"Raving mad" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... answered; "but him not safe to wait. You believe me. I know these tam niggers. They take two days get drunk, then get devils, four—raving mad. They drunk now. Kill any one to-morrow—perhaps you. Kill you certain ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... yes! About four years ago he married the beauty over whom all Paris was going raving mad. She was the prima donna of the Italian opera in Paris. But the marriage was not pleasing to the earl, who is severely afflicted with the prejudices of his rank. He immediately disowned his son, the Honorable Kenneth, never speaking to him again during his, Kenneth's, life. And more than that, he ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... I feared lest he should go raving mad, I pronounced some religious absolution, whereon poor Higgs rolled over and lay still by Orme. Yes; he, the friend whom I had always loved, for his very failings were endearing, was dead or at the point of death, like the gallant young man at his side, and ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... was engaged, she had consulted Mr. Edward Curtis instead. The latter had given her a spell which he had assured her would have the desired effect, but directly she got home, her adored Brutus developed melancholia, and died raving mad, after having bitten her child, who, by the ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... The passionate lines of the poets sang in his ears—rhythms to the "little dove", the "peerless white flower"! He passed a big hand across his brow. His heart-beats were like the galloping hoofs of a horse, bearing him whither? Gold of her hair, violet of her eyes! Whither? The raving mad poets! Wine seemed running in his blood; he moved toward ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... maddened, moonstruck; shatterpated[obs3]; mad-brained, scatter brained, shatter brained, crackbrained; touched, tetched [dialect]; off one's head. [behavior suggesting insanity] maniacal; delirious, lightheaded, incoherent, rambling, doting, wandering; frantic, raving, stark staring mad, stark raving mad, wild-eyed, berserk; delusional, hallucinatory. [behavior somewhat resembling insanity] corybantic[obs3], dithyrambic; rabid, giddy, vertiginous, wild; haggard, mazed; flighty; distracted, distraught; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... travail, if indeed it had ever breathed, for the lungs would not swim, he swore, in a basin of water—so the incestuous murderess was let loose; her brother got hanged in due time after the mutiny at the Nore—and her father, the fishmonger—why, he went red raving mad as if a dog had bitten him—and died, as the same surgeon and sow-gelder averred, of the hydrophobia, foaming at the mouth, gnashing his teeth, and some said cursing, but that was a calumny, for something seemed to be the matter with his tongue, ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... a terrible one. Our sufferings from hunger and thirst were awful; and about midday one of the men—an A.B. named Tom Bridges— went raving mad, and swore that he didn't intend to starve any more; said that one of us must die for the good of the rest; and presently set upon me, saying that I was in better condition than any of the rest, and that therefore I was the proper one to be sacrificed. He was a big, powerful man, and ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... was raving mad when he once more regained his feet; the fellow was an ugly chap, a great bully ashore, and a cruel heartless man afloat. As ...
— The Dock Rats of New York • "Old Sleuth"
... with such a crew of hell-hounds as I was, had the same common operation upon me as upon other people. I degenerated into stone; I turned first stupid and senseless, then brutish and thoughtless, and at last raving mad as any of them were; and, in short, I became as naturally pleased and easy with the place, as if indeed I ...
— The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders &c. • Daniel Defoe
... in a most dangerous state he did not refrain from cursing his eyes, which happened, as it was, to be both gone, and saying what a fool he must have been. He was that night conveyed to Brussels Hospital with the rest of the many wounded, and died in a few days, raving mad. ...
— The Autobiography of Sergeant William Lawrence - A Hero of the Peninsular and Waterloo Campaigns • William Lawrence
... with squealing, halloing, whooping, firing of guns, ringing and clattering of gongs or brass pans, that we were greatly startled, imagining nothing less but that the city was surprised by the rebels. I ran immediately to the door, where I found my old fat landlord roaring and whooping like a man raving mad. This increased my astonishment, and the noise was so great that I could neither be heard, nor get an answer to know what the matter was. At last I cried as loud as possibly I could to the old man to know the reason of this sad confusion and outcry, ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley
... few days later the husband was taken ill, and day by day became worse. The wife was naturally anxious, and when his illness deprived him of his reason, her cup of sorrow seemed full. For three years he was raving mad, and often, when in one of his fits of rage, he would ill-treat his wife. These fits might come on without any warning, day or night, so that she was kept ...
— Everlasting Pearl - One of China's Women • Anna Magdalena Johannsen
... for twenty minutes, the annihilator of time and space must camp out under the blue and hunt for his dead among the rubbish. Given a violent convulsion (only just such a slipping of strata as carelessly piled volumes will accomplish in a book-case) and behold, the heir of all the ages is stark, raving mad—a brute among the dishevelled hills. Set a hundred of the world's greatest spirits, men of fixed principles, high aims, resolute endeavour, enormous experience, and the modesty that these attributes bring—set ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... remember your first name, but he remembered your mother's—it had stayed in his mind—because of the German word Nachtigall being so nearly the same. As he said the word my mind got a frightful twist, and I thought I was mad. I did, indeed, my dearest love—raving mad!" ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... rather than be disappointed in their wishes, as is evidenced by the many fatal combats between rival lovers on such occasions? a plain proof that this love exceeds the love of life. Lastly, have there not been, and are there not still, instances of men, who for such a woman, have gone raving mad in consequence of being denied a place in her favor? From such a commencement of this love in several cases, who cannot rationally conclude, that, from its essence, it holds supreme dominion over every other love; ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg
... forget a long journey I took once with a friend who was raving mad on the subject of fresh air and cold water. Every morning the windows were thrown wide open, and the blinds flung back with an energetic bang, while a stiff wintry wind whirled every thing about the room, ...
— Autumn Leaves - Original Pieces in Prose and Verse • Various
... shaking his head. "'Tis 'witched he be! You'll mind what I told ye, Cap'n—the poor lady as died raving mad aboard the 'Delight,' how she died cursing him wi' life. And him standing by a-polishing o' that hook o' his—ah, Cap'n, I'll never forget the work o' that same hook ... many's the time ... Bartlemy's prisoners ... men and women ... aboard that cursed ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... to see the painter, not even to see a royal carriage that had just drawn up at his door, nor a popular prince of the blood who occupied the carriage, but to catch a glimpse of one about whom the town was then quite mad—raving mad: a small good-looking schoolboy, a theatrical homunculus, the Infant Roscius, Master William Henry Betty. Of course rages and panics and manias seem to be very foolish things, contemplated by the cool grey light of the morning after. It seems rather incredible now, that crowds should have ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... moonlight, a shadow was still seen passing there, waving its arms in shadowy triumph; so, the next day, there were various goodly stories afloat and astir, coming out of successive mouths, more wondrous at each birth; the simplest form of the story being, that Septimius Felton had at last gone raving mad on the hill-top that he was so fond of haunting; and those who listened to his shrieks said that he was calling to the Devil; and some said that by certain exorcisms he had caused the appearance of a battle in the air, ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... 'Thou'rt surely raving mad for her thou lov'st;' and I, 'There is no pleasantness in life but for the mad,' reply. Compare my madness with herself for whom I rave; if she Accord therewith, then blame me not for that which ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... speaking quietly to himself, "the boy is not raving mad, so far as I can see. He has every appearance on him of meaning what he says. And this is what comes of the Community of Tadmor, is it? Well, civil and religious liberty is dearly purchased sometimes in the United ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... a little curious to see my next letters. The truth is, that the whole world just now are raving mad with a passion for killing and slaying, and it is difficult for a person in his sober senses like myself to keep his own among them. However I shall be glad to see ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... improved since we saw him upwards of three years ago. "The distance between the two islands is so great that it is not probable he traversed it in a canoe, especially when we consider that he did not know the island's name or position, and was raving mad when I put ...
— The Madman and the Pirate • R.M. Ballantyne
... it by another; then he has stolen this other and replaced it by yet another; he has beside stolen the valueless stone from the modern chalice, and then replaced it. Surely a man gone rabid, a man gone dancing, foaming, raving mad! ...
— Prince Zaleski • M.P. Shiel
... me in the bug-house, they can write on your tombstone when you die, 'Hanna Long Burkhardt went stark raving mad crazy with hucking at home because I let her life get to be a machine from six-o'clock breakfast to eight-o'clock bed, and she went crazy from it.' If that's any satisfaction to you, they can write ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst
... phosphorus, and gave him the benefit in the dark. That caught Murphy all right, and everything was coming my way. He threw up his hands, and even agreed to come in here with me, and tell the whole story, but the poor fellow's brain could n't stand the strain of the scare I had given him. He went raving mad on the Powder; he jumped on me while I was asleep, and since then every mile has been a little hell. That's the whole of it ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... cars and pension the driver for three generations; but that doesn't seem to be what they want. They expect me to go to the House of Lords and get a ruling, and build walls between times. Are they all stark, raving mad? One 'ud think I made a profession of flagging trains. How in Tophet was I to know their old Induna from a waytrain? I took the first that came along, and I've been jailed and ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... bad hurricane, and was rather proud of my experience, but I never saw, and never wish to see again, such a truly terrifying and appalling sight as my companion and I now witnessed—for within an hour all Nature seemed to have gone stark, raving mad, and I never expected to see the next morning's sun. I do not think it was the fearful force of the wind which so terrified me into a state of helplessness as the diabolical clamour—the clashing and tearing and rending asunder ...
— Yorke The Adventurer - 1901 • Louis Becke
... enough of drink and reading. I assure you I am full beyond my capacity as it is; if I do not succeed in quickly unloading my stomach of what you have put into it, there is not a doubt I shall go raving mad under the intoxication of your exuberant verbosity. At first I was inclined to be amused; but there is such a lot of it, and all just alike; I pity you now, poor misguided one, trapped in your endless maze, sick unto death, a ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... of those whose smiles and voices had once made the sunshine of their lives. The terrible silence of these voices and the sight of these hideous remains had driven the grandmother of the household raving mad, and she continued to rake among the still smouldering embers of the old house, utterly regardless of the two warriors, and only complaining, in a querulous tone now and then, that her daughter should sit there like a stone ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne
... for Mrs. King to collect and forward their letters from home as soon as they gave her an address; Marcella did not mention the chief reason for getting away from Sydney now. She had an instinctive feeling that Mrs. King would think she was raving mad to run away into the ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... Quoth they and I had trained my taste thereto, viii. 269. Quoth they, Black letters on his cheek are writ! iv. 196. Quoth they, Maybe that Patience lend thee ease! iii. 178. Quoth they, Thou rav'st on him thou lov'st, iii. 258. Quoth they, "Thou'rt surely raving mad for her thou lov'st, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... otherwise than sweet with your endowments and nature? Do you truly expect that you will be seized with hydrophobia, and die raving mad?" ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... slavers trickle! I kick the wee stools o'er the mickle, As round the fire the giglets keckle, To see me loup; While, raving mad, I wish a heckle Were in ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... seizing my cap, swinging it round my head in an ecstasy of delight, and uttering cheer upon cheer with such outrageous vehemence, that Edwards, who thought me raving mad, crept towards the ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... temporary absence of her husband—stripped naked and turned out of doors on a bitterly cold night, by a favourite of the Regent Murray. As a result of this inhuman conduct the child died, and its mother, with the corpse in her arms, was discovered in the morning raving mad. Another instance of this particular form of apparition is to be found in Sir Walter Scott's "White Lady of Avenel," and there are endless others, both in reality ...
— Scottish Ghost Stories • Elliott O'Donnell
... his hand over his forehead. He could not fully grasp the meaning of a passion that led a man to such lengths as this. Why, the man had proposed murder—murder and suicide; and all because of this strange love of a woman. He had been driven stark raving mad because of it. He sat there now before him, an odd combination of craven weakness and giant strength because of it. In the face of such a revelation, Covington felt petty; ...
— The Triflers • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... chivalry of spirit, Emelene, that the women are too stark raving mad to appreciate. You can't come here, Mr. Evans, to two women to whom womanliness and love of home, thank God, are still uppermost and ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.
... and married another." Montraville stood motionless, and the man proceeded—"I met her myself not a fortnight since one night all wet and cold in the streets; she went to Madam Crayton's, but she would not take her in, and so the poor thing went raving mad." Montraville could bear no more; he struck his hands against his forehead with violence; and exclaiming "poor murdered Charlotte!" ran with precipitation towards the place where they were heaping the earth on her remains. ...
— Charlotte Temple • Susanna Rowson
... alike are bad; These little fellows are raving mad With thinking what they should do, Supposing their sunny-eyed sister had Given her heart—and her head—to a lad Like the man with the Beard of Blue. Each little jacket Is now a packet Of murderous thoughts and fancies; Oh, the gentle trade By which fiends are ...
— Bitter-Sweet • J. G. Holland
... himself. Then he started up and began to pace the room. "And yet I would not be without her for all the wealth in the world, for all the greatness and all the fame," he cried; "she is more to me than everything else on earth. If ever she finds out what I really am, I believe I shall go raving mad. I must keep a straight front, must keep as clean as I can for Sibyl's sake. O God, help me to ...
— Daddy's Girl • L. T. Meade
... thought it necessary to write, in order to give a dramatic fitness and dignity to the end of so important a personage. Aristobulus tells us that he became delirious through fever, and drank wine to quench his thirst, after which he became raving mad, and died on the thirtieth day of the ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... puts wings beneath him for a moment and lifts him, as eagles billow up their young; is weak, and tries to cover weakness up by ranting. We pity, then despise him, then pity him once more, and in sheer charity think him raving mad. Stand Maud's lover alongside King Arthur, and how splendid does King Arthur look! The lover was pessimist and wrong; Arthur was optimist and, in his temper, right. Though hacked at by the careless or vicious swords of cumulating ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... preserved with more economy, to cool their parched lips. In a few days, however, their own blood, for lack of cooling food, became so fiery hot as to scald their brain to frenzy. About the tenth day the captain and mate leaped overboard, raving mad; and the day following the two remaining seamen expired in the bottom of the boat, piteously crying to the last for WATER! WATER! God of his mercy forgive me, who have so often drank of that sweet beverage ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... leave of me, Jabour shaking hands with me, and saying, Mā-tăhāfsh, "don't fear." Afterwards had a great many curious visitors of the lower classes, all raving mad to see the Roumee ("Christian"). And amongst the rest, the son of Ouweek! who is a young harmless fellow, and said his father would never hurt a great Christian like me. He begged hard for a piece of sugar, which I gave him. He asked me if his father was coming to Ghat. For supper ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... come to Fissore, the accuser of the other three. Investigation of his origin showed that a male cousin had died raving mad, a female cousin had died in an asylum, a great-uncle on the maternal side had been crazy and had committed suicide; another cousin was weak-minded and subject to fits; another, a deaf-mute, had died in an asylum; another great-uncle was a drunkard and ...
— Criminal Man - According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso • Gina Lombroso-Ferrero
... morning he quitted the cottage for ever. He took me with him and bent his steps to Holland, where we safely arrived. He had some little money with him; but he had not been many days in Amsterdam before he was seized with a brain fever, and died raving mad. I was put into the Asylum, and afterwards was sent to sea before the mast. You now know all my history. The question is, whether I am to pay the penalty of my father's oath? I am myself perfectly convinced that, in some way or another, ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... abbey died raving mad. His habitation, without the walls, was near a chapel of the abbey, where Mesdames were taken to repeat the prayers for those in the agonies of death. Their prayers were more than once interrupted by the ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
... might have been to gain the lady, he gave up the idea. He was not so fond of her but that he soon proposed to marry the Dowager Duchess of Savoy; and, soon afterwards, the widow of the King of Castile, who was raving mad. But he made a money-bargain instead, and ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... I know not; but he endeavours all he can to hinder her, and tells her it is not lawful to tempt heaven by invoking an apparition; so that till a second view eases the torments of my mind, there is nothing in nature to be conceived so raving mad as I; as if my despair of finding her again increased my impatient flame, ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... opening it to see what was the matter, old Keane was discovered lying in a fainting fit on the threshold. He was put to bed and means used for his recovery, but when he came out of the fit he was raving mad and talked of such frightful things that his family were quite terrified. He continued till next day in the same state, but at length his senses returned and he desired to see the ...
— The Book of Dreams and Ghosts • Andrew Lang
... that they were committed by men who cared more for a pot of good ale and a glass of gin than for the Protestant interest. Hence, their first object, when they had entered the houses of Sir John Fielding and Lord Mansfield, was the wine-cellars. They drank till they were raving mad! It was in this state that they were found by a detachment of foot-guards in and opposite the house of Lord Mansfield. The officer who commanded them was requested to enter the house with his men; but he replied, that the justices of the peace had all run away; and that ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... Blood-Drinker's Burial; to which end, that young lady let down her back hair, and taking up her position at the other end of the room, with the bachelor friend posted in a corner, to rush out at the cue 'in death expire,' and catch her in his arms when she died raving mad, went through the performance with extraordinary spirit, and to the great terror of the little Kenwigses, who were ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... picture, and almost betrayed himself by outcries: "Wiped out!—scraped out and turped out! He's on the verge of jumps as it is. That's Bess,—the little fiend! Only a woman could have done that!—with the ink not dry on the check, too! Dick will be raving mad tomorrow. It was all my fault for trying to help gutter-devils. Oh, my poor Dick, the Lord is hitting ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... so mad as to be unfit to manage anything for himself, but he is not in such a condition that any one would wish to see him put into confinement. If he were raving mad there would be less difficulty, though ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... the "guards back" and the "flying wedge" were the favorite formations; and the Blue would never forget how, after a series of line plunging, bone-breaking rushes, he had dragged himself over the enemy's goal line with the whole frantic eleven piled on him, while the Blue stands went stark raving mad over the prowess of their champion. That famous goal had won him an undisputed place on the All-American team for that year and the captaincy of his own team the ...
— Bert Wilson on the Gridiron • J. W. Duffield
... something dreadful is going to happen," she continued after a moment's pause. "He will go mad in that horrible prison, raving mad, so that they will have to—to hold him—" she sobbed and then recovered herself by an effort. "Or else—he will fall ill and die, after it—" Here she broke down completely and stopping in the middle of the street began crying bitterly, clutching at Schmidt's arm ...
— A Cigarette-Maker's Romance • F. Marion Crawford
... Edmonson. "No," he cried with an oath, "that is a lie," and springing up, turned blood-shot eyes upon his companion. "I am mad, Bulchester," he cried, "raving mad. It is all over with ...
— Bay State Monthly, Vol. II. No. 5, February, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... insupportable solitude and barrenness of the place rouses him from this stupor, and when the trap in his grated door is opened, he humbly begs and prays for work. 'Give me some work to do, or I shall go raving mad!' ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... she an orphan, with no one to look after her, or say she done ill or well. And there was a little child born—the prettiest little creature ye ever saw—Bessie's own copy—all blue eyes and chestnut hair—and it just lived a matter of fower year, and then it took sick and died. Bessie went nigh raving mad; that she did. And now, what do you think, sir? The passon refused to bury that there little child in consecrated ground, cos'twas born out of wedlock! What d'ye think of that for a follower of Jesus with the loving heart? What ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... he observes, "At the time of Lord Erskine's Chancellorship, I noticed with much satisfaction his remarks on the treatment of insane patients, especially in private mad-houses, which he found was so generally severe, that in case they were but a little deranged, it was sufficient to make them raving mad; and he delivered it as his judgment that kind and conciliating treatment was the best means to promote recovery. The latter part of this opinion I have the satisfaction of asserting has been evidently proved correct in the management of the Retreat, where coercion, though sometimes ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke
... climax; I felt that another such encounter would drive me raving mad. Somewhere there must be a natural explanation; it was only a question of finding it. Among other things it occurred to me that someone, for reason unknown, might be playing a series of practical jokes upon me, but it was hard to believe a hoax ...
— War and the Weird • Forbes Phillips
... in his "Irrelehren" is also raving mad over the idea of abolishing the private kitchen. As far as we know, Herr Richter is a bachelor. Obviously he does not miss his own kitchen: to judge from the rotundity of his body, he does not fare ill. If ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... we to win her back," screamed Dark Malcolm, raving mad, "but we may die fighting to get near enough to her to drive dirk into her little breast and save her ...
— The White People • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... "Go raving mad, sir, so I shoved some more stuff on the fire, and as soon as it began to blaze and crackle there was a bigger hissing than ever, and the serpents all came rushing at me, and I ran for my life and ...
— Fire Island - Being the Adventures of Uncertain Naturalists in an Unknown Track • G. Manville Fenn
... heavily. When I came round again I made a frantic effort to cling to one of the steps, but in vain; the head of the bedstead caught me as it flew round, and tore my arms away. In another moment I believe I should have gone raving mad with terror. My head felt as if it would burst; I found it impossible to think consecutively. The only idea which really possessed me was a mad wish to escape from this hideous place. I struggled to the bedstead, and dragging the legs from their sockets, pulled it into the middle ...
— A Master of Mysteries • L. T. Meade
... realizing the fact that his victim was no more, he exclaimed "By thunder I am a used-up man!" The sudden disappointment, and the loss of two thousand dollars, was more than he could endure: so he drank more than ever, and in a short time died, raving mad with delirium tremens. ...
— Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom • William and Ellen Craft
... going away, and I was there at the gate seeing them off, when the butcher's boy came running up and warned them on no account to venture into the road, as Hunt's dog—that's the butcher, you know—I mean Hunt is—had gone raving mad, and was loose upon the streets. Of course we were all most horribly alarmed, and wanted to know whether anybody had been bitten; but the boy was off like a shot, and two minutes afterwards the wretched dog itself came tearing past, as mad as a dog could be, ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour |
