"Loser" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... answered Vincent, "contravene so laudable a purpose, however I may be the loser." And after a short and desultory conversation, I left him once more to the tranquil enjoyment of his Plato. That evening I went to Malvern, and there I remained in a monotonous state of existence, dividing my time equally between my mind and my body, and forming myself into that state of contemplative ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... that you will be joint Security with me for a few Hundreds a person (one of the money lending tribe) has offered to advance in case I can bring forward any collateral guarantee that he will not be a loser, the reason of this requisition is my being a Minor, and might refuse to discharge a debt contracted in my non-age. If I live till the period of my minority expires, you cannot doubt my paying, as I have property to the amount of 100 times the sum I am about to raise; if, as ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... but being afterward recognized at Marseilles, he was sent to Philip, king of France, who had been excommunicated and deprived of the kingdom. Philip, considering that in a war against the pontiff he would either be a loser or run great hazards, had recourse to deception, and simulating a wish to come to terms, secretly sent Sciarra into Italy, who, having arrived at Anagnia, where his holiness then resided, assembled a few friends, and in the night took him prisoner. And ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli
... err'd in his Vocation: Had he quitted all serious Matters, and dedicated himself wholly to Drollery and Romance, with two or three Years under Hudibras, he might have been a Master in that Faculty; the Stage might have been a Gainer by it, and the Church of England would have been no Loser." ...
— A Discourse Concerning Ridicule and Irony in Writing (1729) • Anthony Collins
... that written word, which she could read and thou couldst not. Oh, how did she prove as a broken reed unto thee; how did she neglect thy necessity, and her own opportunity of bringing forth fruit in its season. Thou hast been no loser. The Lord passed by the slothful servant, the unfaithful steward, who neglected to give thee thy meat in due season, and himself took her place; took thee from that household which was not worthy of thee, and led thee to those ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham
... war just closed, Austria had been the chief loser, and the resolute Maria Theresa set herself at once to the difficult task of recovering her prestige and her ceded territory. Her first efforts were directed toward internal reform—consolidating the administrations of her various dominions by the creation of a strong central council at Vienna, encouraging ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... and Saltash chose a cigar. An odd grimace drew his features as he lighted it. He had the look of a man who surveys his last card and knows himself a loser. Though he went out of the room and up the great staircase to the music-room with his head up and complete indifference in his carriage, his eyelids were slightly drawn. He did not look as if ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... hail powdered with diamonds, with a ruby in the midst." But Stucley observing to his kinsman and friend, that he must lose his office of vice-admiral, which had cost him six hundred pounds, in case he suffered Rawleigh to escape; Rawleigh solemnly assured him that he should be no loser, and that his lady should give him one thousand pounds when they got into France or Holland. About this time the French quack took his leave: the part he had to act was performed: the juggle was complete: and two wretches had triumphed over the sagacity and magnanimity of a sage and a hero, ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... wrote Mr. Gibbs, again, a long history about Bronte; and, I hope, if General Acton will do nothing for me, that he will settle something: but, I know, whatever is settled, I shall be the loser. Till next year, the debt will ...
— The Letters of Lord Nelson to Lady Hamilton, Vol. I. - With A Supplement Of Interesting Letters By Distinguished Characters • Horatio Nelson
... the pack after it had been counted, which was possible in the hands of an adept in spite of all vigilance, threw the percentage against the favorite card and in favor of the bank. Officer had suspected something wrong, for the seven had been loser during several deals, when with a seven-king layout, and two cards of each class yet in the pack, the dealer drew down until there were less than a dozen cards left, when the king came, which lost a fifty dollar bet on the seven. Officer laid his hand on the money, ...
— The Log of a Cowboy - A Narrative of the Old Trail Days • Andy Adams
... how it was in him to brighten her lonely life, almost every hour of it—and promised himself that she should not be a loser by her kindness to Mr. Nobody of Nowhere. He remembered her love of fun, and pretty poetry, and little French songs, and droll chat—and nice cheerful meals tete-a-tete—and he was good at all these things. And how fond she was of reading out loud to him! The time might ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... ill luck ran through Jeanne Marie's mind; how her promised husband had proved unfaithful, and Jeanne Marie's faithful; and how, ever since, even to the coming out of her lottery numbers, even to the selling of vegetables, even to the catching of the rheumatism, she had been the loser. But above all, as she looked at Anne Marie in the bed, all the misery came over Jeanne Marie of her sister's not being able, in all her poor old seventy-five years of life, to remember the pressure of the arms of a husband about her waist, nor the ...
— Balcony Stories • Grace E. King
... poverty of his native tongue, sought inspiration by retiring into the world of dreams,—went to bed, in short,—his more fortunate rival was just entering the village, where he was to make his brief residence at the house of Deacon Rumrill, who, having been a loser by the devouring element, was glad to receive a stray boarder when any such were ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... of score blood-soaked handkerchiefs (or "sweat-rags") buried in a hole on the field of battle, and the Giraffe was busy the rest of the evening helping to patch up the principals. Later on he took up a small collection for the loser, who happened to be Barcoo-Rot in spite of ...
— Children of the Bush • Henry Lawson
... me one trade, one profession, wherein one man's success is not based upon another's failure; all rivalry, all competition, triumph and rapture to the winner, disgrace and anguish to the loser! And then these fellows, fattened on widows' tears and orphans' misery, preach you pure homilies about the cruelty of taking life. But you are quite right about the combination of pleasures—the ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... Negro tenants had acquired mules, horses or tools upon which the speculator had a mortgage, the blacks were actually bound to their landlords to secure the property. It was soon evident that in the end the white man himself was the loser by this evil system. There appeared waste places in the country. Improvements were wanting, land lay idle for lack of sufficient labor, and that which was cultivated yielded a diminishing return on account of the ignorance and improvidence of those tilling it. These Negroes as a rule ...
— A Century of Negro Migration • Carter G. Woodson
... happened that the public, when it saw displayed for its admiration a figure resembling the sugary hero of a moral story-book rather than a fellow man of flesh and blood, turned away with a shrug, a smile, and a flippant ejaculation. But in this the public was the loser as well as Victoria. For in truth Albert was a far more interesting personage than the public dreamed. By a curious irony an impeccable waxwork had been fixed by the Queen's love in the popular imagination, ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... to trip his opponent by a twisted leg round his knee. Children in the aldejas were playing at this game all the time. In the Bororo wrestling-matches it was sufficient to be thrown down to be the loser, and it was not essential to touch ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... kindness. There is a fine spirit of freemasonry amongst us professionals. Whenever we play against each other each of us does his level best to win, and gives no quarter with a single stroke, but it has been my invariable experience that when the match is over the loser is always the first to congratulate the winner, and to do it not as a mere matter of form but with the ...
— The Complete Golfer [1905] • Harry Vardon
... one is likely to forget that there is an etiquette of pleasure, just as there is an etiquette of dancing or the opera. One often hears a charming hostess refuse to invite this or that person to her home for a game of billiards on the ground that he or she is a "bum sport" or a "rotten loser." The above scene illustrates one of the little, but conspicuous, blunders that people make. The gentleman, having missed his fifth consecutive shot, has broken his cue over his knee and is ripping the baize off the table with the sharp end. This display ...
— Perfect Behavior - A Guide for Ladies and Gentlemen in all Social Crises • Donald Ogden Stewart
... you, Captain Crowhurst!" exclaimed Gerald. "If I was a Lord of the Admiralty I'd promote you to-day and superannuate you to-morrow. I don't suppose the service would be greatly the loser." ...
— The Missing Ship - The Log of the "Ouzel" Galley • W. H. G. Kingston
... Limehouse, Wapping, Poplar and the adjacent districts. It was started without ostentation with a man named Faire as general manager. Mr. Faire had had in his lifetime several hectic contests with the police, in which he had been invariably the loser. And it was in his role as a reformed character that he undertook the management of this social ...
— The Angel of Terror • Edgar Wallace
... to presents, an established custom in the East, you will rarely find yourself a loser; as one worth acceptance is generally returned by another of similar ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... nicely! The notions of the collector about such spoil are indeed the converse of those which Cassio professed to hold about his good name, for the scrap furtively removed is supposed in no way to impoverish the loser, while it makes the ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... glass, sirr.' He continued an interrupted whistling of 'I owe ten dollars to O'Grady' (which he very probably did), and his countenance departed not from its serenity. If there is anything that one loves an American for it is the way he stands certain kinds of punishment. An Englishman and a heavy loser was being chaffed by a Scotchman whose account at the Japan end of the line had been a trifle overdrawn. True, he would lose in England, but the thought of the few dollars ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... duty to take the hot end of the poker," replied the officer. "Loser goes first," said Glover, producing ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... shall not be injustice done to my Augustus," said the irritated father, wisely encouraging his Augustus in all his mean feelings. "Never mind 'em all, my boy; you have a father, you may thank Heaven, who can judge for himself, and will: you shall not be the loser by Dr. B.'s or doctor any body's injustice; I'll make it up to you, my boy; in the meantime, join us in a bumper of port. Here's to Dr. B.'s better judgment; wishing him health and happiness these Easter holidays, and a new pair ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... games of which Queen Brunhild doth speak not yet begun? I long to see how they may be played." He acted his part so well that Brunhild really believed that he was not aware the games were over and that she was the loser. ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... arrangement of temples, &c., from its rival; which rival was not slow in returning the compliment. As Chu Hsi said, "Buddhism stole the best features of Taoism; Taoism stole the worst features of Buddhism. It is as though one took a jewel from the other, and the loser recouped the loss with a stone." At the present day there is not much to choose between the two religions, which flourish peaceably together. As to their temples, priests and ceremonial, it takes an expert to distinguish one from ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... adorn that lively spirit with flowers of contemplation, he will raise our expectations of another Sir Edward Vere, that had this character—all summer in the field, all winter in his study—in whose fall fame makes this kingdom a greater loser; and, having taken this resolution from counsel with the highest wisdom, as I doubt not you have, I hope and pray that the same power will crown it with a blessing answerable to our wish. The way you take with my ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... extraordinary, they play at dice, when sober, as a serious business: and that with such a desperate venture of gain or loss, that, when everything else is gone, they set their liberties and persons on the last throw. The loser goes into voluntary servitude; and, though the youngest and strongest, patiently suffers himself to be bound and sold. [138] Such is their obstinacy in a bad practice—they themselves call it honor. The slaves thus acquired ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus
... gloat after you beat it. You can't walk over and pat it on the shoulder and say, 'Well, better luck next time, old man.' It isn't a good loser, and it isn't a bad loser. The damn thing doesn't even know it lost, and if it did, it ...
— Anything You Can Do ... • Gordon Randall Garrett
... estate? It was split up and went to pieces in the times of disturbance. Is the Sexton's office to be the loser on that account? It should not be so! Nevertheless, expressly reserving each and every right in the matter of the second cheese due from the Oberhof, and contested now for a hundred years, I hereby receive and accept one cheese. In accordance with which the legitimate ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... because of the defeat of Quicksilver by the black racer from the Vermejo. It was becoming more than idle jesting. It looked as if, for some reason, he was trying to torment Old Heck until something serious was started. Old Heck was a good loser but he was growing tired of the persistent nagging. He had not whimpered at the loss of the twenty-five hundred dollars Dorsey won from him on the race. Even the humiliation of seeing his best horse put in second place by ...
— The Ramblin' Kid • Earl Wayland Bowman
... I cannot think of permitting you to be the loser by this transaction. I really must insist upon you ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... here," said he, taking out a paper, neatly folded and mounted with red tape, from a bureau. "It is necessarily brief, and merely enumerates the names of the mortgagees and amounts owing. I was unfortunately the principal creditor, having been a considerable loser from my wish to preserve the property inviolate. For the credit of the family I paid off the remaining incumbrances, and the estate has lapsed to me ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... still running in the same direction that we started. In the confusion of loading us upon the cars the previous evening, I had been allowed to approach too near a Rebel officer's stock of rations, and the result was his being the loser and myself the gainer of a canteen filled with fairly good molasses. Andrews and I had some corn bread, and we, breakfasted sumptuously upon it and the molasses, which was certainly none-the-less sweet ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... dear," she answered, "if you don't turn your suffering into some sort of gain, you'll be a great loser. But if you turn it into patience or good hope or good temper you will make gain out of it. You will buy it with a price. You will pay yourself down for it. It will be yours forever. To be plain with you, John, you have been peevish all day long. I wouldn't ...
— The Measure of a Man • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... one. She then looks through her cards to see if it pairs with any that she already has, and, if it does, throws the pair on the table. Having finished her examination she offers her cards in the same way to the next player, and so it goes on. As the possessor of the old maid card is, at the end, the loser of the game, each one who gets it does all in her power to induce the next player to take it. As the cards get fewer and fewer the excitement grows ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... of Austria implacable.[7] Hence the secret articles of peace by which France and Austria bound themselves not to grant any compensation to Prussia. Prussia was on her part, however, resolved not to be the loser, and, in the summer of 1797, took forcible possession of the imperial free town of Nuremberg, notwithstanding her declaration made just three years previously through Count Soden to the Franconian circle, "that the king had never harbored the design of ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... be infinitely stupid to make use of such a method. It was quite plain that very little was to be gained in that way; but, even if it had been possible for each of us to embezzle a fortune, I had lost all desire to leave Freeland. The chances were that I should be a loser by leaving. I was a novice at honest work, and any special exertion was not then to my taste. Yet I had earned as much as 12s. a day, and that is 180L a year, with which one can live as well here as with twice as much in America or England. Even if I continued ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... early mornings to get his legs in shape. But it was hard, training without a partner and with a wife and two kiddies that must be fed. Credit with the tradesmen had undergone very slight expansion when he was matched with Sandel. The secretary of the Gayety Club had advanced him three pounds—the loser's end of the purse—and beyond that had refused to go. Now and again he had managed to borrow a few shillings from old pals, who would have lent more only that it was a drought year and they were hard put themselves. No—and there was no use in disguising the ...
— When God Laughs and Other Stories • Jack London
... to say that the nature both of the artist and of the dunghills is "subdued" by such a process, and yet neither is a "loser." Goethe profoundly remarked that the highest development of the soul was reached through worship first of that which was above, then of that which was beneath it. This great critic also said, "Only with difficulty do we spell out from that which nature presents to us, the DESIRED ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... was even then awaiting mob violence. It was complete to the silver-white beard and the gold spectacles. But Peter squashed both demonstrations. He did not know Doctor Gilman had been forced to resign, but he protested that the horse-play of his friends would make him appear a bad loser. "It would look, boys," he said, "as though I couldn't take my medicine. Looks like kicking against the umpire's decision. Old Gilman fought fair. He gave me just what was coming to me. I think a darn sight more of him than do of that bunch ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... and took up her abode in South Street near the Park. One morning, when I was calling on Lady Charlotte Lindsay, Lady Morley came in, and being reproached by Lady Charlotte for not having come to a party at her house on the previous evening, in which reproach I joined, having been also a loser by her absence from that same party, "Couldn't," said the lively lady, "for I was spending the evening with the pleasantest, most amiable, gentlest-mannered, sweetest-tempered, and most charming woman in all London—Lady Holland!" A conversation then ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... and that he will let me manage my own little fortune to the best advantage; for which I will undertake to pay him a considerable pension every year, much more considerable than what he now gets by his oppressions; for he must needs find himself a loser at last, when he hath drained me and my tenants so dry, that we shall not have a penny for him or ourselves. There is one imposition of his, I had almost forgot, which I think unsufferable, and will appeal ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... enjoying themselves enormously, and the greatest good-will prevailed. Nor was it until nearly supper-time that Bill suddenly stood up and declared he had had enough. He was a loser to the extent ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... but you shall not work for nothing;" and Nancy laid a gold Jacobus on the table. "This for your present information. Be secret and cautious, and no gossiping, and you'll find that you shall have all you wish, and be no loser in the bargain. And now, good night—I must be away. You shall see me soon, Moggy; and remember what ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat
... consistent gloom. I tried grimly to regain my strength, with a view to seeking other quarters. While I stayed here I was the guest of the Firefly of France; and though I admired him,—I should have been a cad, a quitter, a poor loser, everything I had ever held anathema in days gone by, not to do so,—still I couldn't feel toward him as a man should feel toward his host; not ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... authority, and that when compelled to enforce these upon them, they themselves incur the odium of the white men. Independently, however, of this consideration, and of the natural desire of a parent to have his family about him, he is in reality a loser by their absence, for in many of the methods adopted for hunting, fishing, or similar pursuits, the services even of young children are often very important. For the deprivation of these, which he suffers when his children are at school, he receives no equivalent, and it is no wonder therefore, ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... oft in danger ride Who hauks, lures oft both far & wide; Who uses games, may often prove A loser; but who fals in love, Is fettered in fond Cupids snare: My Angle breeds me ...
— The Compleat Angler - Facsimile of the First Edition • Izaak Walton
... the Missouri River when a bystander, shocked by the frequency with which one of the players turned up the jack, took the liberty of warning the other player that the winner was dealing from the bottom, to which the loser, secure in his power of self-protection, answered gruffly, "Well, suppose he ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... necessary law. Certainly none of us wish to be doctored by tyros or humbugs, or to have our animals treated by them. Only Danny was neither a tyro nor a humbug, and had he not been a lawbreaker the world would have been to some extent the loser. ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... warning of the impending calamity, and for the time was much overcome by the announcement. He foresaw what it implied, however, and at once returned to Boston, to find himself a heavy loser by ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. II, No. 6, March, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... was over and accounts were being straightened. Cullison was the heavy loser. All night he had been bucking hard luck. His bluffs had been called. The others had not come in against his strong hands. On a straight flush he had drawn down the ante and nothing more. To say the least, it was exasperating. But his face ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine
... stuffed the box back into his waistcoat pocket—"you're the loser, you'll never find ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace
... Nouri could rise, the little Urad ran nimbly to the bed and offered her supper to the afflicted Houadir, who received it with great pleasure from her hands, being assured her mother would not let Urad be a loser ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... alone' lying low in the Catacombs, fattening the passes of Argonne Wood, of Valmy and far Fields; he, such chief criminal, shall not even come to the bar?—For, alas, O Patriotism! add we, it was from of old said, The loser pays! It is he who has to pay all scores, run up by whomsoever; on him must all breakages and charges fall; and the twelve hundred on the Tenth of August are not rebel traitors, but victims and martyrs: such is the law ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... an appeal to indorse a note. They were hardly ever paid, and Mr. Greeley was the loser. I met him one time, soon after he had been a very severe sufferer from his mistaken kindness. He said to me with great emphasis: "Chauncey, I want you to do me a great favor. I want you to have a bill put through the legislature, ...
— My Memories of Eighty Years • Chauncey M. Depew
... shied when I dropped so suddenly from the tree. He patted the animal's neck, and said, laughing, "Well, we too are lost, so we are comrades; perhaps you can help us to find the road to B. You shall be no loser by it." I assured him that I knew nothing about the road to B., and said that I would ask in the inn, or would conduct them to the village. But the man would not listen to reason; he drew from his girdle a pistol, the barrel ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... mile. "Look here, Gordon," he said to me: "there's a lot of distress in the town just now—trade bad, and so on, and so on. I'll lay you a level ten pounds I drive these geese to Hillport myself, the loser to give the money to charity." "Done," I said. "Don't say anything about it," he says. "I won't," I says—but I am doing. (Applause.) I feel it my duty to say something about it. (More applause.) ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... desired to improve and apparently cared little about expense, and with his double or quits propensity in play would not deign to notice a chess book. One said that this amateur possessed all the requisites of a loser playing very fastly, very badly and risking very rashly. One morning about twelve before chess hours at the Cafe International, New York, whilst writing I was accosted by a tall and fashionable looking American whom I had seen once or twice ...
— Chess History and Reminiscences • H. E. Bird
... ancient stout and valiant Germans as 'making gaming with a die a very serious occupation of their sober hours.' Like the 'everlasting Negro,' they, too, made their last throw for personal liberty, the loser going into voluntary slavery, and the winner selling such slaves as soon as possible to strangers, in order not to have to blush for such a victory! If the 'nigger' could blush, he might certainly do so for the white ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... his walk with the artist almost to Fenton's door, although the latter suspected that it was out of his companion's way. Arthur was willing, however, to give the loser the compensation of his society as a return for the greenbacks in his pocket, and his natural acuteness was so far from being as active as usual that when he found Mr. Snaffle speaking of Princeton Platinum stock he did ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... the intense romance of the more passionate relationship. The breathless idyl left them, fled on to other lovers; they looked around one day and it was gone, how they scarcely knew. Had either of them lost the other in the days of the idyl, the love lost would have been ever to the loser that dim desire without fulfilment which stands back of all life. But magic must hurry on, and ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... frontier settlement there are men who have come there to escape restraint. Cutter was one of the 'fast set' of Black Hawk business men. He was an inveterate gambler, though a poor loser. When we saw a light burning in his office late at night, we knew that a game of poker was going on. Cutter boasted that he never drank anything stronger than sherry, and he said he got his start in life by saving the money that other young ...
— My Antonia • Willa Cather
... themselves apprehensive that Mr. Sulivan might be a loser by his bargain, upon account of troubles which they supposed existing in the country which was the object of it. This was the more indulgent, because the contractor was tolerably secured against all losses. He received a certain price for his commodity; but he was not obliged to pay any certain ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... danger ride; Who hawks, lures oft both far and wide Who uses games shall often prove A loser, but who falls in love, Is fetter'd in fond Cupid's snare: My angle breeds me ...
— The Complete Angler • Izaak Walton
... by which, I hope, you will not be a loser, my hearty," put in the captain. "And you think that is the craft which was built at New Bedford, and fitted out on ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... house, she began to quarrel with him, and reproach him with having broken his oath to her. Adam did his best to pacify the cat. He told her he had himself invited the dog to make his home there, and he assured her she would in no wise be the loser by the dog's presence; he wanted both to stay with him. But it was impossible to appease the cat. The dog promised her not to touch anything intended for her. She insisted that she could not live in one and the same house with a thief like the dog. Bickerings between the dog and the ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... vows he will never peach; reconciles himself with his mother; says he will go loser; but, having ordered his ship to "veer" round to the chapel, orders it to veer back again, for he will pass ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... according to some, entitled him to claim the larger forfeit, [Page 236] such as was customary in the democratic game of ume. The payment of these extreme forfeits was delayed till a convenient season, or might be commuted—-on grounds of policy, or at the request of the loser, if a king or queen—by an equivalent of land or other valuable possession. Still no fault could be found if the winner insisted on the strict payment of ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... with cards, wherein the loser is beaten over the palms of the hands with a handkerchief tightly twisted like a rope. Very popular ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... should be used at the card-table; but never produced unless you are called upon as a loser to pay. It may then be resorted to with an air of nonchalance; and when the demand upon it has been honoured, it should be thrown carelessly upon the table, as though to indicate your almost anxiety to make a further sacrifice of its contents. Should you, however, be a winner, any exhibition ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... reconcile the anomaly of his reckless falsehood toward others and his steadfast truth toward me. It is as certain as that we sit here that one of Fauntleroy's last efforts in this world was the effort he made to preserve me from being a loser by the trust that I had placed in him. There is the secret of my strange tenderness for the memory of a felon; that is why the word villain does somehow still grate on my heart when I hear it associated with the name—the disgraced name, I grant ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... home under proper escort. Louis Marsac ground his teeth, and yet—did he care so much for the girl only to gratify a mean revenge for one thing?—the other he was not quite sure of. At all events Jeanne Angelot would always be the loser. The Detroit foundling,—and he gave a short laugh like the ...
— A Little Girl in Old Detroit • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... Ferguson, 'n' starts to go. But he comes back, 'n' looks at Mr. Van wicked. 'By the way,' he says, 'money doesn't interest either of us at present. Suppose we raise the stake this way—the loser will take a trip abroad, for a year, and in the meantime we both agree to let matters rest—in ...
— Blister Jones • John Taintor Foote
... saw was that Jockey Moseby Jones leaned slightly toward the flying Elisha as Merritt drew alongside, and very few spectators saw this much. Who cares to watch a loser when the winner is in sight? Old Man Curry, waiting at the paddock gate, saw the movement and immediately began to ...
— Old Man Curry - Race Track Stories • Charles E. (Charles Emmett) Van Loan
... shan't break my heart; I'm a good loser. And I'm a good fighter, too; perhaps I shan't lose." And snapping off a sprig of geranium, she ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... contentment; But if ye grant me not this, be it known, I will do myself justice— Seizing what Aias obtain'd, or despoiling the tent of Odysseus; Yea, peradventure, thine own—whatsoever the rage of the loser. These, of a surety, are things to be duly consider'd hereafter; Meantime, down to the deep let a black-hull'd galley be hauser'd, Oarsmen selected and rang'd, and the hecatomb stow'd for the temple— Mine be the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... right!" congratulated the manager, holding out his hand. "I'm a game loser. I'm not only out twenty-five dollars but my Dynamite is all gone. A baby could ride that mule now! Officer, pay this man the money. He ...
— Over the Line • Harold M. Sherman
... joyous but grievous, nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruits of righteousness. If, like the mother of Ichabod, you learn to forsake the turbid waters of earth for the Fountain of eternal love—if you make the Lord your portion, you will not in the end be the loser, though wave on wave roll over you and strip you of every other joy. No, not even if at length your sun shall set in clouds impenetrable to mortal vision. A glorious cloudless morning lies beyond, and you shall ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... would be in here, and all my friends outside, and everything going on just the same as though I wasn't alive somewhere. It's like telling yourself that your horse can't possibly pull off a race, so that you won't mind so much if he doesn't, but you always feel just as bad when he comes in a loser. A man can't fool himself into thinking one way when he is ...
— The Lion and the Unicorn and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... commended a physician who was known to him and Dr. Johnson, and said, 'I fight many battles for him, as many people in the country dislike him.' JOHNSON. 'But you should consider, Sir, that by every one of your victories he is a loser; for, every man of whom you get the better, will be very angry, and resolve not to employ him; whereas if people get the better of you in argument about him, they'll think, "We'll send for Dr. ****** nevertheless."' ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... you prosperous, at least it will keep you from becoming miserable; nor is he much a loser that loseth all, yet saveth his own soul ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... real estate, sir, though so great a loser by the delay of five minutes, I am willing to admit that you are right. With regard to the personals, a question in equity—one of clearly-expressed intention—might possibly arise; though even of that I am by no ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... Raffles at Newport. Incidentally, I passed two thousand dollars to my own credit. As I figured it out, if Van Gilt was willing to pay ten thousand dollars for the stuff, and Henriette was willing to take eight thousand dollars for it, nobody was the loser by my pocketing two thousand dollars—unless, perhaps, it was Mr. and Mrs. Constant Scrappe who owned the goods. But that was none of my affair. I played straight with the others, and that was all there was to it as far as I ...
— Mrs. Raffles - Being the Adventures of an Amateur Crackswoman • John Kendrick Bangs
... us and makes it treason against the common weal to reject. And yet his fear of falling into an unreasoning narrow hatred made a check for him: he apologized for the heirs of privilege; he shrank with dislike from the loser's bitterness and the denunciatory tone of the unaccepted innovator. A too reflective and diffusive sympathy was in danger of paralyzing in him that indignation against wrong and that selectness of fellowship which are the conditions of moral force; and ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... is one of their most serious employments; and even sober, they are gamesters: nay, so desperately do they venture upon the chance of winning or losing, that when their whole substance is played away, they stake their liberty and their persons upon one and the last throw. The loser goes calmly into voluntary bondage. However younger he be, however stronger, he tamely suffers himself to be bound and sold by the winner. Such is their perseverance in an evil course: they themselves ...
— Tacitus on Germany • Tacitus
... to the minds of most readers more directly if we call attention to the fact that it just about equals the value of our total wheat crop during a year of good yield. And it is a direct tax upon productive industry everywhere, because, although here and there a nominal loser, fully insured, has only made what is sometimes called "a good sale" to the companies holding his risk, this is only a way of apportioning the loss whereby the community at large become the sufferers. Thus it is that we find all ably-managed insurance ...
— Scientific American, Volume XLIII., No. 25, December 18, 1880 • Various
... who had forged Roger's signature and gotten the traveling bag. It may be added here that, later on, the railroad company offered to pay for the loss of the suit-case and its contents, doing this very promptly when it was learned that the loser was the son of a United ...
— Dave Porter in the Gold Fields - The Search for the Landslide Mine • Edward Stratemeyer
... traditions of terror, I would very willingly have changed for some of those their predecessors whom you have honoured by a note in the 'Italy.' The present police appear to act on exactly contrary principles; yours found the purse and banished the loser; these don't find the jewels, and won't let me go away. I am afraid no punishment is appointed in Venetian law for people who ...
— The Life of John Ruskin • W. G. Collingwood
... Proprietor, who was standing with the Stranger in front of the cage watching the examination. "Both optic nerves are atrophied, and the animal must have received some serious injury, possibly a heavy blow on the forehead." The Proprietor, who has the reputation of being a "good loser," thanked him and gave some directions to the trainer about the care of the animal before leading the way to the table in front of the Arena, where the Press Agent was ...
— Side Show Studies • Francis Metcalfe
... of our Company, who refus'd his Kindness, his Majesty flew into a violent Passion, to be thus slighted, telling the Englishmen, they were good for nothing. Our old Gamester, particularly, hung his Ears at the Proposal, having too lately been a Loser by that sort of Merchandize. It was observable, that we did not see one Partridge from the Waterrees to this place, tho' my Spaniel-Bitch, which I had with me in this Voyage, had put up a great ...
— A New Voyage to Carolina • John Lawson
... and am come hither in quest of somewhat I have lost." Quoth Zumurrud, "Here with a table of sand!" So they brought it, and she took the pen and drawing a geomantic scheme, considered it awhile, then raising her head, exclaimed, "Woe to thee, thou loser! How darest thou lie to Kings? This sand telleth me that of a truth thy name is Jawan the Kurd and that thou art by trade a robber, taking men's goods in the way of unright and slaying those whom Allah hath forbidden to slay save for just cause." And she cried ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... fate had brought upon him. On the day of the races he had lost five thousand dollars that he could ill afford to lose, and with it counted that he had lost another five thousand which he had told himself had always been as good as his. He had shown men that he was a bad loser, by flying into an ungovernable rage that vented its fury upon Endymion until savage voices cried to him to hold his quirt or he would be jerked from the saddle. He had seen that the slow turning tables were turning at last. He had seen Wayne Shandon, the man always in his way, white ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory
... was placed a telegraphic instrument, and at the other, another; and with great anxiety, although with strong faith in the success of their work, Mr. Vail sent to Mr. Morse the first real telegraphic message, which ran thus: "A patient waiter is no loser." ...
— Stories of New Jersey • Frank Richard Stockton
... fogs of the evening; the ignorance and inadvertency of youth, and the disease and infirmities of old age: that our portion of time is not only short as to its duration, but also uncertain in the possession: that the loss of it is irreparable to the loser, and profitable to nobody else: that it shall be severely accounted for at the great judgment, and lamented in a sad eternity."—"Of the Care and Improvement of Time," Miscel., 6th ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 231, April 1, 1854 • Various
... carefully on my kitchen table, as on any part of the house. If I find later that the winning plans include these things I shall believe that Henry Anderson is a mind reader, or that lost plans naturally gravitate to him. But there is no use to grouch further. I seem to be born a loser. Anyway, I haven't lost you and ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... the lofty hills that lie between Newby and Wormiston, as the latter place was locally called. Still, he hesitated to act in so ugly looking an affair, and it was only after long and painful consultation with a neighbour, himself of late a heavy loser, that Gibson went to Peebles in order to get the authority necessary to enable him to ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... fish, which he had noted in his diary; ("D—n the fellow, does he keep a diary?" said the Baronet,) and though the result could only be particularly agreeable to one party, he should wish both winner and loser mirth with their wine;—he was sorry he was unable to promise himself the pleasure of participating in either. Enclosed was a signed note of the weight of the fish. Armed with this, Sir Bingo claimed his wine—triumphed in his judgment—swore ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... loser), Archibald, fourth earl, who lost the battles of Homildon, Shrewsbury, and Verneuil, in the last of which ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... longer in doubt. The delicate, dreaded hand of Marianne was at the bottom of all that. She had made some bargain with Monsieur Jouvenet, as between a woman and a debauchee! The Prefect of Police was not the loser: Marianne Kayser had the wherewithal ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... the Netherlands, and Germany. This war followed closely upon the War of the Palatinate, which ended with the Treaty of Ryswick, in 1697. To this peace Louis XIV of France—the most powerful monarch in Europe, who, in spite of his brutal conduct of the war, had really been a loser by it—gave his consent. Among the concessions made by him was his recognition—much against his own interest—of William III as the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... peace nor liberty under a Puritan's roof," Sir John said; "and I should have neither son nor daughter, and should be a loser by my girl's marriage. You shall be as much master here, Denzil, as if this were your own house—which it will be when I have moved to my last billet. Give me a couple of stalls for my roadsters, and kennel room for my dogs, and I want no more. You and Angela may introduce ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... the lightest, differs from the first to a degree, that, in the coinage of three hundred and sixty tons of copper, the patentee will be a gainer, only by that difference, of twenty-four thousand four hundred and ninety-four pounds, and in the whole, the public will be a loser of eighty-two thousand one hundred and sixty-eight pounds, sixteen shillings, even supposing the metal in point of goodness to answer Wood's contract and the assay that hath been made; which it infallibly doth not. For this point hath likewise been enquired into by very ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. VI; The Drapier's Letters • Jonathan Swift
... naturally he thought it worth while reporting the circumstance to the colonel, and a search was made; but no clue could be found to the missing stirrup, so he had to ride away as best he could with only the other one; so he only came off a loser in the end, and he never got his ...
— The Autobiography of Sergeant William Lawrence - A Hero of the Peninsular and Waterloo Campaigns • William Lawrence
... frauds and cheats, both against the royal treasury and against the Indians; and there is no remedy for this, as they themselves administer justice. They hold the collections in their possession for a long time, trading with them, and the royal treasury is the loser. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume X, 1597-1599 • E. H. Blair
... and we must ask ourselves why Germany ever bargained for the repayment in gold, after the war, of the millions she had lent the Turks in paper, if she knew that Turkey could never repay her. True, the loans had only cost her the paper the notes were printed on, so that in no case could she prove a loser, but how could she be a gainer? The answer to that question shouts at us from every acre of Turkish soil. The immense undeveloped riches of Turkey supply the answer. Some indeed are already being developed, and the labour and most of the materials ...
— Crescent and Iron Cross • E. F. Benson
... piece of news," he answered. "But, if he did, he's made it all right by this time, of course, and nobody is the loser." ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter
... studying rhetoric as he spoke, While the lord Abbot heaved half-envious sighs And hung suspended on his accents. CLAUD. But will it pay, Horatio? HOR. Let Shylock see to that, but yet I trust He's no great loser. CLAUD. Which side went in first? HOR. We did, And scored a paltry thirty runs in all. The lissom Lockyer gambolled round the stumps With many a crafty curvet: you had thought An Indian rubber monkey were endued With wicket-keeping instincts; teazing Tinley Issued his treacherous ...
— Samuel Butler's Canterbury Pieces • Samuel Butler
... that the whole edition of "The Times" had been printed by steam during the night, and that thenceforward the steam-press would be regularly used. He told the men that if they attempted violence there was a force at hand to suppress it, but if they behaved well no man should be a loser by the invention. They should either remain in their situations, or receive full wages until they could procure others. This conduct in a rich and powerful man was no more than decent. The men accepted his terms ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... of his winnings on what seemed a very good chance. Even before the wheel was revolved and the ball set rolling, the needle swung about, and when the platinum ball came to rest Kennedy rose from the table, a loser. ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... remarkably clumsy manner. "This text editor won't let me make a file with a line longer than 80 characters! What a bagbiter!" 2. A person who has caused you some trouble, inadvertently or otherwise, typically by failing to program the computer properly. Synonyms: {loser}, {cretin}, {chomper}. 3. 'bite the bag' /vi./ To fail in some manner. "The computer keeps crashing every five minutes." "Yes, the disk controller is really biting the bag." The original loading of these terms was almost undoubtedly obscene, possibly referring ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... mounted to his forehead and slowly sank again. And in those few moments Noel Wyndham stepped into manhood and faced his soul anew. If she loved him, he would marry her and give her all he had; withholding nothing. She should not be a loser because she had loved him better ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... Theater, and then sought out some of his old companions in haunts where he knew they were likely to be found. He had a few games of cards, in which his luck varied. He rose from the card table a loser in ...
— The Tin Box - and What it Contained • Horatio Alger
... Ailie," said Morton, desirous to silence her remonstrances, "that this is a business of great importance, in which I may be a great gainer, and cannot possibly be a loser." ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... disastrously the loser, in any case," he remarked. "As a matter of course, the conditions having been disregarded, Lady Calmady withdrew her promise of a ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... be here. He would rather not have been born—if he had been consulted. After all, I may have idealized and overrated him. One of his rival poet friends once told me that my favorite and favored verse-maker was an inveterate poker-player and a continual loser! Ergo, the cynicism and scornfulness of the world. But banish ...
— The Inner Sisterhood - A Social Study in High Colors • Douglass Sherley et al.
... impossible, much as he wished it, to meet her, he plotted an unholy deed and carried it to fulfilment. For he summoned Maximus to the palace and sat down with him to a game of draughts, and a certain sum was set as a penalty for the loser; and the emperor won in this game, and receiving Maximus' ring as a pledge for the agreed amount, he sent it to his house, instructing the messenger to tell the wife of Maximus that her husband bade her come as quickly as possible to the palace to salute the queen Eudoxia. And she, judging by the ...
— History of the Wars, Books III and IV (of 8) - The Vandalic War • Procopius
... discipline having been evaded—and we all to some extent have opportunities, and too often exercise them, of taking the narrow path by the shortest cuts—its purpose is balked. But the soul is the loser. In seeking to gain its life it has really lost it. This is what Christ meant when He said: "He that loveth his life shall lose it, and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it ...
— Natural Law in the Spiritual World • Henry Drummond
... Bob. "Things just as rank have been pulled off again and again. But at any rate she ought to get after him right away. She's a dead loser as things stand, and if she can only get the rascal in court she may have a chance. Perhaps he hasn't covered his trail as well as he thinks he has, and when a good lawyer gets to questioning him the truth may come out. In any case it's ...
— The Radio Boys' First Wireless - Or Winning the Ferberton Prize • Allen Chapman
... way. It was that, during her "Bohemian" period, he had endeavoured to fill the empty niche left in her affections by the departure of that light-o'-love, Captain Lennox, and had been repulsed for his pains. A bad loser, my Lord nursed resentment. He would teach a mere ballet-dancer to snap her fingers at him. His opportunity came sooner than he imagined. He made ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... makes the bigger score today wins. The loser has to keep absolutely off the grass. Not so much as a look or a remark about the weather. Then, of course, after the winner has had his innings, if he hasn't brought the thing off, and she has chucked him, the loser can have a look in. But not a ...
— A Wodehouse Miscellany - Articles & Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... champions and spokesmen of their parties at a critical period when great issues were to be discussed and great movements outlined and directed. It was naturally expected that the winner in the contest would become the political leader of his State. Little was it imagined that the loser would become the leader and savior of ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... that are made so important by our hope that we shall enjoy them long. I said to myself: If the little that I have done, and the little that is left for me to do, should perish with me, what would the human race be the loser? What should I ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... Miss Darley?" Silas began. "We've missed you consid'able. Glad to see you back at the post of dooty. Hope the Squire treated you hahnsomely,—liberal pecooniary compensation,—hey? A'n't much of a loser, I guess, by acceptin' ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... union would gain thereby. But one European country would be the loser, Great Britain, the land of promise for the middleman; that, according to German comprehension, at present gains a living by skimming the cream from the trade industry of other nations by facilitating the exchange of goods, and making profits by being ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... the loser will carry my bolo," said Carancal as a challenge. They wrestled; and Bugtongpalasan was defeated, so he had ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... chance well," he had said, "we'll play the black coat a trick some day, and you will he no loser by it." ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... the value of the wisdom he had thus obtained, Odin went to visit the most learned of all the giants, Vafthrudnir, and entered with him into a contest of wit, in which the stake was nothing less than the loser's head. ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... granny, pathetically. "I think I prized it too much, but when you get old, child, and—and the end of life's journey is in sight, you—you—well, somehow, these things don't seem to matter so much. 'Tis you will be the loser, dearie. When I'm gone the things will be yours. I've had a good many years with my old treasures for company, so I ...
— The Making of Mona • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... rouse themselves, or are aroused, from their vanity to the truth that the value is all the other way. Adelaide was only the natural woman in blindly fancying that Dory was the one to be commiserated, in not seeing that she herself was a greater loser than he, that to return his love would not be a concession but an acquisition. Most men are content to love, to compel women to receive their love; they prefer the passive, the receptive attitude in the woman, and are even bored by being actively loved in return; for love ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... engineers in charge being to send in so much water as would just generate the steam, but so as not to leave any water in the boiler. The engines of the Vesta were made by Mr. Penn, for Mr. Howard, of the King and Queen Ironworks, Rotherhithe. Mr. Howard was, I fear, a considerable loser by his meritorious efforts to ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 312, December 24, 1881 • Various
... tried a competition in verse-making. Both showed considerable skill, but the umpire decided that Louis had won, so he bore off in triumph the prize of a bottle of olives, and was only sorry that he could not compel the loser to share his feast, which he well knew would be as abhorrent to her as it was delightful ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • Margaret Moyes Black
... for this," he said, smiling, "when he asked me if you might accompany him to Genoa. The Order will be a loser, for you would assuredly have risen to the grand priorage of your langue some day. But we have no right to complain; you have done your duty and more, and I doubt not that should Mahomet again lay siege to Rhodes, we may count on your hastening here ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... the entrance to the camp they had made a great shamiana [tent] ready, hung with shawls of Kashmir and the plunder of Delhi; and there was set a silk divan for the Rani, and beside it stood the Loser and the Gainer, Allah-u-Din and the King, ...
— The Ninth Vibration And Other Stories • L. Adams Beck
... the Mafia, gambling on Mars was confined to a simple game played with children's jacks. The loser had to relieve the ...
— Mars Confidential • Jack Lait
... that purpose," replied the datu: "I reap from these murders an advantage of twenty dollars a head when the families prosecute." A compensation of thirty dollars per month was offered him, and to this he scarcely submitted, observing that he should be a considerable loser, as there fell in this manner at least three men in the month. At another time, when the resident attempted to carry some regulation into execution, he said, "kami tradah suka begito, orang kaya!" "We do not ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... caught now and again, but he catches you at times. You make sure he is bluffing, you raise him and raise him, then you call him—and find he has three aces! And I will say this for Moore—he's a capital loser. He doesn't seem to mind losing a bit, so long as you keep on. You would think he was a millionaire; only a millionaire would have an eye on every chip, I suppose. What salary do they give him at the ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... the army or the navy, if he had not been deterred by a bodily impediment; in which case English history might have been a gainer, but English literature would certainly have been immeasurably a loser. In spite of his lameness, the child grew strong enough to be sent on a long visit to his grandfather's farm at Sandyknowe; and here, lying among the sheep on the windy downs, playing about the romantic ruins of Smailholm Tower,[1] scampering through the heather on a tiny Shetland pony, ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... happened," gasped the loser. "There it is, away down the stream, floating toward that boathouse. Oh, Master Prescott, do you feel able to go and get it ...
— The Grammar School Boys in Summer Athletics • H. Irving Hancock
... find agreeable quarters at Etretat, where Browning in a "fine phrenzy" had hired a wholly unsuitable house with a potato-patch for view, and escaped from his bad bargain, a loser of some francs, at his wife's entreaty, they settled for a short time at Havre—"detestable place," Mrs Browning calls it—in a house close to the sea and surrounded by a garden. On a bench by the shore Mrs Browning could sit and win back a little strength in the bright August ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... perfectly cold and expressionless to me after he took this idea into his head. After dinner he only spoke to me once. Mr Marlowe was telling him about some horse he had bought for the farm in Kentucky, and my husband looked at me and said, "Marlowe may be a gentleman, but he seldom quits loser in a horse-trade." I was surprised at that, but at that time—and even on the next occasion when he found us together—I didn't understand what was in his mind. That next time was the morning when Mr Marlowe received a ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley
... he must have known of that all along; but the older one gets the less desirous one is of judging one's neighbour. In financial matters so much seems to depend, in the formation of a judgment, whether one is a loser or a gainer by the transaction. There is a great fortune in malgamite, and a fortune is a temptation to be avoided. Others besides your brother have been tempted. I should probably have succumbed myself if it had not ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman
... Dryden, in immortal strain, Had raised the table-round again But that a ribald King and Court Bade him toil on to make them sport, Demanding for their niggard pay, Fit for their souls, a loser lay."* ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... while he called it foolhardy. You could tell that Barry was of that type, by the quick glow of his eyes and smile. But the rivalry in daring was not really for Barry; Barry's choice was made. It was at bottom the last test of mettle, the ultimate challenge from the loser to the winner, in the lists chosen by the loser as her own. It was also—for Nan was something of a bully—the heckling of Gerda. She might have won one game, and that the most important, but she should be forced to own herself beaten in another, after ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay
... 24. The reference is to chap. vii. where it was said that the law views the parties in a case of particular injustice as originally equal, but now unequal, the wrong doer the gainer and the sufferer the loser by the wrong, but in the case above supposed ...
— Ethics • Aristotle
... himself, was one hundred dollars. His services were regularly valued by what such a man would hire for. Ben accompanied him on the circuit, and died at Alexandria. When this was told him, he immediately referred to this account, and declared he had saved money by buying Ben, but should be loser if he paid his funeral expenses, which he declined to do. Judge Martin was very near-sighted, and it was amusing to see him with his little basket doing his marketing, examining scrupulously every article, cheapening everything, and finally taking the refuse of meats and ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... of condemning five hundred copies to the inglorious purpose of defending pye bottoms from the dust of an oven.... Profit, my Lord, has not been my motive for publishing: if it had, I should be egregiously disappointed, for instead of gaining I shall be a considerable loser by the publication; and yet many of my subscribers have given me four, five, and six times over and above the subscription-price for my Poem. How even the remaining books will see the light must depend entirely upon my pecuniary, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 201, September 3, 1853 • Various |
