"Stupidity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... it shows an intelligence unable to grasp the wider relations of life, and concentrated on the gratification of petty and immediate desires. Thus it happens that the cunning of criminals is frequently associated with almost inconceivable stupidity.[35] ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... rebellion and defiance, but yet, visibly, an ever-opposing will. He sees it in the dissatisfied look, and reluctant air and unwilling movement; the constrained strokes of labor, the drawling tones, the slow hearing, the feigned stupidity, the sham pains and sickness, the short memory; and he feels it every hour, in innumerable forms, frustrating his designs by a ceaseless though perhaps invisible countermining. This unceasing opposition to the will of its 'owner,' on the part of his ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... people who could be very happy, and who yet with incredible blindness and stupidity are running their heads against stone walls (or feather beds!) and destroying all chance of peace for themselves, their mates, ...
— Three Things • Elinor Glyn
... meningitis: genius is a form of scrofula closely allied to mania: in sleep, the brain loses blood, in intellectual excitement, attracts blood; in the illumination of the death-bed, or the delirium of drunkenness, the circulation through the brain is quickened; in torpidity, melancholy, stupidity, the circulation ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett
... gray and chestnut. It is met with in small flocks on the mountains and less frequently in the valleys. It frequents scrubby wooded places rather than open hill sides and is very easy to approach and kill; this confidence or stupidity together with its clownish appearance are the reasons for its commonly used local name. Their nests are hollows in the ground, lined with grasses and concealed by overhanging tufts of grass. The eggs, which are pure white, are not distinguishable with certainty ...
— The Bird Book • Chester A. Reed
... shadow of a notion of what they are up against in America. They have never even heard of the batteries of almost brutal energy, of which I had thus touched a live wire even before I landed. People talk about the hypocrisy of England in dealing with a small nationality. What strikes me is the stupidity of England in supposing that she is dealing with a small nationality; when she is really dealing with a very large nationality. She is dealing with a nationality that often threatens, even numerically, to dominate all the other nationalities ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton
... patriots have any confidence in the flag then it's their own fault. Follow my commands punctually, and I will forget your stupidity." ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume I (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... advantageously to further his own ends. Something of the cunning and foresight of an ancient Egyptian sorcerer was in the composition of the Archbishop himself, for he judged mankind alone by its general stupidity and credulity;— stupidity and credulity which formed excellent ground for the working of miracles, whether such miracles were wrought in the name of Osiris or Christ. Mokanna, the "Veiled Prophet," while corrupt to the core with unnameable vices, had managed in his time to ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... some cases the disgust felt by loyal citizens at infamous political interference may have operated to prevent their sending their children to school; but these evils are sectional and limited, and the schools themselves will, before long, so enlighten the dark regions as to render such stupidity impossible. It is to the infinite credit of the State that since the war began there has been no diminution, but on the contrary, an increase in schools, both private and public, in number of pupils, teachers, school houses, and amount of school funds. Of eight thousand ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... cook-books and her satiric sketches), when speaking of people silent from stupidity, supposed kindly to be full of reserved power, says: "We cannot help thinking that when a head is full of ideas some of them must involuntarily ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... than one year of marriage for even the cleverest Benedict to uproot those weeds of stupidity, denseness, and non-comprehension that seem to grow so riotously in the mental garden of the bachelor; so, said Himself, "We came all together; why shouldn't we go home all together?" (So like a man! Always reasoning from analogy; always, so ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... injustice. But the fact remains that he turned over his white brothers to the mercies of half-Indian, half-negro, savages, who were not allies of Great Britain, and in whose quarrels she had no interest. And Salmon did this, knowing there could be but one end. If he did not know it, his stupidity equalled what now appears to be heartless indifference. So far as to secure pardon for all except the leader and one faithful follower, Colonel Rudler of the famous Phalanx, Salmon did use his authority, and he offered, if Walker would ask as an American citizen, to intercede ...
— Real Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... conspirators, or sit together in a boat, dumb, glum, and penitential, like naughty schoolboys on the bench of disgrace? 'Tis an Omorcan superstition; a rule without a reason; a venerable, idiotic fashion invented to repress lively spirits and put a premium on stupidity. ...
— Fisherman's Luck • Henry van Dyke
... growing round the town the blame of the calamity was thrown; and it was resolved to punish tobacco, the sottish rain-drinker and wicked rain-bringer. A rabble, consisting chiefly of boys and youths, rushed to the tobacco fields, and scattered havoc with the ferocity of stupidity. The mad creatures pulled up the stalks, tore off the leaves, and trampled leaves and stalks under foot. Before they had done the work of destruction quite as completely as they desired, soldiers appeared on the scene. They sternly commanded ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... heartily to this, and I did not think fit to tell him more, nor did he inquire; the Mayor's stupidity passing current for all. For M. Grabot himself, I think that I never saw a man more completely confounded. He stood staring with his mouth open; and, as much deserted as the statesman who has fallen ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... the encyclopedia from what Prof. Rigl told her last year." I was saved. Dora can act splendidly; I've noticed it before. In the evening she rowed me, and said: "You little goose, will you never learn caution; first that stupidity about Viktor and to-day this new blunder! I've helped you out of a hole once but I shan't do it again." And then she spent all the time writing a letter, to him of course—! Hella and I have just been reading a ...
— A Young Girl's Diary • An Anonymous Young Girl
... usual seized the reins without fear. "We have just received a telegram from Burgsdorf which will compel us to start for home to-morrow morning. You need not be alarmed, my dear child, it is nothing serious, only a piece of stupidity,"—she laid a sharp accent upon the last words,—"a piece of stupidity which will soon right itself, and the sooner its checked, the sooner the matter'll be ended. I'll explain it all to you later, but we must go now; it can't ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner
... noblemen, were taken prisoner. These were the last prisoners of war that we were able to send into the South African Republic. Soon afterwards, when Pretoria was on the point of falling into the enemy's hands, the prisoners there had to be sent further east, but—owing either to the stupidity of the Transvaal Government, or to the treachery of the guards—a great many of them were left behind for Lord Roberts to release and re-arm against us. Our burghers grumbled much at this, and blamed the negligence of ...
— Three Years' War • Christiaan Rudolf de Wet
... is strange that the living lay the things so little to heart until they have to engage in that war where there is no discharge. O that my head were waters and mine eyes a fountain of tears that I might weep day and night for my own and others' stupidity in this great matter. O for grace to do every day work in its proper time and to live above the tempting cheating train of earthly things. The rest of the family are moderately well. I have been for some days worse than I have been for 8 months past, but I may soon get better. I am in the same way ...
— Margaret Ogilvy • James M. Barrie
... the first day, on the first day, on the first day of the week, while all other days are, as to name, buried in everlasting oblivion! And shall we not take that notice thereof as to follow the Lord Jesus and the churches herein? Oh stupidity! ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... sure, when I was eighteen, that if I could but give to the world a picture of Boyhood, flagellated by the world's stupidity and brutality, the world would heed. At thirty, I gave up ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow
... mouth foamed, his hands were clenched "don't mention his name, sir," he vociferated, "unless you would see me go mad in your presence! That I should have been such a miserable dolt such an infatuated idiotsuch a beast endowed with thrice a beast's stupidity, to be led and driven and spur-galled by such a rascal, and under such ridiculous pretences!Mr. Oldbuck, I could tear myself when I ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... only in these moments of satire that Mrs. Wharton reveals much about her disposition: her impatience of stupidity and affectation and muddy confusion of mind and purpose; her dislike of dinginess; her toleration of arrogance when it is high-bred. Such qualities do not help her, for all her spare, clean movement, to achieve the march or rush of narrative; such qualities, for all her satiric pungency, do ...
— Contemporary American Literature - Bibliographies and Study Outlines • John Matthews Manly and Edith Rickert
... three-quarters of a dollar, forgetting that he has spent a whole one, is wild with joy, and runs to spend his shillings at the tavern. Something like this once happened in France. Barbarous as the country of A—— was, however, the government did not trust the stupidity of the inhabitants enough to make them accept such singular protection, and hence ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat
... well out of her mouth, she was aware of her stupidity; her laugh ended, and she grew redder than before. Schilsky had laughed, too, quite frankly, and he continued to smile at the confusion she had fallen into. It seemed a long time before he said with emphasis: "That is the last thing in the world you should ask ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... my stupidity is making it difficult," admitted Josie, with a sigh. "Father would scold me soundly if he knew how foolishly I behaved to-day. There was every opportunity of my forcing a clew by calling unexpectedly on Mr. Cragg at his office, but he defeated my ...
— Mary Louise in the Country • L. Frank Baum (AKA Edith Van Dyne)
... opened her lips, so much as to say, that is well, or I like this. We have often asked her, "Madam, do you want anything? Is there anything you wish for? Do but ask, and command us," but we have never been able to draw a word from her. We cannot tell whether her sorrow proceeds from pride, sorrow, stupidity, or dumbness." ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 3 • Anon.
... tale of a family, reduced to live, for weeks, on potatoes, only, and many a mind would awake to deep sympathy, and stretch forth the hand of charity. But describe cases, where the immortal mind is pining in stupidity and ignorance, or racked with the fever of baleful passions, and how small the number, so elevated in sentiment, and so enlarged in their views, as to appreciate and sympathize in these far greater misfortunes! The intellectual and moral wants of our fellow-men, therefore, should claim the ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher
... Fred's departure in a way that turned it into ridicule. While playing a game of 'boston' he whispered into Jacqueline's ear something about the old-fashionedness and stupidity of Paul and Virginia, and his opinion of "calf-love," as the English call an early attachment, and something about the right of every girl to know a suitor long before she consents to marry him. He said he thought that the days of courtship must be the most delightful in the life of ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... had sufficed to overbear the whole of the hostile war fleet at both points. To have the greater force and then to divide it, so that the enemy can attack either or both fractions with decisively superior numbers, is the acme of military stupidity; nor is it the less stupid because in practice it has been frequently done. In it has often consisted the vaunted operation of "surrounding an enemy," "bringing him between two fires," and so forth; pompous and troublesome combinations by which ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan
... shall!" returned the Tiger, in a rage at the Jackal's stupidity; "I'll make you understand! Look ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... been Lunar Theory. But when he went down from Cambridge for good, being a man of some means, he travelled. For a year he was an honorary Attache at one of the big Embassies. He finally settled in London with a vague idea of some day writing a magnum opus about the stupidity of mankind; for he had come to the conclusion by the age of twenty-five that all men were stupid, irreclaimably, irredeemably stupid; that everything was wrong; that all literature was really bad, all art much overrated, and all music ...
— Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches • Maurice Baring
... of Irish life, nothing impressed me so much as the universal belief among my countrymen that Providence had endowed them with capacities of a high order, and their country with resources of unbounded richness, but that both the capacities and the resources remained undeveloped owing to the stupidity—or worse—of British rule. It was asserted, and generally taken for granted, that the exiles of Erin sprang to the front in every walk of life throughout the world, in every country but their own—though I notice that in quite ...
— Ireland In The New Century • Horace Plunkett
... replied Prescott almost brusquely. "And accept my apology at the same time, Ferrers, if you'll be so good. You weren't trying to make fun of me; I know it now. This is simply another buttered piece off your thick cake of stupidity." ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... by stupidity, if not by spite. "The language of 'Guy Mannering,' though characteristic, is mean; the state of society, though peculiar, is vulgar. Meg Merrilies is swelled into a very unnatural importance." The speech of Meg Merrilies to Ellangowan is "one of the few which affords an intelligible ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... continued Tim, making further concessions to his friend's stupidity. "At the dances, at the raisin's, runnin', jumpin'—everythin'—Perkins used to be the King Bee. Now—" Tim's silence furnished an impressive close to the contrast. "Why! They all think you are just fine!" said Tim, with a ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
... "Stupidity is closer to deliverance than intellect which innovates," is a phrase ascribed to a Mohammedan saint, and do not modern theologians report with enthusiasm, the ...
— Cosmic Consciousness • Ali Nomad
... I really cannot call you Cyril now," Nellie said, curtseying almost to the ground after taking a survey of the lad, "your costume becomes you rarely; and I am filled with wonder at the thought of my own stupidity in not seeing all along that you were a prince in disguise. It is like the fairy tales my old nurse used to tell me of the king's son who went out to look for a beautiful wife, and who worked as a ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty
... remembered that he would not be able to see the girl Irene from the library windows, which are at the back of the club. I was looking down at her, but she refrained from signalling because she could not see William, and irritated by her stupidity I went out and asked ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie
... women have ever quite succumbed to the tired giant attitude in their reading. Women are more serious, not only about life, but about books. No type or kind of woman is capable of that lounging, defensive stupidity which is the basis of the tired giant attitude, and all through the early 'nineties, during which the respectable frivolity of Great Britain left its most enduring marks upon our literature, there was a rebel undertow of earnest and aggressive ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... the growth of the revolt with wonder. Knowing something of the dissatisfaction in the country, I marveled at the stupidity of the Government in permitting the police to handle its inception as they did. Any hundred New York or London policemen, or any hundred Petrograd policemen, could have prevented the demonstrations by the simple process of closing the streets. But they let people ...
— World's War Events, Vol. II • Various
... suppose I was a true emblem of.—The silent friends that trickled down my cheeks brought me back from that inanimate state,—and I found myself in the embraces of Lady Powis, tenderly affectionate, as when in the arms of Mrs. Whitmore.—Judge not, Madam, said I, from my present stupidity, that I am so wanting in my head or heart, to be insensible of this undeserv'd goodness.—With Mr. and Mrs. Jenkings's permission, I am devoted to your Ladyship's service.—Our approbation! Miss Warley, return'd the former;—yes, ...
— Barford Abbey • Susannah Minific Gunning
... written by Dalby Thomas in 1690 expresses with tolerable accuracy the attitude of the average Englishman toward Spain during the previous century. He says:—"We will make a short reflection on the unaccountable negligence, or rather stupidity, of this nation, during the reigns of Henry VII., Henry VIII., Edward VI. and Queen Mary, who could contentedly sit still and see the Spanish rifle, plunder and bring home undisturbed, all the wealth ...
— The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century • Clarence Henry Haring
... climax on climax, witty, ingenious, and so plausibly presented that we forget its departures from the possibilities of life. In "The Alchemist" Jonson represented, none the less to the life, certain sharpers of the metropolis, revelling in their shrewdness and rascality and in the variety of the stupidity and wickedness of their victims. We may object to the fact that the only person in the play possessed of a scruple of honesty is discomfited, and that the greatest scoundrel of all is approved in the ...
— Epicoene - Or, The Silent Woman • Ben Jonson
... when an utterly unexpected attack is made upon him, he shows what he is. It was characteristic of Porter that after the moment of dazed unrealization had passed he began almost mechanically to plan a break for cover; he wished that he had not gone into the fight, and berated his stupidity in not foreseeing the move; it had not occurred to him that the subscription for the stock had not closed long ago. After a few minutes of vain search for an avenue of retreat, he saw that it was too late to do anything ...
— The Short Line War • Merwin-Webster
... fairy-tale. On horseback with white silk stockings! Hunting in sarcenet, without cloak and without a man! Her husband would make fine game of her when he came back; but God bless her for her kind heart and benevolent stupidity. Her mother tended me with all the politeness I should have met with in the best families. The worthy woman treated me like a mother, and called me "son" as she attended to my wounds. The name sounded pleasantly in my ears, and did no little towards my cure ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... to reach Skinner's by this shorter cut, and began to bitterly attribute it to his desire to serve Collinson. Ah, yes! it would be fine indeed, if just as he were about to clutch the prize he should be sacrificed through the ignorance and stupidity of this heavy-handed moralist at his side! But it was not until, through that moralist's guidance, they climbed a steep acclivity to a second ridge, and were comparatively safe, that he began to feel ashamed of his surly silence or surlier interruptions. ...
— In a Hollow of the Hills • Bret Harte
... so much absurdity, so much untruth, charlatanism, and imposture, as to pronounce it impossible that such contradictions should have proceeded from the same being. I separate, therefore, the gold from the dross; restore to him the former, and leave the latter to the stupidity of some, and roguery of others of his disciples. Of this band of dupes and impostors, Paul was the great Coryphaeus, and first corrupter of the doctrines of Jesus. These palpable interpolations and falsifications ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... for me, as I am a pupil still! It's the stupidity of pupils which has made her dislike music, but then—why does she come to a concert? Why couldn't she have had the decency to refuse, and let someone else have the ticket? Oh, I do dislike you—you cold,— cutting, ...
— Betty Trevor • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... which neither wisdom nor necessity but hasty folly tore, alas! from that fair head, I am enraged, my cheeks burn with anger, even tears gush forth bathing my face and bosom. I would die, could I but be avenged upon the impious stupidity of that rash hand. O Love, if such wrong goes unpunished, thine be the reproach!... Wilt thou suffer the loveliest and dearest of thy possessions to be boldly ravished and yet bear it ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... had a son at Sandhurst, and the other was still reading for the Bar, which is pretty expensive too if you're as amiably stupid as Bertie Thesiger. (I mention Bertie because, though he doesn't come into this story, his stupidity and his amiability combined to tighten the situation considerably for Viola.) And Mrs. Thesiger had only been able to marry off two of her seven daughters. Of the others, one (the one who had been to Girton) was a High School teacher in Canterbury ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair
... that those lawyers should have been so stupid, or should have accredited me with such amazing stupidity when they drew up that bond; but so it was, and the tables were completely turned. To sue me for libel was folly, for in St. Paul or St. Anthony I should have had the gratuitous services of the best legal talent in the state, and they and their case would have been ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... immortal war with wit, Cry'd, "'Tis resolv'd; for Nature pleads, that he Should only rule, who most resembles me. Shadwell alone my perfect image bears, Mature in dulness from his tender years: Shadwell alone, of all my sons, is he, Who stands confirm'd in full stupidity. The rest to some faint meaning make pretence, But Shadwell never deviates into sense. Some beams of wit on other souls may fall, Strike through, and make a lucid interval; But Shadwell's genuine night admits no ray, His rising fogs prevail upon the day. Besides, his goodly fabrick fills ...
— English Satires • Various
... (although I do not meddle with their eternal state, as being no-ways my province or prerogative to determine upon) at least those I have here condescended upon, died either in a senseless, secure, supine stupidity, or else belching out the most fearful oaths, and imprecations against themselves or others, or worse, if worse may be, roaring out in despair in the most dreadful horror of an awakened conscience under the sense of God's wrath and ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... slightest belief in Alec's innate nobility of character. Beliani likened him to Bayard, it is true, and Marulitch had scoffingly adopted the simile; but that was because each thought Bayard not admirable, but a fool. The somber history of the Kosnovian monarchy, a record of crass stupidity made lurid at times by a lightning gleam of passion, justified the belief that Alexis would follow the path that led Theodore, and Ferdinand, and Ivan, and Milosch to their ruin. Each of these rulers began ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... week from Hastings, both seemed to have been born with the idea that there was nothing of the slightest consequence in the way of our studies but the tongues they taught. And oh, the scoldings we received for what they called our neglect and stupidity! ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn
... Bunker Hill, perhaps, made the British officers a trifle timid about crossing the inlet, and marching over the sandy shore, to attack intrenched sharpshooters. Thus it happened that Clinton and his men, through stupidity, were kept prisoners on the sand island, mere spectators of the thrilling scene. They had to content themselves with fighting mosquitoes, under the sweltering rays of a ...
— Hero Stories from American History - For Elementary Schools • Albert F. Blaisdell
... was common, but the way it was stretched upon a heap of sacks made him remember the sleigh that he had yesterday passed upon the river, and the keen sinister face of the driver, which had ill contrasted with his apparent sleep and stupidity. ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall
... maladroit. It was the stupidity of a clever fellow, deluding himself with the notion that having refused the role of lover, he could at least play that of guardian and adviser; whose conscience, moreover, was so absolutely clear on the subject of Elizabeth ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... through the press and by every private opportunity, up to the very day of the election, the chances are heavily in favor of passing the library measure by a good majority. It must be a truly Boeotian community, far gone in stupidity or something worse, which would so stand in its own light as to vote down a measure conducing in the highest degree to the public intelligence. But even should it be defeated, its advocates should never be discouraged. ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... prodigious size, a miraculous squint, and a mouth which probably had a beginning, but of which it was impossible to say where it might end. The shepherd was worthy of his companion; and yet there was something in the extravagant stupidity of his fat and florid countenance that was interesting to a Parisian eye. Madame Deshoulieres, who was too much occupied with the verses of the great D'Urfe to attend to what was before her, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... advise you to be cautious in writing me a second of the same tenor; for though I understand you were drunk when you did it, yet give me leave to tell you that drunkenness is no excuse for rudeness. But for your stupidity and sottishness you might have known, by attending to the public gazette, that you had your full quantity of ten thousand acres of land allowed you; that is, nine thousand and seventy-three acres in the great tract, and the remainder ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... mere instrument of Austrian ambitions and allowed ourselves to be dragged into danger for the beaux yeux of the Ballplatz. But to manage things so ill as to make it certain that England must declare against us and that Italy must refuse to help us—this, indeed, was the master-stroke of stupidity. Your Majesty will, no doubt, say that this was the fault of BETHMANN-HOLLWEG and VON JAGOW, but I am not sure that you yourself must not share with them the responsibility, for it was you who lost your head and gave the final word—which, of course, ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 2, 1914 • Various
... have impelled him to such a course. The inherent probabilities of success in the case of the Upper Canadian rebellion were from the first very few and remote. There was a brief interval during which, owing to the stupidity and supineness of the Government, success might have been achieved, but whether it would have been temporary or permanent must ever remain an open question. In any case, the contingency was one upon which no prudent man would have allowed himself ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... mother! Far, far too kind!" The awkwardness and stupidity of yesterday, and of many yesterdays, smote him to the heart, and roused once more the only too ready tears. But he did not cry long, he had a happy feeling of community with his brothers and sisters in getting more than they any of them deserved; ...
— Melchior's Dream and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... in silence, and with the interest of those who wait for their entertainment, were both amazed and vexed, at what now appeared to be the dulness and stupidity of the beast. When however he moved not from his place, but seemed as if he were indeed about to fall into a quiet sleep, those who occupied the lower seats began both to cry out to him and shake at him their ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... and in the moist they are too soon effaced. Yet greater is the indistinctness when they are all jolted together in a little soul, which is narrow and has no room. These are the sort of natures which have false opinion; from stupidity they see and hear and think amiss; and this is falsehood and ignorance. Error, then, is a confusion ...
— Theaetetus • Plato
... at times for those of lesser faith not to be appalled by the awful waste and stupidity of human life such as any great city unbares. But the Rector used the many instances to illustrate the requirements of wide sympathy, and to teach us to reverence the qualities of personality even when we could not ...
— Frank H. Nelson of Cincinnati • Warren C. Herrick
... the German officers alone, the four men had, nevertheless, rallied to him, knowing him to be a leader of prudence and experience, upon whom they could rely in circumstances of difficulty. Thus it was that peace and harmony reigned among them that morning, notwithstanding the stupidity of some and the evil designs of others. In the first place, the night before he had found them a place to sleep in that was comparatively dry, where they had stretched themselves on the ground, the only thing they had left in the way of protection from the weather being the half of a shelter-tent. ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... kind is recorded of him. For surely, Socrates, Creophylus, the companion of Homer, that child of flesh, whose name always makes us laugh, might be more justly ridiculed for his stupidity, if, as is said, Homer was greatly neglected by him and others in his own ...
— The Republic • Plato
... Wilson blamed himself for stupidity, for carelessness, for almost criminal negligence in thus leaving the girl. And yet one might as soon reckon on the dead coming to life, as for this denouement. It was clear that he was dealing with no ordinary man, but he should have known this after the ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... not gratify me, I feel an intense longing to change places, to be the man and make him, as the woman, feel what I want to feel. Combined with this is a sense of irritation at not being gratified and a desire to punish him for my deprivation, for his stupidity in not saying or doing the right thing. I don't feel any anger at a man not caring for me, but only for not divining my feelings ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... the Prophet not much is known. "According to one account he was noted in his earlier years for stupidity and intoxication; but one day, while lighting his pipe in his cabin, he fell back apparently lifeless and remained in that condition until his friends had assembled for the funeral, when he revived from his trance, quieted their alarm, and announced that he had ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce
... and set before them, with all his rhetorick, the horrours of a shipwreck, should, instead of directing them to avoid destruction, and assisting their endeavours for their common safety, amuse them with the miscarriages of past voyages, and the blunders and stupidity of their former pilot? ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 10. - Parlimentary Debates I. • Samuel Johnson
... more necessary than daring. With absurdly insufficient means he all but conquered Spain for Charles of Austria, and would have succeeded in doing so altogether had he not, from first to last, been thwarted and hampered by jealousy, malignity, stupidity, and irresolution on the part of the king, his courtiers, and the generals who should have been the earl's assistants, but who were his ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty
... excite a vulgar curiosity, though perhaps a great deal to interest an intelligent one. Had it found treatment duly intelligent;—which, however, how could it, lucky beyond its neighbors, hope to do! Commonplace Dryasdust, and voluminous Stupidity, not worse here than ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. III. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Hohenzollerns In Brandenburg—1412-1718 • Thomas Carlyle
... For all this sounds too delightful to be true. Is it possible that his ideas meet with no opposition? Or is it that an opposition is preparing behind an ambuscade of goodwill? Father is such an optimist that any enthusiasm for his ideas convinces him that stupidity has ended in the world at last. But you will not be duped, Monsignor, for Rome is your native city, and his appointment of capelmeister is owing to you, and the kindly reception of my father's ideas—if they have ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... head of which we had ridden and across which we could look down on the Ifugao country we had just come from; down one side and up the other could be traced the remains of the old Spanish trail, a miracle of stupidity. To the right (west), but out of sight, lay Sapao, where the rice-terraces have received their greatest development, rising from the valley we were gazing into some 3,000 feet up the slope. Sapao, too, is the seat ...
— The Head Hunters of Northern Luzon From Ifugao to Kalinga • Cornelis De Witt Willcox
... the place well, and he immediately ran over a list of craft belonging to the port, any one of which he thought would serve our purpose passably well. In the midst of his statement, however, he suddenly interrupted himself with many objurgations upon his own stupidity, to which he added a statement that he had just that instant thought of a craft which would suit us admirably, one, moreover, which we need not ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... the parliaments of George III. were, they contained their full share of eminent and capable men; and, what is more, their very defects were the exact counterparts of what we now look back upon as the prevailing stupidity in the country. [v.04 p.0833] What Burke valued was good government. His Report on the Causes of the Duration of Mr Hastings's Trial shows how wide and sound were his views of law reform. His Thoughts on Scarcity ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... better defence than stout leather jerkins, led them into a trap. At the battle of Courtrai the knights charged into an unsuspected ditch, and as they fell the burghers with huge clubs beat out such brains as they could find within the helmets. It was subtlety against stupidity, the merchant's shrewdness asserting itself along new lines. King Philip had to create for himself a fresh nobility to ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... overweening fault was that form of "moral stupidity" which we term selfishness. Something of it may have come with the faculties which he had inherited—in tendencies and inclinations mysteriously associated with his physical conformation; much had been added thereto by the indulgence of his parents, by the pride of his university triumphs, ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... other type of ending would have befitted a novel that treats of transition, of a landscape that dazzles and enthralls, of possibilities that founder, not through the malignance of fate, but through the stupidity of man. There is an epic swirl to the finale that reminds one of the disappearance of an ancient deity in a pillar of dust. For an uncommon man like Milkau an uncommon end was called for. Numerous questions are touched upon in the course of the leisurely narrative, everywhere ...
— Brazilian Tales • Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis
... stupidity, and inquired, "what pantry?" and "what bread?" but Jane soon discovered that I knew very well; and while she looked at me so searchingly I could not possibly frame a plausible story—so, from sheer necessity, I told the whole truth, "and nothing but the truth." My curious attempt at getting ...
— A Grandmother's Recollections • Ella Rodman
... houses; of treating their children as wild beasts to be tamed by a system of blows and imprisonment which they called education; and of keeping pianos in their houses, not for musical purposes, but to torment their daughters with a senseless stupidity that would have revolted ...
— Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw
... balance of the regiments were sent in in the same manner—each arriving on the field just after its predecessor had been thoroughly whipped by the concentrated force of the Rebels. The men fought gallantly, but the stupidity of a Commanding General is a thing that the gods themselves strive against in vain. We suffered a humiliating defeat, with a loss of two thousand men and a fine rifled battery, which was brought to Andersonville and placed in position ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... drawing-room ... 'tisn't he, after all ... confound your stupidity! ... fool you are.... Well, it can't be helped now ... story will ...
— The House by the Lock • C. N. Williamson
... consent to take so unfair an advantage of an enemy, even though the fate of one dearer than his own life was at stake. And yet it must be confessed that the lieutenant drew it very fine. His course did not win the respect of his enemies, who were inclined to attribute it to stupidity, rather than courtesy. ...
— A Waif of the Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... whom do you apply it? To a few poor devils with long hair, in love with liberty in rags, who starve to death in a fifth-floor garret, or seek rhymes under tiles through which the rain filters; to those madmen, growing more and more rare, who, from horror of the customary, the traditional, the stupidity of life, have put their feet together and made a jump into freedom? Come, that is too old a story. It is the Bohemia of Murger, with the workhouse at the end, terror of children, boon of parents, Red Riding-Hood eaten by the wolf. It was worn ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... splendor of public virtue. Providence is always present in the affairs of nations, but not to work miracles to counteract the natural effects of the ignorance, ineptness, short-sightedness, narrow views, public stupidity, and imbecility of rulers, because they are irreproachable and saintly in their private characters and relations, as was Henry VI. of England, or, in some respects, Louis XVI. of France. Providence is God intervening through the laws he by his creative ...
— The American Republic: Its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny • A. O. Brownson
... laugh in spite of himself at the paternal way in which his son comforted him, as if he were the party to be pitied. Bonnyboy's unfailing cheerfulness, which had its great charm, began to cause him uneasiness, because he feared it was but another form of stupidity. A cleverer boy would have been sorry for his mistakes and anxious about his own future. But Bonnyboy looked into the future with the serene confidence of a child, and nothing under the sun ever troubled ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... one kind of pill for all ailments. That however, may have been only stupidity. At least the practice is not confined to the prison camps nor the army of Germany, as all British soldiers know. But even these were not ...
— The Escape of a Princess Pat • George Pearson
... have brought about with the greatest ease, and without so much as an angry word. And, so, one has to admit that Matey's cruelty was like nine-tenths of the other cruelty in the world, alike among the educated and the uneducated, in that it was due to ignorance and stupidity. ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... property and worth, he was far too valuable to the Commonwealth to risk himself in wild dashes to the dead, non-psionic lands, or out into the emptiness of space. As far as risking himself on combat missions of interplanetary war— He shook his head. This was pure stupidity. ...
— The Weakling • Everett B. Cole
... heavier could well be brought against any sovereign or government. Probably the first thing that occurs to anyone who, knowing what Elizabeth's position was, reads the tremendous charges made against her will be, that—if they are true—she must have been without a rival in stupidity as well as in turpitude. There was no person in the world who had as much cause to desire the defeat of the Armada as she had. If the Duke of Medina Sidonia's expedition had been successful she would have lost both her throne and her ...
— Sea-Power and Other Studies • Admiral Sir Cyprian Bridge
... incidents may be dated from a period when people still had reason to believe in permanency and had indeed many of them—sometimes through ingenuousness, sometimes through stupidity of type—acquired a singular confidence in the importance and stability of their possessions, desires, ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... was sullen to stupidity. "Last night, sire, I slept at the caserne, at the invitation of my friend, Lieutenant Genet, whom ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... said he to one of them, a keen-faced young fellow, who was showing him the boiler-fires. He pointed with his stick as he spoke, and rattled it briskly about the brick-work by way of accompaniment as he went on: "Such a waste of force, of money! downright stupidity! You don't want it. You don't need it, any more than you need an hydraulic machine tacked to the back of your trains. You have got water enough running past ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various
... commerce. In such societies, the varied occupations of every man oblige every man to exert his capacity, and to invent expedients for removing difficulties which are continually occurring. Invention is kept alive, and the mind is not suffered to fall into that drowsy stupidity, which, in a civilized society, seems to benumb the understanding of almost all the inferior ranks of people. In those barbarous societies, as they are called, every man, it has already been observed, is a warrior. ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... task is an easy one, you only have to be true to yourself, you only have to follow your faithful companions the Graces, and success will never fail you. My task, however, is difficult, and I shall have to struggle not only with the evil designs, the malice, and stupidity of others, but with my own inexperience, my want of knowledge, and a certain irresolution, resulting, however, merely from a correct appreciation of ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... will no doubt accomplish the same thing if he is made a colonel or even a general. You know the country well enough not to be shocked by what I say, Mrs. Gould. I have heard you assert that this poor bandit was the living, breathing example of cruelty, injustice, stupidity, and oppression, that ruin men's souls as well as their fortunes in this country. Well, there would be some poetical retribution in that man arising to crush the evils which had driven an honest ranchero into a life of crime. ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... been harshest that no one could be kinder if he saw a girl really trying, or more patient with well meaning stupidity, but some things fretted him, and he was as apt to correct a girl in her grammar as in her table service. Out of work hours, if he met any of them, he recognized them with deferential politeness; but he shunned occasions of encounter with them as distinctly as he avoided the ladies ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... intellect was of the limited kind, exactly poised on the border line between harmless vacancy, with some glimmerings of sense, and the excessive stupidity that can neither take in nor give out any idea. He was thoroughly impressed with the idea of doing his duty in society; and, doing his utmost to be agreeable, had adopted the smile of an opera dancer as his sole method of expression. Satisfied, ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... that relating to property in persons. It is true that the Church of Rome has taken the deplorable step of forbidding Socialism (or at least Socialismus) to its adherents; but there is no need for Socialists to commit a reciprocal stupidity. Let us Socialists at any rate keep our intellectual partitions up. The Church that now quarrels with Socialism once quarrelled with astronomy and geology, and astronomers and geologists went on with their own business. ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... sudden shock went over Judith. She had forgotten; and here Huldah Spiller would wear a blue dress, and she—oh, the stupidity, the bat-like, doltish, blindness of it!—would be in white, because it was now too late to make a change. Out of the very tragedy of the situation she managed to pluck forth ...
— Judith of the Cumberlands • Alice MacGowan
... does, you know—and won't understand there's a hurry. 'This is a matter of life and death,' I said, 'don't you understand?' It drooped its eyes half shut and said, 'Then why don't you go the other two hundred pounds?' I'd rather live in a world of solid wasps than give in to the stonewalling stupidity of ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells
... the records make painful reading. The prevailing tone of public life was one of dull and narrow provincialism, at times thickening into stupidity, at times sharpening into spite, although ordinarily made respectable by a serious attitude to life and by a stolid fortitude in facing whatever the distracted times might present. It was the influence of a few great men that made America a nation. If one is not subject ...
— Washington and His Colleagues • Henry Jones Ford
... had it not been for the unfortunate circumstance of Odell-Carney's making a purchase of the London Standard instead of the Times, as was his custom. His lamentations over this piece of stupidity were cut short by the discovery of an astonishing article upon the editorial page of the paper—an article which created within him a sense of grave perplexity. He read the headlines thrice and glanced ...
— The Husbands of Edith • George Barr McCutcheon
... a fire at his heart that made him insensitive to the frost without. He walked a mile out of his way mechanically, then, perceiving his stupidity, avenged it by jumping into a hansom. He dared not think how low his funds were running. When he got home he forgot to have his tea, crouching in dumb misery in his easy-chair, while the coals in the grate faded like the sunset from red to grey, and the dusk of twilight deepened into ...
— Merely Mary Ann • Israel Zangwill
... at his own stupidity and exerted himself to restore things to the condition in which we left them the night before, so that when Arthur came such shocks to his feelings as we ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... before genuinely hungry. Oh, I've been hungry in a reasonable, civilized way, but I have always known where in an hour or so I could get all I wanted to eat—a condition accountable, in this world, I am convinced, for no end of stupidity. But to be both physically and, let us say, psychologically hungry, and not to know where or how to get anything to eat, adds something to the ...
— The Friendly Road - New Adventures in Contentment • (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker
... thing to my diary before I went to bed. It certainly seemed a happy life, and I was struck with the curious mixture of freedom, frankness, and yet courtesy about the whole. There was no roughness or wrangling or stupidity, nor had I any sense either of exclusion, or of being elaborately included in the life of the circle. I would call the atmosphere brotherly, if brotherliness did not often mean the sort of frankness which is so unpleasant to strangers. There certainly was an atmosphere ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... separated from truth, which is the fiercest rent and disunion of all. We do not see that, while we still affect by all means a rigid external formality, we may as soon fall again into a gross conforming stupidity, a stark and dead congealment of wood and hay and stubble, forced and frozen together, which is more to the sudden degenerating of a Church than many subdichotomies of ...
— Areopagitica - A Speech For The Liberty Of Unlicensed Printing To The - Parliament Of England • John Milton
... his portrait," she said with a simplicity that was like stupidity. "And I am his aunt. You made a picture of a bad man. I know he was a ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... Before I could reach the crystal globule, it had fallen off the edge of the table on to the floor at Woodville's feet, and smashed in falling. As it smashed, he was looking down, wondering, no doubt, in his stupidity, what the pother was about,—for I was shouting, and making something of a clatter in my efforts to prevent the catastrophe which I saw was coming. On the instant, as the vapour secreted in the broken pellet gained access to the air, he fell forward on to his face. Rushing ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... have not seen the Lakes." We acknowledge his claims. He is often truly delightful; but, like other brilliant persons, thinks himself not only privileged to be at times extremely dull, but his intensest stupidity is panegyrised as wit of the first water—while his not unfrequent rudeness, of which many a common month would be ashamed, passes for the ease of high birth or the eccentricity of genius. A very different feeling indeed exists towards unfortunate November. The moment he shows ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... they had so gallantly defended, and allowed them four-and-twenty hours to consider on the resolution they should take. Syburg continued deaf to his remonstrances; and, with an obstinacy that savoured more of stupidity than of valour, determined to stand the explosion. When the sentinels that were posted on the side of the hill gave notice, by a preconcerted signal, that fire was set to the mine, the governor ordered the guard to retire, and walked out to the parade accompanied by several officers. The mine ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... "A saving stupidity marks and protects their perception as the curtain of the eagle's eye. Our swifter Americans, when they first deal with English, pronounce them stupid; but, later, do them justice as people who wear well, or hide their strength.—High and low, they are of an unctuous texture.—Their ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... don't complain for myself of an unappreciating public. I have no reason. But, just for that reason, I complain more about Robert—only he does not hear me complain—to you I may say, that the blindness, deafness and stupidity of the English public to Robert are amazing. Of course Milsand had heard his name—well the contrary would have been strange. Robert is. All England can't prevent his existence, I suppose. But nobody there, except a small knot of pre-Raffaellite ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... being held by Sir Frank at the floor, and was still screaming, fully convinced that her captor was a burglar, in spite of having recognized him by his voice. Random was so exasperated by her stupidity that he ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume
... scientific historians, was born within him as he pursued his studies in Rembrandt lore. Also he was conscious of sorrow, anger, and pride: sorrow for the artist of genius who goes down to his grave neglected, unwept, unhonoured, and unsung: anger at the stupidity and blindness of his contemporaries: pride at the unselfish industry and ceaseless activity of the men who, born years after, raise the ...
— Rembrandt • Mortimer Menpes
... a man I wanted to kill because of his smug ignorance, his damnable indifference, his impregnable stupidity of cheerfulness in this world of agony. I had changed the clothes which were smeared with blood of French and Belgian soldiers whom I had helped, in a week of strange adventure, to carry to the surgeons. As an onlooker of war I hated the people who had not seen, because they could not understand. ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... of VANITY stood a laborious Workman, who I found was his humble Admirer, and copied after him. He was dressed like a German, and had a very hard Name, that sounded something like STUPIDITY. ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... one attests what it pleases and the other takes it for granted. Criticism is grown a sort of book milliner, who cuts a book to any pattern of abuse or praise, and Fashion readily wears the opinion. How many productions whose milk-and-water merits, or unintelligible stupidity, have been considered as novelties, have by that means gained the admiration of Criticism and the praise of Fashion, until a more absurd novelty pushed them from their preferments and caused them to be as suddenly forgotten! The vulgar, tasteless jargon of "Dr. Syntax," with all the above-mentioned ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry
... elements of reading: so that he was in his twelfth year before he could name the letters of the alphabet. When that renowned prince ascended the throne, he made it his study to draw his people out of the sloth and stupidity in which they lay; and became, as much by his own example as by the encouragement he gave to learned men, the great restorer of arts in his dominions."—Life ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... the man who believed himself to be one of the potentates of the earth and who, in fact, had once owned his little court and train of courtiers; for, in the century in which he lived, talent had become as arbitrary as sovereign power—thanks to the stupidity of some of our grandees and the caprice of Frederick of Prussia. Meanwhile my host, undisturbed by my reflections, had quietly gone over his packet of music. He found amongst it an air from " <Le Devin du Village>," which I had purposely placed there; he half turned ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... (by Forrest Morgan) 1826-1877 The Virtues of Stupidity ('Letters on the French Coup d'Etat') Review Writing ('The First Edinburgh Reviewers') Lord Eldon (same) Taste ('Wordsworth, Tennyson, and Browning') Causes of the Sterility of Literature ('Shakespeare') The Search for Happiness ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... said the porter coldly. It was not a question; there was no flicker of the interest of a question in his voice, only a dreary indifference which seemed to demand what in the world you were thinking of to trouble him about a stupidity which had happened twenty times a day throughout twenty years of his service on the line. Darsie drew herself up with a feeling of affront. He was a rude, ill-mannered man, who ought to be taught how to speak to ladies in distress. She would ask her ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... her," said Sanine. "Whatever happens, it will please her to see a human face amid so many false masks that hide grimacing brutes. You're a bit of a fool, my friend, but in your stupidity there is something which others haven't got. And to think that for ever so long the world founded its hopes and happiness upon such ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... numerous and ignorant, yet influential with their ignorant, uneducated neighbors, caused him to be beaten. They succeeded subsequently in placing one of their family in his place, only to show the triumph of folly and stupidity over worth and intelligence. Yet this cross of an Irish renegade upon an Acadian woman was a fit representative of a large ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... of course. What is in his way is the stupidity that, piling up for thousands of years, has grown into a mountain. The modern sages want to build on this mountain, but that, of course, will lead to nothing but making the mountain still higher. It is the mountain itself that must be removed. It must be levelled to its foundation, down ...
— Savva and The Life of Man • Leonid Andreyev
... who appear to be his superiors. I have heard him called a cave man by some, by others a boor; but he is neither. He observes the amenities of life so far as they are necessary, but only so far. He is impatient of mediocrity; he will not tolerate stupidity and he loathes hypocrisy. I would not say that he has bad manners; ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous
... you despise me!" she burst forth, chokingly. "I believe I am hysterical, and the more I rail at my stupidity and folly, the more unmanageable my nerves—if it is my nerves that are out of order— become. But I have been so happy, so content and grateful, lately! And everything will be so different ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... know how to go about it. Not everyone who wishes becomes a rascal in business. It's difficult enough for me to pursue commerce on the plain, honest track; knavery demands an expertness altogether beyond me. Wherefore, let us give thanks for my honest stupidity!" ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... thoughts went wandering abroad over the universe of misery. For was not the world full of men and women who groaned, not merely under poverty and cruelty, weakness and sickness, but under dullness and stupidity, hugged in the paralyzing arms of that devil-fish, The Commonplace, or held fast to the rocks by the crab Custom, while the tide of moral indifference was fast rising to choke them? Was there no ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... John | Murdock | had a servant | who worried him | much by his stupidity. | One day | when this servant was more | stupid | than usual, | the angry | master | of the house | threw a book | at his head. | The servant | ducked | and the book flew | ...
— The Science of Human Nature - A Psychology for Beginners • William Henry Pyle
... was coolly marching a troop of forty unloaded mules and ponies, and double that number of men's loads of merchandize, purchased during the summer in Tibet, to trade with at Dorjiling and the Titalya fair! His impudence or stupidity was thus quite inexplicable; treating us as prisoners, ignoring every demand of the authorities at Dorjiling, of the Supreme Council of Calcutta, and of the Governor-General himself; and at the same time acting as if he were to enter the British territories on the most friendly and advantageous ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... with so excessively stupid a stare that Fritzing, who heaver could stand stupidity, got ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... view, the hands being laid upon each other, with thumbs extending on each side to represent the ears. In each case the thumbs are generally moved forward and back, in the manner of the quadruped, which, without much apparent reason, has been selected as the emblem of stupidity. The sign, therefore, means stupid, fool. Another mode of executing the same conception—the ears of an ass—is shown in Fig. 99, where the end of the thumb is applied to the ear or temple and the hand is wagged up and down. Whether the ancient Greeks had the same low opinion of ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... on the score of this most picturesque, and frequently salutary, accompaniment of street scenery. In our own country, which has the amplest means of any other in the world, of carrying these objects of public taste into execution, there seems to be an infatuation—amounting to hopeless stupidity—respecting the uniform exclusion ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... wide awake; he is on the alert; he is courting the help of others against Athens—of the Thebans and those Peloponnesians who sympathize with their wishes; thinking that their desire of gain will make them embrace the immediate prospect, while their native stupidity will prevent them from foreseeing any of the consequences. Yet there are examples, plainly visible to minds which are even moderately well-balanced[n]—examples which it fell to my lot to bring before Messenian and Argive audiences, but which had better, ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 1 • Demosthenes |
