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More "Foolishness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... hab o' missin' folks. Des a leetle furder down an' dere wouldn't 'a' been none o' dis yere foolishness. Pity Marse Harry hadn't practised some mo'. Ef he had ter do it ag'in I reckon he'd pink him so he neber be cavortin' 'roun' ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... dressed with nuts and onions and butter, and baked or roasted in cakes over the fire. Dr. Thomson thinks that this dish is alluded to in Prov. 27:22, "Though thou shouldest bray a fool in a mortar among wheat with a pestle, yet will not his foolishness depart from him." That is, put the fool into Im Hanna's stone mortar with wheat and pound him into kibby, and he would still remain a fool! It takes something besides pounding to get the folly ...
— The Women of the Arabs • Henry Harris Jessup
... brethren, laying aside all pride, and boasting, and foolishness, and anger: And let us ...
— The Forbidden Gospels and Epistles, Complete • Archbishop Wake
... irreligious," said her elderly friend. "Besides, there's nothin' amiss with him, settin' aside his foolishness. I've a-thought sometimes, now, o' buildin' a boat down here, an', when the time came, makin' believe to exchange. Boat-buildin' is slack just now, but I might trust to tradin' her off on someone—when ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the mud at a quick trot, with bent knees and folded arms, anxious, I fancied, to appease his squaw; since it was contrary to her desire that he had ventured on this service, and not, as the coachman assured us, without receiving much abuse for his foolishness, as his "gentle ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... to remember the degradation of what has been noble, the foulness of what has been fair?"—"'Arry" in the Times. No doubt it is becoming in an artist to leave all criticism unanswered; it would be foolishness in a schoolboy to resent stuff of this sort. Whistler replied; and in his replies to ignorance and insensibility, seasoned with malice, he is said to have been ill-mannered and caddish. He was; but in these respects he was by no means a match ...
— Art • Clive Bell
... showing the foolishness of those who set their hearts on the possession of earthly goods, and concludes by the very realistic picture of the ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... effects alone are considered no cause is brought to light; but causes reveal effects. To know effects from causes is to be wise; but to search for causes from effects is not to be wise, because fallacies then present themselves, which the investigator calls causes, and this is to turn wisdom into foolishness. Causes are things prior, and effects are things posterior; and things prior cannot be seen from things posterior, but things posterior can be seen from things prior. This is order. For this reason the spiritual ...
— Angelic Wisdom Concerning the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom • Emanuel Swedenborg
... the end by foolishness," said Maren Le Moyne, and all the pleasure had slipped from her deep voice, leaving it cold ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe
... answered Lysbet cheerfully. "Our little Joris is so happy to-night, why wilt thou think evil for him? To think evil is to bring evil. Out of foolishness or perchance such a great love has not come. No, indeed! That it comes from heaven I am sure; and to heaven I will leave its ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... to be making trials at writing poetry Mr. Allan regarded as sheer idleness, to be promptly suppressed. Indeed, when he discovered that the boy had been guilty of such foolishness, he emphatically ordered him not to repeat it. To counteract the effects of his wife's spoiling of her adopted son, he felt it his duty to place all manner of restrictions upon his liberty, which the freedom-loving boy, with the connivance of his mother and the negro servants who adored ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... place. "A Hambleton trait!" they chuckled, with as much satisfaction as they considered it good form to exhibit. In Lynn, where family pride did not bring in large returns, this phrase became almost synonymous with genteel foolishness. ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... can make nothing of it, neither head nor tail. What is it all for? Why? Whither? Whence? We were well enough in the garden. And now the fools have killed all the animals; and they are dissatisfied because they cannot be bothered with their bodies! Foolishness, I ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... stand by me. He's the real stuff and shows up to me in the finest colours, never once hinting that your seeking him had made you cheap. He's a bigger feller than I ever thought, and I ain't going to have no foolishness. You understand?" ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... buffeted—persecuted and homeless labourers—a spectacle to the world, and to angels, and to men, "made as the filth of the earth and the off-scouring of all things." We know that their preaching was to the Greeks "foolishness," and that, when they spoke of Jesus and the resurrection, their hearers mocked[47] and jeered. And these indications are more than confirmed by many contemporary passages of ancient writers. We have already seen the violent ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... makes to appear in him divine and lovely traits. Dostoievsky was never more the Russian prophet than when he wrote "The Idiot," and uttered in it his humble thanksgiving that through the curse of nature, through the utter uselessness of his physical machine, through sickness and foolishness and poverty, he had been saved from doing the world's evil and adding to its death. And Moussorgsky is the counterpart of the great romancer. Like the other, he comes in priestly and ablutionary office. Like the ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... verge of adding, "Join us! Come and join us!" when the little German turned his bald head slowly round and fixed upon the excited Irishman such a cool and quenching stare that instantly he felt himself convicted of foolishness, almost ...
— The Centaur • Algernon Blackwood
... appealed to my sense of honor, of delicacy, of integrity. 'You both had,' she said to me, 'yesterday, on seeing each other again after a long absence, a little spasm of emotion. That is all right; but you must stop there, and not prolong this foolishness,' And, just as I was going to protest: 'Oh yes; foolishness!' 'Remember, Marceline's happiness is at stake. You have no right to compromise her. You come back from China all at once, and your abrupt return will break off more ...
— Parisian Points of View • Ludovic Halevy
... It is true, I did feel sorry for the steamer. But then it is mere foolishness to feel sorry! What's the use? I might have cried; tears cannot extinguish fire. Let the steamers burn. And even though everything be burned down, I'd spit upon it! If the soul is but burning to work, everything will be erected anew. ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky
... to him Tante's sallies at the expense of this or that person and the phrase with which she introduced these transformations of human foolishness to the service of comedy. "Come, let us make meringues ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... most arrant foolishness. You know that those men would not allow your testimony in court; they would very quickly procure evidence to show that your word, even under oath, is worthless; that you are a liar, a ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour
... time-worn expressions pass current, at face value, among enthusiastic relatives and friends, but there are those in the audience who know them to be the veriest cant, with no basis either in logic or in common sense. It is nothing short of foolishness to assert that a young person must attain the age of eighteen years before he enters real life. The child knows that his home is a part of the world and an element in life, that the grocery is another part, the ...
— The Reconstructed School • Francis B. Pearson
... CANT OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF CHRIST. Thou knowest but little of the grace and kindness that is in the heart of Christ; thou knowest but little of the virtue and merit of his blood; thou knowest but little of the willingness that is in his heart to save thee. Slowness of heart to believe flows from thy foolishness in the things of Christ; this is evident to all that are acquainted with themselves, and are seeking after Jesus Christ. The more ignorance, the more unbelief; the more knowledge of Christ, the more faith. "They that know thy name, ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin
... it cat-fashion. He was staring down at me with a sort of scandalized interest; and there was nothing whatever for me to do but stare at him. I had no weapon. One spring and a jump and I was his meat. To run was cowardice as well as foolishness, the one because the other. And without pretending to be able to read a lion's thoughts I dare risk the assertion that he was puzzled what to do with me. I could very plainly see his claws coming in and out of their sheaths, and what with that, and the switching tail, and the sense of impotence ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... they have their understanding darkened. And therefore, saith Paul, Do not you, believers walk as do other Gentiles, even "in the vanity of their minds; having their understandings darkened; being alienated from the life of God, through the ignorance (or foolishness) that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart." Walk not as those; run not with them. Alas! poor souls, they have their understandings darkened, their hearts blinded, and that is the reason they have such undervaluing thoughts ...
— The Heavenly Footman • John Bunyan
... "It was my foolishness that made you do it. Josiah!" she called, as the Captain came down by the rear stair. "Get me a basin of water and the ...
— Captain Pott's Minister • Francis L. Cooper
... heroes listened, the oars fell from their hands, and their heads drooped on their breasts, and they closed their heavy eyes; and they dreamed of bright still gardens, and of slumbers under murmuring pines, till all their toil seemed foolishness, and they thought of their renown ...
— The Heroes • Charles Kingsley
... sahib, that the ruler and the ruled are one. That has many sides to it of which one is this: India having many moods and minds, the British are versatile. Not altogether wise, for who is? When, for instance, did India make an end of wooing foolishness? Since the British rule India, they may wear her flowers, but they drink her dregs. They may bear her honors, but her blame as well. As the head is to the body, the ruler and the ruled ...
— Hira Singh - When India came to fight in Flanders • Talbot Mundy
... away; while I am more like—but I have so poor an opinion of myself, that I won't tell you what. This is no affected self-depreciation. I can't learn to be old, but am as full of passion, impatience, foolishness, blind reachings after wisdom, as ever. Instance: I am angry with the expressman because he did not bring the grapes to-day; angry with the telegraph because it did not bring a despatch to tell how a sick boy was, under ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey
... it?" She faced him again in a way that made him quail; his wife was never disrespectful, but she sometimes faced every danger to save him from his own foolishness. "Don't you go and do a thing to make everybody hate you. You know what it says in the Bible about movin' a landmark. You'll get your rights; 't is just as much your right to let the trees stand, ...
— The Life of Nancy • Sarah Orne Jewett
... said, coming back to my senses. "This is all foolishness, and losing us time. I 'm not sorry he is out of the way; it was either his life or ours. He was a big, lawless brute, a murderer at heart, if he was n't in deed. Now there is all the more reason for us to hurry. Have you got ...
— Gordon Craig - Soldier of Fortune • Randall Parrish
... "That's all foolishness. Love is only stupid, and ought to be guarded against as the worst possible mistake. Love always means misery ...
— Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... way to heaven. We must therefore return to the simplicity of little children, in which we shall bear some resemblance to our Lord's humility."[29] This, in the language of the Holy Ghost, is called the foolishness of the cross of Christ,[30] in which consists true wisdom. That prudence of the flesh and worldly wisdom, which is the mother of self-sufficiency, pride, avarice, and vicious curiosity, the source of infidelity, ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... upon his chair back, as he pounded on the table in front of him with the other. "Now look here, Mister Who- ever-you-are, I've stood a lot of foolishness from you already," said he, "but those are my matters, and not yours. Get on out of here." Yet Eddring only looked at him smiling, and into his eyes there came a ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough
... the extraordinary prosperity and success of that one which has abandoned armaments and Kruppisms, will—if they have a grain of sense left in them—follow suit and, voluntarily divesting themselves too of their ancient armour, give up the foolishness of national enmities and jealousies, and adopt the attitude of humanity and peace, which alone can be the worthy and sensible attitude for us little mortals, when we shall have arrived at years ...
— The Healing of Nations and the Hidden Sources of Their Strife • Edward Carpenter
... land, which had been free to all and belonged to all, was divided up. Three-Legs began it when he planted corn. But most of us did not care about the land. We thought the marking of the boundaries with fences of stone was a foolishness. We had plenty to eat, and what more did we want? I remember that my father and I built stone fences for Three-Legs and were given ...
— The Strength of the Strong • Jack London
... Stop that, Niece Ruth! I won't hear to no such foolishness. You show me how I can make money riding up and down the Lumano in a pesky motor-car, and maybe I'll do like Alviry wants me to, and buy one of the contraptions." "Hullo, now!" added the miller suddenly. ...
— Ruth Fielding on the St. Lawrence - The Queer Old Man of the Thousand Islands • Alice B. Emerson
... beforehand, behaved themselves in a most orthodox and unexceptionable manner; as did also poor Eustace, to the great wonder of all good folks, and then went home flattering himself that he had taken in parson, clerk, and people; not knowing in his simple unsimplicity, and cunning foolishness, that each good wife in the parish was saying to the other, "He turned Protestant? The devil turned monk! He's only after Mistress Salterne, ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... his pocket and strolled toward one of the front windows; then he turned to her. "You and I might as well understand each other, Jennie," he went on. "I can see how this thing came about. It was a piece of foolishness on my part not to have asked you before, and made you tell me. It was silly for you to conceal it, even if you didn't want the child's life mixed with mine. You might have known that it couldn't be done. That's neither here nor there, though, ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... at him with pity in her green eyes. "This I do not understand. I know nothing of right and justice. What are these things? Just words. Yet you will endanger our happiness for them. If it is my happiness you wish—then leave this foolishness alone. I have fifteen years I can live with you before I am old and you tire of me. With those years I ...
— The Lani People • J. F. Bone
... wouldn't go; and they wanted to examine it, and spy around and get the secret of it out of me. But I beat them. Nobody knows the secret but me. Nobody knows what makes it move but me; and it's a new power—a new power, and a thousand times the strongest in the earth! Steam's foolishness to it! They said I couldn't go to Europe. To Europe! Why, there's power aboard to last five years, and feed for three months. They are fools! What do they know about it? Yes, and they said my air-ship was flimsy. Why, she's good ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... my people, awake from thy dreaming, In foolishness be not immersed! Clear is the sky, brightly the sun is beaming; The clouds are ...
— The Haskalah Movement in Russia • Jacob S. Raisin
... than utter foolishness of this latter Charlie o'er the water nonsense, whether in rhyme or prose, there is but one word, and that word a Scotch word. Scotch, the sorriest of jargons, compared with which even Roth Welsch is dignified and ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... system. The United States stands at the political zenith; the confederate States at the political nadir. The Southern confederacy denies the truth of our system, and asserts that political equality is a fiction and foolishness. To it, indeed, political equality is a stumbling block; for the confederate constitution bases itself openly and unblushingly on the principle of property in man. It has been blasphemously announced that this is the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... his pocket for a match. From the look of his face you never could have told how very uncomfortable he felt "Naw," he drawled. "I ain't never sure of what any hoss will do. I've had too much dealings with 'em for any uh that brand uh foolishness." He lighted the cigarette as if that were the only matter in which he took any real interest, though he was ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... great veil of woven lace, a white-ivory prayer-book, a mother-of-pearl rosary with a little glass peep-hole in the silver crucifix, showing all manner of pretty things. Horieneke sighed with happiness. Mother haggled and bargained, said within herself that it was "foolishness to waste all that money," but bought and went on buying; and, every time something new went into the big basket, ...
— The Path of Life • Stijn Streuvels
... he clutched at the man eagerly, saying: "Ah, no, now, don't resort to any such foolishness. Can't you trust a fellow?" Belton ...
— Imperium in Imperio: A Study Of The Negro Race Problem - A Novel • Sutton E. Griggs
... London University at the age of twenty-one and resume them at forty-three, you will find them (one is told) a considerably tougher job than you found them twenty-two years before. Youth is the time to read for examinations; youth is used to such foolishness, and takes it lightly in its stride. At thirty you may be and probably are much cleverer than you were at twenty; you will have more ideas and better ones, and infinitely more power of original and creative thought; but you will not, probably, find it so easy to grip and retain ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay
... o' Polly dancin' in with the goat to welcome him; and then he clasps his hands—so—and drops on his knees, and hangs down his head—so—and sez, 'Me chyld! me vow! Oh, heavens!' But jest then Billy—who's gettin' rather tired o' all this foolishness—kinder slues round on his hind legs, and ketches sight o' the parson!" Jack paused a moment, and thrusting his hands still deeper in his pockets, said lazily, "I don't know if you fellers have noticed how much ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... of the feast sat at the head of the board. He was greatly altered. He had grown thick-set and rather gummy, with a fiery, foxy head of hair. There was a singular mixture of foolishness, arrogance, and conceit in his countenance. He was dressed in a vulgarly fine style, with leather breeches, a red waistcoat, and green coat, and was evidently, like his guests, a little flushed with drinking. The whole company stared at me with a whimsical muggy look, like men whose senses ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... and we crossed the Nicolai bridge. We were both a little drunk. He told me of his joy, the joyful feeling of having done a good action; he said that it was all thanks to myself that he could feel this satisfaction; and held forth about the foolishness of the theory ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... line, quick—none of that for me. This fo'closure business has ruined haalf the gentlemen in our county, suh. But for that foolishness two thirds of our fust families would still be livin' in their homes. No, suh, ...
— Colonel Carter of Cartersville • F. Hopkinson Smith
... he came one afternoon, I actually felt glad to see him, and welcomed him cordially. The mantle of his oddity and foolishness seemed to have slipped off, and the person I so joyfully hailed was the real man whom I felt to be in nowise inferior to myself, and moreover closely related. Finding no trace of annoyance within me at sight of him, nor any sense of my time being wasted with ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore
... the changeling, whose curious engine had been thus successfully played off, his shift of countenance and gesture had even something droll, or rather tragi-comic in it: there was now an air of sad repining foolishness, superadded to his natural one of no meaning and idiotism, as he stood with his label of manhood, now lank, unstiffened, becalmed, and flapping against his thighs, down which it reached half way, terrible even in its fall, whilst under the dejection of spirit and flesh, which naturally followed ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... said the man, and held up the snake. Mr. Miller says: "Oh, fiddlesticks! That's a blue racer, as harmless as the peck of a chicken." Then he took hold of Mitch and shook him and says: "Here, Mitch, this is all foolishness—you're just scart; that snake ain't pisen. He can't hurt you more than a chicken." So Mitch sat right up and looked at his hand which wasn't swelled. And he says: "I am pisened, I'm sick." "Oh, shucks," said Mr. Miller. "It's just ...
— Mitch Miller • Edgar Lee Masters
... he shouted. "I've had as much of this foolishness as I'm going to take. When that young space brat comes back, I'm going to throw the ...
— Sabotage in Space • Carey Rockwell
... of foolishness,'' i.e. foolish!), a man of Judah whose son was a member of David's bodyguard. He was possibly the grandfather of Bathsheiba (see 2 Sam. xi. 3, xxiii. 34), a view which has been thought to have some bearing on his policy. He was one of David's most trusted advisers, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... undoubtedly was, pretty Phyllis Neville might have done far better for herself. A rumour even found credence in some quarters that she had actually refused the wealthy aristocrat for Jim Freeman's sake, but there were not many who held this belief. It implied a foolishness too sublime. ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... significance, its hidden secrets, lest any of us should suffer in vain, and our lives be altogether a failure. To be able to suffer patiently and gladly for God's sake, is thus a great wisdom; it is a sign of future blessedness. It is the wisdom of God, which is foolishness to men. "If thou hadst the science of all the astronomers," says Eternal Wisdom; "if thou couldst speak and discourse about God as fully and well as all angels and men; if thou alone were as learned as the whole body of doctors; all this would not bestow on thee so ...
— The Shepherd Of My Soul • Rev. Charles J. Callan
... knowledge merely for its own sake is of course foolishness, but it is a very rare kind of foolishness. Nearly always the learned man pays his debt to society in full measure, if we but give him time enough. So it was with "The Learned Blacksmith." From his deep learning, Elihu Burritt at last ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume III (of 6) - Orators and Reformers • Various
... her ill to be so misjudged. I must plead guilty also to having wronged her in my thoughts. While I try to exercise the broadest charity, my calling, as a teacher, has brought me in contact with many girls that—through immaturity and innate foolishness—are guilty of conduct that taxes one's faith in human nature severely. Goodish sort of girls are sometimes infatuated with very bad men. I suppose it is evident to all that Miss Mayhew's early and, indeed, present influences ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... oligarchial "prefect system" to a minimum, and uniting in a real effort to keep abreast with the great world outside by means of a co-operative study of politics and the Press. The idea will seem mere foolishness and an impossibility to many of those who did not see it actually at work. At the best it will seem the kind of thing we may have read of in books about "freak schools," where so much loss has obviously to be set against whatever is gained. In this case, not only the idea, but ...
— The School and the World • Victor Gollancz and David Somervell
... of the next morning. During that night we thought only of the Indians, for of course we did not as yet believe they had left us for good. We did not return to sleep by the fire—that would have been very foolishness. Some went back to get their arms in order, and then returning we all lay along the edge of the bluff, where the path led into the bottom, and watched the prairie until the morning. We lay in silence, or only muttering our thoughts ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... making some money to furnish the home-nest, instead of doing the lovey-dovey. The kind of fellow that kicks about working overtime, that wants to spend his evenings reading trashy novels or spooning and exchanging a lot of nonsense and foolishness with some girl, he ain't the kind of upstanding, energetic young man, with a future—and with Vision!—that we want here. How about it? What's your Ideal, anyway? Do you want to make money and be a responsible member of the community, ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... was in torture; all his illusions—desires and sentiments blended—were cruelly wounded. Then, he had just discovered a deplorable faculty; a new cause for being unhappy. The sight of this foolishness made him suffer. How these coarse young men lied! Gustave seemed to him a genuine idiot, Arthur Papillon a pedant, and as to Jocquelet, he was as unbearable as a large fly buzzing between the glass and the curtain of a nervous man's room. Fortunately, Maurice ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... my son, it was Bes who told Peroa and his guests that he and not you had given the King her name, which you do not seem to have denied. Well, doubtless both of you are to blame for foolishness, no more, since well I know that you would have died ten times over rather than buy your life at the price of the honour of the Lady of Egypt. This I will say to her as soon as I may, praying that it may not be too late, and afterwards you shall tell me everything, which you would have done well ...
— The Ancient Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... tone in the man's voice that Kitty could not ignore, though she disliked him intensely for it—the more so, perhaps, because she felt that he was in the right. He addressed her as though she were a little wilful child, whose foolishness he had endured for some time, but was not going ...
— Kitty Trenire • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... would be more startled by the difficulty he would find if he tried to get them out. If they once learned the advantages of our liberties they would find it hard not to get away, but to go away. I restrain my temper with difficulty when I contemplate the foolishness of the people who discuss with gravity the possibility of a successful invasion of these United States by a foreign foe. The thought always arises when I hear these cries from our army and naval officers for a greater armament: 'Are these men cowards?' I don't believe ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... of the town had made my name a by-word," she explained in a low, tense voice, her eyelids lowered. "My foolishness in running off with my Lord Rotherby—that I might at all cost escape the tyranny of my Lady Ostermore" (Mr. Caryll's eyelids flickered suddenly at that explanation)—"had made me a butt and a jest and an ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... beast, bird, or fish so crafty or so powerful but some one man can worst him, and will take the trouble to do it if the game seems to be worth while. Some lure would doubtless have been found, some scheme devised for the hiding of the line, whereby the big trout's cunning would have been made foolishness. Some swimming frog, some terrified, hurrying mouse, or some great night-moth flopping down upon the dim water of a moonless night, would have lulled his suspicions and concealed the inescapable barb; and the master ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... and talking foolishness till I said to him: If you goes on in that 'ere way I'll hit you a hot ...
— Romano Lavo-Lil - Title: Romany Dictionary - Title: Gypsy Dictionary • George Borrow
... door, ushered in the members of classes, kept the lecture-room in order, and so forth, imbibing by the way various doctrines, or parts of doctrines, which she is not the sort of person to assimilate, but with which she is experimenting: holding, meantime, a grim intuition of their foolishness, or so it seems to me. 'The science' made it easier for her to seek her ancestors in a foreign country with only a hundred dollars in her purse; for the Salem priestess proclaims the glad tidings that all the wealth of the world is ours, if we will but assert our heirship. Benella believed this ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... thinking of? What chain of misreasoning had they in their heads when they hit on that as a device for making the crops grow? Who can tell? Who can make the crooked straight, or number that which is wanting? As said Solomon of old, so must we—"The foolishness of fools is folly." One thing only we can say of them, that they were horribly afraid of famine, and took that means of ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... derisively from several places at the same instant, and then they all began speaking at once, vying with each other in ridiculing the foolishness of 'them there Socialists', whom ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... that country, and when the November winds are up among us it is lambing time there." I wish that my pupils had asked me to explain any other passage. [The FOOL comes in and stands at the door holding out his hat. He has a pair of shears in the other hand.] It sounds to me like foolishness; and yet that cannot be, for the writer of this book, where I have found so much knowledge, would not have set it by itself on this page, and surrounded it with so many images and so many deep colours and so much fine gilding, if it ...
— The Unicorn from the Stars and Other Plays • William B. Yeats
... reproachful light. Her gay looks told my sombre mood That what's not happy is not good; And, just because 'twas life to please, Death to repel her, truth and ease Deserted me; I strove to talk, And stammer'd foolishness; my walk Was like a drunkard's; if she took My arm, it stiffen'd, ached, and shook: A likely wooer! Blame her not; Nor ever say, dear Mother, aught Against that perfectness which is My strength, as once it was my bliss. And do not chafe at social rules. Leave that to charlatans ...
— The Victories of Love - and Other Poems • Coventry Patmore
... her away from him almost harshly and gazed at her as he queried, "W'y, you po' baby, you! Who's bin puttin' dis hyeah foolishness in yo' haid?" Then his laugh rang out as he patted her head and drew her close to him again. "Ef yo' pappy do bring a step-mothah into dis house, Gawd knows he'll bring de ...
— The heart of happy hollow - A collection of stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... snapped Andy. His green eye glowered at the bay. "Ef it hadn't been for foolishness ...
— Uncle William - The Man Who Was Shif'less • Jennette Lee
... 'Don't talk any more such foolishness or I'll have you ironed. You've been drinking so much that you are seeing things, and I won't have the crew disturbed by ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... had been walking away from it. "I must dream no more," thought he, "or if I do indulge in any more daydreams, I certainly shall neither sleep nor dream to-night. It is getting dark already, and here I am lost in the forest, and all through my own foolishness. If the stars do not shine, I shall not know how to direct my steps; indeed, if they do, I don't know whether I have walked south or north, and I am in a pretty pickle; not that I care for being out in the forest on a night like this, but my sisters and Humphrey ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat
... FOOLISHNESS OF MAN.—God has introduced into human character infinite variety, and for you to say that you do not love and will not associate with a man because he is unlike you, is not only foolish but wrong. You are to remember that in the precise manner ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... was Edith,—Edith, who had held him rapture-bound on that first Sunday in church—Edith, who had burst so unexpectedly upon his life that first evening in her father's home. He had not allowed himself any foolishness about Edith. It was evident that Edith was pre-empted, just as he was pre-empted, and the part of honour in his friend's house was to recognize the status quo. . . Still, Mr. Allan Forsyth was unnecessarily self-assured. He might have made it less evident that he was within the enchanted circle, ...
— The Cow Puncher • Robert J. C. Stead
... source of contemplation which nature affords us, one, too, that is open to the dweller in crowded cities as well as to the shepherd on Salisbury plain, and which might sometimes suggest the foolishness of an inordinate love of money. Consider the prospect which each unveiled night affords us, telling of wonders such as we have hardly the units of measurement to estimate; and then think how strange it is that we should ever allow our petty personal possessions of to-day to render ...
— The Claims of Labour - an essay on the duties of the employers to the employed • Arthur Helps
... Dedeagatch, her southern port, her window on to the Aegean, and a Greek army is between Bulgaria and Constantinople, but peasant Bulgaria will thrive quite well without a port; she virtually never used Dedeagatch, and it would be obvious foolishness to shed more blood for the possession of this remote harbour. The exit of Varna on the Black Sea suffices for all the ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham
... head. "No!" she said. "They want to, I'm sure of that, but yet neither one of 'em will speak first. Such foolishness I never did see. Now take yesterday! Cousin Sam went to town, and Cousin Sim werried every single minute he was gone. The mare was skittish, and the harness might break, and he might meet the cars, and I don't know ...
— The Wooing of Calvin Parks • Laura E. Richards
... himself the while for having presumed to indulge in a season of bright hopes and delicious dreams. Why the devil should such an unlucky fellow as he had always been venture to aspire to happiness? It was all foolishness, and sure to end in bitter disappointment; but he had had his lesson now, and would be wiser for ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... he manufactures coffins wholesale for the trade. Still, I didn't know they called themselves that. Anyhow, it seems, as though that handbill is a genuine piece of downright foolishness. The idiot ought to be stopped advertising in ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton
... "There's no time for foolishness," Tim said, impatiently. "His gang may be close behind, an' we can't afford to pay him off ...
— Down the Slope • James Otis
... the woods, Henry. Here we learn to take what we can, an' let alone what we can't. I guess the wilderness jerks all the foolishness out o' a man, an' brings him plum' down to his level. Ain't I right 'bout thar comin' straight ...
— The Eyes of the Woods - A story of the Ancient Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... dropped a form. You see, I made the mistake of thinking that the principal branches were Football, Baseball and Hockey. When I'd woke up to the fact that a little attention to mathematics and languages and such foolishness was required it was too ...
— Left End Edwards • Ralph Henry Barbour
... myself with an album at the table, and Frances Chislett chatted with Sir Lionel. They were close by me, and every word they said was audible. It was the veriest chit-chat, and Leo's remarks on the little bunch of charms and knicknacks that he found in the workbox seemed trivial to foolishness. "I'd no idea Damer was so empty-headed," I thought, and I rather despised Miss Chislett for ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... the night before, and of his suspicions as to the guilt of Creviss and his gang in the mysterious robberies that had occurred in the two towns. "But," he concluded, "it is not up to me to get at the matter. It is work for the sheriff. However, if those boys try any of their foolishness with us, we'll turn in and send them to the reform school, where ...
— Ted Strong's Motor Car • Edward C. Taylor
... of the most onspeakable foolishness that I've run aginst since I settled in New Constantinople," observed the landlord with a contemptuous sniff; "the minute the committee arrove and stated their bus'ness, Dawson would kick 'em out of his shanty and clean across the street, and he'd be lacking in the instincts of a man ...
— A Waif of the Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... sin no less than the love itself. Her wish for him had grown to a fire in her blood and now she was stained by her own passion, pregnant from her own sin. God's punishment had visited her and soon would be visible to all the world. Gro saw however immediately the foolishness of her thought. For one moment she lingered at the thought of the one woman of all the earth, who had immaculately conceived. Then she uttered an inward prayer that the Mother of God would lighten her understanding and give her clearness of ...
— Sleep Walking and Moon Walking - A Medico-Literary Study • Isidor Isaak Sadger
... enough," the Squire answered; "but it's foolishness to douse the light. We'll set it up on the stones here at the mouth of the gully while Walter and I work up to the left of the gully and you up the rock. It will light up their only bolt-hole; and if you, Father Halloran, will keep an eye on it from the bushes here you ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... taken to themselves no small airs of recent years—they dress, so far as their means will go, as flashily as servants in cities, and stand upon their dignity. This foolishness has, perhaps, one good effect—it tends to diminish the illegitimate births. The girls are learning more self-respect—if they could only achieve that and eschew the other follies it would be a clear gain. It may be questioned whether purely ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... had a very exalted opinion of Wilkie's intelligence, but now he was amazed to see how greatly he had overestimated it. "Enough of such foolishness," he interrupted, curtly. "This duel ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... there, rotting, with no profit to anybody—rotting where they had been dropped by men called away to attend the urgent necessities of political revolutions. The practical, mercantile soul of Senor Hirsch rebelled against all that foolishness, while he was taking a respectful but disconcerted leave of the might and majesty of the San Tome mine in the person of Charles Gould. He could not restrain a heart-broken murmur, wrung out of his very ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... the thing without sense," the black man answered angrily. "How can you ask my companions and me to do that which must end in failure? For years we have waited for such a chance as this, and now that it has come, you wish us to throw it away owing to this foolishness about ...
— The Tragedy of The Korosko • Arthur Conan Doyle
... inventor softly. "I must catch it now, and see what foolishness it is," for the professor did ...
— Under the Ocean to the South Pole - The Strange Cruise of the Submarine Wonder • Roy Rockwood
... answer: "Surely, dear nurse, the gods have bereft thee of thy sense; and verily, they can make the wisdom of the wise to be foolishness, and they can give wisdom to the simple. Why dost thou mock me, rousing me out of my sleep, the sweetest that hath ever come to my eyes since the day when Ulysses sailed for Troy, most hateful of cities? Go, get thee to the chamber of the women! Had another ...
— The Story Of The Odyssey • The Rev. Alfred J. Church
... trus' on Him fur as enny sense in doin' uv it; but ef I go to enny my foolishness, fus' thing I know de Lord gwine leave me to take keer uv myse'f, preacher or no preacher—same as ef He was ter say, 'Dat's all right, cap'n: ef you gwine to boss dis job, boss it;' an' den whar I be? Mas' Ned tole you to go: go ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... now daily heaped upon him in speeches and in the press, and talked about it in a casual dreamy way which reminded me irresistibly of President Lincoln, whom, if in nothing else, he resembles alike in longanimity and in length of limb. He had seen Davitt's caveat, filed at Rathkeale, against the foolishness of trying to frighten him out of his line of country by calling him bad names. "Davitt is quite right," he said, "the thing must be getting to be a bore to the people, who are not such fools as the speakers take them to be. One of the stenographers ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (1 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... "I slept that foolishness away. I must have sounded like a character in The Lying Valet." Her present mood obscurely troubled him; he infinitely preferred her in the pale crumpled silk and candle light of the evening before. "I wish I could tell you what ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... bowed down and of course so did I, on general principles. Somerfield didn't and the old buck whirled that bull-roarer over him ever so long, and the red-eyed hag cursed and spat at him, but he never budged. That sort of conduct is damned foolishness according to my notion. But then, you see, in a kind of a way he was backing his prejudices against theirs and prejudices are pretty solid things when you consider. Still, he took a ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... he would know all its properties. For this reason he examines the object on all sides; for this reason he tears and breaks it; for this reason he puts it in his mouth and bites it. We reprove the child for naughtiness and foolishness; and yet he is wiser than we ...
— The Child Under Eight • E.R. Murray and Henrietta Brown Smith
... it was only you and the doctor that saw my foolishness," continued the other, still in a low voice. "Other people might have talked, but I knew that you were a reliable man, Smith. And you won't talk about it in the future, I'm quite certain of that. ...
— At Sunwich Port, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... slip which seemed to imply that she had a right to expect help, it smacked of possible heart-interest—sob-stuff—so dear to enterprising special writers for a yellow press. He couldn't understand how or where Peter had met the girl; possibly some youthful foolishness back there in Carolina. Maybe she'd followed him north, to become what her friendship with such as the blonde person indicated. Vandervelde was a cautious man and he thought he had better investigate that message, ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... his back to the door, his face in the washbowl. As he scoured he sputtered. Max could make little out of it, for Bannon's face was under water half the time, but he caught such phrases as "Pete's darned foolishness," "College boy trick," "Lie abed all the morning," and "Better get an alarm clock"— which thing and the need for it Bannon greatly despised—and he reached the conclusion that the matter was nothing more serious than ...
— Calumet "K" • Samuel Merwin and Henry Kitchell Webster
... knows who to fool wid. You is de uppishes' cow I ever see in all my life—puttin' on so much style—an' yo' milk so po' an' blue, I could purty nigh blue my starch clo'es wid it. Look out dar, Peggy, how you squeeze 'g'ins' Lady! She ain' gwine teck none o' yo' foolishness. Peggy ain't got a speck o' manners! Lady b'longs ter de cream o' s'ciety, I have yer know,—an' bless Gord, I b'lieve dat's all de cream dey is about her. Hyah! fur Gord's sake lis'n at me, passin' a ...
— Moriah's Mourning and Other Half-Hour Sketches • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... afford to lose, knowing that unless the horse meets with some unforeseen accident he is certain to win the race. As I understand it, he has bet so much money that if by any chance Emperor should lose the race it would seriously hurt young Blake. Of course, this is all foolishness from our standpoint, but the fact remains that the young man has bet this money, and that any accident which would interfere with his pulling off that race would cause ...
— Montezuma's Castle and Other Weird Tales • Charles B. Cory
... Joe, rather shamefacedly deprecating the desire to lionize him, "there wasn't much credit in what I did. I'm even sorry I did it, for my foolishness sent me to the hospital an' put me out o' the war. But there was Tom McChesney, lyin' out there in No Man's Land, with a bullet in his chest an' moanin' for water. Tom was a good chum o' mine, an' I was mad when I saw him fall—jest as the Boches was drivin' us back to our ...
— Mary Louise and the Liberty Girls • Edith Van Dyne (AKA L. Frank Baum)
... very close they now stood and each was breathing with more than normal quickness. Her cheeks were white, her nostrils dilated and quivering, her blue eyes baleful and cruel, whilst her lips wore never so faint a smile. For a second La Boulaye looked the very picture of foolishness and alarm. Then it seemed as if he drew a curtain, and his face assumed the expressionless mask that was habitual to it in moments of great tension. Instinctively he put behind him his hands which held the paper. Cecile's lips took on an added curl of scorn as she observed ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... immediate interest lies in this. The foolishness of England in Ireland finds an exact parallel, although on a smaller scale and for a shorter period, in the early foolishness of England in her own colonies. In both cases there is an attempt to suppress individuality and initiative, to exploit, to bully, to Downing Street-ify. It was a ...
— The Open Secret of Ireland • T. M. Kettle
... new ministry. They observed that many of their officers were destitute of energy, and they resolved to infuse new life into the service, by moving its members continually from place to place. But officials live long, and the most robust ministry dies early, and the wisdom of one cabinet is foolishness to ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... a matter of fact, noticed anything. "He sometimes looks terribly tired," she said a little uncertainly, "but I dare say it's all my foolishness, Mr. Drummond. I am afraid I am inclined to be nervous about other people's health—" Estelle sighed softly. She often accused herself of faults which no one had discovered in her. "Winn, I am sure, would be the first ...
— The Dark Tower • Phyllis Bottome
... at this time smitten with an infatuation such as by many men not prone to superstition was ascribed to the special judgment of God. Not only was the King of England, as he had ever been, stupid and perverse: but even the counsel of the politic King of France was turned into foolishness. Whatever wisdom and energy could do William did. Those obstacles which no wisdom or energy could have overcome his enemies themselves ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... ten, but even at thirty it would be foolishness to retrace all that hard-won distance merely for the sake of keeping in sight of this muddy stream, the very water of which is unfit for Christian stomach, and of no value otherwise. 'Tis my vote we strike directly east and north, following as straight a trail as possible until we find ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... love to Him? But in one way I entirely agree with you, unless it is spontaneous it is not only useless but harmful. Imagine a child forced to talk to its father. And this seems to me the truest defense of prayer; to the 'natural man' it always will seem foolishness, to the 'spiritual man' to one who has recognized the All-Father it is the absolute necessity of life. And I think by degrees one passes from eager petition for personal and physical good things into the truer and more Christlike ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... of the Pestalozzian ideas became very extended. Many excellent private schools were founded on the Pestalozzian model, while on the other hand self-styled Pestalozzian reformers sprang up on all sides. All this imitation was both natural and helpful; the foolishness and charlatanism in time disappeared, leaving a real advance ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... on every side I find only compliments to make you about them. It is true that you could not doubt their sincerity any more than you could the real merit of your work. It is needless to speak of the modesty of true talent; this modesty cannot go to the extent of foolishness, and the Artist and supreme Architect of the spheres gives us Himself the example of this legitimate satisfaction which the consciousness of having done well brings us, by rejoicing over His work ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated
... his smile, his gestures—and she knew that she did not charm him in any way, and that Lady Pickering, in her very foolishness, did charm him, and the knowledge made her very grave and careful when she was with him. Delight and pain were hidden beneath this manner of careful gravity, but, as the excitement of Franklin's presence had at first done—and in how much greater degree—they subtly transformed ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... Chloris, is Not just exactly Horace's Ideal of a lady At the shady Time of life; You mustn't throw your soul away On foolishness, like Pholoe— Her days are folly-laden— She's ...
— Tobogganing On Parnassus • Franklin P. Adams
... The real creature was adorable, but, for some reason, maddening, and not, at all events, the being of his fancy. Their old relations—ethereal and exquisite, no doubt—now seemed an empty mockery, self-deluding foolishness. He coloured at the remembrance of all that Disraeli had hinted, and Reckage had brutally declared, on the large topic of idealism in passion. A man, in spite of all determinations to be uncomplaining, knows the How much and How little that he may demand, merely ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... itself was one of his inspirations, so was the hirin' of college waiters, the openin' of the two 'Annex' cottages, the South Shore Weather Bureau, and a whole lot more. Sometimes, as in the weather-bureau foolishness, the disease left him and t'other two patients—meanin' me and Cap'n Jonadab—pretty weak in the courage, and wasted in the pocketbook; but gen'rally they turned out good, and our systems and bank accounts ...
— The Depot Master • Joseph C. Lincoln
... of Spirits to their million-headed nondescript. Pantheism dethrones Jehovah and places no other intelligence in his place as Creator and Ruler of the universe; and, being conscious of the odium that necessarily attaches itself to Atheism, on account of its everlasting foolishness, they steal the name of God to ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume I, No. 7, July, 1880 • Various
... fool gets so much more out of his foolishness," the man retorted. "Talk of the responsibilities of age; humph! They are nothing compared to the responsibilities of youth. There's Dan now—" He looked again ...
— The Calling Of Dan Matthews • Harold Bell Wright
... Old Home House itself was one of his inspirations, so was the hirin' of college waiters, the openin' of the two 'Annex' cottages, the South Shore Weather Bureau, and a whole lot more. Sometimes, as in the weather-bureau foolishness, the disease left him and t'other two patients—meanin' me and Cap'n Jonadab—pretty weak in the courage, and wasted in the pocketbook; but gen'rally they turned out good, and our systems and bank accounts was more healthy than normal. One ...
— The Depot Master • Joseph C. Lincoln
... account, nothing direct. Still, I will own all my foolishness, Pathfinder; for I ought to own it to a generous friend like you, and there will be an end of it. You know how young people understand each other, or think they understand each other, without always speaking ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... in the way of learning state secrets than I am, Orme," I answered sarcastically, being rather irritated at the course of events and his foolishness. "What ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... received Miss Rupert's amiably-worded refusal to become his wife was Jasper aware how firmly he had counted on her accepting him. He told Dora with sincerity that his proposal was a piece of foolishness; so far from having any regard for Miss Rupert, he felt towards her with something of antipathy, and at the same time he was conscious of ardent emotions, if not love, for another woman who would ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... some new foolishness, persuaded him to go with him to Philadelphia; and, give his valuable services in the mining ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... spiritual life without spiritual food. The strong men in Christ are the good feeders. Those who feed upon the bread of heaven will develop in that which is heavenly. No man has religion enough at the start to take him through life, unless he dies early. The foolishness of the five foolish virgins consisted in their not taking an additional supply of oil. So it is now with every one who does not daily replenish his supply of spirituality. He who tries to live without communion with God—in reading, in praying, in meditation and obedience to ...
— Autobiography of Frank G. Allen, Minister of the Gospel - and Selections from his Writings • Frank G. Allen
... refuse? Unless, indeed, there were somebody else in the room, to give her courage, and that was hardly to be expected. Isabel began casting wildly about her for help. Her thoughts ran in a rushing current, and even in the midst of her tragic despair some sense of the foolishness of it smote her like a comic note, and she ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... did not: and there's the curse, you'll see! Nay, all of it's one curse, my life's mistake Which, nourished with manure that's warranted To make the plant bear wisdom, blew out full In folly beyond field-flower-foolishness! The lies I used to tell my womankind, Knowing they disbelieved me all the time Though they required my lies, their decent due, This woman—not so much believed, I'll say, As just anticipated from my mouth: Since being true, devoted, constant—she Found constancy, devotion, truth, ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... want of intelligence &c 498, want of intellect &c 450; shadowness^, silliness, foolishness &c adj.; imbecility, incapacity, vacancy of mind, poverty of intellect, weakness of intellect, clouded perception, poor head, apartments to let; stupidity, stolidity; hebetude^, dull understanding, meanest capacity, shortsightedness; incompetence &c (unskillfulness) 699. one's weak ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... not like to be asked any such questions," continued the surgeon. "He cannot possibly know how the wind and sea are going to be during the voyage, and he does not like to be teased with foolish inquiries on the subject. There is no end to the foolishness of the questions which landsmen ask when they are at sea. Once I heard a man stop a sailor, as he was going up the shrouds, to inquire of him whether he thought they would see any whales on ...
— Rollo on the Atlantic • Jacob Abbott
... pleasure because a sign of trust and love to Him? But in one way I entirely agree with you, unless it is spontaneous it is not only useless but harmful. Imagine a child forced to talk to its father. And this seems to me the truest defense of prayer; to the 'natural man' it always will seem foolishness, to the 'spiritual man' to one who has recognized the All-Father it is the absolute necessity of life. And I think by degrees one passes from eager petition for personal and physical good things into the truer and more Christlike spirit of prayer. 'These are ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... to get enough at the end of the day to pay for our soggy biscuits and horse-bean coffee, and just look what falls into the lap of some lazy sneakin' greenhorn who never did a stoke of work in his life! Here are WE, with no foolishness, no airs nor graces, and yet men who would do credit to twice that amount of luck—and seem born to it, too—and we're set aside for some long, lank, pen-wiping scrub who just knows enough to sit down on his office stool and hold on to ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... of my merchandise at normal price as I hurried home. I did not dare to give it away, or even lose it, lest I should incur suspicion. My burden was far too precious to be risked by any foolishness now. I got on as fast as it is possible to travel in such countries; and arrived in London with only the lamps and certain portable curios and papyri which I had ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker
... without ostentation. I have discovered that much of the trouble in the world to-day arises from a love of showing-off, and of course, if there is no one about to show-off to, you don't indulge in that sort of foolishness. Being the only family in the place we were not spurred into extravagances of living, either because we had to keep up an end in society, or because we wished to make a better showing than someone else was making. There was correspondingly no gossip going on all about ...
— The Autobiography of Methuselah • John Kendrick Bangs
... led him to teach school a few months in the year to the children of the white settlers. Indeed, Houston was so much taken with the pursuit of scholarship that he made up his mind to learn Greek and Latin. Naturally, this seemed mere foolishness to his mother, his six strapping brothers, and his three stalwart sisters, who cared little for study. So sharp was the difference between Sam and the rest of the family that he gave up his yearning after ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... casual and general remarks as to the foolishness of all automatic writing, must of necessity be made by those who are ignorant of this spiritual law, or whose experience of such ...
— Seen and Unseen • E. Katharine Bates
... subject again, two days later, Theodosia told him plainly that it was no use. She would never consent to leave Heatherton and all her friends and go out to the prairies. The idea was just rank foolishness, and he would ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... it's all foolishness, this losing sleep and wearing ourselves out," declared a tall, thin, pasty-faced individual. "Here's my plan: just break up into parties of two or three and each party strike out for a different town and catch ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... not get her out of his mind. He laughed angrily at his own foolishness: it was absurd to care what an anaemic little waitress said to him; but he was strangely humiliated. Though no one knew of the humiliation but Dunsford, and he had certainly forgotten, Philip felt that he ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... much. Yet the fact remains that she is—yours, to make or mar: and it seems to me no less than your duty to pocket your pride, and save her from her own foolishness in spite of herself." ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... five-and-twenty, and his features were rather manly than handsome. There was a dash of boldness and confidence in his countenance; but as the eyes of the maiden met his, he turned aside as if abashed and passed on. Tibby blushed at her foolishness, but she could not help it, she felt interested in the stranger. There was an expression, a language, an inquiry in his gaze, she had never witnessed before. She would have turned round to cast a look after ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various
... "It's all foolishness to talk about any one getting the worst of it in the matrimonial game," declared the big man with a silk hat and a loud ...
— The New Pun Book • Thomas A. Brown and Thomas Joseph Carey
... few, yet strike the heart of hidden truth. Oh, fear not, doubtless sorrow waits you yonder," and he pointed toward Dunwich. "Yet it comes to my lips that there's joy beyond the sorrows, the joy of battle and of love—for those who care for love, which I think foolishness. There stands a farm, and the farmer is a friend of mine, or used to be. Let us go thither and feed these poor beasts and ourselves, or I think we will never come to Dunwich through this cold and snow. Moreover," he added thoughtfully, "joy or sorrow or both of them are best met by full men, and ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard
... the feast sat at the head of the board. He was greatly altered. He had grown thick-set and rather gummy, with a fiery, foxy head of hair. There was a singular mixture of foolishness, arrogance, and conceit in his countenance. He was dressed in a vulgarly fine style, with leather breeches, a red waistcoat, and green coat, and was evidently, like his guests, a little flushed with drinking. The whole company stared at me with a whimsical muggy look, like ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... the just measure of that freedom of conscience, freedom of opinion, freedom of speech and action which we hear so much inflated foolishness about as being the precious possession of the republic. Whereas, in truth, the surest way for a man to make of himself a target for almost universal scorn, obloquy, slander, and insult is to stop twaddling about these priceless independencies and attempt to exercise ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... you will keep watch down street for Pa. He says he is dammed if he will stand this foolishness any longer." ...
— Peck's Bad Boy and His Pa - 1883 • George W. Peck
... politicians (Butler among others), to remain here four long years and longer. Stener, it suddenly occurred to him, was probably being put through the same process he had just gone through. Poor old Stener! What a fool he had made of himself. But because of his foolishness he deserved all he was now getting. But the difference between himself and Stener was that they would let Stener out. It was possible that already they were easing his punishment in some way that he, Cowperwood, ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... mere vapouring. Although attempting to bridge the gulf which separated the real from the unreal, he refused to treat the latter supernaturally. That mystery which lesser minds found in the occult, he saw in nature all about him. He denied the existence of spirits, just as he urged the foolishness of the will-o'-the-wisps of former ages,—alchemy and the black art. In one sentence he destroyed the pretensions of palmistry. "You will see," he wrote, "great armies slaughtered in an hour's time, where in each individual the signs of the ...
— Thoughts on Art and Life • Leonardo da Vinci
... is no great thing," said Tom. "The firm owes Williams nearly four times that amount, and he isn't a man who will stand much foolishness. Father is not making so much money, either, as you think for, and the first thing you know, with your smartness, you will ruin him and me both, if you keep on making a fool of yourself. But that wouldn't hurt you. You don't think of nobody ...
— A Forest Hearth: A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties • Charles Major
... enough foolishness," said the stranger to Malbihn. "You deserve death, but I am not the law. I know now who you are. I have heard of you before. You and your friend here bear a most unsavory reputation. We do not want you in our country. I shall let you go this time; ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Queen, is excellent, but methinks thou hast misread the poet. Nyleptha,' I went on, 'thou knowest well that thy words are empty foolishness, and that this is no ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard
... lost no opportunity of chaffing him upon his duties. "If you'd turn to at sailoring or washing paint or something useful, now," he would say, "I could see the fun of it. But to be mending things that haven't no insides to them appears to me the height of foolishness." And doubtless these continual pleasantries helped to reassure the landsmen, who went to and fro unmoved, under circumstances that might ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... at his first salutation he calls them fools, saying [O fools, and slow of heart to believe], Nor may this seem strange in comparison to what is yet farther delivered by St. Paul, who adventures to attribute something of Folly even to the all-wise God himself [The foolishness of God (says he) is wiser than men]; in which text St. Origen would not have the word foolishness any way referred to men, or applicable to the same sense, wherein is to be understood that other passage of St. Paul [The preaching ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus
... reconsideration. Though you will allow me to have my own opinion about her foolishness. Grammer is a very wise woman, and she was as wise in that as in other things. You think there was something very fiendish in the compact, do you not, Miss Melbury? But remember that the most eminent of our surgeons in past times have entered ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... very devil out of sheer resentment. It's a wonder some fellow hasn't killed me, for it's a fact that I've thrashed every man in the blamed place except Jim Briggs—and some of them two or three times. And I make them line up at the bar and drink at my expense, and all that sort of foolishness. ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... art not drawn away, By foolishness, to break the Sabbath-day; Be constant at the pious house of prayer, That thou mayst ...
— Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of England • Robert Bell
... What foolishness then to seek reconciliation, even if it were possible! Reconciliation at this stage would be the ruin of America. If King George were indeed clever, he would eagerly repeal all the obnoxious acts and ...
— The Eve of the Revolution - A Chronicle of the Breach with England, Volume 11 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Carl Becker
... breeze, gone astray in her coil of contortions, stumbles like a drunken vagabond against angle and corner, filling the dusty air with scraps of paper and rag. "What fury of foolishness! Are the Gods gone mad?" she exclaims ...
— The Fugitive • Rabindranath Tagore
... Cousin, nothing at all," replied Blacky. "I was just talking foolishness to myself." Sammy looked at him sharply. "You aren't feeling sick, are you, Cousin Blacky?" he asked. "Must be something the matter with you when you begin talking about new-laid eggs, when everything's covered with snow and ice. Foolishness is no name for ...
— Blacky the Crow • Thornton W. Burgess
... giving me good advice about guarding against sickness there, and showing such an interest in my prospects with the palm-oil people, and in my welfare generally, that I was still more inclined to think that my scare about the shackles was only foolishness from first to last. He seemed to be really pleased when he found that I was not seasick, and interested when I told him how well I knew the sea and the management of small craft from my sailing in the waters about Nantucket every summer for so many years; and then we got to talking ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier
... was, but sensible's a different affair. Her head's filled with foolishness, all along of her reading story books, I tell her; and she's got an idea that her pretty face will bring her a rich husband, and I don't know what beside. I shall be obliged to you, miss, if you'll kindly keep a sharp eye and a tight hand over Milly. Not but what ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... thought. Some customers wants the big ones on top; but I tell 'em it's all foolishness; just vanity." Gates laughed a dry, hacking little laugh at his drollery, and kept his eyes on Annie. She smiled at last, with permissive recognition, and Gates came forward. "Used to know your father pretty well; but I can't keep up with ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... theory of life calculated to satisfy the speculative necessities of the pagan or Gentile world. To the educated and sceptical Athenian, as to the critical scholar of modern times, the physical resurrection of Jesus from the grave, and his ascent through the vaulted floor of heaven, might seem foolishness or naivete. But to the average Greek or Roman the conception presented no serious difficulty. The cosmical theories upon which the conception was founded were essentially the same among Jews and Gentiles, and indeed were but little modified until the establishment ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... prevailed upon the driver to tell me the tale of Trotting Cob. He told it in his own way. He interlarded his speech with strange oaths. He stopped often to swear at the road, to correct the horses, and he was emphatic in his opinions on the foolishness of women, so I must e'en do as he did, and tell the tale of Trotting Cob ...
— The Moving Finger • Mary Gaunt
... successful rival has arisen, even in the immediate vicinity of this seeming favourite of nature, to defeat all the calculations of mercantile sagacity, and to add another to the thousand existing evidences "that the wisdom of man is foolishness." ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... both had suffered severely in the epidemic of the small-pox. Paul had lost his wife and child, and Rowland's children had all had the disease, but had recovered. As for any idea about taking infection from men coming out of places where that infection existed, that would have been the merest foolishness; at least, Paul and Rowland thought so, and as they were destined to be my close companions for some days, cooking for me, tying up my blankets, and sleeping beside me, it was just as well to put a good face ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... has made her ill to be so misjudged. I must plead guilty also to having wronged her in my thoughts. While I try to exercise the broadest charity, my calling, as a teacher, has brought me in contact with many girls that—through immaturity and innate foolishness—are guilty of conduct that taxes one's faith in human nature severely. Goodish sort of girls are sometimes infatuated with very bad men. I suppose it is evident to all that Miss Mayhew's early and, indeed, present ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... good characteristic, but if carried to an excess it becomes foolishness. We are prone to speak of the resources of this country as inexhaustible; this is not so. The mineral wealth of the country, the coal, iron, oil, gas, and the like, does not reproduce itself, and therefore is certain to be exhausted ultimately; and wastefulness in dealing ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... literature in their origin, and will give clues enough to what might be told. Jesus heard, and he saw what it meant; and afterwards he told his friends: "From within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders ... foolishness; all these evil things come from within, and defile the man" (Mark 7:21-23). The evil thought takes shape to find utterance, and gains thereby a new vitality, a new power for evil, and may haunt both speaker and listener for ...
— The Jesus of History • T. R. Glover
... at London University at the age of twenty-one and resume them at forty-three, you will find them (one is told) a considerably tougher job than you found them twenty-two years before. Youth is the time to read for examinations; youth is used to such foolishness, and takes it lightly in its stride. At thirty you may be and probably are much cleverer than you were at twenty; you will have more ideas and better ones, and infinitely more power of original and creative thought; but you will not, probably, find it so easy to grip and retain knowledge ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay
... a man's being a blockhead."—Spect., No. 520. "We may insure or promote its being a happy state of existence to ourselves."—Gurney's Evidences, p. 86. "By its often falling a victim to the same kind of unnatural treatment."—Kirkham's Elocution, p. 41. "Their appearing foolishness is no presumption against this."—Butler's Analogy, p. 189. "But what arises from their being offences; i. e. from their being liable to be perverted."—Ib., p. 185. "And he entered into a certain man's house, named Justus, one that worshipped ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... two ways of rising in the world: either by one's own industry or profiting by the foolishness ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... wife has been dead these seven years, and why should not I enjoy myself a little?" His manner was full of quirks and quips and eccentricities, waving his umbrella and gesticulating strangely, with a great deal of action. I suppose, to help his natural foolishness, he had been drinking. We parted, he exhorting me not to forget his message to his sons, and I shouting after him a request to be remembered to the widow. Conceive something tragical to be talked about, and much might be made of this interview in a wild road among the hills, ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... he said feebly after a moment. "Only the foolishness of it all ... I can forget like a boy ... the thing will never come to pass ... never, never, never! There stands the hero, splendid with success, rich in experience, eager, willing, a demigod whom the Irish could worship ... his word would destroy faction, wipe out treason, ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... Folly and foolishness! to think that a gentleman is known by his finger-nails, like Nebuchadnezzar, when his grew long in the pasture: or that the badge of nobility is to be found in the smallness of the foot, when even a fish has ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... the most perfect feminist ideal that as yet the world has known; an ideal of service within the home of which full life she is the high-priestess; an ideal turning to foolishness the false values of this industrial age. And this ideal of service, shared by all, gives to the most unlearned Jewish woman the priceless knowledge of an eternal truth: a truth that has to be learnt by each one among us before we can find happiness—that only by losing ourselves can we ...
— Women's Wild Oats - Essays on the Re-fixing of Moral Standards • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... the living God; and that Tertullian was right when he wrote the "Testimonium Animae naturaliter Christianae."[969] And when it was sufficiently demonstrated that "the world by philosophy knew not God (as a Redeeming God and Saviour), then it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe." This was all a dispensation of divine providence, which was determined by, or "in, the wisdom ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... told that my days of romance are over, that I have reached that stage in life when the foolishness of young lovers is impossible to me. And yet even now I cannot see a boy and a maid together without my heart beating faster; for there is nothing more beautiful on God's green earth than the love of lovers, and I know that when a lad feels a girl's first kisses ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... or of insurpassable folly. The violation of Belgium must have been designed either in order to bring us into the quarrel, or on the supposition that, in spite of treaties and warnings, we should yet remain neutral. Yet the foolishness of such a calculation is as nothing to that which prompted the excuse that Germany had to violate Belgian neutrality because the French were going to do so, or had done so. In such a case undoubtedly the wisest course for Germany ...
— Why We Are At War (2nd Edition, revised) • Members of the Oxford Faculty of Modern History
... truism, but one that has a peculiar truth in aviation, to say that history repeats itself. To-day we find large numbers of people who still cherish the opinion that—save perhaps when on service in war—it is nothing less than criminal foolishness for men to ascend in aeroplanes. That attitude of mind persists; the growing safety of flight has not affected it to any appreciable degree. But those eager for the progress of aviation need not despair, or imagine that their particular industry is being ...
— Learning to Fly - A Practical Manual for Beginners • Claude Grahame-White
... laughed. "Well, anyhow," he said, "don't talk any more foolishness about not livin' in your own ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... near making the major eat his words with gunpowder sauce on the side. So, for having the nerve to declare himself, he has lost his sergeant's stripes and has likewise gone to the guardhouse to meditate over the foolishness of taking issue with his superiors. If you don't see him for the next thirty days, you'll have the consolation of knowing that he isn't avoiding ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... just about to git up and go home, bein' tired of that foolishness, when I heard a little bird wakin' up away off in the woods, and callin' sleepy-like to his mate, and I looked up and I see that Ruben was beginnin' to take interest in his business, and I set down agin. It was the peep of day. The light come ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... glance at her, I saw she was watching me with that queer, sideways look.... Ey.... And in a moment I was all flesh and blood and foolishness. I heard ...
— Wanderers • Knut Hamsun
... those that drown themselves in the desire of this world's wretched wealth, were not yet more fools than he! But alas, their folly as far surpasseth the foolishness of that silly fellow as there is difference between the height of heaven and the very depth of hell. For our Saviour saith, "Woe may you be that laugh now, for you shall wail and weep." And "There is a time of weeping," saith the scripture, ...
— Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation - With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens • Thomas More
... style before. Don't cultivate it, dear, if you hope to win manly hearts. Men like to do all the lecturing themselves, and I find it diplomatic to feign profound ignorance on all subjects, outside of a bandbox; it delights them so to enlighten us. No wonder they fancy us fools when we feign foolishness so ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... teach us the exact medium, and the observing vintner will soon find out where he has been wrong, better than he can be taught by a hundred pages of elaborate advice. Different varieties will require different treatment, and it would be foolishness to suppose that two varieties so entirely different, as for instance, the Concord and the Delaware, could be pruned, trained and pinched in the same manner. The first, being a rank and vigorous grower, with long joints, will require much longer pruning than the latter, which is a slow-growing, ...
— The Cultivation of The Native Grape, and Manufacture of American Wines • George Husmann
... weight about a hundred and ten; light complected with black hair and eyes. You can't help but find him. Tom's a good sort," he observed, coming back, "but he's young. He don't realize yet that when things get real serious this sheriff foolishness just nat'rally bogs down. Now I reckon we'd better talk ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... earnest red-heads from the north—and accomplished two mud-hens, a ruddy duck, and a dozen blackbirds. In the uplands they knew almost to a feather how many partridge each thicket had bred; to a covey where the quail used; and once in a great while, by strategy on their own side and foolishness on the part of the quarry, they caught one sitting and brought it down. What is quite as much to the point, they felt the season as it changed. The gradual transformation from the green of summer to the brown and lilac of late autumn, the low swinging of the sun, the mellowing of ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White
... the next morning. During that night we thought only of the Indians, for of course we did not as yet believe they had left us for good. We did not return to sleep by the fire—that would have been very foolishness. Some went back to get their arms in order, and then returning we all lay along the edge of the bluff, where the path led into the bottom, and watched the prairie until the morning. We lay in silence, or only muttering our ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... wouldn't cut up another clothes-line in a hurry, I'll promise you." "Upon the whole I think your counsel is wise, Cousin Lucinda," replied his father, "for the wisest man of whom we have any account says, 'Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him,' and the same wise man adds in another place: 'He that spares the rod spoils the child.'" I know not whether he acted from a sense ...
— Walter Harland - Or, Memories of the Past • Harriet S. Caswell
... side of the question, it was not difficult to make an excellent case against the accused. The early heretics, mostly unlettered people, always marred the purity of the cause by falling into exaggeration and foolishness, by denouncing what was good as well as what was corrupt in a system against which they were revolting—thus laying themselves open to attack and confutation, and alienating from them many who would ...
— The Secret Chamber at Chad • Evelyn Everett-Green
... fruit of righteousness. James says, "Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin." 4:17. To refuse to do a good thing known unto us when we have opportunity is wrong and displeasing to God. Solomon says, "The thought of foolishness is sin." "In a multitude of words there wanteth not sin." The apostle John clearly and positively defines sin in these words: "Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr
... renegades, for the most part, who had drifted to the frontier in the hope of making a living without work more easily than in the cities. As there were no lawyers or courts and few recognized laws, the whole people constituted themselves a jury, and if a man were known to be guilty it was foolishness for any one to waste logic on his case. And there is almost no record of an innocent man being hanged by lynchers in the West. For minor offences the penalty was to be marched out of camp, with a warning to be very cautious about coming that way again, but ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... so ruffled in spirit all the way home that she had lagged behind the others, and it was only when Rob and Phil began their irresistible foolishness that she had forgotten her grievance long enough to laugh. No sooner had they all gone up-stairs, and she was alone with Joyce, than her indignation waxed red-hot again, and she sputtered out the whole story to ...
— The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor • Annie Fellows Johnston
... social conventions. This affair brought down upon Byron a storm of public indignation which drove him from England. The society which had petted him and excused his vagaries and violations of all decency, now turned upon him with rage and made the idol responsible for the foolishness of his worshipers. To the end of his life, neither society nor the critics ever forgave him, and did not even do justice to his genius. His espousal of the popular cause in Europe embittered the conservative ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... talk foolishness, girl. How could you and he be a pair, you being what you are, and he brought up as he has been, with the example of a religious woman like Mrs Knox before his eyes? I cant understand how he could bring himself to ...
— Fanny's First Play • George Bernard Shaw
... upon a careful comparison of similarities, is that the good old man is in reality the stage hero grown old. There is something about the good old man's chuckle-headed simplicity, about his helpless imbecility, and his irritating damtom foolishness that is strangely ...
— Stage-Land • Jerome K. Jerome
... and self, will reveal in power. Not a Christ such as your little thoughts can frame a conception of, but a Christ according to the greatness of the heart and the love of God. Oh, come and accept this Christ, and rejoice in Him! Be content now to leave all your feebleness, and foolishness, and faithlessness to Him, in the quiet confidence that He will do for you more than you can think. And so let it henceforth be, as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory ...
— Holy in Christ - Thoughts on the Calling of God's Children to be Holy as He is Holy • Andrew Murray
... known in the West. They say that at eighteen he was the swiftest in Colorado. Then he went down to Denver, and a month ago he gave up a job there that was paying him a hundred and fifty a month to start this foolishness. They say he might be a great inventor, too, and here he is trying to speak on politics when he doesn't know anything about public questions, and he doesn't know how to talk, either; I don't know whether to be mad about it or just to feel sorry, because Charlie's father is ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... Sis Tempy," he said pleasantly, "en leave de talk er cunju'n ter de little nigger childun. We er done got too ole fer dat kinder foolishness." ...
— Nights With Uncle Remus - Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation • Joel Chandler Harris
... but sanction this." And certainly, if men will so deal with it, there remains no certainty of interpretation then. But this is not the way that we deal with other ancient writings; and its unfairness and foolishness, if ever attempted to be practised there, are so palpable as to be ridiculous. No doubt it is difficult to convince men against their will; nevertheless, there is a good hope, that, as sound principles of interpretation are more generally ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold
... there ain't going to be any of this hell-whoopin' stuff, Raine. You can't travel these trails at a long lope with yore hair flyin' out behind and—and all that damn foolishness. I've saw 'em ...
— The Quirt • B.M. Bower
... "Yes, foolishness," repeated Sylvia, with a sort of hysterical violence. She sat out on the front porch with some mending, and she ...
— The Shoulders of Atlas - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... her own foolishness that sweet little child might have been hers, she thought, as her heart went after the little one with an indescribable yearning which made her stretch out her arms as if to take the baby to her bosom and hold it there forever. Guy had called it for her, and that touched ...
— Miss McDonald • Mary J. Holmes
... her say, after a while. "Rindy has just set her heart on him, but Arad, he thinks it's all foolishness to get such a young one. He's willing to take one big enough to do the chores, but he doesn't want to feed and keep what 'ud only be a care to 'em. He always was closer'n the bark on a tree. After all, I'd hate to see ...
— Big Brother • Annie Fellows-Johnston
... you mean of foolishness, p'tit Jacques? Ah! I was wrong! not striped; wreenkled, you say? all up togezzer like a brown apple when he is dry up,—like zis way!" and Mother Marie drew her pretty face all together in a knot, and looked so comical that we went into fits ...
— Rosin the Beau • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... "But I reckoned, as you wern't familiar with this sort o' thing, you wouldn't keer, by any foolishness o' yours, to stampede the rocks ahead of us, and break down the trail, or send down an avalanche on top of us. But just ...
— Snow-Bound at Eagle's • Bret Harte
... the purest theology, that what he upheld and his opponents attacked, was a revelation direct from God. He knew too, that, in the words of St. Paul, he had to preach what to the holiest of the Jews was a stumbling-block, and to the wisest of the Greeks foolishness. He was none the less ready to do so, that Jesus Christ, his Lord, might say of him, as He said once of that Apostle, 'I will show him how great things he must suffer for my name's sake.' Luther's enemies in the Romish Church have thought ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... to want something," leaning her weary head against Mona's, "but it's more than tonics—it's a new body that I'm needing, I reckon. I daresay it's only foolishness, but sometimes I feel like a little child, I want to be took care of, and someone to make much of me, and say like mother used to, 'Now leave everything to me. I'll see to it all!' It seems to me one wants a bit of petting when one comes ...
— The Making of Mona • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... she did not love me passionately now it was only because I, in my foolishness, had willed it otherwise. For the first time I longed to have her as my own; for the first time I rebelled. I looked at her hungeringly until her cheeks grew red and her eyelids fluttered. I had a wild impulse to ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... poor one; they may not have enough to eat. If so, they may stay in this rich land of mine to hunt and fish as long as they please. But tell them that the Eskimos love wise men, and do not care for foolishness. They must not talk any more about this search after ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne
... fully occupied in serving the Cause. As he had said, there were no other female conspirators in their circle. Sobrenski, the red-haired leader, detested women, and thought them all fools, who generally added the sin of treachery to their foolishness. Emile himself had taken no interest in any woman since he had lived in Barcelona. He too had found them treacherous. Since he had lost his little childish goddess, Marie Roumanoff, he had had no desire to play the role of lover. ...
— The Hippodrome • Rachel Hayward
... impressions of the C.I. in Los Angeles. When he was describing its workings, two or three young ladies put their hands to their faces and laughed, one saying, "How strange and funny it must have seemed." Another young lady remarked, "There has been too much foolishness about such things." Mr. Franklin Hart said: "After you have been there about a week the old idea seems stranger than the new. You wonder to yourself however such thoughts could have fastened themselves on ...
— A California Girl • Edward Eldridge
... not in their counting up of the number, but in the sense of the greatness of their sins, and in the vehemency of their cry for pardon. And it is observable, that though the birthright was Reuben's, and, for his foolishness, given to the sons of Joseph, yet Judah prevailed above his brethren, and of him came the Messiah (1 Chron 5:1,2). There is a heavenly subtilty to be managed in this matter. 'Thy brother came with subtilty, and hath taken away thy blessing.' The blessing belonged to Esau, but Jacob by his ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... your friends are acting foolishly. You cannot win. You and hundreds of innocent people must suffer, and Ireland, Neal, Ireland will come to the worse, to the old subjection, to the old bondage, to the old misery, through your foolishness. I say this, not to dissuade you from going on, for I think that you must go on now, but in order that when you look back on it all afterwards you may remember that there were true friends of Ireland who were not on ...
— The Northern Iron - 1907 • George A. Birmingham
... was so pathetic as Hope drew it, that for a moment she felt almost a touch of self-pity, but the next she laughed scornfully at her own foolishness, and rising with an impatient shrug, walked away in the direction ...
— Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... idea that there was such danger in an elephant-hunt; yet I must say," continued Alexander, "that, although it may appear foolishness, it only makes me more anxious to ...
— The Mission; or Scenes in Africa • Captain Frederick Marryat
... than you are, Flo. You can't help being a girl, I know; but I'm willing to help you all I can out of a girl's foolishness. Only a girl would talk of ringing the bell, and making a row, because she can't have all her own way. Come now, I want to talk to you about the new boy, and we can ...
— That Scholarship Boy • Emma Leslie
... and dried figs." At this the judge stared with amazement; but instantly seeing how the matter stood, he decreed that Vardiello should be sent to a madhouse, as the most competent tribunal for him. Thus the stupidity of the son made the mother rich, and the mother's wit found a remedy for the foolishness of the son: whereby ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... I think too much of Rodney for that, and if he gets himself into trouble through his foolishness, I'll be one of the first to jump in and ...
— True To His Colors • Harry Castlemon
... the lank man with that sort of persuasiveness which can turn instantly into bluster, "all this is pure foolishness, you know. We're here to stay. We've bought this place, and some other land to go with it, and we expect to stay right here and make a living. It happens that we expect to make a living off of sheep. Now, we don't want to start in by quarreling with our neighbors, ...
— Flying U Ranch • B. M. Bower
... enjoy. Yet in times you love to applaud, the paltry interference of men would have curtailed one of these privileges. For a mandate was issued by the papal legate in Germany in the 14th century, decreeing, that "the apparel of women, which ought to be consistent with modesty, but now, through their foolishness, is degenerated into wantonness and extravagance, more particularly the immoderate length of their petticoats, with which they sweep the ground, be restrained to a moderate fashion, agreeably to the decency of the sex, under pain of the sentence of excommunication." "Velamina ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... such as any great city unbares. But the Rector used the many instances to illustrate the requirements of wide sympathy, and to teach us to reverence the qualities of personality even when we could not fathom the reasons for apparent foolishness. He would say things like this: "Never forget that the development of our free will is what God wants. Love may make mistakes, but they are not failures. There are times when one's own life is of very little importance compared ...
— Frank H. Nelson of Cincinnati • Warren C. Herrick
... weak spot in Cousin," regretted Hughes. "He's a good hater. But he'd have a bigger count for that little sister of his if he'd take them wherever he finds them. It's all damn foolishness to pick and choose your spot for killing a red skunk. And this friendly Injun talk makes me sick! Never was a time but what half the Shawnees and other tribes was loafing 'round the settlements, pretending ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter
... again!" She buried her face in her pillow and groaned aloud. She wished wildly for all sort of impossible things to happen, that she could put miles and miles, and oceans and continents between herself and everybody—or that she could wipe out all recollection of her foolishness from everyone's mind, or never, never have to ...
— Anxious Audrey • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... fairly well educated. His father was a man of influence and considerable means. He had many friends, good and bad. I do not think the man was intentionally bad, but I do not excuse him. He was a fool—that's all—a fool. And, as fools must, he paid the price of his foolishness. ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright
... much, for when your highness really does plan for the future your plans don't last twenty-four hours. Your blessed father married, and I married, and all men marry, and it's the only way to cure you of your foolishness, and—" ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner
... "You're talking foolishness," said he. "You know that you are in debt for your little room, and that the proprietaire won't let you stay much longer. You know that you have not sufficient food. You know that you have had nothing ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... "'No foolishness, dear child,' I said gently. 'You don't know perhaps that I am ruined. Yes, completely: I don't even know how I am going to pay ...
— Atlantida • Pierre Benoit
... sleep there that night. Certainly we had reason to thank the Lord that He had given us a berth in a more quiet place than we ourselves had chosen, which He had of His will allowed to be taken from us. His providence truly extends over all things and His foolishness is wiser than the wisdom of men, and sometimes ...
— Journal of Jasper Danckaerts, 1679-1680 • Jasper Danckaerts
... somewhat vain, Preferred a fop to her own rightful lord And ran away; and then for ten long years The might of Hellas on the Trojan plain Grappled in conflict such as had been mete To guard Olympus, and Scamander ran Red with heroic blood-drops. And they got The woman. And it all was foolishness!... That was your Golden Age. I hope ...
— Mr. Faust • Arthur Davison Ficke
... position on th' north side ontenable an' his position on th' south side onbearable, is thransportin' his troops up th' river on rafts an' is now engagin' th' inimy between Spitzozone an' Rottenfontein, two imminsely sthrong points. All this dimonsthrates th' footility an' foolishness iv attimptin' to carry a frontal position agains' large, well-fed Dutchmen with mud in th' fr-ront ...
— Mr. Dooley's Philosophy • Finley Peter Dunne
... and ended in shame. The whole of Christendom, one might say—for there were English knights there, like Sir Thomas Challoner, as well as Germans, Frenchmen, Spaniards, and Italians in the army—had gone forth to destroy a nest of pirates, and behold, by the fury of the elements and the foolishness of their own counsels, they were almost destroyed themselves. They had left behind them ships and men and stores and cannon: worse, they had left Algiers stronger and ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole
... boys better read yo' Bibles 'stead of studyin foolishness. (He gets up and starts into the store. Clarke and the little girl follow him.) Reckon Ah better git dat medicine. (The ...
— De Turkey and De Law - A Comedy in Three Acts • Zora Neale Hurston
... wronged you still more," he said briskly, "for I thought at first that you were inclined to help Chris in his foolishness. Now I see it was ...
— From Sand Hill to Pine • Bret Harte
... communicated a sharp yet not unpleasant sting to the palms of my hands. The handle broke short off at the point where the helve meets the steel. The blade was driven deep in the oak wood. I suppose I should have regretted my foolishness, but I did not. The handle was old and somewhat worn, and the accident gave me an indefinable satisfaction: the culmination of use, that final destruction which is the ...
— Adventures In Contentment • David Grayson
... for the largest shipping that visited New Orleans. Yet the violent opposition and the calumnies still continued. There was a wonderful persistency in the false reports which came from bitter opponents who would not be convinced. The foolishness and ignorance of their arguments are almost incredible. But however foolish, they had to be disproved; and Eads set himself patiently to work to point out the errors in logic and in physics; and in doing so ...
— James B. Eads • Louis How
... house, even if it has to be done with this foolish paper," he continued to rage as he sought in the bandana bundle and produced an official document with a red tape on it. "You go and put on your clothes, and I'll break up this foolishness and get 'em in ...
— The Golden Bird • Maria Thompson Daviess
... of making ourselves adored, but we lack one tiny thing, the understanding of the various kinds of caresses. In embraces we lose the sentiment of delicacy, while the man over whom we rule remains master of himself, capable of judging the foolishness of certain words. Take care, my dear; that is the defect in our armor. It is our ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... and were despised, and naked, and buffeted—persecuted and homeless labourers—a spectacle to the world, and to angels, and to men, "made as the filth of the earth and the off-scouring of all things." We know that their preaching was to the Greeks "foolishness," and that, when they spoke of Jesus and the resurrection, their hearers mocked[47] and jeered. And these indications are more than confirmed by many contemporary passages of ancient writers. We have already seen ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... The idea of the Bible being the basis of law is almost too silly to be seriously refuted. I admit that I did say that Shakespeare was the greatest man who ever lived; and Dr. Fulton says in regard to this statement, "What foolishness!" He then proceeds to insult his audience by telling them that while many of them have copies of Shakespeare's works in their houses, they have not read twenty pages of them. This fact may account for their attending his church and being satisfied with that sermon. I do not believe ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... whose coming was announced. And in this they were not wrong, for they are all under the dominion of the Christians, and those who resisted have been killed; all the zemes having been removed to Spain, to teach us the foolishness of those images and the deceits of devils, nothing remaining of them but a memory. I have brought some things to your knowledge, Most Illustrious Prince, and you will learn many others later, since you will probably ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt
... shook her small glittering head, very sadly. "I do not understand you, and I fear you. For you talk foolishness and in your face I see the face of Jurgen as one might see the face of a dead man ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... distressing the owner by your foolish strike; you are putting money into his pockets while your families suffer for food. There is no great principle at stake to make your conduct seem noble and to call forth sympathy for your suffering,—only foolishness and the blind following of a demagogue whose living depends upon ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter
... and advertisers. Drop your attack on the Mid and Mud: you've got 'em licked, anyway. Let up on the street railway: I notice you're taking a fall out of them on their overcrowding. Treat the theaters decently: they're entitled to a fair chance for their money. Cut out this Consumers' League foolishness (I'm surprised at Milly Neal—the way she's lost her head over that). Make friends instead of foes. And go after Elias M. Pierce, to the finish. Do this, and I'll back you with the whole Certina income. Come on, now, Boyee. ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... as the merchant was gone Wali Dad made up his mind that there was only one honourable way out of the shame and distress that he had created by his foolishness, and that was—to kill himself. So, without stopping to ask any one's advice, he went off in the middle of the night to a place where the river wound along at the base of steep rocky cliffs of great height, and determined to throw ...
— The Brown Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... calmly. "It's one of her sympathetic attacks; that's what she calls 'em, sympathetic attacks. She has 'em every time Laban Keeler starts in on one of his periodics. It's nerves, I suppose. Cap'n Zelotes—your grandfather—says it's everlastin' foolishness. Whatever 'tis, it's a nuisance. And she's ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... Markovians realize the foolishness of deporting us because we stumbled onto the relationship between you and them? And if you are in control how can they issue such an order—unless you ...
— Cubs of the Wolf • Raymond F. Jones
... servants hint that Hagar's grief had driven her insane; and now when she observed the unnatural brightness in her eyes, and saw what she had done, she too thought it possible that her mind was partially unsettled; so she said gently, but firmly: "This is no time for foolishness, Hagar. They are waiting for us in the sickroom; so make haste and change the ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... noticed with a certain tender but shrinking regret that Dolly seemed to attach undue importance to the mere upholsteries and equipages of life,—to rank, wealth, title, servants, carriages, jewelry. At first, to be sure, Herminia hoped this might prove but the passing foolishness of childhood: as Dolly grew up, however, it became clearer each day that the defect was in the grain—that Dolly's whole mind was incurably and congenitally aristocratic or snobbish. She had that mean admiration for birth, position, adventitious advantages, which is the mark of ...
— The Woman Who Did • Grant Allen
... saying, "O God and Father of our Lord Jesu Christ, which didst illuminate the things that once were darkened, and bring this visible and invisible creation out of nothing, and didst turn again this thine handiwork, and sufferedst us not to walk after our foolishness, we give thanks to thee and to thy Wisdom and Might, our Lord Jesu Christ, by whom thou didst make the worlds, didst raise us from our fall, didst forgive us our trespasses, didst restore us from wandering, didst ransom us from captivity, didst quicken us from death by the precious blood ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus
... it is true, heard the jailer walk away down the corridor; but perhaps, playing some stupid joke, the man had crept back noiselessly, and was even now outside the door, listening and chuckling to himself at the prisoner's foolishness in imagining that he would be careless enough to go away leaving the door unfastened. The mere idea caused the beads of sweat to start out on Frobisher's forehead; disappointment ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... "You talk foolishness, Abe," Morris rejoined. "Once a man gets married, his wife's family has got to stand for him. Suppose he does bust up; would that be our fault, Abe? Then Philip Hahn sets him up in business again, and the first thing you know, Abe, we got ...
— Potash & Perlmutter - Their Copartnership Ventures and Adventures • Montague Glass
... torture; all his illusions—desires and sentiments blended—were cruelly wounded. Then, he had just discovered a deplorable faculty; a new cause for being unhappy. The sight of this foolishness made him suffer. How these coarse young men lied! Gustave seemed to him a genuine idiot, Arthur Papillon a pedant, and as to Jocquelet, he was as unbearable as a large fly buzzing between the glass and the curtain of a nervous man's room. Fortunately, Maurice made a little diversion ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... risen from his chair in great distress. "Your aunt was talking nonsense because she's piqued over a business matter, George," he said. "She doesn't mean what she said, and neither she nor any one else gives the slightest credit to such foolishness—no ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... worth your picking up there. Ah! dear friends, Jesus Christ, when He was here, 'in whom were hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge,' had to the men that looked upon Him 'neither form nor comeliness that they should desire Him,' and He was to them a stumbling-block and foolishness. And Christ's Gospel comes among busy men, worldly men, men who are under the dominion of their passions and desires, men who are pursuing science and knowledge, and it looks to them very homely, very insignificant; they do not know what treasure is lying in it. You do not know what treasure ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... but the words sounded like so much foolishness, and after waiting a moment Mr. Shawyer went on again, ...
— The Beggar Man • Ruby Mildred Ayres
... progressed slowly but steadily. Life was returning to her, but it was not the same. Out of those days there had come to her a gentle dignity, a strengthening and refining. The face, now pale and drawn, had lost its foolishness. Under the thin, white hair, and in spite of its deep lines, it had grown younger. A great patience, a child- like thoughtfulness had come ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome
... advantage to the world. The extravagances of hero-worship are inevitable, and in nothing is the ridiculous so tremblingly near to the sublime; but allowing for all that, and for what is worse, the almost equally inevitable foolishness which adulation creates, the position of Victor Hugo was of itself an advantage to the world. In a soberer pose altogether, and with a noble modesty which we may claim as belonging to our race, Walter Scott occupied a somewhat ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... by this time I ought to be, with the father and mother I have, and all my long hours on the hillsides with my New Testament and the sheep. I prayed to God on the hill and in the fields, and he heard me, Davie, and made me see the foolishness of many things, and the grandeur and beauty of other things. Davie, God wants to give you the whole world, and everything in it. When you have begun to do the things Jesus tells you, then you will be my brother, ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... it. Of course, there can't be—that's what I have always believed. I have always fancied that stories of ghosts were lies and foolishness, and I'm not ready to back water on that belief. But ...
— Frank Merriwell's Reward • Burt L. Standish
... this book were done it would be advisable to dispense with her services. That, however, seemed unfair to the girl, who liked her work with him, and would consider her dismissal uncalled for; and Owen generally finished his mental discussion with a resolution to ignore Toni's foolishness and trust to time to teach ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... notes in it she had not seen, but had only heard from "that wicked wretch" that Fyodor Pavlovitch had an envelope with notes for three thousand in it. "But that was all foolishness. I was only laughing. I wouldn't have gone to him ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... knows his foolishness is wise so far, at least; but a fool who thinks himself wise, he is called a ...
— Book of Wise Sayings - Selected Largely from Eastern Sources • W. A. Clouston
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