"Blockhead" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Office).]—who is not much of a support either, though a gnarled weighty old stick in his way ("Professor at Strasburg once"): not interesting to us here. The rest his Imperial Majesty considers to be of sublimated blockhead type, it appears. Prince Eugene had died lately, and with Eugene ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... about that boy, and having seen Menlove go out as usual after dark, I followed her. Sure enough, when she had got into the park, up came master Joe, smoking a cigar. As soon as they had met I went towards them, and Menlove, seeing somebody draw nigh, began to edge off, when the blockhead said, "Never mind, my love, it is only the old man." Being very provoked with both of them, though she was really the most to blame, I gave him some smart cuts across the shoulders with my cane, and told him to go home, ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... 'Yes, blockhead!' the young gentleman answered with the utmost coolness. 'But I asked for a light, not for ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... upon the world again! Where are you, my fine EDITOR? I say Sir, I was an ass—do you hear?—an ass, premature, wise before my time, a brute, a blockhead! Did I talk of dust and ashes? Oh! Sir, I lied multitudinously. Every nerve, every muscle that didn't try to strangle me in that utterance, lied. No, Sir; let me tell you it's a great world; glorious—magnificent; a world that can't be beat! ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... with compromise. And our To-morrows are only our To-days over again.... So Dinky-Dunk, who keeps saying in unexpected and intriguing ways that he can't live without me, is trying to make love to me as he did in the old days before he got salt-and-peppery above the ears. And I'm blockhead enough to believe him. I'm like an old shoe, I suppose, comfortable but not showy. Yet it's the children we really have to think of. Our crazy old patch-work of the Past may be our own, but the Future belongs to them. There's a heap of good, ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... There was a little stretch of railroad to be built, by way of connecting one line with others. I applied for the place of engineer, and was promptly informed that John Harbin had already been appointed to it. You know John. You know what a blockhead he is. I was graduated in the same class with him—he simply cheating his way through. When I heard of his appointment, I was dumbfounded. I knew that he simply could not do the work. He could not calculate a curvature to save his life. As for the more difficult operations ...
— A Captain in the Ranks - A Romance of Affairs • George Cary Eggleston
... delight has seized, His soul engaged and of his trouble eased: When, with a heavy eye and ill-done sum, No part conceived, a stupid boy will come; Then Leonard first subdues the rising frown, And bids the blockhead lay his blunders down; O'er which disgusted he will turn his eye, To his sad duty his sound mind apply, And, vex'd in spirit, throw his pleasures by. Turn we to Schools which more than these afford ...
— The Borough • George Crabbe
... blockhead, to believe any person is so active as myself! I have this day got my orders, to put myself under Lord St. Vincent's command: but, as no order is arrived to man the ship, it must be Friday night, or Saturday morning, before ...
— The Letters of Lord Nelson to Lady Hamilton, Vol. I. - With A Supplement Of Interesting Letters By Distinguished Characters • Horatio Nelson
... boisterous fashion, pour scorn upon you for looking grave, as you read in his vivid pages of the reckless manner in which too many of his heroes drove coaches-and-six through the Ten Commandments. As likely as not he will call you a blockhead, and tell you to close your wide mouth and cease shrieking. But, dear me! hard words break no bones, and it is an amazing comfort to know the facts. Is he writing of Cromwell?—down goes everything—letters, speeches, as they were written, as they were delivered. Few great ...
— Obiter Dicta • Augustine Birrell
... me, you blockhead!" exclaimed Tartlet, who added example to precept. "Put your feet out! Further out! The heel of one to the heel of the other! Open your knees, you duffer! Put back your shoulders, you idiot! Stick up your head! ...
— Godfrey Morgan - A Californian Mystery • Jules Verne
... "Blockhead!" cried the Professor, whose enthusiastic spirit was easily roused to indignation, "it was your duty to carry it till ordered to lay it down. You were hired to act, sir, not to think. Obedience is the highest virtue of a servant! Shall we send him back ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... harsh speech, never in personal violence—at least no instance of it was known to the students. He indulged in sneers and polished browbeating. A boy was never stupid—he lacked common intelligence; never a blockhead—his perceptions were very dull. His polite epithets were more cutting than good round ...
— Breaking Away - or The Fortunes of a Student • Oliver Optic
... caught them climbing it many a time, but her threats and prohibitions had no effect. One day when Haydn was balancing himself aloft, far above his schoolfellows, the empress saw him from the windows, and requested her Hofcompositor to take care that 'that fair-headed blockhead,' the ringleader of them all, got 'einen recenten Schilling' (slang for 'a good hiding')." The command was only too willingly obeyed by the obsequious Reutter, who by this time had been ennobled, and rejoiced in the addition of "von" to his name. Many years afterwards, when the empress ...
— Haydn • J. Cuthbert Hadden
... getting out of patience with this blockhead. Blind and can't see out of it! They put the blockheads in the army because there is no other place for them. I think that must be the reason why there are more synonyms for blockhead in the ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry
... Pezenas, in Languedoc, he was introduced under a borrowed name to the prince of Conti. That prince, talking of English affairs, broke out into admiration of Cromwell's courage and capacity. "But as for that poor, pitiful fellow Richard," said he, "what has become of him? How could he be such a blockhead as to reap no greater benefit from all his father's crimes and successes?" Richard extended his peaceful and quiet life to an extreme old age, and died not till the latter end of Queen Anne's reign. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... the fire, Jack," answered the old man. "This is not the first time we have had the King's coin pulled down. I am as true a man to the King as any here; but I have taken no oath to that dotipole [blockhead] of Warwick; and if he play this game once too oft, he may find he hath fished and ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... 'Know it, blockhead! no. And it will be the worse for you if you tell him. Come, take your sixpence, and think yourself well off that we ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... will have victory, what will have none! The Heaviest will reach the centre. The Heaviest, sinking through complex fluctuating media and vortices, has its deflexions, its obstructions, nay at times its resiliences, its reboundings; whereupon some blockhead shall be heard jubilating, "See, your Heaviest ascends!"—but at all moments it is moving centreward, fast as is convenient for it; sinking, sinking; and, by laws older than the World, old as the Maker's first Plan of the World, ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... could think of nothing but that oath. So I wrote—but, oh, Macrorie, Macrorie, why, in Heaven's name, did you make that mistake about Mrs. O'Halloran, and force that infernal oath out of me? Why did that confounded old blockhead forget to introduce her to you? That's the cause of all my woes. But I won't bore you, old fellow; I'll go on. So, you see, in my determination to get her, I stuck at nothing. First of all, instead of attempting ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille
... innocence," and "interested attentions," and other similar expressions—all of which, however, were lost upon Titmouse. Tapping with an auctioneer's hammer on a block of granite, would make about as much impression upon it as will hint, innuendo, or suggestion, upon a blockhead. So it was with Titmouse. He promised to dine at Satin Lodge on the Sunday after the ensuing one—with which poor Mr. Tag-rag was obliged to depart content; having been unable to get Titmouse up to Clapham on either of the ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... not the word, you blockhead; extract, I suppose you mean. Besides, I fancy it is not his grinders which the captain has ordered to be removed, but his eye-teeth, or tusks, as they ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... but this can never with truth be said of me. I most emphatically in this instance, made a fool of myself. I have now come to the conclusion never again to think of marrying, and for this reason: I can never be satisfied with any one who would be blockhead enough to have me. ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... for the bringing forth such as are somewhat known in the world, and have read and wrote as much as many have done in other places? And yet the College for ever puts all possible marks of disesteem upon me. If I were the greatest blockhead that ever came from it, or the greatest blemish that ever came to it, they could not easily show me ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... reconciled to him, because men of his profession were commonly ignorant, and of no consequence otherwise; his holiness, enraged at the bishop, struck him with his staff, and told him, it was he that was the blockhead, and affronted the man himself would not offend: the prelate was driven out of the chamber, and Michael Angelo had the Pope's benediction, accompanied with presents. This bishop had fallen into the vulgar error, and was ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... man was not a mere clown or blockhead; but beneath his "hodden gray" often carried good feeling, intelligence, and wit. He was rather humorous than ludicrous, and had some dignity of character. Since his time, consideration for the poor has greatly increased; we see it in the large charitable gifts, ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... encouraged them, never thinking there was one among them so stupid as to carry a gun to fight a ghost with; for how can you shoot a ghost, when it has neither flesh nor blood? It was impossible to suspect any one of being such a monstrous blockhead; so I was rather disagreeably startled at hearing the crack of a gun, and feeling the tingling of a bullet whizzing past my ear. You nearly made me into a real ghost, friend Beppo; for I assure you, you are a capital shot. Ever since ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... never knowingly let work leave my hands in shape less good than the best I can turn out; but I have often felt the temptation to do so, and wished—almost, not quite—that there was no money in it. I recast Dr. Johnson's saying: "None but a blockhead would write unless he needed money." None but a blockhead would write for money, unless ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... order, unless I see to it myself. Give me the lantern. Now oil the bearings thoroughly. Put the feather into the socket, and work the pin in and out, that the oil may go all round. Now pour in some oil from the lip of the flask; but not upon the treadle, you old blockhead. Now do the other end the same. Ah, now it would go with the weight of a mouse! I have a great mind to make ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... Englishman, he stood in the center of the room and scratched his head. "Hang it, I've made an ass of myself. That blockhead will have the gendarmes about my ears. If they arrest me there will be the devil to pay. The Lord and the Baronet Fitzgerald!" he repeated. He sat down on the edge of the bed, and fell to laughing ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... in sandy soil, I'm sure of that—but plant before you boil; Then put in strawberries; that's what I do— Confound you for a blockhead! Why don't you Get modern works and read them? No, you'd rather Go creeping on just like your stupid father. That patch is good for melons. Why the deuce Don't you convert ...
— Punchinello Vol. II., No. 30, October 22, 1870 • Various
... rational trust in God which is at once our duty and our inestimable privilege, if we are always looking out into the future, and vexing ourselves with endless fears as to how things are to go then. There is no divine promise, that, if a reckless blockhead leaves his children to starve, they shall not starve. And a certain inspired volume speaks with extreme severity of the man who fails to provide for them of his own house. But there is a divine promise which says to the humble Christian,—"As thy days, so shall thy strength be." If ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... the hands being held up in astonishment; if there was any straining of the muscles, as with protruded arms under fright, I would agree; as it is I must keep to my old opinion, and I dare say you will say that I am an obstinate old blockhead. (477/3. The raising of the hands in surprise is explained ("Expression of Emotions," Edition I., page 287) on the doctrine of antithesis as being the opposite of listlessness. Mr. Wallace's view (given in the 2nd edition of "Expression of the Emotions," ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... don't know," said he, a little nettled, "I draw tolerably—should do it at least—have had good masters, and flatter myself that I am not quite a blockhead." ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill
... out; but while they did hang it out, they did shoot at us; so that it was not seen, or perhaps they would not cease upon sight of it, while they continued actually in action against us. But the main thing my Lord wonders at, and condemns the Dane for, is, that the blockhead, who is so much in debt to the Hollander, having now a treasure more by much than all his Crowne was worth, and that which would for ever have beggared the Hollander, should not take this time to break with ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... others their life, and not to receive it World where loyalty of one's own children is unknown Worse endure an ill-contrived robe than an ill-contrived mind Would have every one in his party blind or a blockhead Would in this affair have a man a little play the servant Wrangling arrogance, wholly believing and trusting in itself Wretched and dangerous thing to depend upon others Write what he knows, and as much as he knows, but no more Wrong the just side when ...
— Quotes and Images From The Works of Michel De Montaigne • Michel De Montaigne
... the dancing-school. If you can discover no fault, you must prove how much better Garrick, Powel, Holland, or Barry, performed the character; and as nine-tenths of your readers cannot remember those performers, you may easily persuade them that the object of your censure is a blockhead. If he has the art of rapid elocution, tell him he speaks too fast; and if he speaks slowly, and with discrimination, say that he only waits to catch applause. If his action is graceful, tell him he makes too much use of his arms and hands; and if his action is moderate, persuade the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 486 - Vol. 17, No. 486., Saturday, April 23, 1831 • Various
... blockhead. Do as I have bidden thee, and get hence. More remains to be done to which ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 2 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... known to his play-loving king that he knew the latest French games. The French Duc de Longueville had for some time been an honored prisoner at the English court, held as a hostage from Louis XII, but de Longueville was a blockhead, who could not keep his little black eyes off our fair ladies, who hated him, long enough to tell the deuce of spades from the ace of hearts. So Brandon was taken from his duties, such as they were, and placed at the card table. ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... carry a small figure, sir. Look ye, pudding-heads should never grant premises. —How long before this leg is done? Perhaps an hour, sir. Bungle away at it then, and bring it to me (turns to go). Oh, Life! Here I am, proud as Greek god, and yet standing debtor to this blockhead for a bone to stand on! Cursed be that mortal inter-indebtedness which will not do away with ledgers. I would be free as air; and I'm down in the whole world's books. I am so rich, I could have given bid for bid with ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... mean by running into me, you blockhead!" cried the purser, in a loud voice. "Why don't you look where you ...
— Randy of the River - The Adventures of a Young Deckhand • Horatio Alger Jr.
... looked after him with a bland smile, but when the worthy official was out of sight, the smile glided into a contemptuous sneer, and he muttered to himself—"The pompous blockhead, he is so easily cajoled that one scarcely feels ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... talked with the man whom you have chosen to play the fool with. I find him worthy of his mistress; a tame, coward-hearted, infatuated blockhead. ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... this more correct than Oronce Fine, which the translator of De Thou uses? Or than Horonce Phine, which older writers give? I cannot understand why M. de Viette[51] should be called Viete, because his Latin name is Vieta. It is difficult to restore Buteo; for not only now is butor a blockhead as well as a bird, but we really cannot know what kind of bird Buteo stood for. We may be sure that Madame Fine was Denise Blanche; for Dionysia Candida can mean nothing else. Let her shade rejoice in the fame which Hubertus Sussannaeus ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... so early was a bit hard, and eating a cold luncheon harder still; but worst of all was having to hear him growl and snap at the clerks. Oh, he's perfectly horrid. I don't see how they stand it. Of course, I had my share. 'Miss Blockhead' was his pet ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford
... 'Sir Cloudesly Shovel! a very gallant man!' As he stood before Busby's tomb, the Knight uttered himself again after the same manner, 'Dr. Busby, a great man! he whipped my grandfather; a very great man! I should have gone to him myself, if I had not been a blockhead; ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... of the human-kind shut their eyes to plainest facts; and by the mere inertia of Oblivion and Stupidity, live at ease in the midst of Wonders and Terrors. But indeed man is, and was always, a blockhead and dullard; much readier to feel and digest, than to think and consider. Prejudice, which he pretends to hate, is his absolute lawgiver; mere use-and-wont everywhere leads him by the nose; thus let but a Rising of the Sun, let but a Creation of the World happen ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... things, that these little people gathered into the great houses after dark, and slept in droves. To enter upon them without a light was to put them into a tumult of apprehension. I never found one out of doors, or one sleeping alone within doors, after dark. Yet I was still such a blockhead that I missed the lesson of that fear, and in spite of Weena's distress I insisted upon sleeping away from ...
— The Time Machine • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... consummate blockhead!" said Mrs. Blackwell, "haven't you better sense than to talk about its being chilly? These last few days Belinda has done nothing but complain about the cold. She comes from Barbados, where the thermometer never goes below ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley
... you stupid blockhead, or I'll kick you out of my way! I have not time to wait for the lot of fools that ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... Adam Smith, and Co. There is no God, but have we not invented gunpowder?—who wants a God, with that in his pocket?[68] There is no Resurrection, neither angel nor spirit; but have we not paper and pens, and cannot every blockhead print his opinions, and the Day of Judgment become Republican, with everybody for a judge, and the flat of the universe for the throne? There is no law, but only gravitation and congelation, and we are stuck together in an everlasting hail, ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... such an hypothesis even in the case of a greater Aemilianus, not our African friend here, but the conqueror of Africa and Numantia, who held, moreover, the office of censor at Rome. Much less will I believe that this dull blockhead, I will not say, hates sin, but recognizes it when ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... did not haunt with sedulous perseverance; nor was he confronted with failure, until his figure became a universal terror. His common method was to price a horse, and while the dealer showed Barney the animal's teeth, Haggart would slip under the uplifted arm, and ease the blockhead of his blunt. Arrogant in his skill, delighted with his manifold triumphs, Haggart led a life of unbroken prosperity under the brisk air of heaven, and, despite the risk of his profession, he remained two years a stranger to poverty and imprisonment. ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... in English. Fancy my calling you, upon a fitting occasion,—Fool, sot, silly, simpleton, dunce, blockhead, jolterhead, clumsy-pate, dullard, ninny, nincompoop, lackwit, numpskull, ass, owl, loggerhead, coxcomb, monkey, shallow-brain, addle-head, tony, zany, fop, fop-doodle; a maggot-pated, hare-brained, ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... have been provoked at my own stupidity, but never, never have I felt so stupid, such a godforsaken blockhead as I do now. When I try to consider I feel as if that heavy shutter had been nailed clown on my head. Have you had any ideas? I have not one which would not disgrace the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... sell," and falling asleep on the king's highway a pedlar cut off her petticoats up to the knees, and when she awoke and saw her condition she exclaimed, "Lawk-a-mercy me, this is none of I!" and so on. And not less diverting is the pelting the blockhead receives from his brother ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... daylight on the same day I was hurt. Jan Kamphuisen said something, the sundown before, that made me distrust his honesty. He was the only one living besides Mother who knew that we had saved a thousand guilders, so I rose up that night and buried the money—blockhead that I was ever ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge
... Yet why should it have been impossible in consistency even with that belief? It may be jure divino that the square on the hypothenuse of a right-angled triangle is equal to the sum of the squares on the sides, that he is a blockhead who believes otherwise, and that a permanent apparatus should be set up in every land for teaching this mathematical faith; and yet it may be equally jure divino that no one shall be compelled to avail himself of that apparatus, or be punished for doubting or denying ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... progress, shewes what is his Crime His baudy Books, with Calves skin fenced round, A proof enough, wherein his faults abound. He talks of moderation or'e a Glass } But mentions none of that when with his Lass, } He's Knave in Grain; a Blockhead and an Ass. } Because a Cuckold's Life was his hard fate, Must Wedlock be abused at this rate? Because he had a strumpit for his Wife, He now commends a mopish single Life. Let him content himself to live a Drone, In some dark Corner of the World alone; And trouble not his Brains with our ...
— The Pleasures of a Single Life, or, The Miseries Of Matrimony • Anonymous
... appreciated academic honors more than the musician did, urged him to accept the degree of Doctor of Music, for which he would have to pay a small fee. The characteristic reply was a Parthian arrow: "Vat te tevil I trow my money away for dat vich the blockhead vish'? I ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris
... length. "I never knew before that you were such a blockhead. There is about as much resemblance between this young gentleman and that horse-thief outside as there ...
— Rodney The Partisan • Harry Castlemon
... mumbling old blockhead!—Didn't you, Sir Abel? Yes; I was rather married many years ago; but my husband ...
— Speed the Plough - A Comedy, In Five Acts; As Performed At The Theatre Royal, Covent Garden • Thomas Morton
... Charles; "but, if I was as much of a blockhead as you are, I'd be careful to keep my thoughts ...
— Frank, the Young Naturalist • Harry Castlemon
... Thomas and Lockwood, shamefully neglected by Sheldon, as we had seen. For which he was broke, poor devil, and a better man set there to watch the red fox Tarleton, to harry Emmeriek, and to throw the fear o' God into that headlong blockhead, Simcoe, a brave man, but so possessed by hatred for "Mr." Washington that every move he made was like a goaded bull—his halts merely the bewilderment of baffled fury, his ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... magnify their office and make it honorable. The most distinguished of four generations of Basires, engravers, he is represented as a superior, liberal-minded, upright man, and a kind master. With him Blake served out his seven years of apprenticeship, as faithful, painstaking, and industrious as any blockhead. So great was the confidence which he secured, that, month after month, and year after year, he was sent out alone to Westminster Abbey and the various old churches in the neighborhood, to make drawings from the monuments, with no oversight but that of his own taste and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... the dancers on the rope, and a gorbelly'd blockhead standing out with a ladder, commanded his boy to hopp every round singing, and dance a jigg on the top of it, and then tumble through burning hoops of iron, with a glass in his mouth. Trimalchio was the only person that admir'd it, but withal said, he did not like ...
— The Satyricon • Petronius Arbiter
... cold," said the Judge. "Don't be a blockhead, Perkins, we have got to get her out ...
— Judy • Temple Bailey
... his most school-boy reading. To have the verbal memory infested with tags of verse and "cues" of rhyme is in itself an infirmity as vulgar and as morbid as the stableboy's habit of whistling slang airs upon the mere mechanical excitement of a bar or two whistled by some other blockhead in some other stable. The very stage has grown weary of ridiculing a folly, that having been long since expelled from decent society has taken refuge amongst the most imbecile of authors. Was Mr. Hazlitt then of that class? No; he was a man of great talents, and of capacity for greater ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... my pocket. But you daren't say—you can't say—that he's cleverer than I, or bolder than I, or even more energetic. He's not clever, he's got eyes like blue buttons; he's not energetic, he moves from chair to chair like a paralytic. He's a conscientious, kindly old blockhead; but he's got money simply because he collects money, as a boy collects stamps. You're too strong-minded for business, Ezza. You won't get on. To be clever enough to get all that money, one must be stupid ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... "we have parted with the colt, and have only got a gross of green spectacles, with copper rims and shagreen cases! A murrain take such trumpery! The blockhead has been imposed upon, and should have known his ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various
... medley as it was, for there went fat "King Cole" with the most ragged of the beggar-maids. "Mistress Mary," in her pretty blue dress, tripped along with "Simple Simon" staring about him like a blockhead. The fine lady left her horse to dance with "Bobby Shafto" till every bell on her slippers tinkled its tongue out. "Bo-Peep" and a jolly fiddler skipped gayly up and down. "Miss Muffet" took the big spider ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... finally by Perugino, and the modern scientific and anatomical art represented primarily by Michael Angelo. And the epithet bestowed on Perugino by Michael Angelo, 'goffo nell' arte,' dunce, or blockhead, in art,—being, as far as my knowledge of history extends, the most cruel, the most false, and the most foolish insult ever offered by one great man to another,—does you at least good service, in showing how trenchant ...
— Ariadne Florentina - Six Lectures on Wood and Metal Engraving • John Ruskin
... and built of materials that are indestructible. While this remains, it is vain to argue; it is vain to say to this mountain, Be thou cast into the sea. For, I ask of the men of knowledge of the world whether they would not hold him for a blockhead that should hope to prevail in an argument whose scope and object is to mortify the self-love of the expected proselyte? I ask, further, when such attempts have been made, have they not failed of success? The indignant heart ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... and almost round and blue and I got it in a tree. Now if you're not a blockhead mebbe you can guess what it is." He moved his ...
— Amanda - A Daughter of the Mennonites • Anna Balmer Myers
... hours. If he wishes to give away what he does not consume, nothing hinders him. If he is disposed to work for another out of his own free will, so that the latter may revel in the dolce far niente,—if he chooses to be such a blockhead, nothing hinders him. But none can compel him to work for another; none can withhold from him a part of what is due him for labor performed. Everyone can satisfy all his legitimate desires—only not at the expense of others. ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... that the imprudent is honoured and the wise despised. The alchemist died of poverty and distress, while the blockhead found a treasure ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... meet him by appointment. When he arrived, it was only to inform him of the manner in which he had been baffled, to convince him that the game was up, and that nothing was left him but to retreat utterly foiled in his attempt, and to be stigmatized as a blockhead by ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... accursed scruples,' cried Saint-Pol, smiting the table, 'you will gain nothing else. Within your country's law, blockhead! Why, my sister is within the Count's country ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... with the King. The best minds in England are directly opposed to the King's policy; so are most of the people, but they are helpless. He has throttled the voting power of the country. Jack, I have told you all this and shall tell you more because—well, you know Plato said that he would rather be a blockhead than have all knowledge and nobody to share it. You ought to know the truth but I have told you only for your ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... physicians cannot tell what an ague is, and all our arithmetique is not able to number the days of a man'—which, God knows, is not the fault of arithmetique, but that our understandings reach not the thing." "The blockhead Albemarle hath strange luck to be loved, though he be, and every man must know it, the heaviest man in the world, but stout and honest to his country." "He advises me in what I write to him, to be as short as I can, and obscure." "But he do tell ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman
... tune you have ever heard in your life. So—o! Once again! Come, that was better! But you must sigh like a horse down with the colic. So—o! that's right. Thus I go, drilling myself in hypocrisy; stamp impatiently in the street when I fail to succeed; rail at myself for being such a blockhead, whilst the astonished passers-by turn round ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... man—the old blockhead—off he goes: "Marry, marry," he says, "he must marry her and cover the sin," he says. "We must take the lad home," he says, "and he shall marry," he says. Well, I did my best to make him change his mind, but, dear me, no. So, all right, thinks I,—I'll try another ...
— The Power of Darkness • Leo Tolstoy
... "the old woman is hysterical, fanciful, sir, I vow to God." "I tell you, sir," says Ratcliff, "she cannot live three days to an end, unless there is some very effectual course taken with her; she has a malignant fever." Then "fool," "puppy," and "blockhead," were the best words they gave. I could hardly restrain them from throwing the ink-bottles at one another's heads. I forgot to tell you that one party of the physicians desired I would take my sister Peg into the house to nurse her, but the old gentlewoman would not hear of ...
— The History of John Bull • John Arbuthnot
... down with Dogberry; above all, don't quote me in cold blood, that the foolish people may see, after the fever heat has subsided, what trash I have palmed upon them in the name of liberty!' Yet this is the way, Jonathan, to deal with demagogues. You make too much of yours, man. You are not the blockhead we take you for after all; but you delight to see your public men in motley, and the rogues will fool you to the top of your bent, till it is your pleasure to put down the show. So now that the piper has to be paid, and a lucid interval appears to be dawning upon you, to the pillory at once ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... Troy and Thebes, but the amorous adventures of the gods. When Apollonius Rhodius attempted to revive the epic, it is said that the influence of Callimachus quite discomfited the young poet. A war of epigrams began, and while Apollonius called Callimachus a 'blockhead' (so finished was his invective), the veteran compared his rival to the Ibis, the scavenger-bird. Other singers satirised each others' legs, and one, the Aretino of the time, mocked at king Ptolemy and scourged his ...
— Theocritus, Bion and Moschus rendered into English Prose • Andrew Lang
... and bring it to me (TURNS TO GO). Oh, Life! Here I am, proud as Greek god, and yet standing debtor to this blockhead for a bone to stand on! Cursed be that mortal inter-indebtedness which will not do away with ledgers. I would be free as air; and I'm down in the whole world's books. I am so rich, I could have given bid for bid with the wealthiest Praetorians ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... served with coffee and sherbet, and all was conducted with great decorum, till one of the servants awkwardly overturned a cup of hot coffee on the host's legs, when he started up, exclaiming in very good Gascon, "Blood and thunder! you blockhead, you deserve to be ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... when thou saidst 'Oh'?"—"I was tired, and therefore I said 'Oh'!" replied the man.—"Whither art thou going?" asked Oh.—"The wide world lies before me," sighed the man. "I am taking this sorry blockhead of mine to hire him out to somebody or other. Perchance other people may be able to knock more sense into him than we can at home; but send him whither we will, he always comes running home again!"—"Hire him out to me. I'll warrant I'll teach him," ...
— Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales • Anonymous
... eloquent to an author except in praise of his own works, or, what is nearly as acceptable, in disparagement of the work of his contemporaries. "If ever he speaks favorably of the productions of a particular friend, dissent boldly from him; pronounce his friend to be a blockhead; never fear his being vexed. Much as people speak of the irritability of authors, I never found one to take offense at such contradictions. No, no, sir, authors are particularly candid in admitting the faults of their friends." ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... gain your point by obstinacy," he added. "I swear that not another word shall pass between you and that blockhead of a chief—not if I have to ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... complained to a friend: but his real sorrows were mixed with those of the fancy:—he told Mrs. Dunlop with what pangs of heart he was compelled to take shelter in a corner, lest the rattling equipage of some gaping blockhead should mangle him in the mire. In this land of titles and wealth such querulous sensibilities must have ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... in a flurry. "You're not crying though, Kate? Whatever am I saying to you, Kitty, woman? Here, here—bash me on the head for a blockhead ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... said he, half repenting of his anger at her blunders over the cards. "Go out before dinner; you know you don't mind this cursed weather; and see that you come home full of adventures to relate. Come, little blockhead! give me a kiss, ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... story, he neither looked up nor uttered a word in reply; but after some time he raised his head and said, "I cannot get rid of the idea, nor will anyone in the world remove it, or make me think otherwise—and he would be a blockhead who would hold or believe anything else than that that arrant knave Master Elisabad ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... romantic flights. The blockhead, I believe, is so attach'd, I shou'dn't wonder if he flew off at a tangent, and married the ...
— John Bull - The Englishman's Fireside: A Comedy, in Five Acts • George Colman
... Quince coughed several times, each cough being louder than the last, and then, treading softly, was about to return to the workshop when the girl stirred and muttered in her sleep. At first she was unintelligible, then he distinctly caught the words "idiot" and "blockhead." ...
— Odd Craft, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... deep the generous heart, Than when a blockhead's insult points the dart. This mournful truth is every where confess'd, Slow rises worth, by ...
— On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, • Samuel Felton
... would be in Paris before the police made any definite move. The one thing that disturbed him was the thought of the blockhead of a chauffeur, who had got drunk before his return from Versailles. If he talked; well, he could say nothing beyond the fact that he had deposited the singer at the house as directed. ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... drunken blockhead," Forrester finished triumphantly. "At least she's got a decent respect for ...
— Pagan Passions • Gordon Randall Garrett
... more than telephonically agonised he bade me not make a jest of his misery. I nearly threw the receiver at the blockhead. ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... "The blockhead must have taken the old pack-horse road on the fell-side. One would be safe in that fool's stupidity. You have ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... do capitally; for if you say, 'Kateh saket Magnesia?' any blockhead will know that you mean 'How far to Magnesia?' Besides, we all can say, 'Salam Aleikum,' so can do the polite as ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... reason, which of necessity will give allowance to the failings of others, by considering that there is nothing perfect in mankind." In the same Essay he gives his own receipt for satire: "How easy it is to call rogue and villain, and that wittily! but how hard to make a man appear a fool, a blockhead, or a knave, without using any of those opprobrious terms!... This is the mystery of that noble trade.... Neither is it true that this fineness of raillery is offensive: a witty man is tickled while he is hurt in this manner, and a fool feels it not.... There is a vast ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... so idle as to waste This Life disputing upon Taste; And most—let that sad Truth be written— In this contentious Land of Britain, Where each one holds "it seems to me" Equivalent to Q. E. D., And if you dare to doubt his Word Proclaims you Blockhead and absurd. And then, too often, the Debate Is not 'twixt First and Second-rate, Some narrow Issue, where a Touch Of more or less can't matter much, But, and this makes the Case so sad, Betwixt undoubted Good and Bad. Nay,—there are some so strangely wrought,— So warped ...
— Collected Poems - In Two Volumes, Vol. II • Austin Dobson
... and collapse, and when brought into Apia was more dead than alive, and the doctor was quickly summoned I at once went to see him, but was not admitted to his room, and for three days he had to lie up, suffering from shock—and, I trust, a feeling of humility for being such an obstinate blockhead. ...
— The Call Of The South - 1908 • Louis Becke
... some of our cits, the first thing after their death is to take care of their birth—let him bear a pair of stockings, he is the first of his family that ever wore one.... And you, Mr. Blockhead, I warrant you have not call'd at Mr. Pestle's the apothecary: will that fellow never pay me? I stand bound for all the poison in that starving murderer's shop: he serves me just as Dr. Quibus did, who promised to write a treatise against water-gruel, ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... matter of fact, I don't see," said I. "You will think me an awful blockhead, but I don't perceive anything singular in a cigar manufacturer sending a ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... pitiful blockhead; I'll teach you genteeler manners than to persecute a young woman in that way!' and taking Festus by the ear, he gave it a good pull. Festus broke out with an oath, and struck a vague blow in the air with his ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... Jackeymo—"miraculous thing!" and he crossed himself with great fervor. "Six thousand pounds English! why, that must be a hundred thousand—blockhead that I am!—more than a hundred and fifty thousand pounds Milanese!" And Jackeymo, who was considerably enlivened by the Squire's ale, commenced a series of gesticulations and capers, in the midst of which he stopped and ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... he demanded in the man's own language, "by standing in the way of the maharajah sahib's orders? Here's his highness sending a lady doctor to the princess for an excuse to confine her elsewhere and have all this trouble off our hands, and you, like a blockhead, stand in the way to prevent it! ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... succeed in resembling peacocks. Believe me, my dear friend, it is dangerous to have too refined a taste, even in office, even in the rank in which you are placed. One hesitates to proclaim the excessively stupid things that stir the crowd, and the blockhead who is bold enough to declare his folly creates a hellish noise with his nonsense, while a man of refinement, who is not always a squeamish man, remains in his corner unseen. Remember that more moths are caught at night with a ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... of his own works, or what is nearly as acceptable, in disparagement of the works of his contemporaries. If ever he spoke favorably of the productions of some particular friend, I ventured boldly to dissent from him, and to prove that his friend was a blockhead; and much as people say of the pertinacity and irritability of authors, I never found one to take offence at my contradictions. No, no, sir, authors are particularly candid in admitting the faults of ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... Command to Day, and perhaps may lye between me and my Mistress to Night.' 'By Hell (answered Erizo) thou hast raised a Fury in me, that will not be lulled asleep, but by a Potion of his Blood; let's dispatch this Blockhead first': And running at the Footman, with one Thrust killed him. Dangerfield by this time had been let out, and hearing the Noise, ran to the Place; they presently assaulted him; he defended himself very bravely the space of some Minutes, ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... measuring their work according to the food they got; and then it was seen that the game was to be too costly and too perilous. The common-sense commander would find a judicious retreat from an untenable position, and the blockhead would persevere with it during a whole voyage, and boastfully retail a sickening story of meanness to an audience who, he cherished the idea, would regard him as a hero! How much bitterness and loss was caused by this parochial-minded malignity ...
— Windjammers and Sea Tramps • Walter Runciman
... [Lat][Oedipus]; "a fool's bolt is soon shot" clitellae bovi sunt impositae [obs3][Henry V.][Lat][Cicero]; "fools rush in where angels fear to tread" [Pope]; il n' a ni bouche ni eperon [Fr]; "the bookful blockhead, ignorantly read" [Pope]; "to varnish nonsense with the charms ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... and a hypocrite. They have stifled me with their middle-class gentleness, and I can hardly understand how it is that there is still blood in my veins. I have lowered my eyes, and given myself a mournful, idiotic face like theirs. I have led their deathlike life. When you saw me I looked like a blockhead, did I not? I was grave, overwhelmed, brutalised. I no longer had any hope. I thought of flinging myself into ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola
... light wife,—"or to serve under the haughty FONTANGE [Species of topknot; so named from Fontange, an unfortunate female of Louis Fourteenth's, who invented the ornament.] of my Spouse [as Ludwig Rudolf does, by all accounts], than to have a blockhead who would drive me mad by her ineptitudes? and whom I should ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. IX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... scalding tears. Then he related to Madame de Saint-Simon, in the midst of sobs, how he had stuck fast at the Parliament, without being able to utter a word, said that he should everywhere be regarded as an ass and a blockhead, and repeated the compliments he had received from Madame de Montauban, who, he said, had laughed at and insulted him, knowing well what had happened; then, infuriated against her to the last degree, he called her by all sots of ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... you think Blondel, who is on the point, Blondel, who will and will not and on whom all must turn, Blondel the upright, the impeccable, the patriotic, without whom we can do nothing, and who, I tell you, hangs in the balance—do you think he likes it, blockhead? Or is the more inclined to trust his life with us when he sees us brawlers, toss-pots, common swillers? Do you think he on whom I am bringing to bear all the resources of this brain—this!"—and again the big man tapped his forehead with tragic earnestness—"and whom you could ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... would I were either invisible or invulnerable! These gods have a fine time on it; they can see and make mischief, and never feel it. [Clattering of swords at both doors; he runs each way, and meets the noise. A pox clatter you! I am compassed in. Now would I were that blockhead Ajax for a minute. Some sturdy Trojan will poach me up with a long pole! and then the rogues may kill one another at free cost, and have nobody left to laugh at them. Now destruction! ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... there waiting the pleasure of one of the clerks, who had been deputed to talk with me. He was a fine fellow, I doubt not: had much merit of his faultless bow, and great worth in the nicety of his spotless waistcoat, but God never made one so dull or so preposterous a blockhead. I see him now, rolling up the starved hairs which struggled for existence upon his chin, and letting his cuffs lie well upon his bony wrists as he asked ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton
... "You careless blockhead!" he shrieked, raising the injured foot from the ground, while a spasm of anguish contracted his features. "Did you take my ...
— The Young Outlaw - or, Adrift in the Streets • Horatio Alger
... "Tut—tut; stuff and nonsense. Talbot, the fact is, I've been a blockhead. I've got you into a fix, and you're the sufferer. Now I'm quite ready to die, as I deserve, for getting you into danger; but the mischief of it is, what's going to become of you? I swear to you, Talbot, this is ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille
... they called them King's scholars, I forget why—very wicked fellows! Joseph, you may thank the Lord you were not bred at a public school; you would never have preserved your virtue as you have. The first care I always take is of a boy's morals; I had rather he should be a blockhead than an atheist or a presbyterian. What is all the learning in the world compared to his immortal soul? What shall a man take in exchange for his soul? But the masters of great schools trouble themselves ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding
... longest of all. It was settled. I must go; I might as well start and have it over. I couldn't look anywhere, right there at home, and not see more things I didn't know about than I did. When mother showed me in the city, I wouldn't be snapped up like hot cakes; I'd be a blockhead no one would have. It made me so vexed to think I had to go, I set Hezekiah on my shoulder, took Bobby under my arm, and went to the house. On the way, I made up my mind that I would ask again, very politely, to hold the little baby, and if the rest of them went and pigged ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter
... audience that envy appeared against it in the form of criticism; and Griffin, a player, in conjunction with Mr. Theobald, a man afterwards more remarkable, produced a pamphlet called "The Key to the What D'ye Call It," "which," says Gay, "calls me a blockhead, and Mr. ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson
... "1781.—What a blockhead Dr. Burney is to be always sending for his daughter home so! what a monkey! is she not better and happier with me than she can be anywhere else? Johnson is enraged at the silliness of their family conduct, and Mrs. Byron ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... "She! You blockhead! What else could you expect of her! Probably she hasn't any wit; besides, she isn't bound on a very jolly journey—got a pass up the road to the poorhouse. I'll go and tell her, and if you forget her to-night, see if I don't make mince-meat of you!" ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... myself. It will prove I am no good.' Clara's father—he used sometimes when drunk to ask his wife, 'Who got you your blackbrowed she-devil there? Not I!'—Clara's father, anxious to get her off his hands as soon as possible, betrothed her to a rich young shopkeeper, a great blockhead, one of the so-called 'refined' sort. A fortnight before the wedding-day—she was only sixteen at the time—she went up to her betrothed, her arms folded and her fingers drumming on her elbows—her favourite position—and suddenly ...
— Dream Tales and Prose Poems • Ivan Turgenev
... judgment's right. But if you blab, you are undone: Consider what a risk you run: You lose your credit all at once; The town will mark you for a dunce; The vilest doggrel Grub Street sends Will pass for yours with foes and friends; And you must bear the whole disgrace, Till some fresh blockhead takes your place. ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... "Good God, what a blockhead that brother of mine is! He will never be good for anything as long as he lives! He who wants to be a sickle must bend ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... sure of that," said the little man. "If this blockhead here," with a lurch of the head backwards to where the blacksmith rode behind, "hasn't blundered in his 'reckonings,' we'll bag ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... la Terreur," I. 353. (Petion's own narrative of this journey.) This pert blockhead cannot even spell: he writes aselle for aisselle, etc. He is convinced that Madame Elizabeth, the king's sister, wants to seduce him, and that she makes advances to him: "If we had been alone, I believe that she would have fallen into my arms, and let the impulses of nature have their way." ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... thumping against a stone wall. Had I discoursed to her in Bengalee she would have comprehended me no more imperfectly. The doom of hopelessness was upon her. She was not merely a fool, but had taken the full degree as a self-satisfied blockhead. I deserved what I got—and more of the ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... scold him, so I forgave him and invited him to sit down and have a smoke. He fairly jumped at the idea, and it pleased me to see him bite. I thought then how little Tescheron could know of this innocent blockhead, Jim Hosley, whose heart and brain traps were built on the open, sanitary order, ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... sheet was opened and examined. "Have you," said the official, "any more?" I could reply with a clear conscience that I had not. To my surprise, the paper was returned to me. He next took up my note-book. Now, said I to myself, this is a worse scrape than the other. What a blockhead I am not to have put the book into my pocket; for, except in extreme cases, the traveller's person is never searched. The man opened the thin volume, and found it inscribed with mysterious and strange characters. It was written in short-hand. He turned over ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... are there made the principal object of ridicule, which is understood but by few among the laity. To explain this a commentary would be requisite, and humour when explained is no longer humour. Whoever sets up for a commentator of smart sayings and repartees is himself a blockhead. This is the reason why the works of the ingenious Dean Swift, who has been called the English Rabelais, will never be well understood in France. This gentleman has the honour (in common with Rabelais) of being a priest, and, like him, laughs at ...
— Letters on England • Voltaire
... annoyances, this vast waste of human energy on barren spots, the difficulty of achieving any good, the incredible facility of doing mischief; two strong games played out, twice won, and then twice lost; the hatred of a statesman—a blockhead with a painted face and a wig, but in whom the world believed—all these things, great and small, had not crushed, but for the moment had dashed Marcas. In the days when money had come into his hands, ...
— Z. Marcas • Honore de Balzac
... He now first realized what he was undertaking. What if the bottle was false! What if he should fail! Would not his head be dangling from the ropes of the scaffold, to be hailed by the multitude as the remains of a blockhead, a dunce, and a fool? The coffin was opened. With these meditations in his mind, Juan tremblingly uncorked his bottle of violet liquid, and held it under the nose of the princess. He held the bottle there for some time, but she gave no signs of life. ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... difficulty in his life to subdue a first emotion, than he had to refrain from knocking down the crazy blockhead who had broken in upon him at such a moment. But the length of Peter's address gave him time, fortunately perhaps for both parties, to reflect on the extreme irregularity of such a proceeding. He stood silent, however, with vexation, while Peter ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... negotiations with him have been rather difficult. During this time Thuillier's chances have been making headway. Minard, on whom they counted to create a diversion, sits, the stupid fool, in his corner; the seizure of that pamphlet has given your blockhead of a protege a certain perfume of popularity. In short, the ministry are afraid he'll be elected, and nothing could be more disagreeable to them. Pompous imbeciles, like Thuillier, are horribly embarrassing in the Opposition; they are pitchers ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... out afterward, had got around into our rear and on our flanks. But there was to be no rest for us then, for just at that time the fiddles began to play again a livelier tune than ever around Froeschwiller. For there's no use talking, fellows, MacMahon may be a blockhead but he is a brave man; you ought to have seen him on his big horse, with the shells bursting all about him! The best thing to do would have been to give leg-bail at the beginning, for it is no disgrace to a general to refuse to fight an army ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... amusingly equivocal invitation to an Irish nobleman of his acquaintance: "I hope, my Lord, if ever you come within a mile of my house, that you'll stay there all night." When he was suffering from an attack of gout, he thus rebuked his shoemaker: "O, you're a precious blockhead to do directly the reverse of what I desired you. I told you to make one of the shoes larger than the other, and instead of that you have made one of them smaller ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... this grinder does not pretend his stone is safe. All he says is, safe or not, he'll run it out. So now the question is, will you pay four shillings from your box for this blockhead's loss of time in hanging and ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... bards we have; and yet 'tis true, There are as mad, abandon'd critics too. The bookful blockhead, ignorantly read, With loads of learned lumber in his head, With his own tongue still edifies his ears, And always listening to himself appears. All books he reads, and all he reads assails, From Dryden's Fables down to D'Urfey's Tales. With him, most authors steal their works, or buy; Garth ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... hard upon the Barnacles,' said Gowan, laughing afresh, 'they are darling fellows! Even poor little Clarence, the born idiot of the family, is the most agreeable and most endearing blockhead! And by Jupiter, with a kind of cleverness in him too that ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... last night that the cords were too long," mutters the old man; "but no, 'It's not too long, Daddy.' There's no making you do anything, you will have everything your own way.... Blockhead!" ...
— The Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... natural; simpleton, dolt, dunce, defective, witling, dotterel, driveler, blockhead, beetlehead, ninny, ignoramus, numskull, booby, clodpate, nincompoop, ass, wiseacre, dunderhead, halfwit, oaf, dullard, coot, mooncalf; zany, harlequin, buffoon, jester, merry-andrew, droll, clown, scaramouch. Associated Words: ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... thank, they, them, theame, thus, thunder, thine, thin, goal or goal, as afore, motion, crimson, action, Acteon, singed, hanged, changed, shepherd, Shaphat, dishonour, asham'd, bishop, mishap, character, charity, duckherd, blockhead, Dutchess, gather, success, suggest, or suggest, or suggest, or suggest, haov, rij, [w]heg and who, come, on, you know what I mean, as well as [h]orses. War rod: scepter, sceptic, syllables, bless, access, axes, oxen, Christ-cross, ...
— Magazine, or Animadversions on the English Spelling (1703) • G. W.
... in Hades, was cowering over a small fire in a distant corner, endeavoring to keep from freezing, when his Impious Majesty himself heard the youth soliloquizing: "When will LIE BIG, the editor of the Sun, keep me company?" "You blockhead!" exclaimed his Majesty, "LIE BIG, the editor of the Sun, is not coming back for some time; he is of more service to me on earth, making converts for my jurisdiction, than the public are ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 2., No. 32, November 5, 1870 • Various
... he had consulted, and in spite of whom he had published—among others, Strangford, from whom I heard what had passed. I have a copy of my own, which I should like the author of the article to see, and shall send it through you when I return, for it is out of print. One of the blockhead's follies was the not perceiving how great a panegyric I had bestowed on his brother's speaking in the H. of Commons, after fully stating its defects. In fact, he had much greater weight as leader than Canning, who, by the way, is too much ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton |
