"Fool" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... he said. "I am not too old to learn, I find, and a man would indeed be a great fool if he could not learn in such a place as this. But though art can never mean much to me now, your case is different, and I am thankful to know that these things will be a great addition and interest to your future life. I'm a Philistine, and shall always so remain, but I'm a ...
— The Grey Room • Eden Phillpotts
... doggedly recovering. He requires great indemnities. Happy when a faithful fool is the main sufferer in a household! I quite agree with you that our faithful fool is the best servant of great schemes. Benson is now a piece of history. I tell him that this is indemnity enough, and that the sweet Muse usually insists upon gentlemen ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... town our turbulent mob was met by a troop of musicians sent out by the chief to greet us with song and harp. I was quickly surrounded by the singers, who chanted the most fulsome praise of the opulent Mongo, while a court-fool or buffoon insisted on leading my horse, and occasionally wiping my face ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... "I'll be that," quo' Jock. He got a leg o' mutton at night. He ties a string to it, and trails it behind him the hale road hame. "What hae ye been doing?" said his mither. He tells her. "Hout, you fool, ye should hae carried it on your shouther." "I'll ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous
... next few days, having considerable fever, and being quite out of her head at times. She called for "Dora" then, almost incessantly, and no matter which twin responded she declared it wasn't her namesake, but Dorothy, and that they "were trying to fool her!" ...
— The Girls of Central High on Lake Luna - or, The Crew That Won • Gertrude W. Morrison
... and unconscionable fool I am!" he thought. "Have I laughed at the follies of weak men all my life, and am I to be more foolish than the weakest of them at last? The beautiful brown-eyed creature! Why did I ever see her? Why did my ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... do 'Crinoline and Macassar' go on?' said Norman, as they sauntered away together up the towing-path above Putney. Now there were those who had found out that Charley Tudor, in spite of his wretched, idle, vagabond mode of life, was no fool; indeed, that there was that talent within him which, if turned to good account, might perhaps redeem him from ruin and set him on his legs again; at least so thought some of his friends, among whom Mrs. Woodward was the most prominent. She insisted that if he would make use of his genius ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... put up a covey of partridges, remembered how he used to shoot with Margaret's father, told himself that there was no fool like an old fool—not referring to Mr. Mildmay in the least—and took himself impatiently back ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 6, June, 1891 • Various
... Albert's works shall that be read, Which will give speedy motion to the pen, When Prague shall mourn her desolated realm. There shall be read the woe, that he doth work With his adulterate money on the Seine, Who by the tusk will perish: there be read The thirsting pride, that maketh fool alike The English and Scot, impatient of their bound. There shall be seen the Spaniard's luxury, The delicate living there of the Bohemian, Who still to worth has been a willing stranger. The halter of Jerusalem shall see A unit for his ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... to play the fool, is when they are met together, to relax from the severity of mental exertion. Their follies have a degree of extravagance much beyond the phlegmatic merriment of sober dulness, and can be relished by those only, who having wit themselves, ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... lucky man is Brown, and very far from being a fool. There is no sharper, shrewder man in New York, and no one who estimates his customers more correctly. He puts a high price on his services, and is said to have accumulated a handsome fortune, popularly estimated ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... is melting away, green things grow against south walls, and the leaves break out in the woods. My original intention to make great irons hot within me is unchanged; but if I ever thought this an easy task I must be an incredible fool. I do not even know with any certainty if there are irons in me still, or whether I can shape them if there are. Since the winter, life has made me lonely and small; I idle and loiter here, remembering that once things were different. Now that I have reached daylight and men ...
— Look Back on Happiness • Knut Hamsun
... dreadfulness. Perhaps man will come to such wisdom that neither the knife nor the drugs nor any of the powers which science thrusts into his hand will slay the beauty of life for him. Suppose we assume that he is not such a fool as to let that happen, and that ultimately he will emerge triumphant with all ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... our last sitting to puzzle the company? It is certain that the Mistress did not write the poem. It is evident that Number Seven, who is so severe in his talk about rhymesters, would not, if he could, make such a fool of himself as to set up for a "poet." Why should not the Counsellor fall in love and write verses? A good many lawyers ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... are different from the vulgar opinion of them. Often those who seem to battle with adversity are to be accounted blessed; but the many, even in their prosperity, are miserable. It needs only to bear misfortune bravely, while the fool perishes in his wealth. Outside these rival schools stands the man in the street. No one will take from him his conviction that at our birth are fixed for us the things that shall be. If some things fall out differently from what was ...
— The Evolution of Modern Medicine • William Osler
... and vain young man, Fenwick could not stand the honour of being Mr. Lester's son-in-law, without having his brain turned. He became at once an individual of great consequence—assumed airs, and played the fool so thoroughly, as not only to disgust her friends and family, but even Mary herself. His business was far too limited for a man of his importance. He desired to relinquish the retail line, and get into the jobbing trade. He stated his plans to Mr. Lester, and boldly asked for a capital ...
— Finger Posts on the Way of Life • T. S. Arthur
... (FeS{2}). This substance bears the same relation to ferrous sulphide that hydrogen dioxide does to water. It occurs abundantly in nature in the form of brass-yellow cubical crystals and in compact masses. Sometimes the name "fool's gold" is applied to it from its superficial resemblance to the precious metal. It is used in very large quantities as a source of sulphur dioxide in the manufacture of sulphuric acid, since it burns readily in the air, forming ferric oxide and ...
— An Elementary Study of Chemistry • William McPherson
... not know.' Like a fool, I said, 'I will ride down the road and get a nearer look.' He would be much obliged. I rode Hoodoo down an icy hill with a sharp lookout for their pickets. As I rode, I slipped my revolver out and let it hang at my wrist. I rode on cautiously. About a quarter of a ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... not a downright fool he will straighten matters up yet," thought the woman as she put away the work-basket and began to plan ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... the waiting-woman, "the fanatic fool intends to marry the wench? They say he goes to shift the country. Truly it's time, indeed; for, besides that the whole neighbourhood would laugh him to scorn, I should not be surprised if Lance Outram, the keeper, gave him a buck's head to bear; for ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... a fool," growled the doctor to himself as he walked to the stables, "as you think me, my fine fellow. If you were in the room half an hour last night this is all explained. To think that you are the father ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed
... the angel was created with greater fulness of wisdom than man. But no man, save a fool, ever makes choice of being the equal of an angel, still less of God; because choice regards only things which are possible, regarding which one takes deliberation. Therefore much less did the angel sin by desiring to ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... this, my lad? Worser ever so much, for you don't deserve it, and I do, leastwise, my Sally says I do, and I suppose I do for being such a fool as ...
— The Adventures of Don Lavington - Nolens Volens • George Manville Fenn
... gotten over his mad infatuation for her aunt and would make her a good husband. Perhaps I ought to leave, and yet I wonder if I ought. Harry Goward may have turned pale simply from his memory of what an uncommon fool he had been, and the consideration of the embarrassing position in which his past folly has placed him, if I chose to make revelations. He might have known that I would not; still, men know so little of women. I think that possibly I am worrying myself needlessly, and ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... for Measure. I cannot help that. Popular dramas and operas may have overwhelming merits as enchanting make-believes; but a poet's sincerest vision of the world must always take precedence of his prettiest fool's paradise. ...
— The Perfect Wagnerite - A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring • George Bernard Shaw
... that Lem came to think of it, he could not remember having seen her dance with any one else, besides Quinn himself. Lem's heart gave a heavy thump almost before his brain had grasped the situation. Yet the situation was very plain. It was Joe and his little fool of a partner that ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... are quite safe now. The royal bed-chamber has come to grief, however, I am sorry to say. What a fool I was not to have foreseen all this! The storm has been brewing since midnight," he was saying ...
— Beverly of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... and can be dedicated through this right to live the life of a god, to be so worshipped and flattered, so cockered about with every form of moral and material flummery, that he or she may well be more than human not to be made a fool of. Then, by a like prodigious stroke of volition, the inhabitants of the enchanted island universally agree that there is a class of them which can be called out of their names in some sort of title, bestowed by some ancestral or actual prince, and can forthwith be something different from ...
— Seven English Cities • W. D. Howells
... Roger, would he be fool enough to notify me beforehand?" queried our hero, as the pair walked a little distance ...
— Dave Porter At Bear Camp - The Wild Man of Mirror Lake • Edward Stratemeyer
... to that," Lessingham assured her. "In my own heart I feel convinced that I have come here on a fool's errand. No object that I could possibly attain in this neighbourhood is worth the life of a man like ...
— The Zeppelin's Passenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... way of arning," he said, "and one only. Look you here, Miss Daisy Mainwaring, you are young, but you ain't no fool. Ef you please, miss, you has got to make me a promise—you has got to say that you will never tell, not to Miss Primrose nor to Miss Jasmine, nor to no one, that you've seen me in this room. I don't ...
— The Palace Beautiful - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... the thought suggests itself to me that I have been very awkward in this business. When a person wishes to enjoy the property of other people, he will, unless he is a fool, act in accordance with the law, and not in violation of it. Consequently, just as you have made yourself a protectionist, I will make myself a socialist. Since you have laid claim to the right to profit, I claim the right to labor, or to ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat
... letter written the same day to his brother Melius, one can see in what fool's paradise Dr. Reitz and his ...
— Boer Politics • Yves Guyot
... reader, and say a fool told it you, if you wish: that he who hath not a dram of folly in his mixture, hath pounds of much worse matter in his composition." These words were written by an irresponsible fellow before the days of "responsibility" were inaugurated; before politicians ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James
... was shocked and affrighted when I saw the sheriff himself standing in the corner with his arm round my child her neck; he, however, presently let her go, and said, "Aha, reverend Abraham, what a coy little fool you have for a daughter! I wanted to greet her with a kiss, as I always used to do, and she struggled and cried out as if I had been some young fellow who had stolen in upon her, whereas I might be her father twice over." As I answered naught, he went on to say that he ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... kill him if you had the chance—but how would you get the chance?" he asked him. "Do you think the magician would be fool enough to leave his watch over the lough and put himself in your way? Kill him? Yes, we could any of us kill him if we could catch him; but three hundred years have passed away and nobody has ever ...
— The Cuckoo Clock • Mrs. Molesworth
... sufficient to exclude a wilderness of elder sons. I need not add that I left this lawyer with a very contemptible opinion of his understanding. I went to another, he told me the same thing, only in a different manner, and I thought him as great a fool as his fellow practitioner. At last I chanced upon a little brisk gentleman, with a quick eye and a sharp voice, who wore a wig that carried conviction in every curl; had an independent, upright mien, and such a logical, emphatic way of expressing himself, ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Eugenia grandly, "it will only prove you what you are, a little fool! I'm going up to pack. You needn't think you can hush me up, Allison Cloud, if you are rich. Money won't cover ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... sometimes Sister Marie-Aimee would turn round suddenly. Then Ismerie slipped down my body to the ground with wonderful quickness and skill. I always felt a little bit awkward when I caught Sister Marie-Aimee's eye, and Ismerie always said, "See what a fool you are. You were caught again." Marie Renaud would never let her climb up on to her back. She used to say that she wore her dress ...
— Marie Claire • Marguerite Audoux
... and cheek from some sleek pup, Who bullies you; and laughs when he has done you. "Pay and look pleasant," is the official rule, And as to wife and child, and food and raiment, You may attend to them, poor drudging fool! When of your Rent and Rates you've made full payment. Yes, Rent and Rates! they are the modern gods, And Moloch's tyranny was not more cruel. With Landlord or with Vestry get at odds, And you're gone coon; they'll soon give you your gruel. Just ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, July 5, 1890 • Various
... for me; I could lie down and die sometimes. A poor fool of a fellow, and yet feeling thrust upon an sorts of great and unspeakable paths, instead of being left in peace to classify butterflies ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... "Am I a dog?" Abner exclaims, "Am I a dog's head?" St. Paul refers to false prophets as dogs. In the Psalms the dog is found to be synonymous with the devil; in the Gospels it stands for unholy men. Evil-workers are dogs; a dog is the equivalent of a fool; nothing is lower than a dog, and nothing is to be more abhorred. Finally, there is that hardest sentence of all—"Without are dogs"; as though any hope for dogs was entirely forbidden. It is the same throughout: the depraved of mankind ...
— 'Murphy' - A Message to Dog Lovers • Major Gambier-Parry
... evening, the Baroness was gracious to Lousteau again. Have you never observed what great meanness may be committed for small ends? Thus the haughty Dinah, who would not sacrifice herself for a fool, who in the depths of the country led such a wretched life of struggles, of suppressed rebellion, of unuttered poetry, who to get away from Lousteau had climbed the highest and steepest peak of her scorn, and who would not have come down if she had seen the sham Byron at her feet, suddenly ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... to Rome, and celebrated their triumph over the Goths, with (for the last time in history) gladiatorial sports. Three years past, and then Stilicho was duly rewarded for having saved Rome, in the approved method for every great barbarian who was fool enough to help the treacherous ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley
... Dutch origin, taken from the word boomken, meaning "a sprout," "a fool." It signifies a loutish person, and is applied to a country clown, not ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII. No. 358, November 6, 1886. • Various
... just now. I thought you said that, had you the strength of a man, you should prefer the plough and the book to the needle. Whence, supposing you a female, I inferred that you had a woman's love for the needle and a fool's hatred of books.' ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... "Bad parts, worn out parts, unworthy a man of sense, even if they were not so of a good man. It would be sacrilege to attack representative government in this age of intelligence and freedom. He would be but a fool who, with lightness of heart, could wish to cause the loss of the stakes of the republic against royalty after having supported them with some glory and peril." Yet the importance he gave himself in his proclamations was ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet
... passed for any public man to claim credit for "consistency." A person who, after forty years of public life, can truly say that he has never changed an opinion, must be either a demigod or a fool. We do not blame Mr. Calhoun for ceasing to be a protectionist and becoming a free-trader; for half the thinking world has changed sides on that question during the last thirty years. A growing mind must necessarily change its opinions. ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... you L—-, to rush in, Through thick and thin, to give your Queen a splashing For this your party, to the devil gave you, And yet the rav'nous Tories will not have you. So in that country (where with hopes you fool Your second infancy, you yet shall rule) A sect of devotees there is who tell ye The way to heaven is through a fish's belly; And in the surges, on a certain day, They give themselves to rav'nous sharks a prey. Among the rest, an ancient beldame went,— Weak, wither'd, wrinkled, ...
— A Sketch of the Life of the late Henry Cooper - Barrister-at-Law, of the Norfolk Circuit; as also, of his Father • William Cooper
... Berkeley fled. Bacon marched against the Indians again, and Berkeley came back, and so the rebellion went on until Bacon died. Berkeley then captured the other leaders one after another and hanged them. But when he returned to England, Charles II turned his back to him, saying, "The old fool has killed more men in Virginia than I for the ...
— A Short History of the United States • Edward Channing
... movement that attracted my attention. At the same time he growled out loud, as if he hated himself, 'I'm a fool.' What he had done was to pick up a cane-knife—you know the kind, as big as a machete and as heavy. And I was grateful to him in advance for putting me out of my misery. There wasn't any sense in slowly feeding in till my head was ...
— The Red One • Jack London
... day gossiping and flirting—"love-shops," I call 'em. There was a yellow-haired lady manageress who never heard you when you spoke to her, 'cause she was always trying to hear what some seedy old fool would be whispering to her across the counter. Then there were waitresses, and their notion of waiting was to spend an hour talking to a twopenny cup of coffee, and to look haughty and insulted whenever ...
— The Observations of Henry • Jerome K. Jerome
... fool for luck!" he continued as a new thought struck him. "Suppose it had been liberated all at once? Probably blown the whole world off its hinges. But it wasn't: it was given off slowly and in a straight line. Wonder why? Talk about ...
— The Skylark of Space • Edward Elmer Smith and Lee Hawkins Garby
... himself now set his foot therein, And stop it up, for 'twill infect us all; Fie, hog; fie, pigsty; foul thy grunt befall. Ah—see, he bolteth! there, sirs, was a swing; Take heed—he's bent on tilting at the ring: He's the shape, isn't he? to tilt and ride! Eh, you mad fool! go ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... at the commencement of his third year he had made comparatively little progress. After one of his usual night-dissipations, a friend stood by his bedside on the following morning. "Paley," said he, "I have not been able to sleep for thinking about you. I have been thinking what a fool you are! I have the means of dissipation, and can afford to be idle: YOU are poor, and cannot afford it. I could do nothing, probably, even were I to try: YOU are capable of doing anything. I have lain awake all ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... who has a good practical acquaintance with his subject, had in the Hibbert Journal for October 1918 an article on "The Primitive Medicine Man" in which he shows that the latter is as a rule anything but a fool and a knave—although like 'medicals' in all ages he hocuspocuses his patients occasionally! He instances the medicine-man's excellent management, in most cases, of childbirth, or of wounds and ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... man," she said, "who for the last fortnight has been potting whisky—what a fool you are, Cousin Frank! Distil is the word. Joseph Antony Kinsella has been distilling whisky on this island for the last month as hard as ever he could. He's been shipping barrels full of it underneath loads of gravel into Rosnacree, and now he's trying to pretend he hasn't ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham
... 328.) To build a house for God, that is, to prepare a dwelling for him in our souls, we must begin by banishing sin, and all earthly affections, (in Ps. xxxi. p. 73;) for Christ, who is wisdom, sanctity, and truth, cannot establish his reign in the breast of a fool, hypocrite, or sinner, (in Ps. xli. p. 60, ap. Marten. t. 9.) It is easy for God, by penance, to repair his work, howsoever it may have been defaced by vice, as a potter can restore or improve the form of a vessel, while the clay is yet ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... over Mostyn's face. "I'll go back in the morning," he said, doggedly. "Mitchell, you say, wants to see me. I'm not afraid of the woman. If I had been there she wouldn't have made such a fool of herself." ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... themselves are all the time, as the apostle says, temples of the living God, and God truly dwelling within them; while all the time their souls are the abiding-place of God, wherein He continually reposes! Who but a fool would look for something out of doors which he knows he has within? What is the good of anything which is always to be sought and never found, and who can be strengthened with food ever craved but never tasted? Thus passes ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... he felt about the prosecution of the man who shot him," said Miss White, "and he said, 'I've not decided yet, but God help the poor fool under any circumstances!' and the tone he used was one of kindly sympathy and sincerity, and without one trace of ...
— The Attempted Assassination of ex-President Theodore Roosevelt • Oliver Remey
... them make a fool of you!" said he. "These Three Gray Women are the only persons in the world that can tell you where to find the Nymphs; and, unless you get that information, you will never succeed in cutting off the head of ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... durned fool's so onlucky ez ter hit him an' not kill him," growled Timothy, again interrupting. "An' so whilst Eveliny runs out a-screamin', 'He's dead! he's dead!—ye hev shot him dead!' we-uns make no doubt but he is dead, an' load up agin, lest his frien's mought rush ...
— His "Day In Court" - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... parrot. I had rather have a fool boy around than a parrot. But what's the matter with your Ma's parrot? I thought she wouldn't part with him ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck
... [Sings 'Fair Dorinda,' the opera tune, and addresses Dorinda.] Madam, when your ladyship want a fool, send for me. Fair Dorinda, Revenge, ...
— The Beaux-Stratagem • George Farquhar
... driver, "from a blame fool at the coffee stall by Hyde Park Corner. Bought 'im a doorstep and a ball of chalk ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee
... "Since Solomon said, 'Look for the woman' (for it was King Solomon who first said it), every fool thinks it smart to repeat with a cunning look that most obvious of truths. ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau
... "Thou fool!" whispered Swanhild in her ear, "how can these help him? No troll could live in yonder cauldron. Dead is Eric, and thou art the bait that ...
— Eric Brighteyes • H. Rider Haggard
... does who's lived in the country. Some people can imitate a bird so it would almost fool another bird—but not ...
— A Campfire Girl's First Council Fire - The Camp Fire Girls In the Woods • Jane L. Stewart
... a perfect fool. Lucky I thought to look at his stuff. Well, he is no worse than the rest, in this weary world," and he burst into a hearty laugh and swung his chair round, adding, "Now then, Alan, what is it? I have a quarter of an hour at your service. Why, bless me! I was forgetting ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... think your old hen 'd be such a fool, Miss Dalton," she said; "but I kind o' surmised the reason she's been missin', an' I found her to-day in a corner o' the haymow sittin' on five eggs. Now, wouldn't you s'pose at her age she'd know better than to try an' ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... queen, who more than half the night Had paced from door to fire and fire to door. Though now in her old age, in her young age She had been beautiful in that old way That's all but gone; for the proud heart is gone And the fool heart of the counting-house fears all But soft beauty and indolent desire. She could have called over the rim of the world Whatever woman's lover had hit her fancy, And yet had been great bodied and great limbed, Fashioned to be the mother of strong children; And she'd had lucky ...
— In The Seven Woods - Being Poems Chiefly of the Irish Heroic Age • William Butler (W.B.) Yeats
... where the mere thought of the veiled Holy Grail increased his pain by intensifying his remorse. There, one day, he read on the rim of the cup, that his wound was destined to be healed by a guileless fool, who would accidentally climb the mountain and, moved by sympathy, would inquire the cause of his suffering ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... and his character has been much mistaken. He himself, as he confessed to his intimate friends, sought to disguise it. He one day asked one of his most familiar servants, 'What do they say in Paris of that great fool of a Dauphin?' The person interrogated seeming confused, the Dauphin urged him to express himself sincerely, saying, 'Speak freely; that is positively the idea which I wish people ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... his mother bitingly when he was in the train, patiently waiting to be taken beyond the sound of her voice, "I do hope that you are ashamed of yourself. It is a bitter feeling, I can tell you, the feeling that one is the mother of a fool." ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... you steady job for sure, an' w'en you get 'im t'roo I bring you back on Canadaw, don't cos' de man un sou, Dat's firs'-class steamboat all de way Kebeck an' Leeverpool, An' if you don't be satisfy, you mus' be beeg, beeg fool." ...
— The Habitant and Other French-Canadian Poems • William Henry Drummond
... example, truth out of error? or the Will to Truth out of the will to deception? or the generous deed out of selfishness? or the pure sun-bright vision of the wise man out of covetousness? Such genesis is impossible; whoever dreams of it is a fool, nay, worse than a fool; things of the highest value must have a different origin, an origin of THEIR own—in this transitory, seductive, illusory, paltry world, in this turmoil of delusion and cupidity, they cannot have their source. But rather in the lap of Being, in the intransitory, in ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... her. She said she'd manage some'ow. And she 'eartened me up, and put me on the road for Wickham, and she said she'd dror away the pursoot by hiding the prison clothes somewhere in the opsit direction where they could be found easy by the first fool." ...
— The Lowest Rung - Together with The Hand on the Latch, St. Luke's Summer and The Understudy • Mary Cholmondeley
... 'O fool!' cried the boy, 'have you no sense at all? Don't you know that when you get there they will hold you fast, for neither beast nor bird is as strong or as ...
— The Brown Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... workman to a common vagabond. His good and energetic wife had been unable to save him; rather, the hopeless struggle had been too much for her, though she seemed much stronger than he, and she had died—while her good-for-nothing husband enjoyed rude health, played the fool for a few more years, and then, after he was ruined and dependent, went lazily on with no apparent diminution of strength toward a ripe old age. Of course his conviction was that he had had bad luck with his wife as well as with the sail-making ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... such a useless despicable fellow as his uncle Alfred, and will be the same burden to me that that accomplished unprincipled fool was to you." ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... of the seventeenth century, the device was a fool's cap and which has continued by name as the particular size which we now ...
— Forty Centuries of Ink • David N. Carvalho
... impatient to await his caprice. "My dear aunt," he once said to the Queen of Navarre, a short time before her death, "I honor you more than the Pope, and I love my sister more than I fear him. I am not indeed a Huguenot, but neither am I a blockhead; and if the Pope play the fool too much, I will myself take Margot," his common nickname for his sister, "by the hand, and give her away in marriage ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... "It's an accursed fool who tries to make them," broke in one of the younger men. "There was a fellow who had been pinned up against a barn door and left to hang there—and a coarse, loud-mouthed lunatic asked him to describe how it felt. ...
— Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... people—a pure fool-like Parsifal, who could not conceive such treachery and knavery because it was incapable of such things itself—toiled and worked day by day, enjoyed the blessings of peace, was happy in its existence ...
— What Germany Thinks - The War as Germans see it • Thomas F. A. Smith
... there had been international copyright between England and the States, I should have been a man of very large fortune, instead of a man of moderate savings, always supporting a very expensive public position." Nor have I ever been such a fool as to charge the absence of international copyright upon individuals. Nor have I ever been so ungenerous as to disguise or suppress the fact that I have received handsome sums for advance sheets. When I was in the ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 3 (of 3), 1836-1870 • Charles Dickens
... justest claim imaginable, I Would never wrest by violence my own Without sanction of your State or King; I should behave as fits an outlander Living amongst a foreign folk, but thou Shamest a city that deserves it not, Even thine own, and plentitude of years Have made of thee an old man and a fool. Therefore again I charge thee as before, See that the maidens are restored at once, Unless thou would'st continue here by force And not by choice a sojourner; so much I tell thee home and what I ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles
... "That old fool, Bill Godfrey, is showin' them our sign," said he, in exasperation. "That's a nice thing, ain't it, for Eastern Capital, or a woman, to see the ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... Pete when he is up there in them white hills? Some folks used to laugh at Pete when he told about the white hills, the flower things, the sky things, an' the moonlight things that play in the mists. An' once a fellow called Pete a fool, an' Young Matt he whipped him awful. But folks wasn't really to blame, 'cause they couldn't see 'em. That's what HE said. An' HE knew, 'cause he could see 'em too. But Aunt Mollie, an' Uncle Matt, an' you all, they don't never laugh. They just say, 'Pete knows.' But ...
— The Shepherd of the Hills • Harold Bell Wright
... be all right in a minute," drawled the Haddock, who did not relish a stiff ride along dusty roads in his choicest confection. "He's playing the fool, I believe—or a bit scared at the ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... continued, "you have been trusting in the wealth which, with so much toil and danger, you have been collecting, to enjoy a life of ease and comfort on shore. Suppose God said to you, 'Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee!' as He does to many; ...
— Charley Laurel - A Story of Adventure by Sea and Land • W. H. G. Kingston
... There ever is somebody ready to profit: No affliction without its stock-jobbers, who all Gamble, speculate, play on the rise and the fall Of another man's heart, and make traffic in it." Burn thy book, O La Rochefoucauld! Fool! one man's wit All men's selfishness how should it fathom? O sage, Dost thou satirize Nature? She ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith
... scenes, he asked me, knowing I acted Belcour, to prompt him if he should be 'out,' which he very much feared. The audience were in convulsions at his absurdities, and in the scene with Miss Rusport, being really 'out,' I gave him a line which Belcour has to speak, 'I never looked so like a fool in all my life,' which, as he delivered it, was greeted with a roar of laughter. He was 'out' again, and I gave him again the same line, which, again being repeated, was acquiesced in with a louder roar. Being 'out' again, I administered him the third time the ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... are right,' said Uncle Pascal, dropping down into an armchair, 'it is I who am an old fool. Yes, I wept like a child, as I came here alone in my gig. That is what comes of living amongst books. One learns a lot from them, but one makes a fool of oneself in the world. How could I guess that it would all turn ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... in his little eye, as he swayed his huge body from side to side, that indicated but too clearly the savage nature of his disposition. Even Gibault felt a little uneasy, and began to think himself a fool for having ventured on such an expedition alone. His state of mind was not improved by the sound of the artist's teeth chattering ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... fool!" said he, between his grinded teeth, as he griped his dagger and prepared for the conflict. It was long and obstinate, for the Spaniard was skilful; and the Hebrew wearing no mail, and without any weapon more formidable than a sharp and well-tempered dagger, was forced ...
— Leila, Complete - The Siege of Granada • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... for me," he jeered from the secure anticipation of his present triumph, "that the unknown stranger names him seven kinds of fool. To think he could get across this way and sneak that little wad by me! And by the by, it's getting late and if you don't mind I'll take what's coming ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
... four, to be betrothed to Adam, a brother of Hugh de Neville, his chief forestar. Hugh, who was always at war with child marriages, issued a special caveat in this case. But when he was away in Normandy they found a priest (a fool or bribed) to tie the knot. The priest was suspended and the rest excommunicated. In the next act the chambermaid confessed; and lastly Agnes' nerve gave way, and she did the same. But Adam still claimed ...
— Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln - A Short Story of One of the Makers of Mediaeval England • Charles L. Marson
... that," he returned serenely. "Now I'm goin' to fool you, same as I fooled them guys at Bellevue the night that Mike the Kike shot me up ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers
... were up and excited, I could see by their actions; but I had no time to fool with them. I placed Kalutunah, who had again become unconscious, on the sledge and got on before him. By this time my pursuers were close at hand, and I was horrified to see two dog sledges following in the rear. Unfamiliar as I was with the management of Kalutunah's ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls - Volume XIII, No. 51: November 12, 1892 • Various
... then I come out with a higher reputation than ever. I shall shine as the one honest man in a den of thieves. That cheque and more, Richford has promised me directly you are his wife. Do you understand, you sullen, white-faced fool? Do you see the danger? If I thought you were going to back out of it ...
— The Slave of Silence • Fred M. White
... his day: the enhancing of rents, the daily oppression of poor tenants by the lords of manors, and the practice of usury—a trade brought in by the Jews, but now practiced by almost every Christian, so that he is accounted a fool that doth lend his money for nothing. He prays the reader to help him, in a lawful manner, to hang up all those that take cent. per cent. for money. Another grievance, and most sorrowful of all, is that many gentlemen, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... answered, good-humoredly, and not the least disturbed by Manning's quiet reflection on the bravery of stage drivers in general. "When a fellow has to manage four tolerably skittish horses with both hands full of leather, he haint much time to fool around huntin' shootin' irons, 'specially when he's got to look down into the muzzle of a repeater which is likely to go off ...
— The Burglar's Fate And The Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... than he. And when Solon answered that he had known one Tellus, a fellow-citizen of his own, and told him that this Tellus had been an honest man, had had good children, a competent estate, and died bravely in battle for his country, Croesus took him for an ill-bred fellow and a fool, for not measuring happiness by the abundance of gold and silver, and preferring the life and death of a private and mean man before so much power and empire. He asked him, however, again, if, besides Tellus, he knew any other man more happy. And Solon replying, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... "Oh! you darned fool," interposed a mountaineer, "the dead men's ghosts will be after you if you use them lariats—wagh! They'll make ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... the enormous revenues of this Nation could not be collected without becoming a charge on all the people whether or not they directly pay taxes. Everyone who is paying or the bare necessities of fool and shelter and clothing, without considering the better things of life, is indirectly paying a national tax. The nearly 20,000,000 owners of securities, the additional scores of millions of holders of insurance policies and depositors in savings ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... "Simple—any damn fool would tumble. If I wasn't all me, then you weren't all you. Part of you was me—get it? And you weren't scheduled to bust out today. Not you—me! And that's what he couldn't work over. That's what brought me ...
— The Very Black • Dean Evans
... "Don't be a fool, my dear. I shan't die a day sooner for having made my will—and I shall die a deal more comfortably, knowing that you are provided for. I promised your mother that, as far as lay in my power, I would shield you from wrecking your life as she wrecked hers. ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... consequence from his rank and connexions, and from the number of voices he could command or influence. Lord Oldborough knew that, if he could regain the duke, he could keep in awe his other enemies. His grace was a puzzle-headed, pompous fool, whom Heaven had cursed with the desire to be a statesman. He had not more than four ideas; but to those four, which he conceived to be his own, he was exclusively attached.—Yet a person of address and cunning could put things into his head, ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... not rendered less observant, and for the moment, we judge, she was not rendered more indulgent, by perceiving that Mr. Osmond carried his burden less complacently than might have been expected. "What a fool I was to have let myself so needlessly in—!" she could ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... ought to find it easy enough to distinguish between the men who sought liberty wisely and those who were restive and turbulent. A wise man or a wise nation knows the kind of restraint which is good; the fool, with his feather-brained theories, never knows what is good for him—he mistakes eternal justice for tyranny, he rebels against facts that are too solid for him—and we know what kind of an end he meets. Some peculiarly ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... Vashti. Pert little fool, where lies thy beauty, then? Thou hast it not: its place is not thy flesh, But the delighting loins of men, there only. Thy beauty! And thou knowest not that man Hath forged in his furnace of desire our beauty Into that chain of law which binds our lives— Man, please thyself, and ...
— Emblems Of Love • Lascelles Abercrombie
... very proud of her Berchthold Schwartz, and in her pride has made a proverb declaring that his invention was the proof of supreme wisdom. When they describe a fool, they say there that he did not discover gunpowder. But 'the first handful of gunpowder' did not, as Carlyle claims, drive Monk Schwartz's pestle through the ceiling. Long before Schwartz, lived Bacon; and a century or so before ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... she exclaimed. "They've very near got the place eat down, so that you have to make a fool of yourself opening the door, and that blessed feller I sent for hasn't come to do 'em up yet; but some people!" She finished so exasperatedly that I felt impelled to state my name and business without delay, and with a prim "Indeed," she led the way ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... rosy on roof and wall. A great fall of spread out light, like a caress from the rising sun, enveloped the waking world; and, with this light, a gay, rapid, brutal hope invaded the heart of the Viscount! He was a fool to allow himself to be thus cast down by fear, even before anything was decided, before his witnesses had seen those of this George Lamil, before he yet knew whether he were ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... Barrow felt like a fool. Repeating messages as if they were his own—without the slightest knowledge of what they were about. He was supposedly charting the course—and didn't have the slightest idea where they ...
— Wanted—7 Fearless Engineers! • Warner Van Lorne
... knew we'd have to take. We don't dare raise any suspicion. Yactisi, for one, is no fool, neither is Starns. Chambriss just wants to get his water-cat, but he could become nasty if anyone tried ...
— Star Hunter • Andre Alice Norton
... you are a connoisseur in that. But, look here, Fyodor Pavlovitch, you said just now that we had given our word to behave properly. Remember it. I advise you to control yourself. But, if you begin to play the fool I don't intend to be associated with you here.... You see what a man he is"—he turned to the monk—"I'm afraid to go among decent people with him." A fine smile, not without a certain slyness, came on to the pale, bloodless lips of the ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... "I have been a fool," he told the major, "to listen to such arguments as that man made against mere children. Of course my daughter was injured and that angered me; but it was the foolish talk of that old man which made me think I should have revenge—revenge ...
— Dorothy Dale • Margaret Penrose
... wasn't so necessary, I see that now, and it's just the same as if I killed him. Gee, I wish it was I that got killed, I know that. Cracky, I deserved to after being such a fool. ...
— Roy Blakeley • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... will soon be effaced by the sight of greater wonders. Mean time I go about like Stephano and his ignorant companions, who longed for all the glittering furniture of Prospero's cell in the Tempest, while those who know the place better are vindicated in crying, "Let it alone, thou fool, it ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... expose ignorance, when it was pretentious; he made all the quacks and shams appear ridiculous. His irony was tremendous; nobody could stand before his searching and unexpected questions, and he made nearly every one with whom he conversed appear either as a fool or an ignoramus. He asked his questions with great apparent modesty, and thus drew a mesh over his opponents from which they could not extricate themselves. His process was the reductio ad absurdum. Hence he drew upon himself the wrath of the Sophists. ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord
... but you can open it yourself. I never fool with a European window. I haven't time to master all the mechanism, inside, outside and between, to say nothing of the various layers of curtains, full length, half length and otherwise. Nothing that ...
— The Forest of Swords - A Story of Paris and the Marne • Joseph A. Altsheler
... the trail before it was light enough to see a hundred yards ahead. There was a defiance and a contempt of last night in the crack of his long caribou-gut whip and the halloo of his voice as he urged on his dogs. Breault's voice in the wind? Bah! Only a fool would have thought that. Therefore he was a fool. And Jan Thoreau—it would be like taking a child. There would be no happenings to report—merely an arrest, a quick return journey, an affair altogether ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood
... trying,—accidentally and unwillingly,—that, of course, is a thing for which any fool is fit. You knock out the ashes from your pipe on a fallen log; you toss the end of a match into a patch of grass, green on top, but dry as punk underneath; you scatter the dead brands of an old fire among the moss,—a conflagration is under way ...
— Fisherman's Luck • Henry van Dyke
... little value; to have sent me for nothing, where I have been sitting the whole day to no purpose, waiting at the citadel for Callidemides, his landlord at Myconos. And so, while sitting there to-day, {like} a fool, as each person came by, I accosted him:— "Young man, just tell me, pray, are you a Myconian?" "I am not." "But is your name Callidemides?" "No." "Have you any {former} guest here {named} Pamphilus?" All said. "No; and I don't believe ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... hast forgot my generous action; And now thou laugh'st, to think how thou hast cheated, For all his kindness, this old grisled fool. ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... thought it was a one-sided battle. I don't know which is the bigger fool, the officer commanding the rear-guard or the youth who has lost his way in the dark. Did you give him ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
... insist that ceremonies other than those which they prescribe are now useless. They maintain that each age of the world has its own special revelation and that in this age the Tantra-sastra is the only scripture. Thus in the Mahanirvana Tantra Siva says:[702] "The fool who would follow other doctrines heedless of mine is as great a sinner as a parricide or the murderer of a Brahman or of a woman.... The Vedic rites and mantras which were efficacious in the first age have ceased to have power in this. They are now ...
— Hinduism And Buddhism, Volume II. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... week of unbroken quiet, flawless as the unchanging blue of a summer sky; not a cloud in sight, not a suspicion of coming disturbance and unrest. It could not go on like this for ever. To imagine it was to fall asleep in a fool's paradise, lulled into false serenity by the absence of portents so often shrouded and unseen ...
— The Passenger from Calais • Arthur Griffiths
... not worth living. She never even asked herself the question, whether it would not be better and easier to end all and leave Gregorio to his fate. Gregorio! Her smooth lip curled in contempt. A coward, a thief, a fool—why should she care what became of him? Coldly and sincerely she wished that she were going to kill him, and not Veronica. She despised the one, and hated the other; of the two, she would rather have let the hated one live. But to die herself seemed absurd to her, because she really feared death ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... my part, greater firmness and greater labour.[73] These labours, unless it shall appear that I am throwing away and wasting my pains, I shall support with all the strength I have; but if I see that they are not appreciated, I shall not allow you—the very person benefited[74]—to think me a fool for my pains. What the meaning of all this is you will be able to learn from Pomponius. In commending Pomponius to you, although I am sure you will do anything in your power for his own sake, yet I do beg that if you have any affection for ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... man had not come here and made a fool of himself last night, the police might have searched forever without finding a clue. There is no clue here. And there was the rain. The very elements sweep up after the ...
— The Crooked House • Brandon Fleming
... the villain or well-meaning fool or whatever he was who wrote that first message ... if only he would send another. "Ignore preceding. Educational decree still in force." Or something. But no. Such things didn't happen. A man had to make his own luck, in an ...
— The Burning Bridge • Poul William Anderson
... Maria sopra Minerva. The treasure, however, did not escape the searching eyes of two Spanish soldiers, who broke open the chest, and one of them seized on the plate, regarding the papers as of no value. The other, not being quite such a fool, says Giovio, preserved such of the manuscripts as were on vellum, and ornamented with rich bindings, but threw away ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... was to forgive me a small debt—I was quite in his power—and to pay me five pounds; and there the matter dropped, through others coming in. But, next night, under exactly similar circumstances, I gave him the drugs, on his saying I was a fool to think that he should ever use them for any harm; and he gave me the money. We have never met since. I only know that the poor old father died soon afterwards, just as he would have died from this cause; and that I ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... a fool; By demonstration Ned can show it; Happy could Ned's inverted rule, Prove ev'ry fool ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... Abner," he said, cheerfully. "I thought Mark Nelson was a man of more sense. Because his son has sent home a little money, he must rig out the whole family in new clothes. 'A fool and his ...
— The Young Miner - or Tom Nelson in California • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... you describe me I can picture myself as I was 22 years ago. The portrait is correct. You think I have grown some; upon my word there was room for it. You have described a callow fool, a self-sufficient ass, a mere human tumble-bug, stern in air, heaving at his bit of dung, imagining that he is remodeling the world and is entirely capable of doing it right.... That is what I was ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... Intendant has made love to me with pointed gallantry that could have no other meaning but that he honorably sought my hand. He has made me talked of and hated by my own sex, who envied his preference of me. I was living in the most gorgeous of fool's paradises, when a bird brought to my ear the astounding news that a woman, beautiful as Diana, had been found in the forest of Beaumanoir by some Hurons of Lorette, who were out hunting with the Intendant. She was accompanied by a few Indians of a strange ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... lost no time in presenting for payment, and as they amounted to several thousand dollars my hope of reaching a settlement with him was small. In point of fact I was quite sure that he wanted no settlement and desired only revenge, and I realized what a fool I had been to make an enemy out of one who might ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train
... desert to Abu Hamed at the northern tip of the deep bend which the Nile makes below Berber. To drive a line into a desert in order to attack an enemy holding a good position beyond seemed a piece of fool-hardiness. Nevertheless it was done, and at the average rate of about 1 1/4 miles a day. In due course General Hunter pushed on and captured Abu Hamed, the inhabitants of which showed little fight, being thoroughly weary of Dervish ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... that last night, but this afternoon I done it too. I fall into the ditch every night and beller; I do it on purpose to fool ...
— Through Forest and Fire - Wild-Woods Series No. 1 • Edward Ellis
... decrial it was nothing but a libel. The spreaders of healthy ideas among the young generation he wanted to show up as corrupters of youth, the sowers of discord and evil, haters of good, and in a word, very devils. In various places of the novel we see that his principal hero is no fool; on the contrary, a very able and gifted man, who is eager to learn and works diligently and knows much, but notwithstanding all this, he gets quite lost in disputes, utters absurdities, and preaches ridiculous ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps
... quest, not of its enjoyments, but of those arduous toils whereby the good mount upwards to the abodes of everlasting life? If gentlemen, great lords, nobles, men of high birth, were to rate me as a fool I should take it as an irreparable insult; but I care not a farthing if clerks who have never entered upon or trod the paths of chivalry should think me foolish. Knight I am, and knight I will die, if such be the pleasure of the ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... and gently. Mr. Houghton, who could only hear the sweet tenderness of her tones, wiped tears from his eyes as he again murmured, "God forgive me, blind, obstinate old fool that I've been!" ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... an ancient pastime; yet two or three were glad to stand round and watch it, because it was some time since they had been to the opera. Now the tenderfoot had misunderstood these friends at the beginning, supposing himself to be among good fellows, and they therefore naturally set him down as a fool. But even while dancing you may learn much, and suddenly. The boy, besides being limber, had good tough black hair, and it was not in fear, but with a cold blue eye, that he looked at the old gentleman. The trouble had been that his own revolver had somehow hitched, so he could not pull it from ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... Captain Bolter that day, at parting, "I've forgiven you long ago, but I can't forget; for you said the truth that time. I was an old grampus, or a fool, if you like, and I'm not much better now. However, good-bye, dear boy, and take care of her, for there's not another like her ...
— Personal Reminiscences in Book Making - and Some Short Stories • R.M. Ballantyne
... rich man And spent his money so fast that he failed. She lashed him with a scorpion tongue And made him believe at last With her incessant reasonings That he was a fool, and so had failed. In middle life he started over again, But became tangled in a law-suit. Because of these ...
— Toward the Gulf • Edgar Lee Masters
... better than that, you fool? If I were your officer, I'd give you thirty lashes for wasting ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, January 1878, No. 3 • Various
... remember. But the same night I heard Mr Cozens use very unbecoming language to the captain, telling him, That he was come into those seas to pay Sh—lv—k's debts, and also insolently added, Tho' Sh—lv—k was a rogue, he was not a fool, and by G-d, you are both. When he spoke this, he was a prisoner in the store-tent, and asked the captain, If he was to be kept there all night? On these provocations, the captain attempted to strike him again, but the centinel said, he should ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... a fool—his life would pay the penalty for a pretty girl's whim. Unfortunately, perhaps, my life is too precious to some one other than myself, to admit of the sacrifice. I am willing to do much for Lady Ruth, but I decline to be made ...
— Miss Caprice • St. George Rathborne
... "Fool!" he muttered, as he rudely raised her. "I have no power to aid thee; come before the Superior—we must all obey—ask him, implore him, for ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar
... I lost my luggage, the few things I managed to bring away with me." His voice dropped suddenly. "I shouldn't have said that," he muttered. "I was a fool to say that!" Then, more loudly, "Someone said to me, 'You can't go into a lodging-house without any luggage. They wouldn't take you in.' But you have taken me in, Mrs. Bunting, and I'm grateful for—for the kind way you have met ...
— The Lodger • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... (Prolonged applause, mingled with laughter.) And I said to him further than that: 'If any of you gentlemen who claim to be educated in the British West Indies, and all you gentlemen who hail from Beloit College (wherever it is)—if you can fool any one of those eleven Negroes out of one dime, I will give you ten dollars!' (Laughter and applause.) Yes, sir, without much education these men own their own homes and dozens of homes in which other people ...
— Booker T. Washington - Builder of a Civilization • Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe
... he muttered. "Am I sickening for a fever before I have been forty-eight hours in Cairo? What fool's notion is this in my brain? Where have I seen her before? In Paris? St. Petersburg? London? Charmazel! ... Charmazel! ... What has the name to do with me? Ziska-Charmazel! It is like the name of a romance or a gypsy tune. Bah! I must be ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... is from Cardinal James Caietan, (Maxima Bibliot. Patrum, tom. xxv.;) and I am at a loss to determine whether the nephew of Boniface VIII. be a fool or a knave: the uncle is a ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... Agricola had said that it was dangerous to preach the Law without the Gospel, because it was a ministry of death (ministerium mortis). Luther answered in his Report to Brueck: "Behold now what the mad fool does. God has given His Law for the very purpose that it should bite, cut, strike, kill, and sacrifice the old man. For it should terrify and punish the proud ignorant, secure Old Adam and show him his sin and death, ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... "A fool thou sayest? And wherefore?" Zador Ben Amon asked, somewhat confused by the sudden change in ...
— The Coming of the King • Bernie Babcock
... affected a cynical indifference to the tale which the military attache of the embassy repeated for his benefit. He vouchsafed some remark to the effect that fighting duels was the natural amusement of young gentlemen, and that if one of them killed another there was at least one fool the less in society; after which he looked about him for some young beauty to whom he might reel off a score of compliments. He knew all the time that he was making a great effort, that he felt unaccountably ill, and that he wished he had ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... kindness, but he makes me turn round and round as a child." This interior murmuring did not last; these reflections followed: "How could I have so much pride as to despise a man who is so evidently beloved by God? Fool that I am, I deserve to go to hell for daring to censure the actions of Francis, through whom the Lord works such wonders, and whom I ought to look upon as an angel. And, after all, what reason has he given me for censuring him? He left the town without having taken leave of the bishop, ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe
... had said to Brenton, midway in their conversation of the day before. "No; it's not a chastisement of Providence. I have too much respect for Providence to lay off on it the result of some infernal fool's careless use of explosives. Providence, as a rule, doesn't go out gunning with black powder. Its ways are more ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... and enduring what I've endured. I dream of being rich; I waken every morning from visions where my hands are filled with money; that wakening turns my head, when I know and see there is not a halfpenny in the house, and when I see you, my son, sitting there, working like a fool with pen and brain, but without the power to earn a penny for me. Go out and work with your hands, I say again, and let me get money—do any thing, if it brings money. There is the old woman over the way, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... a fool. I was a fool to think that one coming from such a life as he has led could be happy with such as I am. I know the truth now. I have bought the lesson dearly—but perhaps not too dearly, seeing that it will ...
— Victorian Short Stories • Various
... those who had traduced them. Charles made two speeches; the last was much animated. Admiral Keppell spoke, and so did Sir E. Dering, drunk, sicut suus mos est; but he says in that ivresse des verites vertes et piquantes. He is a tiresome noisy fool, and I wish that he never spoke anywhere but ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... every sentiment, physical and spiritual, and has determined to choose a man as her companion who has the biggest bank-roll and the most liberal nature. His age, his station in life, the fact whether she likes or dislikes him, do not enter into this scheme at all. She figures that she has been made a fool of by men, and that there is only one revenge,—the accumulation of a fortune to make her independent of them once and for all. There are, of course, certain likes and dislikes that she enjoys, and in a way she indulges them. There are men whose company she cares ...
— The Easiest Way - Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911 • Eugene Walter
... universal man, quite a man of the world[1134]. JOHNSON. 'Yes, Sir; but one may be so much a man of the world as to be nothing in the world. I remember a passage in Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield, which he was afterwards fool enough to expunge: "I do not love a man who is zealous for nothing."' BOSWELL. 'That was a fine passage.' JOHNSON. 'Yes, Sir: there was another fine passage too, which he struck out: "When I was a young man, being anxious to distinguish myself, I was perpetually starting new propositions. ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... declare!" cried Janey; "then what is the good of society? You know them, and yet you mustn't know them. I would never be such a fool as that. Fancy looking at her across the lane and saying 'quite well, thank you,' after she had begun to speak. I suppose that's Cousin Anne's way? I should have rushed across and asked where she was staying, ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant |
