"Sarcasm" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... far from being invulnerable, and he writhed at every sarcasm. There was one of his contemporaries of whom he stood in mortal dread, but whose name he was too frightened even to mention. It is easy to guess who this was. It was Hogarth, who in one of his caricatures had depicted Pope as a hunchback, whitewashing Burlington House. Pope deemed this the most ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... employed big words and sarcasm at the same time, the effect was tremendous. But Miss ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... deceived himself, he was an astonishing fast learner. Lady Mabel told him that she had heard that poeta nascitur, and now she believed it from analogy; for he was certainly born a botanist. He rebutted the sarcasm by showing that he had the terms stamen, pistil, calix, corolla, capsule, and a host of others at the tip of his tongue; though possibly, had he been called upon to apply each in its proper place, he would have been like a certain student of geometry we once knew, who, by aid of a good memory ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... to the dead, how many "deadly enemies" are made? They have us at unfair advantage. We may deny, we may cry out, but we cannot make them apologize, or retract, or modify the cruel sarcasm, or more cruel ridicule. They seem to stealthily open the door of the tomb, to shoot Parthian arrows at the very mourners who have just piled wreaths before it. Carlyle fired a perfect mitrailleuse from his grave. The Prince's English biographer calls the Humboldt ...
— Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood • Grace Greenwood
... alluded to a riot, ostensibly for bread, in which an Amazonian woman had led a mob to the pillaging of the Richmond jewelry shops, a riot which Davis himself had quelled by meeting the rioters and threatening to fire upon them. But sarcasm proved powerless against Foote. His climax was a lurid tale of a soldier who while marching past his own house heard that his wife was dying, who left the ranks for a last word with her, and who ...
— The Day of the Confederacy - A Chronicle of the Embattled South, Volume 30 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... will give herself the trouble of attentively examining this poor Saint-Eustache," said I, with a sarcasm which her virulence prompted, "you will agree, I think, that I have given him very proper and very thorough satisfaction. I would have met him sword in hand, but the Chevalier has the fault of the very young—he is precipitate; he was in too great a haste, and he could ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... another race than that he had ever mingled with. Profoundly indifferent as he had always been to the criticism of his equals in station, the mischievous laughter of this illiterate woman jarred upon him worse than his cousin's sarcasm. It was with a little dignity that he pointed out the fact that at present the child needed nourishment. "It's very young," he added. "I'm afraid it wants ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte
... vehemence, "It's far above instinct; it's REASON, and many a man, privileged to be saved and go with you and me to a better world by right of its possession, has less of it that this poor silly quadruped that's foreordained to perish"; and then he laughed, and said: "Why, look at me—I'm a sarcasm! bless you, with all my grand intelligence, the only think I inferred was that the dog had gone mad and was destroying the child, whereas but for the beast's intelligence—it's REASON, I tell you!—the child would ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... it, I ask you, when he comes down to breakfast dry of mouth, and touchy of temper— That gives him pause, and silences that scintillating barb of sarcasm on the tip of his tongue, With which he meant to impale you? It is the sweet aroma of the coffee-pot—the thrilling thought of that first ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... "Your sarcasm is uncalled for. I am quite willing to tell you, however, that we have been proceeding in the matter. You are aware, no doubt, of the recent space shot ...
— Ten From Infinity • Paul W. Fairman
... quarrel all day. When Manaswi remonstrated, saying that he wanted nothing better than to appear before the world with her as his wife, but that he really did not know what her father might do to him, she threw out a cutting sarcasm upon his effeminate appearance during the hours of light. She then told him of an unfortunate young woman in an old nursery tale who had unconsciously married a fiend that became a fine handsome man at night when no eye could see him, and utter ugliness by day when good looks show to advantage. ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton
... to be honest." It is a light, amusing and, at the name time, instructive story, with no tangle of love affairs, no scheme of blood-curdling scenes or nothing startling or sensational in the plot or characters. The story, however, may be regarded as a biting sarcasm on a hypocritical society in which a gang of instructors of dark character at a middle school in a backwoods town plays a prominent part. The hero of the story is made a victim of their annoying intrigues, but finally ...
— Botchan (Master Darling) • Mr. Kin-nosuke Natsume, trans. by Yasotaro Morri
... This sarcasm, if it had been in print, would probably have been dangerous. It was safe in a private letter, but it shows us his real feelings. However, he was left comparatively quiet for a time. He was getting an old man now, and passed the time studiously enough, partly at his house ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... their eyes still bright and their uniforms still fit. A month or two is all. Those crowds that cheered us, they were proud of us and sorry for us, because we'd been out thirty years and they never expected us back at all. But it was inconvenient for Spaceport." Bitter sarcasm tinged his voice. "They actually had to postpone the regular monthly Trans-Galactic run to let us in with ...
— Homesick • Lyn Venable
... said, with fine sarcasm. "What will them Kanetuckians do then? Don't you know, Gineral Richmond? Why, I'll tell you what they'll do. They'll jest swoop down on Lieutenant Boggs and gobble him up. Then they'll swoop down on Lieutenant Skaggs on Pigeon and gobble him up. ...
— Christmas Eve on Lonesome and Other Stories • John Fox, Jr.
... day, assailed Porson, and, with self-assumed superiority, thinking to annihilate the old Grecian, exclaimed "We have no opinion of his scholarship." Irate at this stupid pronunciamento against so renowned a man, young Landor looked up, and, with a sarcasm the point of which was not in the least blunted by age, retorted, "We, my Lord?" Of course such unheard of audacity and contempt of my Lord Bishop's capacity for criticism was severely reprobated by Landor Senior; but no amount ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... and exaggerated her weaknesses, and the strokes of sarcasm she could adroitly parry; but for persistent magnanimity she was no match, and recoiled before it like the traditional Fiend at sight of the Santo Sudario. Watching her companion's quiet countenance, she saw a shadow drift over ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... to word long conversations with these two; noiseless conversations, be it understood, in which the snappy dialogue went unuttered. His sarcasm to Bulger in the matter of that ten-dollar loan was biting, ruthless, witty, invariably leaving the debtor in direst confusion with nothing to retort. Bean always had the last word, both with Bulger and Breede, turning from them ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson
... exclaimed Dolly, with withering sarcasm; "oh, a most amazing masterpiece, I'll be bound! His worship the French Ambassador is a kitten at diplomacy beside you, sir. An hour and a half, did you say, sir? Gemini, the Secretary of State and his whole corps could not have composed the like ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... swung her away from him, until he was holding her at arm's length. He looked at her, from between narrowed lids, and there was bitter sarcasm in ...
— The Island of Faith • Margaret E. Sangster
... O placid, unconscious sarcasm! innocent as flowers: wise end, truly, of all earthly ambition! How much more distinguished, after all, Captain Leezur, the spireless grave waiting down there in the little home lot by the sea. Since five-cent suppers do not enrich the donor, ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... said Mr. Prendergast; and as he spoke, Captain Donnellan's ear could detect that there was something approaching to sarcasm in the tone of the old man's voice. The Captain was quite sure that his friend would not be even at the heel of the hunt that day; and without further compunction proceeded to fasten his buckskin gloves round his wrists. The meet was so near ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... could be induced to accept. 'The rights of men and the new principles of liberty and equality,' Burke said, 'were very unhandy instruments for those who wished to establish a system of tranquillity and order. The factions,' he added with fierce sarcasm, 'were to accomplish the purposes of order, morality, and submission to the laws, from the principles of atheism, profligacy, and sedition. They endeavoured to establish distinctions, by the belief of which they hoped to keep the spirit of murder safely bottled up and sealed for their own ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3) - Essay 1: Robespierre • John Morley
... well for a blind girl," persisted Agnes, with a touch of sarcasm in her voice; "give ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... side, was sorry that he had exposed her to the sarcasm that she so little understood, and talked to Madame Duvet ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... circumstances. Although descended from New England's finest stock, Miss Woodhull also possessed her full share of the New Englander's nervous irritability which all the good breeding and discipline ever brought to bear can never wholly eradicate. Her sarcasm and irony had caused more than one girl's cheeks to grow crimson and her blood to boil under their stinging injustice, for Miss Woodhull did not invariably get to the root of things. She was a trifle superior to minor details. But Aileen possessed an armor to combat ...
— A Dixie School Girl • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... imagined, Voltaire had slight sympathy with our social reformer's notions and ways of promulgating them, and accordingly took up his wonted weapons—sarcasm and ridicule—against poor Jean-Jacques. The quarrels of these two great men cannot be described in this place; but they constitute an important chapter in the literary and social history of the time. In the work with which we are immediately concerned, the author ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... I beg your pardon. We must be calm. (Resumes his seat) But God will not stop breathing (with bitter sarcasm) though your daughter—and my wife—is dying. (Mrs. Clemm weeps. He turns to the window) Do you know that elephants once nibbled boughs out there where the snow is falling? They ran a mighty race—and died—but ...
— Semiramis and Other Plays - Semiramis, Carlotta And The Poet • Olive Tilford Dargan
... "the very words, and to the self-same tune," would prove just as well that whatever is, is wrong, as that whatever is, is right. The Dunciad has splendid passages, but in general it is dull, heavy, and mechanical. The sarcasm already quoted on Settle, the Lord Mayor's poet, (for at that time there was a city as ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... your beastly sarcasm, Babe,' said Vaughan, 'but, speaking for self and partner, I don't know how we should get on if we didn't blow off steam occasionally ...
— The Pothunters • P. G. Wodehouse
... most distinguished! that the works of no other prose writer of their time exhibit a zest for political satire equal to that which is displayed in the Letters of Junius, and in the Memoires and Political Letters of Walpole and that the sarcasm of equivocal praise was the favourite weapon in the armoury of each, though it certainly appears to have been tempered, and sharpened, and polished with additional care for the hand of Junius? When did Francis ever deal in compliment or in equivoque? In his vituperation there ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... it? If he retained a hold on her, he could undoubtedly apply the scourge at leisure; any kind of scourge; he could shun her, look on her frigidly, unbend to her to find a warmer place for sarcasm, pityingly smile, ridicule, pay court elsewhere. He could do these things if he retained a hold on her; and he could do them well because of the faith he had in his renowned amiability; for in doing them, he could ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... touch, all supernatural systems of theology, and proceed to construct purely natural systems in their place as devoid of vitality and inspiration as dead tree-trunks are of vital saps. So conceive this dramatic monologue, and the baleful humor appears, and is captivating in its biting sarcasm and unanswerable argument. Caliban is, in his own opinion, omniscient. He trusts himself absolutely. He is as infallible as the Positivists, and as full of information as the Agnostics, absurd as such an attitude on their part must appear; ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... reward now, mother," broke in Leonard testily, for the veiled sarcasm of Soa's speech had stung him, "unless, indeed, you can cure me of the fever," he added ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... sarcasm in her voice? It hadn't been more than a couple of hours ago that he had been hinting rather heavily to Sid Jakes ...
— Ultima Thule • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... this day, must have been born with nothing less than genius—genius to observe, to narrate, and to judge. Even had he written as a mere recluse and critic, looking out upon his world from a monk's cell or from the corner of a housetop, the vividness, the tenderness, the sarcasm and the humour would still have been there. But Knox's genius was predominantly practical; and the difference between the transformation which befell him, and that which changed so many other men in his time, was that in Knox's case it changed one who was born to be a statesman. ...
— John Knox • A. Taylor Innes
... it for bringing the blessing," said Mr. Fuller in a tone that Julius liked even less than the mere hopeless faint- heartedness, for in it there was sarcasm on faith in aught but ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Dick Hunt, mebbe you know more'n I do about it," retorted Jimmy, with withering sarcasm, little suspecting how much more his brother did know. "Mebbe you heard what Nan said to ma ...
— The Bishop's Shadow • I. T. Thurston
... most part, they are as ignorant of the large onward push of human thought as if they were farmers in some remote county of Arkansas. And yet they affect, at all times, an amusing omniscience. To "know it all" is a phrase beloved as sarcasm by their nimble vernacular, and though this (like "Come off!" and "Look here, what are you giving us?") is a form of speech incessantly on their lips, one is prone sometimes to reflect how amazing is the meagreness ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 24, November, 1891 • Various
... have, the opportunities in life they ought to have; if you don't want to wait yourselves,—write on your banner, so that every political trimmer can read it, so that every politician, no matter how short-sighted he may be, can read it, "WE NEVER FORGET! If you launch the arrow of sarcasm at labor, WE NEVER FORGET! If there is a division in Congress, and you throw your vote in the wrong scale, WE NEVER FORGET! You may go down on your knees, and say, 'I am sorry I did the act'—but ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... much of the success you covet you will be ready enough to forget my existence. What induces you to think that a simple girl like me can help you? It seems to me that you are vague and visionary, which perhaps is natural, since you say you are just awaking," she concluded, with a little smiling sarcasm. ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... interrupted Jellyband, with biting sarcasm, "as you're a personal friend of Mr. Pitt, and as you says along with Mr. Fox: 'Let ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... the strength then of the buffalo's foot,[cw] When he spurns high the dust, beholding his Near enemy; or let me have the long And patient swiftness of the desert-ship, The helmless dromedary!—and I'll bear[cx] Thy fiendish sarcasm with ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... of penetration came into Mrs. Rolleston's face, and, with more sarcasm in her voice than Bluebell's little speech appeared to justify, ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... or two before to prove how much better it would be for me to get off three days before Collections and so obtain another whole week in the bosom of my family at Cannes! No doubt Jowett's system of controlling the recalcitrant portions of the College through sarcasm was well meant and occasionally fairly successful. Taking it as a whole, however, I felt then, as I feel now, that sarcasm is the one weapon which it is never right or useful to use in the case of persons who are in the dependent position when compared with ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... repeated the Governor, paling, and a man behind him took up the words and said them over with a fine sarcasm, "To invade ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... with bitter sarcasm, "poor Yavapai Joe is not so much different from hundreds of men that I know. By their ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright
... near, and her eye flashes; but he gives her as wide a berth as he can, returning her glare with a propitiatory drunken smile and a wink to the passengers to let them into the fun. In fact, he is full of humor in his tipsy way, and one after another falls the prey of his free sarcasm, which does not spare the boat or any feature of the excursion. He holds for a long time, by swiftly successive stories of his seafaring days, a very quiet gentleman, who dares neither laugh too ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... sarcasm. "Glad to see his back. Well, no use, Cap'n, I've got to think up some notion to keep him from comin' here. How would it do to run up a signal 'Small-pox aboard,' or somethin' like that? Think that would keep him off?... No, he's a doctor, ain't he? All he'd read out of ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... as prophet-like and as vital—a mien as dauntless and as daring. Is the satirist of "Vanity Fair" admired in high places? I cannot tell; but I think if some of those amongst whom he hurls the Greek fire of his sarcasm, and over whom he flashes the levin-brand of his denunciation, were to take his warnings in time—they or their seed might ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... you were not,' said the stranger; an expression of quiet sarcasm playing about his mouth; 'or you have known my name. You don't know it. I would recommend you not to ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... was his. He is a mixture of gloom and sarcasm, chastened, however, by good breeding, and with a vein of original genius that makes some atonement for the unheroic and uncongenial cast of his whole mind. It is a mind that never conveys the idea of sunshine. It is a dark ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley
... gift was a startling thing in a world which, as far as cultivated heathenism was concerned, might rightly be called aristocratic, and by the side of a religion of privilege into which Judaism had degenerated. The supercilious sarcasm in the lips of Pharisees, 'This people which knoweth not the law are cursed,' but too truly expresses the gulf between the Rabbis and the 'folk of the earth' as the masses were commonly and contemptuously designated by the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... accordingly both Houses, after some sharp resistance in the Lords', gravely enacted that the importation of Irish beef into England was "a nuisance," to be abated. From this period most probably dates the famous English sarcasm ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... poor Marika's heart or tone, but the slight hesitation in her speech was in itself sarcasm enough. With the aid of her friend Petko, the poor bereaved, heart-stricken woman succeeded in making her way to Russian headquarters, where her sad tale, and the memory of her heroic husband, at once obtained for her employment as a nurse in the large hospital where I had already ...
— In the Track of the Troops • R.M. Ballantyne
... off a-worrittin' them. I don't know how 'tis among the Mormons." The last words were said in an undertone and he had dropped his eyes. It would have required a brave man to treat Susannah to open sarcasm. ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... and struck into the by-road through the hills. He shook hands with Vandyke before he went,—a thing he scarce ever did with anybody. Knowles noticed it, and, after he was out of hearing, mumbled out some sarcasm at "a minister of the gospel consorting with a cold, silent scoundrel like that!" Vandyke listened to his scolding in his usual lazy way, and they went back ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... respectability and happy hazard—we have seen all this in Balzac. The Opera with its lemans, the pink boudoir and its flossy hangings, the feast and its surfeits; we have even seen Moliere's doctor reappear, such need has this man of sarcasm and grotesqueness. The further you advance in the Shagreen Skin—vices, lost virtues, poverties, boredom, deep silence, dry-as-dust science, angular, witless scepticism, laughable egotism, puerile vanities, venal loves, Jewish second-hand dealers, etc.—the more astonished and ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... got ever so much handsomer since his father came home," said Dan, with a killing sarcasm that was wholly lost on Felicity, who gravely responded that she supposed it was because Peter felt so much ...
— The Golden Road • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... his wife, and then turned quickly toward his brother. As for Joseph, at first and for several moments, he gave no sign that he had heard at all. Then he slowly raised his eyes to his brother's face with a deliberate, cruel gaze of contemptuous sarcasm and cold aversion. The first effect of this great relief was to flood his mind with bitter wrath at those who had done him the great wrong from which, no thanks to them, ...
— Two Days' Solitary Imprisonment - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... "For what," said he, "is a town without canals?—it is like a body without veins and arteries, and must perish for want of a free circulation of the vital fluid."—Ten Breeches, on the contrary, retorted with a sarcasm upon his antagonist, who was somewhat of an arid, dry-boded habit; he remarked, that as to the circulation of the blood being necessary to existence, Mynheer Tough Breeches was a living contradiction to his own assertion; for everybody knew there had not a drop of blood circulated through ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... intended as a sarcastic reminder of the disregard shown to her by the cavaliere the evening before; but the sarcasm was quite thrown away upon Trenta; he was ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... [20] Verily, Peters's sarcasm savors as much of truth as humor when, speaking of bundling, he says: "The Indians who had this method of courtship among them in 1634, are the most chaste set of people in the world. Concubinage and fornication are vices none of them are addicted to, except such as forsake ...
— Bundling; Its Origin, Progress and Decline in America • Henry Reed Stiles
... what comes to all the daughters of men who outlive youth and its shadowy triumphs. Her brain was ironic, while her temperament was passionate, and greedy in its pursuit of the food it clamoured for; her brain watched the unceasing chase with almost a bitterness of sarcasm, merging sometimes into a bitterness of pity. In some women there seems at times to be a dual personality, a woman of the blood at odds with a woman of the grey matter. It was so in Lady Sellingworth's ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... trace of sarcasm in this outburst? Serena was, for the moment, suspicious. She tried her hardest to look ...
— Cap'n Dan's Daughter • Joseph C. Lincoln
... with much excitement, Miss Deemas listened with quiet composure, and then said with grim sarcasm, ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... yet, Harry!" The father's delight and pride in his superior legal knowledge over his son, became at last a standing joke with the barristers of the Court. The death of Lord Erskine blighted Henry Cooper's hopes to a seat in Parliament, where his eloquence and sarcasm would have made him powerful as an ally, and feared as an antagonist; liberal in his opinions to the present exclusive system of the church, he was a decided enemy, and a thorough reformer in the state. His services at a crisis like the present, would have been ...
— A Sketch of the Life of the late Henry Cooper - Barrister-at-Law, of the Norfolk Circuit; as also, of his Father • William Cooper
... proved a certain measure of chastisement in the mere fact of existence; having recognized that, death is a deliverance—when they brought him a sick man he cured him; he had cordials and beverages to prolong the lives of the old. He put lame cripples on their legs again, and hurled this sarcasm at them, "There, you are on your paws once more; may you walk long in this valley of tears!" When he saw a poor man dying of hunger, he gave him all the pence he had about him, growling out, "Live on, you wretch! eat! last a long time! It is not ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... "Slip the halter on that calf behind there. The mother hasn't enough to keep it alive. There's har'ly a dollar's wort' of hide on its bones, but I'll take it to save it droppin' on the road." Or, he would try sarcasm: "Well, we'll be shuttin' her down in the spring. Then ye can go round be Walter's Ferry and see if they'll trust ye there." Or: "Why wasn't ye workin' on the Ditch last winter? Settin' smokin' your poipe ...
— The Desert and The Sown • Mary Hallock Foote
... the clubs and "circles" people speak more freely. There one sometimes hears the entire diplomatic service ridiculed with cynical sarcasm by those of inferior rank, and the superiors listen smilingly, as though regretting that their higher dignity forbade them this freedom of speech. In these circles many a sharp word would sometimes escape me too, in regard to the structure of national prosperity, still ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... not usually go round on his bended knees asking candidates to run for Congress," I answered, with mild sarcasm. ...
— The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant
... as an orator, rose and asked the people to hear him. He began his speech by saying that this young man would have to be taken down, and he was sorry that the task devolved upon him. He made what was called one of his 'slasher-gaff' speeches, dealing much in ridicule and sarcasm. Lincoln stood near him, with his arms folded, never interrupting him. When Forquer was done, Lincoln walked to the stand, and replied so fully and completely that his friends bore him from ...
— McClure's Magazine, March, 1896, Vol. VI., No. 4. • Various
... license having, I suppose, become wearisome), the sciences are confined to certain and prescribed authors, and thus restrained are imposed upon the old and instilled into the young; so that now (to use the sarcasm of Cicero concerning Caesar's year) the constellation of Lyra rises by edict, and authority is taken for truth, not truth for authority. Which kind of institution and discipline is excellent for present use, but precludes all prospect of improvement. For we copy the sin of ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church
... power for making that influence constantly better and finer. In business, farmer, and school circles in the Middle West Mr. Clark is famous for his whimsical, inspiring speeches. His quick, shaft-like humor, his keen, devastating sarcasm, and his rare, resilient sympathy have made him a personality beloved ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... another (the ninth). The reason I want the stanzas again which I sent you is, that as these cantos contain a full detail (like the storm in Canto Second) of the siege and assault of Ismael, with much of sarcasm on those butchers in large business, your mercenary soldiery, it is a good opportunity of gracing the poem with * * *. With these things and these fellows, it is necessary, in the present clash of philosophy and tyranny, to throw away the ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... strike at the unfortunate! The Book of Job is the finest piece of literary work known to the world, and it is mainly taken up with a picture of the treatment which the Arabian patriarch met with at the hands of his friends. People do not look for sarcasm in the Bible, but the unconscious lofty sarcasm of Job is so terrible, that it shows how a mighty intellect may be driven by bitter wrong into transcendencies of wrath and scorn. "Ye are the people, and wisdom shall die with you." ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... Ritz. Jazz is very young: like short skirts, it suits thin, girlish legs, but has a slightly humiliating effect on grey hairs. Its fears and dislikes—for instance, its horror of the noble and the beautiful—are childish; and so is its way of expressing them. Not by irony and sarcasm, but by jeers and grimaces does Jazz mark its antipathies. Irony and wit are for the grown-ups. Jazz dislikes them as much as it dislikes nobility and beauty. They are the products of the cultivated intellect, and Jazz cannot away with intellect or culture. Niggers can ...
— Since Cezanne • Clive Bell
... course you cannot, you sweet innocent," retorted Mendouca, with fine sarcasm, "for the simple reason, as I say, that the British are altogether too trustful and confiding to see treachery or double-dealing until it is thrust openly in their faces. You are altogether too simple and unsuspicious, you navy men, to deal with the tricks and ruses ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood
... diligence, as if diligence and he were not familiars;' and the fact that Raleigh would sometimes write twice and thrice to him in one day, and on a single occasion at least, four times, proves that Cecil had a right to use this mild sarcasm. Several months before, Raleigh had attempted by his manifesto entitled The Spanish Alarum to stir up the Government to be in full readiness to guard against a revengeful invasion of England by her old enemy. He had thought out the ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... some comments from Dupin) at the bureau of the Prefect of Police. This functionary, however well disposed to my friend, could not altogether conceal his chagrin at the turn which affairs had taken, and was fain to indulge in a sarcasm or two, about the propriety of every person minding his ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... credence among those who wield the power of putting them to good account. M. Bratiano's appropriate attitude may be described as statuesque. Occasionally his Press organs commented upon the manifestations of the interventionists in words barbed with bitter sarcasm and utilitarian maxims. "Roumania's blood and money," the Independence Roumaine explained, "must be spent only in the furtherance of Roumania's interest." Her cause must be dissociated from that of the belligerents. To this Take Jonescu replied[101] that it is precisely ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... Empress Dowager, was on most friendly terms with the wife of the Minister of the United States of America, and on one occasion gave her as a gift a set of combs enclosed within a box of silver. The foreign lady was delighted, and did not see the delicate sarcasm hidden within the present. Combs— the foreign ladies need them! We Chinese like the locks most smoothly brushed and made to glisten and shine with the scented elm, but they, the foreign ladies, allow them to straggle in rude disorder around their long, grave ...
— My Lady of the Chinese Courtyard • Elizabeth Cooper
... school—I was coming home from—when I got my motto!" she remarked dryly, with a wink at no one in particular. "And, so far as I know," she proceeded with increasing sarcasm, "the man who inspired my noble life was not in any way—particularly addicted to the use of alcoholic beverages!" As though her collar was suddenly too tight she rammed her finger down between her stiff white neck-band and her soft white throat. ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... tone growing more friendly, though it still betrayed a slight shade of sarcasm. "A cavalier he is, and a perfect cavalier, that is beyond dispute. But nobleman? My dear Effi, a nobleman has a different look. Have you ever noticed anything noble about him? ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... door briskly and shut it briskly. With a calm step and fearless look, both studied, for I copied Doe in these matters, I walked towards Carpet Slippers. The little man was pretending he had forgotten all about me, while really he had prepared a sarcasm with which to poison ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... and struggled with words before he could speak. "Do you mean to tell me you're allowing any ladee"—he put exquisite inflection of sarcasm on the word—"to stand betwixt you and your duty, when that duty is plain? Latisan, they tell me that you're a sapgag where women are concerned. I'm told that you have been down to the ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... Number II!" There were implications of sarcasm in this which greatly displeased Mrs. Van Kuyp. They strolled on slowly. It was a melodious summer night; mauve haze screened all but the exquisite large stars. Soothed despite rebellion, Alixe told herself sharply that in every duel with this man she was worsted. He said things ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... less feared by the very urchins who dogged his steps and made sport of him at a respectful distance shot from his eye as he glowered back at me from the open door. But he hastily suppressed this sign of displeasure and replied with the faintest tinge of sarcasm: ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... magnificent action of his arm which I am inclined to think was not innocent of irony. On the dish before the master of the house,—a large dish which must I fancy have been selected by the cook with some similar attempt at sarcasm,—there reposed three scraps, as to the nature of which Mr. Dockwrath, though he looked hard at them, was unable to enlighten himself. But Mr. Mason knew them well, as he now placed his eyes on ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... other; he would crouch and bend as if he were going to spring upon the audience, a long, skinny finger would be shaken before their faces, or pointed as if to drive his words into their hearts. His speech was a torrent of epigram, sarcasm, invective. He was bitter; if you knew nothing about the man or his cause, you would find this repellent and shocking. You had to know what his life had been—an unceasing conflict with oppression; he had got his Socialist education in jail, where he had been sent for trying to organize the wage-slaves ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... Naturally, also, Oline made no secret of her dissatisfaction with the finding of the court, more especially when she happened to fall out with her master, Axel, over any little trifle. Then she would deliver herself, in the old soft-spoken way, of much deep and bitter sarcasm. "Ay, 'tis strange how the law's changed these days, for all the wickedness of Sodom and Gomorrah; but the word of the Lord's my guide, as ever was, and a blessed refuge for ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun
... began: 'Darling Heinrich,—Your last letter was so cheerful that I have quite recovered from my depression. It may not be so long now before ...' and so on, like the other letters that I had read. It grinned at us there with a devilish sarcasm, but its trousers and boots were pitiful and human. The men finished the grave and then, with their feet, turned it over. As it rolled a flood of bright yellow insects swarmed out of its jacket, and a grey liquid trickled out of the skull. The last I saw ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... citizens. He's quite intelligent, and has even been mentioned for a constable—if Marsden should ever need one. If enough city people should come here to warrant such an office," finished the lady, with unconscious sarcasm. ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond
... husband knew that his wife would be the first woman to rise to speak next Wednesday evening. This much he intimated to Graves. An expression of sarcasm flitted over the clergyman's countenance, but it quickly vanished—Graves was trying to add to his strong friends that day. He only remarked that he hoped it would be settled amicably. The ...
— Tess of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... sarcasm, and flushed with wine, I forgot my prudence. Snatching the guitar from him, after a prelude which created the greatest astonishment of all present, I commenced one of my most successful airs: I sang it in my best style, and it electrified the whole party. Shouts proclaimed ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... attitude of mind is not straightforward and sincere, if he speaks with a double meaning, in irony or sarcasm, the stress is a combination of the radical and final, known as compound stress (><). This is analogous to the compound inflection. See ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... idea of the world of despair as when I read ultra anti-slavery speeches. I see how the lost will hate God's mysterious providence, and revile it; and how they will fight with each other, and pour out their furious invective and sarcasm and vituperation, and scourge one another with their fiery tongues, as they now do, when some one of the party appears to falter. If there were not something truly good in connection with slavery amid all its evils, I think such ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams
... even the meaning of the word Fronde; but here also the French and Flemish histories run parallel, and the Frondeurs, like the Gueux, were children of a sarcasm. The Counsellor Bachaumont one day ridiculed insurrectionists, as resembling the boys who played with slings (frondes) about the streets of Paris, but scattered at the first glimpse of a policeman. The phrase organized the party. Next morning all fashions ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... blurted out his incredulity had a great deal to say for himself from the common-sense and worldly point of view. But he need not have sneered, in the same breath, at old miracles and new. His sarcasm about 'windows in heaven' refers to the story of the flood; and perhaps there is a hint of allusion to the manna. He neither believed these ancient deeds, nor the promise for to-morrow. Why not? Simply because he—wise as he thought himself—could not see any way of bringing ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... touch the better feelings of our fellow-creatures we must be able to reach up to them, or by reason of our low stature we may succeed only in appealing to the lowest in them, in spite of our tiptoe good intentions. Is that why such appeals too often meet with bitter sarcasm and indignation? ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... the county at this time was one Dick Taylor, a most pompous person, who was always arrayed in the richest attire—ruffled shirts, seals, etc., besides a rich embroidered vest. Notwithstanding this array, he made great pretentions of being one of the 'hard-handed yeomanry,' and ridiculed with much sarcasm the 'rag barons' and 'manufacturing lords' of the Whig party. One day, when he was particularly aggravating in a speech of this kind, Lincoln decided on a little sport, and sidling up to Taylor suddenly threw open the latter's coat, showing to the astonished spectators a glittering mass of ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... Higher life, and plainly the Higher life has no need of him. Of course,' he added with covert satire, 'your Highness believes in a Higher life?' 'Of course, of course!' responded the Royal creature, unconscious of any veiled sarcasm; 'We must be Christians before anything!' And that same evening this hypocritical Highness 'rooked' a foolish young fellow of ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... leaky roof, but in the north wing which I had supposed was uninhabited. My janitor tells me this. By chance, he is almost sober this evening. The butcher on the rue de Seine, where I bought your meat, knows you, and old Cabane the baker identified you with needless sarcasm. They tell me hard tales of your mistress which I shall not believe. They say she is idle and vain and pleasure-loving; they say she is hare-brained and reckless. The little sculptor on the ground floor, who was buying ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers
... reading as colourless as possible, but she could not keep a certain touch of sarcasm out of her voice as she read aloud the first ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes
... shone with safety. People enjoyed his hospitality, for they knew that it was disinterested; and admired his acquirements, for they felt that they were unobtrusive. Sometimes (as in his dialogue with the Cynic) the whim of the moment, or the sting of a sarcasm, drew from him a hint at his station, or a display of his eccentricities; but, as he was always the first soon afterwards to lead the laugh at his own outbreak, his credit as a noble suffered nothing by his infirmity as a man. Gaily and attractively he moved in all grades of the ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... from behind the counter, faced the lanky figure before him, with deliberate contempt. "You're a mighty stiff-backed boy in the daytime, you are, Walt Wagner, but in the dark—" He halted and his mouth curled in bitterest sarcasm. "Why, if you're so anxious for a scrap, don't you run for marshal? Why don't you take the job right now and put Pete out of business?" And his ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge
... proverb says, that the dart of contempt will even pierce through the shell of the tortoise; but this is more peculiarly the case when conscience tells the subject of the sarcasm that it is justly merited. Christian, stung with Buckingham's reproach, at once assumed a haughty and threatening mien, totally inconsistent with that in which sufferance seemed to be as much his badge as that of Shylock. "You are a foul-mouthed and most unworthy lord," ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... the field the chase is not wholly confined to objects ferae nature," said Guy, darting a significant glance at his companion. Flora did not shrink either from the glance or the meaning implied in the sarcasm. ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... to sarcasm. "He has taken his friends to the old man who makes the thunder," he said. But others did not feel sarcastic, and one observed, "Cheschapah knows more ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... impossible to put in print the peculiar humor of pathetic regret, of sarcasm born of contempt, of intolerant intellectual pride, that marked the last sentence, which was addressed to the dog, as though the speaker turned from his human companion to ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright
... "To know me at my best, you ought to be around when I make biscuit. My heavy biscuit are simply monuments of the baker's art. They are warranted to withstand any climate, and defy the ravaging tooth of time. They can turn the edge of sarcasm, and have that quality of mercy which endureth forever. A quartz-crusher turns pale at sight of them, and they supply a permanent filling for aching voids or long-felt wants. In fact, gentlemen, it is universally acknowledged that ...
— Raftmates - A Story of the Great River • Kirk Munroe
... engaged, and every single division had been beaten back. For four days, according to General Pope, they had been following a flying foe. "We were sent forward," reported a regimental commander with quiet sarcasm, "to pursue the enemy, who was said to be retreating; we found the enemy, but ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... that uses up nerve force so quickly as excitement. This is why an irritable person is never magnetic; he is never admired or loved; he does not develop those finer qualities that a real gentleman possesses. Anger, sarcasm and excitement weaken a person in this direction. The person that allows himself to get excited will become nervous in time, because he uses up his nerve forces and his vital energies. The person that cannot control himself and keep ...
— The Power of Concentration • Theron Q. Dumont
... He never uttered one sarcasm, one reproach for Scott's foolishness; he sat grim and rusty as the iron that he once dealt in, listening to what Scott had to tell him, never opening that cragged jaw, never unclosing that thin line of cleavage ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... for some moments in silent thought, one small foot tapping nervously the while, a sure sign of irritation with her. At last she said, slowly, and with an undertone of sarcasm, that she made a futile effort ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... all this vehement stir was very extravagant and incomprehensible, and no doubt they thought it was done for excitement; certainly they gave us credit for that, and a great deal more. They did not esteem us better than themselves and consequently we had the full benefit of their sarcasm and invective. ...
— From Death into Life - or, twenty years of my ministry • William Haslam
... composer was happier. He devoutly loved his country and despite his sarcasm was fond of his countrymen. Never an extravagant man, he invariably assisted the Poles. After 1834- 5, Chopin's activity as a public pianist began to wane. He was not always understood and was not so warmly welcomed as he deserved to be; on one occasion ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... onct," replied Frenchy with sarcasm. "Went and lugged fifty pound of it all th' way to th' assay office—took me two days! an' that there four-eyed cuss looks at it and snickers. Then he takes me by di' arm an' leads me to th' window. 'See that pile, my friend? That's all like yourn,' sez he. 'It's worth ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford
... never thought of it. Only a girl could originate such a brilliant idea." The assumed sarcasm of Graham's rejoinder could not conceal his pleasure, and Ruth flashed a satisfied glance at Peggy, who met it with a ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith |
