"Fool" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... honest men delight will take To spare your failings for his sake, Will flatter you,—and fool and rake Your steps pursue; And of your Father's name will make A snare ...
— Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland A.D. 1803 • Dorothy Wordsworth
... away. there is notHing a detective likes so much as a type riter with an idiosxz an idioynq damit an idiotyncrasy . for instance if i commit a murder i sLould not thinq of writing a litter about it with this of all typewriters becusa because that fool ofa L would give me away at once I daresay scotland Yard have got specimens of my trypewriting locked up in some pigeonhole allready. if they Lavent they ought to; it ought to be part of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 28th, 1920 • Various
... moon to make Sandy's head. And Don ought to know, since he'd been to college. And what made the moon shine? The master told the Fourth Class that the moon didn't have any light of its own. And Crummie Bailey said that was a howlin' lie, 'cause any fool could see it. And the master heard him saying it at recess, and he licked Crummie good for it, too. And was the shadow on the moon ...
— Duncan Polite - The Watchman of Glenoro • Marian Keith
... The president is now engaged in his speculations upon a vault which he intends to build for himself, not to sleep but to lie down in.... Our friend says she is afraid President Washington will not live long. I should be afraid, too, if I had not confidence in his farm and his horse. He must be a fool, I think, who dies of chagrin when he has a fine farm and a Narragansett mare that paces and canters. But I don't know but all men are such fools. I think a man had better ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... slowly, but I was afraid to enter. When you are all choked up, people are sure to see it, and ask fool questions. So I went around to the gate and stood there looking up and down the road, and over the meadow toward the Big Woods; and all at once, in one of those high, regular bugle calls, like they mostly scream in spring, ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter
... thank my position and my charity for your admission, Zeno," he said. "For the sake of the neighbors, I had rather you played the fool in my study than upon my doorstep at this hour. Walk upstairs quietly if you please. My housekeeper is a hard-working woman: the little sleep she allows ...
— The Miraculous Revenge - Little Blue Book #215 • Bernard Shaw
... wrote. He replied. He was detained by urgent business—but would shortly return. He begged me not to be impatient—to moderate my transports—to read soothing books—to drink nothing stronger than Hock—and to bring the consolations of philosophy to my aid. The fool! if he could not come himself, why, in the name of every thing rational, could he not have enclosed me a letter of presentation? I wrote him again, entreating him to forward one forthwith. My letter was returned by that footman, with the following endorsement in pencil. The scoundrel ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... to detain the vessel, but said that she would not be ready to sail until Wednesday. This announcement, which was distinctly not a promise, the Secretary of State chose to accept as such, and as he was very far from being a fool, he did so either from timidity, or from a very unworthy political preference for another nation's interests to the dignity of his own country. At all events, he had the troops withdrawn, and the Little Sarah, now rejoicing in the name of the Petit Democrat, dropped down ...
— George Washington, Vol. II • Henry Cabot Lodge
... sure; who else, think you? Father's not such a fool. He says it is our bounden duty, as christians, to take care of our money, and not give any thing away, especially in summer; for then, says he, there's herbs and roots enough in conscience to satisfy all the reasonable hungry poor. But I say ...
— The Stranger - A Drama, in Five Acts • August von Kotzebue
... taken, you see, from nature. It is a good remark of Montaign[e]'s, that the wisest men often have friends, with whom they do not care how much they play the fool. Take my present follies as instances of regard. Poetry is a much easier, and more agreeable species of composition than prose, and could a man live by it, it were no unpleasant employment to be ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... that it was not yet too late to undo what had been done; but Cromwell instantly charged him with peculation, and gave him into custody. When all were gone, fixing his eye on the mace, "What," said he, "shall we do with this fool's bauble? Here, carry it away." Then, taking the act of dissolution from the clerk, he ordered the doors to be locked, and, accompanied by the military, returned ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc
... but in the steadily cumulating satisfaction of first-class prose there seems to be something that speaks direct to the brain, unmarred by the claims of the senses, the emotions. I meditate much, ignorantly and fumblingly, on the modes and purposes of writing. It is so simple—"Fool!" said my Muse to me, "look in thy heart and write!"—all that is needful is to tell what happens; and yet how hard it is to summon up that necessary candor. Every time I read great work I see the confirmation of ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... prince alighted from his horse, laid the bridle on his neck, and having first surveyed the mountain and seen the black stones, began to ascend, but had not gone four steps before he heard the voices mentioned by the dervish, though he could see nobody. Some said: "Where is that fool going? Where is he going? What would he have? Do not let him pass." Others: "Stop him, catch him, kill him:" and others with a voice like thunder: "Thief! assassin! murderer!" while some in a gibing tone cried: "No, no, do not hurt him; let ...
— The Arabian Nights - Their Best-known Tales • Unknown
... fool saying those things; they were ridiculous notions. Imagine a man thinking himself from one place to another! But—I ...
— Pythias • Frederik Pohl
... every one! In a moment, because you said something in your dear little voice of a seraph, you turn them from evil to good; and now they love me, and I love them. They are so good! I was wrong to get angry. Wasn't I a fool, and unjust, and ungrateful? All they have done to me was only for a laugh; they didn't wish me any harm—it was for my good; for here is the proof. Why, now, if they were to kill me on the spot, I ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... Hopeful began to lift up their hands even in the dungeon of Doubting Castle. 'Well,' we read, 'on Saturday night about midnight they began to pray, and continued in prayer till almost break of day. Now, before it was day, good Christian, as one half amazed, broke out in this passionate speech: "What a fool," quoth he, "am I thus to lie in a stinking dungeon when I may as well walk at liberty; I have a key in my bosom, called Promise, that will, I am persuaded, open any lock in all Doubting Castle." Then ...
— Bunyan Characters - First Series • Alexander Whyte
... right now, Bill—you boozing old devil. I'd like to lick every darned galoot that stood back and let me in for this. You'd ought to have stopped me. You'd oughta pounded the face off me before you let me do such a fool thing. That," he said bitterly, "shows how much a man can bank on ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower
... Holstein who has been a student and in the evening, when he comes home from the plough, takes down his Virgil from the shelf. A man who assumed airs of greater importance by reason of his Greek, was reckoned a bad patriot and a fool; and certainly even in Cato's time one who spoke Greek ill or not at all might still be a man of rank and become senator and consul. But a change was already taking place. The internal decomposition of Italian nationality ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... to arrange the flowers in the vases to-night, they will be faded by to-morrow. But can I rely on Torp's seeing that we have enough food in the house? My head is swimming.... The grass wants mowing, and the hedge must be cut.... Ah! What a fool I am! As though he would notice the lawn and ...
— The Dangerous Age • Karin Michaelis
... doubt they are smiling in their sleeves. But let them! The slow old fashions are good enough for me, thank God, and I will none other. When I see one of these modern fools sit absorbed, holding the end of a telegraph wire in his hand, and reflect that a thousand miles away there is another fool hitched to the other end of it, it makes me frantic with rage; and then I am more implacably fixed and resolved than ever to continue taking twenty minutes to telegraph you what I might communicate in ten seconds by the new way if I would so debase myself. And when I see a whole silent, solemn ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... a galvanic battery. Likewise the astral corpse of a person may be brought back into an artificial life by being infused with a part of the life principle of the medium. If that corpse is one of a very intellectual person, it may talk very intellectually; and if it was that of a fool it ...
— Death—and After? • Annie Besant
... it should hurt me!" mused Heyst to himself; "yet it does. I seem to be as much of a fool as those everybodies who know the story and no doubt believe it. Can you remember any more?" he addressed the girl in a grimly polite tone. "I've often heard of the moral advantages of seeing oneself as others see one. Let ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... he met in Cornwall, who was fool enough to be caught with his gold lace. He married one day, and the next told his disconsolate wife and panic-stricken mother that the honor of the Jarvises must sleep until the supporters of the name ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... making of him, if he had been their dupe since the first day? Was it possible to make a fool of a man, of a worthy man, because his father had left him a little money? Why could one not see these things in people's souls, how was it that nothing revealed to upright hearts the deceits of infamous hearts, how was it that voices had the same sound for adoring ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... heart bleed, bah!—and when you shoot down Belgian hostages and do to death an English nurse? All that never seems to strike you. You go on thinking of yourself as a holy humble man whom everybody wilfully mistakes for a bully and a tyrant. Well, you can't fool everybody all the time, you know, and in this case it happens that everybody has got some sound horse-sense in his head. Who wanted to hurt you? You'd put together a great army and your commercial prosperity was a pretty good business proposition. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 19, 1916 • Various
... sprawling. I saved myself I don't know how, for I was all but over the side. Those ice ledges, you know, slip through one's fingers like water. I called out to the bird, 'Can't you even look before you, you fool?' But what was the good of that? The big blunderer did ...
— An Antarctic Mystery • Jules Verne
... went into the drawing-room, leaving Paul standing there. He looked after her, and a slight smile crossed his face as he thought of what a fool she was to think that he cared for her. His self-assurance led him to believe that the reason that Eva was not consenting to his proposal was indeed because of her father's condition, for he little dreamed, nor would his egotism permit him to believe, that anything else could ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... me here, you gods, a poor old man, As full of grief as age; wretched in both! If it be you that stirs these daughters' hearts Against their father, fool me not so much To bear it tamely; touch me with noble anger, And let not women's weapons, water-drops, ...
— The Principles of English Versification • Paull Franklin Baum
... Ouvrard, after a few days had passed over, reappeared, and surrendered himself prisoner. Bonaparte was at first furious on learning that he had got out of the way; but on hearing that Ouvrard had surrendered himself he said to me, "The fool! he does not know what is awaiting him! He wishes to make the public believe that he has nothing to fear; that his hands are clean. But he is playing a bad game; he will gain nothing in that way with me. All talking is nonsense. You may be sure, Bourrienne, that when a ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... "O, Fool!" said Asti, "you should have buried it. Know that with the enchanted thing you have burned away ...
— Morning Star • H. Rider Haggard
... the letter, and you've always kept in with them, you say, and made them think you were crazy about the girl. They pay you Betty's allowance till she's of age, don't they? They can't lay a finger on you. You're a fool to waste my time talking about a little thing like that when we ought to be planning a way to get hold of that girl before the trustees find out about it. If we don't get her fixed before she's of age we shall be in ...
— Exit Betty • Grace Livingston Hill
... and brooding away in the city." The lad's bright, clear eyes looked frankly into the captain's as he continued. "I have been making a fool of myself, Captain. Got into some mischief with a crowd of fellows at school. Of course, I got caught and had to bear the whole blame for the silly joke we had played. The faculty has suspended me for a term. I would ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... that I am in the habit of spoiling anything; but be very certain of this, that I shall not stand by and see my daughter make a fool of a young man of undoubted integrity and of excellent prospects, for the sake of one of these foreign adventurers who swarm wherever foolish Englishwomen wake their appearance. I beg you will say nothing, but let me observe for myself, and leave the ...
— The Cockaynes in Paris - 'Gone abroad' • Blanchard Jerrold
... for that insult at Williamsburg, and now it's my hour. You are to go with me, and go peaceably and quietly, or, by God, I 'll have you kicked and dragged out of the building, or killed like that old fool who tried to stop us ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... that he had been a cheap clerk in a small dry-goods store, a third or fourth rate book-keeper, or something similar. Imagine, if you please, one such, who never had brains or self-command sufficient to control himself, placed in command of thirty-five thousand men. Being a fool he could not help being an infliction to them, even with the best of intentions, and Wirz was not ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... is that your diabolical plot against Lilly has succeeded—vide the next number of the Fortnightly. ["Science and Morals" "Collected Essays" 9 117.] I was fool enough to read his article, and the rest followed. But I do not think I should have troubled myself if the opportunity had not been good for clearing off a lot of ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... "Monadnoc," and mark the insight and the power with which the significance and worth of the great facts of nature are interpreted and stated. "Complement of human kind, having us at vantage still, our sumptuous indigence, oh, barren mound, thy plenties fill! We fool and prate; thou art silent and sedate. To myriad kinds and times one sense the constant mountain doth dispense; shedding on all its snows and leaves, one joy it joys, one grief it grieves. Thou seest, oh, watchman tall, our towns and races grow and fall, and imagest ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne
... the Mahometan priest, and some Malay traders could not repress signs of astonishment. If they had known a little more about the ways and opinions of white men, they would probably have looked upon me as a fool or a madman, but in their ignorance they accepted my operations as worthy of all respect, although utterly beyond ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... Mountain or not, if anybody buys a certain lady I know of for a fool, he'll get awfully ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... me stable jacket 'fore eatin' my food, an' Dinah had the creature by the hand scrubbin' a bit dirt off it. I was takin' my money out one pocket into another and quick as chain-lightnin' grabs this queer old woman and hides the money behind her. She may be a fool, indeed, but she knows money when she sees it! and the look on her ...
— Dorothy's House Party • Evelyn Raymond
... better than another, all the inequality you can imagine is there by nature. I want every man to have his share in the world's goods, so that I am rid of his importunity, so that I can tell him: "Now you've got what you want—you've got your fair share of the world's gear. Now, you one-mouthed fool, mind yourself and ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... sobbing, the Queen reproved him and bid him not carry his fooling too far. Whereupon he sobbed out: "Nay, royal and gracious Coz, thou art in error. Never have I so shamelessly forgotten to play my part as Fool, as at this moment. Alack, alack! what a thing is life! Were we not one and all born fools, and if we did but measure it as it is now and ever shall be, with the wisdom of the sage, we should never cease to bewail ourselves, from the nurse's rod to ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... better go home now to your own dwelling, Mrs. Peck," said Brandon; "for if Mr. Phillips were to know that you had been visiting his wife in his absence you would come by the worst of it. Needlework, indeed! Mrs. Phillips is a fool, certainly; but the idea of your doing needlework for her is very absurd. So you had better ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... brigand sprang into the road with a shout, and flourished a musket in the light of the moon! We sidled toward the Piraeus—not running you understand, but only advancing with celerity. The brigand shouted again, but still we advanced. It was getting late, and we had no time to fool away on every ass that wanted to drivel Greek platitudes to us. We would just as soon have talked with him as not if we had not been in a hurry. Presently Denny said, "Those fellows are ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... She has one name, and therefore you would imagine that she is one; and yet surely she takes the most varied and even unlike forms. For do we not say that the intemperate has pleasure, and that the temperate has pleasure in his very temperance,—that the fool is pleased when he is full of foolish fancies and hopes, and that the wise man has pleasure in his wisdom? and how foolish would any one be who affirmed that all these opposite pleasures ...
— Philebus • Plato
... admitted that he holds a gun fairly straight, and does not disgrace himself when the necessity of slaughtering a friend's pheasants interrupts for a few hours the rehearsals of private theatricals, in company with the friend's wife. Certainly he is not a fool. He gauges with great accuracy his own capacities, and carefully limits his ambition to those smaller desires which, since they exact no vaulting power, are never likely to bring about a fall on the other side. The objects of his admiration are mean; and since he meanly admires them, he ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, Sept. 27, 1890 • Various
... and bad, yet with a notable mark of diversity in the original, though translations mind it not. Eight times in the Old Testament is this phrase, "Said in his heart," used: four times by the wicked, and as oft by the righteous; but constantly, whensoever a wicked man useth it, as David's fool, Esau, Haman, Satan, it is in his heart; when a good man, as Hannah, David, it is to his heart; and teacheth: 1. That the heart and courses of a wicked man are subject to his inclinations; they dictate to him; they command, and he obeys. 2. But the inclinations of a good man are subject ...
— The Covenants And The Covenanters - Covenants, Sermons, and Documents of the Covenanted Reformation • Various
... myself for being such a fool, and I hated the factor for sending me on such a mission. It never entered my head to play him false and try to win Flora, nor did I believe there was any chance of doing so. Day after day we were together, and with Spartan ...
— The Cryptogram - A Story of Northwest Canada • William Murray Graydon
... my husband's life was of more value than my own. On this point we agreed. I was to make Mr. Rhodes understand that we didn't want any more 'tom-fool military men up here to ball ...
— A Woman's Part in a Revolution • Natalie Harris Hammond
... opened, and Eleanor herself appeared. She had on a spotted calico gown, with a string of gold beads around her neck. She held in her hand a piece of fan coral. I felt myself turning all colors, stammered, hesitated, and believed in my heart that she would think me a fool. Very likely she did; for I really suppose that she never, till then, thought that ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... being caught up by her questions. I tried to explain; but it was difficult. If I had told her that a maiden's mind ought to be as pure as the dewy rose she would not have understood me. Probably she would have thought me a fool. And indeed I am inclined to question whether it is an advantage to a maiden's after career to be dewy-roselike in her unsophistication. In order to play tunes indifferently well on the piano she ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... differently from Pitson's," Prescott went on. "The top of his head goes up to a point. If a mule had a head shaped like that our veterinary surgeons would call it a fool mule and reject it. But you men have heads ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys with Pershing's Troops - Dick Prescott at Grips with the Boche • H. Irving Hancock
... "The fool!" muttered l'Encuerado; "he thinks he can pierce a tree as thick as my body with three pecks of his beak! ...
— Adventures of a Young Naturalist • Lucien Biart
... door opened and closed swiftly. Denver stood clear of the rocks and wondered if he should risk anything further. Pursuit was useless with such arms as he carried. No question of courage was involved. A man is not required to play quixotic fool under such circumstances. And there might not be time to return to his spacer for a long-range heat gun. If he tried to reach the strange ship, its occupants could smoke him down before he covered half the distance. If he continued toward the ...
— Master of the Moondog • Stanley Mullen
... and knowledge. In the end he was absolutely convinced that E.A. stood for Elsie April; and at the last moment, deciding that it would be the act of a fool and a coward to decline what was practically a personal request from a young and enchanting woman, he had come to London—short of sleep, it is true, owing to local convivialities, but he had come! And, curiously, he had not communicated ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... thought Benjamin. "He must have put out his light, to fool me. But I don't care, because Kiddie Katydid is hidden somewhere in this tree. And I'm going to ...
— The Tale of Kiddie Katydid • Arthur Scott Bailey
... idea now and then, when he forgets to be a fool," observed Don Francesco. "He is President of the Club, Mr. Heard. They will elect you honorary member. Take my advice. ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... Vulcan had thee in his net enthrall'd; 320 (Oh, envied ignominy, sweet disgrace, When every god that saw thee wish'd thy place!) By those dear pleasures, aid my arms in fight, And make me conquer in my patron's right: For I am young, a novice in the trade, The fool of love, unpractised to persuade: And want the soothing arts that catch the fair, But, caught myself, lie struggling in the snare: And she I love, or laughs at all my pain, Or knows her worth too well; and pays me with disdain. 330 For sure I am, unless I win in arms, To stand excluded from Emilia's ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... different, always. But there is something within me, underneath, like an inner light that makes me see clearly now,—not conscience, but a kind of flame that guides. In the light of that I see what a petty fool I have been. It all had to be—I don't regret because it all had to be—the terrible waste, the sacrifice," she whispered, thinking of Vickers. "Only now we must live, you and I together,—together live as we have never ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... these events had occurred while the emperor, with Wallenstein, was at Ratisbon, intriguing to secure the succession of the imperial crown for his son. They both looked upon the march of the King of Sweden into the heart of Germany as the fool-hardy act of a mad adventurer. The courtiers ridiculed his transient conquests, saying, "Gustavus Adolphus is a king of snow. Like a snowball he will melt in a southern clime." Wallenstein was particularly contemptuous. "I will whip him back to his country," said he, "like a ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... Ah! fool! fool! Wilt thou set men to school When they be old? I may say to you secretly, The world was never merry Since children were so bold; Now every boy will be a teacher, The father a fool, the child a preacher; This is pretty gear! The foul presumption ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... A villain or a fool would have relished the situation; many men would have dallied with it; but, to do this erring man justice, he writhed and sorrowed under it, and sincerely ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... dog, or why a dog, for I thought it was not truly a dog, but just his bad American argot; and, if I must speak truth, pardon me that I find it very good that so stupid a fellow finds me dull. If he found me amusing, I should naturally know that I, too, must be a fool." ...
— A Woman's Will • Anne Warner
... lrenaeus and. Tertullian Mr. Everett remarks, that "Tertullian was a very shrewd writer, [yes indeed, and of his fraudulent shrewdness Middleton gives some notable instances in his true inquiry] and Irenaeus less fool than knave," p. 471. of Mr. Everett's work. I would observe to Mr. Everett, that this Irenaeus is the first writer who mentions the four Gospels, and that the Fathers of the Church who came after him in affirming the genuineness of the ...
— Five Pebbles from the Brook • George Bethune English
... shared among so many, for a dedication to himself? and when next my ill-fortune (which has thus its pleasant side) brings him hurrying to me when he would fain sit down to meat or lie down to rest, will he care to remember that he takes this trouble for one who is not fool ...
— Underwoods • Robert Louis Stevenson
... sought your ruin, fool, I should drag you to the first guard-house; besides, when that note is delivered, in all probability you will have no more to ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... we know children, and their turn for observation! As for my husband, it seemed to me that he ought to have pricked up his ears at this tale of the daring manner in which his wife had been used as a model. Monsieur de l'Estorade is certainly no fool; in all social matters he has the highest sense of conventional propriety, and as for jealousy, I think if I gave him the slightest occasion he would show himself ridiculously jealous. But now, the sight of his "beautiful Renee," as he calls ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... hunting up the poor widows of insolvent merchants," said Mr. Jones to himself, as he walked the length of his store once or twice, rubbing his hands every now and then with irrepressible glee. "If I'd been led off by Smith on that fool's errand, just see what I would have lost. Operations like that don't go a begging long. But this gentleman knows in ...
— Finger Posts on the Way of Life • T. S. Arthur
... valiant slayer 1010 Of multitudes, and thus in accents wing'd, With fierce delight exulted in his fall. It was thy thought, Patroclus, to have laid Our city waste, and to have wafted hence Our wives and daughters to thy native land, 1015 Their day of liberty for ever set. Fool! for their sakes the feet of Hector's steeds Fly into battle, and myself excel, For their sakes, all our bravest of the spear, That I may turn from them that evil hour 1020 Necessitous. But thou art vulture's ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... "thar allus is one! Let a man be hell-bent or heaven-bent, somewhere in his track is a woman's feet. I don't say anythin' agin this gal, ez a gal. The best of 'em, Jeff, is only guide-posts to p'int a fellow on his right road, and only a fool or a drunken man holds on to 'em or leans agin em. Allowin' this gal is all you think she is, how far is your guide-post goin' with ye, eh? Is she goin' to leave her father and mother for ye? Is she goin' to give up herself and her easy ways and her sicknesses for ye? Is she willin' to ...
— Jeff Briggs's Love Story • Bret Harte
... in some points," continued Mustapha; "if you want either a fool or a knave, you have not far to go to find them; but it is no easy task to select the person you ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... speaks, but He is not seen. He lives in the room with me, but I cannot find Him. He brings to market His moods, but the marketer never appears. Some call Him fire, some ether. But I ask His name in vain. I suppose I am such a fool that they will not tell it me." Then a strange ironical address to Krishna. "Really, sir, your conduct is very odd! You flirt with the Gopis! You put Rhada in a sulk, and then ask to be forgiven! You say you are a god, and yet you pray to God! Really, sir, what are we to think?" Lastly, a mystic ...
— Appearances - Being Notes of Travel • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... said I; "I was a fool then, and did not think I could incline to be Glentanner with L200 or L300 a year, instead of Glentanner with as many thousands. I was then a haughty, pettish, ignorant, dissipated, broken-down Scottish laird; and thinking my imaginary consequence altogether ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott
... honour of the country should be committed to their hands. With a small force, complete in itself, at the disposal of such men, more could be effected at the moment for the honour and interests of the country than by long and roundabout despatches, passing through so many hands that one fool in authority nullifies all, as a bad link in an otherwise good chain renders the whole useless. Omitting the other portions of the correspondence, the following letter from Major-general D'Aguilar, dated Hong-Kong, August 21, 1847, to Major-general Smelt, reveals sufficiently the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... a moral may be drawn from the story of poor Sam Patch! Why do we call him a madman or a fool, when he has left his memory around the falls of the Genesee, more permanently than if the letters of his name had been hewn into the forehead ...
— Sketches From Memory - (From: "The Doliver Romance and Other Pieces: Tales and Sketches") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... word, what next? Are you making a fool of yourself, if you please?—What!—You, who, by the mercy of Heaven, have come across twenty thousand francs a year, and a house, and a wife connected with all the first families of the better middle class—a wife, in short, out of ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... Hereat, understanding that he was touched in brain and this was a judgment that had been wrought upon him, they seized him and forced him into the barber's shop and bringing a mirror set it in his hands. When he looked therein he found a fool's cap upon his head, so forthwith he tore it off and took thought and said to those present, "Who of you can guide me to those three women?" They said to him, "O Syrian, march off with thyself to thy own ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... boy said, "You're a coward an' a fool, Billy Polk. The cow wasn't hurtin' nothin', an' you're just tryin' to show off, beatin' ...
— Letters on an Elk Hunt • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... thought if the Minds of Men were laid open, we should see but little Difference between that of the Wise Man and that of the Fool. There are infinite Reveries, numberless Extravagancies, and a perpetual Train of Vanities which pass through both. The great Difference is that the first knows how to pick and cull his Thoughts for Conversation, by ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... he gets to where he can live up to the Roarin' Mike name, he can discard it an' take back his own. Might's well give the boy a chanct. Cain thought he'd put it over on me, 'count of my movin' my office where he'd have to waller acrost the crick to it. But I'll fool him good an' proper. The kid's a lunger, an' the first thing to do is to git him started in to feelin' like a man. I figured they was somethin' to him when I first seen him. If they wasn't, how did he get up here in the middle of Alaska an' winter ...
— Connie Morgan in the Fur Country • James B. Hendryx
... fool," was the response, "what the dash do I know about mistresses? I'll make a beginning with you, you sleek, fat powder-monkey, with your shiny ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... apparition of three pairs of feet resting on the ledge of an open window in one of the apartments of the second story and plainly visible from below." He asked a gardener for an explanation. The brusk reply was: "Why, you old fool, that's the Cabinet that is a-settin', and them thar big feet are ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... a fool, Ardmore!" urged one of the men, speaking in the fellow's ear. "That's Midshipman Dave Darrin, and he's one of the quickest, ...
— Dave Darrin's Third Year at Annapolis - Leaders of the Second Class Midshipmen • H. Irving Hancock
... the other seized the spontoon of his father. Springing upon my followers, the one who had the spontoon smote Pagolo the Roman first above the left nipple. The other attacked a Milanese who was in our company, and had the ways and manners of a perfect fool. This man screamed out that he had nothing in the world to do with me, and parried the point of the partisan with a little stick he held; but this availed him naught: in spite of his words and fencing, he received a flesh wound in the mouth. Messer Cherubino wore the habit of a ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... fool!" shouted Ebearhard savagely. "You're drunk. The Captain couldn't have made a better selection. What ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... that tender imaginative sentiment mixed with rugged and humorous piety which one finds in the old German Protestant Mystics and in such works of art as the engravings of Albert Durer and the Wooden Madonna of Nuremburg. "The Fool in Christ"—outside some of the characters in Dostoievsky—is the nearest modern approach to a literary interpretation of what remains timeless ...
— One Hundred Best Books • John Cowper Powys
... or the faintest tinge of a shade—and that through the enveloping wealth and rank of a state, or the whole republic of states, a sneak or sly person shall be discover'd and despised—and that the soul has never once been fool'd and never can be fool'd—and thrift without the loving nod of the soul is only a foetid puff—and there never grew up in any of the continents of the globe, nor upon any planet or satellite, nor in that condition which precedes the birth of babes, nor at any time during ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... Liberal concedes most things to the workman, but in practice he doesn't: in principle, the Tory concedes nothing to the workman, but in practice he treats him decently. The workman knows that, but the fool goes and votes for the Liberal, and the fool of a Tory lets him!... You know," he went on, "this Trade Union movement has got on to wrong lines altogether. Their chief function seems to be to protect ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... built. There is no law for making Dr. Verse a better preacher than Dr. Prolix, and yet he is a much better preacher; neither is there any law for making Mr. Effingham a more finished gentleman than I happen to be, and yet I am not fool enough to deny the fact. In the way of making out a bill of parcels, I will not turn my back to him, I ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... sword-thrust through his body, and but for that fool of a Remy, he would have died; I believe his soul must be glued to ...
— Chicot the Jester - [An abridged translation of "La dame de Monsoreau"] • Alexandre Dumas
... the same. I should have been far wiser, I know now, if I had bought one of those ready-made, self-acting, fool- proof medicine chests such as are favoured by fourth-rate ship- masters. In such a chest each bottle has a number. On the inside of the lid is placed a simple table of directions: No. 1, toothache; No. 2, smallpox; No. 3, stomachache; No. 4, cholera; No. 5, rheumatism; ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London
... America these African natives are not only born actors but have a keen sense of humour. They are quick to imitate the white man. If a Georgia darkey, for example, wants to abuse a member of his own race he delights to call him "a fool nigger." It is the last word in reproach. In the Congo when a native desires to express contempt for his fellow, he refers to him as a basingi, which means bush-man. It is a case of the pot ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson
... settlement of a few white men, living in the midst of a mass of warlike Kafirs, when Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the United States, are all holding out their arms to him, is to suppose him a bigger fool than he is. At the best of times Natal is not likely to attract many desirable emigrants: under a responsible government I do not believe that ...
— Cetywayo and his White Neighbours - Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal • H. Rider Haggard
... humanity, although his dinner be habitually a martyrdom. After all, we are only dictated to by our bodies: we have not perforce to obey them. A bitter wit once remarked that the soul, if it were ever discovered, would be found embodied in the gastric juice. He was not altogether a fool, this man who had learnt in suffering what he taught in epigram; yet was he wide ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... and he gave it up. He was a fool to trust her simply because the fear feeling subsided around her—but he had nothing better to do than to follow his hunches, and then try to play the odds ...
— Pursuit • Lester del Rey
... who chooses the career of outlawry is either a natural fool or an innocent madman. The term outlaw has a varied meaning. A man may be an outlaw, and yet a patriot. There is the outlaw with a heart of velvet and a hand of steel; there is the outlaw who never molested the sacred sanctity of any man's home; there is the outlaw who never dethroned ...
— The Story of Cole Younger, by Himself • Cole Younger
... Plotinus, the mystic of Alexandria, who lived in the third century of our era. The best known anecdote of him is that his disciples asked him if he were not sometimes levitated, and he laughed, and said, "No; but he was no fool who persuaded you of this." Instead of Plotinus, we are referred to a mass of Jewish and anti-Christian apocryphal traditions, which have the same common point—the assertion of the existence of the phenomenon of levitation. ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... "they were married all right. The mother saw to that, and to do him justice, Watts kept the whole family like a gentleman. But like an idealist, or, as a man of the world would say, a fool, he was ashamed of his wife; he showed great reserve to her, and when he gave his usual dinners or receptions, he invited only men and so, ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... priest wore a kind of white {110} fool's cap, with three points; the other persons, who consisted of men alone, had a kind of white cloth bound round their ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... this talk before," she replied. "You are a sweet-hearted fool, and I love you for it. But I am a clear-headed woman; my eyes are open, and I understand this man's hypocrisy. Did he not come here to-day and pretend he would take a situation—pretend he would share his hard-earned ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... when he looks down at me from the height of his grandeur, or breaks off his learned conversation with me because I'm a fool, or is condescending to me. I like that so; to see him condescending! I am so glad he can't bear me," she used to ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... Something happens in my relationship to my dog. I pat him and he is pleased; he barks for joy when I go out. I cannot live with anybody with whom I am always on exactly the same even terms—no rising, no falling, mere stagnation. I am dead, but it is death without its sleep and peace. Fool, fool that I was! I cannot go on. What shall I do? If Charles drank I might cure or tolerate him; if he went after another woman I might win him back. I can ...
— More Pages from a Journal • Mark Rutherford
... chase, but he could not be taught to fetch and to carry and to perform all sorts of tricks such as were done by the little mongrel cur that danced to the order of the mountebank the other evening. My father always said I was a fool, and that, though for a piece of rough hammering I was by no means amiss, I should never learn the real intricacies of repairing fine armour. Everything has its good, you see, Master Wulf; for had my father thought better of me in his trade, ...
— Wulf the Saxon - A Story of the Norman Conquest • G. A. Henty
... he can't speak a word of English." The sergeant collected him in and guarded him until another engineer officer, known to the guard, came along. As soon as Perkins saw him, he said, "F-r-r-ed, t-t-tell this d-d-damn fool wh-ho I am." "Who the hell are you calling Fred? I don't know him; hold him, sergeant, he's a desperate one." Scarcely able to contain his joy, Fred went back to the Engineers' Camp to tell the great news and Perkins spent three hours in the sandbag dugout listening ...
— "Crumps", The Plain Story of a Canadian Who Went • Louis Keene
... of punishment. For a great and good man, shew me one who loves virtue because he finds a pleasure in it, who has acquired a taste for that pleasure by considering what and where happiness is, who is not such a fool as to seek misery in preference to happiness, whose honour is his Deity, whose conscience is his judge. Put such a man in combat against the superstitious son of Spain or Portugal, it were easy to say who would shew the truest courage. The question might be more voluminously discussed, but I feel ...
— Answer to Dr. Priestley's Letters to a Philosophical Unbeliever • Matthew Turner
... Vein of Rhiming to-night, (said Philadelphia.) Ay! Pox of that young insipid Fop, we could else have been as great as an Emperor of China, and as witty as Horace in his Wine; but let him go, like a pragmatical, captious, giddy Fool as he is! I shall take a Time to see him. Nay, Sir, (said Philibella) he has promis'd your Majesty a Visit in our Hearing. Come, Sir, I beg your Majesty to pledge me this Glass to your long and happy Reign; laying aside all Thoughts of ungovern'd Youth: Besides, ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... shall go und shmoke mein piggest bibe for a dreat. Dot does me goot. Oom Schlagen is a pig fool; zo ist effery man who does not lofe his neighbour and zay his brayers effery night. You oondershtand, ...
— Diamond Dyke - The Lone Farm on the Veldt - Story of South African Adventure • George Manville Fenn
... book?—I never wrote one before, and never read very many; and, of course, know mighty little about that. Will it be on the authorship of the book?—this I claim, and I'll hang on to it, like a wax plaster. The whole book is my own, and every sentiment and sentence in it. I would not be such a fool, or knave either, as to deny that I have had it hastily run over by a friend or so, and that some little alterations have been made in the spelling and grammar; and I am not so sure that it is not the worse of even that, for I despise this way of spelling contrary to nature. ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... go,—to the time when men were serfs wearing an iron collar with the brand of the lord who owned them. With us no stigma is attached to work. Your menial expects to be a menial all his life. With our worker, just as sure as the sun rises and sets, if he continues to work and is no fool, he will rise to earn a competency, to improve himself, to own his own labor, to own his own home, to hire the labor of other men who are beginners as ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... forefingers. He spoke almost confidentially. "It will be awkward. I triet to suggest some doubt, but I was over-ruled. The Prince does not listen. He is impatient in the high air. Perhaps he will think his schtar has been making a fool of him. Perhaps he will think I haf been making ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... fool!" I said to myself, in a sort of stupor. My faith, it was the height of folly in me to be interested ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... That cunning scoundrel, Dousterswivel, found out my blunt side, and brought strange tales (dn him) of appearances of old shafts, and vestiges of mining operations, conducted in a manner quite different from those of modern times; and Iin short, I was a fool, and there is an end. My loss is not much worth speaking about; but Sir Arthur's engagements are, I understand, very deep, and my heart aches for him and the poor young lady ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... playing a fool that you've caught," said John, who had joined in the laugh against himself, "and you've a ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... ever perish those who espouse the cause of the poor. None but a fool dreams crowns come to the poor. What reason hath this man who would be king, for befriending the poor? Hath he ...
— The Coming of the King • Bernie Babcock
... to experience despair, I've had to sink down to the most foolish one of all thoughts, to the thought of suicide, in order to be able to experience divine grace, to hear Om again, to be able to sleep properly and awake properly again. I had to become a fool, to find Atman in me again. I had to sin, to be able to live again. Where else might my path lead me to? It is foolish, this path, it moves in loops, perhaps it is going around in a circle. Let it go as it likes, I ...
— Siddhartha • Herman Hesse
... some distance behind, came riding up to us. As he came on I rode up to him and said in a friendly tone: "Old chap, you'd better let me have your gun." Thinking that I was imposing upon him, he said: "Come along; don't play the fool!" When I had assured him that I was in earnest he remarked: "But surely you are not a Boer. Kritzinger's commando is the only one in the district, and that is surrounded." Then taking the report out of his pocket ...
— In the Shadow of Death • P. H. Kritzinger and R. D. McDonald
... is dangerous because of being caught. All the officers know about it, but no one must be found out. Then I told him about Oswald's affair and he said: "Oswald was a great donkey, you'll excuse me for saying so since he's your brother; but really he made a fool of himself. He was only a civilian; it's quite different in the army." Then I got cross and said: "That's all very well, Jeno, but you are not an officer yourself, so I don't see how you can know anything about it." Then he said to Hella: "I say, ...
— A Young Girl's Diary • An Anonymous Young Girl
... If you do not I shall not be watched! They will know as soon as they look for me that I was in the camp all through the night. Lolla, you fool, I love you, only you. I want her to win a ransom. They will pay to have her back, ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at Long Lake - Bessie King in Summer Camp • Jane L. Stewart
... dislike of death. In France and England suicides are very common; in Italy they are almost unknown. The American recklessness of life completely astounds the Italian. He enjoys life, studies every method to preserve it, and considers any one who risks it unnecessarily as simply a fool. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various
... to be rakin' it up agin. You know he always passes hisself off as one o' the conscrip'-guards,—that's his dodge. Like as not, that's what he's gwine try and put off on y' all now; but don't you let him fool you." ...
— Two Little Confederates • Thomas Nelson Page
... as such has been a prominent man in the territory for many years. He was elected Delegate to Congress in 1824, I think, and served two years in that capacity. I once heard him preach nearly two hours on the real presence. He finally said, "that if this doctrine was not true, Jesus Christ must be a fool." These, I think, were the precise words. When attending, by rotation, as one of the chaplains for the Legislative Council while I was a member, he used to pray very shrewdly "that the legislators might make laws for the people and not ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... so fruitful in evil, still exist. In the great cities of central Europe, "witch towers," where witches and demoniacs were tortured, and "fool towers," where the more gentle lunatics were ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... use. 'At man's so drunk he can't stan' still long enough for a man to hit him. I (hic) I can't 'ford to fool away any more am'nition ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... not a bit more astonishing than several people in the same place having the same fever. Nothing in the world is so infectious as ghost-seeing. The oftener a ghost is seen, the oftener it will be seen. In this sort of thing particularly, one fool makes many. No, don't wait for me. Heaven only knows when ...
— Cecilia de Noel • Lanoe Falconer
... April Fool (as my lord's jester) took upon himself to 15 marshal the guests. And wild work he made of it; good Days, bad Days, all were shuffled together. He had stuck the Twenty-first of June next to the Twenty-second of December, and the former looked like a maypole by the side of a marrowbone. Ash Wednesday ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... care of itself. To guarantee his freedom on condition that you approve of his moral character is formally to abolish all freedom whatsoever, as every man's liberty is at the mercy of a moral indictment, which any fool can trump up against everyone who violates custom, whether as a prophet or as a rascal. This is the lesson Democracy has to learn before it can become anything but the most oppressive ...
— Bernard Shaw's Preface to Major Barbara • George Bernard Shaw
... would you like best, the love of a strong, earnest tender nature, for in man or woman 'the strongest are the tenderest, the loving are the daring,' which would you like best, the love and respect of such a nature full of wit, of tenderness, of infinite variety, or the love of a fool? ...
— Samantha on the Woman Question • Marietta Holley
... a fight. I dont b'lieve in no such gwine-on, no sir-ree. Dat's de reason I stays out here by myse'f all de time. I don't want to have nothin' to do wid 'em. I goes to town 'bout once a mont' to git s'pplies, but I don' never fool 'roun' wid dem Niggers den. I gits 'long wid my white folks, too. All da mens an' wimmens what comes out to de club is pow'ful good ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Mississippi Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... be a fool! Why are you trembling so? He can't have read both novels. Control yourself—take off your hat. Put your cloak away. (Helps her to take her things off.) If he finds you in this state, he'll ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... "I think I shall sjambok you myself when I've quite done with you. No, my father (he was a fool) made no terms for eight years—ninety-six months—and for every day of them the Transvaal made his life hell for ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... we shall have to bide our time. A false step and it would be the end of all of us. This Commander Bernstorff, I should say, is a bad man to fool with. But once we can get him in our power and silence the others, we can make something ...
— The Boy Allies Under the Sea • Robert L. Drake
... Peter Brome in her trouble? Well, you must ask her, and that soon, if you can find the words. Take a lesson from that Spanish don, and scrape and bow and flatter and tell stories of the war and turn verses to her eyes and hair. Oh, Peter! are you a fool, that I at my age should have to teach you how ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard
... Facts: the Fool who deals in those A Mucker he inevitably goes: The dusty Don who looks your Paper o'er He knows about it all—or ...
— Lyra Frivola • A. D. Godley
... from you!' exclaimed Rust, shaking his thin finger in his very face; 'this from you; you, a house-breaker, a thief, and last night the murderer of your comrade. Ho! ho! it makes me laugh! Fool! How many lives have you? One word of mine ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various
... the moment that He spoke, I also, like Saul, found all my feelings altered, altered incredibly, miraculously, so that I scarcely recognized myself. I no longer stood aloof from men, and found pleasure in intellectual superiority; I was willing to "become a fool for Christ's sake" if by any means I might save some. I issued a card of invitation to the services of my Church with this motto of St. Paul's upon it, which I now felt was mine. I had had for years feelings of resentment towards one who ...
— The Empire of Love • W. J. Dawson
... "For being a fool," I declared fiercely, "for believing your cordiality toward me as Dr. Zimmern's friend to mean ...
— City of Endless Night • Milo Hastings
... tobacco into his last pipe in the library—"some of these nights I'm darned if I sha'n't catch hold of the sweet, little old thing and hug her in spite of myself. I sha'n't be able to help it." He lit his pipe, and puffed it even excitedly. "Lord!" he said, "there's some blame' fool going about the world right now that might have married her. And he'll never know what a break he ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... is given to this fact in the popular songs. But the women only feel themselves tenderly loved when they are badly treated by their husbands; the man who does not beat them they look upon as a fool. It is the same in the east end of London. "If anyone has doubts as to the brutalities practised on women by men," writes a London magistrate, "let him visit the London Hospital on a Saturday night. Very terrible sights will meet his eye. Sometimes as many ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... different sort. For the teacher of the Upanishads believes that he will attain to unending joy; not the rude happiness of 'heaven-seekers,' but the unchanging bliss of immortal peace. For him that wished it, there was heaven and the gods. These were not denied; they were as real as the "fool" that desired them. But for him that conquered passion, and knew the truth, there was existence without the pain of desire, life without end, freedom from rebirth. The spirit of the sage becomes one with the Eternal; ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... the rock upon which all our dreams were wrecked. My father would but reply sourly to any question I might venture that my fair Jeanette was the ward of a friend who, on his death-bed, had bequeathed her to his clemency—the fool!" ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... very efficient system of weighing and checking. A rather too generous allowance is, of course, a direct incentive to waste or stealing—as any one but our silly old duffer of a War Office would know. The checking is for quantity, which any fool can understand, rather than for quality. The test for the quality of army meat is the smell. If it doesn't smell bad, it ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... a head as ever was set on two shoulders. 'Anda, hombre! said Don Pedro, 'I am a dead man;' and so he told the herdsman all that the King had said. 'Oh, is that all?' said the knowing mozo. 'I can get you out of the scrape. Let me go and answer the questions in your name, my master!' 'Ah, you fool! what can you do?' said Don Pedro without Fear and without Care, throwing himself upon the earth, and ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... visionary; everybody is in these days; everybody chases butterflies: everybody seeks sudden fortune and will not lay one up by slow toil. This is not right, I will discharge the men and go at some honest work. There is no coal here. What a fool I have been; I ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... thee a garland woven fair, Take care! It is a fool's-cap for thee to wear, Beware! Beware! Trust her not, She is ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... A fool of a fellow named Backlog burst into the tap-room one night and said he had heard the White Lady shrieking, and Charles—that's the waiter—declared that he had seen something white the same night. That was ...
— The Shrieking Pit • Arthur J. Rees
... ye sure that there is evil to come for the bridegroom and the bride in this new marriage, and for their kin. Think ye that I had flattered this man but that I thought to gain somewhat thereby? Surety I had not touched his hand, no, nor spoken to him. And now—fool that he is—he hath given me this day, and when he might have driven me from the land, he suffereth me to tarry. Verily he shall die for it, he and his daughter and this new bridegroom. But how shall I contrive it? Shall I put fire to the dwelling ...
— Stories from the Greek Tragedians • Alfred Church
... make thrue the sayin'—'a fool and his money be soon parted.' I'll go an' buy the Widdy Mullowny's pig, and fat it for the Fair. It's meself that knows how to spind money in a sinsible way. A ...
— Stories and Legends of Travel and History, for Children • Grace Greenwood
... particular manor, Pope forgot that even a jest-book must govern its jokes by some regard to the realities of life, and that amongst these realities is the very nature and operation of a will. A miser is not, therefore, a fool; and he knows that no possible testamentary abdication of an estate disturbs his own absolute command over it so long as he lives, or bars his power of revoking the bequest. The moral instruction is in this case so poor, that no reader cares much upon what sort ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey
... even at that late moment to the king. "What the goodyear, Mr. More!" she cried, bustling up to the tranquil and courageous man. "I marvel that you, who have been hitherto always taken for a wise man, will now so play the fool as to lie here in this close, filthy prison, and be content to be shut up thus with mice and rats, when you might be abroad at your liberty, with the favor and good-will both of the king and his council, if ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... O what a fool's paradise was the heart of the Pharisee now in, while he stood in the temple praying to God! "God, I thank thee," said he, for I am good and holy, I am a righteous man; I have been full of good works; I am no extortioner, unjust, nor adulterer, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan |
