"Dolt" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... some for understanding, others for money, and others again for beauty, and of the latter class I am one. As for high birth, thank Heaven and my ancestors I am well enough off in that respect; as for understanding, provided a woman is neither a dolt nor a simpleton, there is no need of her having a very subtle wit; in point of wealth, I am amply provided by my parents; but beauty is what I covet, with no other addition than virtue and good breeding. If my wife brings me this, I ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... the house may ring of it: your lords use it; your knights are apes to the lords, and do so too ... be thou a beagle to them all.... [At] first, all the eyes in the galleries will leave walking after the players and onely follow you; the simplest dolt in the house snatches up your name, and when he meetes you in the streetes, ... heele cry: 'hees such a gallant.' ... Secondly you publish your temperance to the world, in that you seeme not to resort thither to taste vaine pleasures with a ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... reason why he should obey. The one thing about the message which struck a jarring note was the request for secrecy under plea of personal danger. And if a forgery—why should his enemies speak of her personal danger? A lure! So obvious a one that only the veriest dolt could be deceived by it. The situation then resolved itself into this: He was invited to go to Sarajevo—if by Marishka, to save her from personal danger or abduction by her captor—if by the German agent, with Marishka as a lure, to be the victim of a conspiracy which planned ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... bramble flowers, you dolt!" she retorted, springing to her knees. The foot paused and then descended clumsily on the frail branch, and raising her eyes she saw above her the bewildered face of a slouching man with a thin sunburnt beard, and white arms showing ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton
... eyes steely, her lips grim. And once he had kissed those lips, and those contemptuous eyes had poured into his, faith and love unstinted. As he stumbled toward the door, the thought crossed his mind that the boy who had won the love and respect of Persis Dale was not the poor dolt he had thought him. The years had brought loss as well ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... for a charming evening, bothered about their lessons when their play is but fairly under way, and hedged and hampered on every side. It is true that all this may be for their good, but, my dear dolt, what of that? So everything is for the good of grownup people; but does that make us contented? It is doubtless for our good in the long run that we lose our pocketbooks, and break our arms, and catch a fever, and have our brothers defraud a bank, and our houses burn down, and people steal ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... The dolt had not known that he was assisting at a solemnity recognized as such by experts throughout the clothed world. But Lois knew all those things. She herself was trying out a new toilette, for which doubtless ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... 'Dolt!' he cried out upon Shawn in his heart. 'You didn't see her at work on it. As if you could appreciate her exquisite taste and the amazing skill of her blanched fingers! I alone can appreciate ...
— Hugo - A Fantasia on Modern Themes • Arnold Bennett
... his mouth, he will not travel on. Tyresias to Narcissus promised Much prosperous hap and many golden days, If of his beauty he no knowledge took. Knowledge breeds pride, pride breedeth discontent: Black discontent, thou urgest to revenge: Revenge opes not her ears to poor men's prayers. That dolt destruction is she without doubt, That hales her forth and feedeth her with nought. Simplicity and plainness, you I love! Hence, double diligence, thou mean'st deceit: Those that now serpent-like creep on the ground, And seem to eat the dust, they crouch so low— If they be disappointed of their ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... to his own secret self that clung to every joyful contraband moment of this magic time with her. Sincerely he had thought their danger ended.... But those trailing horsemen—"Brute!" he raged dumbly at himself. "Dolt! Idiot!" ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... she is tactless, cruel, capricious, and physically revolting. At dinner she will suddenly go off into sham hysterics because of some article in the newspaper. An affected thing." Another daughter-in-law: "In society she behaves passably, but at home she is a dolt, smokes, is miserly, and when she drinks tea, she keeps the sugar between her lips and teeth and speaks at the ...
— Note-Book of Anton Chekhov • Anton Pavlovich Chekhov
... cried his father with paternal impatience, ready to tear his hair with vexation at having such a little idiot for son. "Must you rove afield to find poverty to help, when it sits cold enough, the Lord knows, at our own hearth? Oh, little ass! little dolt! little maniac! fit only for a madhouse! talking to iron figures and taking them for real men!—What have I done, O Heaven, that I should be ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... the Town Drunkard," Saxham went on, in the cold, clear voice that cut like a knife to the intelligence. "Known in every liquor-saloon, and familiar to every constable, and a standing butt for the clumsy jests that the most utter dolt of a Police Magistrate might splutter from the Bench." His jarring laugh hurt her. "The Man in the Street, and the Woman of the Street, for that matter—pardon me if I offend your ears, but the truth must be told—were my godfather ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... began again, in a voice of forced calmness, "there is no danger whatever. I'm an ass—a dolt—that's all! The fact is, I made my father a sort of half promise that I would not ask your opinion on a certain subject until—until I found out exactly what you thought about it. Now the thing is ridiculous—impossible—for how can I know your opinion on any ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... "Dolt!" cried Chicot, "you see that it is decidedly you who are drunk, for you cannot reach me across the table, while my arm is six inches longer than yours, and my sword as much longer than your sword; and here is ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas
... of the door across the way: don't you see the deeper shadow of his figure in the corner, to this side. And there ... Ah, dolt!" ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... receive the reward of your hypocrisy, as you richly deserve, for ten to one he will drop in again when he comes back from his office, and arrest you wandering in Dreamland in the beautiful twilight. Delighted to find that you are neither reading nor writing,—the absurd dolt! as if a man weren't at work unless he be wielding a sledge-hammer!—he will preach out, and prose out, and twaddle out another hour of your golden eventide, "because he is your friend." You don't care whether he is judge or jury,—whether he talks sense or ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... days, With a net of shining haze Silvers the horizon wall, And with softness touching all, Tints the human countenance With a color of romance, And infusing subtle heats, Turns the sod to violets, Thou, in sunny solitudes, Rover of the underwoods, The green silence dolt displace With thy ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... was neat, I grant you, Terry,' said Lord Clonbrony. 'But what a dolt of a born ignoramus must that sheriffs fellow have been, not to know ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth
... in being angry, no opportunity even of showing one's charming resignation. Dreadfully bad this for the nervous and bilious, for all the real use and benefit of travelling is done away; all too easy for my taste; one might as well be a doll, or a dolt, or a parcel in ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... Mrs. Score! O dolt of a John Hayes! If the landlady had allowed the Captain and the maid to have their way, and meet but for a minute before recruits, sergeant, and all, it is probable that no harm would have been done, and that this history ...
— Catherine: A Story • William Makepeace Thackeray
... where she chooses): "You shapeless nothing in a dish, You that are but almost a fish, I scorn your coarse insinuation, And have most plentiful occasion To wish myself the rock I view, Or such another dolt as you. For many a grave and learned clerk, And many a gay unlettered spark, With curious touch examines me If I can feel as well as he; And when I bend, retire, and shrink, Says, 'Well—'tis more than one would think.' Thus life is spent! oh fie upon't, In being touched, and crying—'Don't'!" ...
— The Talking Beasts • Various
... past of the village, had built houses just outside it. But villadom did not exist. The village was rich in old folk, in whom were stored the memories and traditions of its quiet past. The postmaster, "Johnny Dolt," who was nearing his eighties, was the universal referee on all local questions—rights of way, boundaries, village customs, and the like; and of some of the old women of the village, as they were twenty-five years ago, I ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... know; but wait a moment—idiot, I think it was—no, no, it was fool or dolt. Yes; his majesty said that the man who had thought of the vin de Melun was something ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... accomplished his affair, the wife bespoke her husband as her lover had lessoned her and he went out to go to the trooper's house, but turned back by the way, whereupon quoth she to him, 'By Allah, go forthright, for that my sister asketh of thee.' So the dolt of a fuller went out and made for the trooper's house, whilst his wife forewent him thither by the secret passage, and going up, sat down beside her lover. Presently, the fuller entered and saluted the trooper and his [supposed] wife and was confounded ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... dark against the moon-lit sky before they limped off, and, joining their fellows, gathered in a little knot at a distance from their fractious pupil, and discussed his merits with great freedom. They voted him an ill-natured brute, a stupid dolt—in short, a perfect donkey. Scarcely had they arrived at this unanimous conclusion, when—pop! pop! bang! bang!—four loud reports, and four little rabbits lay in the ...
— Harper's Young People, May 11, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... in his loof, [peeped, palm] Quo' scho, 'Wha lives will see the proof, [Quoth she] This waly boy will be nae coof, [choice, dolt] I think we'll ca' him ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... talk. Tomlinson is right. The neurotic Hilton has more nerve in his little finger than that dolt in the whole ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... him the room,' the old man retorted viciously, 'the father is a dolt, let the son ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... well done for you! Ah! the dolt! To trust a wanton! To trust Warcolier! To trust everybody! ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... said in his Southern accent and rolling his r's, "is a very simple thing; they want my manufactory. I've employed here in Paris a dolt of a lawyer, to whom I give twenty francs every time he opens an eye, and he is always asleep. He's a slug, who drives in his coach, while I go afoot and he splashes me. I see now I ought to have had a carriage! On the other hand, that Council of State are a pack of do-nothings, ...
— Unconscious Comedians • Honore de Balzac
... in his tone seared Valerie's brain into action. With a shock she realized that there she was standing like a dolt, quietly watching Lyveden cudgelling his brains for the password back to Insanity. Any second he might stumble upon it. For once, mercifully, his memory was sluggish—would not respond. And there he ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... swinging. His arms were very strong, and as is the way with fools and those that drown, many things went through his mind. The horse was his. He would go adventuring along the winter roads, adventuring and singing. The townspeople gathered about him with sheepish praise. From a dolt he had become a hero. Many have taken the same step in the same space of moments, the line being but a line and ...
— The Truce of God • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... not then desist from advising me, now that you have begun, until I have learned clearly what this is which I am to practise, and how I may acquire it. And if you find me assenting to your words, and hereafter not doing that to which I assented, call me 'dolt,' and deem me unworthy of receiving further instruction. Once more, then, tell me what you and Pindar mean by natural justice: Do you not mean that the superior should take the property of the inferior by force; that the better should ...
— Gorgias • Plato
... have stood out strong! Since then, to my cost, I have lived to find That you were right and that I was wrong; This man is a dolt to the one declined . . . Ah!—here he comes with his button-hole rose. Good God—I must marry him ...
— Satires of Circumstance, Lyrics and Reveries, with - Miscellaneous Pieces • Thomas Hardy
... anointed her paps with blood still when he sucked, which made him such a murderer, and to express her cruelty to a hair: and that of Tiberius, who was a common drunkard, because his nurse was such a one. Et si delira fuerit ([2113]one observes) infantulum delirum faciet, if she be a fool or dolt, the child she nurseth will take after her, or otherwise be misaffected; which Franciscus Barbarus l. 2. c. ult. de re uxoria proves at full, and Ant. Guivarra, lib. 2. de Marco Aurelio: the child will surely participate. For bodily sickness there is no doubt to be made. Titus, Vespasian's ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... country, then at Morin and smiled. She smiled like a happy woman, with an engaging and bright look, and Morin trembled. Certainly that smile was intended for him; it was discreet invitation, the signal which he was waiting for. That smile meant to say: 'How stupid, what a ninny, what a dolt, what a donkey you are, to have sat there on your seat like a post ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... inheritance from your poor broken-hearted mother, with interest, and treat you like a man? And never played spy, never made an inquiry, till I heard the scamp had been fastening on you like a blood-sucker, and singing hymns into the ears of that squeamish dolt of a pipe-smoking parson, Peterborough—never thought of doing it! Am I the man that dragged your grandmother's name through the streets and ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... a spite against him for the information he gave me on the score of how and by whom I was nursed. So have I. Because he did not tell me before, and because when he told me he would not tell me enough. He has no eyes, this Leduc. He is a dolt, who only sees the half of what happens, and only remembers the half of ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... Mademoiselle Madeleine's fault," cried M. de Bois, coming to the rescue. "It was my folly,—another blunder of mine! I was dolt enough to think that you had only to see her for all to be well; and, instead of warning Mademoiselle Madeleine that you were in Washington, I kept from her a knowledge which would have prevented your ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... storm will last three days or four, an' after that, a day, mebbe a week. Anyways, 'twill give ye time to learn the duties of a factor's clerk, which is a thing the Company has never furnished at Gods Lake, but if John McNabb foots the bill, they'll not worry. 'Twould be better an' ye could play the dolt—not an eediot, or an addlepate—but just a dull fellow, slow of wit, an' knowin' ...
— The Challenge of the North • James Hendryx
... crime which he had named her blunder. Could this passionless stranger, this Irish politician, looking at her as indifferently as the judge on the bench, be Horace? No, surely no! Because that fool, dolt though he was, would never have seen this wretched confession of her crimes, and not slain her the next minute. Into this ambuscade had she been led by the crazy wife of Curran, whose sound advice she herself had thrown aside to follow the instincts of Edith. Recovering her nerve ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... lout, thou fool, thou whoreson folt,[359] Is this thy wood money, thou peevish[360] dolt? Thou shalt smart for this gear, I make God a vow! Thou knowest no more to sell wood than ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Robert Dodsley
... eyes deceived him, or whether he is right, he must have made a mistake. Dear Nais, do not let that dolt trifle with your life, your honor, your future; stop his mouth at once. You know my position here. I have need of all these people, but still I am entirely yours. Dispose of a life that belongs to you. You have rejected my prayers, but my heart is always ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... Some rain last night this morning verry Cloudy the party Set out this morning verry early with their loads to the Canoe Consisting of Parched meal Pork Powder Lead axes, Tools Bisquit, P. Soup & Some Merchendize & Clothes &c. &c. I gave Serjt. Pryor a dolt of Salts, & Set Chabonah to trying up the Buffalow tallow & put into the empty Kegs &c. I assort our articles for to be left at this place buried, Kegs of Pork, 1/2 a Keg of flour, 2 blunderbuts, Caterrages a few Small ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... she resented his presence. He was too grossly ignorant to know that a man of breeding, having entered by chance, would have turned and gone away, professing not to have seen. He seemed to think—the dolt!—that he ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... job merely looks easy," Tom went on, good-humoredly. "The fellow who is doing the fisherman act must have all the brains, while the fellow at the oars may be a real dolt, for all he has to know. I'll take you out with me after black bass, Danny, if we can get hold of a ...
— The High School Boys' Fishing Trip • H. Irving Hancock
... from the saddle. "Now, I was right to call you elf, for you have more than human cleverness!" the Etheling cried gayly. "Do so, by all means, dear lad; and I promise in return that I will tell every puffed-up dolt at home that you are the blithest comrade who ever fitted himself to man's moods. There, if that contents you, give ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... wouldn't they, fool? You've had thousands out of Bantison, Rakell, Guilford, and Townbrake. They would have you lashed by the grooms as your ugly deserts are. You to speak to Lady Mary Carlisle! 'Od's blood! You! Also, dolt, she would know you if you escaped the others. She stood within a yard of you when Nash expelled ...
— Monsieur Beaucaire • Booth Tarkington
... bondage of adventure and of wisdom. Then I thought more patiently and I saw that what had made these but as one and given them for a thousand years the miracles of their shrine and temporal rule by land and sea, was not a condescension to knave or dolt, an impoverishment of the common thought to make it serviceable and easy, but a dead language and a communion in whatever, even to the greatest saint, is of incredible difficulty. Only by the substantiation of the soul I thought, whether in literature or in ...
— Synge And The Ireland Of His Time • William Butler Yeats
... curious experiment, I made the attempt once, in a case of a handsome dolt, who was, nominally, a domestic in my employ for a few months. She had an affected pose and tread which she conceived to be majestic. She was stupid, awkward and slovenly about her work, and altogether so "impossible" that I disliked to ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... of the Duc de Guise will lead to a horrible persecution, and I pray for it with all my might. Our reverses are preferable to success. The Reformation has an object to gain in being attacked; do you hear me, dolt? It cannot hurt us to be defeated, whereas Catholicism is at an end if we should win but a single battle. Ha! what are my lieutenants?—rags, wet rags instead of men! white-haired cravens! baptized apes! O God, grant me ten years more of ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... sadly the theory of Professor Muller, professor of anatomy and physiology at the University of Lippe-Schweidnitz, and court physician, that Adalbert cast back to his great-grandfather Franz, who had been known to his irreverent subjects as "The Dolt." ...
— Happy Pollyooly - The Rich Little Poor Girl • Edgar Jepson
... discarded his foolishness of the previous days, and the thought in him could have replied: "I am a dolt if I let you out of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... not to be expected," he broke out at last, without any reason whatever,—"it is not to be expected that you can contend against everything. You are tired of disappointment, and I don't blame you. I should be a selfish dolt if I did. If Gowan had been in my place he could have married you, and have given you a home of your own. I never shall be able to do that. But," with great weakness and evidence of tribulation at the thought, "I didn't think you would be so ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... work on different lines, do we not? I wonder which of us has dirtied his hands the most. Which of the two—the two fools who quarrelled about a woman. Ha? And she married a third—a dolt. Thus are they ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman
... little disgusted, "it pulls terrifically hard, and in my opinion, if it is altered a little, and has a heavier wing put on the right side, it will yet do magnificently, and make all those howling monkeys change their tone. That dolt Ellis, and that conceited chap Bracebridge, will soon find that their finely-bedizened machine is cut out. My carriage is, I know, such a first-rate one, that it will go ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... middle-garth over Should hold under heaven than he himself held: Art thou that Beowulf who won strife with Breca On the wide sea contending in swimming, When ye two for pride's sake search'd out the floods And for a dolt's cry into deep water Thrust both your life-days? No man the twain of you, 510 Lief or loth were he, might lay wyte to stay you Your sorrowful journey, when on the sea row'dye; Then when the ocean-stream ye with your arms deck'd, Meted the mere-streets, there your hands ...
— The Translations of Beowulf - A Critical Biography • Chauncey Brewster Tinker
... made the affair a trifle plainer, and showed how foolishly I had acted. Instead of being a stupid dolt, this Francois was really a clever fellow, who had tricked me admirably. My cheeks burned as I saw what a dupe I had been. As a matter of fact, he could have slipped away at any moment, instead of which he had purposely lured me on. His hesitation at the ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens
... department, and is a ninny for doing so!" said Mr. Torpedo, member of Congress. "The man that depends on Jeff Davis, or his war secretary, is a double-distilled dolt. Jeff thinks he's a soldier, and apes Napoleon. But you can't depend on him, Desperade. Look at Johnston! He fooled him. Look at Beauregard—he envies and fears him, so he keeps him down. Don't depend on the President, Desperade, or you'll be a ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... quizzed me often and puzzled me long, You've asked me to cipher and spell, You've called me a dunce if I answered wrong, Or a dolt if I failed to tell Just when to say lie and when to say lay, Or what nine sevens may make, Or the longitude of Kamschatka Bay, Or the I-forget-what's-its-name Lake, So I think it's about my turn, I do, To ask a ...
— Our Boys - Entertaining Stories by Popular Authors • Various
... countinghouses made, fascinated by these was Rosalie as maidens of her years commonly are fascinated by palaces, by the Tower and by the Abbey. Remember, it is not what their eyes see that fascinates these romantic young misses. A dolt can see the Tower walls and see no more than crumbling bricks and stone. It is what their minds see that fascinates the ardent creatures. Well, Rosalie's mind saw strange romance ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... grew more placid (Optimists should not be acid.) "Come in!" I exclaimed—"confound you! Pray stand drumming there no more." But the donkey still kept tapping. "Dolt!" I muttered, sharply snapping, "Why the deuce do you come rapping, rapping at my Office-door? Yet not 'enter' when you're told to?"—here I opened wide the door— ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Volume 101, October 31, 1891 • Various
... [our ancestors believed literally that cowards had white livers] dolt!" cried Dr Thorpe sharply, and took the matchlock out of his hands. "Go behind for a ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... learned to speak Gaelic and regretted he had let the chance go by. Should he get work in Montreal, he would study French. A man's intellect grows by learning whatever accident throws in his way, and the man who, from foolish conceit, refuses to take advantage of his opportunities remains a dolt. Read and observe, he said, and you will be able to say and do when your fellows are helpless. He got cuttings of canvas from the bosun, shaped them into a blouse, and got me to sew them together. The other boys laughed at me, and called ...
— The Narrative of Gordon Sellar Who Emigrated to Canada in 1825 • Gordon Sellar
... "Fool, dunce, dolt, ass, peacock, buzzard, owl!" she stormed. Then her rage faded and she turned sadly on her heel as another man's name came into her heart and fluttered to her lips. "The world is as sour as a rotten orange since Franois ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... his said preceptor died of the French pox, which was in the year one thousand four hundred and twenty. Afterwards he got an old coughing fellow to teach him, named Master Jobelin Bride, or muzzled dolt, who read unto him Hugutio, Hebrard('s) Grecism, the Doctrinal, the Parts, the Quid est, the Supplementum, Marmotretus, De moribus in mensa servandis, Seneca de quatuor virtutibus cardinalibus, Passavantus cum commento, and Dormi ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... O Aga!" cried Babadul to Mansouri, "I was ignorant of what I was saying. Who would have thought it? Ass, fool, dolt, that I am, not to have known better. Bismillah! in the name or the Prophet, pray come to my house; your steps will be fortunate, and your slave's head ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... "Rinaldo there had dolt and left his own, And on his back a Pagan's harness tied, Perchance he deemed so to pass unknown, And in those arms less noted false to ride. A headless corse in fight late overthrown, The witch in his forsaken arms did hide, And by a brook exposed ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... station, but another spirit carried her past, for she would visualize the sure consequences of such an exposure. If her suspicions were false, she would be exposed as a combination of dastard and dolt. If they were true, she would be sending Sir Joseph and Lady Webling ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... ever made a fool speak words of wisdom; an ignoramus utter lectures on science; a dolt write an Odyssey, an Aeneid, a Paradise Lost, or a Hamlet; a loafer become a Girard or Astor, a Rothschild, Stewart, Vanderbilt, Field, Gould, or Rockefeller; a coward win at Yorktown, Wagram, Waterloo, or Richmond; a careless stonecutter carve an Apollo, ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... Dolt! Is it possible for what has been not to have been, and can a stick not have two ends? Does He see the future as future or as present? how does He draw the being out of non-existence, and how ...
— Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary • Voltaire
... suppose,' said Ralph, 'that you are dolt enough to forgive or forget, very readily, the violence that was committed upon you, or the exposure ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... wittily said about a dolt who took credit for the merits of his ancestors: "Like the Potato, all that was good about him ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... the Baron, standing transfixed for a few minutes. "What! That woman believes she can make use of his passion to be quit of that dolt, as she counted on Marneffe's decease!—I shall be the ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... be anything in this world from which it would be desirable to see men delivered, it is from a certain small, cheap wisdom which expresses itself in general verdicts on all humanity, and enables the fribbler or dolt who can not see beyond his nose to give an offhand summary of the infinite. There is 'an aping of the devil' in this flippant assumption of our immutability, which strangely combines the pitiful and ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... the other. "Dolt! Imbecile! Ass! I'll apply for a guardian. Fix you out this time!" He whipped out fountain pen and checkbook. "National Trust Company (guess I've got enough there). Pay to J.C. Mendenhall & Co.—how much ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... deficiencies. Between Mr. Pocket and Herbert I got on fast; and, with one or the other always at my elbow to give me the start I wanted, and clear obstructions out of my road, I must have been as great a dolt as Drummle if I had ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... room by room, devoting the nights of a whole week to each. We examined, first, the furniture of each apartment. We opened every possible drawer; and I presume you know that, to a properly trained police-agent, such a thing as a 'secret' drawer is impossible. Any man is a dolt who permits a 'secret' drawer to escape him in a search of this kind. The thing is so plain. There is a certain amount of bulk—of space—to be accounted for in every cabinet. Then we have accurate rules. The fiftieth part of a line could not escape ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... O Vanity! thou curse, thou shame, thou sin, with what tides of pseudo talent hast thou not filled this ambitious town? Ass, dolt, miscalculator, quack, pretender, how many hast thou befooled, thou father of multifarious fools? Serpent, tempter, evil one, how many hast thou seduced from the plough tail, the carpenter's bench, the schoolmaster's desk, the rural scene, to plunge them into misery and contempt in this, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... is sure to be misunderstood and censured by those he loves best. When this stage is reached, it is easy for him to imagine himself a social outcast, a useless encumbrance that nobody loves, a clumsy dolt that nobody likes to have about. Again he may become sullen, morose, resentful, and suspicious toward all about him. Or, a timid nature may become more timid, shrinking, weak of will, and despondent concerning life in general; ...
— The Renewal of Life; How and When to Tell the Story to the Young • Margaret Warner Morley
... seems but a dreaming dolt, Still walking like a ragged colt, And oft out of a bush doth bolt, Of purpose to deceive us; And leading us makes us to stray, Long winter's nights, out of the way; And when we stick in mire and clay, Hob doth with ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... no difference between a rascal and an honest man. I became enraged once before witnesses, against Sainte-Beuve, while begging him to have as much indulgence for Balzac as he had for Jules Lecomte. He answered me, calling me a dolt! That is where BREADTH OF ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... have been a dolt not to have noticed it before," Gurdon said. "Now that you mention it, the likeness is plain enough. My dear fellow, can't you see in this a reason for your wife's reticence in ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White
... being the buffoon of the court, he has wormed himself into all its secrets, made himself master of all its intrigues, conspired with my own son-in-law against me, debauched my guards,—indeed so woven his web of deceit, that my life is safe no longer, than he believes me the imperial dolt which I have affected to seem, in order to deceive him; fortunate that even so can I escape his cautionary anticipation of my displeasure, by avoiding to precipitate his measures of violence. But were this sudden storm of the crusade fairly passed over, the ungrateful Caesar, the ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... know a plan If we can scheam to do it, We'll knock one daan bang into th' dolt, An' let him roll ...
— Yorkshire Ditties, Second Series - To which is added The Cream of Wit and Humour - from his Popular Writings • John Hartley
... "Blind, idle dolt! While thou art fondling that serpent of thine, thy mistress's affairs may go hang! Haste with the treasure, or feel my anger. While thy useless eyes were mooning on nothing, the strangers have escaped. They are even now getting sail on the white vessel. ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... falter, feeling it to be As if all words of mine in praise of him Were as the veriest dolt that saw the sun; And God had spoken him and said to him: "I bid you tell me what you think of it." And he should answer: "Oh, the sun is nice." So sadly fitted I to ...
— Something Else Again • Franklin P. Adams
... discovery of this fact, however, occasioned him no dismay, nor did he exhibit the slightest repugnance at being called upon to clean his master's shoes, brush his coat, or dress his periwig. In vain did the sour old man hurl such epithets as 'fool,' 'blockhead,' 'dolt,' at his musical valet in return for the latter's attempts to minister to his personal comforts. Haydn's sole object was to be near Porpora in order that he might garner each crumb of knowledge—each hint, however small—that the great man chanced ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham
... had suggested that earlier," said Oliver bitterly. "I am a dolt and a fool's head not to have thoroughly examined it last night," and he rushed across into Betty's chamber to find a candle with which to investigate the ...
— An Unwilling Maid • Jeanie Gould Lincoln
... effect for incontinently Punch Costello was of them all embraided and they reclaimed the churl with civil rudeness some and shaked him with menace of blandishments others whiles they all chode with him, a murrain seize the dolt, what a devil he would be at, thou chuff, thou puny, thou got in peasestraw, thou losel, thou chitterling, thou spawn of a rebel, thou dykedropt, thou abortion thou, to shut up his drunken drool out of that like a curse of God ape, the good sir Leopold that had for his cognisance the flower of ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... and it had not occurred to him to exclaim even in his own heart: "With your girlishness and your ferocity, your intimidating seriousness and your delicious absurdity, I would give a week's wages just to take hold of you and shake you!" No! The dolt had seen absolutely naught but a conscientious female beginner learning the duties of the post which he himself had baptized as that of ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... has been mettling again with my babers? I haf dolt eferybody I will not haf my babers mettled.' Then a dash to the door, and an inquiry trumpeted up the stairway. 'Who the tevil has been ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... in smart and handsome, I'll aver, Yet, with all his brains and beauty, he's not good enough for her: Now, though I'm somewhat homely and in gumption quite a dolt, The quality of goodness is my best and strongest holt, And as goodness is the only human thing that doesn't wane, I wonder she preferred to wed with ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... think herself pretty and amiable and sweet, and not be so. That is true; but on the other hand, every man thinks himself braver than the Cid, even if he is afraid of a fly, and more talented than Seneca, even if he is a dolt." ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja
... woman and lose thy life; for in this city one cannot do aught of the kind, especially on a day like this and under so keen and masterful a chief of the police as ours of Baghdad.' 'Out on thee, O wretched old man!' cried I. 'Avaunt! what words are these thou givest me?' 'O dolt!' rejoined he, 'thou sayest to me what is not true and hidest thy mind from me; but I know that this is so and am certain of it, and I only seek to help thee this day.' I was fearful lest my people or the neighbours should hear the barber's talk, so ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous
... side, had a mind equally busy. Mirah's anger had waked in him a new perception, and with it the unpleasant sense that he was a dolt not to have had it before. Suppose Mirah's heart were entirely preoccupied with Deronda in another character than that of her own and her brother's benefactor; the supposition was attended in Hans's mind with anxieties which, to do him justice, were not altogether selfish. He had a strong ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... embroidered underwear, etc. She prepared a 6 o'clock breakfast for us, fried pork, mashed potatoes, mince pie, and for me, at my especial request, a plate of delicious baked sweet apples and a pitcher of rich milk. Now for the moral of this story: When we came to pay our bill, the dolt of a husband took the money and put it in his pocket. He had not lifted a hand to lighten that woman's burdens, but had sat and talked with the men in the bar room, not even caring for the baby, yet the law gives him the right to every dollar she earns, ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... this stubborn nature in flesh and blood must be slain by the Gospel; thus do we permit ourselves to be offered upon the cross and to die. Herein is exercised the true priest's office, in that we sacrifice to God that wicked rogue, the corrupt old dolt (of our nature); if the world does it not, we must do it ourselves; but it must in the end be all removed, whatever we have of the old Adam, as we heard above in the first chapter. This is the only sacrifice that pleases and is acceptable to God. From this you ...
— The Epistles of St. Peter and St. Jude Preached and Explained • Martin Luther
... from Clarenham, or from Ashton himself; and, dolt as he is, I trow he has sense enough to keep his own counsel. He has not forgotten the day when he saw this dainty young sprig rise up in his golden spurs before his eyes. I know how it is! It is with him as it was ...
— The Lances of Lynwood • Charlotte M. Yonge
... gods were flinging at him. Oh, what a fool I was with my silly pride of family, of superior education and breeding, and with no eye for the pure gold of as true and loyal a soul as ever offered itself in daily unmurmuring sacrifice for others, and without a thought of sacrifice. Fool and dolt! A self-sufficient prig! That's what ...
— The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail • Ralph Connor
... that you do not send me any more letters, and mind, too, and not wink at me so often; you will remember?" Bill gave the required promise and Fanny bounded away in quest of her schoolmates, who laughed at her for taking so much pains with such a dolt as Bill Jeffrey. That afternoon Fanny resolved to retrieve her character as a scholar; so she applied herself closely to her task, and before recitation hour arrived she had learned every word of her lesson. But alas for poor Fanny. ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes
... deal of doubt about the matter," answered Terence. "To tell you the truth, I would rather get it in consequence of some dashing deed which would give me a claim to it than through family influence, by which any dolt may be pushed forward in ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... and ale— Soft bed, fair wife, gay horse, good steel.—Are they naught? Possession means to sit astride of the world, Instead of having it astride of you; Is that naught? 'Tis the easiest trade of all too; For he that's fit for nothing else, is fit To own good land, and on the slowest dolt His state sits easiest, while his ...
— The Saint's Tragedy • Charles Kingsley
... has marked To suffer for too firm a faithfulness.— An Emperor's chide is a command to die.— By him accursed, forsaken by my friend, Awhile stern England's prisoner, then unloosed Like some poor dolt unworth captivity, Time serves me now for ceasing. Why not cease?... When, as Shades whisper in the chasmal night, "Better, far better, no percipience here."— O happy lack, that I should have no child To come into my hideous heritage, ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... sult hie bel[i]ben, / unt dolt mit mir diu leit; als i[z] tagen beginne, / ir helde vil gemeit, s[o] helfet mir besarken / den m[i]nen lieben man.' d[o] spr[a]chen die degene: / 'da[z] sol ...
— A Middle High German Primer - Third Edition • Joseph Wright
... everybody knows it. You want everything I've got, and I can prove it. Here you steal my customers and down at the Cabanal you steal ... well, you steal ... something else ... something else.... She's not fooling me, I can tell you, even if she is pulling the wool over her husband's eyes ... dolt that he is, fool of a Rector, who don't know his chin from his elbow." But Dolores was not moved from her patronizing self-possession. She could see from the faces of the onlookers that every one was wondering how she would take those ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... at Fustov. He merely shrugged his shoulders, as though giving me to understand that it was no use talking to such a dolt. ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... hast not half that power to do me harm As I have to be hurt. O gull! O dolt! As ignorant as dirt! thou hast done a deed,— I care not for thy sword; I'll make thee known, Though I lost twenty lives.—Help! help, ho! help! The Moor hath kill'd my mistress! ...
— Othello, the Moor of Venice • William Shakespeare
... it like a dolt, I do not doubt. For she flew out at me, demanding in what esteem I held her, and in what her birth fell short of Anne Hyde's—"who is now Duchess of York, and in whose service I ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... one but the messenger shall be allowed in it. The rule is often broken, especially in the South, where the polite messengers dislike to ask a gentleman to leave their car. The German took in all that was going on, but who cared for him? poor, stupid dolt! Maroney remained in the express car a short time, and then again passed through the train, but discovered nothing to cause him the ...
— The Expressman and the Detective • Allan Pinkerton
... another wonder abroad, as I do hear tell," remarked Mistress Winter, "and 'tis certain matter the which, being taken—Agnes, thou dolt! what hast done wi' the salad?—being taken hendily [gently, delicately] off the top of ale when 'tis a-making, shall raise bread all-to [almost] as well as sour dough. I know not what folk call it.—Thou idle, gaping dizzard [fool]! and I have ...
— For the Master's Sake - A Story of the Days of Queen Mary • Emily Sarah Holt
... Whitman, and know not whether he be me, or me he;— Or otherwise! Oh, blue skies! oh, rugged mountains! oh, mighty, rolling Niagara! O, chaos and everlasting bosh! I am a poet; I swear it! If you do not believe it you are a dolt, a fool, an idiot! Milton, Shakespere, Dante, Tommy Moore, Pope, never, but Byron, too, perhaps, and last, not least, Me, and the Poet Close. We send our resonance echoing down the adamantine canyons of the ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... tigers would be loosed. But then, while conversing on commonplace subjects, I realized more fully than ever upon what a fearful precipice the heedless spiritist is ever sporting. For, clearer, more distinct, came threats, curses, goblin laughter; and 'Fool! dolt!' was the cry. ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... it mortified him greatly to think that he could not succeed as the other boys did. For you know it is hard to succeed at anything unless your heart is in it. And so one night he sat down and cried to think he must always be a dolt. His mother found him weeping and tried to comfort him. She walked out in the dusky evening with him and talked. But poor David, for that was his name, was broken-hearted. He had tried with all his might to get interested in "Hic, haec, hoc," but it was of no use. He said there was something ...
— Queer Stories for Boys and Girls • Edward Eggleston
... Mr. von Rambow is quite changed this summer, he isn't like the same person. He goes about in a dream, forgets all that I tell him, and so I can't rely on him as I used to do. And as for that other stupid dolt, he's worse than ever.' Now, Mrs. Behrens, pray don't be angry with Hawermann for calling your nephew a 'stupid dolt.'" "Certainly not," replied Mrs. Behrens, "for that's just what he is." "Well, you see that all happened a week ago, but this morning I went out early with my ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... learned an excellent lesson," he returned, bitterly. "That is just the thing: 'obey, obey.' Well, I will. I will be a stick, a dolt. I will be as unlike what God intended me to be as possible. I will be just what your father and Aunt Hester and you want me to be. I will let them think for me and save my soul. I am too much an imbecile to attempt to work out my own salvation. No, Elizabeth, ...
— The Uncalled - A Novel • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... among the soothing influences of a man's life, always brought with it some irritation to Arthur. There was no having his own way in the stables; everything was managed in the stingiest fashion. His grandfather persisted in retaining as head groom an old dolt whom no sort of lever could move out of his old habits, and who was allowed to hire a succession of raw Loamshire lads as his subordinates, one of whom had lately tested a new pair of shears by clipping an oblong patch on Arthur's bay mare. This state of things is naturally embittering; ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... idiot, imbecile, natural; simpleton, dolt, dunce, defective, witling, dotterel, driveler, blockhead, beetlehead, ninny, ignoramus, numskull, booby, clodpate, nincompoop, ass, wiseacre, dunderhead, halfwit, oaf, dullard, coot, mooncalf; zany, harlequin, buffoon, jester, merry-andrew, droll, clown, scaramouch. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... crowns on the hedge that a dexterous hand may carry off at the point of the lance. My course is taken, I will form the fairest army in Italy, and with it I will win a throne in the Capitol. Fool that I was six years ago!—Instead of deputing that mad dolt Pepin of Minorbino, had I myself deserted the Hungarian, and repaired with my soldiery to Rome, the fall of Rienzi would have been followed by the rise of Montreal. Pepin was outwitted, and threw away the prey after he had hunted it down. The lion ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... with a belly full of ice," said he musingly. "I have wronged him. He has a tongue on him, he has that. And here I have been judging from his appearance that he was a mere common dolt. And, what, Mr. O'Ruddy," he added, "were you pleased to say to the gentlemen which I would not care to hear with my hands ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... "I struck a tongue-tied dolt or two," remarked his son Chester, "but dolts aren't uncommon anywhere, even when not tongue-tied. And I did run up against some chaps I liked jolly well. One of them invited me up for a week-end; I nearly fell over when he did it. I didn't know country people ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond
... becomes love in a woman's heart"—answered the dear creature, with a smile and a look that Betts would have been a mere dolt not to have comprehended—"and it is my duty to take care that MY gratitude ...
— Autobiography of a Pocket-Hankerchief • James Fenimore Cooper
... I'd be rid of that Edward Benden. Then I'd set Alice in her brother Roger's house, to look after him and Christabel. She'd be as happy as the day is long, might she dwell with them, and had that cantankerous dolt off her hands for good. Eh dear! but if Master Hall, my father-in-law, that made Alice's match with Benden, but had it to do o'er again, I reckon he'd think twice and thrice afore he gave her to that toad. The foolishness o' folks is beyond belief. Why, she might have had Master Barnaby Final, ...
— All's Well - Alice's Victory • Emily Sarah Holt
... The villain, who this day— I'm ruined; and I confess that this has justly befallen me, for being such a dolt, so devoid of sense; that I should have intrusted my fortunes to a frivolous slave![70] I am suffering the reward of my folly; still he shall never get off from ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... a different theory; he would be a dolt, a brute, unpardonably vindictive, if he did not cherish all friendly feelings to the Crawfurds; if he did not visit them openly and frankly. He did visit at the Ewes, but he found the plainest opportunities ready made for him during one fortnight at Hurlton, ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... him a peculiar look, one of those looks which an adept in the ways of life, in its crooked paths and unprincipled impostures, not unfrequently bestows upon the poor aristocratic dolt whom he is plundering to his face. The look we speak of might be mistaken for surprise—it might be mistaken for pity—but it ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... Louie held her handkerchief to her face, while I was speaking, and I—ass, dolt, and idiot that I was—felt convinced that she was crying. Her frame shook with convulsive shivers, that I took for repressed sobs. I saw the little hand that held the little white handkerchief to her face—the same ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille
... little into this matter. Is knowledge—a knowledge of those sciences which are intimately connected with agriculture as an art—of no value to the farmer? Is it necessary that he should be a dolt in order to be fitted for his vocation? Will ignorance and bad husbandry increase his crops or enable him to find a better market for his products? Or, will his enjoyment, in his daily round of toil, be any greater because unconscious that ...
— Address delivered by Hon. Henry H. Crapo, Governor of Michigan, before the Central Michigan Agricultural Society, at their Sheep-shearing Exhibition held at the Agricultural College Farm, on Thursday, • Henry Howland Crapo
... heart, be at peace, because Nor knave nor dolt can break What's not for their applause, Being for a woman's sake. Enough if the work has seemed, So did she your strength renew, A dream that a lion had dreamed Till the wilderness cried aloud, A secret between you two, Between the ...
— The Green Helmet and Other Poems • William Butler Yeats |
