"Raving mad" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... phosphorus, and gave him the benefit in the dark. That caught Murphy all right, and everything was coming my way. He threw up his hands, and even agreed to come in here with me, and tell the whole story, but the poor fellow's brain could n't stand the strain of the scare I had given him. He went raving mad on the Powder; he jumped on me while I was asleep, and since then every mile has been a little hell. That's the whole of ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... Cadmus and Harmonia, the wife of Athamas, king of Thebes, who was changed into a sea-deity as she fled for refuge from her husband, who had gone raving mad and sought ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... "His thoughts stole inquisitively along forbidden paths: 'This thing passes for a value. Can we not turn it upside-down? This is regarded as good. Is it not rather evil?'" What is this but Satanism? The case of Nietzsche is not to be explained away by the fact that he died raving mad, since a number of apparently sane people still profess for him unbounded admiration, and whilst deriding Socialism and even attacking Bolshevism join in the war against Christian civilization. The conspiracy therefore exists apart from ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... heard savage cries, and came a sorry sight, one leading a wild woman in a chain, all rags and howling like a wolf. And when they came nigh us, she fell to tearing her rags to threads. The man sought an alms of us, and told us his hard case. 'Twas his wife stark raving mad; and he could not work in the fields, and leave her in his house to fire it, nor cure her could be without the Saintys' help, and had vowed six pounds of wax to St. Anthony to heal her, and so was fain beg of ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... king of Syria, who captured Jerusalem twice, and defiled God's altar. He died raving mad B.C. 164. Josephus, Antiquities of ...
— Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I • Edmund Spenser
... hell-fire, so that, if anybody held it a few minutes in their hand, it would burn to the bone. The old sinner made believe that she was in great affliction for the death of her daughter-in-law, and that it was all an accident, and the poor young man went raving mad,—but that awful rosary the old hag couldn't get rid of. She couldn't give it away,—she couldn't sell it,—but back it would come every night, and lie right over her heart, all white-hot with ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... Petrie, stark raving mad, or the savior of the Indian Empire—perhaps of all Western civilization. Listen. Sir Gregory Hale, whom I know slightly and who honors me, apparently, with a belief that I am the only man in Europe worthy of his confidence, resigned his appointment at Peking some ...
— The Hand Of Fu-Manchu - Being a New Phase in the Activities of Fu-Manchu, the Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... sheer raving mad from the emotions of his forefathers and from his own. He came to close quarters. He gripped the stick with his two hands and made it speed like a flail. The snake, tumbling in the anguish of final despair, ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... reason that she had no mind to confess with," Venner explained. "Of course, certain neighbors knew something of what was going on, but they never knew the whole truth, because, after the appearance of the last finger, Mrs. Van Fort went stark raving mad. She lived for a few days, and at the end of that time her body was found in a waterfall close to her house. That is the story of the Four Finger Mine so far as it goes, though I should not be surprised if we manage ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White
... when I saw her—I went stark, staring, raving mad over her. She is the most beautiful, wonderful girl I ever saw. Her name is Mercedes Castaneda, and she belongs to one of the old wealthy Spanish families. She has lived abroad and in Havana. She speaks French as well as English. She is—but I ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... found her pride and jealousy aroused to fury by the slight offered her. She goaded Orest[^e]s to avenge her insults, and the ambassadors fell on Pyrrhus and murdered him. Hermion[^e], when she saw the dead body of the king borne along, stabbed herself, and Orest[^e]s went raving mad.—Ambrose Philips, The ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... so, the next day, there were various goodly stories afloat and astir, coming out of successive mouths, more wondrous at each birth; the simplest form of the story being, that Septimius Felton had at last gone raving mad on the hill-top that he was so fond of haunting; and those who listened to his shrieks said that he was calling to the Devil; and some said that by certain exorcisms he had caused the appearance of a ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... house was waked by peering shafts of the sunlight and lit its fires for the day; column by column went up toward the serene downs' faces, and failed before they came there and hung all white over houses; and every one in the town was raving mad. ...
— A Dreamer's Tales • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... because I tried to stand between her and harm. But he could not get rid of the sight of me. I have a little home where he can't avoid seeing me sometimes. I believe, if I kept always appearing before him, he would go raving mad, he ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... can now prevent them from falling on our fleet. Jove, moreover, has sent his lightnings on their right; Hector, in all his glory, rages like a maniac; confident that Jove is with him he fears neither god nor man, but is gone raving mad, and prays for the approach of day. He vows that he will hew the high sterns of our ships in pieces, set fire to their hulls, and make havoc of the Achaeans while they are dazed and smothered in smoke; I much fear that heaven ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... gongs or brass pans, that we were greatly startled, imagining nothing less but that the city was surprised by the rebels. I ran immediately to the door, where I found my old fat landlord roaring and whooping like a man raving mad. This increased my astonishment, and the noise was so great that I could neither be heard, nor get an answer to know what the matter was. At last I cried as loud as possibly I could to the old man ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley
... appear, and after a minute or two she walked on in the direction in which the March Hare was said to live. "I've seen hatters before," she said to herself: "the March Hare will be much the most interesting, and perhaps, as this is May, it won't be raving mad—at least not so mad as it was in March." As she said this, she looked up, and there was the Cat again sitting on ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... conscious life. It was evident that he had, while groping his way out of the crypt, slung the cross around his neck, in order to free his hands. I shudder as I recall the spectacle. The sight would have struck Winifred dead, or sent her raving mad, on the spot; but she had not turned the corner, and I had just time to wheel sharply round, and thrust my body between her and the spectacle. The dog saw it, and, foaming with ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... rather proud of my experience, but I never saw, and never wish to see again, such a truly terrifying and appalling sight as my companion and I now witnessed—for within an hour all Nature seemed to have gone stark, raving mad, and I never expected to see the next morning's sun. I do not think it was the fearful force of the wind which so terrified me into a state of helplessness as the diabolical clamour—the clashing and tearing and rending asunder of the trees, accompanied by a prolonged ...
— Yorke The Adventurer - 1901 • Louis Becke
... mezzo-soprano, speaking disparagingly of her own little thread of a voice, which, however, she managed so skilfully. "What a shame to take up your time teaching, with such a voice as that!" she cried; "you are out of your senses, my dear, you are raving mad. It would be sinful to keep your gifts to yourself! I am very sorry to discourage you, but you have none of the requisites for a teacher. The stage would be best for you—'Mon Dieu! why not? You will see La Rochette this evening; she is a person ...
— Jacqueline, Complete • (Mme. Blanc) Th. Bentzon
... appear, and after a minute or two she walked on in the direction in which the March Hare was said to live. 'I've seen hatters before,' she said to herself; 'the March Hare will be much the most interesting, and perhaps as this is May it won't be raving mad—at least not so mad as it was in March.' As she said this, she looked up, and there was the Cat again, sitting on a branch of ...
— Alice's Adventures in Wonderland • Lewis Carroll
... that different trades appear to partake of the disease to which elephants and dogs are especially liable, and to run stark, staring, raving mad, periodically. The great distinction between the animals and the trades, is, that the former run mad with a certain degree of propriety—they are very regular in their irregularities. We know the period ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... You're as stark, raving mad as you always have been. But I don't care what you say. Kids, come and look at the fox ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... to tell about the Helen B. Jackson so far as I am concerned. We were more like a shipload of lunatics than anything else when we ran in under Morro Castle, and anchored in Havana. The cook had brain fever, and was raving mad in his delirium; and the rest of the men weren't far from the same state. The last three or four days had been awful, and we had been as near to having a mutiny on board as I ever want to be. The men didn't want ...
— Man Overboard! • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... day was a terrible one. Our sufferings from hunger and thirst were awful; and about midday one of the men—an A.B. named Tom Bridges— went raving mad, and swore that he didn't intend to starve any more; said that one of us must die for the good of the rest; and presently set upon me, saying that I was in better condition than any of the rest, and that ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... back hair, and taking up her position at the other end of the room, with the bachelor friend posted in a corner, to rush out at the cue 'in death expire,' and catch her in his arms when she died raving mad, went through the performance with extraordinary spirit, and to the great terror of the little Kenwigses, who were ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... Mrs. King to collect and forward their letters from home as soon as they gave her an address; Marcella did not mention the chief reason for getting away from Sydney now. She had an instinctive feeling that Mrs. King would think she was raving mad to run away into the Bush with ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... when she began. I can't say how I knew it; but I felt it—felt it reflected in his moods, saw him nervous and feverish. She's been torturing him, father—she's strong. Also she's—she's hard. Tom hasn't—well, I mean she's always kept the upper hand. I know that in my soul. And he's stark, raving mad somewhere within him." A storm of emotion shook her and then she cried passionately, "And, oh, father, I want to rescue him—not for myself. Oh, I don't love him any more. That's all gone. At least not in the old way, I don't, but he's so sensitive—so ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... vain the gold that could not follow them, many a poor fellow died of a broken heart and hardships suffered in vain, and some, long unlucky but persevering, suddenly surprised by a rich find of gold, fell by the shock of good fortune, went raving mad, dazzled by the gold, and perished miserably. For here all was on a great heroic scale, starvation, wealth, industry, ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... apartment facing that of Orlando Furioso, there was another man raving mad. When we entered his room he was swinging in a hammock, in which he was fastened down, for biting his keeper. Through the gratings of his window he could perceive his comrades strolling about and amusing themselves in the garden. He wished ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... they preserved with more economy, to cool their parched lips. In a few days, however, their own blood, for lack of cooling food, became so fiery hot as to scald their brain to frenzy. About the tenth day the captain and mate leaped overboard, raving mad; and the day following the two remaining seamen expired in the bottom of the boat, piteously crying to the last for WATER! WATER! God of his mercy forgive me, who have so often drank of that sweet beverage without grateful acknowledgments! Scarcely was this melancholy scene concluded ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... for I feared lest he should go raving mad, I pronounced some religious absolution, whereon poor Higgs rolled over and lay still by Orme. Yes; he, the friend whom I had always loved, for his very failings were endearing, was dead or at the point of death, like the gallant ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... Cyril slowly. 'Do you think She'll believe us? Could anyone believe about a Sammyadd unless they'd seen it? She'll think we're pretending. Or else she'll think we're raving mad, and then we shall be sent to Bedlam. How would you like it?' - he turned suddenly on the miserable Jane - 'how would you like it, to be shut up in an iron cage with bars and padded walls, and nothing to do but stick straws in your hair all day, and listen to ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... mad-brained, scatter brained, shatter brained, crackbrained; touched, tetched [dialect]; off one's head. [behavior suggesting insanity] maniacal; delirious, lightheaded, incoherent, rambling, doting, wandering; frantic, raving, stark staring mad, stark raving mad, wild-eyed, berserk; delusional, hallucinatory. [behavior somewhat resembling insanity] corybantic[obs3], dithyrambic; rabid, giddy, vertiginous, wild; haggard, mazed; flighty; distracted, distraught; depressed; agitated, hyped up; bewildered &c. (uncertain) 475. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... and there were one Keg of Fresh Water between us, I would stave it, and let the Stream of Life waste itself in the gunwales while I held his head down into the Sea, and forced him to swallow the brine that should drive him Raving Mad. But this is unchristian, and I must go ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... wings beneath him for a moment and lifts him, as eagles billow up their young; is weak, and tries to cover weakness up by ranting. We pity, then despise him, then pity him once more, and in sheer charity think him raving mad. Stand Maud's lover alongside King Arthur, and how splendid does King Arthur look! The lover was pessimist and wrong; Arthur was optimist and, in his temper, right. Though hacked at by the careless ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... through the American scenes, which, intensely amusing as they are, must have bitterly envenomed the wounds inflicted on the national vanity by "American Notes," and, according to Dickens' own expression, "sent them all stark staring raving mad across the water;" we must frequent the boarding establishment for single gentlemen kept by lean Mrs. Todgers, and sit with Sarah Gamp and Betsy Prig as they hideously discuss their avocations, or quarrel over the ...
— Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials
... the slavers trickle! I kick the wee stools o'er the mickle, As round the fire the giglets keckle, To see me loup; While, raving mad, I wish a heckle Were in ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... his hand against a woman. He, Mark King, had struck a woman. He had struck Gloria. His friend's daughter—Ben's daughter. He had struck her.... What had come over him? Had he gone mad? Stark, staring, raving mad? He knew all along that his nerves were on edge, raw and quivering. But no jangling nerves explained a thing like that. He, who had held himself a man, had struck a woman—a girl! ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... of his eighth number on the 15th of August, he gave me the latest tidings from America. "I gather from a letter I have had this morning that Martin has made them all stark staring raving mad across the water. I wish you would consider this. Don't you think the time has come when I ought to state that such public entertainments as I received in the States were either accepted before I went out, or in the first week ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... worse would you be, William? You are a soldier. I must talk. You are all wrong about it: it keeps me quiet (holding his head with both hands). I should go raving mad else (wildly). Give me some water. (He drinks eagerly, then looks slowly round the room.) Now they are gone, and I do believe they won't come again! I see everything—and your face, William. You are very good to me—very patient! I should die if ...
— Stephen Archer and Other Tales • George MacDonald
... for the lungs would not swim, he swore, in a basin of water—so the incestuous murderess was let loose; her brother got hanged in due time after the mutiny at the Nore—and her father, the fishmonger—why, he went red raving mad as if a dog had bitten him—and died, as the same surgeon and sow-gelder averred, of the hydrophobia, foaming at the mouth, gnashing his teeth, and some said cursing, but that was a calumny, for something seemed to be the matter with ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... the cards went against me? If I took it, it was practically what he owes me. And if he thinks it's too much—look here, Leila! I've a trick up my sleeve. I can make good any time I wish to. I'm in a position to marry that man to the girl he's mad about—stark, raving mad." ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... wait there until something happens. Something must and will happen. His disease won't stand still. He may go raving mad and kill himself. Or he may attempt to attack us, though that is not likely, and then we must do what we can in self defence. Or help may reach us from somewhere. At the worst we shall only die as we should have died outside. Come, let us be quick, lest he should change ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard
... fireworks, started from the door of a tavern, and led past a Music Hall, on the steps of which stood a gentleman smoking a cigar. All the wicked people in this book smoked cigars—all except one young man who had killed his mother and died raving mad. He had ...
— John Ingerfield and Other Stories • Jerome K. Jerome
... kicked him out—perhaps rightly; though mercy was never your strong point. But if any of the belted ancestors in that gallery of yours did as much for England as Jimmy did, or died as gloriously as Jimmy died, well, you should be a proud man, prouder even than you are. He sent the boys over raving mad with blood, and they struck Bavarians—and good Bavarians: men who could fight, and men who did fight. They were at it, teeth, feet, and steel for ten minutes: primitive, lustful fighting; and then the Bavarians broke; with the boys after them, stabbing and ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile
... with no one to look after her, or say she done ill or well. And there was a little child born—the prettiest little creature ye ever saw—Bessie's own copy—all blue eyes and chestnut hair—and it just lived a matter of fower year, and then it took sick and died. Bessie went nigh raving mad; that she did. And now, what do you think, sir? The passon refused to bury that there little child in consecrated ground, cos'twas born out of wedlock! What d'ye think of that for a follower of Jesus with the loving heart? ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... known to have been preaching well nigh the whole day long, reading portions of those accursed translations of Wycliffe's which are damnation to all who possess them or listen to them, and expounding thereupon in the fashion that sends persons raving mad with the poison of heresy. The man is in hiding somewhere in the woods about; but he will soon be caught and handed over to the secular power to be doomed to death. And I like not the story of your sons' part in all this; it hath ...
— The Secret Chamber at Chad • Evelyn Everett-Green
... cried with an oath, "that is a lie," and springing up, turned blood-shot eyes upon his companion. "I am mad, Bulchester," he cried, "raving mad. It is all over with me ...
— Bay State Monthly, Vol. II. No. 5, February, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... it be otherwise than sweet with your endowments and nature? Do you truly expect that you will be seized with hydrophobia, and die raving mad?" ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... can be nothing like it. It is the earth and sky gone stark and raving mad. The mountains up-twirled, disbodied and inverted, stand on their peaks and throw their bowels to the sky. Their earth is air; their ether blood-red rock engreened. You stand upon their roots and fall into their pinnacles, a ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... 'Tania, just give me a fresh handkerchief; I must have got a cold to-day.' I had to play generally Beethoven and Schumann to him. He did not approve of Bach, and on the other hand you could make him raving mad with Liszt, and still more ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps
... after that before we saw a sail. Two of the men had jumped overboard raving mad, the rest were lying well-nigh senseless in the bottom of the boat. Only the woman was sitting up, holding her child in her arms. She was very weak, too; but she had never complained, never doubted for a moment. Her eyes ...
— In the Reign of Terror - The Adventures of a Westminster Boy • G. A. Henty
... search of two or three hours, Partridge returned back to his master, without having seen Mrs Waters. Jones, who was in a state of desperation at his delay, was almost raving mad when he brought him his account. He was not long, however, in this condition before he received ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... judgment directed him to choose, leaving the rest to die away in his memory; and that, if the wisest man would, at any time, utter his thoughts in the crude indigested manner as they come into his head, he would be looked upon as raving mad. And, indeed, when we consider our thoughts, as they are the seeds of words and actions, we cannot but agree that they ought to be kept under the strictest regulation; and that in the great multiplicity of ideas which one's mind is apt to ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift
... The one idea that possessed her was to get away from him, to escape from his horrible presence, whither she neither knew nor cared. If he appeared to stop her then, she thought that she would go raving mad. ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... Woman so strong in thee, thou couldst not wait a little? Were you so raving mad for Fool and Husband, you must take up with the next ready Coxcomb. Death, and the Devil, a dull clumsey Boor!—What was it charm'd you? The beastly quantity of ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... Fissore, the accuser of the other three. Investigation of his origin showed that a male cousin had died raving mad, a female cousin had died in an asylum, a great-uncle on the maternal side had been crazy and had committed suicide; another cousin was weak-minded and subject to fits; another, a deaf-mute, had died in an asylum; another ...
— Criminal Man - According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso • Gina Lombroso-Ferrero
... stay like this, you know—it's not to be thought of! I—I wonder whether it would be any use to send over to Dr. Bustard and ask him to step in; he might give me something to bring me round. But then the whole neighbourhood would hear about it! If I don't see my way out of this soon, I shall go raving mad!" ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... who in the growing light I could see was raving mad, sprang up, calling out something in Scotch about "the deil." Seizing a great spear which had fallen from the hand of one of the priests, he rushed furiously at the giant who had given the order, and with a yell drove it at his heart. I saw the spear snap, ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... have gone raving mad with grief. I don't know what I did. All I thought of was that there must be some chance and he wasn't dead at all and he must be got away to a hospital. We had discussed the plan of going into the flat and he had told me how he would bring his car to the back. I rushed ...
— The Daffodil Mystery • Edgar Wallace
... Deutschen gehoert die Welt" ("Germany possesses the world") calmly say the prints displayed in the shop windows in Berlin. But when one arrives at this point the mind becomes delirious. All genius is raving mad if it comes to that; but Beethoven's madness concentrated itself in himself, and imagined things for his own enjoyment. The genius of many contemporary German artists is an aggressive thing, and is characterised by its destructive antagonism. The idealist who "possesses ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland |
