"Foolish woman" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... prince and a man. Both qualifications have duties forcing you to submit to life and to become worthy of it. There is still much to be done in this world by both of us, and a true man should not be turned from his path because a foolish woman places a few thorns beneath his pillow. Stifling his pain, he continues his road quietly. I am glad this is also your opinion—that you have given up all thought of a public scandal and denunciation. In relation to the princess. I give you full power to make any and every ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... yourself cannot write, but some one else has assisted you in your imposture, and that is all it will prove, foolish woman!" exclaimed Kapoiolani. "I have a book which announces that there are many false gods, among whom is the one you serve, but that there is only one true God, Jehovah, whom I serve. Let me advise you to throw away your idols, and to turn to Him, I know ...
— The Voyage of the "Steadfast" - The Young Missionaries in the Pacific • W.H.G. Kingston
... falcon to do her honour, she said to her brothers:—"Gladly, with your consent, would I remain a widow, but if you will not be satisfied except I take a husband, rest assured that none other will I ever take save Federigo degli Alberighi." Whereupon her brothers derided her, saying:—"Foolish woman, what is't thou sayst? How shouldst thou want Federigo, who has not a thing in the world?" To whom she answered:—"My brothers, well wot I that 'tis as you say; but I had rather have a man without wealth than wealth without a man." The brothers, perceiving that her mind was made ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... longed for. She had deemed herself too cold, too wise, too much set upon the good things of earth, to be touched by that scorching fire; but now she was no colder than any other love-sick maiden, no wiser than every other foolish woman who had been ready to wreck her life for love ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... had been merciful in that it had restored the features to something of their early good looks. Those good looks, which, backed by the subtle tongue of the seducer, had been sufficient to attract the weak vessel of a foolish woman's heart from the path of virtue that had been ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... boy; he had a broad, noble forehead, large, dark, loving eyes, and a form as straight and lithe as a little Indian's. His mother was very proud of him,—not because he was good, but because he was pretty. She was a very foolish woman, and talked to him a great deal about his fine clothes, and his curling hair; but for all that she didn't make out to spoil Georgey. He didn't care an old marble, not he, for all the fine clothes in Christendom; and would have been glad to have ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... of singing for my living and his living, too. I will sew, I will wash, I will go to service, I will do anything with my hands I can do; but I will not sing. And I will bring up my boy to work at real work, if it is but to make a horseshoe out of a lump of iron! God! what a foolish woman I have been! What a silly, vain, loving woman! My heart will break! My heart will break! Alone, ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... pepper and gravy, her inveterate habit of sending up bread poultices with pheasants,—all these sins and many others are ruthlessly unmasked by the author. Ruthlessly and rightly. For the British cook is a foolish woman who should be turned for her iniquities into a pillar of salt which she never knows ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... last, 'it was a foolish woman's gossip that Henry ought to have quashed; but that is no reason you should treat them ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... talking nonsense, things you don't mean, Dora. You are not such a foolish woman as to like to be seen with Fred Mostyn, that little monocular snob, after the aristocratic, handsome Basil Stanhope. The comparison is a mockery. Basil is the finest gentleman I ever saw. Socially, he ...
— The Man Between • Amelia E. Barr
... "there was a foolish woman mixed up in the story. It was like this, as far as I can remember, and it is a story from the North people. Long ago a man had a wife who was a very proud, vain woman. She was not contented with having her ...
— Algonquin Indian Tales • Egerton R. Young
... at the North, recently told a friend of mine that "the negroes can put some pieces of paper, or powder, or something or other in your shoes, that will make you sick, or make you do anything they want!" The poor foolish woman told this with a face full of awe and eyes wide open. Another lady known to me, long resident at the South, tells me that the belief in this sort of devilism is often found among the ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... wouldn't testify against you," Raven continued, "she refused to leave you. She is a foolish woman, but she's like most of them. They hang on to the beast that abuses 'em, God knows why. But the rest of us won't let you off so easy. Don't think it, for a minute. The next time she's seen wandering round the woods ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... "Foolish woman," answered Ceres, "did you not promise to intrust this poor infant entirely to me? You little know the mischief you have done him. Had you left him to my care, he would have grown up like a child of ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... your profession of good Samaritan, my dear Felicia," he begged her with a certain rueful humour, "and take the poor foolish woman off my hands. Plant her where you like, so long as it is well out of my neighbourhood. She has made an egregious fiasco of her position here. As you love me, just remove her from my sight—let this land have rest and enjoy its Sabbaths in respect of her at least. I'll give you a cheque for her ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... of his, half-laughing—"I am a foolish woman, for I have promised to marry him. But he is a still more foolish man, for he wishes to marry me. That is ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell
... the Nailles let that young girl associate so much with foreigners?' You say they are old school-fellows, they went to the 'cours' together. But see if Madame d'Etaples and Madame Ray, under the same pretext, let Isabelle and Yvonne associate with the Odinskas! As to that foolish woman, Madame d'Avrigny, she goes to their house to look up recruits for her operettas, and Madame Strahlberg has one advantage over regular artists, there is no call to pay her. That is the reason why she invites her. Besides which, she won't find it so ...
— Jacqueline, v2 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... idleness To making traps to catch the plunderers, All sorts of cunning traps that boys can make— Propping a stone to fall and shut them in, Or crush them with its weight, or else a springe Swung on a bough. He made them cleverly— And I, poor foolish woman! I was pleased To see the boy so handy. You may guess What followed Sir from this unlucky skill. He did what he should not when he was older: I warn'd him oft enough; but he was caught In wiring hares at last, and had his choice The prison ...
— Poems, 1799 • Robert Southey
... entertainment with other ladies, but that the reign of each was short-lived, for the Duke really had a faithful soul and returned to his excellent, wearisome spouse. How a Madame de Geyling was queen of the present hour; that she was a foolish woman with a bad temper, who offended the courtiers and rated the Duke; of how the court expected an imminent change of affection, but that no one could imagine who the new favourite would be. He told her that the Duke was a brilliant soldier, the friend and companion-in-arms of his Grace of Marlborough, ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... Reputation, or Health. And this very Advice is to be season'd with witty Jests and Pleasantries. Sometimes by Way of Preface, I make a Bargain with him before-Hand, that he shall not be angry with me, if being a foolish Woman, I take upon me to advise him in any Thing, that might seem to concern his Honour, Health, or Preservation. When I have said what I had a Mind to say, I break off that Discourse, and turn it into some other more entertaining Subject. For, my Xantippe, ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... scare away your Skylarks. The house serves liquor after twelve of a Saturday; and if I don't write to the magistrates, and have the licence taken away, I'm not lying in this bed this night. Yes, you may call me a foolish woman; but no, Mr. Caudle, no; it's you who are the foolish man; or worse than a foolish man; you're a wicked one. If you were to die to-morrow—and people who go to public-houses do all they can to shorten their lives—I should ...
— Mrs. Caudle's Curtain Lectures • Douglas Jerrold
... foolish woman, know, Where he can claim but the least little part, He will usurp the whole. ...
— Discovery of Witches - The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster • Thomas Potts
... taunting speech of the same kind: then, throwing it contemptuously from him—"Away, away, I say, with these rags of the noble family of N——!" (and some one gathered up all together, and took them out of court)—"and God grant that they may never rise up in judgment against them! Poor, weak, foolish woman! she took them as her perquisite. Perquisite indeed! her folly was her fault; for you have seen that they ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 563, August 25, 1832 • Various
... into a frown, and her pretty mouth drooped slightly at the corners as she watched Mr. Wentworth making his inspection of the silver. She knew his face so well, she could tell at one glance that he was thinking her aunt an exceedingly foolish woman, and Kate was not quite sure that she did not ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... King to know that, six years ago, in the summer of his birth, Mrs. Austell, turning over her husband's papers, had come upon the intemperate letter of a foolish woman who had been carried away by the silent man's strength and personal beauty? How could he tell what evil the overlooked slip of note-paper had wrought in the mind of a desperately jealous wife? How could he, ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... began the cornet, 'and as I may understand myself to be in the rank of an officer too, and therefore we may always progressively negotiate, as gentlemen do.' (He stopped and looked with a smile at Olenin and at the old man.) 'But if you have the desire with my consent, then, as my wife is a foolish woman of our class, she could not quite comprehend your words of yesterday's date. Therefore my quarters might be let for six rubles to the Regimental Adjutant, without the stables; but I can always avert that from myself free of charge. But, as you desire, therefore I, ...
— The Cossacks • Leo Tolstoy
... is more superstitious than ever. This miserable business doesn't surprise her a bit. She says it all began with your making that mistake about your name in signing the church register. You remember? Was there ever such stuff? Ah, she's a foolish woman, that wife of mine! But she means well—a good soul at bottom. She would have traveled all the way here along with me if I would have let her. I said, 'No; you stop at home, and look after the house and the parish, and I'll bring the child ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... same foolish woman you ever were," answered the older queen. Just then, a strange sound echoed far off among the hills above, strange and far as the scream of a distant vulture sailing its mate to the carrion feast—an unearthly cry that rang high in the ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... imagine that is Margaret's history. How far she may or may not have a vocation—that I leave; I know nothing about it. But I cannot help fancying that somebody did want her, and that it might be to put her out of somebody's way—Foolish woman! what am I saying? Why, Margaret was not five years old when she was professed. How can she have had any history of the kind? I simply do ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... spoke, he led her to a sofa which stood between the two windows. There he seated her, and sat by her side, still holding her hand in his. "Yes," he said, "she must know it of course—when the time comes; and if she guesses it before, you must put up with her guesses. A few sharp words from a foolish woman will ...
— Nina Balatka • Anthony Trollope
... that it made my situation extremely delicate. I explained to him that I had not yet revealed the news to my own personal staff or to the army, and that I dreaded the effect when made known in Raleigh. Mr. Lincoln was peculiarly endeared to the soldiers, and I feared that some foolish woman or man in Raleigh might say something or do something that would madden our men, and that a fate worse than that of Columbia ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... for you," she went on, her tones suddenly resuming their old fluty pathos. "But you did not come! And I wrote to you, and you did not come! He kept on saying you would never come any more, and that I was a foolish woman. He was very kind to me, and to mother, and to all of us after father's ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... replied, 'nothing, nothing! Why should I hide my heart from you? You are good and noble-minded, and I have absolute trust in your generosity. Why should I act towards you like an ordinary foolish woman? I told you that evening that I loved you. Your question implies another one, I see that very well—you want to ask me ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... fuming. Still she did not come. Should he not wait—should he go—if this was her room? But he had come so far, and he needed her so—he must stay. For some dear, foolish woman's reason she must have lent her room for the use of a feminine busy-body; a political, higher-thought, pseudo-spiritualistic friend. (He must weed out her friends!) The trend of the work done in this room now his quick mind had ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Various
... "My, but I'm the foolish woman. I never heard tell o' the like o' it before. This place is gettin' as bad as the ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... am, is just a poor foolish woman, who has a lot more heart than she can manage with the amount of brains she got with it at birth. I'm not any star in a rose-colored sky, and I don't want to inspire anybody; it's too much of a job. ...
— The Melting of Molly • Maria Thompson Daviess
... Foolish woman. Even as thou art scandalizing others, thine own nature is being abased, whilst those whom thou dost backbite remain ...
— The Silver Lining - A Guernsey Story • John Roussel
... on the imperturbable auditor, when he supposed that the accused had finished his third reply. "You are accused before us, primo, of nocturnal disturbance; secundo, of a dishonorable act of violence upon the person of a foolish woman, in proejudicium meretricis; tertio, of rebellion and disloyalty towards the archers of the police of our lord, the king. Explain yourself upon all these points.—-Clerk, have you written down what the prisoner has said ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... a foolish woman I've been! If I had only waited till I found out what the Lord did mean by sendin' that money to me! He wouldn't stand the boys, anyhow: he's nigh and graspin': I've found that out. And I don't suppose I could buy him off with anything short of the whole property. I did think he ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various
... foolish woman," she whispered, "but you're a gentleman, Harry," and she drew her hand away ...
— Frivolous Cupid • Anthony Hope
... pulling Henry away from the crowd who surrounded the bird-cage; "how can you listen, like that polite hypocrite, to this foolish woman's history of her extraordinary favourites? Come down-stairs with me, I want to tell you my adventure with the schoolmistress; we can take a turn in the hall, and come back before the cabinet of minerals is opened, and before these women have ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... and legal measures (for I hold that a king is not entitled to pass even wise laws illegally) has been apparent to us ever since. But now all this is to be overturned—with or without the consent of the Things—because a foolish woman, forsooth, has the power to stir up the vanity of a foolish king! Shall this be so? Is our manhood to be thus riven from us, and shall we stand aloof and see it done, or, worse still, be consenting unto it? Let death be our portion ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne
... I will, although I wither between gaol walls for it—although I die for it! I'm no weak and foolish woman! I've known life bald to the bone; I've fought and schemed and plotted and twisted all my days almost, and I can die doing it! And if you kill this man, if you murder him—for it is murder!—if you bring this dog's death on him, I will make you pay ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... close her eyes any more than the maid, so eager was she to tell the story. She woke up Childe Charity's rich uncle before cock-crow. But when he heard it, he laughed at her for a foolish woman, and advised her not to repeat the like before her neighbours, lest they should think she ...
— Granny's Wonderful Chair • Frances Browne
... disgrace Ivan on a trumped-up charge. But an interview with the Lieutenant in which he could vent some of his spleen in abusive threats, would be perfectly safe, and also a source of relief. Wherefore, a half-hour after the receipt of the foolish woman's letter, Lieutenant Gregoriev and Colonel Brodsky stood face to face in ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... to be done, but Mrs. Aylmer has a spirit of independence. That foolish woman's advertisement was unknown to her till Emily's five pounds came in, so fine a nest-egg that she could not help cackling, whereupon Mrs. Aylmer insisted ...
— Scenes and Characters • Charlotte M. Yonge
... sit down for a moment. Brigit, you are a very foolish woman. Hush, I will tell you why. Firstly, because you are going to marry the son of that musical mountebank; and secondly, because you seem bound to make an enemy ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten
... Oh you poor foolish woman, thought I; why take it to heart like that! and I was sorry and laughed a little as I went back down the street. It was beginning to wake up now! A man in his shirt sleeves and without a hat, a big angry man, was furiously hunting a rebellious pig all round a small field adjoining a cottage, trying ...
— A Traveller in Little Things • W. H. Hudson
... She was the poor foolish woman who loved Durga Ram; loved him as these wild Asiatic women love, from murder to the poisoned cup. Loved him, and knew that he loved her not, but used her for his own selfish ends. There you have it. Had he loved her, remorse never would have lifted its head or ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath
... "Foolish woman! That was when there were no priests nor altars. But now things are not managed so easily, and there is ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... to the present moment, dear mamma, I find marriage a delightful affair, I can spend all my tenderness on the noblest of men whom a foolish woman disdained for a fiddler,—for that woman evidently was a fool, and a cold fool, the worst kind! I, in my legitimate love, am charitable; I am curing his wounds while I lay my heart open to incurable ones. Yes, the more I love ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... the foolish woman; she was not heartless, but only thoughtless—went straight home and told the neighbors all about it, whilst we, the small friends of the fairies, were asleep and not witting the calamity that was come upon us, ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain
... want me to say? You're both right the curate is right, but God must also be right. I don't know, I'm only a foolish woman. What I'm going to do is to tell my son not to study any more, for they say that persons who know anything die on the gallows. Maria Santisima, my son ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... eyes quickly and quietly (only a foolish woman continues to weep after the man has gone), and waited for him to turn. Finally he ...
— A Woman's Will • Anne Warner
... pitied Marget and Ursula for the danger that was gathering about them, but naturally they did not say so; it would not have been safe. So the others had it all their own way, and there was none to advise the ignorant girl and the foolish woman and warn them to modify their doings. We boys wanted to warn them, but we backed down when it came to the pinch, being afraid. We found that we were not manly enough nor brave enough to do a generous action when there was a chance that it could get us into trouble. Neither of us confessed ...
— The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... "Foolish woman!" responded the physician, half coldly, half soothingly. "What should ail me, to harm this misbegotten and miserable babe? The medicine is potent for good; and were it my child,—yea, mine own, as well as thine!—I could do no better ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... self-complacent (implying prudence and prosperity); talkative. Gashing, talking, gabbing. Gat, got. Gate, way-road, manner. Gatty, enervated. Gaucie, v. Gawsie. Gaud, a. goad. Gaudsman, goadsman, driver of the plough-team. Gau'n. gavin. Gaun, going. Gaunted, gaped, yawned. Gawky, a foolish woman or lad. Gawky, foolish. Gawsie, buxom; jolly. Gaylies, gaily, rather. Gear, money, wealth; goods; stuff. Geck, to sport; toss the head. Ged. a pike. Gentles, gentry. Genty, trim and elegant. Geordie, dim. of George, ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... ye men of Pare, back, ere it be too late, and thou, Laea, harm not the girl, for see, O foolish woman! we here are as ten to one, and 'twill be a bloody day for thee and thy people if but a spear ...
— Ridan The Devil And Other Stories - 1899 • Louis Becke
... been—and in the first burst of friendship the foolish woman had poured out all her silly, sordid secrets to Chloe Carstairs, and then, possibly, repented having done so. They fell out, you see, and I suppose Mrs. Ogden, being a woman of a small and petty character herself, was only too ready to suspect her former friend. She swore, you know, ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... likely to result at any moment. I leaned from the window as far as I dared, and saw the woman close to the wall at the farther end of the building. The scene was well set for trouble, and I was wondering what I could do to avert a disturbance and the exposure of the foolish woman when the whole matter was taken out ...
— Lady Larkspur • Meredith Nicholson
... outsider, 'n' so I will frankly say 't it 's long past its first shininess. Miss White 's freshened it up two times for me, 'n' I always have new ribbons to tie it every other Easter, but still, in the box or out o' the box, its day is past for lookin' brand-new, 'n' I don't deny the truth 's a more foolish woman might feel some inclined to do. So, such bein' the case, Cousin Marion 'n' a new bonnet comes to one 'n' the same thing, 'n' I can't say 's bonnet-buyin' 's a way o' spendin' money 's is over-agreeable to me. However, 'f it is to be it is to be, 'n' ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Friend Mrs. Lathrop • Anne Warner
... intellectual superior of a man she might make choice of. But the Doctor was an Englishman; his ideas of women had been developed by the cynical Thackeray and the material Dickens. There was a line between the two classes of women he only believed to exist—the bad capable woman and the good foolish woman—which could never be crossed by one or the other. The elements which go to make up a man, of good and evil mixed, never enter into the composition of the women of Englishmen of the present time. It is possible that Lily discovered Dr. Black's impression: she discovered it so nearly that she was ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 8 • Various
... O, this blind and foolish woman! said she; will she not take warning by her husband's afflictions? For my part, I see, if he were here again, he would rest him content in a whole skin, and never run so many hazards ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan |
