"Tooth and nail" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... he did, absurd, rash, and foolish; and said he to himself, "What could be madder than putting on a helmet full of curds, and then persuading oneself that enchanters are softening one's skull; or what could be greater rashness and folly than wanting to fight lions tooth and nail?" ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... arithmetic enough to carry it through. It was sailing by dead reckoning to them, and they saw not clearly how to make their port so; therefore I suppose they still take life bravely, after their fashion, face to face, giving it tooth and nail, not having skill to split its massive columns with any fine entering wedge, and rout it in detail;—thinking to deal with it roughly, as one should handle a thistle. But they fight at an overwhelming disadvantage—living, ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... doubt of that. However, when Peter came to the years of discretion, Peter had sense enough in his noddle to discover, that "a rowing stane gathers no fog;" and, having got an inkling of the penny-pie manufacture when he was a wee smout, he yoked to the baking trade tooth and nail; and, in the course of years, thumped butter-bakes with his elbows to some purpose; so that, at the time of our colleaguing together, Peter was well to do in the world—had bought his own bounds, and built new ones—could lay down the blunt for his article, and take the measure of the ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... said to us. 'Done!' cried the army. 'Forward, march!' said the sergeants. My clothes were in rags, my shoes worn out, from trudging along those roads, which are very uncomfortable ones; but no matter! I said to myself, 'As it's the last of our earthquakings, I'll go into it, tooth and nail!' We were drawn up in line before the great ravine,—front seats, as 'twere. Signal given; and seven hundred pieces of artillery began a conversation that would bring the blood from your ears. Then—must do justice to one's enemies—the Russians let themselves be killed like Frenchmen; they wouldn't ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... lie 10 In this state-chamber, dying by degrees, Hours and long hours in the dead night, I ask "Do I live, am I dead?" Peace, peace seems all. Saint Praxed's ever was the church for peace; And so, about this tomb of mine. I fought With tooth and nail to save my niche, ye know: —Old Gandolf cozened me, despite my care; Shrewd was that snatch from out the corner South He graced his carrion with. God curse the same! Yet still my niche is not so cramped but thence 20 One sees the pulpit o' the ...
— Men and Women • Robert Browning
... Then fell, tooth and nail, on the victuals, as they Had been guests at Guildhall upon Lord Mayor's day, All scrambling and scuffling for what was before 'em, No care for precedence or common decorum. Few ate more hearty Than Madame Astarte, And Hecate,—considered ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... desired to examine young Launcelot. It was a long time before he found an opportunity; the squire always gave him the slip.—At length the parson catched him in bed of a morning, and, locking the door, to it they went tooth and nail. What passed betwixt them the Lord in heaven knows; but when the doctor came forth, he looked wild and haggard as if he had seen a ghost, his face as white as paper, and his lips trembling like an aspen-leaf. 'Parson,' said the knight, 'what is the ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... tooth and nail as the worst of all infidelity. It exposed Genesis and put Moses out of court. It destroyed all special creation, showed man's' kinship with other forms of life, reduced Adam and Eve to myths, and exploded the doctrine of the ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote
... are reduced to a state of complete barbarism. Hunting yields them hardly any game, fishing is almost equally unproductive of results; they are obliged to depend upon the storms which now and then fling some huge cetacean on their shores, and upon such salvage they fall tooth and nail, not even taking the trouble ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... not the sort of man to behold the sorrows of his client without emotion. In behalf of the junior members of the Scottish bar I will say this, that they invariably fight tooth and nail when a pretty girl is concerned, and I have frequently heard bursts of impassioned eloquence poured forth in defence of a pair of bright eyes or a piquant figure, in cases where an elderly or wizened dame would have run a strong chance of finding no Cicero by her side. Tom accordingly approached ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... the surf, the Mayflower was waiting for the oxen to drag her up high and dry. The Rector was still aboard, helping his men furl the sail. At times he would stop and look ashore, watching his wife fighting tooth and nail there, and calling out the figures which his brother was to set down. What a woman! Could a queen be prettier! And the poor fellow's chest heaved with pride and joy at the thought that Dolores owed all that glory to him, to ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... reptiles found the other in his vicinage he raised his head six feet above water and fell upon him tooth and nail—if he had nails. In their struggles these unpleasant neighbors made such waves that the ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... the hair-raising yells of Mills, who was plunging along madly in the wake, caused an astonishing burst of speed, and the Cinnamon thundered through the brush like a runaway locomotive on a down grade, with such lurches and rolls and plunges that Budd dropped his torch and hung on, tooth and nail, for dear life. ...
— Bears I Have Met—and Others • Allen Kelly
... you will see;" and Speug went home in a state of utter confusion, coming finally to the conclusion that the Count intended to introduce some French game, and in that case it would be his painful duty to oppose the Count tooth and nail, for everybody knew that French games were only for girls, and would bring endless disgrace upon Muirtown Seminary. During Sunday Nestie had turned the matter over in his mind, and being full of Scott's novels he was able on Monday to give the astonished school ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren |
