"Fool" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... he was in a fine temper, you may be sure, for here was his prey threatening to escape again, and all through the over-zeal of this meddling fool. Warwick gave D'Estivet a quite admirable cursing—admirable as to strength, I mean, for it was said by persons of culture that the art of it was not good—and after that ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
 Read full book for free!
... said, 'It is a pity to see Lord Monboddo publish such notions as he has done; a man of sense, and of so much elegant learning. There would be little in a fool doing it; we should only laugh; but when a wise man does it, we are sorry. Other people have strange notions; but they conceal them. If they have tails, they hide them; but Monboddo is as jealous of his tail as a squirrel.' I shall here put down some more remarks of Dr. ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
Read full book for free!
... establish a harmonious society of persons of different religious sentiments, all intractable people shall be excluded from it, such as those in communion with the Roman See usurious Jews, English stiff-necked Quakers, Puritans, fool-hardy believers in the Millenium and obstinate modern ...
— Peter Stuyvesant, the Last Dutch Governor of New Amsterdam • John S. C. Abbott
Read full book for free!
... intense joy. "I am doing just what you say," she wrote, "being first lady-in-waiting on his new majesty. He is very pretty, very gracious and good, and his little mamma and he are a pair.... I am getting to be an old fool of a grandma, and to think there is no bliss under heaven to compare with a baby." Later she wrote on the same subject: "You ought to see my baby. I have discovered a way to end the woman controversy. Let the women all say that they won't take care of the babies till the laws are ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields
Read full book for free!
... tells you a thing you have no reason to disbelieve in it self; and perhaps has given you, before he bit you, no reason to disbelieve it for his saying it; and if you give him Credit, laughs in your Face, and triumphs that he has deceiv'd you. In a Word, a Biter is one who thinks you a Fool, because you do not think him a Knave. This Description of him one may insist upon to be a just one; for what else but a Degree of Knavery is it, to depend upon Deceit for what you gain of another, be it in point of Wit, or Interest, ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
Read full book for free!
... my mind, demanding instant consideration and a definite answer before I again saw this friend and adviser. I woke to ask if the suggestion which had come to me in our brief conversation about the bottles taken from the wine-vault, was the promising one it had then appeared, or only a fool's trick bound to end in disaster. I weighed the matter in every conceivable way, and ended by trusting to the instinct which impelled me to have resource to the one and only means by which the scent might be diverted from its original course, confusion be sown in the minds ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
Read full book for free!
... anxious alarm. "O no, no!" she exclaimed, "do not leave me yet; this is our last meeting our last. Tell me, at least, that you understand me; that you see, if I am no weak fool, I am also no heartless coquette; tell me that you see I am not as hard as I have seemed; that I have not knowingly trifled with your happiness; that even now I am not selfish. Your love,—I ask it no more! But your esteem—your good opinion. Oh, ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
Read full book for free!
... country; semi-magic for us. For the mass of the people, one can only wonder at their cheerfulness and realize what a really old and overcrowded country is and how Buddhism and stoic fatalistic cheerfulness develop. Don't ever fool yourself into thinking of Japan as a new country; I don't any longer believe the people who tell you that you have to go to China and India to see antiquity. Superficially it may be so, but not fundamentally. ...
— Letters from China and Japan • John Dewey
Read full book for free!
... countenance. At first it was the flash of conviction, then the stunned shock of horror; now she rose, rose to her full height, and there was a livid and deadly light in her eyes,—the light of conscious courage and power and revenge. "Fool," she muttered, "with all his craft! Fool, fool! As if, in the war of household perfidy, the woman did not always conquer! Man's only chance is to be mailed ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
Read full book for free!
... my returned joy; told of praying for, and getting what I prayed for, then losing it, by compromise; closed by saying: "That never again would I refuse to do the will of God even if it offended all and made me appear a fool." My testimony seemed to be fanatical, for my manner indicated one greatly moved. When I took my seat a "still small voice" said. "You must sing a song." Bro. Osburn was sitting near. He had the song book "Finest of the ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation
Read full book for free!
... effort on the part of the people, we can sit at home while elections run themselves so well that only what the good people desire in political action will necessarily result. We want the equivalent of what, in the slang of practical mechanics, we call a fool-proof machine, because anybody can run it and no fool can interfere with its normal operation. So these political reformers are hunting a corrupt-politician-proof machine for government. It does ...
— Ethics in Service • William Howard Taft
Read full book for free!
... over the projection, I could see nothing below me but the sea and the rocks upon which it broke, and a few gulls flying in mid-air. I got down in safety, pretty well covered with dirt; and for my pains was told, "What a d—d fool you were to risk your life for a ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
Read full book for free!
... that Trix will break off the affair before spring; she always does, so that she may be free for the summer campaign. It won't hurt Tom, but I hate to have him make a fool of himself out of pity, for he is more of a man than he seems, and I don't want any one ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
Read full book for free!
... the story to be, as to all main essentials, true—on this ground, that Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite was too great a fool to have invented it. Mr. Bruff and I agree with Mr. Luker, in considering this test of the truth of the story to be a ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
Read full book for free!
... fool he to come here," said a thin man with a grizzled beard, amidst the laughter that followed, "unless he had the choice given him between hell ...
— A Dream of John Ball, A King's Lesson • William Morris
Read full book for free!
... horse is generally a hard one. A usurper occasionally catches a horse and rides him far away. Then, too often, his owner blames him for the delay, and for a time gives him only half-feed to "teach him not to fool along." Generally the return horse must also be a good snow horse, able to flounder and willing to make his way through deep drifts. He may be thirsty on a warm day, but he must go all the way home before having a drink. Often, in winter, ...
— Wild Life on the Rockies • Enos A. Mills
Read full book for free!
... this with the English, they are willing to know the Netherlanders, and to use them as a protection in time of need, but when that is past, they no longer regard them, but play the fool with them. This happens so only because we have neglected to populate the land; or, to speak more plainly and truly, because we have, our of regard for our own profit, wished to scrape all the fat into one or more pots, and thus secure the trade ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • Various
Read full book for free!
... full force. Had Monk wished to make himself king, he could not have done so. Dictator? No! It needed a Cromwell for that! Richard could not have maintained himself. It is true that he was the true son of a great man—in other words a fool. If I had wished to make myself king, there was nothing to hinder me; and if ever the wish takes me there will be nothing to hinder. Now, if you have an ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
Read full book for free!
... it was detected. It is well executed, and only the most sagacious and quick-sighted are never mistaken in the cards. There is not an edition of cards that I cannot read as well by seeing one side as the other. No pack was ever edited in fairness to both parties. A man is a fool who will get out such an edition. I carried two new ones to the B—— house in London, and ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 2 • Various
Read full book for free!
... Valois better informed, and also more hot for war, than perhaps they had expected. It is said that he learned the defeat of his navy at Ecluse from his court fool, who was the first to announce it, and in the following fashion. "The English are cowards," said he. "Why so?" asked the king. "Because they lacked courage to leap into the sea at Ecluse, as the French and Normans did." Philip lost no time about putting ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
Read full book for free!
... Brimston, her native rudeness getting the better of her habitual caution at this provocation. "Major Lopside would not be fool enough to report a man to his own chief. Why, he might get the worst of it himself if ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
Read full book for free!
... to twice as many thousands. Mr. Todd had himself been with the expedition to establish the great European telegraph line that runs right through Southern, Central, and Northern Australia to Port Darwin. He told us an amusing story of the natives' notion of the work they were engaged on: 'What big fool white man is, putting up fence! cat will run underneath.' Mr. Todd is a great electrician, as well as a talented meteorologist, and his tables of winds and probable weather, to be seen in the central hall of the post-office, must be ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey
Read full book for free!
... a fool, a very fool, to deem that thy word can weigh more with me than Christ? Make not thyself a laughingstock to me and such Christians as may be here. The torments of thy importunity are worse to me than those of ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
Read full book for free!
... are not my friends. They have fooled my father, and they'll fool your grandfather, if he doesn't watch out. But ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
Read full book for free!
... very superstitious. She shuddered when she heard little Jammes speak of the ghost, called her a "silly little fool" and then, as she was the first to believe in ghosts in general, and the Opera ghost in particular, at once asked ...
— The Phantom of the Opera • Gaston Leroux
Read full book for free!
... "There was a fool of a night watchman at the power plant—I reckon he thought I was going to steal the turbines, but he finally let me in, and I set him to starting up the power while I cleaned up Murphy's job and put ...
— Calumet "K" • Samuel Merwin and Henry Kitchell Webster
Read full book for free!
... anxiety to make friends had been positively funny; but there had been a sincerity in his handshake that somehow had seemed to rob the apology of its satisfaction. And when McCorquodale had proffered a broken cigar Kendrick had accepted it with an uneasy feeling that he had made somewhat of a fool of himself; for Phil was no prig and he found that McCorquodale was a pretty good sort with a certain whimsicality that was not to ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
Read full book for free!
... warm yer if you don't look sharp," cried Bob fiercely. "Don't you try to make a fool of me. Now then, ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn
Read full book for free!
... and the Homoiousians translated from the battle-field to the abodes of everlasting woe? War not only teaches what man can be, but it teaches also what he must not be. He must not be a bigot and a fool in the presence of that day of judgment proclaimed by the trumpet which calls to battle, and where a man should have but two thoughts: to do his duty, and trust his Maker. Let our brave dead come back from the fields where they ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
Read full book for free!
... talking to himself and said, "This child is like a drunken man. He does not know that he is alive, yet lives on safely and merrily and hops and jumps. Such children love to be in spacious apartments where they have room," and he took the child in his arms. "You are our Lord's little fool, subject to His mercy and forgiveness of sins, not subject to the Law. You have no fear; you are safe, nothing troubles you; the way you do is the uncorrupted way. Parents always like their youngest children ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
Read full book for free!
... aghast and alarmed, wondering who might have overheard the thunder of his fall, the fool sat up amidst the ruins, and filled the room with his shrieks of ...
— The Suitors of Yvonne • Raphael Sabatini
Read full book for free!
... you were thick-headed, John Chitling," remarked the fish dealer, with contempt, "but I never believed you were such a plum fool as not to know a ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
Read full book for free!
... exclaimed Matilda, somewhat contemptuously. 'Fool as he is, he's not so soft as that ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte
Read full book for free!
... then, will give to the sentimental Germans another martyr, to whom they will pray, and whose death will increase their enthusiasm? Sire, martyrs are like fools. 'One fool makes many others,' and thus we might say also, 'One martyr makes many others.' Suppose you have this M. Lange shot to-day, because he is a faithful adherent of the queen, and has written in accordance with her views—to-morrow pamphleteers will spring up like mushrooms—there will be more ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
Read full book for free!
... him, 'at your own price. If you don't or if somebody else don't free me from this vampire, I'll be fool enough to manumit her and marry her as soon as ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
Read full book for free!
... a—a chump, to follow his fool advice. You don't need sympathy, Mr. A. Jones. What you need is ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Out West • Edith Van Dyne
Read full book for free!
... only three persons who dare venture that: the queen, Princess Elizabeth, and John Heywood the fool. Which of the ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
Read full book for free!
... Carthagena better provided to overcome the resistance of the natives. Hojeda, having been engaged in many quarrels and encounters, both in Spain and Hispaniola, in all of which he had come off without hurt, was always too resolute and fool hardy, and would not listen to the salutary advice of his companion. He therefore immediately fell upon the natives who were preparing to attack him, killed many, seized others, and made booty of some gold in their ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr
Read full book for free!
... thou great fool, if indeed thou canst read," said the officer to encourage me; "there is nothing to kill thee, boy, and my supper will be spoiling. Stare not at me so, thou fool; thou art big enough to eat ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
Read full book for free!
... then, to the prophets and proverb-makers of Israel, and then to the New Testament for the true teaching on the eye, I come, in the first place, on that so pungent saying of Solomon that 'the eyes of a fool are in the ends of the earth.' Look at that born fool, says Solomon, who has his eyes and his heart committed to him to keep. See him how he gapes and stares after everything that does not concern him, and ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte
Read full book for free!
... Botticelli—from such a group he could have picked his model, if anywhere. Ruskin has linked this unknown wicked beauty with Machiavelli. But Machiavelli had a head that outmatched hers, and he would certainly have left her to the fool moths that fluttered around her candle. Machiavelli used women, and this woman has only one ambition, and that is to use men. She represents concrete selfishness—the mother-instinct swallowed up in pride, and conscience smothered by hate. Certainly ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
Read full book for free!
... den was the very Dog-town that first she had crossed, the day she had gained her liberty and lost her tail. If she were capable of such retrospect, she must have laughed to herself to think what a fool she was then. The change in her methods was now shown. Somewhat removed from the others, a Prairie-dog had made his den in the most approved style, and now when Tito peered over he was feeding on the ...
— Johnny Bear - And Other Stories From Lives of the Hunted • E. T. Seton
Read full book for free!
... sensitive idiots—the ruthless adventurer—the ogre with a future. That was a parrot cry, Miss Moorsom. I don't think that the greatest fool of them all ever dared hint such a stupid thing of me that I killed men for nothing. No, I had noticed this man in a hotel. He had come from up country I was told, and was doing nothing. I saw him sitting ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
Read full book for free!
... the most evil-minded advocate that has ever lived, laughing at the gallows, selling everybody, and a true Judas. According to certain authors of a great experience in subtle rogues he was in this affair, half knave, half fool, as it is abundantly proved by this narrative. This procureur had married a very lovely lady of Paris, of whom he was jealous enough to kill her for a pleat in the sheets, for which she could not account, which would have been wrong, because honest creases ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
Read full book for free!
... the trusting maids betrayed. At first they laughed with us; then they sneered, and then they grew wroth, and went apart in deep dismay. The dining-hall resounded with our hollow mirth; like the scriptural fool, we were laughing at our own folly. The ladies solemnly re-entered; our hostess, the spokeswoman, said, with the voice of an oracle, "You will regret this before morning." Still feigning to be merry, we went speedily to bed, but there was no night-cap sent to soothe us; and the lights went ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard
Read full book for free!
... I could to a horse-dealer; I certainly did not oblige a friend with him. After all the Baronet may have thought him a very good horse; he may have been deceived, or may have been a bad judge of a horse. I was the fool for believing that he wished to part with ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt
Read full book for free!
... were the end? What if he had chosen this as the most merciful way of leaving her? But surely he would never be so cruel! Close on the heels of this too painful thought came reaction; and she told herself that she was a fool. He was at the House; something quite ordinary was keeping him. It was absurd to be anxious! She would have to get used to this now. To be a drag on him would be dreadful. Sooner than that she would ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
Read full book for free!
... Nettleton, won his case, and came back in high good-humour. It was a rare mood with him, and manifested itself on this occasion by his talking impressively at the supper-table of the "rousing welcome" his old friends had given him. He wound up confidentially: "I was a damn fool ever to leave Nettleton. It was Mrs. Royall ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton
Read full book for free!
... has convulsed the nations of Europe for the last eighty years, was caused immediately—whatever may have been its more remote causes—by the suppression of thought; or, at least, by a sense of wrong among those who thought. A country where every man, be he fool or wise, is free to speak that which is in him, can never suffer a revolution. The folly blows itself off like steam, in harmless noise; the wisdom becomes part of the general intellectual stock of the nation, and prepares men for gradual, and ...
— The Ancien Regime • Charles Kingsley
Read full book for free!
... 'I do not much wonder at that. I always thought him a wise man, and he is certainly no fool to get out of the way now. But, at the same time, let strict search be made; and also ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 449 - Volume 18, New Series, August 7, 1852 • Various
Read full book for free!
... for the sake of a Brahmana, falsehood may be uttered. These five kinds of falsehood have been declared to be sinless. On these occasions falsehood would become truth and truth would become falsehood. He is a fool that practises truth without knowing the difference between truth and falsehood. One is said to be conversant with morality when one is able to distinguish between truth and falsehood. What wonder then in this that a man of wisdom, by perpetrating even a cruel ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
Read full book for free!
... we seen Done at the 'Mermaid'! Heard words that have been So nimble and so full of subtile flame, As if that every one from whom they came Had meant to put his whole wit in a jest, And resolved to live a fool the rest ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
Read full book for free!
... Oscar, "they were married all right. The mother saw to that, and to do him justice, Watts kept the whole family like a gentleman. But like an idealist, or, as a man of the world would say, a fool, he was ashamed of his wife; he showed great reserve to her, and when he gave his usual dinners or receptions, he invited only men and so, carefully, left ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
Read full book for free!
... I'm goin' to be fool enough to risk gettin' my neck broke for fifty pound? Nay, not me. You'll give it to me to give ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn
Read full book for free!
... Te Whero Whero. The once famous warrior was now blind, broken, and enfeebled. When, in 1860, he died, they made the still greater mistake of choosing as successor his son Matutaera (Methuselah), better known as Tawhiao, a dull, heavy, sullen-looking fool, who afterwards became a sot. They disclaimed hostility to the Queen, but would sell no land, and would allow no Whites to settle among them except a few mechanics whose skill they wished to use. They even expelled from their villages white men who had married Maori wives, and who now ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
Read full book for free!
... drenched her towers in purple; Light of heart were king and fool; Fair forebode the merrymaking Of ...
— Ballads of Lost Haven - A Book of the Sea • Bliss Carman
Read full book for free!
... violin was a devil," and the shadows on the wall swayed like accusing spirits. He buried his face in his hands and cried piteously, "I was so young; too young to know." He spoke as if he would conciliate the ghastly shades that moved restlessly up and down, when suddenly—"Sanders, don't be a fool!" ...
— The Fifth String, The Conspirators • John Philip Sousa
Read full book for free!
... spot where he received his education. It was easily come by, but he was of opinion that if he had not had it, "if I had been brought up a milksop, with a nurserymaid everlastingly at my heels, I should have been this day as great a fool, as inefficient a mortal, as any of those frivolous idiots that are turned out from Winchester and Westminster School, or from any of those dens of dunces called Colleges and Universities." The spot is a sandy bank above the Bourne, ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
Read full book for free!
... my word I don't understand it, and if this wasn't written by the best Art critic in the country I should feel inclined to say the writer was a fool. Why that little thing was a daub ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
Read full book for free!
... to poor perishing sinners in some town or village, and I go to persuade them to be reconciled to God: Many of them use me ill, not only with reviling language, but even with sticks, or stones, or clods, or rotten eggs. Why, what a fool was I to expose myself on any such account! If they are decreed to be saved, they shall be saved; or lost, they shall be lost: So that my suffering and preaching are entirely in vain.—See that pert young man, ...
— A Solemn Caution Against the Ten Horns of Calvinism • Thomas Taylor
Read full book for free!
... "'You fool!' passionately cried Sir Francis. 'You couldn't hang me without putting your own head in a noose. Did you not have your hush money? Are you wanting to do me out ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
Read full book for free!
... 'Poor fool that might - That might, yet would not, dared not, let this be, Think of it, here and thus made over to ...
— Poems by William Ernest Henley • William Ernest Henley
Read full book for free!
... mother. His pay as brigadier in the regular service is only fifty-five hundred. He can't have saved much of anything in the past, and he may last a dozen years yet—or more. Even if he does leave everything then to Latrobe, what'll you do meantime? Don't be a fool, Nita, because I was. I had to be. It was that or nothing, and father was getting tired. ...
— Found in the Philippines - The Story of a Woman's Letters • Charles King
Read full book for free!
... said—"Let us hear what this born fool has to say. If he makes very much noise we'll take and put him in one of the rain-water barrels." A poacher proposed that the dogs should be set on him; but, although this idea was received as a humorous contribution to the discussion, it ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman
Read full book for free!
... them, despite the reputed insurmountable barriers of alien race and religion. Sympathy was quick in her breast for all the diverse victims of mischance; a shade of it, that was not indulgence, but knowledge of the roots of evil, for malefactors and for the fool. Against the cruelty of despotic rulers and the harshness of society she was openly at war, at a time when championship of the lowly or the fallen was not common. Still, in this, as in everything controversial, it ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
Read full book for free!
... them. As to Athos, they thought him dead, and left him on the ground. That is the real truth of the matter. And what then, captain! One cannot win every battle. The great Pompey lost that of Pharsalia, and Francis I., who, from what I have heard, was no fool in the fighting way, got roughly handled ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
Read full book for free!
... the jackass-fool made matters worse by calling me 'his darling.' There is no more hateful word in the English language than 'darling.' It sounds like castor-oil tastes, or a snail looks after you have put salt ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
Read full book for free!
... and ten fat beasts for twenty pieces! Was ever such a fool? "I'll buy your beasts of you, butcher," said Monceux, "and will give you twice ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
Read full book for free!
... so now, but wait till a man comes along. You're just getting to the age, Jan, when a woman is most apt to make a fool of herself over a man. And, remember this, I'd much rather my children were brought up simply with my people in Guernsey than that they should grow up with all sorts of false ideas ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker
Read full book for free!
... the head, the bones; both eyes Are from their sockets beaten out—o'erthrown Dead at the Baron's feet he falls:—"O wretch," He cries, "how durst thou, or for good or ill, Lay hands upon Rolland? Who hears of this Will call thee fool. Mine olifant is cleft, Its gems and gold all scattered by ...
— La Chanson de Roland • Lon Gautier
Read full book for free!
... an old fool when I heard she'd adopted a girl out of an orphan asylum," she said to herself, "but I guess she didn't make much of a mistake after all. If I'd a child like Anne in the house all the time I'd be a better ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery
Read full book for free!
... might very rashly conclude that when Reynolds spoke of the Dutch School as one "in which the slowest intellect was sure to succeed best," he meant to say that every successful Dutch painter was a fool. We have no right to take his assertion in that sense. He says, the slowest intellect. We have no right to assume that he meant the weakest. For it is true, that in order to succeed in the Dutch style, a man has need of qualities of mind eminently deliberate ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
Read full book for free!
... happy day," said Wolsey joyfully, and cast a glance up at the Tower, which was still a royal residence, though it was soon to cease to be one. "I have obtained the head of Buckingham, that fool who believed he had a right of ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg
Read full book for free!
... a perfect fool. Lucky I thought to look at his stuff. Well, he is no worse than the rest, in this weary world," and he burst into a hearty laugh and swung his chair round, adding, "Now then, Alan, what is it? I have a quarter of an hour ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
Read full book for free!
... no knowledge—nobody had any. It was humiliating, but I could bear it—they only annoyed me now. At last they even bored me, and I accounted for my confusion—perversely, I allow—by the idea that Vereker had made a fool of me. The buried treasure was a bad joke, the general intention a ...
— The Figure in the Carpet • Henry James
Read full book for free!
... under an obligation to offer the burnt offering except the following: A deaf man, a fool, a child, one of doubtful sex, one of double sex, a woman, a slave, a lame man, a blind ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
Read full book for free!
... arrange the flowers in the vases to-night, they will be faded by to-morrow. But can I rely on Torp's seeing that we have enough food in the house? My head is swimming.... The grass wants mowing, and the hedge must be cut.... Ah! What a fool I am! As though he would notice ...
— The Dangerous Age • Karin Michaelis
Read full book for free!
... as if he did not know what her words meant. "What fool has been a turning o' this horse?" he asked a man who ...
— Deephaven and Selected Stories & Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
Read full book for free!
... a pact with a woman, have very great cares,' she answered dispassionately. 'Doubtless you know how the dog wags its tail; but you are always a fool with a woman.' ...
— Privy Seal - His Last Venture • Ford Madox Ford
Read full book for free!
... of the twelfth century, meets the undiscerning critic more than half-way. Let none judge, he writes, till he be capable of separating the grain from the chaff; 'for the fool makes haste to condemn, and the ignorant only pretends to know all things, and muses on the wonders that are too mighty ...
— The Book-Hunter at Home • P. B. M. Allan
Read full book for free!
... pudding, vulgarly called choke-dog, of which you were obliged to eat a pound before you were allowed a slice of beef, and of which, if you swallowed half that quantity, you thought cooks and oxen mere works of supererogation, and totally useless on the face of the earth? Has the fool lost all recollection of the prayers in yon cold, wet, clay-floored cellar, proudly denominated the chapel? has he forgot the cuffs from the senior boys, the pinches from the second master? and, in fine, has he forgot the press at the end of the school-room, where a cart-load of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 351 - Volume 13, Saturday, January 10, 1829 • Various
Read full book for free!
... mechanick toil Trick'd out to charm with meretricious air, As though all France and Manchester were there! But this were luxury, were bliss refin'd, To view the alter'd region of the mind; Where whim and mystery, like wizards, rule, And conjure wisdom from the seeming fool; Where learned heads, like old cremonas, boast Their merit soundest that are cracked the most; While Genius' self, infected with the joke, His person ...
— The Sylphs of the Season with Other Poems • Washington Allston
Read full book for free!
... between him and her there existed a barrier which she dared not and could not break down. He was shy of his father, and, indeed, Ivan Petrovitch on his side never caressed him; his grandfather sometimes patted him on the head and gave him his hand to kiss, but he thought him and called him a little fool. After the death of Malanya Sergyevna, his aunt finally got him under her control. Fedya was afraid of her: he was afraid of her bright sharp eyes and her harsh voice; he dared not utter a sound in her presence; often, when he only moved a little in his chair, she would! hiss out at once: ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
Read full book for free!
... fish. In fact, I ain't sure she couldn't outdistance some of 'em. And such an oar as she pulls! It's strong and steady as any man's. Besides that, she can beat the crowd at tennis, golf, and those other fool games such folks play. Has a runabout of her own, too, and drives ...
— Walter and the Wireless • Sara Ware Bassett
Read full book for free!
... fool, I dare say, but I cannot see the sufferings of these people without tears in my eyes.... It is a sad sight to see the poor starved creatures looking so wistfully at one. What can I do? Poor souls! I cannot feed or ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
Read full book for free!
... now quite generally recognized. He said their attitude should not be called skeptical, but merely ignorant. This brings to mind an excellent very practical friend who read the first number of this REVIEW, and praised it, but said: "Don't fool any more with Psychical Research and Simplified Spelling." We refrained from saying that we had not known that he had ever studied either, and we would not say it here if we were not confident that his aversion from the subject ...
— The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number 3 • Various
Read full book for free!
... Slope, no answer? Why it can't possibly be that the woman has been fool enough to refuse you? She can't surely be looking out after a bishop. But I see how it is, Mr. Slope. Widows are proverbially cautious. You should have let her alone till the new hat was on your head, till you could show her ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
Read full book for free!
... divided up, like monads, into many heads. In medicine, we have as many specialists as there are organs of the body. The lawyer who advises you in a copyright or patent cause knows nothing about admiralty; and as they tell us a man who pleads his own case has a fool for a client, so does the insurance lawyer who is retained to foreclose a mortgage. In all prosperous city churches, the preacher who attracts the crowd in the morning allows a 'prentice to preach to the young folks in the evening; ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
Read full book for free!
... restrain, welled up to my eyes. I could never have wept for my own suffering, but for hers it seemed both natural and real. Ah, why had she thrown the treasures of her heart away upon a fool? Why had she given the trust of her heart to a villain? I opened my lips to speak; she saw his name faltering on my tongue, and ...
— The Forsaken Inn - A Novel • Anna Katharine Green
Read full book for free!
... this nonsense," interrupted the empress. "You have been well drilled, and have played your part with some talent, but don't imagine that I am the dupe of all this pretty acting. Get up, child; don't make a fool of yourself, but put on my crape cap for me, and then go as quickly as you can for ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
Read full book for free!
... restoring or renewing business. He was not aware of the fact: but awareness doesn't help much, anyhow. He just couldn't. He had the stoic and epicurean quality of his old, fine breeding. His father-in-law, however, though he was not one bit more of a fool than Egbert, realized that since we are here we may as well live. And so he applied himself to his own tiny section of the social work, and to doing the best for his family, and to leaving the rest to the ultimate will of heaven. A certain robustness of ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence
Read full book for free!
... yard-arm, to the great dissatisfaction of Mr. Brewster, (to whom you will shortly be introduced,) who often confidentially assures the skipper that the third mate would have turned out a natural fool if his parents had not providentially sent him ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
Read full book for free!
... whether you know why I got out, or not. Perhaps you don't. I'd been a fool and a scoundrel, and I've had time, between fusses, to know just how rotten I've been. But I'm not going to whine to you. What I am trying to get over is that I'm through with the old stuff ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
Read full book for free!
... Mary have seen things as they are, and will profit by your experience. You remember the talk we had at Mrs. Newton's before the holidays? She said 'Experience is an expensive school, and only fools can afford to go to it,' or something like that; you are no fool, Nan. I think you will see more and more plainly, as time goes on, that there are some things that we cannot afford to do. We cannot afford to buy a momentary pleasure at the price of a lifetime of regret, and we cannot afford to spend even one day of ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann
Read full book for free!
... they wouldn't be many; this was not a place that made old bones. And, as he sat, worked on by grief and liquor, he was seized by a desperate homesickness for the old country. Why had he ever been fool enough to leave it? He shut his eyes, and all the well-known sights and sounds of the familiar streets came back to him. He saw himself on his rounds of a winter's afternoon, when each lamp had a halo ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
Read full book for free!
... horrible sometimes? They seem to think one is—" She checked herself. "I'm a fool!" she said. "Good night. Thank you both for coming. It has done ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
Read full book for free!
... although I had not before resolved. And yet," he pursued, after a, short pause, "how base, how terrible to slay an unsuspecting enemy. Would we could meet in single combat—and why not? Yes it can—it shall be so. Fool that I was not to think, of it before. Matilda, my own love, rejoice with me, for there is a means by which your honor may be avenged, and my own soul unstained by guilt. I wilt seek this man, and fasten a quarrel upon him. What say ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
Read full book for free!
... she nodded, "'the flanneled fool at the wicket, muddied oaf at the goal' type, you know. One of those lumbering, good-looking babies of men that women like Marcia always attract. Every one thinks it's an awfully good thing, and I dare say I'd agree with them, ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
Read full book for free!
... only could be certain that our bravery and patience with it were terminating and eventuating and bearing fruit somewhere in an unseen spiritual world. But granting we are not certain, does it then follow that a bare trust in such a world is a fool's paradise and lubberland, or rather that it is a living attitude in which we are free to indulge? Well, we are free to trust at our own risks anything that is not impossible, and that can bring analogies to bear in its behalf. That the world ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
Read full book for free!
... a damned fool as all that. A man needn't handle everything dirty in order to be doubly sure about it. If you tell me that a dead donkey smells bad, I'm quite prepared to believe you without poking my nose into it. Chastity is a dead donkey. No beating ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
Read full book for free!
... invariably ironical look that drove me sometimes to fury. He did his work with the air of doing me the greatest favour, though he did scarcely anything for me, and did not, indeed, consider himself bound to do anything. There could be no doubt that he looked upon me as the greatest fool on earth, and that "he did not get rid of me" was simply that he could get wages from me every month. He consented to do nothing for me for seven roubles a month. Many sins should be forgiven me for what I suffered from him. My hatred reached such a point that sometimes his very ...
— Notes from the Underground • Feodor Dostoevsky
Read full book for free!
... I'd wanted to help 'em to get on deck, do you think I should ha' been such a fool as to tie a bit o' signal halyard to the spanker-boom, when I could ha' made a bit o' strong rope fast to the belaying-pins, and hung it over ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn
Read full book for free!
... enough to rouse you all up by shooting a pig! I fingered my trigger, and couldn't for the life of me make up my mind what to do. I looked and looked, and the more I looked the bigger fool I thought myself for being alarmed at it. It would be a rare jest against me that I mistook a pig for an Indian; and this was a hog sure enough. You've all seen scores of them, and know how they move. Well, this one was for all the world like any other, and I was almost saying to ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
Read full book for free!
... prince alighted from his horse, laid the bridle on his neck, and having first surveyed the mountain and seen the black stones, began to ascend, but had not gone four steps before he heard the voices mentioned by the dervish, though he could see nobody. Some said: "Where is that fool going? Where is he going? What would he have? Do not let him pass." Others: "Stop him, catch him, kill him:" and others with a voice like thunder: "Thief! assassin! murderer!" while some in a gibing tone cried: "No, no, do not ...
— The Arabian Nights - Their Best-known Tales • Unknown
Read full book for free!
... with all her might, but she held her foot on the log, till Joe dropped the hatchet with horror, and caught her in his arms. 'Georgiana, I told you to take your toes away,' he cried; 'you are such a little fool,' and ran with her to the house. But she always had ...
— A Kentucky Cardinal • James Lane Allen
Read full book for free!
... Barnes. "That's an explanation that doesn't explain anything. It's a fool answer. How does the woodchuck, if he digs up from the bottom of the hole, ever manage to get to the bottom of the hole to make ...
— Dave Darrin on Mediterranean Service - or, With Dan Dalzell on European Duty • H. Irving Hancock
Read full book for free!
... say, "I heard him grumbling to himself, and seems like he was wondering whether he couldn't keep the old monkey and let the two hundred go glimmering. Actually thinks more about an old rascal of a Simian than a handful of plunks. But we're three to one, and we'll see to it that no such fool deal as ...
— Chums of the Camp Fire • Lawrence J. Leslie
Read full book for free!
... the contrary, it makes it more droll. She'll be delighted. I believe she has a secret partiality for you. She is always talking about you to us. Come, don't be a fool. I tell you she expects me this morning, and we ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
Read full book for free!
... persevering, but they persevere in the wrong way, contenting themselves by fishing the same water from morning to night, instead of working the bait far and near with constant change of tactics. The Thames trout is particularly cute, and is not such a fool as to be taken in by a little fish that is always twiddling at one place, in a strongly running current, yet never gets an inch forward. A good Thames man spins his bleak everywhere, steadily and naturally, into eddies, close to piles, under trees, near the banks. The glittering object is ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
Read full book for free!
... very ugly and affecting singularity; treating the most exalted persons as his equals, sometimes even as his inferiors, the Abbe de Vermond received ministers and bishops when in his bath; but said at the same time that Cardinal Dubois was a fool; that a man such as he, having obtained power, ought to make cardinals, and refuse to ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
Read full book for free!
... our time are in the habit of laying it down as a self-evident proposition, that no people ought to be free till they are fit to use their freedom. The maxim is worthy of the fool in the old story, who resolved not to go into the water till he had learned to swim. If men are to wait for liberty till they become wise and good in slavery, they may ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
Read full book for free!
... fool," muttered Jack to himself, as, hindered by Dorry's busy touches, he proceeded to saddle the subdued animal; "but I can't never refuse her nothin'—that's where it is. Easy now, miss!" as Dorry, climbing up on the feed-box in laughing excitement, begged him to hurry and let her mount. "Easy ...
— Donald and Dorothy • Mary Mapes Dodge
Read full book for free!
... Then there was a pause. 'But I am a fool to ask such a question as that, and I should be worse than a fool were I to press it. It must then be ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope
Read full book for free!
... grieved at the count's disappointment," continued Mademoiselle Marguerite, "but suddenly he exclaimed, joyfully: 'That address—why, such a person will give it to me—what a fool I am!'" ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
Read full book for free!
... simple proposition; but Sadie takes a long time over it. I could hear her give a squeal of surprise at something, and then she seems to be askin' a lot of fool questions. In the course of five or six minutes, though, she leans over the stair ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
Read full book for free!
... I'm in love like a boy, like a fool! [Snatches her hand, she screams with pain] I love you! [Kneels] I love you as I've never loved before! I've refused twelve women, nine have refused me, but I never loved one of them as I love you.... I'm weak, I'm wax, I've melted.... I'm on my knees like a fool, offering you my hand.... ...
— Plays by Chekhov, Second Series • Anton Chekhov
Read full book for free!
... you, Jonas?" Mr. Arp employed the accents of sarcasm. "I'd like to see Henry Louden try to interfere with 'Gene Bantry. Fanny'd lock the old fool up in the cellar." ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
Read full book for free!
... instantly saw the force of the western man's words. "I beg your pardon, Lee," he said. "Of course you know best. I'm so anxious over this business that I'm acting like a fool." ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
Read full book for free!
... that my husband's life was of more value than my own. On this point we agreed. I was to make Mr. Rhodes understand that we didn't want any more 'tom-fool military men up here to ball up ...
— A Woman's Part in a Revolution • Natalie Harris Hammond
Read full book for free!
... at his forge and plow,—and those tutors teach him his true value, indulge him in no error, and provoke him to no vice. But take him up to London,—give him her papers to read, and her talk to hear,—and it is fifty to one you send him presently on a fool's errand over London Bridge.) ...
— The Storm-Cloud of the Nineteenth Century - Two Lectures delivered at the London Institution February - 4th and 11th, 1884 • John Ruskin
Read full book for free!
... the manner in which it is wrought is essentially Russian, and from it, as here rendered, the English reader may form a better idea of the way of life, and the feelings of the Russian mujiks, or peasantry, than from a dozen common books of travels in Russia. Emelian is represented as a fool, but there is much in what he says and does common to the Russian mujik in general. He lies in the izbushka, or cabin, upon the petsch, or stove, and when told to get up, he says: “What should I get up for?—Mnie zdies teplo, i ia lieniós—’tis warm here, and I am lazy.” ...
— Emelian the Fool - a tale • Thomas J. Wise
Read full book for free!
... he cried, "I pray you do not meddle with her choice. That you believe it, marks you for a fool, and a fool's counsel is a rotten staff to lean upon at any time. Why God o' mercy! assume that I desired to take satisfaction for the affront he had put upon me; do you know so little of men, and of me of all men, that you suppose I should go about my vengeance ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
Read full book for free!
... yet again, is not only irrational, it is contra-rational. Kierkegaard says: "Poetry is illusion before knowledge; religion illusion after knowledge. Between poetry and religion the worldly wisdom of living plays its comedy. Every individual who does not live either poetically or religiously is a fool" (Afsluttende uvidenskabelig Efterskrift, chap. iv., sect. 2a, Sec. 2). The same writer tells us that Christianity is a desperate sortie (salida). Even so, but it is only by the very desperateness of this sortie that we can win through ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno
Read full book for free!
... be shame, carrying on over a brazen heifer like Daisy Taylor. Jus' cause she's been up North and come back, I reckon you cutting de fool sho 'nough now. She ain't studying none of you-all nohow. All she wants is what you got ...
— The Mule-Bone: - A Comedy of Negro Life in Three Acts • Zora Hurston and Langston Hughes
Read full book for free!
... Lieutenant Halleck had bought one of each kind, and so had Warner. Many naval officers had also invested, and Captain Folsom advised me to buy some, but I felt actually insulted that he should think me such a fool as to pay money for property in such a horrid place as Yerba Buena, especially in his quarter of the city, then called Happy Valley. At that day Montgomery Street was, as now, the business street, extending from Jackson to Sacramento, the water of the ...
— California, Romantic and Resourceful • John F. Davis
Read full book for free!
... so wise; and yet I don't believe you'll ever learn a letter. Aunt Jemima is going to make me a new cocked hat out of the next old newspaper, for I want to have a review; But the newspaper after that, Papa Poodle, must be kept to make a fool's cap ...
— Verses for Children - and Songs for Music • Juliana Horatia Ewing
Read full book for free!
... on a fool's errand," replied Chowles, regaining his courage, "for she is not here. ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
Read full book for free!
... April 1.—April-fool day always brings its trains of fun and broods of annoyances, the boys being determined to make the most of it. The usual plan is to induce a comrade to believe that either the colonel, his captain, or lieutenant, wants ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier
Read full book for free!
... "Gesu!" gasped the fool, in very real affright. "I'll not go near him till his anger cools—not if you made me straight and bribed me with the ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
Read full book for free!
... in a vise of steel. A thousand times he wanted to touch her, feel the silkiness of her hair, the warmth of her lips, but each time the fear and uncertainty stood between them like twin specters of doom, pointing and saying, "Fool! ...
— Faithfully Yours • Lou Tabakow
Read full book for free!
... "That fool Henri let the Golden Bird get away, and he flew across the river and fell in a tangle of undergrowth. Rufus called Polly, and she plunged right in after him. Her dress caught on the same snag and God, Ann, they were being sucked under just as I got to them. ...
— The Golden Bird • Maria Thompson Daviess
Read full book for free! |
