"Good-for-nothing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... arrogance, the innate ingratitude, the presumption, the lack of respect for superiors, the pride that the spirit of darkness infused in the young, the lack of manners, the absence of courtesy, and so on. From this he passed to coarse jests and sarcasm over the presumption which some good-for-nothing "prompters" had of teaching their teachers by establishing an ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... As I passed up the short street to the square, Aunt Foggison's chamber window was thrown open, and her daughter's voice was plainly heard berating the supposed spectral night-walker. 'What are you doing there, you good-for-nothing scamp, you?' cried she, in a voice that must have reached any mortal ears; 'why don't you go home to your family, if you've got any family, or wherever else you belong, instead of stalking up and down here, frightening honest folks out of their senses?' Overcome perhaps by ...
— Old New England Traits • Anonymous
... letter and could show it to you. The man was a gravedigger—the boy painted inappropriate figures on the coffins. And just for this reason I feel it my duty to tell you that I don't intend to see my school lose its good name through that good-for-nothing boy of yours there!" ...
— Walter Pieterse - A Story of Holland • Multatuli
... one of them goes away to another teacher and turns out to be a failure? Or what father, if he have a son who in the society of a certain friend remains an honest lad, but falling into the company of some other becomes a good-for-nothing, will that father straightway accuse the earlier instructor? Will not he rather, in proportion as the boy deteriorates in the company of the latter, bestow more heartfelt praise upon the former? What father, himself ...
— The Memorabilia - Recollections of Socrates • Xenophon
... who's a man I'd be happy to leave her to; but I daren't say a word, she's mighty touchy an' would flash up that she'd leave if I want to get rid of her. But while I've got breath in me body there's one thing I will set me foot on, an' that's these good-for-nothing skunks like bankers' sons an' them sort of high an' mighty pauper nobodies; they're fearful matches for any one. I know too much about the swells an' the old families of the colony, I'm thankful I ain't one of them. My father came out here ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... at all an advantage to send most young men to Europe. I've seen so many come back conceited, and dissatisfied, and good-for-nothing, that I can't make up my mind to spoil Ben by the same process. He tries very hard to persuade me, that now-a-days, no doctor is fit to be trusted who has not finished off in Paris; but we managed without it thirty ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... the first word of testimony. I often wondered why. This night he got on his feet, and this is what he said: "Men, I've been everything that's bad and mean, a crook and a drunkard, separated from wife and children, a good-for-nothing man. I want to stand here before you people and thank God for keeping me for one whole month; and, men, this is the happiest month I've spent in my life. I asked God to help me and He is doing so. I only wish some of you men would take Jesus as your friend and keeper the same as I have. I'm going ...
— Dave Ranney • Dave Ranney
... Fewkes, and where were Celebrate Fourth and Surajah Dowlah? And where, most emphatically, where was Rowena? I stepped forward at McGill's side. Surely, I thought, they were not going to tar and feather these harmless, good-for-nothing waifs of the frontier; and even as I thought it, I saw the glimmering of the fire they were kindling under ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... their love on it!" was the thought of Flora and the detective in the same instant. It filled her veins with fury, yet her response was gentle and meditative. "To me," she said, "it seemed such a good-for-nothing that even if I saw it is gone, me, I think I wouldn' have take' notice." All at once she brightened: "Anna! without a doubt! without a doubt Captain Kincaid he has it!" About to add a caress, she was startled from it by a masculine voice ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... a good-for-nothing foolish fellow," he said at length. "But oh, Mrs Morley, if you would but take me in hand, I think there might be a chance ...
— The Voyages of the Ranger and Crusader - And what befell their Passengers and Crews. • W.H.G. Kingston
... gone to church that beautiful morning—satisfied and happy—if they hadn't had their son to think of. Father complained that he was dull and lazy; he had not cared to learn anything at school, and he was such an all-round good-for-nothing, that he could barely be made to tend geese. Mother did not deny that this was true; but she was most distressed because he was wild and bad; cruel to animals, and ill-willed toward human beings. "May God soften his hard heart, and give him a better disposition!" said the mother, ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof
... aunt is kept very happy by the patient, cheerful care of this good-for-nothing niece. Secondly, a crotchety uncle, for whom she reads, runs, writes, and sews so willingly that he cannot get on without her. Thirdly, various relations who are helped in various ways. Fourthly, one dear friend never forgotten, and a certain cousin cheered by praise which is more ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... going on in the East, there was a very dangerous plot contrived at Rome by a man named Lucius Sergius Catilina, and seven other good-for-nothing nobles, for arming the mob, even the slaves and gladiators, overthrowing the government, seizing all the offices of state, and murdering all their opponents, after the example first set by Marius ...
— Young Folks' History of Rome • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... and said, "Look at the lady, you brute, and hold your tongue!" And when he looked at my wife's situation, Captain Sparr became redder for shame than he had before been for anger. "I'm sorry she's married to such a good-for-nothing," muttered he, and fell back; and my poor wife and I walked out of the court, and back to our dismal ...
— The History of Samuel Titmarsh - and the Great Hoggarty Diamond • William Makepeace Thackeray
... dwelt there in peace and happiness and overflowing plenty. Some of them were traders—men who bartered their simple wares, such as red Turkey twill, axes, knives, beads, tobacco, pipes, and muskets, for coconut oil and turtle shell. Others were wild, good-for-nothing runaways from whaleships, who then were generally known as "beach-combers"—that is, combing the beach for a living—though that, indeed, was a misnomer, for in those days, except one of these men was either a murderer or a tyrant, he did not "comb" for his living, but simply ...
— Rodman The Boatsteerer And Other Stories - 1898 • Louis Becke
... me right! Decidedly, it serves me right! I was determined to be a vagabond and a good-for-nothing. I would listen to bad companions, and that is why I always meet with misfortunes. If I had been a good little boy, as so many are; if I had remained at home with my poor papa, I should not now be in the midst of the fields and obliged to be the watch-dog to a peasant's house. Oh, if I could ...
— Pinocchio - The Tale of a Puppet • C. Collodi
... if such a custom were to be upheld, the man who had the 'tally' might charge 100L. for the damage. And poor papa looked through his law books, and could find nothing about it at all; and while he was doing it Farmer Tester began to abuse the constable, and said he sided with all the good-for-nothing fellows in the parish, and that bad blood would come of it. But the constable quite fired up at that, and told him that it was such as he who made bad blood in the parish, and that poor folks had their rights as well as their betters, and should have them as long as he was ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... Porter did not know it at the time, the moving-picture company to which Ward Porton belonged had also numbered among its members Dave's former school enemy, Link Merwell. From Link, Ward Porton, who was the good-for-nothing nephew of a Burlington lumber dealer, had learned the particulars concerning Dave's childhood and how he had been placed in the Crumville poorhouse and listed as ...
— Dave Porter and His Double - The Disapperarance of the Basswood Fortune • Edward Stratemeyer
... we took to bring up. Nobody knows who his parents be. Brier got him at the foundling hospital when he went to sell his wheat to the city. He wasn't but two years old then, but he's ten now, and a great, big, lazy, idle, good-for-nothing boy, that'll never begin to pay for his keepin'. I never wanted the young 'un around, but Brier said he'd come handy by-and-by, and save a man's wages; so as we never had any of our own, we thought we'd keep him. Children are an awful sight of trouble. This one has been such a trial. ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... thirty years of age, was a wealthy lawyer, and what is a little remarkable for that craft (I speak from experience), to an unusual degree of intelligence and polish of manners, he added many social and religious qualities. Many kind hearted mothers, who had on their hands good-for-nothing daughters, wondered how he managed to live without a wife, but he seemed to think it the easiest thing in nature, for, since the death of his parents, his sister Susan had acted in the capacity ...
— Homestead on the Hillside • Mary Jane Holmes
... how dare you calumniate your own landlord? You hound of the whole village, you! that barks at every man behind his back, and licks his hand when he faces you. You dare to come hither with such idle stories at a time when there's already far too much discord among the people! You good-for-nothing vagabond! What! I suppose you want the peasant folks to beat the landlords to death, burn their castles to the ground, and rob them of everything? Coward and rebel as you are, the gallows-tree is far too good for you. I tell you what it is. I'll put you in irons and send you to the county jail, ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai
... think not," assented Marzio proudly; then catching sight of the expression on the young man's face, he turned sharply upon him. "You are mocking me, you good-for-nothing!" he cried angrily. "You are laughing at me, at your master, you villain you wretch, you sickly hound, you priest-ridden worm! It is intolerable! It is the first time you have ever dared; do you think I am going to allow you to think ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... the post would have been offered to Herr Courvoisier, only, you see, he has turned out a good-for-nothing. But perhaps ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... gathered, to be sure; but no one at Boisveyrac can be trusted to finish the stacks. They are a good-for-nothing lot; and now Damase, the best thatcher among them, has, I hear, been sent up to Fort Frontenac along ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... been a-loafing to, you good-for-nothing trash! I've been that worried about you I didn't know what to do. Your traps has been here ever so long, and I've had supper cooked fresh about four times so as to have it hot and good when you come, till at last my patience is just plumb ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... directed, and she wrote with this gryphon's feather. "So here is the recipe for the Tuyla incantation with which to give life to your images. It may comfort you a little to perform that silly magic. It, anyhow, will prevent such good-for-nothing minxes as may have no more intelligence than to take you seriously, from putting on too many airs and graces around the images which you will make of me with my ...
— Figures of Earth • James Branch Cabell
... of the folks 'round here about Jerry Morton," the boy exclaimed. "They'll tell you what a good-for-nothing lazy-bones he is. They'll say he isn't worth the powder and shot to blow ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... of remorse took possession of her. Perhaps it was her fault! Perhaps, if instead of wasting time and thoughts upon good-for-nothing Frieda Hammer, she had helped Alice in her studies, she might now be a Scout! And yet Marjorie was sincere enough with herself to know that she did not, even now, care so much about Alice or her success, as she did about Frieda. She ...
— The Girl Scouts' Good Turn • Edith Lavell
... marry him by her own free will, and perhaps she had sense and quiet resolution enough for both. So I gave the heads of the little history I have told you to my good friend and host, adding that I should like to have a man's opinion of this man; but that if he were not an absolute good-for-nothing, and if Thekla still loved him, as I believed, I would try and advance them the requisite money towards establishing themselves in the ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell
... Buddhist, "is quite in harmony with my own views. Come along then with me to the palace of the Monitory Vision Fairy, and let us deliver up this good-for-nothing object, and have done with it! And when the company of pleasure-bound spirits of wrath descend into human existence, you and I can then enter the world. Half of them have already fallen into the dusty universe, but the whole ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... deep water, for fear a great greedy pike or some other great fish might be there and swallow him up at a mouthful. He kept away from the shallow places in hot weather, lest the sun should dry them up. When he saw a shadow on the water, he said to himself, 'Halloo! here are the good-for-nothing fishermen with their nets!' and immediately he sculled away and got under the banks, where he sat trembling in all his scales; and when he saw a tempting fly skimming on the water, or a nice fat worm, he did not dare to bite, although ...
— The Fairy Nightcaps • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... trial of me, hand to hand, thy bow should not avail thee, and numerous arrows[376] whereas now, having grazed the broad part of my foot, thou boastest thus. I regard it not, as though a woman had wounded me, or a silly boy: for idle is the weapon of an unwarlike, good-for-nothing man. From me, indeed, it is otherwise; for if one be touched but slightly, the weapon is piercing, and forthwith renders him lifeless; and the cheeks of his wife are furrowed on both sides, and his children are orphans; but crimsoning the earth ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer
... buried and nobody cares very much; They have no use in Greylock for drunkards and loafers and such, But I always liked Dave Lilly, he was pleasant as you could wish, He was shiftless and good-for-nothing, ...
— The Haunted Hour - An Anthology • Various
... why you turn aside to talk of complexion when the whole situation is so odd," said Ellen, speaking to her father. "I am not able to bring myself down to a realization of it yet, although I have been trying to ever since we got that letter from that good-for-nothing country, away off yonder. You must know that it strikes me differently from what it does any one else. It is all romance ...
— The Colossus - A Novel • Opie Read
... know that our government bought Alaska from Russia a few years ago at what seemed at that time an enormous sum for a frozen good-for-nothing country. The transaction was designated 'Seward's Folly', and the country was said to be a fit residence only for polar bears and Eskimos. The whale and seal industries were fast reaching extinction when gold was discovered, and this, too, ...
— The Trail of a Sourdough - Life in Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... he said, gravely, as he shook hands; "you forget what a sordid, and heartless, and generally good-for-nothing chap I am, Peggy. It's much better ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... deeply versed in the fairy superstitions which abound in Ireland, all which he professed implicitly to believe. Under his tuition Goldsmith soon became almost as great a proficient in fairy lore. From this branch of good-for-nothing knowledge, his studies, by an easy transition, extended to the histories of robbers, pirates, smugglers, and the whole race of Irish rogues and rapparees. Everything, in short, that savored of romance, fable, and adventure was congenial to his poetic mind, and took instant root ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... going to hide you, like that good-for-nothing, finicky, sneery gentleman. You shall be my pride and my chum. Isn't that better than rotting on an island for the pleasure of a gentleman, till he gives you ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... of patience with his visitor. Besides Wang was holding him so tightly that it really felt as if Lin were being pinched by some gigantic crawfish. Suddenly Lin could hold his tongue no longer: "You lazy hound! you whelp! you turtle! you lazy, good-for-nothing creature! I wish you would hurry up and roll out ...
— A Chinese Wonder Book • Norman Hinsdale Pitman
... in Florence and the artist had his best suit of clothes on; but not caring for this he threw off his coat, and went to work to clear away the rubbish from that marble. His friends were surprised. They said to him:—"Come on, let's go; what's the use of wasting your time on that good-for-nothing lump of stone?" ...
— The Life of Jesus Christ for the Young • Richard Newton
... bringing them hot water, they will order him to be scourged with three hundred stripes; but should he intentionally have killed a man, while numbers insist that he ought to be unhesitatingly condemned as guilty, his master will exclaim, "What can the poor wretch do? what can one expect from a good-for-nothing fellow like that?" But should any one else venture to do anything of the kind, ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... thee, since the one runs away, and t'other abandons thee to my care. Now to-morrow I shall ask the good people that bring me my food to fetch some nice eggs and milk for thee as well; for bread is good enough for poor old good-for-nothing me, but not for thee. And I shall ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... is all very well for that good-for-nothing fellow of whom you have made a friend, but not ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... fine. He discharged some of the good-for-nothing hands, that's all. Bartlett used to ...
— Randy of the River - The Adventures of a Young Deckhand • Horatio Alger Jr.
... "You good-for-nothing villain!" Fred grinned. "I'll take you at your word!" and Brown of Lumbwa gasped, the very hairs of his ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... light, and that they had rather allow a sensible man of approved courage to support a young girl, than trust her to a mere boy, who may go astray, and, from the honest fellow they thought him, turn into a good-for-nothing. And then years don't always make age. That depends on the health and strength a person has. When a man is used up by overwork and poverty, or by a bad life, he is old before twenty-five. While I—but Marie, you are ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... I believe in Mr. Surrey, and what's more, I believe in Miss Ercildoune,—have reason to; and when I hear anybody mixing her up with these onry, good-for-nothing niggers, it's more'n I can stand, so don't let's have any more of it"; and turning with an air which said that subject was ended, Jim took up his forgotten coffee, pulled apart some brands and put the big tin cup on the coals, and ...
— What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson
... "Theatre, you good-for-nothing! Do I ever join in such frivolities? I have been in bed and asleep ever since ten o'clock—where you ought to be at this hour of ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 1, January, 1891 • Various
... he had the whip-hand of the poor woman, and the taller he grew the more the lazy good-for-nothing used it. Enlistment was his trump card, and he went to the length of buying a drill-book and practising the motions in odd corners of the garden, but always so that his aunt should catch him at it. If ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... housekeeper, coming upon that restless figure pacing the darkened hall, moaning, moaning—seeing nothing, hearing nothing, doing nothing but walk and sorrow, sorrow and walk, hour in and hour out. "It's enough to tear a body's heart to hear her, poor dear. And that good-for-nothing Spanish piece racing and shrieking round the tennis court like a she tom-cat, the heartless hussy. Her and that simpering silly that's trotting round after her had ought to be put in a bag and shaken up, that they ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... our little daughter should marry some English good-for-nothing? Look, then, I would rather see her white and cold in the dead-chamber. In a word, I will have no Englishman among the Van Heemskirks. There, let us sleep. To-night ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr
... she cried; "a helpless good-for-nothing! who can't even pick up her own handkerchief! that thing wants to be mistress ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... Rangers suddenly found themselves openly unpopular. Heretofore a ranger had been tolerated by the mountaineers as either a good-for-nothing saloon loafer enjoying the fats of political perquisite; or as a species of inunderstandable fanatic to be looked down upon with good-humoured contempt. Now a ranger became a partisan of the opposing forces, and as such an enemy. Men ceased speaking to ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... cried the neighbours, "why, they wouldn't own such a lazy good-for-nothing. They does more work in a morning than you'd get through in a year, you who never does a hand's-turn for anybody and haven't sense enough to earn ...
— Cornwall's Wonderland • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... a man? I am a good-for-nothing; I have lost my good name [weeping]. My good name is gone. [Wipes ...
— Armenian Literature • Anonymous
... but been sae wise As ta'en thy ain wife Kate's advice! She tauld thee weel thou was a skellum, [told, good-for-nothing] A bletherin', blusterin', drunken blellum; [chattering, babbler] That frae November till October, Ae market-day thou was na sober; [One] That ilka melder wi' the miller [every meal-grinding] Thou sat as lang as thou had siller; [money] That every ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... slave-trader there was no capital so valuable as the physical soundness of his stock; the moral was easily enough forged or counterfeited. Little Mammy's good-for-nothing mother was sold as readily as a vote, in the parlance of to-day; but no one would pay for a crippled baby. The mother herself would not have taken her as a gift, had it been in the nature of a negro-trader to give away anything. Some doctoring ...
— Balcony Stories • Grace E. King
... deeds are far away and hazy. The brief sentences of mediaeval annalists bring them less near to us than the chroniques scandaleuses of good-for-nothing scoundrels, whose vulgar adventures might be revived at the present hour with scarce a change of setting. Such is the force of intimite in literature. And yet Baffo and Casanova are as much of the past as Doria and Pisani. It is ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... difficult and perplexing, Don Luis knew, besides, how to keep his seat so admirably on the back of a fiery horse, his veneration and his affection for his cousin knew no bounds. Currito was an idler, a good-for-nothing, a very block of wood, but he had an affectionate ...
— Pepita Ximenez • Juan Valera
... little piece to say to his nose: "Here am I, a big Quamash, rich and ripe," or a tiny, sharp voice, "Here am I, a good-for-nothing, stringy ...
— The Biography of a Grizzly • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... hardship, privation, disappointment, disillusionment, galling poverty, and utter failure. He has been subjected to ridicule and the even more blighting cruelty of good-natured, patronizing, contemptuous tolerance. His reputation is that of a lazy, good-for-nothing, disreputable dead beat and loafer. And yet, in a sense, nothing is further from the truth. Notwithstanding his many disappointments, no one could have been more sincere than he in believing that just around the corner ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... "The Wife," which he did immediately afterward, with a view to my acting the principal female character, he constantly said to me, "I am writing such a part for you!" and had no notion that the only part capable of any effect at all in the piece was that of Julian St. Pierre, the good-for-nothing brother of ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... you'll have to get introduced to him all over again. You'll say, 'I'm Mrs. Harnish, who are you?' And I'll say, 'I'm Elam Harnish's younger brother. I've just arrived from Alaska to attend the funeral.' 'What funeral?' you'll say. And I'll say, 'Why, the funeral of that good-for-nothing, gambling, whiskey-drinking Burning Daylight—the man that died of fatty degeneration of the heart from sitting in night and day at the business game 'Yes ma'am,' I'll say, 'he's sure a gone 'coon, but I've ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... Elder, "the God-given power of creation is exercised unthoughtfully, unwisely, and often wickedly. A good-for-nothing scamp may become a father in name; but he who attains to that holy title in fact, must do as God does,—must love, cherish, sustain and make sacrifices for his child until his offspring becomes old enough and strong ...
— Story of Chester Lawrence • Nephi Anderson
... you good-for-nothing Pierre, or I'll break every bone of your body!" They departed to spend ...
— Orphans of the Storm • Henry MacMahon
... chorus of female voices rose, bewailing the scarcity and dearness of provisions, cursing the emigres and devoting to the guillotine the Commissaries of Sections who were ready to give good-for-nothing minxes, in return for unmentionable services, fat hens and four-pound loaves. Alarming stories passed round of cattle drowned in the Seine, sacks of flour emptied in the sewers, loaves of bread thrown into the latrines.... It ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... been bored to death, and feeling like a silly little good-for-nothing besides. The trouble is, it's too little bother. James and I have had a long talk. Housekeeping will be reduced to its elements with him, but at least I shall begin to feel really grown up when I pore over monthly bills and 'slips' and ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... "I Wisdom dwell with Prudence." What a blessed fire-side! How happy should I be to pass a winter evening under their venerable roof! and smoke a pipe of tobacco, or drink water-gruel with them! What solemn, lengthened, laughter-quashing gravity of phiz! What sage remarks on the good-for-nothing sons and daughters of indiscretion and folly! And what frugal lessons, as we straitened the fire-side circle, on the uses ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... was entirely too much excitement for this delicate, worn-out child. Tom, order the carriage. I mean to take her straight to my own house and nurse her myself. I am the only person in this town who has time to give her all the care and attention she needs. I feel like such a lazy, good-for-nothing old woman when I see all these bright young people winning prizes and doing so many ...
— Grace Harlowe's Plebe Year at High School - The Merry Doings of the Oakdale Freshmen Girls • Jessie Graham Flower
... associations of discredit with the proper name, which was the only word he made intelligible, that he was almost everywhere overwhelmed with injurious accusations. On no fewer than four occasions the police were called in to receive denunciations of Mr Meagles as a Knight of Industry, a good-for-nothing, and a thief, all of which opprobrious language he bore with the best temper (having no idea what it meant), and was in the most ignominious manner escorted to steam-boats and public carriages, to be got rid of, talking all the while, like a ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... you've come to help an old man die! Yes, I am dying, Job; the old man's near the end. I'll no more hang around the Miners' Home and beg a drink from the stranger. Curse the rum, Job! It's brought me here where you find me, a good-for-nothing, dying without a friend in the world—yes, one friend, Job; you're my ...
— The Transformation of Job - A Tale of the High Sierras • Frederick Vining Fisher
... merely as Christians, but as "patriots and fathers," whether we will cling to the pure "Gospel of Jesus Christ," given to us in the love of Heaven, and in the blood of Jesus, rather than accept in its stead the empty, Godless, Christless, good-for-nothing negative of God and Christ and Christianity. The chief article in the unbeliever's creed is in these words, ...
— The Christian Foundation, May, 1880
... Mrs. Peckover, "it's almost as great a surprise to me to be in London, as it is—Be quiet, young Good-for-Nothing; I won't even shake hands with you if you don't behave yourself!" These last words she addressed to Zack, whose favorite joke it had always been, from the day of their first acquaintance at Valentine's house, to pretend to be violently ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... taking off the heads and other good-for-nothing parts which are sold for glue stock. Nothing is wasted in a tannery, let me tell you! After the skins leave this room they will be sent to the beamhouse, where they will be soaked in water until all the dirt and salt is out of ...
— The Story of Leather • Sara Ware Bassett
... no outlay equal to the sum dissipated. It was then that he discovered the secret which Sarah had carefully concealed from him,—her mad passion for Maxime de Trailles, whose earliest steps in a career of vice showed him for what he was, one of those good-for-nothing members of the body politic who seem the necessary evil of all good government, and whose love of gambling renders them insatiable. On making this discovery, du Tillet at once saw the reason of Gobseck's insensibility to the ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... small companion. "I've nothing but a little income and an old horse and two dogs and a few friends, Bobby; I've lived thirty years in that little place there; and a great many excellent people call me a good-for-nothing old loafer, but I've learned the things I'm telling you now, and I'm just conceited and stuck-up enough to think I've made ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White
... to, and he raised Bull up to be a sort of general slave around the place. Well, when he comes back home all shot up he tries to get his sons to take my trail, but they didn't have the nerve. But Bull that they'd always looked down on for a big good-for-nothing hulk—Bull stepped out and took my trail on foot and hit across the mountains in ...
— Bull Hunter • Max Brand
... shuffled his feet. "It's that good-for-nothing piano tuner, Miss Mary," he told her reluctantly. "I reckon you don't know much about him. He's been coming around a lot since you've been away. He's been sticking to Miss Paula like a leech, right up to the day your father got sick. Then he didn't come any more and I thought we were done ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... breakfast. As the old maid had managed to draw them into her quarrel with La Normande with respect to the ten-sou dab, they had at once made friends again with Lisa, and they now had nothing but contempt for the handsome fish-girl, and assailed her and her sister as good-for-nothing hussies, whose only aim was to fleece men of their money. This opinion had been inspired by the assertions of Mademoiselle Saget, who had declared to Madame Lecoeur that Florent had induced one of the two ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... of Mr. Pound the Professor sat down and the table reeled under his fist. "Pound—he is at the bottom of it all. He has said that I am a good-for-nothing loafer and the county should be rid of me. Maybe he is right. But he won't have his way. I have done nothing and I will not go—do you hear that, Davy, I will not go. Now tell me what ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... lives. He works all the year round: he thrashes in midwinter with the thermometer below zero. The hard times affect him no more than a fly would a rhinoceros. This is perfectly exasperating to the poor spendthrift, good-for-nothing, lazy part of the community. The tramp hired man is particularly mad about it; he declares the old farmer wants him to work all day for a sheep's head and pluck, and sleep under a cart at night. The tramp hired man entertains ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... aunt Maria, sharply, at once diverted. "I can tell you just exactly what they would do, if you were to trim up a hat with that red velvet and that feather and give it to that young one. Her good-for-nothing mother would have it on her own head in no time, and go flaunting out in it with that man ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... fruit, or (more tempting still to sons of Eve) the pretty girls with their apple cheeks, who laughed and prattled round the fountain! What was the book? Do you suppose it was Livy, or the Greek grammar? No; it was a NOVEL that you were reading, you lazy, not very clean, good-for-nothing, sensible boy! It was D'Artagnan locking up General Monk in a box, or almost succeeding in keeping Charles the First's head on. It was the prisoner of the Chateau d'If cutting himself out of the sack fifty feet under water (I mention the ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... invite the first-comer. Trumence boasted of being well known all along the coast, and even far into the department. And what was most surprising was that people did not blame him much for his idleness. Good housewives in the country would, it is true, greet him with a "Well, what do you want here, good-for-nothing?" But they would rarely refuse him a bowl of soup or a glass of white wine. His unchanging good-humor, and his obliging disposition, explained this forbearance. This man, who would refuse a well-paid job, was ever ready to lend ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... I shall find money for any longer. There's my grandfather had his stables full o' horses, and kept a good house, too, and in worse times, by what I can make out; and so might I, if I hadn't four good-for-nothing fellows to hang on me like horse-leeches. I've been too good a father to you all—that's what it is. But ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot
... if the men were actually engaged, and push and parry, moving their weapons? Davus is a scoundrel and a loiterer; but you have the character of an exquisite and expert connoisseur in antiquities. If I am allured by a smoking pasty, I am a good-for-nothing fellow: does your great virtue and soul resist delicate entertainments? Why is a tenderness for my belly too destructive for me? For my back pays for it. How do you come off with more impunity, ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... Writ: "Fathers, do not irritate your children," even the wicked and good-for-nothing children; but the fathers irritate me, irritate me terribly. My contemporaries chime in with them and the youngsters follow, and every minute they strike me in the face with their ...
— Note-Book of Anton Chekhov • Anton Pavlovich Chekhov
... Bristol, a certain EARL RICHARD DE CLARE, called STRONGBOW; of no very good character; needy and desperate, and ready for anything that offered him a chance of improving his fortunes. There were, in South Wales, two other broken knights of the same good-for-nothing sort, called ROBERT FITZ-STEPHEN, and MAURICE FITZ-GERALD. These three, each with a small band of followers, took up Dermond's cause; and it was agreed that if it proved successful, Strongbow should marry Dermond's daughter EVA, and ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... of Flora," said his wife, restraining herself by an effort. "One unfortunate marriage in the family is enough; and here, instead o' walking out with young Ben Lippet, who'll be 'is own master when his father dies, she's gadding about with that good-for-nothing Charlie Foss." ...
— Sailor's Knots (Entire Collection) • W.W. Jacobs
... sea, where, after a day of breakfasting, lunching, dining off five courses, chatting, playing whist, and drinking champagne-punch, it was your hard lot to be shut up in little cabinets of mahogany and maple, and sleep for ten hours, with nothing to disturb you but 'those good-for-nothing tars, shouting and tramping overhead',—what would ye say to our six months out of sight ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... and never seems to think him good-for-nothing, as most people do. Perhaps it is sham though—no, he can't think that when he remembers how patiently and kindly she has borne with his senseless fits of temper and tried ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... and watched them, too, when their sweethearts came along, and seen—oh, yes, many, many things have I seen, and many, many things have I heard of those fair young ladies of quality. She belongs to them, and she likes that good-for-nothing, pert little Susy Hopkins! Yet it don't matter to me. Susy shall have my good graces if she has secured those of ...
— The Rebel of the School • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... a native of London, a good-for-nothing lad, idle and dissolute. When leaving England his father warned him that if he didn't alter he'd end his days on the gallows. Served various sentences on all sorts of charges. Over six years ago we took him in hand, admitted ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... up in idleness, teach them to despise labor, let them depend upon someone for a continuously happy time, and you will cultivate the good-for-nothing young man. ...
— Plain Facts • G. A. Bauman
... of Songs." Most of these had already been published in the "Pictures of Travel." I restored them to their original metres. I also translated the "Memoirs of a Good-for-Nothing" from the German, and finished up, partially illustrated, and published two juvenile works. One of these was "Mother Pitcher," a collection of original nursery rhymes for children, which I had written many years ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... spirit, sought to make amends by offering him some bread and garlic, but Havilah went away, a melancholy, heavy-shouldered young man, one that, Eliab said, must feel life cruelly, knowing himself as he must have done from the beginning to be what is known as a good-for-nothing. And it was soon after Havilah's departure that Jesus returned to the shepherds and, stopping in front of Eliab and Bozrah, he said: I've come back, mates, to give you my thanks for many a year of good-fellowship. So the time has come for us to lose thee, ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... New-England divine and a southern kidnapper; and there an ungodly slaveholder and a pious deacon; each eyeing the other with distrust, and fearful of exciting a quarrel, both denouncing the poor, neglected, despised free black man as a miserable, good-for-nothing creature, and both gravely complimenting their foresight and generosity in sending this worthless wretch on a religious mission ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... Pazolatica, and with that income and with the help that I will give you besides, you will take refuge in some place where you will be comfortable, and you will be able to keep some one to serve you either in Florence or outside Florence, and leave that good-for-nothing ... I pray you to consider yourself, and in all things whatever you wish to do—that is, for yourself in all you desire—I will aid you all I know and can. Let me hear about Cassandra's affairs. I am advised not to go to law about it here. I am told that ...
— Michael Angelo Buonarroti • Charles Holroyd
... at last she had broached a phase of the problem upon which he could dilate with fervor. "They're the lowest-down, ornriest—begging your pardon—good-for-nothing loafers you ever heard of. Why, we just have to carry them and care for them like children. Look yonder," he pointed across the square to the court-house. It was an old square brick-and-stucco building, sombre and stilted and very dirty. ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... see anything of that good-for-nothing boy of mine, I want you to tell him to come back here, or it will be ...
— The Bobbsey Twins on a Houseboat • Laura Lee Hope
... redskins was a Wanderer, and a dead white man was that good-for-nothing Baptiste Masson I have often mentioned ...
— On the Trail of Pontiac • Edward Stratemeyer
... the honour of the house does not matter! It is no concern of ours! And your father need never know that his trusty servant, his clever assistant, his faithful confidant, who shares all his secrets, is a good-for-nothing fellow who spends his nights in gambling, or drinking, or perhaps in making love to some Venetian girl as honourable ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford
... rids him at once of this "scum of creation." For, as species do not now vary at all times and places and in all directions, nor produce crude, vague, imperfect, and useless forms, there is no reason for supposing that they ever did. Good-for-nothing monstrosities, failures of purpose rather than purposeless, indeed sometimes occur; but these are just as anomalous and unlikely upon Darwin's theory as upon any other. For his particular theory is based, and even over-strictly ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... from that good-for-nothing Link Merwell," returned Dave. "Here, you can read it for yourself," and ...
— Dave Porter At Bear Camp - The Wild Man of Mirror Lake • Edward Stratemeyer
... over what followed. On the king's return his first greeting to his wife was, "Your good-for-nothing son is dead." He immediately demanded the portfolio, tore it open, and carried away the letters which had been so recently concocted. In a few minutes he returned, and on seeing his daughter broke out into a fury of rage, his ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris
... he was very angry,—the Bon-Di: he spoke very crossly; he scolded Y a great deal. But he was so kind for all that,—he was so generous to good-for-nothing Y, that he took the pains to repeat the words over and over again for him:—"Tam ni pou tam ni b."... And this time the Bon-Di was not talking to no purpose: there was somebody there well able to remember what he said. ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... the old house should tumble in, it would bury under its ruins a precious lot of good-for-nothing people, unfit to live! Heavens! what a flash of lightning! Oh, Cap, Cap, my darling, where are you in this storm? Mrs. Condiment, mum! if any harm comes to Capitola this night, I'll have you indicted ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth
... carried you over from year to year, hoping that you will pay up without harsh proceedings. You are a rich man in this world's goods, but your soul is lean and hungry and naked. Selfishness and greed have blinded your eyes. If you could see what a contemptible, good-for-nothing creature you are in God's sight, you would call on the hills to fall on you. Why, man, I'd rather take my chances with the gambler, the felon, the drunkard, than with you. They may have fallen in a moment of strong temptation; but you are a respectable man merely because it costs money to ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung
... about, you good-for-nothing?" he shouted. "Why didn't you stay with the others? You might have lent me a hand with the ...
— "Us" - An Old Fashioned Story • Mary Louisa S. Molesworth
... her eyes that reminded me of a tigress protecting her young,—'I am not going to talk of Bob: lads will get into trouble sometimes. If Mr. Eric had not been so interfering at that time, ordering Bob off the premises whenever he caught sight of him, and calling him a good-for-nothing loafer and all sorts of hard names,—why, he gave Bob a black eye one day when he was doing nothing but shying stones at the birds in the kitchen-garden,—if it had not been for Mr. Eric's treatment of Bob I might have ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... they are dead!" she exclaimed when that fact had been gestured into her understanding. "Absurd! There's another specimen of masculine stupidity. I'll warrant you, if the women had the management of things, the good-for-nothing brutes would ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... Piotr Andreitch kept repeating to his wife, as soon as she tried to incline him to mercy: "He ought to pray to God for me forever, the pup, for not having laid my curse upon him; my late father would have slain him with his own hands, the good-for-nothing, and he would have done right." At such terrible speeches, Anna Pavlovna merely crossed herself furtively. As for Ivan Petrovitch's wife, Piotr Andreitch, at first, would not allow her to be mentioned, and even in reply to a letter of Pestoff, wherein the latter alluded to his daughter-in-law, ...
— A Nobleman's Nest • Ivan Turgenieff
... "I've lost my self-respect. I've lost heart. I'm a good-for-nothing worthless person. How am I to get out of this ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... the country, and of unquestionable courage and fidelity to their salt. He has four hundred Cavalry, of what is called the body guard, men well dressed, and of fine appearance. These Cavalry are, however, likely soon to be taken from him, and made over to some good-for-nothing Court favourite.* He has about seven hundred men present with his Infantry corps. His adjutant, Yosuf Khan, speaks English well, and has travelled a good deal in England, Europe generally, and Palestine. He is a sensible, unprejudiced ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... spend a farthing on funeral services. They were accordingly borne to the paupers' graves which he had caused to be prepared for them, and when he saw them both interred, he cried out that he was well rid of such good-for-nothing children, but that he should be perfectly happy only when the remaining five were buried with the first two, and that when he had got rid of the last he himself would burn down his palace as a ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... them!" said Vernon. "Worse than good-for-nothing. She esteems such talents very lightly, and I shall even lose the small solace to my sorrows I had hoped they would have afforded me. Even this sad consolation is denied me. My Mary is indifferent to poetry—she holds sonnets ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... scared, ma!" cried Billy, smiling a stern smile of triumph; "I smashed the nose off him! He wont sass me again for nothing this while! Uncle Teddy, d'ye know it wasn't a dog-fight, after all? There was that nasty, good-for-nothing Joe Casey, 'n Patsy Grogan, and a lot of bad boys from Mackerelville; and they'd caught this poor little ki-oodle and tied a tin pot to his tail, and were trying to set Joe's dog on him, ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... the writing, the old woman's mumblings became more articulate. She was saying, "'Twas the child Conan should have brought it an hour ago. But he is ever good-for-nothing, ...
— A Loose End and Other Stories • S. Elizabeth Hall
... "You good-for-nothing little thing!" exclaimed Dete angrily, "what could have put it into your head to do like that? What made you undress yourself? What do you mean ...
— Heidi • Johanna Spyri
... saw that he was coatless, had only her jacket on, brought no parcel, stood there silent, and seemed ashamed, her heart was ready to break with disappointment. "He has drunk the money," thought she, "and has been on the spree with some good-for-nothing fellow whom he has ...
— What Men Live By and Other Tales • Leo Tolstoy
... me!" exclaimed Ceres. "For each of those six pomegranate seeds you must spend one month of each year in King Pluto's palace. You are but half restored to your mother. Only six months with me, and six with that good-for-nothing King of Darkness!" ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various
... Lyric, and he's taking us there," she added. "But, dear," she went on, "you look ever so pale! What is worrying you? I hope you are not fretting over that good-for-nothing waster, Henfrey! Personally, I'm glad to be rid of a fellow who is wanted by the police for a very serious crime. Do brighten up, dear. ...
— Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo • William Le Queux |
