"Dotard" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and habitable. It is not to be imagined how many noble seats and dwellings in this nation of ours, (to all appearance well situated,) are for all that unhealthful, by reason of some grove, or hedge-rows of antiquated dotard trees; nay, sometimes a single tuft only, (especially the falling autumnal leaves neglected to be taken away) filling the air with musty and noxious exhalations; which being ventilated, by glades cut through them, for passage ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... and, to tell the truth, they had paid the visit simply and solely to find food for themselves. The Chinese were the first to leave the duck-yard; and the other fowls soon followed them. The witty little duck said of the Portuguese that the old lady was becoming a ducky dotard. At this the other ducks laughed and cackled aloud. "Ducky dotard," they whispered; "that's too witty!" and then they repeated the former joke about Portulak, and declared that it was vastly amusing. And then ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... word, half because they were cowed by the majestic presence, the guard stood still and the drum was silenced. Andros spurred forward, but even he made a pause when he saw the staff levelled at his breast. "Forward!" he blustered. "Trample the dotard into the street. How dare you stop the ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... much to endure, and though the if "pirate" held his tongue they rebuked the old dotard by walking away and leaning over the rail. The conversation wandered to the subject of sharks, and Pauline asked if they were as ...
— The Perils of Pauline • Charles Goddard
... varlet Knight, Sir Frank de Dock, I have naught to say, save and excepting only that he be a caitiff and base-born dotard that did deride me and steal away unto his castle this very night when I did supplicate him to regale me with goodly viands around the board of that noble host, the gracious Sir Wralsy of Murdough. I would to heaven a murrain would seize the hearts of all such craven caitiffs who ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... untaught yet by that last lesson, that even a woman's revenge cannot make you treat me as a woman! Clasfempta! you bear, I believe, outside, the fame of a wise and a firm man; but in these little hands you have been as weak a fool as the veriest dotard might have ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... the sin, which they caress in the sinner, is so very bad? If, however, she escape all these early influences of depravation; if her idleness, and solitude and precocious knowledge leave her unvitiated, if, when she goes into society, it is by marriage with a man who is neither a dotard nor a fortune-seeker, and who remains constant and does not tempt her, by neglect, to forbode offense and to inflict anticipative reprisals—yet her purity goes uncredited, as her guilt would go unpunished; scandal makes haste to blacken her name to the prevailing ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... devil, brute beasts that you are! Dios! Dios! Garajos demonios! Idiots! What fools you are with your dotard God!" and a torrent of imprecations poured forth like a stream of red-hot lava from the mouth ...
— The Elixir of Life • Honore de Balzac
... "dull dotard with boundless wealth" finds his "grating reed" preferred to the bard's, but that the "tawdry shepherdess" of this dull dotard, by her "pride," makes "the rural thane" despise ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... touched a heart less hard than hers, aroused only her deepest ire—not because he had counted out the hairs, but because there had not been more to count. Jumping to her feet in her wrath, she exclaimed, "Fool that I was, to have withheld one, when the old dotard would have paid for it so richly. But it cannot now be helped," she continued, and resuming her seat, she read the letter through, exploding, but once more, and that at the point where Uncle Nat had spoken of returning asking if there was one who ...
— Dora Deane • Mary J. Holmes
... That Life protracted is protracted Woe. Time hovers o'er, impatient to destroy, And shuts up all the Passages of Joy: In vain their Gifts the bounteous Seasons pour, The Fruit Autumnal, and the Vernal Flow'r, With listless Eyes the Dotard views the Store, He views, and wonders that they please no more; Now pall the tastless Meats, and joyless Wines, And Luxury with Sighs her Slave resigns. Approach, ye Minstrels, try the soothing Strain, And yield the tuneful Lenitives of Pain: No Sounds alas ...
— The Vanity of Human Wishes (1749) and Two Rambler papers (1750) • Samuel Johnson
... mine! I might have been a common soldier, a day-laborer, a factory operative, a mechanic, instead of a missionary. If my faculties had been left to run riot or to waste as those of so many young men, I should now have been used up, a dotard, as many of my school-fellows are. I am respected by the natives, their kind expressions often make me ashamed, and they are sincere. So much deference and favor manifested without any effort on ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... himself his state, and shuns to know That life protracted is protracted woe. Time hovers o'er, impatient to destroy, And shuts up all the passages of joy: 260 In vain their gifts the bounteous seasons pour, The fruit autumnal, and the vernal flower; With listless eyes the dotard views the store— He views, and wonders that they please no more. Now pall the tasteless meats and joyless wines, And Luxury with sighs her slave resigns. Approach, ye minstrels! try the soothing strain, Diffuse the tuneful lenitives of pain: No sounds, alas! would ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... To whom Eurymachus—"Fly, dotard fly, With thy wise dreams, and fables of the sky. Go prophesy at home, thy sons advise: Here thou art sage in vain—I better read the skies Unnumber'd birds glide through the aerial way; Vagrants of air, and unforeboding stray. Cold in the tomb, or ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... to die, who would maintain your wife and daughter? The widow of a Marshal gets at least six thousand francs pension, doesn't she? Well, then, I wish to marry to secure bread for your wife and daughter—old dotard!" ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... have it, Ann. I am no more that schoolboy now than I am the dotard of ninety I shall grow into if I live long enough. It is over: let ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... sprightly youths, quite flush with hope and spirit, Who think to storm the world by dint of merit, To you the dotard has a deal to say, In his sly, dry, sententious, proverb way! He bids you mind, amid your thoughtless rattle, That the first blow is ever half the battle; That tho' some by the skirt may try to snatch him, Yet by the foreclock is the hold to catch him; That whether doing, suffering, or forbearing, ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... taste of the wine, however, came the consoling reflection that Iris as a scullery-maid might not tickle the fancy of the dotard who had undertaken to provide fifty thousand pounds for the new partnership. And she had promised—that was everything. His lack of diplomacy was obvious even to himself, but he had won where a man of finer temperament might ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... image an ingenious artist has depicted balancing herself upon a tee-totum on the southern window of the Parliament House of Edinburgh, is a mere idol,—a Diana of Ephesus,—whom her votaries worship, either because her shrine brings great gain to the craftsmen, or out of an ignorant and dotard superstition, which induces them to prefer the old Scottish Mumpsimus to the modern English Sumpsimus. Now, this is not fair construction in our friends, whose intentions in our behalf, we allow, are excellent, but who certainly are scarcely ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury |
