"Worldly-wise" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Mrs. Emery and Marietta, newly admitted to the honor of her acquaintance, wondered to themselves at the cold monotony of her black and white engravings. The artlessness of this wonder struck shame to their hearts when they chanced to learn that the lady had repaid it with a worldly-wise amusement at their own highly-colored waterfalls and snow-capped mountain-peaks. Marietta could recall as piercingly as if it were yesterday, in how crestfallen a chagrin she and her mother had gazed at their parlor after this incident, their disillusioned ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... think I was a bad lad," he went on, "and I loved you truly. I meant every word I said to you. Doubtless from the worldly-wise man's standpoint I was foolish and acted without due thought, but I yielded to the promptings of my heart, and—and so, at least, I ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking
... pleasure which they actually give her, as by the amount of effort which they obviously make. It is very ungracious for a guest of wide social experience to be apathetic when some unsophisticated little hostess offers what to her seems a novel treat, but which to her worldly-wise guest is a threadbare device. No matter if the device is threadbare; the spirit of kindness which prompts the effort is immortal; and though we have seen "rainbow teas" until we are weary of them, we will enter cheerfully into the spirit of this one, because our little hostess in the innocence ...
— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton
... on the very day on which I write this page, the post brings me some aphorisms from a worldly-wise old friend in Heidelberg which may serve as a good contemporaneous expression of Epicureanism: "By the word 'happiness' every human being understands something different. It is a phantom pursued only by weaker minds. The ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... quality is very striking. The persistent and human struggle of the mother to gain a high position in life for her daughter through marriage, and the agonizing of the father to get together a suitable dower for his daughter, together with the worldly-wise comments and advice of the old aunt, are so true to modern life that one realizes anew the sameness of human nature ...
— Armenian Literature • Anonymous
... the ingenuity of worldly-wise men, and set them planning and studying the question in all its bearings, to devise new schemes of transportation on a scale not dreamed of hitherto. Watt, the Stephensons, Brunel, A. Maury, and others, rose ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... remembered Mr. HAWTHORNE'S experience at a Lord Mayor's dinner, and had begged Mr. PUNCH by all means to let him off without a speech. But, more worldly-wise than HAWTHORNE, he didn't believe that Mr. PUNCH would keep his promise; so he had prepared a speech, beginning, "Not anticipating any occasion to open my lips in this illustrious company, you must allow me to speak altogether on the impulse ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 6, May 7, 1870 • Various
... myself back from taking a plain or possibly loud stand for goodness as a shrewd, worldly-wise program for American business and public life, because I was afraid of people, and afraid people would think I ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... not falsely educated to know all manner of evil," he mused, "what spiritual powers might they not develop in adult life, powers that are as yet not even imagined! But their primitive religious instinct is regarded by the worldly-wise parent as but a part of the infant existence, which must soon give place to the more solid and real beliefs and opinions which the world in general regards as established and conventional, even though their end is death. And so they teach their children to make evil real, even while admonishing ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... report of the engagement between herself and Lord Arleigh. Among these was his grace the Duke of Hazlewood. He loved the beautiful, queenly girl who had so disdainfully refused his coronet—the very refusal had made him care more than ever for her. He was worldly-wise enough to know that there were few women in London who would have refused him; and he said to himself that, if she would not marry him, he would go unmarried to the grave. He was one of the first to feel sure that there was no truth ...
— Wife in Name Only • Charlotte M. Braeme (Bertha M. Clay)
... himself on the verge of a proposal—with an effort he choked back the impulse. "You're just the romantic age," she continued—"fifty. Twenty-five is too worldly-wise; thirty is apt to be pale from overwork; forty is the age of long stories that take a whole cigar to tell; sixty is—oh, sixty is too near seventy; but fifty is the mellow age. I ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... my history; and as it is just possible Mr. Sheldon may have encountered my father somehow or other, it would be as well for him to keep clear of this house. I could not venture to say this to papa myself, but perhaps you could suggest it without offending him. You see I have grown very worldly-wise, and am learning to protect my own interests in the spirit which you have so instilled into me. I don't know whether that sort of spirit is likely to secure one's happiness, but I have no doubt it is the wisest and best for ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... carpenter, fell in with Joe Smith's brother, and embraced Mormonism in 1832; became one of the apostles of the Church and a preacher, and finally the head in 1851 after the settlement of the body at Utah; with all his fanaticism he was a worldly-wise man and a wise manager of secular affairs; died rich, leaving his fortune to 17 wives ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... sexual intercourse, which is replaced among the educated by the Latin "coitus," but to which the dream distinctly alludes by the selection of the birds' heads. I must have suspected the sexual significance of the word from the facial expression of my worldly-wise teacher. My mother's features in the dream were copied from the countenance of my grandfather, whom I had seen a few days before his death snoring in the state of coma. The interpretation of the ...
— Dream Psychology - Psychoanalysis for Beginners • Sigmund Freud
... are more or less creatures of impulse, liable to do the most unexpected and quixotic things," her worldly-wise Ladyship told him, when he had explained what had happened and asked her to advise him what to do. "That is what makes us so interesting. We do not understand ourselves, and if men understood us we should cease to interest or ...
— Bandit Love • Juanita Savage
... extraordinary exploit made Burton's name a household word throughout the world, and turned it into a synonym for daring; while his book, the Pigrimage to Al-Madinah and Meccah, which appeared the following year, was read everywhere with wonder and delight. Had he been worldly-wise he would have proceeded straight to England, where, the lion of the hour, he might have obtained a reward more substantial than mere praise. But he did not show himself until the commotion caused by his exploit had been half-forgotten, and we shall find ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... all of a piece—everything was growing worse and worse. "Young matron," indeed!—where had his grandchild picked up that precious phrase? She was growing all too worldly-wise for his simple old mind. His abashed eyes turned away from her and began to blink at the twinkling candles on the tea-table; it stood there like an altar raised for the celebration of some strange, fearsome ritual—an incident in the dubious life toward which a heartless and ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... of that undefined discomfort experienced by generous young spirits when their elders, more worldly-wise (or foolish), fail even to comprehend the purity or loftiness of motive which they themselves thoroughly believe. Yet, though she had infinitely more faith in Humfrey's affection than she had in that of Babington, she had not by any means the same dread of being used to bait the hook ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... reflectively at the little volume in her hand, and seemed to think out the question of Miss Goff. Presently, with an air of having made up her mind, she said, "Can you guess which of Goethe's characters you remind me of when you try to be worldly-wise for ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... companion for that connoisseur; this is one of your worldly-wise men, wise in his own conceit; he laughed at all modes of faith, and would have a reason given him for every thing. He disinherited his only son because the lad could not give him a reason why a black hen laid a white egg. He was a great materialist, ...
— A Lecture On Heads • Geo. Alex. Stevens
... conditions are not changed, but they seem to be changed. How shall you respond to the seeming difference? Shall you give up the truth of high thinking for the appearance of speedy success? If you do this, it will not be because you are worldly-wise, but because you do not know the world. In your ignorance of men ...
— The Story of the Innumerable Company, and Other Sketches • David Starr Jordan
... I was about twenty-eight years old, and my partner, Gardener, was three years younger. He was more worldly-wise than I was, even then; for while I had been busy with briefs and court-work, he had been the "business head" of the firm, out among business friends and acquaintances—"mixing," as they say—and through his ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume III (of 6) - Orators and Reformers • Various
... is more than time I should grow up, and at last, I have done so," she said to herself. She went through the badly-lit little passage, and up the steep narrow stairs, with shoulders braced and head up. It was the having made, that day, a decision every worldly-wise person would have condemned, but that she felt in every fibre of her being to be a right one, which had given her that feeling of confidence in herself she had hitherto lacked. She had chosen between ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... life during the past few days been, as it were, obsessed by him? And all the years that lay behind her, had they been meant for anything else, at all, than to lead her back to him at the right moment? Ah, if she only had a little more experience, if she were a little more worldly-wise! She would have liked to possess the capability of marking out ...
— Bertha Garlan • Arthur Schnitzler
... asked a single question. Now, however, she spent some time fixing a tray with the daintiest food she knew and could procure, and took it upstairs with a certain diffidence in her manner and a rare tenderness in her faded, worldly-wise eyes. ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower
... Warren Jarvis lost his worldly-wise self-control, acquired through the adventurous years since he had journeyed forth from the quaint old Kentucky home. A sob broke from his lips, and his face sank on the arm of the old aristocrat,—he was instinctively boyish in his ...
— The Ghost Breaker - A Novel Based Upon the Play • Charles Goddard
... some little drawback in the young lord's life, some mysterious love-affair, and he had not interested himself in it; he never did take any interest in matters of that kind. Evidently if, at any time, there had been a little faux pas, it was remedied, or so worldly-wise a woman as Lady Lanswell would never have ...
— A Mad Love • Bertha M. Clay
... leave the rest, thus sending "the idle, ungrateful poor" supperless to bed. But this was not his way. The blacks were thought of in hunting as well as the whites. "It is only by continuance in well-doing," he says, "even to the length of what the worldly-wise call weakness, that the conviction is produced anywhere, that our motives are high ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... woman, who arrogated a spirit of prophecy and had long practised the devices of a fortune-teller, thus accustomed to scan the possibilities and in some degree versed in the adjustment of the probabilities, accorded the homely verisimilitude of their worldly-wise representations the meed of a simple and respectful credulity. The mountaineers were ignorant indeed in their sort, but far too sophisticated to entertain aught but the most contemptuous disbelief in her pretensions of special foresight and mysterious endowment. They ...
— The Ordeal - A Mountain Romance of Tennessee • Charles Egbert Craddock
... more expert and worldly-wise than either of us. We held our innocent excursion in abeyance and bowed with a certain embarrassed awe to Johnny's demonstration of his aptitude for taking the world as it was and to his light-handed, care-free ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller
... fragrance of flowers around her, even in summer; she would have only the streets and the street cries and noises, and dust, and unsweet breath. The house would do inside; but outside, what a change! And though Esther was not very old in the world, nor very worldly-wise for her years, she knew—if not as well as her father, yet she knew—that in Major Street she was pretty nearly cut off from all social intercourse with her kind. Her school experience and observation had taught ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... of Proverbs might almost be called a treatise on Friendship, so full is it of advice about the sort of person a young man should consort with, and the sort of person he should avoid. It is full of shrewd, and prudent, and wise, sometimes almost worldly-wise, counsel. It is caustic in its satire about false friends, and about the way in which friendships are broken. "The rich hath many friends," with an easily understood implication concerning their quality. "Every man is a friend to him that giveth gifts," is its ...
— Friendship • Hugh Black
... dream about. His own distant worship of Zora did not strike him as romantic. It was a part of himself, like the hallowed memory of his mother and the conception of his devastating guns. Had he been more worldly-wise he would have seen possible danger in Emmy's romance, and insisted on Zora being taken into their confidence. But Septimus believed that the radiant beings of the earth, such as Emmy and Mordaunt ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke
... have to feel any call to mention that debut in the Atlantic—they've made me pay the grand cash for my box!—a thing which most managers would be too worldly-wise to do, with journalistic folks. But I'm most honestly glad, for I'd rather pay three prices, any time, than to have my tongue half paralyzed with a ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... touched 'pon it to en—a fire as was gwaine to burn through eternity; but Michael's not like a human. His ideas 'pon affairs is all pure Bible. You an' me caan't grasp hold o' all he says. An' the money's done no wrong. So you'll drop in Joan's ear as it might be worldly-wise to save trouble by sayin' what should be done if anything ill failed ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... midst of it, and to keep with their pure hands a garden in the stony ways of this world, wherein it were better for all the children of Adam that they should oftener sun themselves, simple and trustful, and not worldly-wise - what had she to do with these? Remembrances of how she had journeyed to the little that she knew, by the enchanted roads of what she and millions of innocent creatures had hoped and imagined; of how, first ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... are born; but an inheritance which may be alienated or consumed; and by none more readily and assuredly than by those who are most eager for the praise of policy, of prudence, of sagacity, and of all those qualities which are the darling virtues of the worldly-wise. Moreover; the evidence to which I have made appeal, in order to establish the truth, is not locked up in cabinets; but is accessible to all; as it exists in the bosoms of men—in the appearances and intercourse of daily life—in ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... mixture, this Vera. Ambitious, worldly-wise, mercenary even, if you will; conscious of her own beauty, and determined to exact its full value; and yet she was tender and affectionate, full of poetry and refinement, honest and true ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... magazine of a little older standing to which Dr. Belknap had been contributing (his "Foresters" appeared there), and the incident of the worldly-wise Hazard, gently encouraging the clergyman to play the rivals against each other, has at least an approach to modern literary history. Webster, with his restlessness, had no sooner launched the "American Magazine" than ...
— Noah Webster - American Men of Letters • Horace E. Scudder
... The worldly-wise merchant spoke smilingly, and holding Meir by the hand, led him into the drawing-room. There, before the green sofa, he stood still, and looked into Meir's face ...
— An Obscure Apostle - A Dramatic Story • Eliza Orzeszko
... community. This was a misnomer: he was kind and affable; his evening parties were delightful; but he had nothing of the pathetic or sentimental about him. On the contrary, he was humorous, practical, and worldly-wise; very fond of field sports and athletic exercises. His sentiment—which has been variously criticized, by some as the perfection of moral pathos, and by others as lackadaisical and canting—may be said to have sprung rather from ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... pleased her, and soothed in some way an indefinable rasping sense of the general futility of all feeling and all striving. Surely she, with her young-old heart, her world-worn memories, and her youth that never was, should know that worldly-wise ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... nature of a mortal being makes unpleasant feeling unavoidable. Evil does not shut man out from the best world, and the worldly-wise find their perfection therein. ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... child, with to-morrow's dawn Wilt rise up calm and glad, To cull wild flowers 'mid wood and lawn, Untroubled by memory sad; But, alas! the worldly-wise of earth, When life's last bonds are riven, Will find that for things of meanest worth They've lost both Life ...
— The Poetical Works of Mrs. Leprohon (Mrs. R.E. Mullins) • Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon
... worldly-wise—"tough"—is rampant in the masculine mind between the ages of fifteen and twenty. The boy who has been to a strict preparatory boarding-school and is just entering upon his college course, whose theatre-goings have been limited to the "shows" to which his father has ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... done, however, but to plod along in the familiar rut. He must stomach aspersions and injuries, behave as if nothing had happened. His first hot intention of turning his back on Schwarz soon yielded to more worldly-wise thoughts. Every practical consideration was against it. He might avenge himself, if he liked, by running to the rival teacher like a crossed child; Schrievers would undoubtedly receive him with open arms, and promise him all he asked. But what could he hope ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... The Theological Hierarchy, worldly-wise in every generation, has dropped the cry of Heresy and gone to the very foundations of our civilization. They are sapping and mining the foundations of civil Liberty, the "self-evident truths," and the "Inalienable Rights," upon which ...
— The New Avatar and The Destiny of the Soul - The Findings of Natural Science Reduced to Practical Studies - in Psychology • Jirah D. Buck
... pontiffs, delighted to honour, or rather to distinguish by honours. The Marquess Federigo Gonzaga of Mantua, the Duke Guidobaldo II. of Urbino, among many others, showed themselves ready to propitiate him; and such a man as Titian the worldly-wise, the lover of splendid living to whom ample means and the fruitful favour of the great were a necessity; who was grasping yet not avaricious, who loved wealth chiefly because it secured material consideration ...
— The Later works of Titian • Claude Phillips
... Karshish, confronted, like the Arab doctor, with the "new thing." As Karshish is at heart a spiritual idealist, for all his preoccupation with drugs and stones, so Cleon, a past-master of poetry and painting, is among the most positive and worldly-wise of men. He looks back over a life scored with literary triumphs, as Karshish over his crumbs of learning gathered at the cost of blows and obloquy. But while Karshish has the true scholar's dispassionate ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford
... would have given the whole thing away by this time—would have blurted out the truth before she knew what she was doing. She was too honest and straight-forward to evade a question. But you've grown as worldly-wise as an old trout—won't bite at any kind of bait. Never mind, though, I'll get ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston
... casual observer would at once have judged him to be either an athlete or an ascetic. There was no superfluous flesh about him; he was tall and muscular, with well- knit limbs, broad shoulders, and a head altogether lacking in the humble or conciliatory 'droop' which all worldly-wise parsons cultivate for the benefit of their rich patrons. It was a distinctively proud head,—almost aggressive,—indicative of strong character and self-reliance, well-poised on a full throat, and set off ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... sixpence a glass, and the familiar currant bun of our youth. He lunched at Sewell's shop, he tea'd at Sewell's, occasionally he dined at Sewell's, off cutlets, followed by assorted pastry. Possibly, merely from fear lest the affair should reach his mother's ears, for he was neither worldly-wise nor vicious, he made love to Mary under an assumed name; and to do the girl justice, it must be remembered that she fell in love with and agreed to marry plain Mr. John Robinson, son of a colonial merchant, a gentleman, as she must have seen, and a young man of easy means, ...
— Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green • Jerome K. Jerome
... Galdos, Pardo Bazan, and others depict individual clerics who are simple, straightforward, pious, and in every way worthy men, the friend of the young and the helper of the sorrowful. Sometimes they are not very learned, and not at all worldly-wise, but they show that the type is largely represented amongst the priesthood of Spain, and there are not wanting some of distinctly liberal tendencies. There was a remarkable article in a Madrid paper of radical, if not socialistic, tendencies, the other day, by one who signed ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street
... him of perversity, of brute force, he expended in the portrayal of his subtly beautiful furies. His art was feverishly decadent, and those who judge a man by his work might suppose him to be a monster of iniquity. He was, in fact, an extremely clever and rather worldly-wise boy who loved violets and stone-pines and moonlight with poetical fervour, who preferred milk to champagne, and saunterings in green fields ...
— Olive in Italy • Moray Dalton
... contempt without crude abuse or noisy denunciation. He has a delicate sense of fun, a keen eye for incongruities and absurdities, and that genuine cynicism which springs, not from the poor desire to be thought worldly-wise, but from a lifelong acquaintance with the foibles of political men. To these gifts must be added a voice which age has not robbed of its sympathetic qualities, a style of diction and a habit of pronunciation which belong to the eighteenth century, and that formal yet facile ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... patients are as much indebted for their cure to his smile, his voice, and a certain irresistible healthfulness that surrounds him, as they are to his skill and his prescriptions. The lawyer who is a humourist is a man of ten thousand. How easily the worldly-wise face, puckered over a stiff brief, relaxes into the lines of laughter. He sees many an evil side of human nature, he is familiar with slanders and injustice, all kinds of human bitterness and falsity; but neither ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... with what constantly seems to me the short-sightedness of the clever worldly-wise people I hear talking upon these subjects, and the deep despondence of those who see a great cloud looming up over the land. Our narrow room and redundant population make any sudden violent political movement dangerous, perhaps; but I have faith in the general wholesome ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... on the lining of his hat. And second, that on his coming thus penniless to the Fort, he was welcomed like a brother by the Chevalier, who thence paid his way to France. The simplicity of Mr. Burke's character leads him at this point to praise the Master exceedingly; to an eye more worldly-wise, it would seem it was the Chevalier alone that was to be commended. I have the more pleasure in pointing to this really very noble trait of my esteemed correspondent, as I fear I may have wounded him immediately before. I have refrained from comments on any of his ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and so cheerfully for so long a period and to so little apparent purpose, on the need for cleaning up civic government. The difference between Mr. Ames and the average public-service expert in Montreal on this question is that Mr. Ames has never been worldly-wise enough to become an avowed cynic on the question. He probably knows as well as anybody that to clean up Montreal is in the same category as making Europe safe for the League of Nations; a much harder city to regenerate than even Philadelphia. Muck-raking has ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... the approach of a spy, and prepared to expect betrayal from her most familiar friends. She accepts things as they appear, without any suspicion of mean ulterior designs. It's a pity, of course!—it's a pity she can't be worldly-wise, and scheme and plot and plan and lie like the rest of us! However, your course is plain—first interview Lennox and then follow Thelma. She can't have left Hull yet,—there are scarcely any boats running to Norway at this season. You'll ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... the worldly-wise are Fate, Mary,' answered the dowager, not angry at this daring reproach. 'I know your sister; and I know she is not the kind of woman to be happy in an ignoble life—to bear poverty and deprivation. If it had been you, now, whom Mr. Hammond ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... as groundwork to an eventual enterprise of that kind must therefore also be questionable in a high degree. It is even doubtful if any allowance of time can be counted on to bring these modern peoples to a more reasonable, more worldly-wise, frame of mind; so that they would come to see their interest in such an arrangement, or would divest themselves of their present stubborn and perhaps fantastic prejudice against an autocratic regime of the kind spoken for. At least for the present any such hope of a peaceable ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... College, with its corps of clergymen, "fails to see the propriety" of opening its doors to women. The few clergymen who have for some little time past taken the side of fair-play in this and like matters have simply deserted their colors and come over to the side they are worldly-wise enough to see is to be the side of the future. When it comes to diplomacy the Church is always on deck in time to gather in the spoils; but she stays safely below during the engagement, and simply holds back and anchors ...
— Men, Women, and Gods - And Other Lectures • Helen H. Gardener
... the most ancient and noble families of Italy,—a family of popes and cardinals, of princes and ministers, which in him was diminished and tarnished in an almost inexplicable degree. He was not at all worldly-wise, but he was a man of great learning, and of a capacity for acquiring knowledge that I have never seen surpassed. He possessed, I think, not many shirts on earth; but he spoke three or four languages, and wrote ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... constant intimations of a childhood not long outgrown. Dimples ran in and out her pink cheeks at the slightest excuse. The blue eyes were innocently wide and the Cupid's-bow mouth invitingly sweet. The girl from Brush, Colorado, was about as worldly-wise as a plump, cooing infant or a fluffy kitten, and instinctively the eye caressed her ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine
... been more worldly-wise, he might have suspected that this vehemence had root in something beside filial love, but Billy was never one to question a gift from God. Whenever his simple soul, chastened by suffering and earnest endeavor, took courage, he always thanked ...
— Janet of the Dunes • Harriet T. Comstock
... to pounce, she waited for him to tell her. But he didn't tell her; he smiled inscrutably. He wasn't sure at what he was smiling. Perhaps it was that he was happy—happy in a worldly-wise fashion that he had never been with Terry. He could say anything to this woman and it wouldn't shock ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... near an end, but before you depart, stand still a little, as Evangelist said to Christian, that I may show you the words of God. And first, watch yourselves well, for you all have a large piece of this worldly-wise man in yourselves. You all take something of some ancestor, remote or immediate, who was wise only for this world. Yes, to be sure, for you still decline as they did, and desert as they did, those you deem to be the weakest, and stand with those ...
— Bunyan Characters - First Series • Alexander Whyte
... positions which had been reached through earnest, prayerful study of the Scriptures, by minds enlightened by the Spirit of God, and hearts burning with its living power; positions which had withstood the most searching criticisms and the most bitter opposition of popular religious teachers and worldly-wise men, and which had stood firm against the combined forces of learning and eloquence, and the taunts and revilings alike of ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... deem it worldly-wise To count unbounded brother-love a shame, So, ban the brother-look from out our eyes, Lest sparks of sympathy be fanned to flame. We smile; and yet withhold, in secret fear, The word so hard to ...
— The Glugs of Gosh • C. J. Dennis
... more than two- or three-and-twenty, eight-and-twenty summers had passed over her ash-coloured head. She had received an excellent education, had travelled far, and was as experienced and worldly-wise as any matron of fifty. Indeed, in natural wit and the art of putting two and two together, she was considerably ahead ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... more to the quick and the point than Solomon—more picturesque, more intense, more pathetic than Dante—more Miltonic (we have no other word) than Milton—more dreadful, more curiously blasphemous, more sonorous than Marlowe—more worldly-wise and clever, and intellectually svelt than Goethe. More passionate, more eloquent, more impudent than Byron—more orthodox, more edifying, more precocious than Pollok—more absorptive and inveterate than Godwin; and more hearty and tender, more of love ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... with the Faroer Saga often mentioned there, and comes out perfectly in character; an altogether worldly-wise man of the roughest type, not without a turn for practicality of kindness to those who would really be of use to him. His tendencies to ...
— Early Kings of Norway • Thomas Carlyle
... his affectionate and reverent feeling towards his patient, the peasant girl,—"the sick one, the poor one." But we like to see how, from the mouths of babes and sucklings, praise may be so perfected as to command this reverence from the learned and worldly-wise. ...
— Summer on the Lakes, in 1843 • S.M. Fuller
... meaning," said Bridgenorth; "nor did you err in describing him as a worldly-wise man. But he has atoned for his error by recovering Alice from the dangers into which she has plunged when separated from you; and besides, I have not thought meet again to entrust him with the charge that is ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... to prevent completely the discharge Of duties which, to him, looked very large. But as it was, he saw before him there The old and young, whose looks bespoke some care For their salvation. That most precious theme, Of whose great worth the worldly-wise ne'er dream, He with strong feelings urged upon them all; And there were hearts responding to the call! Such deep attention never had he seen In any Meeting, in his life, I ween! It thrilled his very soul, and made him speak, ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd
... away, And lo! the color dawned in cheek and lips, The life returned, the sealed, blind lids were raised, And in the glorious eyes love reawoke, And, looking up, met love. So runs the tale, Mocked by the worldly-wise; but I believe, Knowing the miracles the Lord hath wrought In every age for Jacob's seed. Moreover, I, with the highest and meanest Jew in Prague, Was at the burial. No man saw the dead. Sealed was the coffin ere the rites began, And none could swear ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus
... perplexity. Felix Bonpre was not at all the sort of personage he had expected to see. He had imagined that a Churchman who was able to obtain a character for saintliness in days like these, must needs be worldly-wise and crafty, with a keen perception and comprehension of the follies of mankind, and an ability to use these follies advantageously to further his own ends. Something of the cunning and foresight of an ancient Egyptian sorcerer was ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... Count went on, "to pay off in some small degree the debt of gratitude which I never even acknowledged to Challoner. Eve"—he paused, and repeated the name with a certain sense of enjoyment—"Eve is not fully equipped with worldly wisdom. Thank God, for I hate a worldly-wise woman. She is hardly old enough or—plain enough ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... time," he said disgustedly, and hopped up once more. Then he stood still, looked up, shrugged his shoulders, and remarked in an absurdly worldly-wise tone, "Those grapes are sour!" After ...
— How to Tell Stories to Children - And Some Stories to Tell • Sara Cone Bryant
... Evangelical party saw from the first its natural enemy. The Bishops could not have anything to do with the Tractarians without deeply offending the Evangelicals. The result was that, for the present, the Bishops held aloof. They let the movement run on by itself. Sharp sarcasms, worldly-wise predictions, kind messages of approval, kind cautions, passed from mouth to mouth, or in private correspondence from high quarters, which showed that the movement was watched. But for some time the authorities spoke neither good nor bad of it ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... had been taken from the king's mind, while conviction as to the wondrous import of it remained. This was in God's providence, to show the folly of the worldly-wise men of Babylon, and to bring before the king the prophet of the Lord with a divine message. The prophet Daniel, under the inspiration of God, brought his dream again to the ...
— Our Day - In the Light of Prophecy • W. A. Spicer
... propose to stay there, of course. But I do not want to have people think I'm a fool. And I haven't heard much else from any one since I started out." There was wistfulness in his voice. He suddenly felt drawn to her. He craved her counsel. It was the mastery of the woman, more worldly-wise. He was bewildered and ashamed. The image of Clare Kavanagh was not dimmed in his soul. She had been with him daily in his thoughts. He knew that he felt affection for her. It was tenderness, desire to protect, ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... about 1836. With the Abbe Duret and others he frequented the home of Mme. Dinah de la Baudraye. He was little, fat and common. His court made little way with the baroness, despite his talent and his worldly-wise ways of a bachelor. He sang ballads, told stories, and displayed pseudo-rare autographs. [The Muse ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... to marry an artist as superior in his talent as in his personal attributes, equally great in soul and mind, worldly-wise, and likely to rise by following the public road without being obliged to wander along crooked, doubtful by-paths. However, you knew Adolphe; you appreciated his worth. I am loved, he is a father, I idolize our children. Adolphe is kindness itself to me; I admire and love him. ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... wish to be altogether ironical about this rather serious matter—not so much so as to forfeit anything of lucidity. Let me state, then, in all earnestness and sobriety and simplicity of speech, what is known to every worldly-wise male dweller in the cities, to every scamp and scapegrace of the clubs, to every reformed sentimentalist and every observer with a straight eye—namely, that in all the various classes of young women in our cities who support, or partly support, themselves in vocations ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce |
