"Ridiculous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... when he thought Giovanni was really jealous of him. The feeling of reverence and respectful admiration which he had long entertained for Corona was so far removed from love as to make Giovanni's wrath appear ridiculous. He would far sooner have expected a challenge from one of Faustina's brothers than from Corona's husband, but, since Sant' Ilario had determined to quarrel, there was no help for it, and he must give him all satisfaction as soon as possible. That Giovanni ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... caused them to completely forget their dignity, and they did things that made them utterly ridiculous in the ...
— Frank Merriwell's Chums • Burt L. Standish
... Robertson has assigned a place in his collection. Mr. Robertson, also, should take care when he publishes a poem to publish it correctly. Mr. Bret Harte's Dickens in Camp, for instance, is completely spoiled by two ridiculous misprints. In the first line 'dimpling' is substituted for 'drifting' to the entire ruin of rhyme and reason, and in the ninth verse 'the pensive glory that fills the Kentish hills' appears as 'the Persian glory . . .' with a large capital ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... supposed page, and thus giving rise to the series of scenes between Viola and Olivia. Out of this love of Olivia for Viola grows the absurd situation of Viola's being obliged to fight a duel, which is made still more ridiculous through the circumstance of her challenger being a fool. Out of Viola's resemblance to her brother and her disguise grows the absurd situation of Olivia's claiming her as a husband, and that of Sir Andrew taking for his unwilling ...
— Shakespeare Study Programs; The Comedies • Charlotte Porter and Helen A. Clarke
... have a great deal too much for your boys to do, or you would not send your niece about with the things. But if you will take my advice, Mr Elsworthy," said Miss Dora, "you will take care of that poor little thing: she will be getting ridiculous notions into her head;" and aunt Dora went out of the shop with great solemnity, quite unaware that she had done more to put ridiculous notions into Rosa's head than could have got there by means of a dozen darkling walks by the side of the majestic Curate, who never ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... indispensable for a girl on such an occasion. But, fortunately for her, she felt her eyes growing misty, she saw nothing clearly, her pulse beat a hundred to the minute, and the blood throbbed at her heart. She could not assume that pose, which would have made her ridiculous, and she moved on almost fainting from excitement and trying with all her might to conceal it. And this was the very attitude that became her best. Before and behind them other visitors were entering, also ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... and reinforced my own. We called to mind other hat-trees in houses where we had visited, and one and all they were alike perverse, ridiculous, ill-adapted for their mission in life. We thought of various substitutes for the hat-tree, such as a pole with pegs in it, which tips over when the preponderance of weight is hung on one side; the cluster of pegs on ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton
... of the loyalty of a clanswoman, the hero-worship of a maiden aunt, and the idolatry due to a god. No matter what he had asked of her, ridiculous or tragic, she would have done it and joyed to do it. Her passion, for it was nothing less, entirely filled her. It was a rich physical pleasure to make his bed or light his lamp for him when he was absent, to pull off his wet boots or wait on him at dinner ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the man with indignation. "What under heaven are you talkin' about, Celestina? Delight marry? Not she! She's too young. Besides, she's well enough content with Abbie an' the three captains an' me. Marry? Delight marry! Ridiculous!" ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... ruffling gallant Cynthia required, he swore that a ruffling gallant should she find him; nor had he wit enough to see that his ribbons, his fopperies, and his capers served but to make him ridiculous in her eyes. He did indeed perceive, however, that in spite of this wondrous transformation, he made no progress in ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... Bastile, M. de Baisemeaux, a fact that Baisemeaux unwittingly reveals to D'Artagnan while inquiring of him as to Aramis's whereabouts. This further arouses the suspicions of the musketeer, who was made to look ridiculous by Aramis. He had ridden overnight at an insane pace, but arrived a few minutes after Fouquet had already presented Belle-Isle to the king. Aramis learns from the governor the location of a mysterious prisoner, who bears a remarkable resemblance to Louis XIV—in ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... artistic couplet. "The Common Soldiers", by John W. Frazer, is a poem of real merit; whilst "Little Boy Blue", by W. Hume, is likewise effective. Mr. Hume's pathetic touch is fervent and in no manner betrays that weakness bordering on the ridiculous, to which less skillful flights of pathos are prone. "The Two Springs" is a pleasant moral sermon in verse by Margaret Ellen Cooper. Concluding the issue is "The Under Dog in the Fight", a vigorous ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... ought from his earliest years to have been thrown into the stream of life, and he had been kept instead in artificial seclusion. And now the magic circle was broken, but he continued to remain within it, prisoned and pent up within himself. It was ridiculous at his age to put on a student's dress, but he was not afraid of ridicule; his Spartan education had at least the good effect of developing in him a contempt for the opinion of others, and he put on, without embarrassment, ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... to—that he must tell her plainly he loved her. The thing was only right, though of course ridiculous in the eyes of worldly people, said the far from unworldly poet. True, she was the daughter of an earl, and he the son of a farmer; and those who called the land their own looked down upon those who tilled it! But a banker, or a brewer, or the son of a contractor ...
— Home Again • George MacDonald
... ugly looking weapon. 'Feel of that, now, Mr Trent—it's loaded, by the way. Now this Little Arthur—Marlowe bought it just before we came over this year to please the old man. Manderson said it was ridiculous for a man to be without a pistol in the twentieth century. So he went out and bought what they offered him, I guess—never consulted me. Not but what it's a good gun,' Mr Bunner conceded, squinting along the sights. 'Marlowe was poor with it ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley
... food on our plates was gone, we had another Guinness, and I went back to his studio, a beautiful room with oak panelling and electric light, which he rented from a travelling pal for the ridiculous sum of three shillings a week. It stood next to the reconstructed Crosby Hall, and looked out on a wide prospect of sloping roofs, peppered ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... for rifles, uniforms and the necessary military wagons, and when another declared that his two regiments of cavalry and six batteries were ready to leave for the front as soon as horses, guns, ammunition-carts and harness could be procured, it showed with horrible distinctness how utterly ridiculous our methods ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff
... principle by the English law advisers to whom the Privy Council referred it. But, as if it had been designed to exemplify in the strongest possible manner the national propensity for making blunders, it contained one clause which rendered it not only impracticable but ridiculous. The clause provided that no member should take his seat or vote till his qualification had been proved before the Speaker in a full house. But the Speaker could not be chosen till the members had established their right of voting, so that the whole was brought to a dead-lock, and ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... which to the middle of the head are stretched two wide straps of calico, joined together at the ends with a pin. Most of the youths of Morlaix wear the big, flapping hat, but very often a black cloth cap is also seen. This is ridiculous rather than picturesque, for so long is it that with almost every movement it tips over the wearer's nose. The tunic accompanying either hat or cap is of blue flannel, and over it is worn a black waistcoat. The porters of the market-places wear a sort of smock. The young ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... too busy counting over to her fellow-passengers all the years Miss Mavis had been engaged. In the blank of our common detachment things that were nobody's business very soon became everybody's, and this was just one of those facts that are propagated with mysterious and ridiculous speed. The whisper that carries them is very small, in the great scale of things, of air and space and progress, but it's also very safe, for there's no compression, no sounding-board, to make speakers responsible. And then repetition at sea is somehow ...
— The Patagonia • Henry James
... over a mess of a gate," said Mrs. Iden, "making yourself ridiculous: I believe that carpenter is just taking advantage of you. Why can't you go into town and see your father?—it would be a hundred pounds in your pocket"—as it would have been, no doubt. If only Mrs. Iden had gone about her lecture ...
— Amaryllis at the Fair • Richard Jefferies
... sat and smoked placidly, with occasional curious glances divided between his two visitors. An idle and ridiculous idea, which occurred to him in connection with them, was dismissed at once as too preposterous for a sensible ...
— At Sunwich Port, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... cold, and tried to look cool and failed, signally, and then, feeling how very awkward their position was, made a desperate effort to be commonplace, and so began to talk with intense solicitude about "the weather!" Will soon perceived, however, that in the circumstances this was utterly ridiculous, so he made another effort and asked about Flora's father and mother, and then, happy thought, he suddenly remembered Buckawanga, and began to descant upon him, after which he naturally slid into ships and voyaging, and so came abruptly to ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains - Wandering Will in the Land of the Redskin • R.M. Ballantyne
... spoil the picture, Ruth knew. She was worried because of this, for she did not want to make her mates look ridiculous. Never had Ruth Fielding been so uncertain about any question since she had been old enough to decide ...
— Ruth Fielding and the Gypsies - The Missing Pearl Necklace • Alice B. Emerson
... Cibber's faults certainly did not include dullness. A new edition contained a prefatory discourse, probably the work of Warburton, entitled "Ricardus Aristarchus, or the Hero of the Poem," in which Cibber is made to look ridiculous from his own Apology. Cibber replied in 1744 with Another Occasional Letter ..., and altogether he had the best of the argument. When he was seventy-four years old he made his last appearance on the stage as Pandulph in his own Papal Tyranny ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... how you are fixed—oh, I know! You can't kill him; you don't love her enough for that; and besides, you know you can't prove anything serious against her. Her married women friends go about with men, and for you to object would only make you ridiculous. They sneer at women like me, I know; but Lord, they can't criticize me! I am myself, that's all. I can be a friend, and I can be an enemy. I want to be your ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... on the condition of things amid which they lived. Hence a calmness and dignity of tone and language, very different from the petulant brilliancy of Voltaire, who is never so happy as when he can make the past look mean and ridiculous, merely because it was the parent of the odious present. But, excellent as were the Scotch historians—Hume, in style nearly perfect; Robertson, admirable for gravity and shrewd sense—they yet left much to be desired. Hume had despatched his five quartos, ...
— Gibbon • James Cotter Morison
... How ridiculous are American peace proposals concerning the Audacious War of 1914 may be judged from this announcement which I am able ...
— The Audacious War • Clarence W. Barron
... ridiculous; how empty is all mere human philosophy! This same philosopher who speaks so eloquently again and again of the contempt of riches, was all his life immersed in them; and at his death left thousands behind him. Does it not seem to you that, this being his own case, ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... wouldn't get here before we did and get her away, Eleanor. That was why I had to make him think we swallowed that ridiculous story of his, too. Well, Dolly, will you forgive me now for not telling you before? Wasn't the ...
— The Camp Fire Girls on the Farm - Or, Bessie King's New Chum • Jane L. Stewart
... not come, had to be made in Fairbanks; the ice-axes sent were ridiculous gold-painted toys with detachable heads and broomstick handles—more like dwarf halberds than ice-axes; and at least two workmanlike axes were indispensable. So the head of an axe was sawn to the pattern of the writer's out of a piece of tool steel and a substantial ...
— The Ascent of Denali (Mount McKinley) - A Narrative of the First Complete Ascent of the Highest - Peak in North America • Hudson Stuck
... treat with a glass of sherbet, or capillaire. In a word, I know not a more insignificant set of mortals than the noblesse of Boulogne; helpless in themselves, and useless to the community; without dignity, sense, or sentiment; contemptible from pride. and ridiculous from vanity. They pretend to be jealous of their rank, and will entertain no correspondence with the merchants, whom they term plebeians. They likewise keep at a great distance from strangers, on pretence of a delicacy in the article ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... know it won't be something else just as ridiculous to-morrow? And that idiot of a Minervy; what do you suppose she told me when I insisted on her staying to wash up things? She says, last whatever you call it, her husband wanted to act hard-headed and staid out after dark, and when he was crossing the bayou, the spirits ...
— At Fault • Kate Chopin
... hollows of the earth; but as to great-great-grandmothers, they would have mocked Curdie all the rest of his life for the absurdity of not being absolutely certain that the solemn belief of his father and mother was nothing but ridiculous nonsense. Why, to them the very word 'great-great-grandmother' would have been a week's laughter! I am not sure that they were able quite to believe there were such persons as great-great-grandmothers; they had never seen ...
— The Princess and the Curdie • George MacDonald
... ridiculous talk about that imaginary horse, a formal request was made for the daughter's hand, and finally the bride herself appeared, solemnly led ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... spoke of the affairs of "The Dustheap," a little Club of which we were both members. JESSAMY opined it was going to the dogs. "Just look," he said, "at the men they've got on the Committee; mere nobodies. I've always wondered why you are not on it. Men like you and me wouldn't make the ridiculous mistakes the present lot are constantly making. Fancy their electing MUMPLEY, a regular outsider, without enough manners for a school-boy. I really don't care about being in the same room with him." At this very moment, by one of those curious ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Volume 101, October 31, 1891 • Various
... gray panels,—defaced by age, it is true, but they possess the true provincial characteristics that go well with old family silver, precious china, and our simple habits. The provinces are provinces; they are only ridiculous when they mimic Paris. I prefer this old salon of my husband's forefathers, with its heavy curtains of green and white damask, the Louis XV. mantelpiece, the twisted pier-glasses, the old mirrors with their beaded mouldings, and the venerable card tables. Yes, I prefer my old Sevres vases in royal ...
— Pierrette • Honore de Balzac
... habitual self-command, he would have treated this delicacy as ridiculous prudery; but he was ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... natural lot of the lover. But that he should have to be jealous of a Walter Hine—there was the sting. He asked the old question over and over again, the old futile question which the unrewarded suitor puts to himself with amazement and a despair at the ridiculous eccentricities of human nature. "What in the world can she see in the fellow?" However, he did not lose heart. It was not in his nature to let go once he had clearly set his desires upon a particular goal. Sooner or later, people and things would adjust themselves to their ...
— Running Water • A. E. W. Mason
... striking the fellow—he hoped he had left a mark on him. But, after all, was that the best way? Here was he, Philip Sterling, calling himself a gentleman, in a brawl with a vulgar conductor, about a woman he had never seen before. Why should he have put himself in such a ridiculous position? Wasn't it enough to have offered the lady his seat, to have rescued her from an accident, perhaps from death? Suppose he had simply said to the conductor, "Sir, your conduct is brutal, I shall report you." The ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... by a special act. He did not wish to take advantage of this favor, and seemed resolved to remain in Belgium until the 2d of June, 1863, the time when he was to acquire the privilege of prescription, when an absurd and ridiculous riot, excited in Brussels by an article published by him on federation and unity in Italy, induced him to hasten his return to France. Stones were thrown against the house in which he lived, in the Faubourg d'Ixelles. After having ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... has a right to the fruits of his labor, or that first occupation gives a right to the soil? Then, shall the man who is too weak to work be refused a right to the ownership of a coat? Or must the discoverer of a continent prove a real occupancy, by performing the ridiculous task of the abnormal center of the mythical mathematical infinite circle, by being everywhere at the ...
— A Handbook of Ethical Theory • George Stuart Fullerton
... their character, else the standers-by may be disappointed and be apt to think them only like the rest of mortals. I have known two men of wit industriously brought together, in order to entertain the company, where they have made a very ridiculous figure, and provided all the mirth ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock
... Nichols himself was, and made an astonishing treaty with them, in which an alliance, offensive and defensive, between Great Britain and the Seminoles, was agreed upon. We had made peace with Great Britain a few months before, and yet this ridiculous Irish colonel signed a treaty binding Great Britain to fight us whenever the Seminoles in the Spanish territory of Florida should see fit to make a war! If this extraordinary performance had been all, it would not have mattered ...
— Strange Stories from History for Young People • George Cary Eggleston
... Martin afterwards accused me to the Chilian Government of aiming at the possession of the fortress of Callao, for the purpose of setting at defiance the Government of Peru! This was ridiculous; though, had it been my object, it would have been perfectly consistent with my duty to Chili, from which State the Protector of Peru had cast off his allegiance. My object was simply to obtain means to subsist the squadron; though, had I obtained possession of the forts, I would most certainly have ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 1 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... case as he supposes, is it not clear, whether one imagines oneself the actor or the unwilling auditor, that while such an exhibition of joy might perhaps pass, yet a similar incompetent attempt to express any of the last-named emotions would be only ridiculous? But between this single worshipper and the congregation the incompetence seems to me only a question of degree; while in the far more considerable respect of the sincerity of the feeling in the hearts of those expressing it, Law's ...
— A Practical Discourse on Some Principles of Hymn-Singing • Robert Bridges
... own criticism with it. The worship of the constitution amounts, of course, to saying that men exist for the sake of the constitution. The person who holds fast to that idea is forever incapable of understanding either men or constitutions. It is a prime way of making laws ridiculous; if you want to cultivate lese-majeste in Germany get the Kaiser to proclaim his divine origin; if you want to promote disrespect of the ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann
... would not only answer his opponent satisfactorily, to all who were interested in the controversy, but convert him to his opinions, it need not be added he failed, so completely, and at the same time displayed such a "ridiculous vanity," as to deprive him of that influence which he had so overrated in himself. Horsley's letters seem particularly to have attracted Coleridge's attention, and to have caused him to make one of his concise, ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman
... went on, "is having to watch her making herself ridiculous. Yet what am I to do? If I explain things to her she will be miserable and ashamed of herself; added to which her frankness—perhaps her greatest charm—will be murdered. The trouble runs through everything. She won't take my advice ...
— The Angel and the Author - and Others • Jerome K. Jerome
... Liberty will neither be more majestic nor more glorious in this garb, but the very signs with which you adorn her will serve as a pretext for dissension amongst her children. A civil war, commencing in sarcasm and ending in bloodshed, may be caused by a ridiculous manifestation. I leave you to meditate on ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... was associated more with wire-service teletypes than computers (e.g., FS, GS, RS, US, EM, SUB, ETX, and esp. EOT). It is worth remembering that ASR-33s were big, noisy mechanical beasts with a lot of clattering parts; the notion that one might explode was nowhere near as ridiculous as it might seem to someone sitting in front of a ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... with its flashing eyes and its humorous mouth. He ought to have been drinking out of a horn, not a wine glass that his well-shaped hand could have crushed by a careless pressure. In a winged helmet and a coat of mail he would have looked so much more fitly dressed than in that soft felt hat and ridiculous blue tie. ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome
... and again at Bath. We are always being ridiculous, and he is always rescuing us. Aunt Celia never really sees him, and thus never recognizes him when he appears again, always as the flower of chivalry and guardian of ladies in distress. I will never again travel abroad ...
— A Cathedral Courtship • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... Keane discovers intelligence in an African he immediately discovers that its possessor is no "Negro." The articles in the latest edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica are of some value, except the ridiculous article on the "Negro" by T.A. Joyce. Frobenius' newly published Voice of Africa is broad-minded and informing, and Brown's Story of Africa and its Explorers brings together much material in readable form. The compendiums by Keltie and White, and ...
— The Negro • W.E.B. Du Bois
... best yelling of the evening, however, was done by the Sophomores, who nearly raised the roof with their snappy and well-led cheers. Their serious and well performed stunt of forming and singing, contrasted with the ridiculous showing of the Juniors made on tricycles. After the stunts, the game began and certainly proved to be a close one. Although the Juniors were behind during a good part of the game, they finally won by a score of 11-8. The tournament closed the ...
— The 1926 Tatler • Various
... was not! It was too ridiculous. It was not as if all heaven had opened before his eyes. Of course not!" he ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... conceivable. The mere raising of one's eyes was sufficient to make a man dash away frightened. With the exception of the chief, who pretended to be unafraid, notwithstanding that he was trembling with fear, they one and all showed ridiculous nervousness when I approached them to examine the ornaments they wore round their necks, such as the charm-boxes that dangled prominently on their chests. The larger of these charm-boxes contained an image of Buddha, the others were mere empty ...
— An Explorer's Adventures in Tibet • A. Henry Savage Landor
... you always were the sweetest boy in the world and I was only the garbage-man's daughter," she whispered. "There's a ridiculous song about the garbage-man's daughter. I heard it ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... or nine miles an hour. Adverting to a project for forming a railway to Woolwich, by which passengers were to be drawn by locomotive engines, moving with twice the velocity of ordinary coaches, the reviewer observed:—"What can be more palpably absurd and ridiculous than the prospect held out of locomotives travelling twice as fast as stagecoaches! We would as soon expect the people of Woolwich to suffer themselves to be fired off upon one of Congreve's ricochet rockets, ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... his youngest daughter in amazement. "How very ridiculous," he said. "Ahem! You do not know what ...
— The Girl from Sunset Ranch - Alone in a Great City • Amy Bell Marlowe
... air of emphasis and force peculiarly appropriate. The author begins: "Thus have I written a new record—a new prophecy of a city central to a continent of resources;" and so he goes on for half a page of ridiculous bombast until he finishes the climax of epithets by calling this "the ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 5, May, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... ought to deviate from the paths of duty in order to procure the applause or to avoid the reproaches of men, and we allow that this is a rule too little attended to in practice. We grant that the love of praise is in some instances a ridiculous, and in others a mischievous passion; that to it we owe the breed of coquettes and coxcombs, and, a more serious evil, the noxious race of heroes and conquerors. We too are ready, when it appears in the shape of vanity, ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... been tolerably successful in persuading themselves of the innocence of their calling; and what remained of doubt in their mind was smothered, and, so to speak, laboriously forgotten. Some of them laughed at my arguments, as a ridiculous piece of missionary quixotism. Others, and particularly our captain, repelled them with the boldness of a man that knows he has got the strongest side. But this sentiment of ease and self-satisfaction did not long remain. They had been used to arguments ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... he exclaimed, "what piece of foolery do you think my worthy father has concocted now? On my honour, I believe that he is mad, and only fear that he has transmitted a part of his madness to me. Think of everything that is ridiculous, Wilton, that you can conceive; let your mind run free over every absurd combination that it is possible to fancy; think of all that is stupid or mad-like in times present or past, and then tell me what it is that my father ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... woman that Mrs. Fargus—her spectacles, her short hair, and that dreadful cap which she wore at the tennis party! It was impossible not to feel sorry for her, she did look so ridiculous. I wonder her husband allows her to make such a guy of herself. What a curious little man, his great cough and that foolish shouting manner; a good-natured, empty-headed little fellow. They are a funny couple! Harold knew her husband at Oxford; they were at ...
— Celibates • George Moore
... family have lived in this tiny house?" Tamara asked. "Really, people in olden times seem to have been able to double up anywhere. Pray look at this bedroom and this ridiculous bed!" ...
— His Hour • Elinor Glyn
... Professor Pinches is certain that Nisroch is Ashur, but considers that the "ni" was attached to "Ashur" (Ashuraku or Ashurachu), as it was to "Marad" (Merodach) to give the reading Ni-Marad Nimrod. The names of heathen deities were thus made "unrecognizable, and in all probability ridiculous as well.... Pious and orthodox lips could pronounce them without fear of defilement."[384] At the same time the "Nisr" theory is probable: it may represent another phase of this process. The names of heathen gods were ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie
... regretful good-bye to Emma before the latter went to her classes. "How I wish you were going with me, Emma," she had sighed. Emma's eyes had grown wistful for an instant, then she had launched forth into a multitude of pompous and wholly ridiculous reasons why her presence was needed at Harlowe House that made Grace laugh, and, for the time, banished the shadow ...
— Grace Harlowe's Return to Overton Campus • Jessie Graham Flower
... the path of the latter after it diverges, and to show her floundering in the bog at the end of it. Truth is quite beyond the reach of satire. There is so brave a simplicity in her, that she can no more be made ridiculous than an oak or a pine. The danger of the satirist is, that continual use may deaden his sensibility to the force of language. He becomes more and more liable to strike harder than he knows or intends. He may be careful to put on ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... the watches. It would hardly be the thing for me, as skipper, to take a watch, and yet that would be the most satisfactory way of arranging it. I could take the gunner and you the boatswain. In fact, I think it would be ridiculous to work ...
— At Aboukir and Acre - A Story of Napoleon's Invasion of Egypt • George Alfred Henty
... up her hands as fast as a footpad would an old lady in a dark lane. I would say that ten high explosive shells in Quebec and about twenty in Montreal would do the trick. That followed by the despatch of two or three regiments to Ottawa would settle the matter. The whole thing would be too ridiculous for words. The United States would mind their own business because the Monroe doctrine would avail but little without ...
— On the Fringe of the Great Fight • George G. Nasmith
... real and the other a fancied danger, will be for awhile equally exposed to the inevitable consequences of cowardice, contemptuous censure, and ludicrous representation; and the true state of both cases must be known, before it can be decided whose terrour is rational, and whose is ridiculous; who is to be pitied, and who to be despised. Both are for awhile equally exposed to laughter, but both ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... very kind," I said, while all the time I thought, "What on earth are you at?" The idea of her being jealous of my affection for Mrs. Middleton struck me as perfectly ridiculous, and the very fact of being requested to speak openly, effectually inclined me to shut myself up, in an additional amount of reserve. I tried, however, to be amiable and warm; and after a little more conversation, Mrs. Brandon left me, to go ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... a doctor to give himself up to such an investigation? On your part it is quite natural; on mine it would be unheard of and ridiculous; add that it would be dangerous. You must conciliate Madame Dammauville, and this would be truly a stupidity that would give her a pretext for thinking that you are trying to find out whether she is, or is not, in ...
— Conscience, Complete • Hector Malot
... coming up to her during the afternoon, "do you see that ridiculous imitation of my dress that Nancy Parker has on? I suppose she wanted to be dressed just like me; but I'm glad I wore a different one to-day." Yet, though Stella professed some annoyance, she was secretly a little flattered at Nancy's thus recognising her ...
— Lucy Raymond - Or, The Children's Watchword • Agnes Maule Machar
... the ridiculous belief that it was really a bear you encountered?" inquired Glenn, ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... Dr. Johnson "that nothing can supply the want of prudence, and that negligence and irregularity, long continued, will render knowledge useless, wit ridiculous, and genius contemptible." This sententious apothegm is thrown out in contemplating the life of Savage, one of the English poets who united some of the highest requisites of genius with the lowest personal habits. ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... of a Young Man. It was followed by Spring Days; he must have died in the last pages of that story, for we find no trace of him in Esther Waters! And my thoughts, dropping away from the books he had written, began to take pleasure in the ridiculous appearance that the author of A Drama in Muslin presented in the mirrors of Dublin Castle as he tripped down the staircases in parly morning. And a smile played round my lips as I recalled his lank ...
— Muslin • George Moore
... slimy but harmless toad or a stinging fly? It seemed ridiculous, contemptible and pitiable to think of hate in connection with the melancholy figure of this discomfited intriguer, this ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... faces of those who were not conferring together were pale and perturbed. They were not alarmed by the fact that Moscow had been abandoned by its inhabitants (grave as that fact seemed), but by the question how to tell the Emperor—without putting him in the terrible position of appearing ridiculous—that he had been awaiting the boyars so long in vain: that there were drunken mobs left in Moscow but no one else. Some said that a deputation of some sort must be scraped together, others disputed that opinion and maintained that ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... even to himself; it was ridiculous. He was not lonesome, he was just a little "blue," that was all. It was the weather; he might have caught a slight cold, perhaps his breakfast had not agreed with him. He tried to remember what that breakfast had been. It had been eaten in a hurry, ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... these books Mr. Baum lived with his characters. They have every element of the drama of life as it begins within the lives of children. The two stories are a mixture of the sublime and the ridiculous; the foibles and fancies of childhood, interspersed with ...
— A Woman for Mayor - A Novel of To-day • Helen M. Winslow
... friend Fitzgibbon (for that clear-headed statesman frankly imputed original sin to the conquerors of Ireland, as well as to the conquered), I would only say: "Use your common sense." These panics over the vagaries and excesses of an Irish Parliament, always groundless, are beginning to look highly ridiculous. In 1893, when the last Home Rule Bill was being discussed, a Franco-Irish alliance was the fear. Now it is the other way, and the Spectator has been writing solemn articles to warn its readers that Mr. Dillon, in a speech on foreign ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers
... 1852 chapter so-and-so gentlemen of the jury commonly known as the Maine Liquor Law which has created great feeling throughout this Commonwealth some very good men were in favor of it and some very good men were against it read literally part of it would be ridiculous and you may take your seats if you please gentlemen of the jury I shall be occupied some time in my charge and I do not care to keep you standing and some of it would be absurd and some of it reads very ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... "No," she said; "but I didn't know anybody was here, of course. Our PARTY"—she emphasized the word, and accompanied it with a look toward the further extremity of the plateau, to show she was not alone—"our party climbed this ridge, and put up this pole as a sign to show they did it." The ridiculous self-complacency of this record in the face of a man who was evidently a dweller on the mountain apparently struck her for the first time. "We didn't know," she stammered, looking at the shaft from ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... too, will draw anything, from a butcher at work on a dead sheep, up to the courts of Heaven. 'A Lamb for Supper' is the name of one of his designs, 'Their Glorious Entry' of another. He has the same disregard for the ridiculous, and enjoys somewhat of the same privilege of style, so that we are pleased even when we laugh the most. He is literal to the verge of folly. If dust is to be raised from the unswept parlour, you may be sure it will 'fly abundantly' in the picture. If Faithful is to lie 'as dead' before Moses, ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the struggles, and the sufferings?" The soul's climacteric, if you would, from which a mortal came forth dulled to resignation; or greedy for the few physical pleasures left him; or prone to that tragic clinging to youth's skirts, which made the later years of many women and not a few men ridiculous. In each case the motive power was the same: the haunting fear that one had squeezed life dry; worse still, that it had ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... wood, vessels and men, all, breathe forth a furious and passionate hymn to the god of Traffic. But the voices of the men, scarcely distinguishable, appear feeble and ridiculous, as do also the men, in the midst of all this tumult. Covered with grimy rags, bent under their burdens, they move through clouds of dust in the hot and noisy atmosphere, dwarfed to insignificance beside the colossal iron structures, mountains of merchandise, ...
— Twenty-six and One and Other Stories • Maksim Gorky
... in this last ridiculous threat had found a vital mark. "After all, maybe those awful stories Joe Harper ...
— The Rustlers of Pecos County • Zane Grey
... liking. It may be he did not dare take the risk in a city so full of musical attractions of every description. Certainly he did not like the French, though his reception from the artists and literati was of the most friendly sort. He was disgusted "with the ridiculous vanity of the Parisians." He writes: "When one or other of their musicians plays anything, they say, 'Well! can you boast of that in Germany?' Or when they introduce to you one of their distinguished ...
— Great Violinists And Pianists • George T. Ferris
... Collins suddenly felt ridiculous. What was he accusing the man of? Mason had a right to publish on anything he wanted to, still a muddled series of half facts, incidents and suspicions chased through ...
— Security • Ernest M. Kenyon
... valuable estate; they had then seized part of his money to pay their debts; and at last they drained his stores so dry that he had to sell them his watch, bureau, horse and saddle, to fly to France, and to leave his old mother to die of starvation in England. For a while this ridiculous story was believed; and the Brethren's creditors, in a state of panic, pressed hard for their money. The little Church of the Brethren was now on the brink of ruin. At one moment Zinzendorf himself expected to be thrown into prison, ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... to many people, the most vulgar Irish bull would appear more laughable merely from its being Irish,—therefore we cannot make the propensity to laughter in one man the criterion of what is ridiculous in another; though we have a precedent for this mode of judging in the laws of England, which are allowed to be the perfection of human reason. If a man swear that his neighbour has put him in bodily fear, he may have the cause ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... speech. Divergences in speech are fruitful in every kind of hostility. It was a Scottish captain of the merchant marine who expressed a dislike for the French, and when called on for his reasons, replied that as a people they are ridiculous, for they ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh
... pleases; and accordingly in the precedent part of this discourse, I have followed this method of expression; it is however certain, that in common discourse we readily affirm, that many arguments from causation exceed probability, and may be received as a superior kind of evidence. One would appear ridiculous, who would say, that it is only probable the sun will rise to-morrow, or that all men must dye; though it is plain we have no further assurance of these facts, than what experience affords us. For this reason, it would perhaps be more convenient, ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... your ridiculous suspicions: but you are my cousin, and I forgive you this once." She looked at him with so sunny a smile, and so clear and open-hearted a countenance, that it was impossible to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... The armchair was solid. I did not venture to get into the bed. However, time was flying; and I ended by coming to the conclusion that I was ridiculous. If they were spying on me, as I supposed, they must, while waiting for the success of the joke they had been preparing for me, have been laughing enormously at my terror. So I made up my mind to go to ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... was just the trouble. Of what could I accuse him? Of murdering himself or of stealing Mme. de Nole's dog? The commissary would hardly listen to such a tale . . . and it would make me seem ridiculous. . . . ...
— Castles in the Air • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... frightened away the baboons who were tormenting us. Well, we came out of the cave and sat down under the rock, so that the Hottentot could not see us, and we had a sort of council of war. Romer was for going back and giving ourselves up again; for he said it was ridiculous to be wandering about without any arms to defend ourselves against wild beasts, and that we might fall in with something worse than the baboons very soon; and he was right. It would have been the wisest thing ...
— Masterman Ready • Captain Marryat
... said earnestly, knowing how fond O'Connor was of practical jokes, and dreading that he and the lieutenant would be putting him in some ridiculous position or other. "You will never cure me if you set about it. I shall get over it in time; but it's the sort of thing that becomes ten times worse if you attempt ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty
... down, you might hurt your head," she greeted him. Ridiculous remarks were popular with the sixth grade right now and she was trying out one ...
— Jerry's Charge Account • Hazel Hutchins Wilson
... while the slow isicle hangs At the stifle thatch, and Winter's frosty pangs Benumme the year, blithe as of old let us Mid noise and war, of peace and mirth discusse. This portion thou wert born for. Why should we Vex at the time's ridiculous miserie? An age that thus hath fooled itself, and will, Spite of thy teeth and mine, persist so still. Let's sit then at this fire; and, while wee steal A revell in the Town, let others seal, Purchase, and cheat, and who can let them pay, Till those black deeds ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... sight. If sometimes they came with a desirable animal, the price was far beyond his modest figure; but generally they seemed to think that he did not want a desirable animal. In most cases, the pony-horse pronounced sentence upon himself by some gross and ridiculous blemish; but sometimes my friend failed to hit upon any tenable excuse for refusing him. In such an event, he would say, with an air of easy and candid comradery, "Well, now, what's the matter with him?" And then the dealer, passing his ...
— Buying a Horse • William Dean Howells
... of those evils and the enjoyments of the lusts continually press against the outward worship and piety; and in order that the evils may come out of their confinement and burst forth, the wicked ponder the miracle, finally call it ridiculous and a ruse or a natural phenomenon, and so return to their evils. One who returns to his evils after having worshiped profanes the truths and goods of worship, and the lot of profaners after death is the worst of all fates. They are meant ...
— Angelic Wisdom about Divine Providence • Emanuel Swedenborg
... roads in the direction of Brusselton, nine miles from Darlington, to see the beginning of this strange experiment. Some were interested, most were inclined to laugh, and many had come with the secret hope of seeing this 'ridiculous engine' blown into a ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... shown. If "antiquity" permitted Eusebius, Origen, Tertullian, Irenaeus, to argue for the reception of this book into the canon and the rejection of that, upon rational grounds, "antiquity" admitted the whole principle of modern criticism. If Irenaeus produces ridiculous reasons for limiting the Gospels to four, it was open to any one else to produce good reasons (if he had them) for cutting them down to three, or increasing them to five. If the Eastern branch of the Church had a right to reject the Apocalypse ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... that they are charitable, but themselves."—Fuller cor. "Payment was at length made, but no reason was assigned for so long a postponement of it."—Murray et al. cor. "Which will bear to be brought into comparison with any composition of the kind."—Dr. Blair cor. "To render vice ridiculous, is to do real service to the world."—Id. "It is a direct copying from nature, a plain rehearsal of what passed, or was supposed to pass, in conversation."—Id. "Propriety of pronunciation consists in giving to every word that sound which the ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... largely a case of special aptitude, of a peculiar irrelevant vein of faculty running through my mind. It is one of those things men seem to have by chance, that has little or nothing to do with their general merit, and which it is ridiculous to be either conceited or modest about. I did get through a very big mass of work in those years, working for a time with a concentrated fierceness that left little of such energy or capacity as I possess unused. ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... Nay, the very villages have their specialities: one deifies the right shoulder, and another across the river the left; one a half skull, another an earthenware bowl or platter. Come, my fine fellow, is it not all ridiculous? ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... the earth who have called themselves the confidants of God; and, erecting themselves into teachers of the people, have opened the ways of falsehood and iniquity; they have ascribed merit to practices indifferent or ridiculous; they have supposed a virtue, in certain postures, in pronouncing certain words, articulating certain names; they have transformed into a crime the eating of certain meats, the drinking of certain liquors, on one day rather than another. The Jew would rather ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney
... likes to have all the honour of killing them himself, and he does not want any vet. about his place, propounding advanced theories which he does not understand. Added to this, it appears that when the disease first made its appearance in the country, certain vets, made themselves so ridiculous in the eyes of the farmers who invited them to inspect sick cattle, that distrust immediately took the place of suspicion, and ...
— The Boer in Peace and War • Arthur M. Mann
... neither word nor letter. I have sent you the enclosed to beg you to translate to me some remarks, which appear to be Goethe's upon Manfred—and if I may judge by two notes of admiration (generally put after something ridiculous by us) and the word 'hypocondrisch,' are any thing but favourable. I shall regret this, for I should have been proud of Goethe's good word; but I sha'n't alter my opinion of him, even though ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... consider economy and common sense. You should hear mama on the chapter of governesses: Mary and I have had, I should think, a dozen at least in our day; half of them detestable and the rest ridiculous, and all incubi—were ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... occasions, and valued himself particularly on being able to anticipate the words or the wants of the various persons who attended his levees, before they uttered a word. This sometimes led him into ridiculous embarrassment; and it was this proneness to lavish promises, which gave occasion for the ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... had? Do you remember the days when you proposed that we should be very religious? I am sure it's the only way to be very happy: I mean happy always, and underneath. Leo says the great mistake is being too religious, and that people ought to keep out of extremes, and not make themselves ridiculous. But I think he's wrong. For it seems just to be all the heap of people who are only a little religious who never get any good out of it. It isn't enough to make them happy whatever happens, and it's just enough to make them uncomfortable if they play cards ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... you dull, but I don't think I should find you ridiculous," Katharine added, as if Denham had actually brought that charge ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... must make mention here of the poorness and awkwardness of Berlioz's harmony—which is incontestable—since some critics and composers have been able to see (Am I saying something ridiculous?—Wagner would say it for me) nothing but "faults of orthography" in his genius. To these terrible grammarians—who, two hundred years ago, criticised Moliere on account of his "jargon"—I shall reply ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland
... quite justifiable, and under ordinary circumstances any such pretence on my part would be ridiculous. But you must remember, monsieur, that I came here from London possessed of special information which was not known even to the police authorities in that city. I am working solely in the private ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy
... himself of all ridiculous pre-possessions, and is fully, sincerely, and steadily convinced, from experience as well as philosophy, that the difference of fortune makes less difference in happiness than is vulgarly imagined; such a one does not measure out degrees of esteem according to the rent-rolls of his acquaintance. ...
— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals • David Hume
... new freak upon me? Answer me frankly one question, and I shall be better able to comprehend the meaning of your mysterious menace. Are you—but I know it is absurd, I feel that the question is very ridiculous, only that your reply to it will, perhaps, set us both right—do you love Astraea? I really can not conceive any thing short of some such ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... that it was my intention to menace or insult the Government of France is as unfounded as the attempt to extort from the fears of that nation what her sense of justice may deny would be vain and ridiculous. But the Constitution of the United States imposes on the President the duty of laying before Congress the condition of the country in its foreign and domestic relations, and of recommending such measures as may in his opinion be required by its interests. ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Andrew Jackson • Andrew Jackson
... with tears—tears of compassion for himself! He looked at me and spoke to me with the wailing, querulous entreaty of a sick child wanting to be nursed. I was utterly at a loss what to do. It was perfectly ridiculous—but I was never ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... a tinge of reproach in his voice, no more, but she felt inexplicably ashamed as she heard it. She looked up sharply, and the conviction that she was making herself ridiculous swept quickly upon her. She held out her hand to him, and mutely suffered him to slip the ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... of Jack the Giant-killer. The huge body scattered piecemeal about the castle, the unwieldy sabre borne by a hundred men, the helmet "tempestuously agitated," and even the "skeleton in a hermit's cowl" are not only unalarming but mildly ridiculous. Yet to the readers of his day the story was captivating and entrancing. It satisfied a real craving for the romantic and marvellous. The first edition of five hundred copies was sold out in two months, and others followed rapidly. The ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... enlighten him and enforce an opinion once expressed in his presence. But, from the moment that he possessed ideas of his own, either true or false, on administrative subjects, he consulted no one;... he treated everybody who differed from him in opinion contemptuously, tried to make them appear ridiculous, and often exclaimed, giving his forehead a slap, that here was an instrument far more useful than the counsels of men who were commonly supposed to be instructed and experienced... For four years, he sought ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... sat, made their unconscious appeal to her in their abandonment. He was caught; he was vanquished; he was despairing; but he instinctively, and without any wish to do so, kept his dignity. He was still, in his complete overthrow, the mature man of the world, the man to whom it was impossible to be ridiculous. ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... also assumed that Buddhism was brought into existence by Gautama Buddha. The previous existence of Buddhism, Jainism and Arhat philosophy is rejected as an absurd and ridiculous invention of the Buddhists and others, who attempted thereby to assign a very high antiquity to their own religion. In consequence of this erroneous impression every Hindu book referring to the doctrines of Buddhists is declared to have been written subsequent ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... slaughter, and the rain of missiles came all the fiercer from the walls. At last they sacrificed the honour of their party and beat a retreat. Caecina, ashamed of his rash attempt at assault, was afraid of looking ridiculous and useless if he sat still in the same camp. So he crossed the Po and made for Cremona. As he was retiring, Turullius Cerialis with a large force of marines, and Julius Briganticus[260] with a few ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... shoulder, and when she would have withdrawn it he caught it with both his own and held it there; and suddenly the blood sprang up in his cheeks even to the roots of his hair, and for the first and last time in his life Henry Plantagenet was almost ridiculous, and wished that he might hide his head. Yet he would not loose his ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford |
