"Knave" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... heaven, you are back again! There is such a storm, it looks as if the world were coming to an end.' The miller saw the peasant lying on the straw, and asked, 'What is that fellow doing there?' 'Ah,' said the wife, 'the poor knave came in the storm and rain, and begged for shelter, so I gave him a bit of bread and cheese, and showed him where the straw was.' The man said: 'I have no objection, but be quick and get me something to eat.' The woman said: 'But I have nothing but bread and cheese.' ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm
... have caused us no small trouble and concern. We have had ridings to and fro concerning you, and furious messages from your fiery king. When in the morning a tall, stalwart knave dressed in green was found, slashed about in various places, lying on the pavement, the townsmen, not knowing who he was, but finding that he still breathed, carried him to the English camp, and he was claimed as a follower of the Earl of Evesham. There was great wrath and anger over this; ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty
... scoured the land And the countries roundabout, Shouting aloud, at the King's command, A challenge to knave or lout, Prince or peasant,—"The mighty King Would have ye understand That he who shows him the strangest thing Shall have his ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... of his voice had drawn a crowd of idlers and brother shopkeepers, who seemed vastly to enjoy the knave's discomfiture. Amongst them I recognized my old acquaintance, Weld, now a rival ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... exclaimed Catherine, on whom Birago's reply made a powerful impression, "that you, Gondi, are to be the king's governor. My son must consent to do for one of my friends a favor equal to the one I have just permitted for his knave of a bishop. That fool has lost the hat; for never, as long as I live, will I consent that the Pope shall give it to him! How strong we might have been with Cardinal de Tournon! What a trio with Tournon for grand-almoner, and l'Hopital, and de Thou! As for the burghers of Paris, ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... lay that every day Crawled like a weed-clogged wave: And we forgot the bitter lot That waits for fool and knave, Till once, as we tramped in from work, We passed an ...
— The Ballad of Reading Gaol • Oscar Wilde
... princess, "there will be no lack of entertainment with this knave under the same roof. Too much entertainment, I fear me. Well, admit ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... moon with blushes hiding behind the lofty monuments, that she might not be a witness to these doings. But if I lie, even a tittle, may my head be contaminated with the white filth of ravens; and may Julius, and the effeminate Miss Pediatous, and the knave Voranus, come to water upon me, and befoul me. Why should I mention every particular? viz. in what manner, speaking alternately with Sagana, the ghosts uttered dismal and piercing shrieks; and how by stealth they laid in the earth a wolf's beard, with the teeth ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... the Queen's own kitchen. And he said, he didn't know that the Queen of England was any better than the Queen of Hearts. Then I said, I supposed he remembered how the latter lady was served by the Knave of Hearts in 'Mother Goose'? And he replied, that he wasn't going to be Jack-at-a-pinch for anybody. And so on, till mother ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... knave!" he exclaimed after vainly waiting for the magistrate or the detective to express ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... world of fashion. There is an unsparing pomp of noble sentiments, but withal most strangely associated with atrocious baseness. Not unfrequently does an injured fair one dispatch a despised lover to stab the faithless one from behind. In almost every piece there is a crafty knave who plays the traitor, for whom, however, there is ready prepared some royal magnanimity, to make all right at the last. The facility with which base treachery is thus taken into favour, as if it were nothing more than an amiable weakness, would have been extremely revolting, ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... "you are a knave, whose ears I would slit, if it had not already been done too often. You insult me by saying that I have ...
— The Queen's Necklace • Alexandre Dumas pere
... from his right debarr'd; Or guiltless charg'd with foul offence? A Knave but speaks the perjur'd word, And ...
— An Essay on War, in Blank Verse; Honington Green, a Ballad; The - Culprit, an Elegy; and Other Poems, on Various Subjects • Nathaniel Bloomfield
... vigilance. Rawleigh now perceived that he had two rogues to bribe instead of one, and that they were playing into one another's hands. Proposals are now made to Stucley through Manoury, who is as compliant as his brother-knave. Rawleigh presented Stucley with a "jewel made in the fashion of hail powdered with diamonds, with a ruby in the midst." But Stucley observing to his kinsman and friend, that he must lose his office of ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... wrote in his journal, "may properly be called a knave, because after he surrendered his ship, begged for and obtained quarter, he basely ran away, contrary to the laws of naval war and the ...
— Paul Jones • Hutchins Hapgood
... had you kept to your intention, the thing would have done. But he replied smartly to your speeches, and your pride and vanity got to work. You must answer smartly and sarcastically in turn, and you see what's come of it. You forgot the knave in the wit; and the mistake was incurable. Why tell him that you wanted to pick his pocket, ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... The knave who'd crush the toilers doun, And him, his true-born brither, Who'd set the mob aboon the Crown, Should be kicked out together. Go, JOHN! Learn temperance, banish spleen! Scots cherish throne and steeple, But while we sing "God save the Queen," ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 17, 1891 • Various
... frankly at him; "and besides I hold all the trumps. Ace, King, Queen; and Ace, Knave and Queen ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... Lady Mary told her, and as she could so well believe, the present Earl of Scroope had given to this girl a promise that he would marry her, if he had bound himself by his pledged word, as a nobleman and a gentleman, how could she bid him become a perjured knave? Sans reproche! Was he thus to begin to live and to deserve the motto of his house by the conduct ...
— An Eye for an Eye • Anthony Trollope
... have been allowed to live peacefully here at home. The time has now come when my master needs the help of all his loyal servants. He calls me to his help, and do you think I am going to play the coward and knave, and hide here in idleness while every rogue is striking at the crown? Come: be a ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn
... of relating things; and, as he did not spare epithets in his designation of the opposing party, Mr. Buxton took it upon trust that the defendant or the prosecutor (as it might happen) was a "pettifogging knave," or a "miserly curmudgeon," and rejoiced accordingly in the triumph over him gained by the ready wit of "our governor," Mr. Bish. At last he became so deeply impressed with Edward's knowledge of law, as to consult him about some cottage ...
— The Moorland Cottage • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... been defined as a legal knave, a lawyer who practises in an unprofessional or tricky manner. Kahn was all that—and still more. If he had been less successful, he would have been the black sheep of the overcrowded legal flock. Ideals he had none. His claws reached out to grab the pittance of ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve
... something else than a newspaper, and that without the help of spectacles: here is your own note of hand, sirrah, for money, which if I had not advanced, you yourself would have resembled an owl, in not daring to show your face by day, you ungrateful slanderous knave!" ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... the unconscionable knave held her in complement an hour with that reverst face, when I still look'd when she should talk from ...
— Epicoene - Or, The Silent Woman • Ben Jonson
... marriage (with Mrs. Lascelles) was an end that I contemplated for a moment as I took my cynical resolve. And now I trust that I have made both my position and my intentions very plain, and have written myself down neither more of a fool nor less of a knave than circumstances (and one's own infirmities) combined to make me at this ...
— No Hero • E.W. Hornung
... these illustrated playing cards have been produced of varying degrees of artistic merit, and, as one of the most amusing, we select the Knave of Spades from a pack of the year 1824 (Fig. 26). These cards are printed from copper-plates, and are coloured by hand, and show much ingenuity in the adaptation of the design to the ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 26, February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... of distinction, a foreigner, whose hand was thrust through with a fork by his adversary, Captain Roche, and thus nailed to the table, with this cool expression of concern—'I ask your pardon, sir, if you have not the knave of clubs under your hand.' The cards were packed, or cut, or even SWALLOWED. A card has been eaten between two slices of bread and butter, for the ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... than white And very like what Holbein drew! Avaunt! ye are a ghastly crew Too like the Campo Santo—down! We are your monarch, but we own That were we not, we very well Might take ye to be imps of hell: But ye are glorious ghastly sprites, What ho! our page! Sir knave—lights, lights, The final pipes are to be lit: Sit, gentlemen, we charge ye sit Until the cock affrays the night And heralds in the limping morn, And makes the owl and raven flit; Until the jolly moon is white, And till the ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... man too many avaricious, commonly he was travel at a horse, and single for to avoid all expenses. In the evening at to arrive at the inn did feign to be indispose, to the end that one bring him the supper. He did ordered to the stable knave to bring in their room some straw, for to put in their boots he made to warm her bed and was go lo sleep. When the servant was draw again, he come up again, and with the straw of their boots, and the candle Avhat was leave him ...
— English as she is spoke - or, A jest in sober earnest • Jose da Fonseca
... induce young Skegson, who lived in our road, to go with me. Skegson is a barrister now, and could not tell you the difference between a knave of clubs and a club of knaves. A few years hence he will, if he works hard, be innocent enough for a judge. But at the period of which I speak he was a red-haired boy of worldly tastes, notwithstanding which I loved him as a brother. My dear mother wished to see him before consenting ...
— John Ingerfield and Other Stories • Jerome K. Jerome
... and the Knave were the three highest castes. The fourth Caste was made up of a mixture of the lower Cards. The Twos and Threes were lowest of all. These inferior Cards were never allowed to sit in the same row with ...
— The Hungry Stones And Other Stories • Rabindranath Tagore
... translation as ever fell into my hands, is a young man's in our office, of a French novel. What in the original was literally "amiable delusions of the fancy," he proposed, to render "the fair frauds of the imagination." I had much trouble in licking the book into any meaning at all. Yet did the knave clear fifty or sixty pounds by subscription and selling the copyright. The book itself not a week's work! To-day's portion of my journalizing epistle has been very dull and poverty-stricken. ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... goaded on to acts of violence and retaliation by necessity; to Richard, blood is a pastime.—There are other decisive differences inherent in the two characters. Richard may be regarded as a man of the world, a plotting, hardened knave, wholly regardless of everything but his own ends, and the means to secure them.—Not so Macbeth. The superstitions of the age, the rude state of society, the local scenery and customs, all give a wildness and imaginary grandeur to his character. From ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... Horatio of the tragedy. Set me right afore the world if treason be my undoing, and while we await the trumpets, cast that silly pair of trousers as rubbish to the void, and choose of mine own raiment as thou wouldst, knave! ...
— The Port of Missing Men • Meredith Nicholson
... by their petty pilferings, yet often gave them what they asked, and privately owned myself a simpleton. There is a decorum which restrains you (unless you happen to be a police-constable) from breaking through a crust of plausible respectability, even when you are certain that there is a knave beneath it. ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... domestic spies, Mr. Ratcliffe, will soon find themselves without any, if any such dares to continue his abode in a family where his coming was an unauthorized intrusion, where his conduct has been that of a presumptuous meddler, and from which his exit shall be that of a baffled knave, if he does not know how to take ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... establishment involves the responsibility of the whole, and can be levied for in London or Hokitika. This is the true state of the case, and any individual who would advance a doctrine contrary to it, is either a simpleton or a knave. ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh
... success must on himself depend, He had no money, counsel, guide, or friend; With spirit high John learned the world to brave, And in both senses was a ready knave."—CRABBE. ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 3 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... as there is likely to be anywhere. But in my whole political career, I have never known a man who could control a thousand votes for five years, who was not a better man, all in all, than the voters whom he influenced. More one cannot expect. The people are not quick, but they find out a knave or a demagogue ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... found scattered through modern literature, respecting the great Genevan, that Dr. Henry deserves well the thanks of the christian world for exhibiting the chief facts of his history, so plainly that every partisan knave who would repeat the old slanders, shall be silent hereafter for very shame. John Calvin was unquestionably subject to the infirmities of our human nature; so was John Milton; but the inherent and ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... sordid yet reckless life. His conversation was repellent to me beyond expression. He uttered the meanest sentiments, and he chuckled over them as the maxims of a superior sagacity; he avowed himself a knave upon system, and upon the lowest scale. To overreach, to deceive, to elude, to shuffle, to fawn, and to lie, were the arts that he confessed to with so naked and cold a grossness, that one perceived that in the ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... matter of fact, those who listened to his warnings prospered, whilst he who turned a deaf ear to them repented afterwards. (4) Yet, it will be readily conceded, he would hardly desire to present himself to his everyday companions in the character of either knave or fool. Whereas he would have appeared to be both, supposing (5) the God-given revelations had but revealed his own proneness to deception. It is plain he would not have ventured on forecast at all, but for his belief that the words he spoke would ...
— The Memorabilia - Recollections of Socrates • Xenophon
... such name, and the proudest gentry in the land arrant robbers. "Why, pray my lord," said I, "do you consider these great noblemen worse thieves than highwaymen?" "Thou art a simpleton—think on that knave who roves the wide world over, sword in hand, and with his ravagers at his back, slaying and burning, and depriving the true possessors of their states, and afterwards expecting to be worshipped as conqueror; ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne
... more than twenty-five hundred pounds, and the third for no more than five thousand pounds. The person who superintended the workmen, and had the whole practical management of one amongst these four houses, was a common builder, without capital or education, and the greatest knave that personally I have known. It may illustrate the way in which lady architects, without professional aid, are and ever will be defrauded, that, after all was finished, and the entire wood-work was to be measured and valued, each party, of course, needing to be represented by a professional ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... said Prince John to Hubert, 'an thou suffer that runagate knave to overcome thee, thou art ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... carries us through the reign of Edward the Sixth, is replete with the intrigues of this illustrious knave. He sought connections with the principal families: He sought honours for his own: He procured a match between his son, the Lord Guildford Dudley, and the Lady Jane Gray, daughter of the Duke of Suffolk, and a descendant from Henry the Seventh, with intent of fixing the crown ...
— An History of Birmingham (1783) • William Hutton
... sea through the open port-hole. But Jarrett caught hold of my arm and took possession of the casket, which he opened. "It is magnificent!" he exclaimed, but I had closed my eyes. I stopped up my ears and cried out to the man, "Go away! you knave! you brute! Go away! I hope you will die under atrocious ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... rewarded by even an extra hour a day. And there is no punishment. Waste your infinitely precious commodity as much as you will, and the supply will never be withheld from you. No mysterious power will say:—"This man is a fool, if not a knave. He does not deserve time; he shall be cut off at the meter." It is more certain than consols, and payment of income is not affected by Sundays. Moreover, you cannot draw on the future. Impossible to get into debt! You can only waste the passing moment. You cannot waste to-morrow; it ...
— How to Live on 24 Hours a Day • Arnold Bennett
... work, The Saints' Everlasting Rest; and he wrote with great fervor A Call to the Unconverted. He was a very voluminous writer; the brutal Judge Jeffries, before whom he appeared for trial, called him "an old knave, who had written books enough to load a cart." He wrote a paraphrase of the New Testament, and numerous discourses. Dr. Johnson advised Boswell, when speaking of Baxter's works: "Read any of them; they are all good." He continued preaching until the close of his life, and ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... Aristophanes' satiric rage, When ancient comedy amus'd the age, Or Eupolis's or Cratinus' wit, And others that all-licens'd poem writ; None, worthy to be shown, escap'd the scene, No public knave, or thief of lofty mien; The loose adult'rer was drawn forth to sight; The secret murd'rer trembling lurk'd the night; Vice play'd itself, and each ambitious spark; All boldly branded with ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... to himself, "that if I am not a poor, mean, miserable fellow, I should let M. Fouquet know the opinion the king has about him. Yet, if I betray my master's secret, I shall be a false-hearted, treacherous knave, a traitor too, a crime provided for and punishable by military laws—so much so, indeed, that twenty times, in former days when wars were rife, I have seen many a miserable fellow strung up to a tree for doing, ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... beat seem steel dun bear there creak bore ball wave chews staid caste maize heel bawl course quire chord chased tide sword mail nun plain pour fate wean hoard berth isle throne vane seize sore slight freeze knave fane reek Rome rye style flea faint peak throw bourn route soar sleight frieze nave reck sere wreak roam wry flee feint pique mite seer idle pistol flower holy serf borough capital canvas indict martial kernel carat bridle lesson council ...
— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody
... out in a style of tawdry magnificence. But I have always remarked this about dress, that while a shabby exterior does not entirely obscure a gentleman, the extreme of fashion is powerless to gild a knave. ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... readers can entertain the fixed hope that they have at length done with him; that, in these our premises, we shall never see him again;—nay shall see him, on extraneous dim fields, far enough away, smarting and suffering, till even we are almost sorry for the old knave!— ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. IX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... leave thee, as is most meet, to succeed me in my kingdom, but thou wast not ashamed to play against me the part of a relentless foe. And shouldst thou not rather have listened to me, and followed my injunctions, than have obeyed the idle and foolish pratings of that crafty old knave, who taught thee to choose a sour life instead of a sweet, and abandon the charms of dalliance, to tread the hard and rough road, which the Son of Mary ordereth men to go? Dost thou not fear the displeasure of the most puissant gods, lest they strike thee with lightning, ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus
... with sharpers and scoundrels of every type, from those who ride in their carriages down to the bare-footed vagabond. He knew the thief who grovels at his victim's feet, humbly confessing his crime, the desperate knave who swallows the notes he has stolen, the abject wretch who bares his back to receive the blows he deserves, and the rascal who boldly confronts his accusers and protests his innocence with the indignation of an honest ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... called "Major O'Flaherty." A soldier, says he, is "no livery for a knave," and Ireland is "not the country of dishonor." The major pays court to old Lady Rusport, but when he detects her dishonest purposes in bribing her lawyer to make away with Sir Oliver's will, and cheating Charles Dudley of his fortune, he not only abandons ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... apt, and wilt doubtless be a useful knave. Thou shalt wait in my chamber, and on my person," said the King, "to show how much I value the gift of the royal Soldan. If thou hast no tongue, it follows thou canst carry no tales, neither provoke me to be sudden by ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... I sit here now, telling you all manner of odd quips and jests until yon sober, wise man shakes his head and goes his way, thinking that I am even more of a shallow-witted knave than I really am. But, prut! Who cares for that? I am sure that I do not ...
— Pepper & Salt - or, Seasoning for Young Folk • Howard Pyle
... what happened. In his chamber in the Rue St. Honore, at Paris, sat a man ALONE—a man who has been maligned, a man who has been called a knave and charlatan, a man who has been persecuted even to the death, it is said, in Roman Inquisitions, forsooth, and elsewhere. Ha! ha! A man ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... knave, but I trust I am a man: and that is more than any can say of you, that know you. Out upon you for ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... the midnight chime Ring out the yawning peal of time, When shrouded Paul, unlucky knave! Rose, like a spectre from the grave, And cried—"Fair maiden, come with me, For I your bridegroom ...
— Apparitions; or, The Mystery of Ghosts, Hobgoblins, and Haunted Houses Developed • Joseph Taylor
... would be a traitor knave? Who would fill a coward's grave? Who so base as be a slave? ...
— No Compromise with Slavery - An Address Delivered to the Broadway Tabernacle, New York • William Lloyd Garrison
... clearly confirm the statement, true or false, of the ubiquitous Gregory. Returning it to the physician pro tem., I then continued the perusal of this singular love-letter to the end, in which the lawyer and knave predominated in spite of Eros! Yet there was food for consideration ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... find him where he has a right to be, in the White Lion; and if you be the apprentice that he spoke of, harkee, the less you are seen about here the better for you; for they say you are as great a knave as your master." ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... business has she——" He was silent, staring gloomily at the plan of Worsted Skeynes, still unrolled, like an emblem of all there was at stake. "If George has really," he burst out, "he's a greater fool than I took him for! A fool? He's a knave!" ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... "Cease, knave!" cried Tario. "I heard your words: 'However, he is dead now. Of that I am glad. Now shall Jav come into his own. Now shall Jav be ...
— Thuvia, Maid of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... messenger who bears this to thee (a piratical knave with a most kind heart, having, I am told, a wife in every port of France and of England the south, a most heinous sin!) will wait for thy answer, or will bring thee hither, which is still better. He is worthy of trust if thou makest him swear by the little finger of ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... altogether like this. That insignificant secretary of legation is—why, she's smiling on him as if he—and now on the Admiral! Now she's illuminating that, stuffy Congressman from Massachusetts—vulgar ungrammatcal shovel-maker—greasy knave of spades. I don't like this sort of thing. She doesn't appear to be much distressed about me—she hasn't looked this way once. All right, my bird of Paradise, if it suits you, go on. But I think I know your sex. I'll go to smiling around a little, too, ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 4. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... middle of the thirties, when the first Nicholas had been about ten years on the throne. Its first founders were three Polish nobles. It was never distinguished by the number of its members, but everyone of them could honestly call himself an accomplished knave, never stopping at anything that stood in the way of a "job." The present head of the band was Lieutenant Kovroff, who was a thorough-paced rascal, in the full sense of the word. Daring, brave, self-confident, he also possessed a handsome presence, good ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... The knave did his business so well that Grabot, being just such a man as the stroller had described to us, the altercation on the threshold was of itself the most amusing thing in the world. "Who?" we heard a loud, coarse voice exclaim. "Who d'ye say ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... lord!" quoth Saladin, "Please you to stead some weary travellers, Saying where we may lodge, the town so far And night so near" "Of my heart, willingly," Made answer Torel, "I did think but now To send my knave an errand—he shall ride And bring you into lodgment—oh! no thanks, Our Lady keep you!" then with whispered hest He called their guide and sped them. Being gone. Torello told his purpose, and the band, With ready ...
— Indian Poetry • Edwin Arnold
... forsake an opinion they had conceived in anger. They are all the more exasperated by blows and constraint. And he that made the story of the woman who, in defiance of all correction, threats, and bastinadoes, ceased not to call her husband lousy knave, and who being plunged over head and ears in water, yet lifted her hands above her head and made a sign of cracking lice, feigned a tale of which, in truth, we every day see a manifest image in the obstinacy ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... The Knave was delighted with the agreement; and the Fool thought himself most fortunate to have met with a companion who would supply his lack ...
— Old-Fashioned Fairy Tales • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... not inquire if a man be a heretic, if he be a Quaker, a Jew, or a heathen; but if he be a virtuous man, if he loves liberty and truth, if he wish the happiness and peace of human kind. If a man be ever so much a believer and love not these things, he is a heartless hypocrite, a rascal and a knave." "It is not a merit to tolerate, but it is a crime to be intolerant." "Anything short of unlimited toleration and complete charity with all men, on which you will recollect that Jesus Christ principally insisted, is wrong." "Be calm, mild, deliberate, patient.... Think and talk and ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... a knave!" exclaimed the client, springing to his feet and shaking his clenched fists at ...
— Off-Hand Sketches - a Little Dashed with Humor • T. S. Arthur
... thought you familiar with certain events. You are forgetting, then, the passage where Pliny the Elder speaks of the library of Carthage and the treasures which were accumulated there? In 146, when that city fell under the blows of the knave, Scipio, the incredible collection of illiterates who bore the name of the Roman Senate had only the profoundest contempt for these riches. They presented them to the native kings. This is how Mantabal received this priceless heritage; ...
— Atlantida • Pierre Benoit
... poor sheep-cots have, And mate with everybody; The honest now may play the knave, And wise men play the noddy. Some youths will now a-mumming go, Some others play at Rowland-bo, And twenty other game, boys, mo, Because they ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... are welcomed into what are called the "Select Circles" with as much cordiality as though they were millionaires. In New York, however, men and women are judged by their bank accounts. The most illiterate boor, the most unprincipled knave finds the door of fashion open to him, while St. Peter himself, if he came "without purse or scrip," would see ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... "I greatly suspect This fire was caused by the grossest neglect. But I'm glad it's put out, let it be as it will," Says the "heroic" watchman of Calversyke Hill. So, many brave thanks to this "heroic" knave, For thousands of lives no doubt he did save; And but for this "hero" the disaster had spread And smothered the nation while sleeping in bed; But to save all His people it was the Lord's will, Through the "heroic" watchman of ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... pack between them. The turned-over trump card belongs to the dealer, who is always the last; he has the right to exchange it for any card in his own hand. One powerful card is of more importance than all the rest; it is called Mistigris. Mistigris is the knave of clubs. ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... she soon found that the least miserable Way of passing an evening with Madame Schwellenberg Was at the card-table, and consented, with patient sadness, to give hours which might have called forth the laughter and tears of many generations to the king of clubs and the knave of spades. Between eleven and twelve, the bell rang again. Miss Burney had to pass twenty minutes or half an hour in undressing the queen, and was then at liberty to retire and to dream that she was chatting with her brother by the quiet ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... again it might be tried): "'Twas but a lapsus linguae," cried. My lord, who long had quiet sat, Now clearly saw what he was at. In wrath this warning now he gave— "When next thou triest, unlettered knave, To give, as thine, another's wit, Mind well thou knowest what's meant by it; Nor let a lapsus linguae slip From out thy pert assuming lip, Till well thou knowest thy stolen song, Nor think a leg of lamb a tongue," He said—and quickly from the floor Straight ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... immoderate laughter. "Cadet," said he, "you are, when drunk, the greatest ruffian in Christendom, and the biggest knave when sober. Let the lady sleep in peace, while we drink ourselves blind in her honor. Bring in brandy, valets, and we will not look for day until midnight booms on the old ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... against his absent friends, Or hears them scandalized and not defends, Sports with their fame, and speaks whate'er he can, And only to be thought a witty man, Tells tales and brings his friends in disesteem, That man's a knave; be ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... strange that he should have deliberately placed himself in the power of such a rascal as this Reynolds—who seems to impress every one he meets with his blackguardism—and communicated with him freely on paper; you will have observed that I acknowledged these notes without hesitation. What a clumsy knave you must think me. I resent the imputation. Perhaps you have noticed that in one of these notes I state that on my honour I cannot accommodate him with the three hundred dollars he demands, because it is quite out of my power to furnish it. Odd, that a thieving Secretary, engaged ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... in some points," continued Mustapha; "if you want either a fool or a knave, you have not far to go to find them; but it is no easy task to select the person you require. ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... neighbourhood, and preferred to shift into another county when they fell into trouble, their departure moved the placid constable in no degree. He was of Dogberry's opinion; and if a man would not stand in the Prince's name, he took no note of him, but let him go, and thanked God he was rid of a knave. And surely the crime and the law were in admirable keeping: rustic constable was well met with rustic offender. The officer sitting at home over a bit of fire until the criminal came to visit him, and the criminal coming—it was a fair match. One felt as if this must have been the order in that ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... likewise not without loss where it is too restricted. Here it punishes too little; there it punishes too much. Although it is more desirable that it offend on the side of punishing too little than that it punish too severely; because it is always better to permit a knave to live than to put a good man to death, inasmuch as the world still has and must have knaves, but ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau
... good from ill And Nero reigns a Titus, if he will. The fiery soul abhorred in Catiline, In Decius charms, in Curtius is divine: The same ambition can destroy or save, And makes a patriot as it makes a knave. This light and darkness in our chaos joined, What shall divide? The God within the mind. Extremes in nature equal ends produce, In man they join to some mysterious use; Though each by turns the other's bound invade, As, ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope
... 'spite of dust and heat, his lute he strummed, And snatches of a merry song he hummed, The while askance full merrily he eyed The dusty knave who plodded at his side. A bony fellow, this, and ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... The knave—the rascal; let him go, indeed! Not so, he shall go before the Lord Mayor. Bring ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... spent in the Discovery, and the only man Scott had a word to say against was the cook. 'We shipped him at the last moment in New Zealand, when our trained cook became too big for his boots, and the exchange was greatly for the worse; I am afraid he is a thorough knave, but what is even worse, he is dirty—an unforgivable ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... Post-Prandials as they originally came out—some of them, strange to say, not wholly complimentary. As a rule, I am too busy a man to answer letters: and I take this opportunity of apologising to correspondents who write to tell me I am a knave or a fool, for not having acknowledged direct their courteous communications. But this friendly criticism seems to call for a reply, because it involves a question of principle which I have often noted in all discussions of Utopias ...
— Post-Prandial Philosophy • Grant Allen
... of Castilian Rothschild, with a noble brother, or cousin, in every great trading town of South America. The alleged Don Benito was in early manhood, about twenty-nine or thirty. To assume a sort of roving cadetship in the maritime affairs of such a house, what more likely scheme for a young knave of talent and spirit? But the Spaniard was a pale invalid. Never mind. For even to the degree of simulating mortal disease, the craft of some tricksters had been known to attain. To think that, under the aspect of infantile weakness, the most savage energies might be couched—those ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... will be a knave, be not in a trifle, but in something of value. A Presbyterian minister had a son who was made Archdeacon of Ossery; when this was told to his father, he said, 'If my son will be a knave, I am glad that he will be an archknave.' This has ...
— The Proverbs of Scotland • Alexander Hislop
... "A knave is usually ready with a good story when he has been taken by surprise. Honesty isn't as handy with the tongue. I can only say that something—I don't say somebody—has put these books into a devil of a mess, and I'm doing my best ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... be a traitor knave? Wha can fill a coward's grave? Wha so base as be a slave? Let him turn ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson
... must have brought aversion upon him. Tarleton, as he half acted, half improvised, is said to have shuffled a pack of cards, and pointed at him, standing behind the Queen's chair, an insolent innuendo: 'See, the knave commands the Queen.' The comedian, if the story be true, could reckon upon the support of a vast body of popular malevolence. Still, as a favourite, Ralegh only shared the lot of his class. The same privileged player is alleged to have proceeded to ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... Whistler, from which he always emerged defeated, how much more generous and careless and noble he appears than the wasp-like artist who could rap out so smartly the appropriate retort! He seems like a great lazy king, at such times, caught off his guard by some skipping and clever knave of his spoilt retinue. Perhaps even now no small a portion of the amused and astonished wonder he excites is due to the fact that he really had, what so few of us have, a veritable passion for precious stuffs and woven fabrics and ivory and cedar wood and beads of amber and ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... Delaware. Come forth, miserable Briarthorn, and wash the Iroquois paint from your face; stand before the Hurons the crow that you are. You would eat the carrion of your own dead, rather than starve. Put him face to face with Deerslayer, chiefs and warriors; I will show you how great a knave you have been keeping ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... score of her husband; but these are family matters with which I do not meddle, and besides it is not a bad thing to have a fault to repair. It is an inducement to make great efforts in order to force the public to esteem and admiration, and certainly her knave of a husband would never have done any one of the great things my Catherine does every day." The portrait of the empress, worked in embroidery by herself, hung in Voltaire's bedroom. In vain had he but lately said to Pastor Bertrand, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... easy matter to dispose of so cunning a knave, Clameran felt no hesitation in undertaking to accomplish his purpose. He was incited by one of those passions which age ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... I am at last convinced that I represent the most perfect combination of knave and fool that ever threw heaven away ...
— A Forest Hearth: A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties • Charles Major
... himself and hence of his own interior powers, that he may become his own interpreter. All others are, generally speaking, those animated by purely personal motives, self-aggrandizement, or personal gain. Moreover, he who would claim to have all truth and the only truth, is a bigot, a fool, or a knave. ...
— In Tune with the Infinite - or, Fullness of Peace, Power, and Plenty • Ralph Waldo Trine
... from, even if you have to pay him a salary to insure his remaining here, and so be in a position to help through any line of action we may agree upon. More, you must restrain yourself and have no trouble with young Stetson. He is as much fool as knave. ...
— The Wedge of Gold • C. C. Goodwin
... Kirby's lips changed into the semblance of a smile. Slowly, deliberately, never once glancing down at the face of his cards, he turned them up one by one with his white fingers, his challenging eyes on the Judge; but the others saw what was revealed—-a ten spot, a knave, a queen, a ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... it is good, but it is not good enough to make a trade of, for there would be little gain. I gave the knave five carlini, and he would hardly hand it over. I learn by your last how Lorenzo(112) will pass this way, and how I am to give him a good reception. It appears you do not know how I am situated here, all the same I excuse you. What I can do, ...
— Michael Angelo Buonarroti • Charles Holroyd
... and warmth, Uncle Jack had them both. He was a perfect symphony of bewitching enthusiasm and convincing calculation. Dicaeopolis in the "Aeharnenses," in presenting a gentleman called Nicharchus to the audience, observes: "He is small, I confess, but, there is nothing lost in him: all is knave that is not fool." Parodying the equivocal compliment, I may say that though Uncle Jack was no giant, there was nothing lost in him. Whatever was not philanthropy was arithmetic, and whatever was not arithmetic was philanthropy. He would have been equally dear to Howard and to Cocker. Uncle Jack ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... was leaving the front door his favourite hound mistook him for a tramp—or a varlet, or a scurvy knave, or whatever they used to call them at that time—and bit him in the ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... note of him, but let him go; and presently call the rest of the watch together, and thank God you are rid of a knave. ...
— Much Ado About Nothing • William Shakespeare [Knight edition]
... But you have forgotten something, Bes. When that knave escapes, he will tell the whole story and the King will send after us and kill us who ...
— The Ancient Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... I saw the pretended former wife: a splendid woman, and as much Eleanor Wickham of Dorsetshire as I am. They mean, however, to show fight, I think; for, as I left the place, I observed that delightful knave Richards enter the house. I took the liberty of placing seals upon the desks and cabinets, and directed the butler and other servants to see that nothing was disturbed or removed till ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... may not that be the skull of a lawyer? Where be his quiddits now, his quillets, his cases, his tenures, and his tricks? why does he suffer this rude knave, now, to knock him about the sconce with a dirty shovel, and will not tell him of his action of battery? Humph! This fellow might be in's time a great buyer of land, with his statutes, his recognizances, his fines, his double vouchers, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... by gross suggestions from without, before which a man must fear and shudder. I, myself, saw and heard a girl who complained of a temptation of this nature; namely, that while she stood in the church and saw the sacrament elevated, the thought occurred to her: Lo, what a big knave the priest is elevating. And she was suddenly so frightened at the terrible thought that she ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther
... How deal with a knave like this, who popped in and out of holes like a rabbit, and wriggled and writhed like a snake? Lady Hannah knew an immense yearning for the absent Bingo, husband of limited intellectual capacity, man of superior muscular development, doughty in the use of that ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... the irreverent doom Of those that wear the Poet's crown: Hereafter, neither knave nor clown Shall hold their orgies at ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... uncandid sarcasm. There is nothing to connect Stephen with the religion of Domitilla. He was a knave detected in the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... to explain to a sober Englishman the life that is led on, and the numerous tricks that are played in Mississippi steam-boat. One I will mention, which will serve as a sample. An itinerant preacher, well known as a knave upon both banks, and the whole length of the river, used (before he was sent to the Penitentiary for picking pockets) to live comfortably in the steam-boats without ever paying a farthing. From St. ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... 7:1-5). The faithful record of these is a sound indication both of the date[5] and of the truth of the Gospels. But these were not all. Celsus, in 178 A.D., in his True Word, mocked at Jesus because of the cry upon the cross; he reminded Christians that many and many a worthless knave had endured in brave silence, and their Great Man cried out. It was from the Gospels that his knowledge came (Mark 15:37). Even during his lifetime the Gospels reveal much about Jesus that in contemporary opinion would degrade him—sighs and tears and fatigue, liability ...
— The Jesus of History • T. R. Glover |
