"Ridicule" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Chesterfield's bitter, sarcastic, and unsparing tongue made him enemies, who came in the end to see nothing but deformity in his person and perfidy in his heart. It is easy to say epigrammatically of such a man that his propensity to ridicule, in which he indulged himself with infinite humor and no distinction, and with inexhaustible spirits and no discretion, made him sought and feared, liked and not loved, by most of his acquaintance; it is easy to say that ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... Oxford a little group of young men, poor in purse, but intent in purpose, who held themselves aloof from the foibles and follies of the place, and planned their lives after that of the Christ. In ridicule they were called Methodists. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... be, and however unnecessary the interpretation on which it is pretended. I confess, had I been in Luther's place, I would not have rested so much of my quarrel with the Papists on this point; nor can I agree with our Arminian divines in their ridicule of Transubstantiation. The most rational doctrine is perhaps, for some purposes, at least, the 'rem credimus, modum nescimus'; next to that, the doctrine of the Sacramentaries, that it is 'signum sub ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... conceit out of them. But what is absurd to-day is treated as venerable because it happened thousands of years ago, and prophets are regarded as inspired who, if they existed now, would be treated with ridicule and contempt. ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote
... always food for satire; and the French caricaturists, being no longer allowed to hold up to ridicule and reprobation the King and the deputies, have found no lack of subjects for the pencil in the ridicules and rascalities of common life. We have said that public decency is greater amongst the French than amongst ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... were no longer to be wives but "brood mares" for the State. Nothing would convince him that this was a glaring untruth. His mind was essentially equestrian; "human stud farm" was another of his expressions.[15] Ridicule and argument failed to touch him; I believe he would have gone to the stake to justify his faith that Socialists want to put woman in the Government haras. His thick-headedness had, indeed, a ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... gathering sound and strength as it drew nearer, until it dashed with a heavy gust against horse and man, driving the sharp rain into their ears, and its cold damp breath into their very bones; and past them it would scour, far, far away, with a stunning roar, as if in ridicule of their weakness, and triumphant in the consciousness of ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... various reasons, the old men drifted from a position of respect to one of ridicule. Undoubtedly they lend themselves to this; they are obstinate, foolish, prosy, boring, crotchety and unpleasant to look upon. Comic writers poked fun at these failings which are only too self-evident and showered ridicule upon ...
— The Cult of Incompetence • Emile Faguet
... remains very rigid. In such savage and barbarous countries modesty possesses the strength of a genuine and irresistible instinct. In civilized countries, however, anyone who places considerations of modesty before the claims of some real human need excites ridicule and contempt. ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... period I began to spend a good deal of time in writing doggerel and rhyme for publication in the local press. Many of my "efforts" took the form of satires upon defaulting gentlemen—men who, I thought, should be held up to public ridicule and censure. I placed myself at the service of the people, and was always ready to show up their wrongs under my motto, "Right against Might." For my pains in that direction I was often boycotted, and occasionally brought before the magistrates. ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... had gone back to her school days. She was helpless, and Miss Ingate was the same. She wished ardently that she was in Moze again. She could not imagine how she had been such a fool as to undertake this absurd expedition which could only end in ridicule and disaster. She was ready to cry. Then another employee appeared, hesitated, and picked up a bag, scowling and inimical. Gradually the man, very tousled and dirty, clustered all the bags and parcels around his person, and walked ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... How authors find their colours here and there, And paint both saints and villains from themselves. No matter. This was Urban. Make it clear. Simplicio means a simpleton. The saints Are aroused by ridicule to most human wrath. Urban was once his friend. This hint of ours Kills all of that. And so we mortals close The doors of Love and Knowledge on the world. And so, for many an age, the name of Christ Has been misused by man to mask man's hate. ...
— Watchers of the Sky • Alfred Noyes
... week night lectures, Beecher was speaking about the building and equipping of new churches. After a few satirical touches about church architects and their work, he went on to ridicule the usual style of pulpit—the "sacred mahogany tub"—"plastered up against some pillar like a barn-swallow's nest." Then he passed on to the erection of the organ, ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... Betrayed by Delilah, he was delivered into the hands of his enemies and employed in the most servile labors. When old and blind he was attached to the columns of an edifice to serve as an object of public ridicule; with a violent effort he overturned the columns, destroying ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... think that such a mockery should be made of religion, in order to press the authority of man; it is disgusting to find such things sent by rational men to rational men, to be disseminated amongst an illiterate and fanatical populace. The friends of emancipation may ridicule, if they choose, the indications of a new reformation which now show themselves in Ireland; but so long as free discussion is allowed, and such means as these are used as means of influence over the ignorant multitude, nothing ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... treated with derision rather than with extreme severity, and was led in a kind of mock triumph to London. As he passed along the road, and through the streets of the city, men of all grades assembled to see the impostor, and cast ridicule upon his fallen fortunes; and the farce was ended by the publication of a confession in which Warbeck narrated his real parentage, and the chief causes of his presumption ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous
... the fine points of logical discourse, engaged in on the basis of an incredibly multiplied logic structure composed of thirty-seven separate systems of discursive regulations, the very first of which was based on a planetary absolute, the rejection and ridicule of all persuasive techniques ...
— The Glory of Ippling • Helen M. Urban
... terminate here. The political opponents of the government did not allow so favourable an opportunity to escape for launching the shafts of ridicule. The Moderados were taunted in the cortes for their avarice and credulity, whilst the liberal press wafted on its wings through Spain the story of the treasure- hunt ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... niece to avoid the study of classics and science lest she "excite envy in one sex and jealousy in the other." Lady Mary Wortley Montagu laments thus: "There is hardly a creature in the world more despicable and more liable to universal ridicule than a learned woman," and "folly is reckoned so much our proper sphere, we are sooner pardoned any excesses of that than the least pretensions to reading and good sense." Pursuant to the prevailing sentiment on the education of ...
— A Short History of Women's Rights • Eugene A. Hecker
... the way of the sword-thrusts; and are invulnerable all over, even in the heel, against logic. The martel or mace, the battle-axe, the great double-edged two-handed sword must deal with follies; the rapier is no better against them than a wand, unless it be the rapier of ridicule. ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... betrayed a mixture of shrewdness and folly, of kindness and impudence, which justified, perhaps, the common notion that his intellects were unsound. Nothing was more remarkable than his impenetrability to ridicule and censure. You might revile him for hours, and he would listen to you with invincible composure. To awaken anger or shame in him was impossible. He would answer, but in such a way as to show him totally unaware of your true meaning. ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... three brothers had resolved to act in this outrageous manner he did not hesitate to reproach them; but not being able to contend against him honourably, they met him with ridicule. "Do not attempt to rule us with your wooden staff," they cried contemptuously. "Sacrifice IT if your inside is really sincere. And, in the meanwhile, go and sit under your paper umbrella and wield your inscribed fan, while we attend ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah
... leading agencies of reform and cure, let us say, that the evidence going to show that an impression has been made upon the disease is clear and indisputable; and that this impression is so marked as to give the strongest hope and assurance. In the face of prejudice, opposition, ridicule, persecution, obloquy and all manner of discouragements, the advocates of temperance have held steadily to their work these many years, and now the good results are seen on every hand. Contrast the public sentiment of to-day with that of twenty, thirty ...
— Grappling with the Monster • T. S. Arthur
... rather indifferent attitude toward the favorite themes of my father. That she made an exception in this case was due in part to the fact that during his journeyings my father had written to his young wife many "love letters," which as letters it was my mother's chief delight to ridicule, so long as she lived. "For I would have you know, children," she was wont to say, "I still have your father's love letters; one always keeps such charming things. One of these I even know by heart, at least the beginning. The letter came from Eisleben, and in it your father wrote to me: 'I ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... and endless stream. It is difficult, from the sources of Scandinavian opinion, to obtain a sensible impression of Wergeland. The critics of Norway as persistently overrate his talents as those of Denmark neglect and ridicule his pretensions. The Norwegians still speak of him as himmelstraevende sublim ("sublime in his heavenly aspiration"); the Danes will have it that he was an hysterical poetaster. Neither view commends itself to a foreign ...
— Henrik Ibsen • Edmund Gosse
... of the place, minus the meat and sometimes the tea and coffee. Little attention was paid at first to this departure from common habits, but by degrees the numbers increased until they began to be a power. Their constancy, their earnest belief, soon swept away all ridicule, and the proof that they could do their share of daily work was not wanting. Among the number were many very devoted ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... office, so his great penetration into the human mind, joined to his great experience, renders him the most wonderful proficient in it; and he so well knows when to soothe, when to reason, and when to ridicule, that he never applies any of those arts improperly, which is almost universally the case with the physicians of the mind, and which it requires very great ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... sense, advanced his countrymen from the nice weighing of words by the Precieuses and the grammarians, and by the French Academy, child of the intercourse between those ladies and gentlemen. He brought ridicule on the inane politeness of a style then in its decrepitude, and bade the writers of his time find models in the Latin writers who, like Virgil and Horace, had brought natural thought and speech to their perfection. In the preceding labour for the rectifying of the language, ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... been riding since daybreak down the creek, and I'm prepared to state that the chance of crossing is as good right here as anywhere. I wanted to see your foreman, and if he'll help, we'll bridge her. I've been down to see this other outfit, but they ridicule the idea, though I think they'll come around all right. I borrowed their axe, and to-morrow morning you'll see me with my outfit cutting timber to bridge Big Boggy. That's right, boys; it's the only thing to do. The trouble is I've only got eight men all ...
— The Log of a Cowboy - A Narrative of the Old Trail Days • Andy Adams
... that Shakespeare was obliged to flee the country. An old record[147] says that the poet "was much given to all unluckiness in stealing venison and rabbits," the unluckiness probably consisting in getting caught himself, and not in any lack of luck in catching the rabbits. The ridicule heaped upon the Lucy family in Henry IV and the Merry Wives of Windsor gives some weight to this tradition. Nicholas Rowe, who published the first life of Shakespeare,[148] is the authority for this story; but there is some reason to doubt whether, at the time when Shakespeare ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... delusion it were, clung to her, haunted her, pursued her, week after week. To rid her of it, or to silence her, was impossible. She added no new facts to her first statement, but insisted that the long-lost dead was yet alive, with a quiet pertinacity that it was simply impossible to ridicule, frighten, threaten, or cross-question out of her, Clara was so thoroughly alarmed that she would not have slept alone for any mortal—perhaps not for any immortal—considerations. Winthrop and I talked the matter over often and gravely when we were alone and in quiet places. Mother's lips were ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... himself, lest, by overhastily mixing with common and secular playfellows, he should commit the dignity of his cloth. Nor let any one laugh at this; for, considering the propensity of the multitude, and especially of the small multitude, to ridicule anything unusual in dress—above all, where such peculiarity may be construed by malice into a mark of disparagement—this reserve will appear to be nothing more than a wise instinct in the Blue-coat boy. That it is neither pride nor rusticity, at least that it has none of the offensive ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... in ranch practice was the keeping up of my bulls in winter-time and not putting them out with the cows till the middle of July. This also met with the ridicule of all the "old-timers"; but it was entirely successful! The calf crop was not only a very large one but the calves were dropped all about the same time, were thus of an even age (an important matter for dealers), ...
— Ranching, Sport and Travel • Thomas Carson
... know what was the end of this training. We know that it ended in impiety in filthy and heartless sensuality, in the dissolution of all ties of honour and morality. We know that at this very day scriptural phrases, scriptural names, perhaps some scriptural doctrines excite disgust and ridicule, solely because they are associated with ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... writer, born in Samosata, in Syria, in the early part of the 2nd century; he travelled much in his youth; acquired a cynical view of the world, and gave himself to ridicule the philosophical sects and the pagan mythology; his principal writings consist of "Dialogues," of which the "Dialogues of the Dead" are the best known, the subject being one affording him scope for ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... on Phoebe's face made him bite his lips with increase of annoyance, for he saw in her emotion only renewed evidence of the ridicule to which ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... will ridicule me, that's all! It will accuse me of desiring to make a stir, to cut off my dog's tail. To-day, Alcibiades would thus cut off his, but the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals would bring ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... than this stately Don, without any music, and in the middle of the high road, cutting capers, with a countenance as solemn as any person at a burying. No one could be more quick to observe the ludicrous than he, nor more careful to avoid ridicule; therefore it said much for Moll's cajolery, or for the love he bore her even at this time, to thus expose himself to Dawson's rude mirth and mine in order to ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... resolutions, she would yield to the slightest temptations. When she was expressing, and apparently really feeling sorrow for having wounded the feelings of others, those who knew her would not venture to express any sympathy, for, very likely, the next moment that would be turned into ridicule. No confidence could be ...
— The Teacher • Jacob Abbott
... will not be able to afflict thee in battle. Therefore, O mighty-armed one, encounter Bhishma with vigor. If, O sire, thou returnest today without slaying Bhishma, thou wilt, with myself, be an object of ridicule to the world. Seek to do that in battle by which, O hero, we may not incur ridicule in this great battle. Stay the grandsire. O thou of great strength, I will protect thee in this battle, checking all the car-warriors (of the Kuru army). Do thou slay the ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... we need most is the valor to face ridicule. Ridicule is the arm of all the miserable barbers, bachelors, parish priests, canons and dukes who keep hidden the sepulchre of the Knight of Madness, Knight who made all the world laugh but never cracked a joke. He had too great a soul to bring forth ...
— Rosinante to the Road Again • John Dos Passos
... was much too well bred to evince the slightest disposition to aught but the most proper and profound attention. The faintest imaginable gleam of ridicule might, perhaps, have been discerned in his features, as he leaned back in his chair, and, closing his eyes, composed himself to at least an attitude of attention. No man could submit with more cheerfulness ...
— The Evil Guest • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... protection. No doubt by this time the cutter was at its owner's disposal: it would be just like the fellow! He always went the nearest road anywhere. And to prosecute him for a thief would in any case but bring down the ridicule of the whole coast upon the factor, and breed him endless annoyance in the getting in of his rents—especially among the fishermen. The result was that Mr Crathie went home—not indeed a humbler or wiser man than he had gone, but a thwarted man, ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... had demonstrated its practical utility, its inventor was subjected to ridicule most galling to a sensitive nature, and after it was a proved success he was vilified by the enemies he was obliged to make on account of his own probity, and by the unscrupulous men who tried to rob him of the fruits of his genius; but in this ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... on our return to court after our ill-fated union, the king had for some time refrained from his former insulting importunities; and had merely distressed Lady Greville by indulging in a mockery of respectful deference, which exposed her to the ridicule of those around her who could not fail to observe his change of manner. Perceiving by my unconstrained expressions of grateful acknowledgment for his furtherance of my marriage with Theresa that she had kept his secret, and incapable ...
— Theresa Marchmont • Mrs Charles Gore
... and portrayed this common national power has been the saving of the principal French historians, notably of Michelet. It has furnished them with the key by which alone the history of their country could be made plain. Nothing is easier than to ridicule or deny so mystical a thing. Taine, by temperament intensely anti-national, ridiculed it as he ridiculed the mysteries of the Faith; but with this consequence, that his denial made it impossible for him to write the history of his country, and ...
— On Something • H. Belloc
... which she brought back Jemima, and erected another doll as Miss Jemmy: for though that honest creature had made and given her jelly and cake enough for three children, and a seven-shilling piece at parting, the girl's sense of ridicule was far stronger than her gratitude, and she sacrificed Miss Jemmy quite as pitilessly ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the fire indicated by his departed friend. As he reeled, he bethought him of the welcome his comrades would give him. He had a conviction that he would soon feel in his sore heart the barbed missiles of ridicule. He had no strength to invent a tale; he would be a ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... about the beginning of your career. He said that if only the spirit of your first days could come back—" Her tone grew quicker, as though she feared ridicule in Loder's silence. "He asked me to use my influence. I know that I have little—none, perhaps—but I couldn't tell him that, ...
— The Masquerader • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... think of as devoted to herself, had made game of her sister. Poor Sophy, to her that tryste had been a subject of unmitigated affliction and shame, and it was a cruel wound that Ulick O'More should, of all men, have turned it into ridicule. What would be the ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... he was much displeased; and as Romulus was casting up a ditch, where he designed the foundation of the city wall, he turned some pieces of the work to ridicule, and obstructed others: at last, as he was in contempt leaping over it, some say Romulus himself struck him, others Celer, one of his companions; he fell, however, and in the scuffle Faustulus also was slain, and Plistinus, who, being Faustulus's brother, story ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... delight, which will not be suppressed, but which her little heart says is very ungrateful and wicked, knowing, as she did, how wrong it was for her, a poor little outcast, to think of Ralph Harrington, when his mother is opposed to it utterly, and his father almost treats the whole subject with ridicule. Ralph has told her faithfully every word that passed between him and his father, and her delicate intuition detects the uncertainty and hollowness of it all. With these honorable feelings warring against the newly-awakened love in ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... pack. "Big bear, but cold trail. Called them off," was all he said. We mounted and rode across the mouth of Horton Thicket round to the juniper slopes, which I had occasion to remember. I even saw the pine tree which I had so ignominiously climbed. How we ridicule and scorn some of our perfectly natural actions—afterwards! Edd had brought three of the pups that day, two-year-olds as full of mischief as pups could be. They jumped a bunch of deer and chased them out on the hard red cedar covered ridges. ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... he went on, "I am ready to renounce the faith of my fathers and incur the world's ridicule, all to serve you. I am going this morning to the cardinal on whom the whole issue depends, to ask him to be my sponsor at ...
— Manasseh - A Romance of Transylvania • Maurus Jokai
... saw her son approaching the house, she at once remembered his ignorance at the camp-meeting, the ridicule created by his queer actions, and the hard feelings that, in her embarrassment, she had felt toward him; still, she endeavored to treat him kindly, and at first she permitted him to talk freely about his experiences before and after the meeting. But when in conclusion, ...
— The Poorhouse Waif and His Divine Teacher • Isabel C. Byrum
... man of any court or priestly influence to obtain his release. As it was, nothing could have been more difficult. Italian authorities, and English authorities who had interest with them, alike assured the Englishman that his object was hopeless. He met with nothing but evasion, refusal, and ridicule. His political prisoner became a joke in the place. It was especially observable that English Circumlocution, and English Society on its travels, were as humorous on the subject as Circumlocution and Society may be on any subject without loss of caste. But, the Englishman possessed (and ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... hard work, and is, after all, not worth the trouble; but we must have something about it, and it is, I suppose, too late to expect anything better. Mr. Williams's article on Sir W. Scott [Lord Stowell] is contemptible, and would expose your Review to the ridicule of the whole bar; but it may be made something of, and I like the subject. I had a long and amusing talk with the Chancellor the night before last, on his own and his brother's judgments; I wish I had time to embody our ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... hard and arrogant nature, greatly elated by the consequence which his position gave him, he exercised a mischievous influence on the governor's measures. Almagro's poverty-stricken followers were the objects of his open ridicule, and he revenged the insult now offered him by riding before their young leader's residence, displaying a tawdry magnificence in his dress, sparkling with gold and silver, and with the inscription, "For the Men of Chili," set in his bonnet. It was a foolish taunt; but the ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... brick pyramid, the coarse fabric, the homely and ill-shapen instruments, as they present themselves to our notice in the remains of these ancient nations; but they are really worthier of our admiration than of our ridicule. The first inventors of any art are among the greatest benefactors of their race; and the bold step which they take from the unknown to the known, from blank ignorance to discovery, is equal to many steps of subsequent ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 1. (of 7): Chaldaea • George Rawlinson
... year 1710, that a marriage between two dwarfs was celebrated at the Russian court. The preparations for this wedding were very grand, and executed in a style of barbarous ridicule. Peter ordered that all the dwarfs, both men and women, within two hundred miles, should repair to the capital, and insisted that they should be present at the ceremony. Some of them were unwilling to comply with this order, knowing that the object was to turn them into ridicule; but he soon obliged ...
— Domestic pleasures - or, the happy fire-side • F. B. Vaux
... with ours1 when ready. This would at once discover an Union of Sentiments thus far & have its Influence on other Towns. It wd at least show that Boston is not wholly deserted, & might prevent "its falling a Sacrifice to the Rage or ridicule of our (common) Enemies." I shall be pleasd with your further Sentiments & am ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams
... next fifty years, a style which was that of Montesquieu and Voltaire, and superseded the broad, sustained, balanced, harmonious, and measured style of the majority of the writers of the eighteenth century. In the field of ridicule, wherein he sowed copiously, more so even than Moliere, the comic poets of the eighteenth century came to glean copiously, which did them less credit (for it is better to observe than to read) than it conferred on the wise and ingenious author of ...
— Initiation into Literature • Emile Faguet
... rather a ludicrous exhibition of himself on the occasion of a wreck, when he ran into the sea through a full tide up to his knees, with the utmost apparent heroism, and retreated again as soon as he thought it might be dangerous. He incurred so much ridicule that he abruptly quitted the town, and I have ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... nor the dignity, nor the ridicule of the supposed victim—not Julie's angry eyes, nor all her mocking words from tremulous lips—had availed in the least to silence the tumult of alarmed affection in the Duchess's breast. Her Julie had been flouted ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... abundant rain. When the dawn of the next day appears, the deluge will begin, which will cover the earth and drown all living things.'" Shamashnapishtim repeated the warning to the people, but the people refused to believe it, and turned him into ridicule. The work went rapidly forward: the hull was a hundred and forty cubits long, the deck one hundred and forty broad; all the joints were caulked with pitch and bitumen. A solemn festival was observed at its completion, and the embarkation ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 3 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... therefore, in escaping from such ridicule," said Hardenberg, gravely. "A minister who is taken home by his servants vi et armis, because he takes the liberty not to return at an early hour—what a splendid farce that would be! Pray be kind enough to tell my servants ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... ignored, would then have gone on in his deadly work. We all equally well know that the man, even the politician or the statesman, who had suggested a solution of that problem by a count of noses would have been effaced with ridicule. Even the most simple minded would have rejected that method of reaching a result. Yet the ilia of the body politic, too, are complicated. Indeed, far more intricate in their processes and more deceitful ...
— 'Tis Sixty Years Since • Charles Francis Adams
... cynical humour and satirical temper. A more imaginative man than Swift with much less power would have better appreciated the weaknesses of humanity and made allowances for them. He would never have held them up to ridicule and contempt, but would rather have laid stress on those instincts of honour and nobility which the most ignorant and least reasoning ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... arises more from a weakness of mind than depravity of feeling, we think it should be chastised by the lively and pointed sarcasms of wit; and, if the failing be merely a folly, it should only be the subject of humorous ridicule. With respect to determining which species of satire is the most preferable, the narrative of Horace and Juvenal, the dramatic of Aristophanes and Foote, or the picturesque of Hogarth and Stevens; we can best form ...
— A Lecture On Heads • Geo. Alex. Stevens
... to produce this revolution of manners among the Romans. The vast inequality of ranks, the enormous fortunes of individuals, the ridicule, affixed by the imperial court to moral ideas, all contributed to hasten the ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous
... say that in conceding the right of the Sultan to exclude any war-flag from the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles, Russia was treating Turkey as a bag-fox, to be gently hunted occasionally, but not mangled or killed; and he felt keenly the ridicule resting on the allies, who were compelled to surrender the neutralization purchased at the cost of so much blood and treasure. He watched with much amusement the restoration of Turkish self-confidence. "Turkey believes that he is no longer a sick man, and is turning all his doctors ...
— Biographical Study of A. W. Kinglake • Rev. W. Tuckwell
... was much disposed to laugh at and to ridicule all the preparation that Dives of East Haven made to entertain his Lazarus. Nevertheless, there were a few who believed very sincerely in the efficacy of the scheme. But both those who believed and those who scoffed agreed in general upon one point—that it was altogether probable that East Haven ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... certain children who give way to fits of anger; what is the remedy? Note other children who cry readily; what would you suggest as a cure? (Why should ridicule ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts
... abolition appeal was essentially iconoclastic, and the method of a reformer at close quarters with a mighty system of wrong cannot be measured by the standards of cool and polite debate. Phillips did not shrink from the sternest denunciation, or ridicule or scorn, of those who seemed to him recreant to freedom and humanity. The idols of a purely conventional virtue he delighted to shatter, because no public enemy seemed to him more deadly than the American who made moral ...
— The Evolution of Expression Vol. I • Charles Wesley Emerson
... piece was well received and highly applauded, it was at the same time severely criticised by those who had swallowed without digesting the ridicule which the author had heaped on the Hotel de Rambouillet in the "Precieuses Ridicules," and on the various conceits and follies of the court in "Les Facheux." Such critics having shown themselves too wise to express the pain which they felt on their own account, now set up as guardians of the purity ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... the wind and current, caused some degree of speculation, and even of alarm, in different quarters of the schooner, and I saw distinctly that no little impression had been made upon the mind of Captain Guy. He was exceedingly sensitive to ridicule, however, and I finally succeeded in laughing him out of his apprehensions. The variation was now very trivial. In the course of the day we saw several large whales of the right species, and innumerable flights of the albatross ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... his wit, which were very keen, against all of whatever rank who sought in any way to alter, and, as it was presumed, amend, the religious, philosophical, social, political, or literary creed and practice of the country, and held up to ridicule such men as Socrates and Euripides, as well as Cleon the tanner; wrote 54 plays, of which 11 have come down to us; of these the "Clouds" aim at Socrates, the "Acharnians" and the "Frogs" at Euripides, and the "Knights" at Cleon; ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... "took till he was gray headed." Secretly, he was glad that Judge Harlin would not take the case, because he had an active animosity against Harry Gillam, mainly because Gillam wore a silk hat, and he thought that, as his own lawyer, he could contrive to cast enough ridicule on the district attorney to set the whole town laughing and make Gillam so angry that he would lose his temper and want to fight. So he set about preparing his case, with advice and suggestion from Judge Harlin, who, ...
— With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly
... of Christ in his person. They also deny him in his offices; for to deny and ridicule what he came to do, is one of the most effectual ways of denying him. The great work of Christ was the shedding of his blood to atone for the sins of the world; and the spirits are particularly bitter in denouncing ...
— Modern Spiritualism • Uriah Smith
... father is editor of the Great Britain, and the son seems to have inherited his talent for saying sharp things. Woe betide the Dominican who raises Tony's dander! He cannot box, he cannot pursue; but he can talk, and he can ridicule, as his victims ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... herself, namely, the elder of two brothers, and the Marchesa had reluctantly consented to marry the other, who had a much less high-sounding title and a far smaller fortune. She had revenged herself in various small ways, and had often turned her brother-in-law's wife to ridicule by representing her as an ascetic mediaeval saint, in contorted attitudes of ecstasy, with sunken cheeks and eyes like saucers full of ink. Like many other people, Giovanni had seen some of these drawings, for ...
— The White Sister • F. Marion Crawford
... could not forbear tittering and laughing; though I recollect that the Bishop of Killaloe kept his countenance with perfect steadiness, while Miss Hannah More slily hid her face behind a lady's back who sat on the same settee with her. His pride could not bear that any expression of his should excite ridicule, when he did not intend it: he therefore resolved to assume and exercise despotic power, glanced sternly around, and called out in a strong tone, 'Where's the merriment?' Then collecting himself, and looking awful, to make us feel how he could impose restraint, and as it were searching ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... should he come with a larger force, we could, as is proved, resist them until the guard arrived on the spot. If, on the other hand, night passed off quietly and my suspicions proved to be altogether erroneous, I should escape the ridicule which would certainly have been forthcoming had I ...
— The Young Carthaginian - A Story of The Times of Hannibal • G.A. Henty
... spectres of early childhood, old beliefs, banished superstitions. The coachman proposed another route; he shook his head and said that he would wait. He leaned forward to get a better look at the card-reader's house ... Then he made a gesture of self-ridicule: it had entered his mind to consult the fortune-teller, who seemed to be hovering over him, far, far above, with vast, ash-colored wings; she disappeared, reappeared, and then her image was lost; then, in a few moments, the ash-colored wings ...
— Brazilian Tales • Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis
... which, some future day, were to console the world for his decease, and the prospect of which (for he saw them already in beautiful hot-pressed quarto) almost consoled himself for the necessity of dying? The intended love-letter!—this would have an air of ridicule, while the real declaration of Sir Frederic Beaumantle, which would not only adorn the Memoirs above mentioned, but would ultimately form a part of the "History of the County of Huntingdon." We hope ourselves, by the way, to have ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... aware that he was acting wrongly; and one day, moved by the angry look of the captain, he went back and put the tempting fruit in the dish, from which he had taken it. He had as great an objection to being made the subject of ridicule as have most human beings; and if any one laughed at his ludicrous actions at dinner, he would utter a hollow barking noise, looking up at them with a most serious expression till they had ceased, when he would ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... blue eyes never seemed aware of it. In speech with womenkind he was always slow and half-reluctant. That his great bull-like physique could by any means be an object of admiration was a possibility that he never seemed to contemplate. In fact, he seemed expectant of ridicule rather than appreciation. ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... me to assist him against the Arians. At that time, they had confined themselves to attacking him with invectives and ridicule. Since then, however, he has been calumniated, deprived of his see, and banished. Where is he now? I know not! People concern themselves so little about bringing me any news! All my disciples have abandoned me, Hilarion ...
— The Temptation of St. Antony - or A Revelation of the Soul • Gustave Flaubert
... islands. This was severely prohibited in Tameamea's time, but is now permitted, from Christian charity. Such characters as these, reckless of every thing sacred, do not hesitate to make a jest of the missionaries, whose extraordinary plans and regulations offer many weak points to the shafts of ridicule. ...
— A New Voyage Round the World, in the years 1823, 24, 25, and 26, Vol. 2 • Otto von Kotzebue
... ridicule, sharp, corroding ridicule. The comedy of the Greeks ridiculed everything,—persons, characters, opinions, customs, and sometimes philosophy and religion. Comedy became, therefore, a sort of consecrated slander, lyric ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... cannot better serve the wishes of those who ridicule all morality as a mere chimera of human imagination over stepping itself from vanity, than by conceding to them that notions of duty must be drawn only from experience (as from indolence, people are ready to think ...
— Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals • Immanuel Kant
... country, about the feasibility of grape culture in Missouri. He always contended that grapes should succeed well here, as the woods were full of wild grapes, some of very fair quality, and that this would indicate a soil and climate favorable to the vine. They would ridicule the idea, and assert that labor was too high here, even if the vines would succeed, to make it pay; but they could not shake his faith in the ultimate success of grape culture. Alas! he lived only long enough to see the first dawnings of that glorious future ...
— The Cultivation of The Native Grape, and Manufacture of American Wines • George Husmann
... you not see, Dunsford, that, like a cautious official man, he does not want to enter into small details, which have always an air of ridicule? He is not prepared to pledge himself to cricket, golf, football, or prisoner's bars; but in his heart he is manifestly a Young Englander—without the white waistcoat. Nothing would please him better than ...
— Friends in Council (First Series) • Sir Arthur Helps
... confined to books. Accustom yourself to study actions and their influences and effects. Public lectures, conversations, in short, every event of your life, will present questions, and your own mind, with a little reflection, will present the answers. If it does not, do not let the fear of ridicule ...
— Our Gift • Teachers of the School Street Universalist Sunday School, Boston
... spring hunger. In camp was no food. The hunters halted the march, and came in Christmas Eve of 1633 with not so much as a pound of flesh for nearly fifty people. From the first the Indian medicine man had heaped ridicule on the white priest, and Pierre had refused to interpret as much as a single prayer; but now the whole camp was starving. Pierre happened to tell the other Indians that Christmas was the day on which the white man's God had come to earth. In vain the medicine man had pounded his tom-tom and ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... toucan is by jerks: in the action of flying it seems incommoded by this huge disproportioned feature, and the head seems as if bowed down to the earth by it against its will. If the extraordinary form and size of the bill expose the toucan to ridicule, its colours make it amends. Were a specimen of each species of the toucan presented to you, you would pronounce the bill of the bouradi the most rich and beautiful: on the ridge of the upper mandible ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... clarifying idea darting. Why hadn't he thought of a police station before now? Perforce the person in charge at any police station would be under requirement to shelter him. What even if he were locked up temporarily? In a cell he would be safe from the slings and arrows of outrageous ridicule; and surely among the functionaries in any station house would be one who would know a gentleman in distress, however startlingly the gentleman might be garbed. Surely, too, somebody—once that somebody's amazement had abated—would he willing to do some telephoning for him. ...
— The Life of the Party • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... afraid since she had known of her vogue in the East. When Alison had put into execution the astounding folly (to the Gore mind) of rejecting the inheritance of millions to espouse a profession, it had been Charlotte Plimpton who led the chorus of ridicule and disapproval. But success, to the Charlotte Plimptons, is its own justification, and now her ambition (which had ramifications) was to have Alison "do" her a garden. Incidentally, the question had flashed through her mind ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... little, though it concerns them not, will say, on your remaining [with me and doing nothing,] 'That having lavished and spent his father's worldly wealth, he is now living on the scraps from his brother-in-law's board.' This is an excessive want of proper pride, and will be our ridicule, and the subject of shame to the memory of our parents; otherwise I would keep you near my heart, and make you shoes of my own skin, and have you wear them. Now, my advice is that you should make an effort at travelling; please God the times will change, ...
— Bagh O Bahar, Or Tales of the Four Darweshes • Mir Amman of Dihli
... doctrines of Christianity, without really knowing what these doctrines are. He sneers at the doctrines and practices of religion, because he cannot refute them. He speaks with the utmost gravity of the fine arts, the fashions, and even matters the most trivial, and he turns into ridicule the most sacred subjects. In the midst of his own circle of fops and silly women, he utters his shallow conceits with all the ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller
... and their success in this wide-spread conflict helped forward their cause. Ulrich von Hutten, one of the young knights who belonged to the literary school, and others of the same class, made effective use, against their illiterate antagonists, of the weapons of satire and ridicule. ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... the saltband worked Miss Francis immediately became the butt of all the ridicule and contumely which could be heaped upon her head. What could you expect of a woman who meddled with things outside her province? Since she had asserted the grass would absorb everything, its failure to absorb the salt proved beyond ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... in Peckaby's shop, and the news of his fame was spreading. Women of all ages flocked in to hear him—you know how impressionable they have the character of being. A sprinkling of men followed out of curiosity, of idleness, or from propensity to ridicule. Had Brother Jarrum proved to be a real missionary from Jerusalem—though, so far as my knowledge goes, such messengers from that city are not common—genuinely desirous of converting them from wrath to grace, I fear his audience would, after the first night or two, have ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... some kindly act, have helped to contribute towards your day's enjoyment. We should also try to be as useful as possible to each other; for we all admire that "nice pleasant woman" who, instead of attempting to hold us up to ridicule if our "back hair" is falling down, or anything has happened which ruffles our appearance, rides up and quietly brings the fact to our notice. I have heard female voices audibly "picking holes" in a lady's ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes
... cannot express it to you. My position in your house is known to you; subordinate to everybody, and I may say utterly despised by Gordey Karpych. I've had only one feeling, that for you, and if I receive ridicule from you, then it would have been better for me never to have lived in this world. You may trust me! I am ...
— Plays • Alexander Ostrovsky
... especially in the department of living organisms, has ever been appealed to by those who desire to prove that the world is not self-evolved, but the work of an intelligent Creator." (p. 211) On page 175, he refers to those who ridicule Darwin, and yet are so far under the influence of the spirit of the age as to deny miracles or the intervention of the Creator in the course of nature, and says: "Very well; how do they account for the origin of man, and in general the development of the organic ...
— What is Darwinism? • Charles Hodge
... him, and then, if he was in the mood, there was a feast of the body and flow of the soul; went to every ball, danced with everybody, visited the ladies; was learned or frivolous, as suited the ladies' capacities or attainments; appeared fond of their society, and always spoke of them with ridicule or contempt; married, and separated from his wife, no one knew for what cause, yet still claimed and supported her. She was the widow of Governor Claiborne, and a magnificent woman; she was a Spaniard ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... could be found with sufficient enthusiasm, for the Royal cause, here represented by me, to attend, and support me through all the fatigues, the endless errands, the interviews—ay, also the rebuffs, the ridicule at times, perhaps the danger of the conjuration, which must be set on foot in this country—to do all that, without hope of other reward than the consciousness of helping a good cause, and—and the gratitude of one, who may have nothing ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... Austria dominant on the Continent, the Protestant religion and the liberties of the Germanic body trodden under foot. Meanwhile, the wavering and cowardly policy of England furnished matter of ridicule to all the nations of Europe. The love of peace which James professed would, even when indulged to an impolitic excess, have been respectable, if it had proceeded from tenderness for his people. But the truth is, that, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... azure cowl is implied the cloak of deceit and false humility. Hafiz uses this expression to cast ridicule upon Shaikh Hazan's order of dervishes, who were inimical to the brotherhood of which the poet was a member. The dervishes mentioned wore blue to express their ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... pointed utterances have everywhere fired the hearts of patriots." Freedom from the blighting influence of slavery seemed to give him easier flight, and his criticism of the Democratic convention was so felicitous, so full of story and wit and ridicule and the fire of genuine patriotism, that his name was quickly upon every lip, and his happy, homely hits the common property of half the people of the State.[798] The mention of his name for attorney-general, therefore, ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... found him obdurate in his wrong-headedness. When I asked him what he had sold me for the L50 I paid him, he coolly said he didn't think I was serious, that no man would write a play on another man's scenario; it was absurd, impossible—"C'est ridicule!" he repeated again and again. When I reminded him that Shakespeare had done it, he got angry: it was altogether different then—today: "C'est ridicule!" Tired of going over and over the old ground I pressed him to tell me what he wanted. ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... reviled him, and the public who would have none of him. If they had only let him alone. But they didn't. There was no poet more pursued and persecuted than Owen Prothero. He trailed bleeding feet, like a scapegoat on all the high mountains. He brought reproach and ridicule on the friends who defended him, on Jane Holland, and on Nina Lempriere and Tanqueray, which was what he minded most ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... a, a manner of expressing contempt or ridicule by putting the thumb to the nose, with the fingers ...
— Sinks of London Laid Open • Unknown
... ridicule this indignant protest as the angry outcry of beaten partisans; but fortunately we have evidence which cannot be gainsaid of the justice of its sentiments and the wisdom of its predictions. Governor Ford, himself a ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... sure, for its falsity will be established to-morrow, and ridicule cast upon those who spread and believed it. False alarms are the proper strategy to conceal the real assault. The rumour does us a service. Our secret is very well kept, for here am I in Schlestadt, and people living in Schlestadt ...
— Clementina • A.E.W. Mason
... metamorphosis, as there is now a days acknowledged to be in that of lusus naturae; and those reasoning mineralists might thus, in the opinion of some philosophers, expose their theory to contempt and ridicule. This is not the light in which I view the subject. I give those gentlemen credit for diligently observing nature; and I applaud them for having the merit to reason for themselves, which would seem to be the case with few of the ...
— Theory of the Earth, Volume 1 (of 4) • James Hutton
... that he had mistaken his powers. His argument was formal and long-winded. His uncouth style roused the ridicule of his hearers. His voice was weak, his breath short, his manner disconnected, his utterance confused. His pronunciation was stammering and ineffective, and in the end he withdrew from ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... haven't much more to say, uncle, only this—if ordinary captains are so particular about speaking, and so afraid of ridicule, wouldn't a big scientific man like the Count, who has fitted out an expedition for the discovery, be very careful too, lest the object of his voyage should get about? But oh, nonsense! It's ridiculous. It can't be that. ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn
... known to us accidentally through their instrumentality; but, as we were not at that time prepared for the adoption of such useful discoveries, their mention in a book then read all over Europe excited only ridicule and unbelief. As soon as the Western mind mastered them of itself, they became straightway of immense importance, and gave rise, we may say, to all that we call modern civilization. But in the hands of the Chinese ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... the power of ridicule, she left the sergeant, and was accosted by one of the lieutenants; she rallied him ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... Alwyn, newly arrived, had sat alone in the refectory, listlessly wondering what manner of men he had come amongst, and what would be the final result of his adventure into the wilds of Caucasus. His feelings had certainly undergone some change since then, inasmuch as he was no longer disposed to ridicule or condemn religious sentiment, though he was nearly as far from actually believing in Religion itself as ever. The attitude of his mind was still distinctly skeptical—the immutable pride of what he considered his own firmly rooted convictions was only very slightly shaken—and he now even viewed ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... promises that if we are pious, he will restore us to our original state, and heal us and make us happy and blessed. This, Eryximachus, is my discourse of love, which, although different to yours, I must beg you to leave unassailed by the shafts of your ridicule, in order that each may have his turn; each, or rather either, for Agathon and Socrates are the only ...
— Symposium • Plato
... the misapplication of language have been published to weariness, and the bombastic compositions of educated Indian students held up to ridicule, the fault does not lie with the pupil but with ourselves, who are ultimately responsible for the subjects which are set him to learn. So long as he is made to read books in antiquated English, he will naturally suppose that ...
— India and the Indians • Edward F. Elwin
... has to bear a good deal in the way of neglect and ridicule, I do not doubt. Happily, he is protected by an amount of belief in himself which shields him from many assailants who would torture a more sensitive nature. But the sweet voice of Number Five and her sincere way of addressing him seemed to touch his feelings. That ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... use grand compliments, Europeans think they are never sincere, but the compliments are not meant to deceive, they only profess to be forms. Why do the English talk of the beautiful sentiment of the Bible and pretend to feel it so much, and when they come and see the same life before them they ridicule it. ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... literature were tolerated only in the ranks of the clergy; the layman who preferred letters to arms was regarded as a man of mean spirit. When the Crusaders took Constantinople, in 1204, they exposed to public ridicule the pens and inkstands that they found in the conquered city as the ignoble arms of a contemptible ...
— Forty Centuries of Ink • David N. Carvalho
... parts of the country where the traditions of the "best parlor" are still kept? Does the early life in New York appear to you attractive or uninteresting? Does the description seem like ridicule? The descendants of the old Dutch families resented Irving's way of making fun of their ancestors. Point out passages which might justify this complaint. Compare this sketch with "A Pine Tree Shilling" in the style of writing, method of ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... playing the dupe, so giving up the business he returned to Porto Rico on the 5th of October, leaving Perez de Ortubia and the pilot Antonio de Alaminos to continue the search. Pere Charlevoix says, "He was the object of great ridicule when he returned in much suffering, and looking older than when he ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... was meant than a protest. We have had lately a triste example of the end of protests in a neighbouring country. The annual protest of the French Chamber of Deputies against the extinction of the nationality of Poland, not only ended in barren results, and excited public ridicule, but actually terminated in the triumph of the nefarious scheme against which it was made. Never was a country so humiliated as France in this case!—Its Chief, the Sovereign of its choice, consenting at the time, to the damning act of the extinction of Polish nationality, for the sake of accomplishing ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... convent of Repentant Girls (Filles Repenties), but the celebrated Bauton, one of the Oiseaux des Tournelles, who loved a good joke as well as he did Ninon, told her that such a course would excite ridicule because Ninon was neither a girl nor a repentant (ni fille, ni repentie), for which reason, the order was changed leaving Ninon to her ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... that the only road to her reason lay through her vanity, and he fancied that if she could be made to see Van Degen as an object of ridicule she might give up the idea of the Sorceress of her own accord. But her will hardened slowly under his joking opposition, and she became no less formidable as she grew more calm. He was used to women ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... their childhood to reverence, whenever their traditions give it the right to assert itself. Not otherwise. It is a fine trait of national character, though it is one which has brought upon the English much unmerited ridicule. One may differ from them in faith and in one's estimate of the real value of these services, which are often only saved from being irreverent in their performance by the perfect sincerity of parson and congregation. But no one who dispassionately ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford
... her life something of the joy and sweetness that God owed her. I felt I wasn't much use in the world, and that would be something to do. And so one day—though not without much mental tossing, for we are curiously, complexly built, and I dreaded ridicule and the long years of comment from unsympathetic strangers—I asked her to be my wife. Her surprise, her agitation, was painful to witness. But she was not incredulous, as before; she had learned to ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... Next to the ridicule of denying an evident truth, is that of taking much pains to defend it; and no truth appears to me more evident, than that beasts are endowd with thought and reason as well as men. The arguments are in this case so obvious, that they never escape ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... of racks Aimed at the body their attack; But modern torturers, more refined, Work their machinery on the mind. Had St. Sebastian had the luck With me to be a godly rover, Instead of arrows, he'd be stuck With stings of ridicule all over; And poor St. Lawrence who was killed By being on a gridiron grilled, Had he but shared my errant lot, Instead of grill on gridiron hot, A moral ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... principally from the intention. Above all things he should be strict in his honour and integrity, for a man who forfeits either cannot be independent or brave at all times; and he should not be afraid to be singular, for, if he is, the ridicule of the vicious would beat him out of his rectitude as well as out of his attention to his duty. I do not speak this from my fear of him, but from my anxiety to see him the shining character which I am sure he is ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... sarcastic ridicule, of visionary politics. Tommy talked of the civil service in the tone of Harry ...
— Stories of a Western Town • Octave Thanet
... vanity! And yet it is the light feather that wings many a poisoned dart; it is the harlequin leader of a vile crew of evils. Generally, vanity is looked upon as merely a harmless weakness, whose only penalty is ridicule; but examine its true character, and you will find it to be one of the most dangerous, and at the same time one of the most contemptible failings of humanity. There is not a vice with which it has not been, time and again, connected; there is not a virtue that has not been tainted by its ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... Shakespeare's time. There was a good deal of democratic feeling in the burghers of London-town, and they resented the courtly prejudices of their playwrights and their habit of holding up plain citizens to ridicule upon the stage, whenever they deigned to present them at all. The Prolog in Beaumont and Fletcher's "Knight of the Burning Pestle" gives sufficient evidence of this. The authors adopted the device of having a Citizen leap upon the stage and interrupt the Speaker ...
— Tolstoy on Shakespeare - A Critical Essay on Shakespeare • Leo Tolstoy
... one imagines that the pair could not escape ridicule in Paris, where nothing is respected, he cannot know that city. When Schmucke and Pons united their riches and poverty, they hit upon the economical expedient of lodging together, each paying half the rent ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... book is to gain sympathy from the earnest friends of those who have been bound down by a dominant race in circumstances over which they had no control—a butt of ridicule and a mark of oppression; over whom weary ages of degradation have passed. As the links have been broken and the shackles fallen from them through the unwearied efforts of our beloved martyr President ...
— The Story of Mattie J. Jackson • L. S. Thompson
... they will lose the business to which they are rightfully entitled. When you see your customers passing your front door to try a new shop farther up the street, you want to sit down and consider what's the matter, and devise means of regaining your lost ground. It doesn't pay merely to ridicule the new man or cry that his goods are inferior. Yours have got to be superior—or"—and the gray eyes twinkled for the first time—"they must be dressed up to look ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson |
