsible post. This man was a great, tall, athletic-looking ...
— Anecdotes & Incidents of the Deaf and Dumb • W. R. Roe |
