"Stupid" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and yellow vests, and the bright cockades in their silk hats. Once when I was little, one of them let me go into a stall and feed some sugar to a splendid great horse named Black Beauty. I wished I could do it to-day, too! All the carriages which carry the Court ladies are stupid, I think, but the horses and ponies are jolly!" whereupon Philip and John went off into an animated discussion about the horses of the Royal Stables, and how much they envied the men who ...
— John and Betty's History Visit • Margaret Williamson
... it was. It was stupid of me not to look where I was going. I thought at the time that it was only a wrench, but it ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey
... what is really the trouble. I do not think women should run the country, but I do feel that we should have something to say about our ordinary day-to-day lives. Man-made laws are stupid enough, but a man-made society is intolerable. Just a ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... supplies, and not always ill supplies, their place; but if commerce and the arts should be lost in an experiment to try how well a state may stand without these old fundamental principles, what sort of a thing must be a nation of gross, stupid, ferocious, and, at the same time, poor and sordid barbarians, destitute of religion, honour, or manly pride, possessing nothing at present, and hoping for ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... large ball she is going to give some time in May for some charitable institution—a Cottage Hospital I believe; but come', she adds, suddenly springing up, 'we have spent quite too much time over my stupid self. Come back to the drawing-room and the chicks, I am sure they must be wondering where we are, and the tea and ...
— Mrs. Hungerford - Notable Women Authors of the Day • Helen C. Black
... because it is a disgusting fault; but the passage where the scheme of Redemption is arranged, where God enquires whether any of the angels will undergo death in order to satisfy his sense of injured justice, is a passage of what I can only call stupid brutality, disguised, alas, in the solemn and majestic robe of sonorous language. The angels timidly decline, and the Saviour volunteers, which saves the shameful situation. The character of God, ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson
... cases, that is, when I am only stupid, and the thoughts rise heavily and pass gummous ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... may be with any of you here; whosoever you may be, however poor, however humble. Though your opportunities may be small, your station lowly, your knowledge little; though you may be stupid in mind, slow of speech, weakly of body, yet if you but make up your mind to say the thing which is true, and to do the thing which is right, you may be strong with the strength of God, and glorious ...
— Town and Country Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... stupid old nigger hadn't sense to call me!" (he turns threateningly to Bob): "Well,—must 'a drop'd off like the ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... I am stupid, for I can't see it, mother. They are both pretty girls, but for amusing you and that sort of thing give me Phoebe. She is worth twenty of the other. As sharp as a needle, and plenty to say for herself. This is the kind ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... me; or only in such a sort that I was obliged to decline. Am I such a stupid visitor? Did I not play at bagatelle with L.? Did I not read eloquently out of Carlyle to you and C.? Did I not talk wisdom to you by the yard? Did I not let drop crumbs of philosophy by the wayside of our talk, continually? Above all, am I not the veriest woman, at heart, that ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey
... the labors of the field, cultivating sorgho, a kind of millet which forms the chief basis of their diet; and the most stupid expressions of astonishment ensued as the Victoria sped past like a meteor. That evening the balloon halted about forty miles from Yola, and ahead of it, but in the distance, rose the two ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... Days, father and daughter, were dependent on hired service, and such service in the form of Olga Cedarstrom was about as incapable and stupid as fate had ...
— Janice Day, The Young Homemaker • Helen Beecher Long
... to speak: but he stamped with his foot, and said, Begone! I tell you: I cannot bear this stupid romantic folly. ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... their views; they had ideas that people in England nowadays were ashamed to confess to; and they had the impudence moreover, said his lordship, laughing, to pretend they knew more about the needs and dangers of this poor dear stupid old England than he who was born in it and owned a considerable slice of it—the more shame to him! From all of which Isabel gathered that Lord Warburton was a nobleman of the newest pattern, a reformer, a radical, a ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... like it. They say, a young lady dares not speak to gentlemen, nor walk with them, nor have the least bit of a flirtation. How stupid it ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... evenings ago young Mr. Norris came in and then Mr. Ridgway. I thought they quite glowered at each other. And what one said the other sniffed about as if it was hardly worth saying. And Mr. Ridgway thought cards stupid, and Phil grew quite cross and said we would come home. It is very pleasant when there is no one there, we four can agree ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... tossed it into the grate, where it quickly shriveled on the coals. Eastman felt that he had happened in upon something disagreeable, possibly something shady, and he wanted to get away at once. Cavenaugh stood staring at the fire and seemed stupid and dazed; so he repeated his request rather sternly, "I think I've seen a German dictionary down there among your books. ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... Oly-koeks was already engaged in chopping wood near the kitchen door. The growling of the hound at his feet called the care-taker's attention to the master's coming, and, driving the ax into an obstinate stick of hickory, he donned his coat, drawing near the vehicle, where he stood in stupid wonderment as the ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... that if I could remember how I had arranged it, I should not need to be begged and prayed for information. There comes into my mind, as in a dream, the image of a certain staircase; but I do not think this can be the one I then designed, for it seems so stupid. However, I will describe it." Later on he sends a little clay model of a staircase, just enough to indicate his general conception, but not to determine details. He suggests that the work would look better if carried ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... Split Madigan! You're a coward, and—and a stupid coward. You don't know enough to betray your class and get the benefit of it, but you'd rather be mean than get credits, anyway. Nobody can count on you. Changeable Silk, that's what you are—changing color all the time, never standing firm! I hate ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... once in that direction. The dismal swamp had me under its spell, and meanwhile the patient buzzards looked at me. "It is almost time," they said; "the fever will do its work,"—and I began to believe it. It was too bad to come away; the stupid town offered no attraction; but it seemed perilous to remain. Perhaps I could not come away. I would try it and see. It was amazing that I could; and no sooner was I out in the sunshine than I wished I had stayed where I was; for having once ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey
... for a winter on the plantations, she registered her horror of slavery in advance, and resolved to keep a journal of her experiences and observations. The resulting record is gloomy enough. The swarms of negroes were stupid and slovenly, the cabins and hospitals filthy, the women overdriven, the overseer callous, the master indifferent, and the new mistress herself, repudiating the title, was more irritable and meddlesome than helpful.[29] The short sojourn was long enough. A few years afterward the ill-mated ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... more; as you love me, no more. Stupid I never was nor so secure yet To lead my patience to mine owne betraying: I shall find time and riper cause.— [Guard at dore. Now, frends, Are my ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... might have made a pastoral visitation every day in the week and been welcome. He had almost got ahead of the doctor in the eldest orphan's regard; for while the doctor had plenty of books, whole shelves of them, they were queer, stupid things, full of long, hard words, and never a battle or a shipwreck from one ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... on his side. They were Germans who lay on Burgoyne's left and Burgoyne sent Colonel Baum, an efficient officer, with five or six hundred men to attack the New Englanders and bring in the supplies. It was a stupid blunder to send Germans among a people specially incensed against the use of these mercenaries. There was no surprise. Many professing loyalists, seemingly eager to take the oath of allegiance, met and delayed Baum. When near Bennington he found in front of him ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong
... act of passing a small thicket of trees close by the roadside, when the first living being presented himself whom they had seen since their departure from Cumnor Place. This was a stupid lout, seemingly a farmer's boy, in a grey jerkin, with his head bare, his hose about his heels, and huge startups upon his feet. He held by the bridle what of all things they most wanted—a palfrey, namely, with a side-saddle, and all other garniture for a woman's mounting; and he ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... run faster. His impatience subdivided the distance into yards and feet. Now he was approaching that boulder, now he was passing it; now he was ten feet beyond, twenty, thirty. Perhaps his mother was dying, alone save for stupid Nan Berry. ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... young woman," she continued; "we think her stupid. We cannot make anything of her. But there is no doubt poor Tardif means to ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... and unseemly manner. In a letter to Monsieur de Rohan, the Ambassador declared that while the Earls and the Counsel were pleading, their lordships guzzled and smoked; and that when they gave their votes condemning the two Earls, they were stupid with eating and "yvres de tabac"—drunk with smoking. This was probably quite untrue as a representation of what actually took place; but it would hardly have been written had smoking not been a common ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson
... the voice of Mats, near by, "do go back and tell me what terminology means. You don't know how terribly stupid I am...." ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... upon the company when Armstadt—Gian Maria's Swiss captain—entered and approached his master with the air of a man who is the bearer of news. He halted a pace or two from the Duke's high-backed chair, and stood eyeing Gian Maria in stupid patience. ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... protest. It was a muddle of impressions: the picture of the poor soul with his clamor for a job; the satisfied, brutal egotism of Brome Porter, who lived as if life were a huge poker game; the overfed, red-cheeked Caspar, whom he remembered to have seen only once before, when the young polo captain was stupid drunk; the silly young cub of a Hitchcock. Even the girl was one of them. If it weren't for the women, the men would not be so keen on the scent for gain. The women taught the men how to spend, created ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... Ruth explained with an assumed whimper, "and poor Hans is about distracted. He is afraid to go peddling alone with his secret writ large in both Dutch and English on his foolish face. I have told him I will go lame or no lame. Fortunately he is hard of hearing and stupid as an owl in broad daylight. You might be less like me than you are, and Hans would not know. We have much to be ...
— Then Marched the Brave • Harriet T. Comstock
... fool! That Johnson! You blame me, Haljan, for the killing of Captain Carter? You need not. Johnson offered to try and capture you. Take you alive. He killed Carter because he was angry at him. A stupid, vengeful fool! He is dead, and I ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science April 1930 • Various
... the asteroid and in his ship at the same time. But every space tug man has had long experience as an anchor setter before he's allowed to be in a position where he is capable of killing someone besides himself if he makes a stupid mistake ...
— Thin Edge • Gordon Randall Garrett
... the behaviour of the man Ivan. He was in fact a thoroughly bad sort, lazy, stupid, sullen, and brutal to his horses. He was supposed to take orders from the other Russian, but he refused to obey him or any one. Only when by signs I could make clear what I wanted could I do anything with him; then I could sometimes put enough peremptoriness ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... reason why it should be begun at any other, except that it will be the harder every hour it is postponed. The spiritual loss and injury caused to the child by their waiting till they fancy him fit to reason with, is immense; yet there is nothing in which parents are more stupid and cowardly, if not stiff-necked, than this. I do not speak of those mere animal parents, whose lasting influence over their progeny is not a thing to be greatly desired, but of those who, having a conscience, yet avoid this part of their duty in a manner of which a good motherly ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... harmless, and only asks to be let alone and allowed to browse on gum-leaves. Its flesh is uneatable except by an aboriginal or a victim to famine. Its fur is difficult to manipulate, as it will not lie flat, so the koala should have been left in peace. But its confiding and somewhat stupid nature, and the senseless desire of small boys and "children of larger growth" to kill something wild just for the sake of killing, has led to the koala being almost exterminated in many places. Now it is protected by the law, ...
— Peeps At Many Lands: Australia • Frank Fox
... have accepted and backed. But he said, "Io non voglio perdere gli uomini perle femminelle."[38] If the Black party furnished types for the grosser or fiercer forms of wickedness in the poet's hell, the White party surely were the originals of that picture of stupid and cowardly selfishness, in the miserable crowd who moan and are buffeted in the vestibule of the Pit, mingled with the angels who dared neither to rebel nor be faithful, but "were for themselves"; and whoever it may be who is singled ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... news of his lost father soon roused the prince from the stupid fit into which he had fallen. He followed in amazement the sound of Ariel's voice, till it led him to Prospero and Miranda, who were sitting under the shade of a large tree. Now Miranda had never seen a man before, except ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... her come again, and I '11 let you off... only, please, don't show your stupid phiz inside my tent, and leave us in peace; do ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... "How stupid you are!" retorted Edgar; "he deals in them wholesale. Mother says it's a famous trade. He has a cigar-holder with an amber mouthpiece and a woman all naked carved in meerschaum. Just think, the other day he came and told mother his wife was ...
— The Aspirations of Jean Servien • Anatole France
... had been willing basely to tergiversate and to expose yourself to their taunts." "I wonder that they were thrown into agitation respecting this matter alone, since they were not less severely hit in other places. It is a stupid assertion that the conference was broken off in consequence of this ground of offence. For those who now, by rabidly laying hold of one ground, after a certain fashion subscribe to the rest of the doctrine, would ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... but of the use money makes of you One thing to entertain and another to be entertaining Possessory act of readjusting my necktie Process which is called weighing a thing in the mind Simple enjoyment being considered an unworthy motive Society that exists mainly to pay its debts gets stupid Talk is always tame if no one dares anything Tastes and culture were of the past age Unhappy are they whose desires are all ratified World has become so tolerant that ...
— Widger's Quotations of Charles D. Warner • David Widger
... Basil wrote home. He had not fired his musket a single time. He saw nothing to shoot at, and he saw no use shooting until he did have something to shoot at. It was terrible to see men dead and wounded, but the fight itself was stupid—blundering through a jungle, bullets zipping about, and the Spaniards too far away and invisible. He wanted ...
— Crittenden - A Kentucky Story of Love and War • John Fox, Jr.
... seems to thrill the skylark or the nightingale. Though the circumstances of her marriage were of such a romantic kind, and she seems to have been deeply attached to her husband through life, M. Valle-bregue appears to have been a stupid, ignorant soldier, and, as is common with those who make similar matrimonial speculations, to have had no eyes beyond helping his talented wife to make all the money possible and spend it with the utmost freedom afterward. ...
— Great Singers, First Series - Faustina Bordoni To Henrietta Sontag • George T. Ferris
... reddened, slammed his fist down on the desk. "Dammit, man, are you blind and deaf? Or just plain stupid? Didn't you hear me a moment ago? You may not live through the Hearings. You could go, just like that, any minute. But this is 2134 A.D., not the middle ages. It would be so utterly, hopelessly pointless to let ...
— Martyr • Alan Edward Nourse
... Cavalcanti's lovely ballata, down to the Portrait and such sonnets as Love-sweetness, Farewell to the Glen, and A Match with the Moon, there is not one single poem that does not display some careless error or some stupid misprint. ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... the captain arrived on board the Mayflower they found Jones too stupid with liquor to listen to any plans, and too short-handed when he had been made to understand to carry them out with half the dispatch the ardent spirit of Standish prompted, so that all they effected was to have two of the larger pieces hoisted out of the hold, and one landed ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... was descending the stairs, on her way to the kitchen, where she found the fugitive man- at-arms seated on a rough settle, his head and wounded arm resting on the table, while groans of pain, weariness, and impatience were interspersed with imprecations on the stupid awkward girls who ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... have told you how stupid it sounds, these disconnected bits, little descriptions, detached conversations. Sometimes I think I shall never use them after all." He ...
— A Village Ophelia and Other Stories • Anne Reeve Aldrich
... be easier, stupid, to invent the story from beginning to end, if I wanted to impose on any one?" asked Mr Johnson, with pretended indignation. "However, as I have more than once observed, I have an especial objection ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston
... whiteness is now quite clear, and in front of me. All this day it has slowly passed before me. I asked Joseph Kleist if he saw a piece of newspaper just beyond the trench. He stared at me solemnly—he is a stupid fool—and said, "There is ...
— The Angels of Mons • Arthur Machen
... a long time since I heard so much truth about myself," said the Duke. "I own I am both stupid and awkward, but then, by gad, I am willing ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... silent march of an army halted at intervals by messages from inside the city, which seemed to be of a most ominous character. No Muscovite figures could be distinguished except those of a few beggars covered with rags, who watched with stupid astonishment the army file past; and as some few of these appeared to be begging alms, our soldiers threw them bread and a few pieces of money. I cannot prevent a sad reflection on these unfortunate creatures, whose condition ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... of the Middle Ages was practicable, just because the rational treatment of all subjects by the humanists had trained the historical spirit. In the fifteenth century this spirit had so far penetrated the history even of the individual cities of Italy that the stupid fairy tales about the origin of Florence, Venice, and Milan vanished, while at the same time, and long after, the chronicles of the North were stuffed with this fantastic rubbish, destitute for the ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... who have been indifferent and not availed themselves of their small voting privilege, by which we might have established the same class of school in our village, will now regret their negligence, at least every time they have to send three miles for a doctor. Thus, stupid people, blind to their own interest, punish themselves. I regret not being able to send a fuller report of the good that woman's use of the ballot, in a limited form, has done for us in this State. The voting in the town-hall ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... but stupid, to lament the departure of childhood's joys. It is as if something precious and valued had been forcibly torn from us, and we go sorrowing for lost treasure. But these things fall off from us naturally; we do not give them up. We are never called upon to give them up. There is no pang, no sorrow, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... that brings them safe to land; Let stupid mortals know That waves are under his command, And all the winds ...
— The Psalms of David - Imitated in the Language of The New Testament - And Applied to The Christian State and Worship • Isaac Watts
... up your time to my wretched, unimportant little stupid affairs! And what return have ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... about the priests when consecrating the elements at mass, repeating in Latin the words 'Bread thou art, and bread thou shalt remain: wine thou art, and wine thou shalt remain.' He often remarked in later years how they would apply in derision the term 'good Christian' to those who were stupid enough to believe in Christian truth, and to be scandalised by anything said to the contrary. No one, he declared, would believe what villanies and shameful doings were then in vogue, if they had not seen and heard them with their own eyes and ears. But the truth of his testimony ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... don't you have many fires over here?" he demanded of Mrs. Pitt. "We have 'em all the time at home. It must be stupid here without 'em!" ...
— John and Betty's History Visit • Margaret Williamson
... "How criminally stupid of me!" I cried, still determined to be consistent and find an explanation. "I clean forgot to buy a loaf at Pressburg. That chattering woman put everything out of my head, and I must have left it lying ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... predict that the stupid folly which has characterized your course will, within six months, drive from you every scholar ...
— Hector's Inheritance - or The Boys of Smith Institute • Horatio Alger
... says my mother; 'that is what I intend to do, my dear Jane. Now, Davy, try once more, and don't be stupid.' ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... because there's nothing to show. He has cultivated that sibylline look until people think he's a wonder. But he's simply a stupid ignoramus." ...
— The Mystery Of The Boule Cabinet - A Detective Story • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... sent to me! Oh, I know you for what you are,—my Dragon Maid, my bride! Have I not sought you all these years, tracing your face on rocks and sand-beds of my hills, hanging my prayers to every blossoming tree? Come, you are mine at last; here is your master! We will escape together while the stupid old ones sleep! Come, soul of my ...
— The Dragon Painter • Mary McNeil Fenollosa
... shining examples of goodness and bravery. The women of the tale are of course all beautiful and devoted members of their various households. The men of the tale vary between the competent and the incompetent; the lazy and idle, and the industrious; the cunning, and the stupid. ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... doing me any more, I flatly forbid it. I believe you don't like my books, and want to make me say I won't give you any more if you make me any more socks; and then you will make me some more in order not to get the books. No, I will let you read my stupid books in manuscript and help me that way. If you like to make me a kettle- holder, you may, for I only have one just now, and I like to have two because I always mislay one; but I won't have people working their fingers out to knit ...
— The Samuel Butler Collection - at Saint John's College Cambridge • Henry Festing Jones
... examined this point, the clearer it appeared to him, who had known his friend's only son from an infant, and had always felt much interested in him. As a child, and a boy, William Stanley had been of a morose temper, and of a sluggish, inactive mind—not positively stupid, but certainly far from clever; this claimant, on the contrary, had all the expression and manner of a shrewd, quick-witted man, who might be passionate, but who looked like a good-natured person, although his countenance was partially disfigured ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... to say, in relation to the religious character of a Mason, that he should not be "a stupid atheist, nor an irreligious libertine." A denier of the existence of a Supreme Architect of the Universe cannot, of course, be obligated as a Mason, and, accordingly, there is no landmark more certain than that which excludes every ...
— The Principles of Masonic Law - A Treatise on the Constitutional Laws, Usages And Landmarks of - Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey
... which they upheld their individual rights than for the scriptural skill with which they unmasked the sophistry of a delusive theory; for all their reasonings were enervated and vitiated by their stupid admission of the claims of the chair of Peter as the rock on which the Church was supposed to rest. [358:3] This second effort of Rome to establish her ascendancy was, indeed, a failure; but the misinterpretation of Holy Writ, by which ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... very nice for you to be running after Mrs. Ianson's wools, but I can't see anything amusing in fancy-work. And as for dawdling round this square and Russell Square with Jane Ianson and Fido—pah! I'd quite as soon be changed into a lapdog, and led along by a string. How stupid London is! Oh, Tittens, to think that you and I have never lived in the country since we were born. Wouldn't you like to go? Only, then we should never ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... back," began Rose Stribling in a tone as soft as her metallic voice could produce. "It's been an age since I've seen you—not since the night of that stupid dinner at the Berkeleys', and I'm so much interested in the news ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... the reason, you know it," she continued, her tone full of courage. "I am willing to throw myself at your feet now, but all the same I was hardly treated. I was made the scapegoat of your stupid promise. You kept me in ignorance of things a wife should know. You even encouraged me to believe you a coward, when a single word from you would have changed everything. Therefore, I say that it is you who are responsible for what I nearly did, and what I should have done ...
— The Zeppelin's Passenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... rather steep hill, he threw himself on the grass under the shade of a tree. "It's going to be awfully slow and stupid here," he muttered, "and it will be a month or two before we can return. I hoped to be back in time to join the Montagues in climbing Mont Blanc, and here I am tied up between these mole-hill mountains and city law-offices. How shall I ever get ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... of Naples, his great opponent bent all the resources of a fertile intellect to retrieve his position, and even under the gloom of disaster threw a gleam of light into the dark continent. While his adversaries were merely generals or admirals, hampered by a stupid education and a narrow nationality, Bonaparte had eagerly imbibed the new learning of his age and saw its possible influence on the reorganization of society. He is not merely a general. Even when he is ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... goin' to have pop-corn to-night all so fast!" he says, doggedly, in the midst of a momentary lull that has fallen on a game of whist. And then the oldest Mills girl, who thinks cards stupid anyhow, says: "That's so, Billy; and we're going to have it, too; and right away, for this game's just ending, and I shan't submit to being bored with another. I say 'pop-corn' with Billy! And after that," she continues, rising and addressing the party in general, "we must have ...
— Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley • James Whitcomb Riley
... stopped. Two or three men acting in concert might have lifted it bodily off the floor, or have jammed it into a corner. But few human heads are capable of remaining cool under excitement. Those who are not present think how stupid must have been those who were; those who are reflect afterwards how simple it would have been to do this, that, or the other, if only they had thought of it ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... feet and charged again, shouting his war cry: "I kill! I kill! I kill!" and again Tarzan met him with a sudden hold that the stupid bull, being ignorant of, could not possibly avert—a hold and a throw that brought a scream of delight from the interested audience and suddenly filled the girl with doubts as to the man's madness—evidently he was quite safe among the apes, ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... passing the barracks, he happened to hear the cheers of the prisoners and had entered in order to learn what was the matter. "No," he said once more, "you will not; yon must not suppose that we shall be so stupid as to allow you to escape. Do not rejoice therefore at the approach of the French and your countrymen for I tell you, and I swear by the Holy Mother of God, if the French should enter the city victoriously, our last step before evacuating it would be to kill every one of you. Do you ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... is a mighty impudent thing.' BOSWELL. 'Pray, Sir, could you have no redress if you were to prosecute a publisher for bringing out, under your name, what you never said, and ascribing to you dull stupid nonsense, or making you swear profanely, as many ignorant relaters of your bon-mots do[1267]?' JOHNSON. 'No, Sir; there will always be some truth mixed with the falsehood, and how can it be ascertained how much is true and how much is false? Besides, Sir, what ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... Masturbation. The keynote of preventing the habit is, carefully to watch the child from its earliest infancy. We know that not infrequently stupid or vicious nursemaids, wet-nurses, and even governesses ignorantly or deliberately induce the habit in children under their charge. This, of course, must be prevented. Even children of the age of nine, ten, eleven years should not be left alone, but always ...
— Woman - Her Sex and Love Life • William J. Robinson
... opening oration by one of the learned professors of the University, which was voted by the savants to be a masterpiece of erudition and eloquence, but which the young people present found intolerably dull and stupid. And when the great man sat down a ...
— Victor's Triumph - Sequel to A Beautiful Fiend • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... has been wiser, then. How can men be such stupid owls as to fall in love with me! Can't they see I'm ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... no means a stupid scholar, and Ronald was so earnest a little teacher that the progress made was really astonishing. The tinker found a good many jobs in the village, and stayed nearly a fortnight, and by that time Susan could spell little words very nicely, and no longer read a-s-s, ...
— Golden Moments - Bright Stories for Young Folks • Anonymous
... married and living in Cincinnati. Twins! Heigh-ho! What a world! The visit was hardly a success. At half after five she was on her way back to the court-house steps. Stupid ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... "I think gambling is just plain stupid. I mean some sort of legitimate business—buying and ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford
... of that district became a Christian, and he and the queen, with one or two others of the royal household, used to attend school with the children every day, and their diligence in studying the A B C was beyond all praise. But they were terribly stupid. The children beat them easily, showing how true is the saying that 'youth is the time to learn.' The king was always booby, and Makarooroo was ...
— The Gorilla Hunters • R.M. Ballantyne
... is stupid to think so, but I can't help feeling as if we are surrounded by things ...
— Dead Man's Land - Being the Voyage to Zimbambangwe of certain and uncertain • George Manville Fenn
... decidedly clever, but which the audience—distinguished audience I ought to have said—probably didn't, as they did not applaud that, while they did some things I said which were incomparably more stupid. This was in November, and I ought to have written to you about it before, my dear Lizzie, but for one thing I am very much occupied, and for the other (shall I confess it?) I was rather puzzled that I had not heard from you ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... hands and soles of their feet were dyed dark-brown with henna. Captain Lyon viewed with amazement and pity the dress of these poor little girls, borne down as they were with finery; but that of the youngest boy, a stupid looking child of four years old, was even more preposterous than that of his sisters. In addition to the ornaments worn by them, he was loaded with a number of charms, enclosed in gold cases, slung round his body, while in his cap ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... the strutting, cruel-faced cut-throat who was our guard, and who shoved his bayonet at us and shook his dirty fist in our faces to try to frighten us. I looked at his stupid, leering face and heavy jowl, and the sloped-back forehead which the iron heel had flattened with its cruel touch. He could walk out of the door and out of the camp, at will, while I must sit on a chair without ...
— Three Times and Out • Nellie L. McClung
... he couldn't be with her, of course. How stupid of you to remember, Katie. Why can't you make up your mind to enjoy yourself when you ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... other. But he was a little vexed, for he was a young man with great capacity for pleasure, and it pleased him that morning to be with his friend. The thought of two ladies waiting lunch did not deter him; stupid women, why shouldn't they wait? Why should they interfere with their betters? With his ear on the ground he listened to Rickie's departing steps, and thought, "He wastes a lot of time keeping engagements. Why will he be pleasant to fools?" And then he thought, "Why has ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... it. That's stupid, too; as stupid as all the rest." He rose from the chair he had dropped into, and went toward the door of the next room. "I must beautify my person with a clean collar and cuffs. I'm going down to make a call on the Back ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... excellence in the presentation of plays. As we become slowly civilized we will constantly demand more artistic excellence. There will always be a class satisfied with the lowest form of dramatic presentation, with coarse wit, with stupid but apparent jokes, and there will always be a class satisfied with almost anything; but the class demanding the highest, the best, will constantly increase in numbers, and the other classes will, in all probability, correspondingly decrease. The church ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... to dine at the barracks with some stupid men. Not that I mind his going," she added, hastily. "I wish he'd stay away for a month. Of course he's a very good sort, and all that, but he's deadly monotonous. Uncle, really, as a matter of curiosity, before I ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... very stupid effort to be funny," returned Margaret. "Sometimes women will laugh because they are expected to, and they did that afternoon. Everything was simply cut and dried. It always is at Mrs. George B. Slade's. I never knew a woman ...
— The Butterfly House • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... Thus Shakespeare is not exactly proved to have been a Danish scholar. There is no difficulty in supposing that 'a clayver man,' living among wits, could pick up French and Italian sufficient for his uses. But extremely stupid people are naturally amazed by even such commonplace acquirements. When the step is made from cleverness to genius, then the dull disbelieve, or cry out of a miracle. Now, as 'miracles do not happen,' a man of Shakespeare's education could not have written the plays attributed to him by his ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... such are his gracious intentions, and you may depend with full assurance on the word of Belisarius. So long as Heaven has condemned us to suffer, patience is a virtue; but if we reject the proffered deliverance, it degenerates into blind and stupid despair." "I am not insensible" replied the king of the Vandals, "how kind and rational is your advice. But I cannot persuade myself to become the slave of an unjust enemy, who has deserved my implacable hatred. Him I had never injured either by word or deed: yet he has sent against me, I know ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... the more graceful, though the effect inside is tame and flat in comparison. This is owing partly to its lesser size and height, and partly to our hard, transparent atmosphere, which lends no charm or illusion, but mainly to the stupid, unimaginative plan of it. Our dome shuts down like an inverted iron pot; there is no vista, no outlook, no relation, and hence no proportion. You open a door and are in a circular pen, and can look in only one direction,—up. If the iron pot were slashed through ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... The Highland troops to the right went almost mad. Lord John Murray, their commander, had fallen, and not a tenth of their number remained unwounded; but the broadswords wrought small havoc against the spiked branches of the log barricade. Obstinate as he was stupid, Abercrombie kept his men at the bloody but futile attempt till the sun had set behind the mountains, etching the sad scene with the long painted shadows. Already almost two thousand English had fallen,—seven hundred killed, the rest wounded. The French ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... many hundreds that has, to my idea, much merit (a charming composition of Homer singing, signed Jourdy); and the only good that the Academy has done by its pupils was to send them to Rome, where they might learn better things. At home, the intolerable, stupid classicalities, taught by men who, belonging to the least erudite country in Europe, were themselves, from their profession, the least learned among their countrymen, only weighed the pupils down, and cramped their hands, their eyes, and their imaginations; drove them away from natural beauty, ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... happen to know that the game is not worth the candle. The wasp gets into the jam in hearty and hopeful efforts to get the jam into him. IN the same way the vulgar people want to enjoy life just as they want to enjoy gin—because they are too stupid to see that they are paying too big a price for it. That they never find happiness—that they don't even know how to look for it—is proved by the paralyzing clumsiness and ugliness of everything they do. Their discordant colours ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton
... little log-cabins, and was received with genuine backwoods hospitality by the proprietor, who had married an Osage squaw. Williams was not only very hungry, but very tired; and, after enjoying an abundant supper, he became stupid and sleepy, and expressed a wish to lie down. The generous trapper accordingly conducted him to one of the cabins, in which there were two beds, standing in opposite corners of the room. He immediately threw himself upon one, and was soon in a ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... "Giants".—These are stupid, mischievous, evil and cunning in Saxo's eyes. Oldest of beings, with chaotic force and exuberance, monstrous ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... always generates in those, who are to defend unjust acquisitions against lawful authority; and when he comes home, with riches thus acquired, he brings a mind hardened in evil, too proud for reproof, and too stupid for reflection; he offends the high by his insolence, and corrupts the low ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... I awoke, I found the Indians wrapped in their blankets, and lying asleep all around me. The excitement of the night had passed off, and brought its corresponding depression. They were very docile and stupid, and it was with some difficulty I could arouse them for the duties of the day. I asked several of them what had become of the Sioux prisoners, but could get no other answer than, “Guess him must ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... denied a youth of the mattresses. "My dear Hench, you make no distinctions. I've been talking about the boy's people and his bringing up and the way he acts, whereupon you fly off on a tangent and coolly conclude things about the boy himself. It is not only unkind, but stupid." ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White
... I find every chance in my favour. The bride will arrive here on the day of our wedding: my servant will be one witness; some stupid old Welshman, as antediluvian as possible—I leave it to you to select him—shall be the other. My servant I shall dispose of, and the rest I ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... the fact that he was a very stupid host. Barnes, after staring at Dickie Lang for a moment, had retired to his work, leaving Gregory alone with his guest in the middle of the ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... that such a thing as a chicken ever comes out of such a thing as an egg? If only one chicken were hatched in a century, we would go from here to the Himalaya mountains to see the miracle of that chicken coming out of that egg. You put an egg under a very stupid old hen, and all the hen does is to keep that egg warm, and leave it alone; after twenty days there comes out a chicken. How in the world did that chicken ever frame that body? How did it build the skeleton ...
— Parent and Child Vol. III., Child Study and Training • Mosiah Hall
... poems. One merit they possessed. If a French painter lacked force and originality, he could at least portray with elegance and charm a group of fine ladies angling in an artificial pool. Elegance, indeed, redeemed the eighteenth century from imitative dullness and stupid ostentation: elegance expressed more often in perfumes, laces, and mahogany than in paint or marble. The silk-stockinged courtier accompanying his exquisitely perfect bow with a nicely worded compliment was surely as much ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... raised above the daily cares, the troubles, and the sorrows of life. As the drama, with the arts which are subservient to it, may, from neglect and the mutual contempt of artists and the public, so far degenerate, as to become nothing better than a trivial and stupid amusement, and even a downright waste of time, we conceive that we are attempting something more than a passing entertainment, if we propose to enter on a consideration of the works produced by the most distinguished ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... sentimental heart-break over Katy, though he did miss her company sadly in a town where there were no amusements, not even a concert-saloon in which a refined young man could pass an evening. If he had been in New York now, he wouldn't have minded it. But in a place like Metropolisville, a stupid little frontier village of pious and New Englandish tendencies—in such a place, as Smith pathetically explained to a friend, one can't get along ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston
... been my lot to meet, and to whom, as to her husband, I owe much for kindness generously shown when I was poor and had but few friends—she asked me if I had been to the Hall of Science, Old Street. I answered, with the stupid, ignorant reflection of other people's prejudices so sadly common, "No, I have never been there. Mr. Bradlaugh is rather a rough sort of ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant
... before long, imprisonment and the bow-string put an end to his dangerous career. But though the boy Sultan had escaped with his life, and had now reached the age of sixteen years, he never attained to an imposing presence. He has been described as 'a monster of a man, deformed in body and mind, stupid, logger-headed, cruel, fierce as to his visage,' though this would seem to be an exaggeration, since another account speaks of him as 'young and active, addicted wholly to the delight of hunting and to follow the chase of fearful and flying beasts.' In order ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... footed it right merrily. Juchhe! Juchhe! Juchheisa! Heisa! He! So fiddle-bow was braying. Our swain amidst the circle press'd, He push'd a maiden trimly dress'd, And jogg'd her with his elbow; The buxom damsel turn'd her head, "Now that's a stupid trick!" she said, Juchhe! Juchhe! Juchheisa! Heisa! He! Don't be ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... about them,—very much. Perhaps she has heard of the two spoons crossed, and doesn't know that that was a stupid vulgar practical joke. Our crest is a knight's head bowed, with the motto, 'Desperandum.' Soon after the Conquest one of the Desponders fell in love with the Queen, and never would give it up, though it wasn't any ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... win, Cynthia. It was stupid of the jury to be so slow in arriving at the inevitable verdict. But stupid people are as lethargic as silly ones are swift. How shall we get to the carriage? We can't go out by the public exit. I hear the crowd is quite enormous, and won't ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... and that I hae whiles carried a bit book, or maybe a bit letter, quietly atween them, and made believe never to ken wha it cam frae, though I kend brawly. There's whiles convenience in a body looking a wee stupid—and I have aften seen them walking at e'en on the little path by Dinglewood-burn; but naebody ever kend a word about it frae Cuddie; I ken I'm gay thick in the head, but I'm as honest as our auld fore-hand ox, puir fallow, ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... is a joke," cried Pencroft, "it is a very stupid one! To come home and find no staircase to go up to your room by—that's nothing for weary ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... [7] and God give me the grace to do so. We must neither imagine nor think that we can of ourselves bring about this suspension. That is what I say must not be done; nor must we allow the understanding to cease from its acts; for in that case we shall be stupid and cold, and the result will be neither the one nor the other. For when our Lord suspends the understanding, and makes it cease from its acts, He puts before it that which astonishes and occupies it: so that without making any reflections, it shall comprehend in a ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila
... "he is neither to look sillily, like a stupid pedant; nor unsettledly, with an uncouth morgue, like a new-come-over cavalier; not over sparing in your courtesies, for that will be imputed to incivilitie and arrogance; nor yet over prodigal in jowking or nodding at every step, for that ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... head is extended upon the neck and the angle between the jaw and the lower border of the neck is opened as far as possible to relieve the pressure that otherwise would fall upon the throat. In dumminess, or immobility, the hanging position of the head and the stupid expression are rather characteristic. In pleurisy, peritonitis, and some other painful diseases of the internal organs, the rigid position of the body denotes an effort of the animal to avoid pressure upon and to protect the ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... are; and poor Drake is no better than the rest. Ah, well, it does not matter to me—now. Thank goodness it is over! Though one can always count upon Drake; he is too thorough a gentleman to make a scene or bully a woman. Heaven knows I am sorry to break with him, and I wish that old stupid hadn't made such a fool of himself; for Drake and I would have got on very well. But as things are——As father says, it's impossible. I wonder whether they are coming back; I am ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... Constantinople. When they were leaving, the Sultan gave the Emperor a gigantic carpet, and the Emperor gave the Sultan a gold walking-stick, an exact imitation of the stick Frederick the Great used to lean on, and sometimes, very likely, apply to the backs of his trusty but stupid lieges. ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... said the dying voice. "You'd a done a many stupid things—if I 'adn't stopped yer. An' I'm a-goin'. You'll never ...
— Bessie Costrell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... your pardon, Mr. Robinson," said May humbly. "I know I have been very rude—I am constantly saying stupid things." ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... to see any sense in this. How can a right to the land be based upon a difference in the quality of the land? How can varieties of soil engender a principle of legislation and politics? This reasoning is either so subtle, or so stupid, that the more I think of it, the more bewildered I become. Suppose two pieces of land of equal area; the one, A, capable of supporting ten thousand inhabitants; the other, B, capable of supporting ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... her pleasure showing in her eyes. "Oh, that would be nice, Cousin Charlotte," she cried. "I do want to learn so much, but—but you have such a lot to do already, and we are very backward, and I am so—so stupid." ...
— The Carroll Girls • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... foolish days when I wished to conquer you, and make you humble yourself to me, I vowed by my mother's love that I'd not tell you, or let Borrow tell, a fact about myself which might win your favour. It was a bad vow to make: a stupid vow. But a vow by my mother's love I could not break, any more than you can break one to your father's memory. I'll abide by it: but trust me till Khartum, and there you shall know what I can't tell you now. I always hoped you would find ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... cases as in a plague, the best remedy is cito longe tarde: (for to such a party, especially if he be apprehensive, there can be no greater misery) to get him quickly gone far enough off, and not to be overhasty in his return. If he be so stupid that he do not apprehend it, his friends should take some order, and by their discretion supply that which is wanting in him, as in all other cases they ought to do. If they see a man melancholy given, solitary, averse from company, please ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... scattered cabins; children running to the doors; dogs bursting out to bark, whom we could see without hearing; terrified pigs scampering homewards; families sitting out in their rude gardens; cows gazing upward with a stupid indifference; men in their shirt-sleeves looking on at their unfinished houses, planning out tomorrow's work; and we riding onward, high abode them, like a whirl-wind. It was amusing, too, when we had dined, and rattled down a steep pass, having ...
— The Paths of Inland Commerce - A Chronicle of Trail, Road, and Waterway, Volume 21 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Archer B. Hulbert
... must be cool, collected, and watchful; he must understand the buffalo, observe the features of the country and the course of the wind, and be well skilled, moreover, in using the rifle. The buffalo are strange animals; sometimes they are so stupid and infatuated that a man may walk up to them in full sight on the open prairie, and even shoot several of their number before the rest will think it necessary to retreat. Again at another moment they will be so shy and wary, ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr. |
