"Sharp-witted" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the sun had risen on new times altogether; the very winds seemed to blow more cheerfully; the sky above seemed to be bright with promise with better things to come than mere niggers had ever known before; it was as though the Golden Age itself had dawned. The sharp-witted little son of the slave-girl could heartily enter into his mother's joy, but he could not take in the meaning of the things that were happening as he has been able to understand them since. Such a child was naturally affected by the growing boldness ...
— From Slave to College President - Being the Life Story of Booker T. Washington • Godfrey Holden Pike
... inexperienced young girl, and decoyed her into an engagement for six years on terms shamefully low, for Giulia's modesty did not appreciate her own remarkable powers. Alone and without competent advisers, she fell an easy prey to the sharp-witted farmer of other people's genius. Among the operas which she sung in at this early period under Lanari's management were Bellini's "I Montecchi ed i Capuletti," which the composer had just written for her sister ...
— Great Singers, Second Series - Malibran To Titiens • George T. Ferris
... morning, and those in the south by Wednesday evening. Sometimes they were compelled to carry a wire over the top of a house, sometimes round it, through a back-yard; in short, every device and expedient was resorted to by these daring, sharp-witted men. Once Polhamus had his boots burned off in tramping through the burning ruins of a building after the wires. Once he and Mr. Crowley came near being clubbed to death by the police, who mistook them for rioters, so ingeniously and like them ...
— The Great Riots of New York 1712 to 1873 • J.T. Headley
... amongst the educated; and when I got to know them, and they me, this difference rapidly developed itself. Their amazement at me, my language, my rules, and ways, once subsided, I found some of these heavy-looking, gaping rustics wake up into sharp-witted girls enough. Many showed themselves obliging, and amiable too; and I discovered amongst them not a few examples of natural politeness, and innate self-respect, as well as of excellent capacity, that won both my goodwill ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... philosophically serene had Madeline become within a few days of Graham's departure, that she snubbed poor Mrs. Baker, when that good-natured and sharp-witted housekeeper said a word or two in praise of ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... claim them; stories of half-crazy old women, who had wandered about the world with reticules of discoloured papers clamorously asserting their rights and wrongs unheeded and unbelieved, until they encountered sharp-witted lawyers who took up their claims, and carried them triumphantly into the ownership ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... can hardly have been our gray car," commented Theydon, deeming it wise to prevent the sharp-witted taxi-driver ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy
... adventurer would have married the woman for her money and chanced the consequences. In the tussle between Perseus and the Gorgon the odds are all in favour of Perseus. Mercury and Minerva, the most sharp-witted of the gods, are helping him all the time—to say nothing of the fact that Perseus starts out by being a notoriously handsome fellow. So a handsome rogue can generally wheedle an elderly, ugly wife into opening her money-bags, and, if successful, leads the enviable ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... you have!" said Aiken. His tone was now one of respect, and he regarded me with marked interest. He was not a gentleman, but he was sharp-witted enough to recognize one in me, and my words and bearing had impressed him. Still his next ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... Secunda saw Maximus die, and then Secunda died. Epitynchanus saw Diotimus die, and then Epitynchanus died. Antoninus saw Faustina die, and then Antoninus died. Such is everything. Celer saw Hadrianus die, and then Celer died. And those sharp-witted men, either seers or men inflated with pride, where are they,—for instance the sharp-witted men, Charax and Demetrius the Platonist and Eudaemon, and any one else like them? All ephemeral, dead long ago. Some indeed have not been ...
— The Thoughts Of The Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus • Marcus Aurelius
... glad I got back. I know now that Texas ain't no place for my talent. It's overrun with sharp-witted Jews an' keen Yankees that know values down to a gnat's heel. But here in these mountains these yokels git scared clean out o' the'r senses when a dollar has to change hands. Do you know,' says he, 'that I'm out less'n two hundred this mornin', an' at a low ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... is not scarce four days old, Since I, and certain Dons, sharp-witted fellows, And of good rank, were with two Jesuits Grave profound scholars, in deep argument Of various propositions. At the last, Question was moved touching your marriage ...
— The Noble Spanish Soldier • Thomas Dekker
... everywhere for her purse and could not find it; she must have left it in the ticket office. Luckily I still had all my July pocket money and so I was able to pay the excess fare, and then for once in a way I was the sharp-witted one; I said we had travelled third and had only passed out through the second, so we had not to pay so much; and no one knew anything about it, there's no harm in that sort of cheating. Of course we really did go back third, although Hella ...
— A Young Girl's Diary • An Anonymous Young Girl
... of the City of London conceitedly imagine that no one can be sharp-witted outside the sound of Bow Bells—country people are stupid. My opinion is that clumsy Jack Duck, who took about half an hour to write his name, was equal to ...
— Amaryllis at the Fair • Richard Jefferies
... April Fool, after all, sharp-witted and wide awake as he had thought himself. His chagrin and disappointment were great; so great, that it took all the spirit out of him for a long time; and it is not presumed that he will attempt an "April Fool" trick in the present year, ...
— The Last Penny and Other Stories • T. S. Arthur
... mean trickery! The Esmeralda, after two days and one night at Zante, was charged 15l., for pilotage, when the captain piloted himself; for church, where there is no parson; and for harbour dues where there is no harbour. It is almost incredible that so sharp-witted a race can also be so short-sighted; so wise about pennies, ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... after the shafts of their implements came into collision accidentally, it appeared. He would indeed have been sharp-witted who could have supposed it intentional, and lynx-eyed to have seen that scrap of twisted paper passed from one to the other—the second transfer dexterously done as the first. All any one could have told was, that the two scavengers seemed sorry for what had occurred, made ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... political offenders disguised as Greeks, who do not wish their movements to be known;" said the sharp-witted boatman, jumping at a conclusion. "I'll undertake to serve you and them—not forgetting myself—and, I trust, that they will ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... cried Kendale. "She will not bother us until we've had time to formulate our plans. Ha, ha, ha! how easy it is for a sharp-witted fellow like myself to make ...
— Mischievous Maid Faynie • Laura Jean Libbey
... the court, which, not succeeding in weaning away the scions of the Legitimist nobility, greeted the foreign nobles cordially and sought to attach them to its standard in foresight of a European war. One thing was certain: Gratian had illimitable resources, and the sharp-witted, who had sharp tongues, did not hesitate to aver that he was one of those spoilt children of politics who are fed from State treasuries—not such a shallow-brain as he pretended. The new type of diplomatist was like him, the Morny's, not the effete Metternich's, gentlemen who settled ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... ago a sharp-witted scamp appeared in one of the European countries, and offered for sale a pill, which he declared to be a sure protection against earthquakes. Absurd as was the assertion, he sold large quantities of his nostrum, and grew rich on the proceeds. The credulity which enriched this man, is still ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... a certain country there once lived an old man who had three sons. Two of them had their wits about them, but the third was a fool. The old man died and his sons divided his property among themselves by lot. The sharp-witted ones got plenty of all sorts of good things, but nothing fell to the share of the Simpleton but one ox—and that such ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston
... booty he could, and then proceeded to arrange matters so that the capture of this ship should appear to be a legal transaction. The ship was manned by Moors and commanded by a Dutchman, and of course Kidd had no right to touch it, but the sharp-witted and business-like pirate selected one of the passengers and made him sign a paper declaring that he was a Frenchman, and that he commanded the ship. When this statement had been sworn to before witnesses, Kidd ...
— Buccaneers and Pirates of Our Coasts • Frank Richard Stockton
... make no great fuss when the same farce is acted to benefit us. Even I, who, it asked, scarce a month since, what Fudge meant, should have answered, the dear Public's critical judgment, begin to think sharp-witted Horace spoke sooth when he said that the Public ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... thousand pounds, and there was not a penny in the treasury. The difficulty was overcome by the issue of treasury-notes, an expedient which was not adopted in England till five years afterwards. Charles Montagu, the alleged inventor of exchequer bills doubtless owed his idea to the sharp-witted Bostonians. ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... most people, the word lunatic has from earliest childhood conjured up the vision of an incoherent, stupid, or demented being, with wildly streaming hair, raging in paroxysms of maniacal fury, or sunk in imbecile apathy; not, certainly, a sharp-witted individual capable of reasoning logically. But the briefest of visits to an ordinary asylum will make it plain to any observer that such extreme types form only a very small minority. The greater number, when drawn outside the small circle of their delusions, often reason with greater acumen ...
— Criminal Man - According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso • Gina Lombroso-Ferrero
... competence, and that admitted irrespectively of the reader's liking or disliking of the passage per se, or as part of a context. Why, in this same tragedy of Macbeth, is a drunken porter introduced between a murder and its discovery? Did Shakspere really intend him to be a sharp-witted man? These questions are pertinent and necessary. There is no room for disputing that this scene is purposely a comic scene: and, if this is certain, the style of the speech is appropriate to the scene, and of the scene, to the ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... banks of a certain river, where there was always good fishing, lived an old man and his three sons. The two eldest were sharp-witted, active young men, already married; the youngest was stupid and idle, and a bachelor. When the father was dying, he called his children to him and told them how he had left his property. The house was for ...
— Fairy Tales of the Slav Peasants and Herdsmen • Alexander Chodsko |
