"Blockhead" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... "Look, blockhead," Shandor grated. "If you want to hang by your toes, I can put through a special check-line to Washington to confirm my appointment here. I'll also recommend ...
— Bear Trap • Alan Edward Nourse
... the governor-general. The Globe described a conversation that occurred in a polling place in York: "Whom do you vote for?" "I vote for the governor-general." "There is no such candidate. Say George Duggan, you blockhead." "Oh, yes, George Duggan; it's all the same thing." There were candidates who described themselves as "governor-general's men"; there were candidates whose royalist enthusiasm was expressed in the name "Cavaliers." In the Montreal election petition it was charged that ...
— George Brown • John Lewis
... I am not a nut tree specialist, as I see most of you people are. I will admit that I have been associating with experimentation for the last eight or ten years and have become slightly nutty, but really my big interest is timber. I am still a blockhead. So in discussing and talking with you this morning for a few minutes about the value of nut trees in Tennessee I want you to just keep in the back of your minds that the thing in the timber world that I think is the prettiest when it comes ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Incorporated 39th Annual Report - at Norris, Tenn. September 13-15 1948 • Various
... in disaster to himself or to others, sometimes lead him to unexpected good fortune. He it is, in fact, to whom the great Persian poet Sadi alludes when he says, in his charming "Gulistan," or Rose Garden, "The alchemist died of grief and distress, while the blockhead found a treasure under a ruin." Men of intelligence toil painfully to acquire a mere "livelihood"'; the noodle stumbles upon great wealth in the midst of his wildest vagaries. In brief, he is—in stories, at least—a standing illustration of ...
— The Book of Noodles - Stories Of Simpletons; Or, Fools And Their Follies • W. A. Clouston
... who had beaten his companions by climbing to the top of the tallest pole, and was daring them to come up to him, was detected by the Empress in the very act. The Hofcompositor was sent for, and the figure of Haydn rocking himself to and fro on the pole duly pointed out. 'Give that fair-haired blockhead einen recenten Schilling' (slang for a 'good hiding'); 'he is the ringleader of them all,' said the Empress. The descent of Joseph from his elevated perch, and the descent of the Hofcompositor's rod, were events which speedily followed ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham
... called still-life; I mean the stiff, the heavy, and the stupid; to these he gave the exactest and most expressive colours, and in some of them looked as if it were not in the power of human passions to alter a feature of him. A countenance of wood could not be more fixed than his, when the blockhead of a character required it; his face was full and long; from his crown to the end of his nose was the shorter half of it, so that the disproportion of his lower features, when soberly composed, threw him into the most lumpish, moping mortal, ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... proprieties of history. He may, after his boisterous fashion, pour scorn upon you for looking grave, as you read in his vivid pages of the reckless manner in which too many of his heroes drove coaches-and-six through the Ten Commandments. As likely as not he will call you a blockhead, and tell you to close your wide mouth and cease shrieking. But, dear me! hard words break no bones, and it is an amazing comfort to know the facts. Is he writing of Cromwell?—down goes everything—letters, speeches, as they were written, as they were delivered. Few great men ...
— Obiter Dicta • Augustine Birrell
... not condemn these cruelties. Juvenal represents a woman angry at one of her slaves. "Crucify him," says she. "By what crime has the slave merited this punishment? Blockhead! Is a slave, then, a man? It may be that he has done nothing. I wish it, I order it, my will ...
— History Of Ancient Civilization • Charles Seignobos
... wounds more deep the generous heart, Than when a blockhead's insult points the dart. This mournful truth is every where confess'd, Slow ...
— On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, • Samuel Felton
... reason against telling all the town, for my part," rejoined Ludovico; "afterwards though—you understand; and not beforehand, or our little escapade would be spoilt by some blockhead or other insisting on joining us. Our friend Leandro there, for instance; ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... me in mind of a story Shadow Hamilton told," came from the senator's son. "A boy in school was a regular blockhead, and one day the teacher asked him what made him so foolish. 'I dunno,' he answered, 'excepting that my mother makes me sleep under ...
— Dave Porter at Star Ranch - Or, The Cowboy's Secret • Edward Stratemeyer
... Lusca, nowise disconcerted by his uncompliant tone, rejoined:—"I shall speak to thee, Pyrrhus, of these and all other matters, wherewith I may be commissioned by my lady, as often as she shall bid me, whether it pleases or irks thee; but thou art a blockhead." ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... man was not a mere clown or blockhead; but beneath his "hodden gray" often carried good feeling, intelligence, and wit. He was rather humorous than ludicrous, and had some dignity of character. Since his time, consideration for the poor has greatly increased; we see it in the large charitable gifts, which are always increasing—in the ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... I don't mean to tell to the first blockhead I meet. First of all I should like to know who you are. If you are robbers I shall defend myself against you to the best of my ability; if you are fools I shall try to enlighten you; if you are brave and honest men I ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai
... Thou uses? Or than Horonce Phine, which older writers give? I cannot understand why M. de Viette[51] should be called Viete, because his Latin name is Vieta. It is difficult to restore Buteo; for not only now is butor a blockhead as well as a bird, but we really cannot know what kind of bird Buteo stood for. We may be sure that Madame Fine was Denise Blanche; for Dionysia Candida can mean nothing else. Let her shade rejoice in the fame which Hubertus ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... notion penetrated to his brain, but when it came to equations he grew weary with the effort required. Sometimes the teacher lost patience with him, and generally concluded: "Go back to your place, you are a blockhead." ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov
... you, man. Yet after all it was very provoking to be made such a fool of before that insolent fellow. Poor Teddy—I wish I hadn't hit you such a slap. But, after all, you deserved it, you superstitious blockhead. Well, well, it's of no use regretting. Glad I didn't hit Ladoc, though, it's too soon for that. Humph! the time has come for action, however. Things are drawing to a point. They shall culminate to-morrow. ...
— Fort Desolation - Red Indians and Fur Traders of Rupert's Land • R.M. Ballantyne
... said John in his enthusiasm, catching her in his arms and kissing her. "I wouldn't for the world have you any thing but the darling little Lillie you are. I love your faults more than the virtues of other women. You are a thousand times better than I am. I am a great, coarse blockhead, compared to you. I hope I didn't hurt your feelings this noon; you know, Lillie, I'm hasty, and apt to be inconsiderate. I don't really know that I ought to let ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... are doing. Now, these persons of weak character have no common bond of profound culture. What they need to unite them is an external bond, and what can suit them better than national feeling! "Every blockhead," writes Nicolai, "feels several inches taller if he and a few dozen millions of his kind can only unite to form a majority.... The fewer independent personalities a nation possesses, the fiercer is ...
— The Forerunners • Romain Rolland
... of this. Indeed, when he came to look carefully at the wooden head, he did not blame his daughters for not wishing to marry it. Should he force one of them to consent, it was not unlikely she would call her husband a blockhead—a term almost certain to ...
— The Surprising Adventures of the Magical Monarch of Mo and His People • L. Frank Baum
... the word, you blockhead; extract, I suppose you mean. Besides, I fancy it is not his grinders which the captain has ordered to be removed, but his eye-teeth, or tusks, as they may ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... but once, and then thou wert something of a blockhead dreamer, methought. But now, messire Beltane, since thou would'st know—Benedict of ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... Duke had taunted him with having allowed himself to call his own sovereign Hans Wurst. Luther assured him, in reply, that he had never given this name to a single man, whether friend or foe; but now applied it to the Duke, because he found it meant a stupid blockhead who wished to be thought clever and all the time spoke and acted like a simpleton. But he was not content with calling him a blockhead; he represented him as a profligate man, who, while libelling ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... "Cultus man come at night. Dark. Black. No see um." He made a footprint in the earth, pointed at it, and then to Simon, and waved a hand at the horizon generally. "You find trail, follow, catch um. Hey, can you do that, Simon? And I'll bet," he added to Keeler, "the infernal old blockhead doesn't understand a word ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... and began to sing through his nose, in imitation of what he supposed to be Baxter's style of praying "Lord, we are thy people, thy peculiar people, thy dear people." Pollexfen gently reminded the court that his late Majesty had thought Baxter deserving of a bishopric. "And what ailed the old blockhead then," cried Jeffreys, "that he did not take it?" His fury now rose almost to madness. He called Baxter a dog, and swore that it would be no more than justice to whip such a ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... by no means clear, that this was a "counterfeit association," though Walpole abandons his usual scepticism on all disputable points with such facility. The "association" was a plot to bring back that miserable blockhead and bigot, James II., said to be signed by Marlborough, the Bishop of Rochester, Lords Salisbury, Cornberry, and Sir Basil Firebrace. On the information of one Young, the draft of the plot was found in a flower-pot in the Bishop's house at Bromley. But fortunately ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... command. The elephant should carry on his back The tools of war, the mighty public pack, And fight in elephantine way and form; The bear should hold himself prepared to storm; The fox all secret stratagems should fix; The monkey should amuse the foe by tricks. "Dismiss," said one, "the blockhead asses, And hares, too cowardly and fleet." "No," said the king; "I use all classes; Without their aid my force were incomplete. The ass shall be our trumpeter, to scare Our enemy. And then the nimble hare Our royal bulletins shall ...
— A Hundred Fables of La Fontaine • Jean de La Fontaine
... know," said he, a little nettled, "I draw tolerably—SHOULD do it at least—have had good masters, and flatter myself that I am not quite a blockhead." ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... a blockhead, Monsieur; I have good eyes, and I have seen what I have seen. But, really ill as you are, Monsieur le Marechal ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... As applied to any particular individual, it breaks down completely. It is unfortunately no rare thing to see the good man striving against fate, and the fool born with a silver spoon in his mouth. Still on a large scale no test can be conceivably more reliable; a blockhead may succeed for a time, but a succession of many generations of blockheads does not go on steadily gaining ground, adding field to field and farm to farm, and becoming year by year more capable and ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... it should be in the power of one blockhead to do so much mischief!" The obstinacy of George III. cost England her dearest and fairest possession. It is almost impossible to picture what would be her power to-day if she had continued to ...
— The Evolution of an Empire • Mary Parmele
... know whom he means: but perhaps the friends of the presbyter-pope may consider this an ungenerous slur. The best proof of the astronomer is just such "as might have been expected from the merest of blockheads"; but as the giver is of course not a blockhead, this circumstance shows how deeply blinded by prejudice ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... Goldsmith's later style are to be traced in the letters of his youth, and he began to scribble verses when he could scarcely write. At the age of eight he went to the Rev. Mr. Gilpin's superior school of Elphin, in Roscommon, where he was considered "a stupid, heavy blockhead, little better than a fool, whom everyone made fun of." Indeed, from his earliest youth he was made to feel an intense, uneasy consciousness of supposed defects. Later he went to school at Athlone and at Edgeworthstown, and was in every school trick, either as an actor or a victim. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... built of materials that are indestructible. While this remains, it is vain to say to this mountain, be thou cast into the sea. For I ask of the men of knowledge of the world, whether they would not hold him for a blockhead, that should hope to prevail in an argument, whose scope and object is to mortify the self-love of the expected proselyte? I ask further, when such attempts have been made, whether they have not failed of success? The indignant ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... till about nine, having fasted the whole time. James, the blockhead, lost my poor Spice, a favourite terrier. The fool shut her in a stable, and somebody, [he] says, opened the door and let her out. I suspect she is lost for aye, for she was carried to Jedburgh ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... the letter meant. It was not written by Naomi at all, and in my heart I cursed myself as a blockhead for being so easily duped. I heard the gruff voices of men, and among others I felt sure I heard that of Israel Barnicoat. For some few minutes, although my hands were pinioned, I struggled fiercely, but ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... Began the evening in the common room. Dr. Dry told several stories. Were very merry. Our new fellow, that studies physick, very talkative toward twelve. Pretends he will bring the youngest Miss —— to drink tea with me soon. Impertinent blockhead! ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... behindhand in English. Fancy my calling you, upon a fitting occasion,—Fool, sot, silly, simpleton, dunce, blockhead, jolterhead, clumsy-pate, dullard, ninny, nincompoop, lackwit, numpskull, ass, owl, loggerhead, coxcomb, monkey, shallow-brain, addle-head, tony, zany, fop, fop-doodle; a maggot-pated, hare-brained, muddle-pated, muddle-headed, ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... mine—before and since," continued Dacres, still speaking in the tone of one who was meditating aloud—"to allow such an idea even for a moment to take shape in his brain! What an utter, unmitigated, unmanageable, and unimprovable idiot, ass, dolt, and blockhead! Confound such a ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... it an argument that the Pope should be reconciled to him, because men of his profession were commonly ignorant, and of no consequence otherwise; his holiness, enraged at the bishop, struck him with his staff, and told him, it was he that was the blockhead, and affronted the man himself would not offend: the prelate was driven out of the chamber, and Michael Angelo had the Pope's benediction, accompanied with presents. This bishop had fallen into the vulgar error, and ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... want him to turn out a dull blockhead,' he said, 'and so I propose that you should take charge of him, and teach him to keep himself young. I wish ...
— Held Fast For England - A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) • G. A. Henty
... with which he was wont to put his victims to sleep, and those cabalistic words which changed men into beasts, insects, and reptiles. But the prince having his eyes shut, and his back toward him, could not see his motions, and the enchanter being horribly affrighted, as well as naturally a great blockhead, was so long in recollecting the formula of his incantation, that the prince, seeing by a sly glance over the shoulder, that he was sufficiently near, suddenly turned round, and with one blow severed his head from his shoulders. Then catching ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various
... As he stood before Busby's tomb, the Knight uttered himself again after the same manner, "Dr. Busby[168], a great man! he whipped my grandfather; a very great man! I should have gone to him myself, if I had not been a blockhead; a very great man!" ...
— The De Coverley Papers - From 'The Spectator' • Joseph Addison and Others
... can make your own happiness; you enjoy some to-day, you do without it to-morrow; married, you must take it as it comes; and the day you want it you will have to go without it. Marry, and you'll grow a blockhead; you'll calculate dowries; you'll talk morality, public and religious; you'll think young men immoral and dangerous; in short, you'll become a social academician. It's pitiable! The old bachelor whose property ...
— The Marriage Contract • Honore de Balzac
... "Blockhead! I'll have you broken on the wheel for this," Lucas stormed. "I am no more Count of Mar than I am King of Spain. Speak up, you old turnspit," he shouted to Maitre ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle
... two very formidable enemies to his fame and detractors from his genius—Samuel Johnson and Christopher North. The first pronounced him "a prolific blockhead," "a huge and fertile crab-tree;" the second has wielded the knout against his back with peculiar gusto and emphasis, in a paper on satire and satirists, published in Blackwood for 1828. Had Churchill been alive, he could have easily ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... the young man, firmly, "it isn't. On second thoughts, you are to stay just where you are till that blockhead brings the ladder. I've a good deal to say. I'm going ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... blockhead," replied the monarch shrugging his shoulders contemptuously. Then he added calmly, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... prated of the Heathen gods. This was very harmless and innocent pastime; tiresome, to be sure, yet laughable withal; nor did it call for any further rebuke than an occasional tap upon the cranium of some blockhead who forsook his legitimate sphere, thrust himself in your way, and became unsufferably blatant. Now the spirit of the times has changed. The literary youth of London are all in the facetious line. They have regular clubs, at which they meet to collate the gathered slang and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... talked with the man whom you have chosen to play the fool with. I find him worthy of his mistress; a tame, coward-hearted, infatuated blockhead. ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... excels in what we prize, Appears a hero in our eyes; Each girl, when pleased with what is taught, Will have the teacher in her thought. When miss delights in her spinet, A fiddler may a fortune get; A blockhead, with melodious voice, In boarding-schools may have his choice: And oft the dancing-master's art Climbs from the toe to touch the heart. In learning let a nymph delight, The pedant gets a mistress by't. Cadenus, to his grief and shame, Could ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... screech owl, or the sudden rustling in the thicket of birds frightened from their roost. The fireflies, too, which sparkled most vividly in the darkest places, now and then startled him, as one of uncommon brightness would stream across his path; and if, by chance, a huge blockhead of a beetle came winging his blundering flight against him, the poor varlet was ready to give up the ghost, with the idea that he was struck with a witch's token. His only resource on such occasions, either to drown thought or drive away evil spirits, was to sing psalm tunes and the ...
— The Legend of Sleepy Hollow • Washington Irving
... it was, for there went fat "King Cole" with the most ragged of the beggar-maids. "Mistress Mary," in her pretty blue dress, tripped along with "Simple Simon" staring about him like a blockhead. The fine lady left her horse to dance with "Bobby Shafto" till every bell on her slippers tinkled its tongue out. "Bo-Peep" and a jolly fiddler skipped gayly up and down. "Miss Muffet" took the big spider for her partner, and made his many legs fly about in ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... fell Plump to the bottom of a well, 'Poor blockhead!' cried a passer-by, 'Not see your feet, ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... discoverers are obliged, for scientific purposes, to invent thousands of new names. Strong interests, on the other hand, give such a colour to language, that, where they enter, it is difficult to find any indifferent expressions. Consistency being much prized, though often the part of a blockhead, inconsistency implies not merely the absence of the supposed virtue, but a positive vice: Beauty being attractive and ugliness the reverse, if we invent a word for that which is neither, 'plainness,' it at ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read
... ruling over mankind!" he cried, as Edward came in: "That miserable fellow there whom you met flatters himself he shall gain a large sum of money from me, if he can detect our thief by means of some senseless artifice. He won't come back again, the blockhead! for I have at length given vent for once to my feelings. There is nothing in the world so insufferable to me, as when people try, by means of certain phrases fabricated at random, or of certain traditional ceremonies, most of them a misgrowth out of ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... seldom indulged in harsh speech, never in personal violence—at least no instance of it was known to the students. He indulged in sneers and polished browbeating. A boy was never stupid—he lacked common intelligence; never a blockhead—his perceptions were very dull. His polite epithets were more cutting than good ...
— Breaking Away - or The Fortunes of a Student • Oliver Optic
... for us, you know!" said the Colonel. "Another review, and by some officer who was not a d—d lawyer blockhead, might be awkward!" Colonel Crawford either forgot, at that moment, that he had any connection with the legal profession, or he chose to ignore the fact; and it is not to be supposed that his subordinate ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... the present hour, is put in jeopardy. There is no certainty but in instant enjoyment. Look at schoolboys sharing a plum cake. The knowing ones eat, as for a race; but a stupid fellow saves his portion; just nibbles a bit, and "keeps the rest for another time." Most provident blockhead! The others, when they have gobbled up their shares, set upon him, plunder him, and thrash him for ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... sent an amusingly equivocal invitation to an Irish nobleman of his acquaintance: "I hope, my Lord, if ever you come within a mile of my house, that you'll stay there all night." When he was suffering from an attack of gout, he thus rebuked his shoemaker: "O, you're a precious blockhead to do directly the reverse of what I desired you. I told you to make one of the shoes larger than the other, and instead of that you have made one of ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... "Confound you, you blockhead!" roared the captain, in a rage,—"'twould take the patience of the pope and the cardinals, and the cardinal virtues into the bargain, to keep one's temper with you. Do you know the four points of ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... at last got a letter a span long after hoping so much for an answer that I lost patience; and I had good cause to do so before receiving yours at last. The German blockhead having said his say, now the Italian one begins. Lei e piu franca nella lingua italiana di quel che mi ho immaginato. Lei mi dica la cagione perche lei non fu nella commedia che hanno giocata i Cavalieri. Adesso sentiamo sempre una opera titolata Il Ruggiero. ...
— The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, V.1. • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
... for such a letter as she wished to send Gerald fine shades of expression were needed beyond what she could compass. She was fond of Gerald; in this letter she must not be too fond, yet she must be fond enough. What hope that a blockhead would strike the exact middle of so fine ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... superstitious art represented finally by Perugino, and the modern scientific and anatomical art represented primarily by Michael Angelo. And the epithet bestowed on Perugino by Michael Angelo, 'goffo nell' arte,' dunce, or blockhead, in art,—being, as far as my knowledge of history extends, the most cruel, the most false, and the most foolish insult ever offered by one great man to another,—does you at least good service, in showing how trenchant the separation ...
— Ariadne Florentina - Six Lectures on Wood and Metal Engraving • John Ruskin
... have taken a post with the ambassador. We arrived here yesterday. If he were less peevish and morose all would be well. As it is, he occasions me continual annoyance; he is the most punctilious blockhead in the world. He does everything step by step, with the paltry fussiness of an old woman; and he is a man whom it is impossible to please, because he is never pleased ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... It was my fault not hers, that I had bruised my fists thumping against a stone wall. Had I discoursed to her in Bengalee she would have comprehended me no more imperfectly. The doom of hopelessness was upon her. She was not merely a fool, but had taken the full degree as a self-satisfied blockhead. I deserved what I got—and more of ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... masters of the baths, amounting to 4000, to be used in heating their stoves during a period of six months, modern paradox would attempt to deny. But the tale would not be singular even were it true: it perfectly suits the character of a bigot, a barbarian, and a blockhead. A similar event happened in Persia. When Abdoolah, who in the third century of the Mohammedan aera governed Khorassan, was presented at Nishapoor with a MS. which was shown as a literary curiosity, he asked the title of it—it was the tale of Wamick and ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... as you, Sir, have poured out my blood, every drop of which, Sir, shall cost you a slice of your estate. But even without Sturk's speaking one word, I've evidence which escaped you, conceited blockhead, and which, though the witness is as mad almost as yourself, will yet be enough to direct the hand of justice to the right man. There is a Charles, Sir, whom all suspect, who awaits trial, judgment, and death in this case, the wretched Charles Nutter ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... in your life. So—o! Once again! Come, that was better! But you must sigh like a horse down with the colic. So—o! that's right. Thus I go, drilling myself in hypocrisy; stamp impatiently in the street when I fail to succeed; rail at myself for being such a blockhead, whilst the astonished passers-by turn round and stare ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... torrent of talk about motors and power and pressures and cylinders and cranes and screws, and such-like. She would sit and listen and smile, but of course understood not a word of it all, and as soon as Peer discovered this he would get perfectly furious, and call her a little blockhead. ...
— The Great Hunger • Johan Bojer
... fiume, broke down a bridge, and flooded heaven knows how many campi; then rain came—and it is still thawing—so that my saddle-horses have a sinecure till the roads become more practicable. Why did Lega give away the goat? a blockhead—I must ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... every thing," murmured Fritz, "but for myself, I am a poor stupid blockhead, and the king will laugh at me, for I have nothing to tell. I ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... sovereign was a selfish, coarse old man, who in private life would, as Lady Montagu said, have passed for an honest blockhead. He neither knew anything about England, nor did he desire to know anything of it. He could not speak a word of the language of the country he was called to govern, and he made no attempt to learn it; even the coronation ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... dolt, numskull, witling, blockhead, coot, lackbrain, ninny, oaf, nincompoop, mooncalf, ignoramus, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... was taunted with his want of learning, he retorted that if he was a blockhead it was not the fault of his father, who had "spared nothing in his education that might qualify him to match the accurate Dr. Browne, or the learned Observator." His father was a Nonconformist, ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto
... girls, but this can never with truth be said of me. I most emphatically, in this instance, made a fool of myself. I have now come to the conclusion never again to think of marrying; and for this reason—I can never be satisfied with any one who would be blockhead ...
— McClure's Magazine, March, 1896, Vol. VI., No. 4. • Various
... you," said the official, "any more?" I could reply with a clear conscience that I had not. To my surprise, the paper was returned to me. He next took up my note-book. Now, said I to myself, this is a worse scrape than the other. What a blockhead I am not to have put the book into my pocket; for, except in extreme cases, the traveller's person is never searched. The man opened the thin volume, and found it inscribed with mysterious and strange characters. It was written in short-hand. ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... violent tone. "Ah, rascal, scoundrel, madman!" quoth he. "If we be delayed here any longer thou shalt be hanged for a false thief! To keep the king's messengers waiting thus! Canst thou not see the king's seal? Canst thou not read the address of the royal letter? Ah, blockhead, thou shalt dearly abide this delay ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt
... "What a blockhead I was!" he thought, quite angry with himself. "If I'd just staid quietly where I was put, and not gone racing off, with the idea that I knew more about their railroads than the Belgians themselves, I'd never have gotten myself into such a scrape. ...
— Harper's Young People, March 9, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... beginning of the Christian era under the name of codex. Here it will be necessary to explain that caudex, codex, in Latin, meant a block of wood, and had its humorous by-senses among the Roman dramatists, as the word block has among ourselves, such as blockhead.[5] So caudicalis provincia was a jocular expression ...
— Illuminated Manuscripts • John W. Bradley
... where they found every thing disposed in the usual order, and the same profusion. When they had taken their seats in the corner of the room, Yussuf said, "Now, my guests, as you hope for pardon, tell me, do you know nothing of what has happened to me this day—and what the blockhead of a caliph has been about?" Haroun and the vizier could with difficulty restrain their laughter, as they shook their heads. "Yes," continued Yussuf, "that vicegerent of a tattered beard, and more tattered ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... from you before its expiration. I presume the printer has brought you the offspring of my poetic mania. [1] Remember in the first line to read "loud the winds whistle," instead of "round," which that blockhead Ridge had inserted by mistake, and makes nonsense of the whole stanza. Addio!—Now to ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... once more rested on his son. He imagined the child grown into a young man; he would make a companion of him; but perhaps he would be a blockhead, a wretched creature, in any event. He was always oppressed by the illegality of the infant's birth; it would have been better if he had never been born! And Frederick would murmur, "Poor child!" his heart swelling with feelings ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert
... panic closed upon him. Never told him she'd got a cat! of course she hadn't! What a fool he had been to make such a blunder—what an utter blockhead. ...
— The Phantom Lover • Ruby M. Ayres
... when I was a boy, and father went along with me to teach me. Well, the first flock of plover I seed I let slip at 'em, and missed 'em. Says father, says he, "What a blockhead you be, Sam, that's your own fault, they were too far off; you hadn't ought to have fired so soon. At Bunker's hill we let the British come right on till we seed the whites of their eyes, and then we let 'em have it slap bang." Well, I felt kinder grigged at missin' my shot, ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... in sandy soil, I'm sure of that—but plant before you boil; Then put in strawberries; that's what I do— Confound you for a blockhead! Why don't you Get modern works and read them? No, you'd rather Go creeping on just like your stupid father. That patch is good for melons. Why the deuce Don't you convert those swamps ...
— Punchinello Vol. II., No. 30, October 22, 1870 • Various
... sat Miss Rose fast asleep. Mr. Quince coughed several times, each cough being louder than the last, and then, treading softly, was about to return to the workshop when the girl stirred and muttered in her sleep. At first she was unintelligible, then he distinctly caught the words "idiot" and "blockhead." ...
— Odd Craft, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... long been in Hades, was cowering over a small fire in a distant corner, endeavoring to keep from freezing, when his Impious Majesty himself heard the youth soliloquizing: "When will LIE BIG, the editor of the Sun, keep me company?" "You blockhead!" exclaimed his Majesty, "LIE BIG, the editor of the Sun, is not coming back for some time; he is of more service to me on earth, making converts for my jurisdiction, than the ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 2., No. 32, November 5, 1870 • Various
... Davus sum non [Lat.] [Oedipus]; a fool's bolt is soon shot [Henry V.] clitellae bovi sunt impositae [Lat.] [Cicero]; fools rush in where angels fear to tread [Pope]; il n' a ni bouche ni eperon [Fr.]; the bookful blockhead, ignorantly read [Pope]; to varnish nonsense with the charms of ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... the Council and of all the burghers. At this moment Conrad struck mightier blows than ever with his mallet, so that the whole shop rang and cracked; then Master Martin's internal rage boiled over, and he shouted vehemently, "Conrad, you blockhead, what do you mean by striking so blindly and heedlessly? do you mean to break my cask in pieces?" "Ho! ho!" replied Conrad, looking round defiantly at his master, "Ho! ho! my comical little master, and why should I not?" And therewith he dealt such ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... I don't see," said I. "You will think me an awful blockhead, but I don't perceive anything singular in a cigar manufacturer sending a ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... town for, at least, a week, and expect to hear from you before its expiration. I presume the printer has brought you the offspring of my poetic mania. Remember in the first line to 'loud the winds whistle,' instead of 'round,' which that blockhead Ridge has inserted by mistake, and makes nonsense of the whole stanza. Addio!—Now to ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... memory infested with tags of verse and "cues" of rhyme is in itself an infirmity as vulgar and as morbid as the stableboy's habit of whistling slang airs upon the mere mechanical excitement of a bar or two whistled by some other blockhead in some other stable. The very stage has grown weary of ridiculing a folly, that having been long since expelled from decent society has taken refuge amongst the most imbecile of authors. Was Mr. Hazlitt then ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... other. She said it in such an affectionate tone, her eyes were so beseeching, her feeble voice was so humble and so passionate in making the request, that mademoiselle had not the courage to force her to accept an assistant. She simply called her a "blockhead," who believed, like all country-people, that a few days in ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... and objections as yours about the hands being held up in astonishment; if there was any straining of the muscles, as with protruded arms under fright, I would agree; as it is I must keep to my old opinion, and I dare say you will say that I am an obstinate old blockhead. (477/3. The raising of the hands in surprise is explained ("Expression of Emotions," Edition I., page 287) on the doctrine of antithesis as being the opposite of listlessness. Mr. Wallace's view (given in the 2nd edition of "Expression of the Emotions," page 300) is that the gesture ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... is allotted a complete endowment of mental faculties, of capacities of intellect and feeling; the degree to which these are energized, are injected with nervous flame, makes the difference between a genius and a blockhead. There being high vital pressure at a full, rich, interior source, and thence, strong mental currents, through what channels the currents shall flow depends on individual aptitudes, these aptitudes shaping, in the one case, a Dante, ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... word, that, if it was a rebuke at all, it was a rebuke to a rampant "Bibliolatry." As I heard all these different versions of so simple a matter, and found that not a few were inclined to each, I could, not help exclaiming, "In truth the Devil is a very clever fellow, and man even a greater blockhead than I had taken him for." But in spite of the surprise with which I had listened to these various explanations of an event which seemed to me clear as if written with a sunbeam, this last reason, which assigned as the cause of God's resumption of his own gift, an ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... wooden, deep-wrinkled face was the first object that met Arthur's eyes as he entered the stable-yard, and it quite poisoned for him the bark of the two bloodhounds that kept watch there. He could never speak quite patiently to the old blockhead. ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... The poor blockhead said that he was not angry with her, because she knew nothing about it, but that he would certainly ...
— One Hundred Merrie And Delightsome Stories - Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles • Various
... early was a bit hard, and eating a cold luncheon harder still; but worst of all was having to hear him growl and snap at the clerks. Oh, he's perfectly horrid. I don't see how they stand it. Of course, I had my share. 'Miss Blockhead' was ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford
... these blades;" "penetralia" means "the parlour;" while "accingere," more literally than elegantly, is translated "buckle to." "Situs" is "nasty stuff;" "oscula jungere" is "to tip him a kiss;" "pingue ingenium" is a circumlocution for "a blockhead;" "anilia instrumenta" are "his old woman's accoutrements;" and "repetito munere Bacchi" is conveyed to the sense of the reader as, "they return again to their bottle, and take the other glass." These are but a specimen of the blemishes which disfigure the most literal ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... never quote. If you get entangled in a dispute with some learned blockhead, you may silence him with a few extemporary quotations. Select the author for whom he has the greatest admiration, and give him a passage in the style of that writer, which most pointedly condemns the opinion ...
— The Laws of Etiquette • A Gentleman
... by running into me, you blockhead!" cried the purser, in a loud voice. "Why don't you look where you ...
— Randy of the River - The Adventures of a Young Deckhand • Horatio Alger Jr.
... were going," Peter suggested, and the Colonel answered curtly, "Who said they were, you blockhead? They are not going unless Ruby gets them in the night. Upon my soul, she is equal to it. I think I shall put them under my pillow. It is Mrs. Amy's dresses I mean. What else is she going ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... Why, sir, but that's too bad! My father's trade? Why, blockhead, art thou mad? My, father, sir, was never brought so low: He was a gentleman, ...
— Reading Made Easy for Foreigners - Third Reader • John L. Huelshof
... of the human-kind shut their eyes to plainest facts; and by the mere inertia of Oblivion and Stupidity, live at ease in the midst of Wonders and Terrors. But indeed man is, and was always, a blockhead and dullard; much readier to feel and digest, than to think and consider. Prejudice, which he pretends to hate, is his absolute lawgiver; mere use-and-wont everywhere leads him by the nose; thus let but a Rising of the Sun, let but a Creation of the World happen twice, ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... the ancient ages as far back as Moses, is not to be regarded as under obligations to shun a truth because it was already in use among men. The man who would claim such a silly thing ought to be discarded from scientific and literary circles as a blockhead. The cosmogony of the Babylonians represents the beginning of things in darkness and water; in which great non-descript animals, hideous monsters, half-beasts and half-men, made their appearance; then a woman, who personates the creative spirit or principle, was split into two parts, ...
— The Christian Foundation, February, 1880
... to be driven opposite to Mr. Law's hotel and then to be overturned. Addressing herself to the coachman, she said, "Overturn here, you blockhead—overturn!" Mr. Law ran out to her assistance, when she confessed to him that she had done this for the sole purpose of having an interview ...
— The Memoirs of the Louis XIV. and The Regency, Complete • Elizabeth-Charlotte, Duchesse d'Orleans
... me for a puppy, a fool, a blockhead, a clumsy varlet, a mere Jack Belford!—I thought myself a much cleverer fellow than I am!—Why could I not have been followed in by Dorcas, who might have taken it up, while I ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... on: "And now see the precious old fool! He is deeply interested in the movements of the little ants, and as childish and ridiculous over them as if they were highly important.—There, you old blockhead, let them alone!" ...
— The Third Violet • Stephen Crane
... do. Mr. Colton, I tell you that you are all wrong. Simply because a man lives in the country it does not follow that he is a blockhead. No one in Denboro is rich, as you would count riches, but plenty of them are independent and ask no help from any one. You ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... la Terreur," I. 353. (Petion's own narrative of this journey.) This pert blockhead cannot even spell: he writes aselle for aisselle, etc. He is convinced that Madame Elizabeth, the king's sister, wants to seduce him, and that she makes advances to him: "If we had been alone, I believe ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... is what the mixture of things causes, and hence it is that no one is pleased with his own state, except some senseless blockhead, who is so all the more the deeper is the degree of obscure folly in which he is sunk; then he has little or no apprehension of pain; he enjoys the actual present without fearing the future; he enjoys that which is and that in which he finds himself, and has neither care nor ...
— The Heroic Enthusiasts,(1 of 2) (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno
... contempt masters me. I never loved, I never esteemed, I did not even know her. I was not sure of the existence of one virtue in her nature: I had marked neither modesty, nor benevolence, nor candour, nor refinement in her mind or manners—and, I married her:—gross, grovelling, mole-eyed blockhead that I was! With less sin I might have—But let me remember to whom I ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... are right," cried Darrell; "and I was a blockhead and blunderer, as man always is when he mistakes a speck in his telescope for a blotch in the ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... naturally, rubs against the grain of Mr. Bazzard,' said Mr. Grewgious. 'He is very short with me sometimes, and then I feel that he is meditating, "This blockhead is my master! A fellow who couldn't write a tragedy on pain of death, and who will never have one dedicated to him with the most complimentary congratulations on the high position he has taken in the eyes of ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens |
