"The ways of the world" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... about a thousand things; it often happened that they stood up against him, and he would carry on the discussion and laugh heartily when he had succeeded in vexing the young girls, who, in their frankness and ignorance of the ways of the world and the court, made very lively and unaffected answers which were amusing for those to whom they ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... is a fitting age for the study of the sciences, so there is a fitting age for the study of the ways of the world. Those who learn these too soon, follow them throughout life, without choice or consideration, and although they follow them fairly well they never really know what they are about. But he who studies the ways of the world and sees the reason for them, follows them ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... he was always busy in the line of professional duty—killing or curing. On his hunting excursions, Doctor Falcon carried with him his youngest brother, who, being a foolish young fellow, and inexperienced in the ways of the world, it was not thought safe ...
— The Indian Fairy Book - From the Original Legends • Cornelius Mathews
... more concerning the hereafter, he was far better informed in the ways of the world, for his life had been paved with opportunities, and he had made use of them. However, without a standard in his heart such as Edwin had erected and with no home government to protect and guide him, as a petted and humored and spoiled ...
— The Poorhouse Waif and His Divine Teacher • Isabel C. Byrum
... First. But the later part has, of course, not quite so much freshness; and nobody need want anything better than the successive scenes, slightly glanced at already, in which Gil Blas is taught, by no means finally,[321] the ways of the world; the pure adventure interest of the robbers' cave, so admirably managed and so little over-dwelt on; the experiences of travel and of the capital; the vivid pictures of petit maitre and actress life; ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... poor working girl, ignorant of the ways of the world, and can only express what I feel, Louis," rejoined Mariette, unable to resist his pleadings. "The reasons you plead for an early marriage seem good to me. I may be wrong, or I may, perhaps, be influenced by my longing to be yours; ...
— A Cardinal Sin • Eugene Sue
... been of a different character from those which had surrounded his two friends. Not that the love for him had been less, but certain elements of refinement had been lacking and his familiarity with the ways of the world was much less. Besides, his father had been in humbler circumstances, and Peter John was to room in college in Leland Hall, one of the oldest of the dormitories, where the room rent was much less than in Perry Hall and more in accord with Peter John's pocket. In school he had been ...
— Winning His "W" - A Story of Freshman Year at College • Everett Titsworth Tomlinson
... You see, 'Tana, I've drifted out from the ways of the world while Max has kept up with them. So he proposed—well, no matter about the plan. I'm to suggest it to you, and as it's no loss and all gain to you, I reckon you'll be sensible enough ...
— That Girl Montana • Marah Ellis Ryan
... Count of Riverola, "I understand you. You would withdraw my sister and myself from a scene too mournful to contemplate. Alas! it is hard to lose a father; but especially so at my age, inexperienced as I am in the ways of the world!" ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... him, and had added that he would put him in the way of becoming a proper gentleman of fashion, without fleecing him and rooking him, as would inevitably be the case if he fell into the clutches of those birds of prey always on the lookout for young squires from the country coming up to learn the ways of the world, with a plentiful supply ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green
... a type of the Creole 'pollo,' or man-about-town. He is short of stature, lean and bony. He has a long thin face, with a very sun-burnt complexion, a prominent proboscis, and his hair, eyes and eyebrows are remarkably black and lustrous. The pollo's weakness is over-confidence in himself and in the ways of the world. To him everything appears bright and sunny. Nothing in his estimation seems impossible of realisation. If you are in a difficulty, Bimba is the man to help you through, or at least to offer to do so! Bimba takes especial care to let everybody know that he is a 'travelled ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... conscious, as he bubbled compliments in my ear, of soft thrills of gratified pride stealing from hat-rim to boot-heels. I was wise, quoth he—anybody could see that with half an eye; sagacious, versed in the ways of the world, an acquaintance to be desired; one who had tasted the ...
— American Notes • Rudyard Kipling
... she felt prompted to ask with vehemence, "you went to the trouble of coming to hunt for me, as you didn't see me turn up at home for several days, eh? But what young lady introduced you in here?" Then noticing that her whole head was bedecked with flowers, old goody Liu laughed. "How ignorant of the ways of the world you are!" she said. "Seeing the nice flowers in this garden, you at once set to work, forgetful of all consequences, and loaded ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... a country gentleman, mayor of a village in the canton of Angouleme, and the author of an article on silkworms, was received at Madame de Bargeton's in 1821. A widower, without children, and doubtless very rich, but not knowing the ways of the world, one evening on the rue du Minage, he found as ready listeners only the poor but aristocratic Madame du Brossard and her daughter Camille, a young woman of twenty-seven ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... very intelligent-looking. He makes me think of the little boy that ran through the streets of a large city all of one cold winter, and then became a great artist, but he was so poor and inexperienced in the ways of the world, that he had to suffer a long time before his genius was discovered. Some time I will tell you about him, that you may know that true genius and worth may be found among the lowest children of earth, and, like the diamond, they will shine when ...
— The Pearl Story Book - A Collection of Tales, Original and Selected • Mrs. Colman
... mean that," said Susan. The police were most friendly and most kind to her. She was understanding the ways of the world better now, and appreciated that the police themselves were part of the same vast system of tyranny and robbery that was compelling her. The police made her pay because they dared not refuse to be collectors. They bound ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... fellowship of four: Ann and I, the organist and Master Peter, and, albeit we were not much experienced in the ways of the world, I dare boldly say that we did more good and dried more tears ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... be well for me to go to Chicago and visit Martin's Aunt Scarlet. How that woman hates me, simply because I was the means of breaking up a gang of spurious money makers, of whom old Dan Scarlet was the chief. Well, well, the ways of the world are curious enough. By the way, I haven't sent that line to Nell yet. The girl will feel ...
— Dyke Darrel the Railroad Detective - Or, The Crime of the Midnight Express • Frank Pinkerton
... ideas and thoughts had taken possession of her, reawaking in her the germ of that ambition to be somebody which she had felt so often when a girl, and which now was to bud and blossom, and bear fruit a hundred fold. She would take the girl, and from her learn the ways of the world as presented at Brier Hill. She would no longer wear sacking aprons, and open the door herself. She would be more like Grace Atherton, whom she watched admiringly as she went down the walk to the handsome carriage waiting for her, ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... interested in her studies, and so on, through the whole syllogism which ends in Nature's supreme quod erat demonstrandum. What was there to distract him or disturb him? He did not know,—but there was something. This sumptuous creature, this Eve just within the gate of an untried Paradise, untutored in the ways of the world, but on tiptoe to reach the fruit of the tree of knowledge,—alive to the moist vitality of that warm atmosphere palpitating with voices and music, as the flower of some dioecious plant which has grown in a lone corner and suddenly unfolding its corolla on some hot-breathing June evening, feels ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... some years older than Renestine and was aware that she was but a school girl, untutored in the ways of the world, even less than most girls of her age. But Renestine's modesty, her innocence, her beauty, appealed to him as no other woman's charms had done and thoughts of her took possession him. His stuffy little office in McKinney, in the long, narrow store where general merchandise ...
— The Little Immigrant • Eva Stern
... ignorant. But in "The Last of the Mohicans," while the man continues the same, the aspect he presents is wholly different. All that is weak in his character is in the background; all that is best and strongest comes to the front. He is in the prime of life. Ignorant he still remains of the ways of the world as found in the settlements; but there is no trace of discontent or fretfulness. He has full room for the exercise of his native virtues, and in the character of the acute and daring scout he finds no superior. To him forest and sky are an open book. Knowledge is ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... very much. But my cousin Mrs. Pallinson has quite an aversion to him, and speaks against him with such a positive air at times, that I have been almost inclined to think she must be right. I am very inexperienced in the ways of the world, and am naturally disposed to lean a little upon the ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... regard thee and thy father as foolish persons, possessed of more wealth than is good for the exercise of wisdom. Also, my son, thy future teaching must be not confined to the learning that wise men can impart unto thee. Thou art going to the great city to learn the ways of the world, to train thyself in self-reliance, and to prepare thyself for all the ...
— Jewish Fairy Tales and Legends • Gertrude Landa
... his jesting was leading to. When it came to her father this unsophisticated child would stand up and fight like a wildcat. And he began to perceive too that she was not such a child—she was a woman, with the experience of a child. In the ways of the world she was a mere babe in the woods but in intellect and character she was far from being dwarfed and her honesty was positively embarrassing. It crowded him into corners that were hard to get out of and forced him to make excuses for himself, whereas at the moment he was ...
— Wunpost • Dane Coolidge
... the dark days, which all of them could recall, when we had repeatedly covenanted to God and to the nation that if we could be relieved of what we deemed the world's oppression we would fulfill every obligation of our promises. I pointed out to them that the Church was passing into the ways of the world; that our people were being pauperized; that some of them were in the poorhouses in their old age after having paid tithes all their active lives; that by our practices we were bearing testimony against the revelations which Mormons proclaimed to ...
— Under the Prophet in Utah - The National Menace of a Political Priestcraft • Frank J. Cannon and Harvey J. O'Higgins
... have abused your brute while on the trip, both of which errors you must be careful to avoid. It is a simple matter of arithmetic to calculate what is best for you to do; but I hope on this horse question you may have the benefit of advice from some one who has had experience with the ways of the world. You will ...
— How to Camp Out • John M. Gould
... slow to learn the ways of the world. She knew all this, and she knew also that her cotton umbrella and all but ragged shawl would not command respect in the eyes of the palace servants. If she were too humble, she knew well that she would never succeed. ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... takes him home. Next year he gets one day three fishes, and finds the infant "Moon", and the third year he has four fishes one day and finds the baby-girl, "Star." When the children have grown up the monk sends them to town in order that they should learn the ways of the world. The eldest hearing a Jew offering a box for sale, saying, "Whoever buys this box will be sorry for it, and he who does not buy it will be equally sorry," purchases it and on taking it home finds his sister weeping for the golden apple which the "wise woman" (who had found them ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... duchess. Like Jeanne de Saint-Savin, Beauvouloir's daughter was slender and delicate; in her, as in the duchess, sadness and suffering conveyed a mysterious charm. She had that nobility of manner peculiar to souls on whom the ways of the world have had no influence, and in whom all is noble because all is natural. But in Gabrielle's veins there was also the blood of "la belle Romaine," which had flowed there from two generations, giving to this young girl the passionate heart ...
— The Hated Son • Honore de Balzac
... of repute can't let in young women (found upon a heath, forsooth), without knowing who's who. I have learn'd the ways of the world, sir. ...
— John Bull - The Englishman's Fireside: A Comedy, in Five Acts • George Colman
... what is said in the epistle of John—'The world knoweth us not'? I do not see how a Christian can be fashionable. To be fashionable, one must follow the ways of the world." ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... misfortunes of Minecco Aniello, commanding them to use all diligence and endeavour to obtain some tidings of these false merchants. Now, among the rest, it happened that Rudolo and Saltariello were present—mice who were well used to the ways of the world, and had lived for six years at a tavern of great resort hard by; and they said to Aniello, "Be of good heart, comrade! matters will turn out better than you imagine. You must know that one day, when we were in a room in the hostelry of the Horn,' where the ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... I enjoy as good an opinion of myself as most men, that I was much less successful in making my way at court than I had expected. My competitors for advancement were numerous, and more versed in the ways of the world than I. Like them, I was obliged to begin by paying a most assiduous attention to men in office. Having once gained the privilege of being seated in the mejlis (assembly) of the head of the law, who was in fact my chief, I little by little became noticed by the grand ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... man was silent: the truth suggested itself to him with the boy's innocent answer. He was tied to a bed of dried leaves in the corner of a wattle hut, but he had not wholly forgotten what the ways of the world were like. ...
— Stories of Childhood • Various
... transactions that interested him extremely, brought them in his good-natured way to the knowledge of Mr. Gregory, the district attorney, suggesting that he investigate. Mr. Gregory smiled; undertook, as delicately as possible, to convey to Mr. Greenhalge the ways of the world, and of the political world in particular, wherein, it seemed, everyone was a good fellow. Mr. Greenhalge was evidently a good fellow, and didn't want to make trouble over little things. No, Mr. Greenhalge didn't want to make trouble; he appreciated ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... compares their dress and artificial allurements must have either very strong nerves or very bad sight, if he persist in saying that there is more danger to be apprehended from the former than the latter. He knows very little of modern manners and must be a very suckling in the ways of the world who imagines that a young man has any thing to fear from the actresses on the stage, who has gone through the ordeal of a common ball-room, or even walked of a fine day through our streets. The ladies of London, Dublin, New-York, Philadelphia and Baltimore, have thrown those of the stage quite into ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... most difficult lessons to learn; but frequently even the matured man has still much to learn. The study is of considerable difficulty in itself, but it is made doubly difficult by novels, which depict the ways of the world and of men who do not exist in real life. But these are accepted with the credulity of youth, and become incorporated with the mind; so that now, in the place of purely negative ignorance, a whole framework of wrong ideas, which are positively wrong, crops up, subsequently confusing the ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... I knew nothing but tyranny and oppression, hatred and vengeance. It was therefore, not surprising that when my turn came, I did to others as I had been done by. Jackson had no excuse for his treatment of me, whereas I had every excuse for retaliation. He did know better, I did not. I followed the ways of the world in the petty microcosm in which I had been placed. I knew not of mercy, of forgiveness, charity, or good-will. I knew not that there was a God; I only knew that might was right, and the most pleasurable sensation which I felt was that of anxiety for vengeance, ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Frederick Marryat
... parent. The judicious parent, having nothing to bestow or withhold but his blessing, had handsomely settled that dower upon them after a short struggle, and had informed Mr. Pocket that his wife was "a treasure for a Prince." Mr. Pocket had invested the Prince's treasure in the ways of the world ever since, and it was supposed to have brought him in but indifferent interest. Still, Mrs. Pocket was in general the object of a queer sort of respectful pity, because she had not married a title; while Mr. Pocket was the object ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... manner placed the rich ornament on her bosom, where it seemed as much out of place "as a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear," and hastily walked off with the prize before I could recover from my astonishment! I was a stranger to the ways of the world, and it did not occur to me, until years afterwards, that this was an IMPROMPTU comedy, ingeniously devised and skilfully performed by two capital actresses, for the purpose of swindling ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... though she had then reached an age which makes some girls young women, it had not as yet had that effect upon her. She was then nineteen; but her life in her father's house had been dull and monotonous; she had gone very little into company, and knew very little of the ways of the world. The Mackenzie baronet people had not noticed her. They had failed to make much of Walter with his twelve thousand pounds, and did not trouble themselves with Margaret, who had no fortune of her own. The Ball ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope
... that your face shines through? A crown of blossom is waved above it; But heart and life of the whirl—'tis you! Margaret! pearl! I have sought and found you; And, though the paths of the wind are free, I'll follow the ways of the world around you, And build my nest ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... plausible, that he found it an easy task to deceive a girl as unsophisticated as Elinor Wildegrave, who was a perfect novice in the ways of the world. She could not believe it possible that Mr. Hurdlestone could stoop from his dignity to act a despicable part; that deception could lurk beneath such a grave demeanor. Elinor was not the first human being whose faith has ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... of his inquiries, information which he little expected came out, and which could not fail to raise his suspicions as to his daughter's discretion. He was, as has been seen, a man wise in the ways of the world, and not at all liable to give way to sudden bursts of temper, great as might be the provocation. Instead, therefore, of rushing into his daughter's room, and accusing her of her misconduct, he kept his counsel, ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... did, but you cannot see her. You can be hardly so ignorant of the ways of the world, Mr. Thwaite, as to suppose that a young lady can receive what visitors she pleases without the sanction of ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope
... the wise appeared—how peddling and foolish and mean—contrasted with their superb trust. How sordid were the ways of the world, its fears and suspicions, from the vantage point to which they had climbed. Material things even suggested this thought to Raymond, and when before noon, they stood on the green crown of Golden Cap, with the earth and sea ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... And you whittle away the useless clay, and crawl on your hands and knees. Often it leads to the dead-pit; always it leads to pain; By the bones of your brothers ye know it, but oh, to follow you're fain. By your bones they will follow behind you, till the ways of the world are made plain. ...
— Songs of a Sourdough • Robert W. Service
... Doctor, to some extent." At hearing this the Doctor made very evident signs of discontent. "You cannot alter the ways of the world suddenly, though by example and precept you may help to improve them slowly. In our present imperfect condition of moral culture, it is perhaps well that the company of ...
— Dr. Wortle's School • Anthony Trollope
... rumble; could distinguish at intervals, interrupting it, above it, a voice commanding, inflaming. Without seeing, he knew that at last his persecutors had found a commander, a directing spirit—and as well as he knew his own name he knew who that leader was. Unsophisticated absolutely in the ways of the world was this man; but in the reading of his fellows he was ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge
... very rough in his manner was exceedingly considerate of the rights of poor and friendless persons. Sometimes persons unacquainted with the ways of the world would desire to make their own arguments, or would in some way interrupt the business of the court. The Chief Justice commonly treated them with great consideration. One amusing incident happened quite late in his life. A rather dissipated lawyer who ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... England; and his two journeys to Rome, and his residence at the court of the Frankish king had, with his own great learning and study, given him a high prestige and reputation among his people as one learned in the ways of the world. Although but a prince, his authority in the kingdom nearly equalled that of his brother, and it was he rather than Ethelred whom men regarded as the prop and stay of the Saxons in the perils which were now ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... chord in Saracinesca's nature. San Giacinto had risen to his feet, and there was something in the huge, lean strength of him, in the bold look of his eyes, in the ring of his deep voice, that inspired respect. Rough he was, and not over refined or carefully trained in the ways of the world, cruel perhaps, and overbearing too; but he was every inch a Saracinesca, and the old ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... knowledge of the world. It remains a question how much this adult philosophy appeals to him. Although his tales were written for his grandchildren, so finished a telling of the tale as we find in Laboulaye, with its delightful hits of satire, appeals more to the grown-up versed in the ways of the world. But the sage remarks of worldly wisdom of Uncle Remus could not fail to impress a little boy: "Go where you will and when you may, and stay long ez you choosen ter stay, en right dar en den you'll sholy fin' dat folks what git full er consate en proudness is gwine ter git it tuck out 'm um."—Uncle ...
— A Study of Fairy Tales • Laura F. Kready
... youth upwards, he had read nothing but the new novels, and the verses in the almanacs, which helped him not a little in making, what he called, poetry of his own; for, of course, our little hero was a poet. All the common usages of life, all the ways of the world, and all the customs of society, seemed to be quite unknown to him; add to these good qualities, a magnificent conceit, a cowardice inconceivable, and a face so irresistibly comic, that every one who first beheld it was compelled to burst out a-laughing, and you will have some notion ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... much in fresco, for the reason that the colours changed too much to please him; nevertheless, there may be seen over the Church of Murello a Pieta with two little naked Angels by his hand, executed passing well. Finally, after having lived like a man of good judgment and one not unpractised in the ways of the world, he fell sick of a most violent fever at the age of sixty, in the ...
— Lives of the most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 06 (of 10) Fra Giocondo to Niccolo Soggi • Giorgio Vasari
... kind. All these told her somewhat of their own lives when she asked them; and some withal told of folk whom they had known or heard tell of. And well pleased was Birdalone to hear thereof, and learn more of the ways of the world, and quick-witted she was at the lesson, so that she needed not ...
— The Water of the Wondrous Isles • William Morris
... perfect spark from the flint and steel. There was in Paolo a subtle intelligence in feeling, a delicate appreciation of the other person. But the mind was unintelligent, he could not grasp a new order. Maria Fiori was much sharper and more adaptable to the ways of the world. Paolo had an almost glass-like quality, fine and clear and perfectly tempered; but he was also finished and brittle. Maria was much coarser, more vulgar, but also she was more human, more fertile, with crude potentiality. His passion was ...
— Twilight in Italy • D.H. Lawrence
... are a silly young thing, as ignorant of the ways of the world as an unfledged Java sparrow; but your heart is pure and true, and your affection is no adroitly set steel-trap, to spring unawares, and catch and cut me. From the day when you first came among us with your sweet ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... ways of South Harniss were not the ways of the world he had known. Certainly these people were "Rubes" and queer Rubes, too. Then he remembered that two of them were his grandparents and that his immediate future was, so to speak, in their hands. The thought was not entirely comforting or delightful. He was still ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... on a bench, or country people a starting home after market,—down rushes the Major to clink his glass against their glasses and cry,—Hola! Vive Somebody! or Vive Something! as if he was beside himself. And though I could not quite approve of the Major's doing it, still the ways of the world are the ways of the world varying according to the different parts of it, and dancing at all in the open Square with a lady that kept a barber's shop my opinion is that the Major was right to dance his best and to lead off with a power that I did not think was in him, though I was a ...
— Mrs. Lirriper's Legacy • Charles Dickens
... attractive time of year to the bird-lover,—the baby-days, when the labors and anxieties of the nest being over, proud and happy parents bring forward their tender younglings all unused to the ways of the world, and carry on their ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... Washington into the retirement of domestic life, we think it proper to notice the events which closed the great struggle between England and France for empire in America. In that struggle he had first become practised in arms, and schooled in the ways of the world; and its results will be found connected with the history of his ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... should be a more interesting object to all my acquaintances were I distractedly in love with him, I cannot say that I regret my comparative insignificance. Importance may sometimes be purchased too dearly. Kitty and Lydia take his defection much more to heart than I do. They are young in the ways of the world, and not yet open to the mortifying conviction that handsome young men must have something to live on as well ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... him to go to his home," she replied. "You must remember, my boy, that I was young and ignorant. I knew nothing of the ways of the world, nothing of men, but I loved him devotedly. He was my king, my life! When he had read the letter, he said he must leave the following morning, and urged me to go back to my home and wait until he could come ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking
... I hear? Dost thou, then, hesitate? Monarch, thou art well acquainted with the ways of the world, and knowest that ...
— Sakoontala or The Lost Ring - An Indian Drama • Kalidasa |
