"Pig-headed" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a will of his own; and he was obstinate, mulish, pig-headed. If he had been surprised into declaring that black was white, then black would continue to be white, in spite of positive demonstration to the contrary. He was dogmatic to the last degree; and this is a fault to which the schoolmaster is peculiarly liable. ...
— Breaking Away - or The Fortunes of a Student • Oliver Optic
... He tells me that he implored my brother to let him draw up a will embodying the matter in a reasonable form. But John wouldn't listen to him. Poor old fellow! he could be very pig-headed when he chose." ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman
... those provinces. We observed also, what I have often proved since, that the nature of a horse can be told by his colour, from the coquettish light bay, full of fancies and nerves, to the hardy chestnut, and from the docile roan to the pig-headed rusty-black. All this has nothing in the world to do with my story, but how is an officer of cavalry to get on with his tale when he finds four hundred horses waiting for him at the outset? It is my habit, you see, to talk of that which interests myself and so I ...
— The Exploits Of Brigadier Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... pig-headed father—a balked romance—a quarrel—a murder at eleven and a train away at midnight. These facts paraded through Creighton's brain and to a certain extent got ready to parade right on out of it. He could think all around a given subject, as he had described the process to Jason ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... pig-headed Maccabees! I had eaten bacon with my pork liever than change places at ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... not have a monarchy, but I'd have the next thing to it, with a muzzle on the rabble. Perhaps I, too, have faith in a few,—in yourself and George Washington; and in Madison, our own Gibraltar. But the pig-headed, selfish, swinish—well, go on with your present plans. 'Tis to hear those we met to-night, not to analyze each other. Tell us all, that we may not only hope, but work ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... odd apologetic voice, "you see the old beggar had got into a pig-headed sort of pet last year. He said he would cut me if I left the service, and so he felt bound to be as good as his word; but he seems to have felt lost without us, and to have been looking out for a chance of meeting. He was horribly humiliated by ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Mr. Boythorn, suddenly firing another volley, "that fellow is, and his father was, and his grandfather was, the most stiff-necked, arrogant imbecile, pig-headed numskull, ever, by some inexplicable mistake of Nature, born in any station of life but a walking-stick's! The whole of that family are the most solemnly conceited and consummate blockheads! But it's ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... man who should happen to tumble into the Niagara, with the Falls close upon him. England would have had Italy submit to that Austrian rule which had been established over her by English influence in 1814, when even the perverse, pig-headed Francis II. could see sound objections to it; and all because want of submission on her part would disturb the equilibrium of Europe, and might tend to the aggrandizement of France,—two things which she by no means desired to see happen. Russia, like America, gave Italy her ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... His name it wasn't Waterman. For office he was hotter than The love of any lover, nor Was Boruck's threat of aiding him Effective in dissuading him— This pig-headed, ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... was now sent home to England a prisoner. But King William was not altogether pleased with all the colonists had done, and he was set free without any trial. He was not really a bad man, but he was dogged and pig-headed, without sympathy or imagination, and altogether the wrong man in the wrong place. Later on he came back to America as Governor of Virginia, and this time he ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... to HOBSON and talking earnestly). Man, will ye no be warned? Ye pig-headed animal, alcohol is poison to ye, deadly, virulent with a system in the ...
— Hobson's Choice • Harold Brighouse
... "Pig-headed!" commented Caius. Then, perceiving that he had not quite carried her judgment along with his: "You yourself, madam, have admitted that they do not deserve that either you or I should ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... and men aft gang aglee," from sheer stupidity and pig-headed obstinacy. General Kirby Smith had publicly announced that Banks's army was too strong to be fought, and that the proper policy was either to defend the works protecting Shreveport, or retreat into Texas. ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor
... most irrational, the most unjust, the most thoroughly pig-headed set of creatures on the face of the earth!" he burst ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... "Martha, do you know you're the most obstinate, pig-headed, prejudiced, ill-tempered little ...
— The Cinema Murder • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... he said triumphantly, when he had finished, "if you are not ready to admit that you are the most obstinate, pig-headed fellow that ever lived, I give you ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... mind my saying so, are absolutely footling. All they amount to is—because Gold Mines here always have been worked by gangs of Yellow Gnomes, therefore they must be for all time. Now that's just the kind of fine old crusted pig-headed Conservativism that's kept this the stick-in-the-mud Country it is! Look at the sort of business you've been wasting our time in jawing about to-day—why, in the country We came from, a Rural District Council would have settled it all in five minutes if they ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... "A nasty, ungrateful, pig-headed, brutish, obstinate, sneaking dog," exclaimed Mrs. Squeers, taking Smike's head under her arm and administering a cuff at every epithet; "what ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various
... stubborn, obdurate, casehardened; inflexible &c (hard) 323; balky; immovable, unshakable, not to be moved; inert &c 172; unchangeable &c 150; inexorable &c (determined) 604; mulish, obstinate as a mule, pig-headed. dogged; sullen, sulky; unmoved, uninfluenced unaffected. willful, self-willed, perverse; resty^, restive, restiff^; pervicacious^, wayward, refractory, unruly; heady, headstrong; entete [Fr.]; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... trap 'um all your life an' think you know all about 'um, then along will come a bar that will teach you difrunt. There ain't no use in makin' rules about bar ettyket, cuz ef you do, some miserable pig-headed bar will break 'um all ter smash, jest like this 'ere one did. But I think there is a good deal surer way uv accountin' for the critter's action than what you say. It's my idee that he mistook the baby for a ...
— Black Bruin - The Biography of a Bear • Clarence Hawkes
... "You know how pig-headed Hank Lawson always is," he told his chum. "Once he gets started in a thing, he hates everlastingly to give up. He came here to bother us, I feel sure, and a little thing like a shortage of provisions wouldn't force him to call the ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Snowbound - A Tour on Skates and Iceboats • George A. Warren
... reform, and was strong in a deep fervor of religious conviction widely diffused among people and clergy, and extending to the highest places of the nobility and the episcopate. The anti-Puritan party was the conservative or reactionary party, strong in the vis inertiae, and in the king's pig-headed prejudices and his monstrous conceit of theological ability and supremacy in the church; strong also in a considerable adhesion and zealous cooeperation from among his nominees, the bishops. The religious division was also a political one, the Puritans being known as the party ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... better to designate the chaps who are managing the cribs." The two men were in a window embrasure. Despeaux pointed to one side of the niche. "Over there, behold Morrison and his 'storage and power' crowd, made up of pig-headed engineers and scientific experts who are thinking only of how much power can be developed for the people as proprietors; over here, the public utilities commission made up of safe men, judiciously appointed, tractable in politics, consistently on the side of vested interests ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... "He's half-witted as well as deformed. His brother!" with a nod towards her chauffeur's back. "He's a great trial to Jack, I believe. My husband has offered a hundred times to have him put into a home, but the other brother—Green, the schoolmaster—is absolutely pig-headed on the subject, and ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... is safe for him to have the emotion of my arrival. Also I don't want to risk being kept from him by doctors or nurses. My place is by his side. I ask no better thing of life than to be always beside him. But sick-room attendants are apt to be pig-headed; and a fuss under these circumstances would be unbearable. A wire from you will ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... you out of the way whilst I searched your rooms," she told him coolly. "If you were not such an obstinate, pig-headed, unkind, prejudiced person, it would ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... I was thinking. Listen, Genevieve, what's the use of our going on like this? I see now I was pig-headed to send that note. It was cruel to you. I'll ...
— The Mermaid of Druid Lake and Other Stories • Charles Weathers Bump
... is that he is chock full of all kinds of principles! Just as father was. Don't you remember how he lost parish after parish because he couldn't smooth over the big men in them? Lossing is every bit as pig-headed. I am not going to have my daughter lead the kind of life my mother did. I want a son-in-law who ain't going to think himself so much better than I am, and be rowing me for my way of doing business. If Esther MUST marry I'd like her to marry ...
— Stories of a Western Town • Octave Thanet
... pig-headed old fool, who would never be brought to see an inch either side of his oath of allegiance, but would rush blindly on before the Duke to his death, and to the destruction of Maasau—to anywhere! Colendorp, Ulm being away, you are the senior officer, failing Wallenloup. It is not outside the ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... clerical garb held the next group together. He was in some trouble, owing to a pig-headed and quarrelsome Scotchman in the front rank, who objected to each statement that fell from his lips, thus interfering seriously with the effect of his peroration. If the Irishman had been more convincing, I suppose the crowd would have silenced the scoffer, for ...
— Penelope's English Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... him! From all of which Isabel gathered that Lord Warburton was a nobleman of the newest pattern, a reformer, a radical, a contemner of ancient ways. His other brother, who was in the army in India, was rather wild and pig-headed and had not been of much use as yet but to make debts for Warburton to pay—one of the most precious privileges of an elder brother. "I don't think I shall pay any more," said her friend; "he lives a monstrous deal better ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... She could not be trusted! She led the others into mischief! Her eyes darkened with anger at the injustice, for all the trouble had been caused by Anna deciding, in her pig-headed way, that she knew a short cut home, and would take it without waiting for the others and the donkey. She had thought she would get home first and be able to laugh at them and Mokus. She herself had admitted ...
— Kitty Trenire • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... vehemently) It's just that kind of pig-headed ignorance that has kept the two countries from understanding each other. Why shouldn't Ireland govern herself. South Africa does. Australia does. And when you're in trouble they leap to your flag. Yet there is a country a few miles from you that sends ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy
... because Great Britain has been compelled to rely upon the Colonies to aid in driving the French from Canada. That has been accomplished, and now King George, who is not remarkably intelligent, but pig-headed, and his short-sighted ministers are determined to carry out measures, not only to obtain revenue from the Colonies, but to repress manufactures here for the benefit of the manufactures of England. Thanks to our spinning-school, a stimulus has been given ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... his pig-headed foolishness, he and Christine might have been going down to Upton House ...
— The Second Honeymoon • Ruby M. Ayres
... visit to the sculpture-gallery of the Capitol, where I was particularly struck with a bust of Cato the Censor, who must have been the most disagreeable, stubborn, ugly-tempered, pig-headed, narrow-minded, strong-willed old Roman that ever lived. The collection of busts here and at the Vatican are most interesting, many of the individual heads being full of character, and commending themselves ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... saluting, and saying, "'Tis the hour of sunset, Master De Veaux; the guard is about to be relieved, and I must request you to retire and leave the prisoner for the night. Surely you must be tired of talking with such a pig-headed young savage." ...
— The Flamingo Feather • Kirk Munroe
... peasant, Of character pleasant, Once lived in a hut with his wife. He was cheerful and docile, But such an old fossil You wouldn't meet twice in your life. His notions were all without reason or rhyme, Such dullness in any one else were a crime, But the folly pig-headed To which he was wedded Was so deep imbedded, it touched ...
— Grimm Tales Made Gay • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... bad as he's painted, I guess," replied Harry. "The trouble with Steve is that he's pig-headed or something." ...
— Left End Edwards • Ralph Henry Barbour
... will; I'm thinking now!" cried Vince warmly, "and I think that you're about the most pig-headed fellow that there ever was. Now, look here, Ladle, don't be stupid. I'm as sure as sure that we are going right after all, and all we've got to do is to ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn
... of the slightest. Sometimes, when overexcited by the discovery of some new and entrancing upland in the domain of art, he had bought or borrowed a volume of light fiction in order to read himself to sleep, and a detective figured occasionally in such pages. Usually, the official was a pig-headed idiot, whose blunders and narrow-mindedness served as admirable whetstones for the preternaturally sharp intelligence of ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... described with admirable truth and candour, were so enraged that they demanded the instant dismissal of the 'conceited young popinjay' who had dared to criticise his masters. The President, however, who had been described as an ignorant, narrow-minded, pig-headed, and irascible old Boer whom—with the others thrown in—the writer could play with and twist round his finger as he chose, was not disturbed by the criticism. In reply to appeals for forgiveness on the score of youth, and in spite of the opposition of his colleagues, ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... enough to tempt one, he looks so jolly clean hisself.' That's the way with you, always firing out Wordsworth's silly twaddle, and objecting to a piece of genuine poetry because it's in a reader. The pig-headed impudence of ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... here for nothing. The task will seem hard at first; but only those who have tried can know how much may be done by assiduous and kindly effort towards the chastening — ay! the final redemption even! — of the most hopeless and pig-headed of uncles. ...
— Pagan Papers • Kenneth Grahame
... he said when Hartog, he, and I sat together one evening in the cabin, "will make trouble if they can. They are a pig-headed lot, and a dozen apiece at the gratings would do them no harm. But while they outnumber us, as they do, three to one, we must avoid a quarrel. Besides, if we got the upper hand, and drove the scum into the sea, we'd be undermanned ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes
... disposition, and this is but too often realized by the silly wearers of the porcine chignons, into whose brains, (when they happen to have any,) the horrible little parasites worm their way in myriads, rendering their hapless victims pig-headed to an extent that defies description either with ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 2, No. 29, October 15, 1870 • Various
... the sufferer. "Sir William won't hear of my moving yet. I do think he is the most completely obstinate and pig-headed man that I have ever met. I tell him that he has mistaken his profession, and that I could find him a post at Constantinople. We need a ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... thou pig-headed pirate of Kapparon," broke out Count Diephold; "thou shalt pay dearly for this, ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks
... quite easy for me to keep my twelve-year-old vow that I would never dance after I left the place, unless I WANTED to do it, and that, especially, nothing should make me waltz until certain agreeable conditions were fulfilled. Waltzing I approved of—out of hideous schools. I was a pig-headed, objectionable child. I detested myself ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... it." It was as if Maria Dolores could hear the words. But Winthorpe, calm and smiling, would not be moved. John shook his head, muttered, shrugged his shoulders, threw up his hands, muttered again. "Was ever such pig-headed obstinacy! Was ever such arbitrary, voluntary blindness! I give you up, for a perverse, a triple-pated madman!" And so, John muttering and frowning, Winthorpe serenely smiling, reiterating, they passed round the corner of the Castle buildings, ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... says Captain Bingo sententiously, "by me. Know when you're well off, as I didn't. Take the advice of your seniors, as I was too pig-headed a fool to do, and don't put it in the power of any woman to make you as rottenly wretched as I am at ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... was too pig-headed. You see, he took four of his boat's crew to Tulagi to be flogged—officially, you know—then started back with them in the whaleboat. It was pretty squally, and the boat capsized just outside. Swartz was the only one drowned. Of course, it ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London
... as thunder. He ground his teeth together and for a moment or two it seemed as though an explosion was coming. But he swallowed his passion with a gulp. "You're a——pig-headed, half-witted fool," said he. Hiram never so much as moved his eyes. "As for you," said Levi, whirling round upon Dinah, who was clearing the table, and glowering balefully upon the old negress, "you put them things down ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... me. "We can't beat you now. But you can't beat us! This war will go on until your pig-headed Lloyd ...
— World's War Events, Vol. II • Various
... a pig-headed fellow? Come, Hyde, be persuaded." The colonel got up from his seat and walked round to where the sergeant stood, still erect and motionless. "Come, Rupert, old comrade, old friend," and he put his hand affectionately ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... Government is the final thing. Statesmanship is bigger than programmes painted on the clouds. There's a vast deal to be done yet in this country for the enfranchisement of labour in industry as it is franchised in government. There are pig-headed Tories of industry who will have to illustrate tombstones before some of the old spirit of repression of labour will die out in the nation. But the die-hards are fewer every year. Some wages had to come down to get everything else ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... the third day after the miner's departure, that I was sitting in my office, making out a few records that were to be sent to Melbourne, when, to my surprise, one of the pig-headed follows presented himself before me. I should hardly have known him, he was so changed. His feet were bare and bleeding, his clothes were torn into shreds, and his whole appearance of the most abject and ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... were odd enough to fix the attention of the party at the camp. They were about the size of small hogs—very much of the same build—and covered with a thin sandy bristly hair, just like some hogs are. They were not "pig-headed," however. Their heads were exactly like those of the grey rabbit, and instead of hoofs they were toed and clawed. This gave them altogether a lighter appearance than hogs, and yet they did not run as fast, although when first noticed they ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... dull, pig-headed country gentleman confronted with a situation that only occurs in plays to which you don't demean yourself by going!—and obliged to tell and act a string of lies, when lies happen to be just one ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... stunning fellow, if you like," said Tom. "He's not one of the pig-headed narrow-minded set. How he comes to be a ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... Abercromby, having been pig-headed in his advance, now became chicken-hearted in his retreat. He was in no danger. Yet he ran like a hare. Had it not been for his steady regulars and some old hands among the rangers his return would have become a perfect rout. Pitt ...
— The Passing of New France - A Chronicle of Montcalm • William Wood
... von Habelschwert, standing over the group and nervously twirling his fierce moustache, shuddered and groaned. It was bad enough that his young, but pig-headed Hohenzollern should play at all with children who were neither high, nor well-born; but that he should only be admitted to play with them on terms passed the limit of human decency. He had read often in the sterner, but agrarian, papers ...
— Happy Pollyooly - The Rich Little Poor Girl • Edgar Jepson
... always do—in the end. My first plan for keeping the judge out of Ballymoy failed. I frankly admit that. It failed because the judge turns out to be a pig-headed and obstinate man, who doesn't know what's good for him. I told him distinctly that if he came to Doyle's hotel he'd get typhoid fever and die. O'Donoghue backed me up. But we didn't produce the slightest effect on the ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham
... bodily mutilations. But while the Whitechapel atrocities are engaging the public attention, we are tempted to contribute our quota of speculation as to the monster's identity. We thought of doing so before, but we reflected that it was perfectly useless while such a pig-headed person as Sir Charles Warren was at the head of the police. Now, however, that he is gone, and there is a chance of common-sense suggestions being fairly considered, we venture to propound our theory, in the hope that it will at least be ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote
... It looked sullen and pig-headed enough, even then; carrying its handle with an air of defiance, and cocking its spout pertly and mockingly at Mrs. Peerybingle, as if it said, "I won't boil. Nothing ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... but people are so cruel! People will be saying that it was I who kept poor Cousin George in London this past two weeks, and that but for me he would have been in France long ago. And then the Queen, Ned!—why, that pig-headed old woman will be blaming it on me, that there is nobody to prevent that detestable French King from turning Catholic and dragging England into new wars, and I shall not be able to go to any of the court dances! nor to the masque!" sobbed ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... for it arose from its ruins very much improved—built more regularly, more widely, more cleanly and carefully, and therefore much more healthily. It might be far more healthy than it is, but there are some people in it still—even now, at this time, nearly two hundred years later—so selfish, so pig-headed, and so ignorant, that I doubt if even another Great Fire would warm them ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... and recommended him to get more help. He replied, in an offhand, careless way, that he was quite man enough to do such a job as that without anybody's help; and, as he spoke, down came the boat with a crash, and the damage was done. The whole thing seemed such a piece of pig-headed stupidity that I was thoroughly exasperated with the fellow, and gave him a good sound rating; much, apparently, to the amusement of the other men. Joe said nothing by way of excuse—indeed, any attempt to excuse himself would have been so wholly out of place as only to have increased ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood
... perseverance of the petitioner, and convinced, though unwilling to own it, by his arguments;—convinced, too, that he was making a very ridiculous figure in the eyes of his officers and several merchants who were present, he did, as all obstinate and pig-headed people do when they find themselves in the wrong, and see that they are making themselves contemptible: that is, he plunged still deeper into the wrong, by giving the good old seaman a ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... with the deer at Crummie-Toddie and at Killancodlem with the more easily pursued young ladies, the indefatigable Major was hard at work in the stables. This came a little hard on him. There was the cub-hunting to be looked after, which made his presence at Runnymede necessary, and then that "pig-headed fellow, Silverbridge" would not have the horses trained anywhere but at Newmarket. How was he to be in two places at once? Yet he was in two places almost at once: cub-hunting in the morning at Egham and Bagshot, and sitting ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... "the old girl is sure to say that nothing of the kind is necessary. The captain told her that he was coming back for tea. What could we say to that? We can't explain the true state of the case, and if you persist in going, it will look like pig-headed folly on your part." ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... sadly. "Don't forget: they're my family, Ludovick, and I owe them dutiful respect, no matter how pig-headed they are." She pressed his hand. "But don't ...
— The Blue Tower • Evelyn E. Smith
... I, for my own sake," said Ralph. As he spoke he filled his glass, and passed the bottle, and then was silent for a few moments. "Neefit did help me," he continued, "and I don't want to speak against him; but he is the most pig-headed old fool that ever existed. Nothing will stop him but ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... anybody so bigoted and pig-headed as you are," the girl spoke out angrily. "Any one with eyes in his head could see that Jim is as straight as a string. He couldn't be crooked if he tried. Long as you've known him I should think you wouldn't need to be ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine
... shopkeeper, leaving his glass of tea, attended to his business. He led the customer into the other half, where there was a smell of tar, and was there a long time discussing something with him. The customer, a man apparently very obstinate and pig-headed, was continually shaking his head to signify his disapproval, and retreating towards the door. The shopkeeper tried to persuade him of something and began pouring some oats into a big sack ...
— The Bishop and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... great-coat; and his limp, lazy hands pottered about the wall on either side of him, as if they were groping for a imaginary bottle. In plain English, the complaint of "My son Benjamin" was drunkenness, of the stupid, pig-headed, sottish kind. Drawing this conclusion easily enough, after a moment's observation of the man, Trottle found himself, nevertheless, keeping his eyes fixed much longer than was necessary on the ugly drunken face rolling ...
— A House to Let • Charles Dickens
... attacked by the mystically disposed. They misunderstood it and berated its adherents and accused them of robbing man of all that was most precious in life. These, in turn, were goaded into bitterness and denounced their opponents as pig-headed obscurantists. ...
— The Mind in the Making - The Relation of Intelligence to Social Reform • James Harvey Robinson
... o'er sure, Neil. Deacon Van Vorst has said mair than my natural man could thole, many a time, in the sessions and oot o' them; but the dominie aye stood between us wi' his word, and we hae managed so far to keep the peace, though a mair pig-headed, provoking, pugnacious auld Dutchman never sat down on ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr
... it rough?" answered Touchwood. "Why, because the old pig-headed fool, Saunders Jaup, will not allow it to be made smooth. There he sits, sir, and obstructs all rational improvement; and, if a man would not fall into his infernal putrid gutter, and so become an abomination to himself and odious to others, for ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... "Saurin backed up your advice with such very forcible and painful examples of the common sense of it, that I should have been very pig-headed not to catch your meaning. But what rot it all is!" he added, looking in the glass. "A pretty figure I shall look at Scarborough, with my face all the colours of the prism, like ...
— Dr. Jolliffe's Boys • Lewis Hough
... see." And the older man smiled as he took a pinch of snuff, and said: "Age will calm you down, abbe, and experience also. You will drive away from the church the remaining faithful ones, and that is all the good it will do. In this district they are religious, but pig-headed; be careful. Faith, when I see a girl come to confess who looks rather stout, I say to myself: 'She is bringing me a new parishioner,' and I try to get her married. You cannot prevent them from making mistakes; but you can ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... Grom could read in no other way than as an attempt to tell him that the unknown Something had killed five of the woman's companions. The information gave him pause. Adventurous as he was, he had small respect for mere pig-headed recklessness. He was resolved to solve the problem—but after all it could abide his more ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... 'We've cotched a pig-headed counter-jumper here, that didn't know Jim there from a man-trap, and went by him as if he'd been a bull-dog on a long-chain. He wants to fight cocum. But we won't trouble him. We'll help ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... that month's idling. I like idling when I ought not to be idling; not when it is the only thing I have to do. That is my pig-headed nature. The time when I like best to stand with my back to the fire, calculating how much I owe, is when my desk is heaped highest with letters that must be answered by the next post. When I like to dawdle longest over my dinner is when I have a heavy ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... associations to the Ilyinka. A translator can only strive to be colloquial and familiar, giving up the effort to render the varying atmosphere of the different plays. And Ostrovsky's characters are as natural as his language. Pig-headed merchants; apprentices, knavish or honest as the case may be; young girls with a touch of poetry in their natures, who sober down into kindly housewives; tyrannical serf-owners and weak-willed sons of noble families: such is the material of which he ...
— Plays • Alexander Ostrovsky
... England was herself again. There was only one discordant note in her triumph. Mr. P. A. Vaile pointed out in all the papers that Peter Riley, in the usual pig-headed English way, had been employing entirely the wrong grip. Mr. Vaile's book, How to Push the Chisel, illustrated with 50 full plates of Mr. Vaile in knickerbockers pushing the ...
— Once a Week • Alan Alexander Milne
... why should all the sympathy go to the workmen who are acting like the pig-headed idiots they are, and none for the head of the factory, who has the sharp-edged, red-hot brunt of it all ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... he would come into the sugar-business, where a place was waiting for him, and make good there, it would be all right. Otherwise, the affair must be broken off, absolutely, finally, and forever. From this you can see that the Obstacle was not bad-hearted, but only pig-headed. ...
— The Valley of Vision • Henry Van Dyke
... his mustache and essayed extenuation. "It was—er—unworthy of me, of course; foolish—pig-headed—tricky, I suppose. I got mad. I'd nothing to sell, and the declaration is a farce when they examine after it. So I left them to find what they chose. I'm terribly sorry, for you seem to hate it so. But it's an ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... bobbies. Somebody's shunting another coach in on top of us; and if the ass doesn't look what he's doing——There! I told you!" as the coach in question settled with a slight jar against that containing the body of Lord Stavornell. "Of all the blundering, pig-headed fools! Might have killed some of ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... walked back to his seat, puffing his cigar. It was not likely that he was going to be drawn into an argument with an obstinate beggar like Swithin, pig-headed as a mule, who had never known a statue from ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... I am the happiest of men. I desire nothing now but her happiness. (With dreamy enthusiasm.) Oh, Morell, let us both give her up. Why should she have to choose between a wretched little nervous disease like me, and a pig-headed parson like you? Let us go on a pilgrimage, you to the east and I to the west, in search of a worthy lover for her—some ...
— Candida • George Bernard Shaw
... it would strengthen my hand if you were to tell her all you know of my father. Tell her that he is very obstinate, pig-headed, and would certainly cut me off; tell her that he is sixty-six, that it is a hundred to one against his living till he is eighty, even if he did there would be only fourteen years to wait for fifteen hundred a year; tell her if she ...
— Spring Days • George Moore
... thought of Mr. Bertram's coffers. Ah! if he could only be let into that secret, it might be easy to come to a decision. That the old man had quarrelled with his nephew, he was well aware. That George, in his pig-headed folly, would make no overtures towards a reconciliation; of that also he was sure. Was it not probable that at any rate a great portion of that almost fabulous wealth would go to the man's granddaughter? There ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... most pig-headed sot! (aloud) Young man, you cannot know the risk you run. Th' alternative's in earnest—not in fun. Dame Turandot will spin you a tough riddle, That's not to be "got thro' like any fiddle." Not such as this, which any child ...
— Turandot: The Chinese Sphinx • Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
... alone with me, the salt air on her cheek, the salt tears in her eyes. She had gone far as woman might to tell me that she was grieved over a hasty word—she had given me a chance, my first chance, my only chance, my last chance. And, I, pig-headed fool, had slighted her at the very moment of moments of all my life—I who had prided myself on my "psychology"—I who had thought myself wise—I had allowed that woman to go away with her head drooping when at last she—oh, I saw it all plainly enough now! ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... religion. He gibed at the Tories; but the Tories forgave him because he was half a Tory at heart,—he utterly distrusted popular instincts and was afraid of popular ignorance. He was rarely warm for the actual measures of the Liberals; but the Liberals knew that he intensely despised the pig-headed obstructiveness of the typical Tory, and had no kinship with the blind worshipers of the status quo. To natives and foreigners alike for many years the paper was single and invaluable: in it one could find set forth acutely and dispassionately the broad facts and the real purport of all great ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... a shot, sir, at that fellow on the rock?" said my shadow, Monsoor, who was always at my elbow. I declined the invitation, to the great disappointment of my men; at the same time I explained to these pig-headed Baris that they must accept ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... were being given away with a pound of tea? Well, so he is to all intents and purposes. One can do anything with an honest, pig-headed man like that if only one takes him the right way. He would suit you clear down to the ground, and if you will help me I will help you. Is that ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... I sent you word, even if you never got it. Oh, well, it doesn't matter. Nothing matters now. You're here, and I'm here, and— Oh, Billy-boy, I was an awful pig-headed idiot. Do you think you can take another ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... Miss Cromarty's boudoir. On her, Mr. Carrington produced a favourable impression that was evident at once. At all times she liked good-looking and agreeable gentlemen, and lately she had been suffering from a dearth of them. She had been suffering also from her brother's pig-headed refusal to reconsider his decision not to buy a car; and finally from the lack of some one to sympathise with her in this matter. In the opulent-looking and sportingly attired Mr. Carrington she quickly perceived a kindred ...
— Simon • J. Storer Clouston
... ejaculated Wink. "Why shouldn't I hurt him? They potted Perry, didn't they? What are we supposed to do! Lie around here and let them shoot us full of lead and just smile? Why, you pig-headed, solid concrete—" ...
— The Adventure Club Afloat • Ralph Henry Barbour
... die. If by her death he could tide over his difficulties and drift into smooth water, it would be but a very small thing to him that Dr. Jedd, and Dr. Doddleson enlightened by his colleague, and Valentine Hawkehurst, and Diana Paget, and a stupid pig-headed old Yorkshirewoman, should carry in their minds for the remainder of their lives the suspicion that by his means that fair young life had been brought to ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... now hoist with her own petard, for, being heavily made up, she could not and would not follow the leader. After this Charles Reade acquitted me of the use of "pigments red," but he still kept up a campaign against "Chalky," as he humorously christened my powder-puff. "Don't be pig-headed, love," he wrote to me once; "it is because Chalky does not improve you that I forbid it. Trust unprejudiced and friendly ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... matter was pig-headed and brutal, there is no doubt; but the Squire's nature was far from exclusive, and the idea of saving in any thing, it is certain, never entered into his head. The time, indeed, was slowly but surely coming when the park should know no more not only ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn |
