"Silliness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... little manikin in their eyes, and when their mother told them to take him with them anywhere they were angry, because then they had to take care of him, and on account of his silliness could not play so many tricks. Paul felt that very well, and in order to escape their angry faces and still more angry blows, he generally said he wanted to stay at home, however sore his heart might feel. Then he seated himself on the pump-handle, and, rocking himself to and ...
— Dame Care • Hermann Sudermann
... bound to believe we weren't, even if we were. We've only got to put it to her that way and she won't have a ghost of a grievance left. It's the simplest form of Christian Science. But in any case, whatever silliness Aunt Juliet may indulge in, we were simply bound to have the Tortoise today. It's a matter of duty. I don't see how you can get around that, Cousin Frank, no ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham
... respect your emotion, I am myself conducted by experience. And besides, Mr. Fenwick, is not love a warfare? has it not rules? have not our fair antagonists their tactics, their weapons, their place of arms? and is there not a touch of - pardon me the word! of silliness in one who, having fought, and having vanquished, sounds a parley, and capitulates to his own prisoner? Had the lady chosen, had the fortune of war been other, 'tis like she had been Mrs. Austin. Now I . . . ...
— The Plays of W. E. Henley and R. L. Stevenson
... and lightninged, and Antha nearly went into hysterics. She hid her head under the bed clothes and wanted them all to do likewise. Katherine snorted with disgust and delivered her mind about people who carried their fears to the verge of silliness. Antha cried some more and the atmosphere in the tent was becoming decidedly damp again when Hinpoha created a diversion by ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... unforeseen, abrupt transitions, passions, adventures. She had not liked Sauvresy from the first day she saw him, and her secret aversion to him increased in proportion as her influence over him grew more certain. She thought him common, vulgar, ridiculous. She thought the simplicity of his manners, silliness. She looked at him, and saw nothing in him to admire. She did not listen to him when he spoke, having already decided in her wisdom that he could say nothing that was not tedious or commonplace. She was angry that he had not ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau
... counsel was: "Tametomo's method of fighting is rustic. There are here two Emperors competing for the throne, and the combat must be conducted in a fair and dignified manner." To such silliness the Minamoto hero made apt answer. "War," he said, "is not an affair of official ceremony and decorum. Its management were better left to the bushi whose business it is. My brother Yoshitomo has eyes to see an opportunity. To-night, he will attack us.". It is true that Tametomo afterwards refrained ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... laughter-loving mood should not be forgotten, because later on it was partly quenched by ill health, responsibility and the advance of years. He was often, in the old days, excessively, delightfully silly—silly with the silliness of an inspired schoolboy; I am afraid our laughter sometimes sounded ill in the ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... ready to break the laws of any land for the sake of a great ideal. Goodness knows what stuff they talked together. Mary said she would blush to think of it till her dying day, and I gathered that on her side it was a mixture of Launcelot Wake at his most pedantic and schoolgirl silliness. ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan
... he sat there in the twilight made by the shaded electric lamps, the struggle rose in his heart against the admission of anything into his scheme of life but material things, and the conflict raged unchecked. What a silliness, he said, to think that the mummery of a woman over a rose could affect a life. Life is what the succession of the days brings. The thing is or is not, he said to himself, and the gibber about prayer and the moral force that moves the universe is for the weak-minded. So he took his ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... son of the Kuru race, you have just heard what Kama hath said. His words are, indeed fraught with wisdom. Why wouldst thou abandoning from foolishness the high prosperity that I won for thee, cast off thy life today, O king, yielding to silliness? It seemeth to me to-day that thou hast never waited upon the old. He that cannot control sudden accession of joy or grief, is lost even though he may have obtained prosperity, like an unburnt earthen vessel in water. That king who is entirely destitute of courage, who hath no spark of ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... Hontan explains the meaning of the word thus: "Calumet, in general, signifies a pipe, being a Norman word, derived from Chalumeau." The definition displays, in a remarkable degree, the silliness of that writer. The savages do not understand this word. "The Pipe of Peace is called, in the Iroquois language, Ganondaoe, and by the other savages, Poayem." So says the ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... a Sigismund? Thou fibbest; It was you yourselves that thus Sigismundized me and princed me: All the silliness and the boldness Have ...
— Life Is A Dream • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... over-stimulated every activity of the body, and spent our lives doing all kinds of things in which there was no sense. Think of reading one or two morning and evening papers every day. To be sure we said there was nothing in them, but we used up our eyesight over them, and let a stream of silliness and scandal dribble through our minds. As to the things ...
— The Master-Knot of Human Fate • Ellis Meredith
... unquenchable laughter of some little earth-born demon, perpetual gayety, and a radiant force of epigram—there are all these in the true humorist. Stulti sunt innumerabiles, said Erasmus, the patron of all these dainty mockers. Folly, conceit, foppery, silliness, affectation, hypocrisy, attitudinizing and pedantry of all shades, and in all forms, everything that poses, prances, bridles, struts, bedizens, and plumes itself, everything that takes itself seriously and tries to impose itself on mankind—all this is the natural prey of the satirist, ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... confuse simplicity with ignorance, too often also with silliness—which is not the case with you," I added, with a smile. "Real, that is to say, conscious simplicity is not even recognised; and, when it becomes active, it appears to vulgar minds a danger that must be averted. The better to attack it, they ...
— The Choice of Life • Georgette Leblanc
... little secret for a few days. I'm so silly that I liked to think no one knew, and while I was deciding what to say, I felt like the girls in books, who have such things to do. Forgive me, Mother, I'm paid for my silliness now. I never can look him ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... her since she was celebrated and George Tanqueray was not. It was Tanqueray's belief in her that had kept her up. It consoled her with the thought that her celebrity was, after all, only a disgusting accident. For, through it all, in spite of the silliness of it, he did believe. He swore by her. He staked his own genius upon hers. As long as he believed in it she could not really doubt. But now for the first time since she was celebrated she believed in ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... till I had made a resolution to tell her all about it, though I should like it not to be till you are come home, and can tell her that I am not really like Dolores, as she will be sure to think me, for I really did it, not out of silliness and opposition, but because I knew how good they were, and I did tell you. Honestly, perhaps there was some opposition in the spirit of it; but I mean to make a fresh start when I come back, and you will be near at hand then, and that will ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of cunning and cleverness, but want of heart—want of feeling—what Solomon calls folly (Prov. i. 22-27), stupidity of soul, when he calls on the simple souls, How long ye simple ones will you love simplicity or silliness, and the scorners delight in their scorning (delight in laughing at what is good), and fools hate knowledge—hate to think earnestly or steadily about anything—the stupidity of the ass, who is too ...
— True Words for Brave Men • Charles Kingsley
... shook off my visionary folly. What so easily explained as that I should have strayed from the path in the darkness? This brought me back to common existence, as if I had been shaken by a wise hand out of all the silliness of superstition. How silly it was, after all! What did it matter which path I took? I laughed again, this time with better heart, when suddenly, in a moment, the blood was chilled in my veins, a shiver stole along my spine, my faculties seemed to forsake me. Close by me, at my side, ...
— The Open Door, and the Portrait. - Stories of the Seen and the Unseen. • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant |
