"Ignoramus" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Warrington, with a sigh of great humility; "I feel that I have neglected my own youth sadly; and am come to England but an ignoramus. Had my dear brother been alive, he would have represented our name and our colony, too, better than I can do. George was a scholar; George was a musician; George could talk with the most learned people in our country, and I make no doubt would have held his own here. ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... "You miserable young ignoramus! what are you talking about?" cried the naturalist. "Why, if a man could live to be a hundred, and have a hundred lives, he would not achieve to a hundredth part of what there is to be discovered in ...
— The Rajah of Dah • George Manville Fenn
... interested, would have afforded them entertainment. The rules of no known military war game could be applied to the situation, and its uniqueness was a matter as incomprehensible to the tactician as to the ignoramus. For instance, from Maritzburg to Ladysmith one side alternated with the other at intervals along the line. There were British troops at Maritzburg, Boers at Balgowan; British at Mooi River, Boers at Willow Grange; British at Estcourt, Boers at Ennersdale; British within Ladysmith, and ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... languages that we do not understand always seem jibberings, babblings, in which it is impossible to fix a definite, clear-cut, individualized group of sounds. The countryman in the crowded street, the landlubber at sea, the ignoramus in sport at a contest between experts in a complicated game, are further instances. Put an inexperienced man in a factory, and at first the work seems to him a meaningless medley. All strangers of another race proverbially look alike to the visiting stranger. Only gross differences ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... Sheridan knew comparatively little of history and literature, certainly less than the men against whom he was pitted or whose powers he emulated. He has been known to say to his friends, when asked to take part with them on some important question, 'You know I'm an ignoramus—instruct me and I'll do my best.' He had even to rub up his arithmetic when he thought he had some chance of being made Chancellor of the Exchequer; but, perhaps, many a statesman before and after him has ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... much to heart that she eased her feelings by abusing Pin in thought; Pin was a pig-headed little ignoramus, as timid as ever of setting one foot before the other. And the rest of them would be just the same—old stick-in-the muds, unchanged by a hair, or, if they HAD changed, then changed for the worse. Laura had somehow never ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson
... "The ignoramus," continued Mr. Rowe, "does not know that no molasses is made in these Colonies. He confounds this and the other Colonies with Jamaica. One would suppose Lord North would not be quite so bitter, but he said in a recent speech that America must be made to fear the king; ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... angry because I left them'. He said that after he took me, a stupid little country ignoramus, and made something out of me, my desertion was nothing short of rank ingratitude and religious hypocrisy and treason to the land of my birth. One might have inferred that he picked me out of the gutter, ...
— Sunny Slopes • Ethel Hueston
... jail, and that I wasn't to tell him either. Now goes Cousin Oscar on a beeline to tell Uncle how dreadful Stanley has went and disgraced the family; and Uncle will want to know how he heard of it. 'Why,' says Oscar, 'an old ignoramus from Arizona, named Johnson—friend of Stanley's—he told me about it. He came up here to get me to help Stanley out; wanted me to go out ...
— Copper Streak Trail • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... corners of the earth? To which question we may answer, Not quite. In avoiding that ridiculous sensitiveness which prompts so many Americans to feel personally insulted by the weak remarks of every wandering ignoramus, we would by no means fall into the opposite error of attaching no importance whatever to the good opinion or the degree of consciousness as to our existence entertained by the world ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... she bends over her infant! Beyond it hangs the Madonna del Cardellino of Raffaelle: what heavenly grace, what simplicity, what saint-like purity, in the expression of that face, and that exquisite mouth! And from these must I turn back, on pain of being thought an ignoramus, to admire the coarse perpetration of Michel Angelo—because it is Michel Angelo's? But I speak ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... for what to do; so he said to him in soft, low accents, "Verily, you tribe of foxes are the most pleasant people in point of tongue and the subtlest in jest, and this is but a joke of thine; but all times are not good for funning and jesting." The fox replied, "O ignoramus, in good sooth jesting hath a limit which the jester must not overpass; and deem not that Allah will again give thee possession of me after having once delivered me from thy hand." Quoth the wolf, "It behoveth thee to compass my release, by reason of our brotherhood and good fellowship; and, if ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... Your feeling that you haven't learned anything delights me, too. It proves that you have learned a great deal. It is only the ignoramus who thinks he is wise; the wise man knows that he is an ignoramus. That's a platitude, but it is none the less true. I have cold comfort for you: the more you learn, the less confident you will be of your own learning, the more utterly ignorant you will ...
— The Plastic Age • Percy Marks
... looks like a beginning of activity; Scott consented to move on Arlington Heights, but during two or three days opposed the seizure of Alexandria. Is that all that he knows of that hateful watchword—strategy—nausea repeated by every ignoramus ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski
... ignorant—though if ignorance of language were a qualification he might have been a consul at home. His easy familiarity with great men was beautiful to see, and when Philip learned what a tremendous underground influence this little ignoramus had, he no longer wondered at the queer appointments ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 5. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... quality. He realized fabulous profits. He had nothing but scorn for all the wiseacres who subscribed to the English papers, received daily bulletins and compared market quotations from year to year, getting, for all their pains, results that made them tear their hair. He was an ignoramus and he was proud of it! He trusted to his lucky star. Whenever he thought it best, he would ship his produce off from the port of Valencia, and—there you are!—it would always turn out that his oranges found no competition on arrival and brought the highest ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... since they know it all in advance; remarks that three quarters of female authors are no better than they should be; maintains that Madame Guion would have been far more useful had she been merely pretty and an ignoramus, such as Nature made her,—that Ruth and Naomi could not read, and Boaz probably would never have married into the family had they possessed that accomplishment,—that the Spartan women did not know the alphabet, nor the Amazons, nor Penelope, nor ...
— Women and the Alphabet • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... me angry, Viktor Nikolaitch," she said, clinking glasses with the lawyer. "It seems to me you give advice and know nothing of life yourself. According to you, if a man be a mechanic or a draughtsman, he is bound to be a peasant and an ignoramus! But they are the cleverest ...
— The Party and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... while the instructor of my tender age; my good mother, to whom I owe everything, and who set so great store on my good deportment, and did not want me to be (that is what she used to say) an illustrious ignoramus, put that book into my hands, though I was then little more than a child at the breast. It has been like my conscience to me, and has whispered into my ear many good hints and excellent maxims for my behavior and for the ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... coarse colour, his eyes dull; he would launch into discourses upon his talent, his success, his development, the advance he was making.... It turned out in actual fact that he had barely talent enough to produce passable portraits. He was a perfect ignoramus, had read nothing; why should an artist read, indeed? Nature, freedom, poetry were his fitting elements; he need do nothing but shake his curls, talk, and suck away at his eternal cigarette! Russian audacity is a fine thing, ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev
... hands of a child. What can an ignorant man do with knowledge? He is as likely to use it wrong end uppermost as in any other manner. Learning is a ticklish thing; it was said by Festus to have maddened even the wise and experienced Paul and what may we not expect it to do with your downright ignoramus? What is thy ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... miserable post of mace-bearer. On the other I built but castles in the air. Your Holiness will do well, since you do not care to give it me, to bestow it on a man of talent who deserves it, and not upon some fat ignoramus who will spend his time scratching his paunch, if I may quote your holiness' own words. Follow the example of Pope Giulio's illustrious memory, who conferred an office of the same kind upon ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... fault; he did wrong through ignorance: these painters, outside their art, are all like this.' Thereupon the Pope answered in a fury: 'It is you, not I, who are insulting him. It is you, not he, who are the ignoramus and the rascal. Get hence out of my sight, and bad luck to you!' When the fellow did not move, he was cast forth by the servants, as Michelangelo used to relate, with good round kicks and thumpings. So the Pope, having spent the surplus of his bile upon the bishop, took Michelangelo ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... ignoramus, a filthy story-teller, a monster. Seward is the brains of the administration. Without Seward, Lincoln would ...
— Raiding with Morgan • Byron A. Dunn
... like the average country gentleman of his time, was a profound ignoramus. What knowledge had been drilled into him in boyhood, he had since taken pains to forget. He was familiar with the punctilio of duelling, the code of regulations for fencing, the rules of athletic sports, and the intricacies of the gaming-table; but anything ...
— Clare Avery - A Story of the Spanish Armada • Emily Sarah Holt
... doubt obtained from the signature, as has been done with the name more than once in modern times. In a bill sent to the grand jury at St. Mary's, Maryland, February 1st, 1643/4, it was stated that Ingle's ship in 1642 was the "Reformation." The bill was, however, returned "Ignoramus," and the use of the name ...
— Captain Richard Ingle - The Maryland • Edward Ingle
... way a boy I knew once did. He suffered just as Dormy does. You'd tell him a thing in his left ear and the first thing you'd know, pop! it would all come out of the other ear and be lost. The poor fellow was growing up to be an ignoramus. Couldn't keep a thing in his head, until one night I overheard his father and mother talking about it in the library. The boy's father wanted to punish him for not remembering what he learned at school, when his mother said just what Dormy here said, that everything went in one ear and ...
— Andiron Tales • John Kendrick Bangs
... the cuts I had pored over. They were a fine, spirited race, very picturesquely attired, mostly in bows and arrows, and as creatures of romance I admired them greatly. Persons such as I and my parents were generally depicted in this connection as fleeing from them. And it did strike me as an ignoramus kind of thing that I should be called a native. When I was reasoned with to the effect that I was a native of Indiana, my resentment but grew. There ...
— Walking-Stick Papers • Robert Cortes Holliday
... unappreciative silence my lack of familiarity with this or that celebrity, the look of wondering pity with which my boy, and indeed every member of the family, regarded me made me feel myself to be a veritable ignoramus. Josephine and her girls knew the whole business from beginning to end, and I must confess that I secretly drank in more than ...
— The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant
... "Ignoramus" (we ignore), the word by which a grand jury indicated its refusal to prosecute an indictment. We here find the Superior Court, the highest common-law court of Massachusetts under the second charter, taking cognizance of a case of piracy. Governor Phips had ...
— Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period - Illustrative Documents • Various
... reported to be the choirs of the Sirens and Tritons. The which I do not avouch for truth, neither rashly deny, having seen myself such fertility of Nature's wonders that I hold him who denieth aught merely for its strangeness to be a ribald and an ignoramus. Also one of our men brought in two great black fowls which he had shot with a crossbow, bodied and headed like a capon, but bigger than any eagle, which the Spaniards call curassos; which, with that sea-cow, afterwards made us good cheer, both roast and ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... consent to be changed into any of the lower animals for a promise of the fullest allowance of a beast's pleasures; no intelligent human being would consent to be a fool, no instructed person would be an ignoramus, no person of feeling and conscience would be selfish and base, even though he should be persuaded that the fool, or the dunce, or the rascal is better satisfied with his lot than they with theirs.... It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied, better to be a Socrates ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... bourgeois mind, socialism is merely a menace, vague and formless. The average member of the capitalist class, when he discusses socialism, is condemned an ignoramus out of his own mouth. He does not know the literature of socialism, its philosophy, nor its politics. He wags his head sagely and rattles the dry bones of dead and buried ideas. His lips mumble mouldy phrases, such as, "Men are not born equal and never can be;" "It is Utopian and ...
— War of the Classes • Jack London
... "Peter, you're an ignoramus. Girls like me never take too much. We began early for one thing, and we're used to it. For another, the more a girl talks, the soberer she is. She talks because she's thinking, and because she doesn't want the man to talk. Now, if you talked to-night, I ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable
... a sceptic, and entirely an ignoramus. But I met a man the other day who would have laughed at us for doubting. He was an awfully strange fellow. His name is Marr. I ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... "The Miracles of Unbelief," has clearly pointed out, either (1) He was the Messiah; or (2) He was the illegitimate son of a fallen woman and the vilest deceiver the world has ever known, or (3) He was the illegitimate son of a fallen woman, and a poor, simple-minded ignoramus, who claimed to be the Messiah and honestly thought He was, but was simply ignorant and deluded. Men in their intellectual pride or religious prejudice may sneer and try to avoid this issue, but every honest thinking man will see and confess ...
— God's Plan with Men • T. T. (Thomas Theodore) Martin
... President's message. Former times when the papers had in 'em straight murders and bank robberies from the inside or out, Mawruss, and you sat opposite somebody in the Subway who had to move his lips while he was reading, you took it for granted that he was an ignoramus which had to hear them simple words pronounced, even if it was by his own lips, before he could understand them, Mawruss, but you take this here letter of the 20th inst., Mawruss, and when you read where President Wilson says with reference to telephone and telegraph rates, Mawruss, 'there ...
— Potash and Perlmutter Settle Things • Montague Glass
... other day, towards Strunalls, where I get my cigars, and had arrived opposite No. —, when I suddenly noticed, just ahead of me, a tall lady of remarkably graceful figure, clad in a costume which, even to an ignoramus in fashions like myself, seemed extraordinarily out of date. In my untechnical language it consisted of a dark blue coat and skirt, trimmed with black braid. The coat had a very high collar, turned over to show a facing of blue velvet, ...
— Scottish Ghost Stories • Elliott O'Donnell
... scarcely speaks, but lies patient and still. He looked in at her this morning, but she did not lift her eyes. Oh, she is so young to die! And she has so much to do. She has not even begun to do yet. She has so much of herself to do with, she is not an ignoramus like me. Her life has been one strong, pure influence Hollis said to-night. He is sure she will get well. He says her father and mother pray for her night and day. And his Aunt Helen said such a beautiful thing yesterday. She was talking to Hollis, for she knows ...
— Miss Prudence - A Story of Two Girls' Lives. • Jennie Maria (Drinkwater) Conklin
... sweet sakes, offer a very different alphabet to the "Schoolma'ams" and Professors. They are no longer flowers, but specimens, each bud and blossom pleading in vain for life, as ruthless fingers coolly dissect them to discover whether they are poly or mollyandria. And what an ignoramus you must be, if you do not know that a balloon-vine is a Cardiospernum Halicactum. The "feast" on these occasions is that "of reason" alone, encyclopedias and dictionaries being all the nourishment required, although a stray bottle ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 17, July 23, 1870 • Various
... told him my name he shewed me, smilingly, an accusation against me, drawn up by someone who had witnessed the fact. The good bishop gently chid me for having called the friar-confessor of the Duke of Medina an ignoramus. He had refused to admit that a priest might say mass a second time on a high festival, after breaking his fast, on the command of his sovereign prince, who, by the hypothesis, had not heard ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... Sir Francis, with his under-glance and covert smile, as they all three wended their way out of the library. "I regret I have never had time to devote myself to acquiring some knowledge of the arts. In music I am a positive ignoramus! I can hold my own best in ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... dog that bit them, after a liberal compotation on the preceding night. Third place, as a scholar! Well! who may he thank for that, I interrogate. Not one Denis O'Donegan!—O no; the said Denis is an ignoramus, and knows nothing of the classics. Well, be it so. All I say is, that I wish I had one classical lick at their provost, I would let him know what the master of a plantation seminary (*—a periphrasis for hedge-school) could do when brought to the ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... but that's an old feller," exclaimed one inspired ignoramus. "Wonder where it came from." Another, a stout, prosperous, business-looking party, observed that it was cracked. "Reckon that was done bringing it here," he said. "The railroads are fearful careless about ...
— The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair - Their Observations and Triumphs • Charles McCellan Stevens (AKA 'Quondam')
... favor. Bless her!" Richard's feverish eyes were fixed upon her; he knew no God, but here was his spring in the wilderness, his shadow of the great rock in a weary land. As for her, she looked only at the judge, expecting—poor little ignoramus—that it was he who ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... some interest in the work, but, strange to relate, the superintendent appointed, a certain Spanish officer named Alcubier, was so ignorant and careless that half the objects found under his supervision were broken or lost before they reached Naples; this ignoramus, it was said, even went so far as to order whole architraves to be smashed up and their bronze lettering to be picked out before making a copy of the original inscription! Under these circumstances the marvel is that ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... lie, I am no rascal; and as for quibbling with words—suppose I did! What then? All the first people does it! The newspapers does it! The gentlefolks that calls themselves the guides of the popular mind does it! I'm no ignoramus. I reads the newspapers, and knows what's what.' 'You read them to some purpose,' said I. 'Well, if you are lamed for life, and unfitted for any active line—turn newspaper editor; I should say you are ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... arrow at the back of the book on one end of the shelf, it would fly to the other end, equally grazing all the bindings. It is ten years since John Milton, or Robert Southey, or Sir William Hamilton have been out of their places, and that was when an ignoramus broke into the study. The volumes of the encyclopedias never change places. Manuscripts unblotted, and free from interlineation, and labeled. The spittoon knows its place in the corner, as if treated by tobacco chewers with oft indignity. You could go into that ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... hope so, sir," answered Dick. "If we don't it shall not be my fault. And although I am rather an ignoramus at present in respect of a sailor's work generally, you will find me both willing and ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood
... marketable, something to bring him fame; every scientist or scholar (if there are any) who fakes a fact in the interest of his theory; every fool who talks through his hat without knowing; every sentimentalist who plays up to the sentimentalism in himself and other people; every second-hand ignoramus who takes over a view or a prejudice wholesale, without investigating the facts it's based on for himself. You find it everywhere, the taint; you can't get away from it. Except by keeping quiet and learning, and wanting truth more ...
— Potterism - A Tragi-Farcical Tract • Rose Macaulay
... or is supposed to believe, and has no reason to give for his belief. He may know a great many other things, may be chock full of worldly learning, but if he ignores these matters that pertain to the soul, we shall label him an ignoramus for the elementary truths of human knowledge are, always have been, and always shall be, the solution of the problems of the why, the whence and the whither of life here below. Great learning frequently goes hand in hand with dense ignorance. The Sunday-school ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... horse, that fell to grazing the bit of green by the way. "As though," he said, "I stood in Cipango beneath a golden roof, I know that it can be done! Twelve hundred leagues at the most. Look!" he said. "You are not an ignoramus like some I have met; nor if I read you right are you like others who not knowing that True Religion is True Wonder up with hands and cry, 'Blasphemy, Sacrilege and Contradiction!' Earth and water make an orb. Place ant on apple and ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston
... feel certain that Sedgwick is the author of the article in the "Spectator". No one else could use such abusive terms. And what a misrepresentation of my notions! Any ignoramus would suppose that I had FIRST broached the doctrine, that the breaks between successive formations marked long intervals of time. It is very unfair. But poor dear old Sedgwick seems rabid on the question. "Demoralised understanding!" If ever I ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... abruptly entering his library in the vital centre of a delectable refutation of an ignoramus—"I suppose it's no use looking to you for sympathy in a matter of ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... the jann are called by names of animals. You all know also that to praise the beauty of a child, without the offer of that child to Allah as a sacrifice, is fatal; because there is unseen a jealous listener who hates and would deform the progeny of Eve. Such facts as those are known to every ignoramus, and their cause is plain. But there exists another and more subtle danger in the careless use of words, particularly with regard to personal remarks, like that of these same children when they cried to our good master: 'Thou hast come in two,' directing ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall
... its educational system and for its schools. These schools are all under Government control, and meet the wants of every class. The authorities are upheld by the parents, both being determined there shall be no such thing as an ignoramus in Denmark, so whether the children are educated at home or sent to school, they must begin lessons at the age of seven. If they have a governess at home the parents must give a guarantee to the authorities that the governess is efficient and capable of giving the standard education to the children. ...
— Denmark • M. Pearson Thomson
... politics had become to him not a mere abstraction, not a matter of expediency, but something concrete, a great working philosophy. This fact had enriched his speeches, and thus it came about that when Mr. Bolitho read them, he discovered that he was fighting not with an ignoramus, but with a man with a powerful mind, a man who, given reasonable circumstances, would be ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking
... you what it is," he said, "there would be trembling in the heart of a very great man when the nine cravens returned without me. For I am no shaveling ignoramus, but a gentleman of birth; aye, and one who, though poor, is a near cousin of the marshal himself. I warrant the rascals who ran away would smart right soundly for leaving me behind. For Gilles de Sille is no simpleton. He knows more than is written ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... praise of some of his officers, especially of Bourlamaque, Malartic, and La Pause, the last "un homme divin." Some of the Canadian officers, praised by Vaudreuil, he had tried and found wanting. "Don't forget," he wrote to Levis, "that Mercier is a feeble ignoramus, Saint Luc a prattling boaster, Montigny excellent but a drunkard. The others are not worth speaking of, including my first lieutenant-general Rigaud." This Rigaud was the brother of Vaudreuil. When the Governor wrote to the minister, he, for his part, said that the success of the expedition ...
— The Conquest of New France - A Chronicle of the Colonial Wars, Volume 10 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • George M. Wrong
... Mountain Boys into the desolate caverns of the mountains and wage war with human nature at large.'' He removed to Burlington, Vermont, in 1787, and died there on the 11th of February 1789. He was, says Tyler, "a blustering frontier hero—an able-minded ignoramus of rough and ready humour, of boundless self-confidence, and of a shrewdness in thought and action equal to almost any emergency.'' Allen wrote a Narrative of Colonel Ethan Allen's Captivity (1779), the most celebrated book in the "prison literature'' of the American revolution; A Vindication ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... glad you understand it, Colonel, and so there's not a bit of harm done, after all. I'm an ignoramus about guard duty, anyway, and I'll wager the guard got on better without me, after all. And now, Colonel, since I've given you a wholly satisfactory explanation as to why I simply couldn't be here to-day, ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... IGNORAMUS, n. A person unacquainted with certain kinds of knowledge familiar to yourself, and having certain other kinds that you know ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... of that is the post-script. It will be just fine to have those dogs along. I suppose Mrs. Calvert sent them up from Baltimore to Deerhurst. But if I were you, Dolly Doodles, I wouldn't let that ignoramus preach to me like he does to you in that letter. He's a prig, that's what he is, and I hate ...
— Dorothy's Travels • Evelyn Raymond
... not keep his eyes off this girl who had already completed the high school course which he had not yet begun; besides, she had learned a lot of other things which would be beyond him to ever reach. Even though he were an ignoramus, he could bask in the light of her greater learning. She did not ...
— Dorian • Nephi Anderson
... go to seek it in the burning heart of Africa, or in the icy regions of the Pole if I knew it were there. But I do not know where it is. I do not know if it be guarded in a triple- locked iron case by some jealous biblomaniac. I do not know if it be growing mouldy in the attic of some ignoramus. I shudder at the thought that perhaps its tore-out leaves may have been used to cover the pickle-jars ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... her head. What could you expect of a woman who meddled with things outside her province? Since she had asserted the grass would absorb everything, its failure to absorb the salt proved beyond all doubt she was an ignoramus, a dangerous charlatan, and a crazy woman, better locked up, who had destroyed Southern California to her own obscure benefit. The victory over the grass became a victory over Miss Francis; of ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... exierit. Ipso quidem tempore quo intus est, hiemis tempestati non tangitur, sed tamen parvissimo spatio serenitatis ad momentum excurso, mox de hieme in hiemem regrediens, tuis oculis elabitur. Ita haec vita hominum ad modicum apparet; quid autem sequatur, quidve praecesserit, prorsus ignoramus. Unde si haec nova doctrina certius aliquid attulit merito esse sequenda videtur." "Historia Ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum," book ii. cap. ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... doubt," he answered carelessly, "but it's a more unnatural thing for a young man of my age to be cooped up in this way than for a woman. Look at me, now. I am three-and-twenty next March, and yet I have never been to a university, nor to a school for that matter. I am as complete an ignoramus as any of these clodhoppers. It seems strange to you, no doubt, and yet it is so. Now, don't you think ...
— The Mystery of Cloomber • Arthur Conan Doyle
... language. The rascal knows it better than I do. The worst of it is, that with his modern reading he is forgetting it; and some fine day, without ever having suspected it, he will find out that he is an ignoramus. For, Senor Don Jose, my nephew has taken to studying the newest books and the most extravagant theories, and it is Flammarion here and Flammarion there, and nothing will do him but that the stars are full of people. Come, ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... sport with his ignorance, he could not refrain from giving him a true answer. Still, his contempt for the ignorant apprentice was not to be concealed, and he replied, "Ninety-five millions of miles, you ignoramus!" James did not retort; but, repeating over in his mind the distance named, fixed it indelibly ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... attendant in the court is to maintain order and preserve dignity. They are almost avid in their pursuit of the ignoramus who comes in with his hat on his head or covers himself on going out before he reaches the door. Their salaries are not large but their duties are not arduous. They may seem solicitous to the judge and sometimes overbearing to the litigants and lawyers, but they are only in the ...
— The Man in Court • Frederic DeWitt Wells
... tremulous paralytic serving the soup, and scattering it in all directions, excepting into the plate where it ought to be delivered; 425 then an unhandy dandy mutilates the fish by cutting it in a wrong direction; here, an officious ignoramus tears asunder the members of a fowl as coarsely as the four horses dragged Ravillac, limb from limb; there, another simpleton notching a tongue into dissimilar slices, while a purblind coxcomb confounds the different sauces, pouring anchovy ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... the force of the artistic passion behind it; its coherent statement had to wait for other and more reflective days. The thing began as a vision, not as a syllogism. Here the name of Franz Schubert inevitably comes up. Schubert was an ignoramus, even in music; he knew less about polyphony, which is the mother of harmony, which is the mother of music, than the average conservatory professor. But nevertheless he had such a vast instinctive sensitiveness ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... "He is an ignoramus," interrupted my friend, as he stepped unsteadily forward, while I followed immediately at his heels. In an instant he had reached the extremity of the niche, and finding his progress arrested by the rock, stood stupidly bewildered. A moment ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... was evidently a conspiracy to murder him, and the deliberate, persistent manner in which that object was being pursued points to a very strong and definite motive. Then the tactics adopted point to considerable forethought and judgment. They are not the tactics of a fool or an ignoramus. We may criticize the closed carriage as a tactical mistake, calculated to arouse suspicion, but we have to weigh it against ...
— The Mystery of 31 New Inn • R. Austin Freeman
... a sugar broker by the name of Waterbury. He was a partner in a large refinery, his office being in South Water street. He was a nice, conservative old man, and let things run on easily. His chief clerk, Mr. Ambler, was every inch a gentleman, who, quickly perceiving what an ignoramus I was, out of the goodness of his heart resolved to teach ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... Sandy. He couldn't interest me. He would be an ignoramus in such things—he would bore me, and I ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... neat, I grant you, Terry," said Lord Clonbrony. "But what a dolt of a born ignoramus must that sheriff's fellow have been, not to know Naboclish when he ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... performers, "you weren't within ten bars of each other!" And Edwin wondered how Charlie could tell that. As for him, he did not know enough of music to be able to turn over the pages for others. He felt himself to be an ignoramus among a company ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... An ignoramus believes the Bible because of the miracles, and because of the miracles an Ingersoll disbelieves it—and both are equally blind . A cult is simply an expression, more or less crude, of the religious sentiment of ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... half of the nearly two hours we were together—partly because both Sam and his sister seemed under some sort of strain, chiefly because I was determined to make a good impression. I told her about myself, my horses, my house in the country, my yacht. I tried to show her I wasn't an ignoramus as to books and art, even if I hadn't been to college. She listened, while Sam sat embarrassed. "You must bring your sister down to visit me," I said finally. "I'll see that you both have the time of your lives. Make up a party of your ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips
... compassionately. Poor Ben had so little opportunity for schooling! He was not to blame for his want of knowledge; but could she throw herself away upon an ignoramus? "It's still there, but has gone ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt
... a trick of Dame Nature? Has any scholar defined luck? any philosopher explained its nature? any chemist shown its composition? Is luck that strange, nondescript fairy, that does all things among men that they cannot account for? If so, why does not luck make a fool speak words of wisdom; an ignoramus utter ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... .. Marking all this, Stubb argued well for his scheme, and turning to the Guernsey-man had a little chat with him, during which the stranger mate expressed his detestation of his Captain as a conceited ignoramus, who had brought them all into so unsavory and unprofitable a pickle. Sounding him carefully, Stubb further perceived that the Guernsey-man had not the slightest suspicion concerning the ambergris. He therefore held his peace on that head, but ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... own brother to college, knows vastly more of those things than he does. The same exposure awaits him wherever he goes, and whenever he has the audacity to open his mouth. At sea he is a landlubber; in the country a cockney; in town a greenhorn; in science an ignoramus; in business a simpleton; in pleasure a milksop—everywhere out of his element, everywhere at sea, in the clouds, adrift, or by whatever word utter ignorance and incapacity are to be described. In society and in the work of life, he finds himself beaten by the youth whom at college he despised ...
— The Philosophy of Teaching - The Teacher, The Pupil, The School • Nathaniel Sands
... surely wouldn't let a little affair like one election drive you out of public life? It was so obvious that you were made the victim for Horlock's growing unpopularity in the country. Haven't you realised that yourself—or perhaps you don't care to talk about these things to an ignoramus such as ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... emotionally he is unchanged. His grade of morality is neither better nor worse. His tolerance or narrowness remains what it previously was. If he was bigoted while here he is still bigoted there. If he was the unevolved ignoramus here he remains precisely that in the astral world. Whether genius or fool, saint or villain, he remains unchanged and goes on with his evolutionary development, but in a world where emotion is ...
— Elementary Theosophy • L. W. Rogers
... head are behind—are ignorant and immoral according to the new standard, and unfit to control in the higher and broader policies demanded by the progress made. Where there is true and general progress the philosopher of yesterday would be the ignoramus of to-day, the honorable of one generation the vicious of another. The peasant of our time is incomparably superior to the statesman of ancient America, yet he is unfit to govern, for there are ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... reached the door, but she held him there a moment, while she laughed delightedly and hugged him. "I knew it was me. As if we'd let our old doc go, or have anything to do with a young ignoramus from Denver! Didn't you know I was joking? Of ...
— A Texas Ranger • William MacLeod Raine
... is a finished product. The Batlan is a species unknown outside of the ghetto. In a sense, he is the bohemian in Jewry. His distinguishing traits are his oddity and farcical ways. Not that he is an ignoramus—far from that. In many instances he is an erudite Talmudist, but his simplicity, his absent-mindedness, his lack of all practical sense, incapacitate him from undertaking anything, of whatever nature it may be. He is a parasite, and by reason of mere inertia ...
— The Renascence of Hebrew Literature (1743-1885) • Nahum Slouschz
... followed, in which Eleanor perceived with some increase of respect that her aunt was no ignoramus; nay, that she was familiar with delicacies both in the practice and the subjects of horticulture that were not well known to Eleanor, in spite of her advantages of the Lodge and Rythdale conservatories and gardens both together. In the course of this talk, Eleanor noticed anew ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume I • Susan Warner
... eyes, the laying-out, the undertaker, and the family-vault. That's one reason why I want to see Steignton before the blow that may fall any day, whether my brother Rowsley's there or no. But that Olmer doctor of mine, Causitt, Peter Causitt, shall pay me for being a liar or else an ignoramus when I told him he was to tell me bluntly the nature ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... to read and write, he must learn to draw. We cannot afford to let our young folks grow up without this power. A new French book is just now much talked about, with this droll title, "The Life of a Wise Man, by an Ignoramus." It is the story of the great Pasteur, whose discoveries in respect to life have made him world renowned. I turned to the book, eager to find out the key to such success, and I found the old story—"the child was father of the man." This philosopher, whose eye is so skilled in ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 497, July 11, 1885 • Various
... who had recognized an ecclesiastic, "as, in spite of the sharp tone in which you speak, you seem a man of learning, permit a poor ignoramus to ask you a few details about this Jehu, dead these two thousand six hundred years, who, nevertheless, is honored by ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... so; nothing appeared, or would: three or four times in my company he was put upon to do the work, but could not; at last he said he could do nothing as long as I was in presence. I at last shewed him his error, but left him as I found him, a pretending ignoramus. ...
— William Lilly's History of His Life and Times - From the Year 1602 to 1681 • William Lilly
... was to know about my little journalistic and debating experience at Cambridge, and the general trend of my views and purposes. I do not think he particularly desired my services; but, on the other hand, I was not an absolute ignoramus. I had written for publication; I had enthusiasm; and there ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... Mayenne. Great was the wrath of that injured personage as he read such libellous truths. He forthwith fulminated a scathing reply, addressed to Philip II., in which he denounced the Duke of Feria as "a dirty ignoramus, an impudent coward, an impostor, and a blind thief;" adding, after many other unsavoury epithets, "but I will do him an honour which he has not merited, proving him a liar with my sword; and I humbly pray your Majesty to grant me this favour and to pardon my just grief, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... and Mayfair circumstantialised by making her the chere amie of Mr. Thackeray. But your skill in "dress" settles the question of sex. I think, however, some woman must have assisted in the school scenes of Jane Eyre, which have a striking air of truthfulness to me—an ignoramus, I allow, on ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... and hoard-penny ignoramus doctors, with several great personages who formed excuses for not accepting my books; or they would receive them, but give nothing for them; or else deny they had them, or remembered anything of them; and so gave me nothing for my last present of ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... years, I think 1833, a motion was made by some political economist for the abolition of the corn laws. I (an absolute and literal ignoramus) was much struck and staggered with it. But Sir James Graham—who knew more of economic and trade matters, I think, than the rest of the cabinet of 1841 all put together—made a reply in the sense of protection, whether high or low ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... establishment to remain a passive spectator of the actions of others, and began pushing right and left. "Get along, get away ye vagabonds!" he politely cried: "you little shrimps! what business have you to stop the way?—Alfred, you ignoramus! ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May
... one thing he came as near getting me fired from this job as I ever got. He snarled and growled at me. He told the managing editor that he was an ignoramus and the M.E., believe it or not, took it, took it like a little lamb, Jimmy. Dije ever hear anybody call the M.E. an idiot and get ...
— Death Points a Finger • Will Levinrew
... that she had something to sell—a bit of carving or some intaglio supposed to be antique. It was known that I had a fancy for oddities. I said to myself, "She has read or heard of my 'Old Gold' story, or else 'The Buried God,' and she thinks me an idealizing ignoramus upon whom she can impose. Her sepulchral name is at least not Italian; probably she is a sharp countrywoman of mine, turning, by means of the present aesthetic craze, an honest ...
— Stories by American Authors (Volume 4) • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... may stand in your way, almost knowing how to read. The demagogues will neither have an educated nor an honest man; they require an ignoramus and a rogue. But do not, do not let go this gift, which the ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... that winter. How nobody knew, and I least of all. Looking backward, I seem to have gone to sleep one night, an ignoramus, and awakened next morning knowing letters, yet ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... our discursiveness to-night is, 'To what extent has Ibsen contributed to the Cause (if any) of Female Emancipation?' and being a total ignoramus up to date of the sheer existence of said hon'ble gentleman, I shall abstain from scratching my head over so Sphinxian a conundrum, and confine myself to knuckling to the obiter diction ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... dare not face it. Moliere saw through the doctors; but he had to call them in just the same. Napoleon had no illusions about them; but he had to die under their treatment just as much as the most credulous ignoramus that ever paid sixpence for a bottle of strong medicine. In this predicament most people, to save themselves from unbearable mistrust and misery, or from being driven by their conscience into actual conflict with the law, fall ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma: Preface on Doctors • George Bernard Shaw
... friend having asked his opinion of politics, he says he really knows nothing about them; he had been so completely engrossed by his own business that he has not had time to read even a newspaper. But, though an ignoramus in politics, he has been studying lime, which is more to his purpose. If his friend can give him any information about that, he will promise to read a newspaper now and then in the ensuing session of Parliament, for the purpose of forming some opinion of politics: he adds, however, "not if it ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles
... slouch at finding things. He is no ignoramus, either, for he must be able to read and write and understand geography to get any good out of that memorandum. Does it give the exact details of the ...
— The Ghost Breaker - A Novel Based Upon the Play • Charles Goddard
... going to school. Oh, the number of foreign schools I have been at in my life! And yet I am quite an ignoramus. I know nothing— nothing in the world—I assure you; except that I play and dance beautifully,—and French and German of course I know, to speak; but I can't read or write them very well. Do you know they wanted me to translate a page of an easy German book into English the ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... the grand jury to indict Warren for libel on account of this intemperate attack. The jury, however, returned "ignoramus," and the Governor had to bear the affront, which was but one of a series directed against him during his remaining days ...
— James Otis The Pre-Revolutionist • John Clark Ridpath
... shiftless farmer so long as he really does his literary chores up to the hilt. A man can be slack in everything else, if he does one thing as well as he possibly can. And I guess it won't matter my being an ignoramus in literature so long as I'm rated A-1 in the kitchen. That's what I used to think as I polished and scoured and scrubbed and dusted and swept and then set about getting dinner. If I ever sat down to read for ten minutes the cat would ...
— Parnassus on Wheels • Christopher Morley
... Perhaps such an ignoramus might prefer them; for they are always more open, more free from weeds, rushes and flags, and less dark; and at the hour of la chasse au poste, the hour of twilight, they are as solitary as the Mare No. 1. But the savage beasts ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... lacertus subito subsilit, nec regulariter continuoque movetur, sed nunc semel aut bis, nunc minime intra idem tempus subsilit; an causa irritans in sensorio communi, an in musculo ipse palpitante Quaerenda sit, ignoramus. Nosologiae Methodicae, Vol. I. p. ...
— An Essay on the Shaking Palsy • James Parkinson
... human personalities and who professes to desire their transformation and yet who has no desire to give them better homes, better cities, better family relationships, better health, better economic resources, better recreations, better books and better schools, is either an ignoramus who does not see what these things mean in the growth of souls, or else an unconscious hypocrite who does not really care so much about the souls of men as he says ...
— Christianity and Progress • Harry Emerson Fosdick
... my silly child; do you imagine that a contract is like a house of cards which you can blow down at will? Dear little ignoramus, you don't know what trouble we have had to found an entail for the benefit of your eldest son. Don't cast us back into the discussions from which we have ...
— The Marriage Contract • Honore de Balzac
... is a different being. In some cases he has medical knowledge, in the majority of instances he is an ignoramus. His sole object is to make money, and he sells remedies which he knows to be worthless, and even vends drugs which he is sure will do positive harm in the majority ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... absolute amity until what is virtually universal suffrage was introduced and the ignoramus became the tool ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... if never yet accomplished, my zeal is over-paid should the hint be ever acted on; and if, which is still possible, an English version of the life of Alfred should be positively rife and common among the reading public, your humble ignoramus has nothing for it but to pray pardon of its author for not having known him, and to walk softly with the world for writing so ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... is right, and so he becomes a convinced and devoted Anarchist! What would happen, if pursuing his studies of the social question further, he had understood that the "companion" was a pretentious ignoramus, that he talked twaddle, that his "Ideal" is a delusion and a snare, that outside bourgeois politics there is, opposed to these, the political action of the proletariat, which will put an end to the very ...
— Anarchism and Socialism • George Plechanoff
... or, if it refuses, having the power to let loose against it thousands of idiots whom they have trained into a docile pack of hounds!—Christophe was not the sort of man to let himself be schooled and disciplined. It seemed to him a very bad thing that an ignoramus should take upon himself to tell him what he ought and ought not to do in music: and he gave him to understand that art needed a much more severe training than politics. Also, without any sort of polite circumlocution, he declined a proposal that he should set to music ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... winter we passed in Washington I never saw him in the White House. He died in July, 1850, and was succeeded by Millard Fillmore. It is common to speak of Old Rough and Ready as an ignoramus. I don't think this. He may not have been very courtly, but he was ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... seriously to the latter, will leave an ample margin of time for recreation and amusement; and who knows what he may need, until the need is there to test what he knows? To be great on sport, and a "stick" at one's business; to be an authority on amusements, and an ignoramus about almost everything else that is anything, is the surrender of manhood, and that in a day which has no need comparable with its ...
— Men in the Making • Ambrose Shepherd
... return he received a letter from a certain G— S—, who wrote from Southampton detailing a number of observations he had made upon the organisms to be seen with a magnifying glass in an infusion of vegetable matter, and as "an ignoramus," apologised for any appearance of conceit in so doing, while asking his advice as to the best means of improving his scientific knowledge. Huxley was much struck by the tone of the letter and the description of the experiments, and he ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... equality with those who once owned them. These indentured slaves and their descendants were always considered with contempt by the upper classes. The advance of American civilization, the tide of progress has arisen and swept over this indolent creature who remains the same stupid, lazy, ignoramus. ...
— Hanover; Or The Persecution of the Lowly - A Story of the Wilmington Massacre. • David Bryant Fulton
... Marshall Haney and herself. It was not merely that she was younger and clearer of record, but she was perfectly certain that with education she could hold her own with the Congdons or any one else. "If my father had lived, I wouldn't be the ignoramus I am to-day." But she had no plan for acquiring the knowledge she needed other than by reading books. She resolved to read every day, though each hour so spent must be taken from her husband, ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... eye appeared to pity me. "Kenneth, bairn, but you're an awfu' ignoramus. You ken naething ava about the lassies. I'm wondering what they learnt you at Oxford. Gin it's the same to you we'll talk of something mair within your comprehension." And thereupon he diverted the ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... after this incident, probably owing to the intellectual standard of each becoming somewhat lowered in the other's estimation in consequence of it. Le proprietaire, doubtless, thinks a man capable of leaving the key inside of the door must be the worst type of an ignoramus; and certainly my opinion of him for leaving such a diabolical arrangement unchanged in the latter half of the nineteenth century is not far removed from ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... old one! And, as Handel either did not approve of the lady, or of matrimony generally (and in fact he never was married), he promptly retired from the competition. At first, no one suspected the youth's talents, for he amused himself by pretending to be an ignoramus, until one day the accompanyist on the harpsichord (then the most important instrument in an orchestra) was absent, and young Handel took his place, astonishing everybody by his masterly touch. Probably this discovery aroused the jealousy of some of his brother-artists, ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... laurels I gathered at Sacile and St. Boniface. Oh, I know my brother the generalissimo; I see all the little threads which he is spinning around me, and which, as soon as they are strong enough, he will convert into a net, in which he will catch me, in order to exhibit me to the world as an ignoramus and dreamer, destitute both of ability and luck as a general. Do not tell me that I am mistaken, my friend; I have hitherto observed every thing with close attention, and my observations unfortunately do not deceive me. The generalissimo ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... me no more with his cane, but his insults were the same, if not worse. With time I became hardened, I no longer heeded anything; I was an ignoramus, a camel, a bumpkin, an idiot, a loggerhead—I was everything! It must further be understood that I alone was favored with these pretty names. He had no relatives; there had been a nephew, but he had died of consumption. As to friends, those who came now and then to flatter him and indulge ...
— Brazilian Tales • Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis
... aspects of these Scientific Congresses, they were becoming every year more festive, and, at all events to the ignoramus outsiders who joined them, more pleasant. My good cousin and old friend, then Colonel, now General, Sir Charles Trollope, was at Venice that autumn. I said on meeting him, "Now the first thing is to, make you a member." "Me! a member of a Scientific ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... daughters of the manse were free to roam from blushing morn to dewy eve if so it pleased them. It DID please Faith, but Una felt a secret, bitter humiliation because they never learned to do anything. The other girls in her class at school could cook and sew and knit; she only was a little ignoramus. ...
— Rainbow Valley • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... the king, "that a great institution like the Hamburg Botanical Gardens would let a man of your worth perish rather than pay his ransom of L600? Happy young man! You now see the value of a sound, scientific education. Had you been an utter ignoramus as I am, I wouldn't have asked the ransom of ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... wranglings, although they also are necessary in this day as conspiracies and battles were in mine. I am not fit for your roomful of ministers and learned men and pretty women: the former would think me an ignoramus, and the latter—what would afflict me much more—a pedant.... Rather, if your Excellency really wants to show yourself and your children to your father's old protege of Mazzinian times, find a ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... since when does the elevator lift ya to the third floor? If ya want the sixth floor ya can ride. Third floor! My Gawd! Third floor!" And on and on he mutters and up and up I go, all the proud feelings of owning the world stripped from me—exposed before the multitudes as an ignoramus who didn't know any better than to ride in the elevator when she was bound only for the third floor. "Third floor," continues muttering the elevator man. At last there is no one left in the elevator but the muttering man and me. "Well," I falter, chewing weakly ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... subject to the inexorable equality of the camp. Eating, sleeping, standing guard, tugging at the wheel or defending life and property,— there was no rank between captain and cook, employer and employed, savant and ignoramus, but the distribution of duty and the assignment of responsibility. Toil and exposure, hunger and thirst, wind and storm, danger in camp quarrel or Indian ambush, were the familiar and ordinary vicissitudes of a three months' journey in a ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... East Eighty-first Street, in the regulation twenty-five-foot brownstone house. And within, also, it was of a familiar New York type. It was the home of the rich, vain ignoramus who has not taste enough to know that those to whom he has trusted for taste have shockingly betrayed him. Ganser had begun as a teamster for a brewery and had grown rapidly rich late in life. He happened ...
— The Fortune Hunter • David Graham Phillips
... of the theoretical wisdom of the world comes to us in the shape of legacies bequeathed by fools. A fool is not a person without knowledge or understanding—that is an ignoramus. The true fool—the only fool worthy of a wise man's contemplation—is the man who knows and understands, and habitually refrains from acting according to knowledge and understanding. It is the record of the follies of such people which has built ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... wrist, too, never left one moment in the same position; now up, now down, now here, now there; was it to be wondered at, if its pains returned? The surgeon then was to be called, and to be rated as an ignoramus, because he could not divine the cause of this extraordinary change. In fine, my friend, you must mend your manners. This is not a world to live at random in, as you do. To avoid those eternal distresses, to which you are for ever exposing us, you must learn to look forward ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... master's workshop, loving what they make. Thus is the man as harmless as a lamb: Only impatient, let him do his best, At ignorance and carelessness and sin— An indignation which is promptly curbed: As when in certain travel I have feigned To be an ignoramus in our art According to some preconceived design, And happed to hear the land's practitioners Steeped in conceit sublimed by ignorance, 240 Prattle fantastically on disease, Its cause and cure—and ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning
... can sneer at "book farming" or at anything else, but you can hardly succeed without the best books by practical men. Do not let some experienced ignoramus talk you out of experimenting under their guidance. You will learn little without experience, and unless you have the grower's instinct, you will learn ...
— Three Acres and Liberty • Bolton Hall
... duo Graeci et tres Hispani, semetipsos ab alijs segregantes, visi sunt alium requirere introitum nos praecedere cupientes, et certe nos illos exinde non vidimus, et quid eis acciderit an periculum subierint, velne ignoramus. ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, Volume 9 - Asia, Part 2 • Richard Hakluyt
... knowing the top of a Greek letter from the bottom. But I think that if a man is going to abuse Pindar, if he is going to denounce, refute, and utterly expose Pindar, if he is going to show Pindar up as the utter ignoramus and outrageous impostor that he is, then I think it will be just as well perhaps—I think, at any rate, it would do no harm—if he did know a little Greek, and even had read a little Pindar. And I think the ...
— All Things Considered • G. K. Chesterton
... Resolve to hiss, as late did Popish Crew, | By Yea and Nay, she'll throw her self on you, | The grand Inquest of Whigs, to whom she's true. | Then let 'em rail and hiss, and damn their fill, Your Verdict will be Ignoramus still. ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... feeling actually indignant because this fellow Leveson, who has less education and knowledge than my dog Nebbie, assumes to have some acquaintance with Miss Vancourt! What does it matter? What business is it of mine? If she cares to accept information from an ignoramus, what is it to do with me? Nothing! Yet,—what a blatant ass the fellow is! Upon my word, it does me good to say it—a blatant ass! And Sir ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... some little excitement at the election; one of the members of the old Board had been called "an ignoramus," in the stress of battle, and being much concerned and mystified asked a neighbour what the term signified, adding, no doubt thinking of a hippopotamus, that he believed it was some kind of animal! His knowledge of zoology was ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... world can the teacher be thinking of, to keep such an ignoramus in the class?" thought Hector. "He doesn't know enough to join a ...
— Hector's Inheritance - or The Boys of Smith Institute • Horatio Alger
... listen to that ignoramus. In response to your prayer, the Lord tells me to assure you that your sole path in this life is ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... they are looking fur, dozens and scores and hundreds of them niggers round about. Sam, he had lived in town five or six years, and he looked down on all these here ignoramus country niggers. So he busts out laughing at first, and he pertends like he don't take no stock in any of it. Besides, he knowed well enough he wasn't spotted up by no Messiah, but it was the dope in the bottles done it. But as he ...
— Danny's Own Story • Don Marquis
... clown!" roared the fat, fierce-looking Multiplicand. "Ignoramus! nothing of music! Why, you don't ...
— The Garden of the Plynck • Karle Wilson Baker
... I have indicated, a serious family man. The problem of educating his children could appear to him in no light except a sober one. "Bear Creek," he said, "don't want the experience they had over at Calef. We must not hire an ignoramus." ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister |
