"Foolish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... tell you, Ada,' said her husband, with suppressed passion, 'that by your foolish weakness you have deprived them of a great pleasure. It is not often that I can spare time to go out with them, but as I have had some tickets given me to go to a panorama, I have, at great inconvenience, come home, in ...
— Aunt Mary • Mrs. Perring
... powerful. Accident! What could be more of an accident than life itself? Then came the last sting. The woman whom he loved, should she become his wife, would never know her name; his children—but how vain and foolish was such a questioning. Was his name worth preserving? Should he not rejoice in the thought that he had thrown it off? He stopped on a corner and stood in an old doorway, where he had blacked shoes. "George Witherspoon is right, and I have been a fool," he said. "Nature despises ...
— The Colossus - A Novel • Opie Read
... my presence is needed here if you intend to murder that fellow, doctor," Murden said, good naturedly, addressing O'Haraty, who kept his position, looking somewhat foolish ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... served under Marlborough, to view with dissatisfaction and suspicion the feeble and tardy movements of Lord Mar. Yet a hearty well-wisher to any cause would have abstained from infusing distrust into those counsels which, whether wise or foolish, were destined to guide the adherents of the party. A man of honour will enter, heart and soul, into what he undertakes, or not enter at all. The conduct of Sinclair was that of a mean, morose spirit; and it is but fair ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson
... pages to justify her belief—that she has traced the parentage of one Dorothy, a foundling! Indeed! Why, Seth, those people up in that unhappy Nova Scotia—unhappy to be afflicted with two such foolish visitors—they think themselves detectives fit to rank with the world's greatest. I thought Schuyler had some sense if Lucretia hadn't. If they weren't already there I'd bid them both 'go to Halifax' ...
— Dorothy's Travels • Evelyn Raymond
... weapons of prey in his pouch; The bait, the line and the hook: To feed on his fellows intent. God of the Danae shower, He had but to follow his bent. He battened on fowl not safely hutched, On sheep astray from the crook; A lure for the foolish in fold: To carrion turning what flesh he touched. And O the grace of his air, As he at the goblet sips, A centre of girdles loosed, With their grisly label, Sold! Credulous hears the fidelity swear, Which has roving eyes over yielded lips: To-morrow will ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... character and significance. Liberals who had been bored and provoked by the incessant blunders of the Liberal ministry in its last years, and, like Matthew Arnold, had welcomed a change of government, soon began to see that they had exchanged what was merely fatuous and foolish for what was actively mischievous. They were forced to ask themselves how much of the political faith which they had professed was "real stuff," and how much was "claptrap." Disraeli soon taught them that, even when all "claptrap" was laid aside, the "real stuff" of Liberalism—its ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... Scripture expressly assures us that God is the absolute master of the human will and, if He so chooses, can bend it under His yoke without using physical force. Cfr. Prov. XXI, 1: "The heart of the king is in the hand of the Lord: whithersoever he will, he shall turn it." "Who will be so foolish as to say," queries St. Augustine, "that God cannot change the evil wills of men, whichever, whenever, and wheresoever He chooses, and direct them to what is good?"(29) It is but rarely, of course, that God grants to any man a summary victory over his sinful ...
— Grace, Actual and Habitual • Joseph Pohle
... played him false. There are other men who have had their moment of funk, but, as the matter never came under the official eyes, they have made good since—ended up as V.C.'s, some of 'em. Facts are often very foolish things, to my mind. Motives, and circumstances, even conditions of physical health, are bound to play as big a part as facts, if you're going to administer pure justice. But the army can't consider the super-administration of justice"—smiling. ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... here, and I have no intention of raking my memory for their ashes. The battle on the one side with the anti-Unitarians who regard "monology" as a fond thing vainly invented, and on the other with Edmond de Goncourt's foolish and bumptious boast that Flaubert's epithets were not so "personal" as his own and his brother's, would be for a different division of literary history. But there is something—a very important, though not a ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... a magic lamp, like Aladdin, and wish yourself there with our merry young sextette. For California is a lovely land and a strange one, even at this late day, when her character has been nearly ruined by dreadful stories, or made ridiculous by foolish ones. ...
— A Summer in a Canyon: A California Story • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... indulge in the foolish hope that with the deductions of this section we should be able suddenly to win over any of the decided adversaries of faith in providence and miracles. For, as we have had occasion to remind the reader, the acknowledgment or the non-acknowledgment of God and his living government in the world ...
— The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and Morality • Rudolf Schmid
... newspapers," I observed, "restricting itself to governing while publicity and polemics are the rule, reminds one of the knights of the fifteenth century who obstinately persisted in fighting against cannon with swords; they were always beaten. I grant that it was noble; you will grant that it was foolish." ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo
... completely touched. She wondered what possible thing Nancy could have purchased for her. She had a wild desire to know what it was. She determined then and there, in her foolish little heart, that nothing would induce her to quarrel ...
— Girls of the Forest • L. T. Meade
... be proud that is not valiant? Foolish Woman, what would'st thou say? thou— know ...
— The Laws of Candy - Beaumont & Fletcher's Works (3 of 10) • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... the search began for the great unity which underlay the atoms of matter. The difficulty of the search may be illustrated by a few figures. Very delicate methods were invented for calculating the size of the atoms. Laymen are apt to smile—it is a very foolish smile—at these figures, but it is enough to say that the independent and even more delicate methods suggested by recent progress in physics have ...
— The Story of Evolution • Joseph McCabe
... not to have been,' she said. 'Your father had a lot of money when he came of age, but he was foolish enough to spend it all, and the consequence was that nothing remained for your mother, or for you when ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... resorts is abominably sour. Travellers do eat it, because they have no other, but to invalids it is positively nauseous. In our opinion it is the only real drawback to enjoying a Pyrenean trip! But it would be foolish to bring it into such prominence when we have all along recommended a stay amid these lovely scenes, unless we could suggest a remedy, and the remedy is as simple as, with us, it proved complete. There ...
— Twixt France and Spain • E. Ernest Bilbrough
... of respectable offices of this kind now, but it cannot be hidden that there have been establishments so called which have been little better than dens of thievery, the proprietors caring only to net all the half-crowns and eighteen-pences they could extract from the poor people who were foolish enough ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... very foolish question, a very foolish question, indeed," assented Mr. Toad. "Do you know that Sammy Jay and Blacky the Crow and Reddy Fox and Shadow the Weasel, who have not been invited, are planning to break up the party and then gobble up all the good things ...
— The Adventures of Unc' Billy Possum • Thornton W. Burgess
... Sentaro very much, and he thought how foolish it was to waste more time in looking for the hermits in this way, so he decided to go at once to the shrine of Jofuku, who is worshiped as the patron god of the hermits in the south ...
— Japanese Fairy Tales • Yei Theodora Ozaki
... know what you are saying. You are saying, "Well, I don't see how anybody could be as big a fool as that!" And yet, do you know that people are just as foolish to-day? Jesus told that parable to help us, too. The kingdom of heaven is just as close to you and to me; the greatest King of all—that's Jesus—is inviting boys and men to come in to the feast of usefulness and ...
— "Say Fellows—" - Fifty Practical Talks with Boys on Life's Big Issues • Wade C. Smith
... conjecture. It is not alone that the voices of statesmen and of newspapers reach me, and that the voices of foolish and intemperate agitators do not reach me at all. Through many, many channels I have been made aware what the plain, struggling, workaday folk are thinking, upon whom the chief terror and suffering of this tragic war fall. They are looking to the great, powerful, ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... he rose from the table, and mounting the ladder, "On second thought," said he, addressing Skysail again, "I won't throw the cats overboard; the sailors have a foolish superstition about that animal—its d——d unlucky. No; put them alive in a bread-bag, and send them on ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... your eyes and mine are never destined to see that miracle. The dismemberment of this vast country without convulsion! The breaking up of the fountains of the great deep without ruffling the surface! Who is so foolish, I beg everybody's pardon, as to expect to see any such thing? Sir, he who sees these States, now revolving in harmony around a common centre, and expects to see them quit their places and fly off without convulsion, may look the next hour to see the heavenly bodies rush ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... prejudices, was not so foolish as to desire a return of times like that. He had undergone privation himself in youth, for farmers' sons were but a little better off than plough-lads even in his early days; and he did not wish to make money by another man's suffering. ...
— Round About a Great Estate • Richard Jefferies
... crowd let out a cyclonic, roaring cheer. It was a foolish thing to do, for it might have rattled the young football player. But Prescott paid no attention to the racket, and kept on lowering ...
— The High School Left End - Dick & Co. Grilling on the Football Gridiron • H. Irving Hancock
... Pedro,' I stammered in confusion, when I recalled the ludicrous scene, 'how foolish I must appear ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... who was cognizant of his daughter's affection for the young army officer, remonstrated with her in vain, and when he found he could not conquer her foolish passion, sent her away to a remote band of his tribe. She obediently went without murmuring, but, arrived at her destination, she refused food, and actually pined away until she became a mere skeleton. Spotted Tail was ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... natural instinct of Frenchmen. It is beneficial or mischievous according as one or the other of its ingredients predominates, at one time the noble sentiment of equity and at another time the low envy of foolish vanity;[3304] healthy or unhealthy, however, its power in France is enormous, and the new Regime gratifies it in every possible way, good or bad. No more legal disqualifications! On the one hand, the republican ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... medium through which it may be conveyed is an odious and hateful one, but I must make up my own mind on this and I must not be held off from an acceptance by any feeling of criticism that may come my way. The gentlemen in the Army who talk about going to Berlin and taking it by force are foolish. It would cost a million American lives to accomplish it, and what lies in my thoughts now is this: If we can accept this offer, the war will be at an end, for Germany cannot begin a new one, and thus we would save ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... and child on this sunbathed footstool of God shouldn't be sanely and supremely happy.... My husband, I am glad to say, is once more back in his home. And I have been realizing, the last few days, that home is an empty and foolish place without its man about. It's a ship without a captain, a clan without a chief. Yet I found it both depressing and humbling to be brought once more face to face with that ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... us to close this foolish incident, my dear Julia; and for me to remind you, seeing that you are fatherless, that there are in Spain many adventurers who come here seeking the sport of love or war, who will ride away when they have had their fill ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman
... think he did this on the argument by which an Indian takes a scalp. Whatever the argument, he placed the sweet trophy over that heart which held the picture of the girl; once there, the boot-heel showed bulgingly foolish through his coat. ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... interested, this gentleman; and always looked on him as the patron who was to make his fortune, by getting him the first government sinecure (they were plenty enough in those days!) which might fall vacant. In firm and foolish expectation of this, he lived far beyond his little professional income—lived among rich people without the courage to make use of them as a poor man. It was the old story: debts and liabilities of all kinds pressed heavy on him—creditors refused to wait—exposure and utter ruin threatened him—and ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... her eyes, and stifling a rising sob behind the curtain, which caused Miss Gwynne to become very severe, and to utter something about giving way to foolish weakness which aroused Mrs Prothero, and made the patient bury her ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... Lippity-Libby added, "that there is a third way— though I hate the sight of it—and that's a letter-box with a slit in the door. Parson Steele has one. When I asked en why, he laughed an' talked foolish, an' said he'd put it up in self-defence. Now, what sort o' defence can a letter-box be to any man's house? And that was six months ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... heard perhaps of the Tidal Transportation Company, and Fundy Fisheries Corporation, and the Paspebiac Pulp and Paper Unlimited? Well, all of those were Pupkin senior under other names. So just imagine him in Mariposa! Wouldn't he be utterly foolish there? Just imagine him meeting Jim Eliot and treating him like a druggist merely because he ran a drug store! or speaking to Jefferson Thorpe as if he were a barber simply because he shaved for money! Why, a man like that could ruin ...
— Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town • Stephen Leacock
... photoplays in production seemed to need. Being no longer identified with this drama he had lost much of his concern over the fate in store for the girl, though he knew she would emerge from the ordeal as pure as she was beautiful—a bit foolish at ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... pounds, or one shilling, were facetiously moved. A vague report that a Director had formerly been concerned in another project, by which some unknown persons had lost their money, was admitted as a proof of his actual guilt. One man was ruined because he had dropped a foolish speech, that his horses should feed upon gold; another because he was grown so proud, that, one day at the Treasury, he had refused a civil answer to persons much above him. All were condemned, absent and unheard, in arbitrary ...
— Memoirs of My Life and Writings • Edward Gibbon
... training, sewing, and cooking from the physical, natural, and social sciences is justifiable only on the ground that the means of establishing more organic relations are not yet available. To continue such isolated activities after a way is found of harnessing them to the educational work is as foolish as to allow steam to expend itself in moving a locomotive up and down the tracks without regard to the destiny of the ...
— The Later Cave-Men • Katharine Elizabeth Dopp
... were mine; The rest was Love's. He took me by the hand, And fired the sacrifice, and poured the wine, And spoke the words I might not understand. I was unwise in all but the dear chance Which was my fortune, and the blind desire Which led my foolish steps to Love's abode, And youth's sublime unreason'd prescience Which raised an altar and inscribed in fire Its dedication To ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... the too great advance of democracy. I was prepared to trust the people; and Mr. Hare was also confident that, if all the people were equitably represented in Parliament, the good would be stronger than the evil. The wise would be more effectual than the foolish. I do not think any one whom I met took the matter up so passionately as I did; and I had a feeling that in our new colonies the reform would meet with less obstruction than in old countries bound by precedent ...
— An Autobiography • Catherine Helen Spence
... a world would not tempt me to prolong her suffering for a moment. "I am foolish and forgetful, to be talking thus at such a moment; but I have endured too much to be altogether unmindful of ancient theories. I thought it might be grateful to you, at least, to know, Anna, that I have ceased to look for happiness in my affections for all, ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... will not die, I hope—at any rate, don't talk so loud within hearing of these people. My dear Lady O'Shane, this foolish boy— this Harry Ormond is, I grant, a sad scapegrace, but you must bear with him for my sake. Let this poor wounded fellow remain here—I won't have him stirred to-night—we shall see what ought to be done in the morning. Ormond, you forgot yourself strangely towards ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... seventy[FN17] seal rings, and asked, "Know ye what be these?" They answered her saying, "We know not!" Then quoth she; "These be the signets of five hundred and seventy men who have all futtered me upon the horns of this foul, this foolish, this filthy Ifrit; so give me also your two seal rings, ye pair of brothers." When they had drawn their two rings from their hands and given them to her, she said to them, "Of a truth this If rit bore me off on my bride night, and put me into a casket and set ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... I blurted out, "and you know nothing of it! What foolish whim possesses you to think that fascination Walter Butler has ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... to come their hopes and especially their fears were centered. Miserable sinners, born into total depravity could only employ their brief sojourn on earth in striving to save their souls. Mortifying the flesh and holding all pleasures to be foolish if not impious, they deferred happiness to the realms beyond the skies. To them Here was nothing and Now was nothing. The eternal hereafter was all. Looking at life as merely a preparation for death, their point of view was diametrically opposite to that of ...
— My Friends at Brook Farm • John Van Der Zee Sears
... only depended upon the whim of Napoleon, but had long been intended as an hereditary sovereignty for Jerome. Another Dutchman asked him not to ruin his friend and his family for what he was well aware could never be called a sinecure place, and was so precarious in its tenure. "Foolish vanity," answered the Minister, "can never pay enough for the gratification of its desires. All the Schimmelpennincks in the world do not possess property enough to recompense me for the sovereign honours which I have procured for one of their name and ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... friend," said the queen; "this day seems to remind me of my youth; I seem again happy, free, proud and yet foolish. This day recalls to me that happy time at my dear Trianon, and all our frolics there, Andree and I together. This day brings back to my memory my roses, my strawberries, and my birds, that I was so fond of, all, even to ...
— The Queen's Necklace • Alexandre Dumas pere
... a banjo." It will live some time out of water; and if it shows any signs of subsiding, another tickle will blow it out again. "Too muchee tickle him burst," said Alfonso. I had heard this decidedly nasty story just before the pilot's departure, and it was now the culmination of all the foolish thoughts that gibbered in my head. I couldn't help thinking of it as I held my breath to suppress my laughter, and quaked for the yet more volatile Dennis. Oh, dear! Why wouldn't that mass of absurdity walk quicker? ...
— We and the World, Part II. (of II.) - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... say that many parents do not now bind the feet of their girls. They have learnt that it is both wicked and foolish to do so. At one school in China all the girls have their feet unbound. They skip and play about almost as ...
— Highroads of Geography • Anonymous
... could? It's an idle question, I know; wise men and musty philosophers say that regrets are foolish. But I speak for myself only when I say that I would gladly wheedle old, gray-bearded Tempus into making the wheels click backward till I could see again the buffalo-herds darkening the green ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... HE had bought no engagement ring at all, and she preferred William, who was not mean, if he were foolish. But now the young man talked only of the dances to which he went with his betrothed, and the different resplendent clothes she wore; or he told his mother with glee how they went to the theatre ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... one was near, save the two boys. They met as equals, as men meet on the plain or desert. "It's all a mistake—a foolish mistake, Anselm, and some day we will outgrow it. A ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... blighter? That's the bloke as was born with no bowels! 'E might a-made a man o' me once, if 'e'd tried; but 'e didn't—'im and 'is like. Hm! Dam foolish, I call it, ...
— The Servant in the House • Charles Rann Kennedy
... better calling," answered Loo Barebone, with his eager laugh. "When I am away I wonder how any can be content to live in Farlingford and let the world go by. And when I am here I wonder how any can be so foolish as to fret and fume in the restless world while he might be sitting quietly ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... I'm afraid you don't understand. An officer, when away from troops and duty, rarely wears his uniform in public. It would be looked upon as a foolish piece ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Lieutenants - or, Serving Old Glory as Line Officers • H. Irving Hancock
... I was a bad lad," he went on, "and I loved you truly. I meant every word I said to you. Doubtless from the worldly-wise man's standpoint I was foolish and acted without due thought, but I yielded to the promptings of my heart, and—and so, at least, I can ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking
... its visionary arms outstretched towards him, receded from him, and disappeared, he thought, "That is Francesca's spirit, bidding me an eternal adieu"—and, with the foolish thought, in spite of its foolishness, he shivered and stretched ...
— What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson
... his son, the Earl of Surrey, were arrested for treason and sent to the Tower. Endowed with great poetic gifts, Surrey had even greater defects of character. Nine years before he had been known as "the most foolish proud boy in England".[1157] Twice he had been committed to prison by the Council for roaming the streets of the city at night and breaking the citizens' windows,[1158] offences venial in the exuberance of youth, but highly unbecoming in a man who was nearly thirty, who aspired to ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... yet when one is separated by an ocean and a war from one's own, it is perhaps easier to be foolish for a child's face and a child's voice, and love sent across the sea. So Evelyn Bruce wrote a letter to her cousin in England saying that she could not come to her till after Christmas. Then she went out into Paris and ordered the doll, and ...
— Joy in the Morning • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... me so, that I felt that if I could not help the lad I would rather be drowned in the hole with him, and I began to scramble in a foolish way down the bank, but John Binder caught me by the arm and pulled me back, and said (I suppose to ...
— We and the World, Part I - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... is plain speaking. But I cannot help what the men call me. The king makes overmuch of the business. I am not foolish enough to try to ...
— King Alfred's Viking - A Story of the First English Fleet • Charles W. Whistler
... not know I was. I thought rash people were brave; and if I had been brave, the Rushlight would never have come out of the roof. Still Margery is sure to be right. I know I am very foolish and ...
— Last Words - A Final Collection of Stories • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... passed to all the nations of Asia; Medes, Persians, Lydians, Arabs, &c., and is dwelt on with peculiar delight by the elder Arabic poets. That it had spread to the westernmost parts of Africa, early in the Christian times, we learn from Tertullian, who cannot suppress his astonishment, that the foolish women of his time should bear to inflict such compression upon their tender feet. Even as early as the times of Herodotus, we find, from his account of a Lybian nation, that the women and girls universally wore copper rings about their ankles. And at an after period, these ornaments ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey
... came home in the morning, after a six-mile walk into the country and back again, his foolish anger was dead and buried. Logan's "Poor old Charlie" did not ring so distinctly in his ears. Mrs. Stuart's horrified expression had faded considerably from his recollection. He thought only of that surprisingly tall, dark girl, whose eyes looked like ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson
... right," he said, fiercely. "I suppose I was foolish to fight him in the way I did. That big bully Bascomb got a hold on me, and he has been blackmailing me ever since. Hang that fellow! I'll choke the wind out of ...
— Frank Merriwell's Chums • Burt L. Standish
... of whom one owns a delightful Son; his brother a fair lady, delightfuller yet. Gallant sure is Gallus, a pair so dainty uniting; Lovely the lady, the lad lovely, a company sweet. Foolish sure is Gallus, an o'er-incurious husband; 5 Uncle, a wife once taught luxury, stops ...
— The Poems and Fragments of Catullus • Catullus
... she had called him David, and the foolish joy at the little incident drove him to take her again to his arms. But with a steady purpose he refused to tell her. He had his reason and to give the reason would thwart his purpose. He meant to go to Lebarge and attend to the routine work there in connection with a new claim. That matter settled, ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory
... seldom is history fairly stated! When do all men concur in the Same sentence? Do the guilty dead regard its judicature, or they who prefer the convict to the judge? Besides, an ape of Sylla will call himself Brutus, and the foolish people assist a proscription before they suspect that their hero is an incendiary. Indeed, Sir, we are, ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... the explorer, "how foolish of me to ask such a silly question. But seems I don't get the give-away sounds as clear as I did a minute or ...
— Boy Scouts on Hudson Bay - The Disappearing Fleet • G. Harvey Ralphson
... the good o' foolish tunes, the moilin' folks 'ud say, It's better teach the children work an' get the crock o' gold; Thin sorra take their wisdom whin it makes them sad an' gray,— A man is fitter have a song that never lets him old. A stave of "Gillan's Apples" or a snatch ...
— Ballads of Peace in War • Michael Earls
... is a nervous symptom of some sort, and if you have a sufficient number and variety of them you are a neurasthenic. If you ever get so that you can move in neurasthenic circles, you will always be foolish about your health and your physical and mental well-being. It is quite common for us to ascribe all our defects to heredity. Poor old, overworked heredity is the dumping-ground for the most of our laziness, perversity and shortcomings! If we have a bad temper, a ...
— Confessions of a Neurasthenic • William Taylor Marrs
... the learning in which the art of a new age and race first spoke, and many an old foolish, childish, borrowed notion went off like vapour in it at its first word, without any one's ever so much as stopping to observe it, any one whose place was within. It is the school of a criticism much more severe than the criticism which calls its freedom in question. It is a ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... foolish," answered Carl. "The world is no different there; there is as little heart in England as in Germany,—no more or less. You are just touching success here; do give it ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... foolish, ambitious man. Oho! you admire this Mr. Trevanion much, eh? Yes, that fire of manner, his fine words, and bold thoughts, were ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... been my forte. My life had been a thing of outward manifestations. I never had been secret or even systematically taciturn about my simple occupations which might have been foolish but had never required either caution or mystery. But in those four hours since midday a complete change had come over me. For good or evil I left that house committed to an enterprise that could not be talked about; which would have appeared to many senseless and ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... a second time before the sultan's throne, and retired. On her way home, she laughed within herself at her son's foolish imagination. "Where," said she, "can he get so many large gold trays, and such precious stones to fill them? Must he go again to that subterranean abode and gather them off the trees? and where will he get so many such slaves ...
— The Arabian Nights - Their Best-known Tales • Unknown
... of the species designated by the most experienced naturalists as homo vir; it is quite as true of the other moiety, the homo femina. If it be possible that a woman should ever be made frightful by any thing except age, then it is surely by dress; if a woman never does a foolish thing in any other way, yet at least she errs in her habiliments; if she be fickle at all, (and speak to the fact, ye disappointed bachelors and ye complaisant husbands!) in what is she more fickle ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... of young fighting-men—who broke into roars of laughter at the gallantry of some Don Juan among them with the gift of audacity, and paid outrageous prices for the privilege of stammering out some foolish sentiment in broken French, blushing to the roots of their hair (though captains and heroes) at their own temerity with a girl who, in another five minutes, would play the same part in the same scene with a different ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... and went and told the chiefs about his dream. They did not feel much encouraged, so he said that he would try the temper of the army. He would call them together, and propose to return to Greece; but, if the soldiers took him at his word, the other chiefs were to stop them. This was a foolish plan, for the soldiers were wearying for beautiful Greece, and their homes, and wives and children. Therefore, when Agamemnon did as he had said, the whole army rose, like the sea under the west wind, and, with a shout, they rushed to the ships, while the dust blew in clouds ...
— Tales of Troy: Ulysses the Sacker of Cities • Andrew Lang
... the very dock, I acceded ... but now I was punished for my hypocrisy. The boys were so eager to be home again, they only threw together about five dollars for me ... when, if I hadn't been foolish, I might have had enough to loaf with, say a month, at San Francisco, and do a lot of reading in the Library, and in books of poetry that I might have picked up ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... "Well, don't let such foolish nonsense make you ill friends," said Tom, grinning. "I dare say you're both right, if matters could only be explained—Hiram, in thinking he saw Sam's ghost, and you, Charley, in believing he dreamt it all ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... value of Islam, the youngest of the great religions, is that we are able to see how its first simple form became overlaid with legend and foolish superstition, and thus learn how, in like manner, myth and fable have grown around more ancient religions ...
— Men, Women, and Gods - And Other Lectures • Helen H. Gardener
... their mother the headache, but if she lets them have their own way, when they grow up to be great children they will give her the heartache. Foolish fondness spoils many, and letting faults alone spoils more. Gardens that are never weeded will grow very little worth, gathering; all watering and no hoeing will make a bad crop. A child may have too much of its mother's love, and in the long run it may turn out that it had too little. ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... repeat it again—He that supports every administration subverts all government. The reason is this: The whole business in which a court usually takes an interest goes on at present equally well, in whatever hands, whether high or low, wise or foolish, scandalous or reputable; there is nothing, therefore, to hold it firm to any one body of men, or to any one consistent scheme of politics. Nothing interposes to prevent the full operation of all the caprices and all the passions of a court upon the servants of the public. ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... in deference to Ralph's foolish, effeminate sentiments, he would give it up. One more heart in action, the conclusion of his brilliant paper, and then—why, he would be willing to devote the rest of his life, in company with Ralph, to curing whooping-cough, measles, ...
— A Spinner in the Sun • Myrtle Reed
... do!" said he, with high scorn. "You all combine to ruin her temper and disposition with foolish flattery and weak yielding to her whims, right or wrong; you smile at her imperious pride and encourage her wilfulness, and then not only wonder at the results, but blame her, poor child, for all. Oh, you are a fine lot, The ...
— The Sky Pilot • Ralph Connor
... last balance sheet as a result of it," was the prompt retort. "If a nation chooses to make herself a bankrupt by building war toys, no one in the world can help her. Legislation of that sort is foolish and simply an incitement to revolution. Look at the difference in our country. Our income tax is practically abolished, our industrial troubles are over. Our credit never stood so high, the wealth of the country was never so great. We are satisfied. A peaceful nation makes for peace. The rattling ...
— The Great Prince Shan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... that he has learnt anything new since leaving the Sabine. On its banks the ex-jailer discharged his conscience in full, by confessing all he could. At most not much; since his late associates, seeing the foolish fellow he was, had never made him sharer in their greatest secret. Still he had heard and reported enough to give ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... the only one I've got left. All my birds flown but you! And I had five of the sweetest, sauciest, happiest girls in England once upon a time.... Now, come you and pour out a cup of tea for your foolish old father. We're snug here—hey? Better than Great Cumberland—hey? You monkey!" He pinched her ear—and felt ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... riglar church, in this world, will be mustered among the chosen in heaven, as my husband, the captain there, as ye call him, saysthough there is but one captain that I know, who desarves the name. I hopes, Lather-Stocking, yell no be foolish, and putting the boy up to try the law in the matter; for twill be an evil day to ye both, when ye first turn the skin of so paceable an animal as a sheep into a bone of contention, The lad is wilcome to his drink for nothing, until his shoulther ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... still more true of the acts of violence planned or carried out by Germans or German-Americans against individuals known to be hostile to our cause. The few authentic cases of this sort of thing were, as every impartial person must recognize, engineered by a few patriotic but foolish hotheads; the more sober and responsible German elements in the United States were ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff
... publication on account of the Hollands, and I do not think that any time or circumstances should cancel the suppression. Add to which, that, after being on terms with almost all the bards and critics of the day, it would be savage at any time, but worst of all now,[114] to revive this foolish lampoon." ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... weaker in his understanding and more gay in his temper; but his gaiety is that of a foolish, overgrown schoolboy, whose mirth consists in noise and disturbance. He disdains his father for his close attention to business and love of money, though he seems himself to have no talents, spirit or generosity to make him superior to either. ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... is no such thing as qualified independence; and when we abandon the simple name to men of half-measures, we prejudice our cause and confuse the issue. Then there is the irreconcilable—how is he regarded in the common cry? Always an impossible, wild, foolish person, and we frequently resent the name and try to explain his reasonableness instead of exulting in his strength, for the true irreconcilable is the simple lover of the truth. Among men fighting for freedom some start up in their plea for liberty, pointing ...
— Principles of Freedom • Terence J. MacSwiney
... been transferred, but the new Commandant was just and obliging. He had a thorough search made of every man in barracks, but the papers were gone. Without them Zaidos felt himself an outcast. He resigned himself to his fate. How foolish he had been to suspect Velo! He should have been the one of course to care for the valuables, yet he could not but remember his father's anger when Velo had suggested it. Zaidos knew his father to be a just and generous man; and he knew that there was ...
— Shelled by an Unseen Foe • James Fiske
... commandments and are directed against indirect and potential sins, such as the possession of weapons. The Bhikshu may not eat flesh, drink alcohol, set forests on fire or be connected with any business injurious to others, such as the slave trade. He is warned against gossip, sins of the eye, foolish practices such as divination and even momentary forgetfulness of his high calling and duties. But it is not sufficient that he should be self-concentrated and without offence. He must labour for the welfare and salvation of others, and it is ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot
... Lufton; but a girl placed as I am feels ten times more assurance in such a tender of affection as that, than in one made to herself, at the spur of the moment, perhaps. And then you must remember that I—I myself—I loved him from the first. I was foolish enough to think that I could know him ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... so hard to me?" she demanded rebelliously. "Can't you see in my heart? There is nothing but good in there for you. I want you be good to me. I want you come wit' me so bad. So I act foolish." ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... talk to Mars, and suppose the wise old people up there should tell us that millions of years of experience had made clear the fact that making money is a foolish occupation. How many of us would cease striving for money? The very scientist giving us the message would patent his interstellar talking process and die happy with ...
— Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers • Arthur Brisbane
... am ashamed of you," she said, as she began, in a masterful way, to make preparations for supper. "Such weakness will utterly spoil the child. But you were always foolish." ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth
... without surprise, discovered to be pretty; he thought of the fun they had made between them, and heard her chattering, gay voice, and listened to their mingled laughter. A smile moved his lips for an instant; he looked up, caught his wife's eye, and had a sudden feeling of looking foolish in ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann
... is the first I remember of the Sea Valley," Long-Beard went on. "We were a very foolish crowd. We did not know the secret of strength. For, behold, each family lived by itself, and took care of itself. There were thirty families, but we got no strength from one another. We were in fear of each other all the time. No one ever paid visits. In the top of our tree we built ...
— The Strength of the Strong • Jack London
... said Mrs. Church. "And here's a fresh egg for you. Take your place, Tom; and when the others go into the yard for their foolish mummeries—for I can't make out that there's a bit of sense in this scheme from first to last—why, you and I will finish up what is ...
— The Rebel of the School • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... doulcet, but in all equally derived from dulcet, "sweet;" and Halliwell has "doucet drinkes;" so that the great Manchester philosopher had probably been indulging in a too copious libation of some sweet wine, which he styles "foolish Dorset." ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 231, April 1, 1854 • Various
... foolish movement, captain, for, unless I am greatly mistaken, the insurgents have a large force in front of us, and to attempt breaking through would be taking a big risk. Be thankful that your brother is safe ...
— The Campaign of the Jungle - or, Under Lawton through Luzon • Edward Stratemeyer
... always been a Protestant institution, in this sense, that the more pure and Scriptural the Church has been, the more sermons there have generally been, while whenever the clergy have taken up with foolish ceremonies and have departed from the Bible, they have tried to do away with preaching. And of course, when very few people could read their Bibles, there was more need of preaching than there is now, when nearly everybody can read. Very, very few poor people could read ...
— The King's Daughters • Emily Sarah Holt
... was kind of foolish of you. Still, you haven't much sense, anyway. You had quite a well-paid job ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... went off alone. "Can't you really manage it?" he said. "Pray-a-do!" But I was obdurate, and it gives me pain now to think that I churlishly refused, though it is a false pathos to dwell on such things, and both foolish and wrong to credit the ...
— Hugh - Memoirs of a Brother • Arthur Christopher Benson
... not dare to return the tributes in common fashion, but they have a way of appearing where they belong as soon as their owners are supposed to have forgotten the incident. As you are not a Californian, senor, I take the liberty of returning this without any foolish subterfuge." She handed him his contribution. "I thank you all the same. It was a spontaneous act, ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton
... whole court orchestra by his presence. Well, we need not be uneasy: where there is money there are always plenty of people to be had. My opinion is that they should not wait too long, not from the foolish fear that they might not get one at all,—for I am well aware that all these gentlemen are expecting one as eagerly and anxiously as the Jews do their Messiah,—but simply because things cannot go on at all ...
— The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, V.1. • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
... beat lighter as he heard it. The scrape was bad enough, but it was not as bad as he had imagined, nor was the foolish boy at his side the monster of iniquity his letter had almost implied. They had a long talk, those two, that afternoon as they paced the hard, dry strand at the water's edge and watched the waves tumbling in from the sea. They talked about far more than Tom White and his boat. Dick's heart, once ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... "But how foolish of you, Nandy!" said Miss Sophia, glancing up from the letter. "When you know it's doing you ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... often I have had proof of how utterly unable we are to take care of ourselves. Among the many blessings and advantages I have enjoyed is that of having had parents who taught me to pray, and not to be ashamed of praying. At school, when some poor, weak, foolish boys were afraid to kneel down by their bedsides to say their prayers, my brothers and I always persevered in the practice; and very soon we put to shame those who tried to interrupt us—and not only we ourselves, but other boys who ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... himself about the willow branches was all very well, and nobody dreamed that his heart was sore in that matter. The world was laughing at Lord Dumbello for what it chose to call a foolish match, and Lord Lufton's friends talked to him about it as though they had never suspected that he could have made an ass of himself in the same direction; but, nevertheless, he was not altogether contented. He by no means wished to marry Griselda; he had declared to ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... Up and at the office both forenoon and afternoon very busy, and with great pleasure in being so. This morning Mrs. Lane (now Martin) like a foolish woman, came to the Horseshoe hard by, and sent for me while I was: at the office; to come to speak with her by a note sealed up, I know to get me to do something for her husband, but I sent her an answer that I would see her at Westminster, and so I did not go, ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... of joking on the first of April, sending the ignorant or the unwary on fruitless errands, for the sake of making them feel foolish and having a laugh at them, prevails very widely in the world. And whether you call the victim a "Fourth-month Dunce," an "April fool," an "April fish" (as in France), or an "April gowk" (as in Scotland), the object, to deceive him and laugh at him, ...
— Our Holidays - Their Meaning and Spirit; retold from St. Nicholas • Various
... am of the same opinion myself. But I did not think so then, and therefore I did whatever I observed them do, and talked in the same manner as I heard them talk. They used to be always laughing at Harry Sandford, and I grew so foolish that I did not choose to keep company with him ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... existence is as torpid and lifeless as vegetation without the sun. And yet it is frequently thrown away in thoughtless negligence, or in foolish experiments on our own strength: We let it perish without remembering its value, or waste it to show how much we have to spare. It is sometimes given up to levity and chance, and sometimes sold for the applause of jollity and looseness. Some there are, who inherit ...
— The Royal Road to Health • Chas. A. Tyrrell
... of the friendship of Jesus. We have only to recall the story of his three years with his disciples. They gave him at the best a very feeble return for his great love for them. They were inconstant, weak, foolish, untrustful. They showed personal ambition, striving for first places, even at the Last Supper. They displayed jealousy, envy, narrowness, ingratitude, unbelief, cowardice. As these unlovely things appeared in the men Jesus had chosen, his friendship ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... any retrospection in her eye; For she the laws of growth most deeply knows, Whose hands bear, here, a seed-bag—there, an urn. Pledged she herself to aught, 'twould mark her end! This lesson of our only visible friend Can we not teach our foolish hearts to learn? Yes! yes!—but, oh, our human rose is fair Surpassingly! Lose calmly Love's great bliss, When the renewed for ever of a kiss Whirls life within the shower ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... be like ten maidens who took their torches and went out to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish and five were wise. For the foolish ones, when they took their torches, took no oil with them; but the wise took oil in their vessels with ...
— The Children's Bible • Henry A. Sherman
... Sowerby, you will do nothing of that foolish description, my dear friend," said Max; and Dunbar glared at the unfortunate sergeant. "Nothing whatever must be done to arouse suspicion between now and the moment of the raid. You must be circumspect—ah, morbleu! so circumspect. By all means trace this Mr. Gianapolis; yes. But do not ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer
... teeth in an agony of anxiety, he made a sudden dart at the foremost Indian, who little dreamed of such an attack, and hit him with the paddle with all his force. The savage dropped like a stone, and the paddle flew into a dozen splinters. This was a foolish act on the part of Bounce, for the second Indian was now close upon him, and, seeing the fate of his companion, he stopped short, and hastily fitted an arrow to his bow. Just then several of the savages burst from the wood ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... was truly pitiable. Signor Campanini deserved better for his bold embarkation in a noble enterprise; but reasons for the failure were easily found. It was unwise to give opera on an ambitious scale after the amusement season had worn itself out; it was nothing less than foolish to do so with an ill-equipped company, in a house that had lost its fashionable prestige and at prices so large that a fatal blunder had to be confessed by their reduction at the end of a week. Two seasons later, the opera was announced by the Metropolitan director, ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... you to sell her for the money she costs you, and to send her out of the way in spite of your son. For, if you would have him disposed for matrimony, we must divert this growing passion. Moreover, even if he were resolved to wear the yoke you design for him, yet this other girl might revive his foolish fancy, and prejudice him anew ...
— The Blunderer • Moliere
... money is to be misapplied, or that officials will steal part of it, is likely to prevent a lot of foolish people from investing in the bonds. All this morning I could see that men were influenced by this circular, which has been ...
— Mary Louise and the Liberty Girls • Edith Van Dyne (AKA L. Frank Baum)
... independent State in Western Europe. The very rich families, however, are not numerous. The lavish expenditure in which Russian nobles often indulge indicates too frequently not large fortune, but simply foolish ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... foolish of you," said practical Aunt Janet. "These September nights are real chilly. You might have caught your death of cold—or a ...
— The Golden Road • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... convinced, turned sulkily away. It did not relish the kind advice of its true friend, nor did it at all intend to follow it, but still it settled down on its tiny twig so very quietly, that all its relatives firmly believed it had given up its foolish scheme of imaginary happy freedom; but they were mistaken, for a few days after a north wind came quite unexpectedly upon them. It bent the Aspen tree almost to breaking, still the loving little leaves ...
— Parables from Flowers • Gertrude P. Dyer
... same moment, a door at the end of the hall was thrown open, and a procession of new-comers, or Nasty Foxes, as they are called in the college dialect, entered two by two, looking wild, and green, and foolish.—Longfellow's Hyperion, p. 109. ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... I Deem'd lightly of that sacred tie, Gave to a treacherous WORLD my heart, And play'd the foolish ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... myself, with none of your soft and gentle ways. It would do me good to tell you all we have gone through since that bad creature found us out, but I have no right to make you miserable with other people's sorrows. No—I will go away before I begin to be foolish again; and my boy will ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... with the lessening crescent until it fell away into a quiet abeyance of faculties that was but a step apart from the normal intelligence of his kind. At his worst he was a stricken madman acutely sensitive to impressions; at his best an inoffensive peasant who said nothing foolish and ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... a day for a year squandered in idleness or in foolish pursuits means the sacrifice of all the advantages just mentioned. And any one who keeps up idleness or folly for a year, usually ends in having a ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... immediate instruments are only instruments, working without knowledge what they do, like puppets, dancing and swinging their arms, while far behind resides the force that works the wires. All wonder bestowed upon them is, most certainly, foolish wonder. But there is no ground for discouragement, or for any but good hopes, although ignorance and pretension stand in high places, and vainly babble concerning things beautiful and profound. This ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... hither," said Peleg, with a significance in his eye that almost startled me. "Look ye, lad; never say that on board the Pequod. Never say it anywhere. Captain Ahab did not name himself. 'Twas a foolish, ignorant whim of his crazy, widowed mother, who died when he was only a twelvemonth old. And yet the old squaw Tistig, at Gayhead, said that the name would somehow prove prophetic. And, perhaps, other fools like her may tell thee ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... they now lust for it. I know, however, how they came to have such desires. Because My Shekinah is among them they believe that they may presume anything. Had I removed My Shekinah from their midst they would never have cherished so foolish a desire." Moses, knowing that the granting of the people's wish would be disastrous to them, said to God: "O Lord, why, pray, dost Thou first give them flesh, and then, in punishment for their sin, slay them? Who ever heard any one say to an ass, 'Here ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME III BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... perpetually wanting to drum and conjure him well. He spoke to them of that God and Saviour whom white people adore; but they called him a fool, saying that he never came to their country, or did any thing for them, "So vain were they in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened." ...
— The Substance of a Journal During a Residence at the Red River Colony, British North America • John West
... the physical ability to be absent if they were ever so eager. And so the lights go out; the sun of the dragoon may be said to set in beer and he is left to do his best to sleep himself sober. For in the morning the reins of discipline are tightened again. The man who is foolish enough to revivify the drink which "is dying out in him" by a refresher is apt to find himself an inmate of the black-hole on very scant warning. Headaches and thirst are curiously rife, and the consumption ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... similarity of the merely emotional gestures and attitudes of modern Italy with those of the classics. The Pulcinella, Fig. 73, for instance, drawn from life in the streets of Naples, has the same pliancy and abandon of the limbs as appears in the supposed foolish slaves of ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... Youth is foolish; and does a woman often let her reasoning in favour of the worthier stand in the way of her perverse desire for the less worthy at such times as these? She murmured some soft words, ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... was plainly impossible in the early centuries of the present era, and it is therefore foolish to ask why Pagan moralists did not do what we expect Christian moralists to have done. I have already mentioned, and have fully described elsewhere, how humanitarian sentiments were generally diffused throughout the ...
— The War and the Churches • Joseph McCabe
... after him, but my speech suddenly failed me. It was very foolish, it was very unaccountable, but there was something in the man's last words which had more than ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... indeed, Mr. Secretary," he went on, shaking off his serious air and speaking in a lighter tone, "I should be instructing you in your duties, explaining the diplomatic situation to you, instead of discussing foolish young noblemen ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... of her ignorance. It was a pity that her education had been so much neglected! Manlike, Caspar Brooke took literally every word that she had uttered; and reproached himself for having allowed his foolish, frivolous wife to bring up his daughter in a place where she had been taught nothing ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... pilgrimage through that squalid street by the river-side, where presently they came to a market, opening upon the view hideous vistas of carnage, and then into a wide avenue, with processions of cars like their own coming and going up and down the centre of a foolish and useless breadth, which made even the tall buildings (rising gauntly up among the older houses of one or two stories) on either hand look low, and let in the sun to bake the dust that the hot breaths of wind caught up and gent swirling ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells |
