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Foolishly   /fˈulɪʃli/   Listen
Foolishly

adverb
1.
Without good sense or judgment.  Synonym: unwisely.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Foolishly" Quotes from Famous Books



... and more, the Lycosa trails the bag of eggs hanging to her spinnerets. The reader will remember the experiments described in the third chapter of this volume, particularly those with the cork ball and the thread pellet which the Spider so foolishly accepts in exchange for the real pill. Well, this exceedingly dull-witted mother, satisfied with aught that knocks against her heels, is about to make us ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre

... submitted to the Chief Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Sir Edward Henry, K.C.V.O. This scheme was for women of experience and knowledge of girls to patrol in the camps and barrack areas, and talk to girls who were behaving foolishly, and try to influence them for good. It was felt and it turned out to be quite accurate that the mere presence of these women would make girls and men behave better. Sir Edward Henry approved of the idea and arranged that each Patrol should ...
— Women and War Work • Helen Fraser

... marriage license?" the squire inquired. Chamberlain immediately decided that he didn't like him, but he foolishly blushed. ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger

... fifth glass you will weep over yourself—you will be foolishly happy, or become stupidly noisy. From this glass will spring Prince Carnival, flippant and crack-brained. He will entice you to accompany him; you will forget your respectability, if you have any; you will forget more than you ought or dare forget. ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen

... given us words which do not seem at first sight to have any connection with them. The word maudlin, by which we mean "foolishly sentimental," comes from the name of St. Mary Magdalen, a saint whose name immediately suggests to us sorrow and weeping. The word maudlin suggests the idea of being ready to weep unnecessarily. In this way a word describing a disagreeable quality is taken from ...
— Stories That Words Tell Us • Elizabeth O'Neill

... prize Pom, which, because she had no child, she foolishly adored, disappeared and was never seen again; and a few days later her husband fell very ill of pneumonia. On the day of the biggest race-meeting of the season, he was not expected to live, and on the night of the club ball he had a serious relapse, so that Violet ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley

... steps ceased. But the man evidently was attempting something to which he was unaccustomed; for on reaching the corner he stopped, bewildered by the sudden disappearance of his quarry. He stood there foolishly, staring about uncertainly ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse

... they were engaged or not? It made no sort of difference. She was not going to allow her peace of mind to be upset on their account; she had done with that sentimental nonsense long ago. Her illness had made a great space between her present self and the Molly who had been so foolishly upset by the discovery of Edmund Grosse's treachery. Curiously enough Molly had never doubted of that treachery, although it was one of the horrors that had come out of the doubtful, and probably mythical, ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward

... Chris hesitated, looking doubtfully at his companion's heaving back. It looked an unresponsive back. Moreover, Chris felt half ashamed of his own compassionate impulse. He knew that he was considered foolishly softhearted about animals and children and women, though few men cared to express such an opinion to him too frankly. He suspected that, in the present case, his companion would have a right to complain of him. But he could not stand the idea of ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts

... brother, we may say that, like the ever-surrounding love of God, the Federal Union is still watching over the rebels, and is only waiting the first symptom of their returning conscience to run and fall on their necks and kiss them, and bring them in peace to the home they so foolishly left. They are striving to destroy the Constitution and the Union. We oppose them. Let us consider what, under these circumstances, 'a cessation of ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... very wild to know how he had been baffled and bubbled in the business of the Aretine expedition, and who had played him false in that matter. Interrogation of Maleotti made it plain to him that Maleotti had acted in good faith if Maleotti had acted foolishly. He had been confident, and, as Simone could not but admit, reasonably confident, that when he saw the little fellowship of the Company of Death ride into the wood with Griffo's lances about them and Griffo's Dragon-flag above them, that they would never ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... reeds near the shore. Hand me the gun." In these small canoes the guns are generally kept in the stern with the muzzles pointing back, so as to prevent accidents. The man who was in the stern quickly picked up the gun, and foolishly drew back the trigger. With the muzzle pointing forward he passed the gun to Mr Evans, who did not turn his head, as he was earnestly looking if he also could see the ducks. As Mr Evans took the gun passed to ...
— By Canoe and Dog-Train • Egerton Ryerson Young

... exclaimed. Then he bethought himself that, after all, he might sorely need all she could give, if things went against him, and that she was the last person he could afford to alienate; "but I do remember that I asked you that," he added—"no doubt foolishly." ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... charter dated December 17, 1874, the governor-in-chief having command over the administration of Bathurst, Gambia. Similarly farther south, Lagos, now the Liverpool of West Africa, has been bracketed, foolishly enough, with ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron

... many another learned counsellor has done) incorporating the business, since by this means stock could be sold and exchanged for the incriminating receipts. He explained the mistakes of the "Dean crowd," but showed how he had been able to safeguard them in spite of the fact that they had foolishly insisted on holding the stock in their company themselves instead of making their customers the stockholders. Nevertheless "you do not see any of the Dean people in jail," boasted Ammon. From now on Miller and he were in frequent ...
— True Stories of Crime From the District Attorney's Office • Arthur Train

... are all meeting on the campus—under the big trees about now," she said, and her eyes held a far-away wistfulness. "They are chattering foolishly and delightfully about their summer adventures ... and the dormitories are being allotted. There'll be several new English ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck

... his head and sat down at the piano. And when she questioned him again he evaded her and went on with the lesson. Music always rested him, and the sound of her voice soothed. It was the "Elegie" of Massenet that he had given her, foolishly perhaps, a difficult thing at so early a stage, because of its purity and simplicity, and he had made her learn the words of the French—like a parrot—written them out phonetically, because the French words were beautiful and the English, as written, abominable. And now she sang it to him softly, ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs

... least difference between such happy partners. In spite of my simplicity, the lady insisted on confiding her griefs, with the assurance that she would not have been half so angry had not her spouse foolishly thrown her silver spoons into the sea, with the bread and butter. She grew quite eloquent on the pleasures of married life, and told me of many a similar reproof she had been forced to give her husband during ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer

... sides, and strive to see good in all men, and to avoid joining himself to any one party in Church or State whilst in measure belonging to all. For a man of quality he knew such a course would be impossible and foolishly perilous, but he had felt secure in his own insignificance. He, however, well understood the warning, and so he marked the words about the flowing river and dark cellar, and though by no means understanding them now, he resolved that ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green

... often perhaps now than a dozen years ago) that certain ancient pursuits congenial to man will be lost to him under his new necessities; thus men sometimes talk foolishly of horses being no longer ridden, houses no longer built of wholesome wood and stone, but of metal; meat no more roasted, but only baked; and even of stomachs grown too weak for wine. There is a fashion of saying these things, and much other nastiness. Such talk is (thank God!) mere folly; for ...
— First and Last • H. Belloc

... of course, dimly (and foolishly) hoping that she wanted to "confess" about the ring. But it was quite a different confession she had to make; her desire to be ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... old letter to my grandmother, from her husband the Prince, that this plan had been hidden in the back-clasp of a locket containing her miniature. Without letting my brother know of the secret, for fear that he would foolishly tell it, I engaged a secret-service man from Paris to look the matter up. When my grandparents died, much of the estate was sold—for the Spanish-American War had wrought havoc with the family income. That locket had been sold to an American collector, and I came to America just in time ...
— The Ghost Breaker - A Novel Based Upon the Play • Charles Goddard

... love another—what other, Crittenden never knew. And then he really believed that he must, as she had told him so often, conquer his love for her. And he did, at a fearful cost to the best that was in him—foolishly, but consciously, deliberately. When the reaction came, he tried to reestablish his relations to a world that held no Judith Page. Her absence gave him help, and he had done very well, in spite of an occasional relapse. It was a relapse that had sent him to the mountains, six weeks before, ...
— Crittenden - A Kentucky Story of Love and War • John Fox, Jr.

... the South is not much good unless you take your soul with you, you see; and my soul is rarely with me here. I don't see much beauty. I have lost the key; I can only be placid and inert, and see the bright days go past uselessly one after another; therefore don't talk foolishly with your mouth any more about getting liberty by being ill and going south VIA the sickbed. It is not the old free-born bird that gets thus to freedom; but I know not what manacled and hide-bound spirit, incapable of pleasure, the clay ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson

... especially those who are old and wise,—if I chance to have any such,—will be inclined to think that the judge behaved foolishly in thus cross-questioning his daughter on a matter, which, if it were expedient that it should die away, would die away the more easily the less it were talked about. But the judge was an odd man in many of the theories of his life. One of them, with reference to his children, was ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope

... I am ready to forgive that, if he will allow me to do so. In such case you and Kate would arrange that, and I would, if possible, go down to Vavasor while you are there. But I am galloping on a-head foolishly in thinking of this, and am counting up my wealth while the crockery in my basket is so very fragile. One word from you will decide whether or no I shall ever bring ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope

... desire to cause departed spirits to again become inhabitants of this world. But all their efforts were of no avail. I remained as much a man as anyone of themselves. They found me in full health and vigor, for I had never had a day's sickness in my life, having come to my death by drowning while foolishly swimming too far from land in a strong ebb tide, and my body, being carried out to sea, was never recovered. Being thus put to their wit's end, they determined to keep the matter privy, and to make the best of it, and the first necessity was to provide me with clothing, ...
— Amos Kilbright; His Adscititious Experiences • Frank R. Stockton

... the boys of the Flying U behaved very much as do children who have quarreled foolishly and are trying shamefacedly to re-establish friendly relations without the preliminary indignity of open repentance. They avoided meeting the velvet-eyed glances of Miguel, and at the same time they were plainly anxious to include him in their talk as if that had been their habit from the first. ...
— Flying U Ranch • B. M. Bower

... occasional intervals a large figure of the Buddha squats serenely on a pedestal, smiling in happy contemplation of the peace, happiness, prosperity, and beauty of everything and everybody around. Happy people! happy country. Are the Japs acting wisely or are they acting foolishly in permitting European notions of life to creep in and revolutionize it all. Who can tell. Time alone will prove. They will get richer, more powerful, and more enterprising, because of the necessity of waking themselves up to keep abreast of the times; but wealth and power, and the ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens

... Mr. Magan Is actually pleased and, amused with Fan! What charms any sensible man can see In a child so foolishly young as she— But just eighteen, come next Mayday, With eyes, like herself, full of naught but play— Is, I own, an exceeding puzzle ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... and such as no man could think me absurd enough to contradict. When I am no longer a free agent, I am obliged in the crowd to yield to necessity: it is surely enough that I silently submit to power; it is enough that I do not foolishly affront the conqueror; it is too hard to force me to sing his praises, whilst I am led in triumph before him,—or to make the panegyric of our own minister, who would put me neither in a condition to surrender with honor or to fight with the smallest hope of victory. I was, I confess, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... plenty of money, he ought to invest something in everything that appears to promise success, and that will probably benefit mankind; but let the sums thus invested be moderate in amount, and never let a man foolishly jeopardize a fortune that he has earned in a legitimate way by investing it in things in which he has had ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton

... in the High School and he wanted to go with them, wear expensive clothes, frequent society functions and spend freely and get the reputation of a generous and even lavish giver. This he could not do with the allowance his father gave him, and he chafed under it foolishly. He had not supposed his father would detect his underlying motive in his longing to quit school and go into business. Now that he realised his father did understand he felt ashamed to continue his plea as he had first made it. At the end of the evening together, a certain definite ...
— The High Calling • Charles M. Sheldon

... saddle, calmly caught and held her foot when she tried to kick him, pushed the foot back into the stirrup and tied it there with one of the leather strings. Just as if he were engaged in an everyday proceeding, he walked around Snake and tied Lorraine's right foot; then, to prevent her from foolishly throwing herself from the horse and getting hurt, he tied the stirrups together ...
— The Quirt • B.M. Bower

... mistaken use, to utter evil, I am not sure but that the thoughtlessly meek and self-sacrificing spirit of good men must be named as one of the fatallest. They have so often been taught that there is a virtue in mere suffering, as such; and foolishly to hope that good may be brought by Heaven out of all on which Heaven itself has set the stamp of evil, that we may avoid it,—that they accept pain and defeat as if these were their appointed portion; never understanding that their defeat is not the less to be mourned because it ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin

... and, without dressing kept watch on the berth where Mr. Post was sleeping. They thought he would soon awaken to see if his money had increased as he had foolishly taken the fakir's word that it would. It was hardly daylight before the boys saw a hand emerge from the miner's berth and grope ...
— Jack Ranger's Western Trip - From Boarding School to Ranch and Range • Clarence Young

... present poor distressed world might get some profit by looking wisely into it, instead of foolishly. But at lowest, O dilettante friend, let us know always that it was a world, and not a void infinite of gray haze with fantasms swimming in it. These old St. Edmundsbury walls, I say, were not peopled with ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle

... like an immense cartridge, came up from the west. Through it played vivid flashes of lightning, and around it was a red haze. "A nasty animal," I heard the bo's'n tell the captain, and yet I was foolishly delighted when they decided to risk a blow and put out to sea. The sky on all sides grew darker from hour to hour. A smell of sulphur came to our nostrils. It was oppressively hot; not a breath of wind was stirring. ...
— Tales of the Malayan Coast - From Penang to the Philippines • Rounsevelle Wildman

... him out of the mud, would sink the further in. It would do him good rather than harm, now, if he were obliged to raise this three hundred pounds; it would make him look about him better, and not act so foolishly about his wool this year as he did the last; in fact, Mr. Tulliver had been too easy with his brother-in-law, and because he had let the interest run on for two years, Moss was likely enough to think that he should never be troubled about the principal. But Mr. Tulliver was determined not ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot

... I won't write to father about it," said Tom, after a pause. "He might think I had acted foolishly, and become anxious. If I succeed, then I shall be glad to surprise him. I think I shall make money; but I don't want to count on it too much. I shall be ready to go back with you to the mines whenever ...
— The Young Miner - or Tom Nelson in California • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... lot after that. I scrambled about in all directions, rather foolishly hurried, and over countless stone walls it seemed, and completely dazed as to the true points of the compass. Then suddenly, just when a kind of despair came over me, the cottage stood there solidly before my eyes, and I found myself not two feet from the door. Was ever mist before ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various

... to London and its refracting and distorting atmosphere. If I had dwelt here for fifty years I should have perceived that Carlotta was but a speck in the whirlwind of human dust whose ultimate destiny was immaterial. As my five days' visit, however, has not advanced me to that pitch of wisdom, I am foolishly concerned in my mind as to her welfare, and anxious to dissolve the triumvirate, Miss Griggs, Stenson, and Antoinette, whom I have entrusted with ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke

... that will be the end ont: will the Curse of the beggar prevail so much, that the son shall consume that foolishly, which the father got craftily? Aye, aye, aye; twill, ...
— The Puritain Widow • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]

... somewhat foolishly. "I suppose he has to be about eighteen, at least I suppose a ...
— Go Ahead Boys and the Racing Motorboat • Ross Kay

... of the desire to make every one know and feel a sense of kinship with him; he hesitates to reveal all that has been revealed to him, lest those who hear his words may think he is either "speaking foolishly," through egotism, or else that they may look upon him as a being superior, more exalted, than themselves. And a divine compassion and love for his fellow being characterizes the Illumined. Again, Paul wishes to make clear ...
— Cosmic Consciousness • Ali Nomad

... harm in saying, Mr. Rolfe, that I never dared to hope for this. I thought perhaps that you—but I was afraid Alma wouldn't listen to any one. Just of late, she seemed to feel her position so much more than at first. It was my fault; I behaved so foolishly; but I'm sure you'll both forgive me. For months I really wasn't myself. It made the poor girl bitter against all of us. But how noble she is! How high-minded! And how much, much happier she will be than if she had struggled on alone—whatever ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing

... a clock which stood upon the mantel-piece, I perceived that it was past eleven; whereupon I said to myself, "I am wasting my time foolishly and unprofitably, forgetting that I am now in the big world, without anything to depend upon save my own exertions"; and then I adjusted my dress, and, locking up the bundle of papers which I had not read, I tied up the other, and, taking it under ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow

... later on, when he grew a man, He scoffed and sneered at the Chosen Plan. "It's wrong!" said this Glug, whose name was Joi. "Bah!" said the Glugs. "He's a crazy boy!" And they climbed the trees, as the West wind stirred, To hark to the note of the Guffer Bird. It seems absurd, But they're foolishly ...
— The Glugs of Gosh • C. J. Dennis

... found neither sorcerers nor wise men, they only found two friendly little old men, who seemed to be mute and to have become a bit strange and gaga. And the curious people laughed and were discussing how foolishly and gullibly the common people ...
— Siddhartha • Herman Hesse

... malignant pleasure in detecting them for him, and endeavouring to expose him, he is not worthy of the name of a philosopher, if he has not strength of mind sufficient to enable him not to be disturbed at it. He who does not foolishly affect to be above the failings of humanity, will not be mortified when it is proved that he is ...
— Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air • Joseph Priestley

... gaze, and through the open door I beheld thy prostrate form. Thinking death or sickness visited Chios, I entered, remembering thy goodness. Thou wert asleep and sighing forth my name. I foolishly placed that little token on thy breast, and the Fates have worked it well so far as it is concerned, for by its power thou hast brought back my life—not that my death would have been of great moment, but thy crime would have been magnified and thy suffering ...
— Saronia - A Romance of Ancient Ephesus • Richard Short

... the victim of this outrage carried to my house, and, his wounds not proving serious, he was soon well, and able to think of resuming his journey. He was very reticent concerning the motive of his servant for attempting his life, and foolishly, to my mind, made no effort to trace the miscreant. When leaving he said that in all probability he would return this way a few weeks later. So, my friend, he may be here any day, for it is a good long ...
— Tales of Destiny • Edmund Mitchell

... now very old. Occasion said: "At your service; we will go. But see here, Death, first do me a favor. I have this bottle of wine, and there is a fly in it, and I don't like to drink from it; just go in there and take it out for me, and then we will go." Death very foolishly entered the bottle, when Occasion corked it and put it in his wallet, saying: "Stay ...
— Italian Popular Tales • Thomas Frederick Crane

... whole face of the world was changed. What was it to us, if she acquired Holland and the Austrian Netherlands? By her conquests she only enlarged the sphere of her beneficence, she only extended the blessings of liberty to so many more foolishly reluctant nations. What was it to England, if, by adding these, among the richest and most peopled countries of the world, to her territories, she thereby left no possible link of communication between us and any ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... looked back, she might have caught sight of Gilbert's figure walking steadily with bent head across the plain, away from the river and from the camp, out to the broad solitude beyond. He had acted under an impulse, foolishly, almost unconsciously, being guided by something he did not ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford

... mistaken now. I never knew thee till I understood that all men are not like thee. I never knew thee till I most foolishly thought that a few words from another man on even trivial subjects meant more than thy silence of devotion. I learned my own mind in many ways, Samuel, and then I learned thee; for I had thought thee was in a measure thrust upon ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various

... about. But all attempts to get the Home Office to reconsider Miss Warren's case or to shorten her imprisonment (except by the abridgment that could be earned in the prison itself) were unavailing. So long as the Cabinet held Vivie under lock and key, the Suffrage movement—they foolishly believed—was hamstrung. ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston

... admonished, begged Rolf's pardon, saying that the ale had made him speak foolishly, and thus he became reconciled with his guest. As for Rolf's desire to win his daughter, he would first have to gain Torborg's consent, which would be no easy matter. The king promised not to interfere but would do ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 9 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. Scandinavian. • Charles Morris

... very much disconcerted at this piece of indiscretion in Strap, I had presence of mind enough to tell her we had met a horseman the day before, whom Strap had foolishly supposed to be a highwayman, because he rode with pistols; and that he had been terrified at the sound of a horse's ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett

... the land! Few were the victims of the strife— If any—and the loss of life, Was fanciful much more than real In that blood-letting old ordeal. Among the medico's of old, Doctor Stratford I behold, Who foolishly I thought deemed best To emigrate towards the West, And leave behind a work which few Could with a single lancet do When venesection—old idea, Combined with the Phamacopeiae Was patent as a panacea For ...
— Recollections of Bytown and Its Old Inhabitants • William Pittman Lett

... Gunter completed a series of a hundred games of marbles, and had the strange fortune to end exactly even. The match had already attracted a great deal of attention in the school—so much so that boys who took sides without thinking had foolishly made a great many bets on the result, and a deputation of these informed the players that it would be only the fair thing to play the deciding game that afternoon after school, so that boys who had bet part or all of their ...
— Harper's Young People, September 28, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... and one Zamudio were the leaders, and aspired to the bachelor's post. It was however at last determined to seek for the rightful head of the colony, Nicuesa; and bring him to the new capital. That woe-worn commander accepted with delight the unexpected proffer; foolishly however he assumed at once the haughty airs of a governor, and before he had seen his new colony, spoke of the punishment he would inflict on the disturbers of its harmony. The inhabitants of Darien heard of this language, and repented of their hasty measure. ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various

... shrewd, bright, half-educated, spoiled boy a little brute, as to whose sanity there seemed to be some doubt. He was easily made well, and has lived to thank the sternness which won back the health of mind and body his parents had so foolishly helped to lose ...
— Doctor and Patient • S. Weir Mitchell

... ribbon as one which he had often seen encircling the neck of the writer, and foolishly treasured it upon ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee

... Virgin's,) was at the root of the entire disposition of the apse with its supporting and dividing buttresses and piers; and the architectural form can never be well delighted in, unless in some sympathy with the spiritual imagination out of which it rose. We talk foolishly and feebly of symbols and types: in old Christian architecture, every part is literal: the cathedral is for its builders the House of God;—it is surrounded, like an earthly king's, with minor lodgings for the servants; and the glorious carvings of the exterior walls and interior wood of ...
— Our Fathers Have Told Us - Part I. The Bible of Amiens • John Ruskin

... myself to myself, and do fear what would become of me if any real affliction should come upon me. After they had done with me, they called in Captain Cocke, with whom they were shorter; and I do fear he may answer foolishly, for he did speak to me foolishly before he went in; but I hope to preserve myself, and let him shift for himself as well as he can. So I away, walked to my flageolet maker in the Strand, and there staid for Captain Cocke, ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... feeble pen now cease from the tenor of an infinite task, lest it seem foolishly to undertake what in the beginning it confessed to be ...
— The Philobiblon of Richard de Bury • Richard de Bury

... hand to give her a lift; she took it and came slowly to her feet; then suddenly crumpled up and lay unconscious before him, her face white against the dark sod, her arms outflung. Gus stared at her a few long seconds, as foolishly helpless as any boy could be. He told Bill afterward that he never felt so flabbergasted in his life. What to do he knew not, but he must try something, and do it quickly. Perhaps Grace had only fainted; should he go to George first? He might be dying—or ...
— Radio Boys Cronies • Wayne Whipple and S. F. Aaron

... which, if we were unaware of it before, we may learn from Charleston. Charleston is not great in population; it is not very great, as seaports go, in trade. Were cities able to talk with one another as men can, and as foolishly as men often do, I have no doubt that many a hustling middle-western city would patronize Charleston, precisely as a parvenue might patronize a professor of astronomy; nevertheless, Charleston has a stronger, deeper-rooted city entity than all ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street

... Dick and Jim, that Harnett was foolishly particular; but, since the young engineer was so decided about the matter, he thought it best to do as he ...
— Ralph Gurney's Oil Speculation • James Otis

... prayers are our regrets. Discontent is the want of self-reliance; it is infirmity of will. Regret calamities, if you can thereby help the sufferer; if not, attend your own work, and already the evil begins to be repaired. Our sympathy is just as base. We come to them who weep foolishly, and sit down and cry for company, instead of imparting to them truth and health in rough electric shocks, putting them once more in communication with their own reason. The secret of fortune is joy in our hands. Welcome evermore ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... finally decided that a ghost—the ghost which haunted the mansion—had committed the crime. In support of this fantastic opinion she related to Lucian at least a score of stories in which people foolishly sleeping in haunted rooms had been found ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume

... to both parties in furnishing a word to express their opinion of the measures they urged and of those they objected to. And then began to be strained and frayed that much-abused piece of parchment which Thomas Paine called the political Bible of the American people, and foolishly thought indispensable to liberty in a representative government. "Ask an American if a certain act be constitutional," says Paine, "he pulls out his pocket volume, turns to page and verse, and gives you a correct answer in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various

... like a infuriated turtle. If one of 'em remarked that it was a nice day by way of startin' a slight flirtation, Delancey would answer that he couldn't help it, and walk away. He never spent a nickel foolishly or at all, and when the auto agents swooped down on him, he borrowed cigars from ...
— Alex the Great • H. C. Witwer

... the wise Vidura, always solicited thee for peace. Thou didst not, however, follow their counsels! Everyone, it seems, when afflicted by Time, is stupefied, O Bharata, since even thou, O king, as regards this matter, did act so foolishly! What else can it be but the effect of Time? Indeed, Destiny is supreme! Do not, O thou of great wisdom, impute any fault to the Pandavas! The smallest transgression is not discernible in the high-souled ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... Europe, and return skeptical of republicanism and human improvement, longing and sighing for more sharply emphasised social distinctions? Who squander with profuse recklessness the hard-earned fortunes of their sires? Who diligently devote their time to nothing, foolishly and wrongly supposing that a young English nobleman has nothing to do? Who, in fine, evince by their collective conduct, that they regard their Americanism as a misfortune, and are so the most deadly enemies of their country? None but what our wag ...
— The Potiphar Papers • George William Curtis

... do foolishly fear a kind of death, whereas we have already passed and daily pass so many others.... The flower of age dieth, fadeth, and fleeteth, when age comes upon us, and youth endeth in the flower of a full-grown man's age, childhood in youth, and ...
— Montaigne and Shakspere • John M. Robertson

... after the vanishing halfbreed, his method of reaching the top was merely foolishly exhausting; but several weeks of acquaintance had taught them to accept his silent peculiarities with nothing more than casual wonder, though they disliked him for his unsociability, for the cold contempt that twisted his lips, and for the stifled volcano that smouldered within ...
— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan

... and his fellows bemoaned their ill fate. And Loki said, "Wherefore did we foolishly take upon ourselves the likenesses of puny men? Had I my own power once more, I would never part with it in ...
— The Story of Siegfried • James Baldwin

... which I have announced to you; it is because, in spite of myself, I recoil from these confessions. I know your severity; I am afraid of being scolded, yes, scolded, because, instead of having acted with reflection, with wisdom (alas for the wisdom of one-and-twenty!), I have acted foolishly, or, rather, I have not acted at all; I have suffered myself to be borne along blindly on the current which carried me forward. It is only since my return from Gerolstein that I have, so to speak, awakened from the enchanting vision in which I have been cradled for the last three months, and this ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue

... tiny goat-legged creature led by the hand, while she carries uncomfortably, in addition to this load, a silly trophy of wild-flowers tied to a stick; the personification almost, this lady with the wide eyes and crazy smile, of the artist's foolishly and charmingly burdened journey in quest of the unattainable. The imaginative quality, never intended or felt by the painter himself, here depends on his embodying longings after the calm and stalwart goddesses on ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)

... spy.... You're a liar and a cheat.... You imposed yourself upon my hospitality under false pretenses.... I hate myself for breathing the same air as you." He would break off to laugh foolishly, in a high-pitched note of derision at himself. "Stand up, Dick Gordon, and hear the lady tell you what a coyote you are. Stan' up and face the music, you quitter. Liar ... spy ... cheat! ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine

... pray she may; as well for the encouragement 180 of the like, which else would stand under grievous imposition, as for the enjoying of thy life, who I would be sorry should be thus foolishly lost at a game of ...
— Measure for Measure - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare

... heard from Jack and my heart is singing a ragtime tune of joy and thanksgiving. How he laughed at me for being too foolishly lonesome to stay in America without him. Oh, these, men! Does he forget he raged once upon a time, when he was in America without me? As long as I am here though, he wants me to have as good a time as possible. Do anything I want, and—blessed trusting man!—buy anything I see that will fit ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little

... he, as I said, who is to be pitied, but we who are so callous as to live on.[493] You remind me to write that essay on Hortensius: I have digressed into other subjects, but have not forgotten your charge. But, by heaven, at the first line I shrank from the task, lest I, who seem to have acted foolishly in resenting his intemperate conduct as a friend, should once more be foolishly rendering his injurious treatment of me conspicuous, if I wrote anything; and at the same time lest my high morale, manifested ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... I have already stated, I intend to write on another occasion a book dealing with the art of scouting; and the above incident will there form a striking proof of how foolishly the English scouts did ...
— Three Years' War • Christiaan Rudolf de Wet

... by Mr. Hughes as "a purely Christian conception." Yet he foolishly admits that "the Positivists in our own day have strongly insisted on this great crowning truth which we Christians have neglected." Nay, he states that when Kossuth appealed in England on behalf of Hungary, he spoke in ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote

... the Table, "Now, you know we are not able: How foolishly you talk, When you know we cannot walk!" Said the Table with a sigh, "It can do no harm to try. I've as many legs as you: Why can't we walk ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various

... to see how completely I had been absorbed, how foolishly I had lost my head, and therefore I turned my attention to the two men in ...
— The House by the Lock • C. N. Williamson

... an enormous flattened disc. Night pursued them with her horrors, and so they did not learn of Lazarus' doings in the desert, but the vision of the black on red was forever branded on their brain. Just as a beast with a splinter in its eye furiously rubs its muzzle with its paws, so they too foolishly rubbed their eyes, but what Lazarus had given was indelible, and Death ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various

... great deal, and sometimes, I think, very foolishly," replied Clara, "but I know you are a gentleman, and I am not the ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various

... individuals. As a writer has said: "There may be some mediums who are ignoramuses, but it is doubtful if there will be any great degree of intelligence or great spiritual illumination presented through their agency. It is possible that some mediums act foolishly when in their normal state, for the purpose of accentuating the difference between their ordinary and supernormal conditions of mental activity; but there is a more rational, intelligent, and, indeed, a more spiritual conception of the relations which ...
— Genuine Mediumship or The Invisible Powers • Bhakta Vishita

... I am a child," said she, "and it is on that account I am afraid of too sensible a man. You must see that I am too young for you, since you just found fault with me for speaking foolishly. I can't have more sense than ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand

... called to the others to stop, saying: "They are many and we are few, but the Snakes are not brave. Let us stop and fight them." But the other hunters would not listen. "We have no shields," they said, "nor our war medicine. There are many of the enemy. Why should we foolishly die?" ...
— Blackfoot Lodge Tales • George Bird Grinnell

... to run wild and was galloping under the whip of fury. He had been doing some amazing things that day—he had written verse, he had blubbered foolishly with a girl looking on, and he had horsewhipped his twin brother before the eyes of the populace—but what he did next was more amazing than all the rest. Having sourly admitted to himself that he was a coward when he was alone with the girl, he took advantage of this ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day

... who always have been foolishly sensitive to blame (from professed critics and others), should shrink so painfully from spoken praise or formal tribute of any kind. It makes my skin hot even to recall the one or two such episodes I have faced. The wretched ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson

... owner, unless he is maliciously or foolishly inclined, will jeopardize the interests of his team by acting in a wilfully unjust manner toward a player who is cheerfully and uprightly offering his services. We may hear of occasional exceptions to this condition of things, ...
— Spalding's Official Baseball Guide - 1913 • John B. Foster

... been a great deal of pains foolishly wasted on these flowers," observed one of the company; and I tell you what he said, that you may keep in mind what gormandizers they were. "For my part, if I were the owner of the palace, I would bid my gardener cultivate nothing ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various

... separate from the mission and the rights of Man;—as if she and her lord were creatures of independent kind, and of irreconcilable claim. This, at least, is wrong. And not less wrong—perhaps even more foolishly wrong (for I will anticipate thus far what I hope to prove)—is the idea that woman is only the shadow and attendant image of her lord, owing him a thoughtless and servile obedience, and supported altogether in her weakness, by the ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various

... or seven years, and for a part of that time, as much as a thousand dollars. I am ashamed to say that I have not a farthing laid by; nay, what is worse, I owe a good many little bills. But, dear mother, I think I have come fairly to my senses. I have come to a resolution not to spend a dollar foolishly; thus far I have been able to keep my promise to myself, and, by the help of Heaven, I mean to keep it to the end. My first thought, on seeing my folly, was of my shameful disregard to my mother's condition. In this letter are ten dollars. Every month you ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous

... and all—or who were so until these modern, ultrapsychologic days in which overthinking is held to be so dangerously near a vice. Those persons now whose ears are close laid to the breathing of the world all believe in Fate. Not negatively, not foolishly, not in the manner which sets forth that what will be, will be, and any opposing effort is therefore futile; but in the way of the true philosopher, of the man who can look upon the ruin or the loss of all that he held dear, and realize that what is to him a tragedy must, in ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble

... she said, "is the certainty that I am capable of making you happy. You have no idea how I desire to do it. I've wanted to ever since I knew you—I've wanted to be capable of doing it. And you tell me that I do; and I am utterly and foolishly happy." The quick mischievous sparkle of gaminerie flashed up, transforming her for an instant—"Ah, yes; and I can make you unhappy, too, it seems, by talking of marriage! That, too, is something—a delightful power—but"—the ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers

... Hampden's, Bayard's, Alfred's, Scipio's, Pericles's day,—day of all that are born of women. The difference of circumstance is merely costume. I am tasting the self-same life,—its sweetness, its greatness, its pain, which I so admire in other men. Do not foolishly ask of the inscrutable, obliterated past what it cannot tell,—the details of that nature, of that day, called Byron or Burke;—but ask it of the enveloping Now. . . . Be lord of a day, and you can put up your ...
— Memories and Studies • William James

... strong young face upturned, the smooth white throat, the dark brown braids pinned close to the head, all wet and shining; this was not the Boy, but the Tenor's own lady, his ideal of purity, his goddess of truth, his angel of pity, as, in his foolishly fond way idealizing, he had been accustomed to consider her. It was Angelica herself! Yet so complete had been the deception to his simple, unsuspicious mind, so impossible to believe was the revelation, and so used was he to associate some idea ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand

... my father told me all about him. You were engaged to him, and jilted him for this man you have married—very foolishly, as it seems to me; for he could certainly have given you a better position than that which you appear ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon

... seized me, for I thought, how would she ever be able to get over the bridge. Then too it was, that I first recollected that my mother would also be in imminent danger; for I imagined she had never heard the name of Mahomet, because I foolishly conjectured this book had been locked up for ages in the library, and was utterly unknown to the ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb

... him up in his crib with his broken mouth-organ and his beloved red-topped shoes under the pillow, so that he could find them there first thing in the morning and bestow on them his customary matutinal kiss of adoration. And I was standing at the nursery window, pretty tired in body but foolishly happy and serene in spirit, staring out across the leagues of open prairie at the ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer

... and captured, with the guns. [Footnote: The optimistic Cooper thinks that two regular regiments would have given the Americans this battle—which is open to doubt.] Ross took Washington and burned the public buildings; and the panic-struck Americans foolishly burned the Columbia, 44, and Argus, 18, which were nearly ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt

... name, who give themselves up. We say of them that they die without being martyrs, even if they are publicly punished; and they give themselves up to a death which avails nothing, as the Indian Gymnosophists give themselves up foolishly to fire." Cave, in his primitive Christianity (ii. c. 7), says of the Christians: "They did flock to the place of torment faster than droves of beasts that are driven to the shambles. They even longed to be in ...
— Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus • Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

... how Aunt Francesca had invariably waited for her, when some gallant cavalier had escorted her to opera or play, and was foolishly ...
— Old Rose and Silver • Myrtle Reed

... over his eyes in a comfortable discomfiture and peered at the flowers closely. And she peered, too, breathing foolishly fast. When he could not find the living letters he shook his head and felt again the soft touch ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes

... about ten o'clock. Two companies of the line appeared and fired several volleys. The attack was only a feint. The barricade replied, and made the mistake of foolishly exhausting its ammunition. The troops retired. Then the attack began in earnest. Some Chasseurs de Vincennes emerged from ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo

... herself upon it, since it had helped to leave Lucia free. But not believing that the poor girl had been the object of a genuine, though transient passion, she for once was ready to judge her hardly, and to accuse her of having been wilfully and foolishly deceived. ...
— A Canadian Heroine - A Novel, Volume 3 (of 3) • Mrs. Harry Coghill

... you talking now? I tell you that it was she! It's only when I'm in the presence of a creature of Lupin's, trained and drilled by him, that I lose my head and behave so foolishly.... She now knows the whole story of the album.... I bet you that Lupin will be told in less than an hour. Less than an hour? What am I talking about? This moment, most likely! The ...
— The Blonde Lady - Being a Record of the Duel of Wits between Arsne Lupin and the English Detective • Maurice Leblanc

... talk about his clever son. He had by no means finished when Nelly, who spied An Ching coming, suddenly began to sing most vigorously. Chang broke off and vanished, leaving Nelly standing in the middle of the court foolishly looking at the wall. ...
— The Little Girl Lost - A Tale for Little Girls • Eleanor Raper

... he then succeeds in beholding the Supreme and having once beheld Him wishes not to fall away from that felicity. When the knowledge of truth dawns upon him, Jiva begins to lament in this strain: "Alas, how foolishly have I acted by falling through ignorance, into this frame composed of Prakriti like a fish entangled in a net! Alas, through ignorance, I have migrated from body to body like a fish from water to water thinking that water is the element in ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... must give me work, and, more than that, lucrative work. I have foolishly fixed upon a trade by which I lose ten per cent. If you impose a tax of twenty francs upon my countrymen, and give it to me, I shall be a gainer instead of a loser. Now, profit is my right; you owe it me." Now, any society which would listen to this sophist, burden itself with ...
— Essays on Political Economy • Frederic Bastiat

... manifest love and mercy, but if their minds are fully investigated, they will be found to be filled with intrigue and greed. They pretend to be here for preaching, but they are secretly stirring up political disturbances, and foolishly keep passing on the vain talk of the Koreans, and thereby help to foster trouble. These are really ...
— Korea's Fight for Freedom • F.A. McKenzie

... came at last when she and the Old Senior Surgeon could laugh—a little foolishly, perhaps—over the child-story; and then, just because they could laugh at it and feel happy, they told it together all over again. They made much of Thumbkin's christening feast, and the ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer

... this correspondence," said the Prince. It was handed to him, and he read it patiently from end to end, while the councillors sat foolishly enough looking before them on the table. The secretaries, in the background, were exchanging glances of delight; a row at the council was for them ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... well made, with, however, but little grace, and had something in her, eyes which made you fear what she was. Like her father and mother, she spoke well and with facility. Timid in trifles, yet in other things terrifyingly bold,—foolishly haughty sometimes, and sometimes mean to the lowest degree,—it may be said that she was a model of all the vices, avarice excepted; and was all the more dangerous because she had art and talent. I am not accustomed ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... from the markets came by, some on the gallop. Our car had filled with people now. Men and boys clung to the steps behind and women and girls were packed inside, most of them hanging to the straps. How badly and foolishly dressed were these girls. There must be thousands of them out. Two kept tittering inanely. All the ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole

... the thud, thud, thud of Garman's galloping horse grew fainter and died away. A rift in the clouds revealed the moon for an instant. Roger whirled round, seeking to see the man who had called himself Harney. The clouds closed up again, the woods were black; and a Southern whippoorwill chuckled foolishly. Ahead, on the trail which he must follow to reach the Devil's Playground, Roger heard the footsteps of three men, and knew that Garman had taken all precautions to make good his assertion that the Devil's Playground ...
— The Plunderer • Henry Oyen

... 1876, when an amnesty measure was brought before the House, he moved that Jefferson Davis be excepted on the ground that he was responsible for the mistreatment of Union prisoners during the war. Southern hot-bloods replied, and Blaine skillfully led them on until they had foolishly furnished him with ample material for campaign purposes. The feeling thus aroused was so strong that it even galvanized into seeming life the dying interest in the wrongs of the Negro. The rallying cry "Vote as you shot!" gave the Republicans something to fight for; the party ...
— The Sequel of Appomattox - A Chronicle of the Reunion of the States, Volume 32 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Walter Lynwood Fleming

... know you that the Long Knives come not to massacre, as you foolishly believed, but to release from bondage. We are come not against you, who have been deceived, but against those soldiers of the British King who have bribed the savages to slaughter our wives and children. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... when you have read this letter. I cannot tell you how I am, because my heart feels beating in another body. Pray come; come now. Come on a swift horse. The thought of you galloping to me goes through me like a flame that hums. You will come, I know. It is time. If I write foolishly, do forgive me. I can only make sure of the spelling, and I cannot please you on paper, only ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... stilted the water, as it is called, but he determined that, as he had acted very foolishly in the affair of Bob, he would take great care with the stilts, and, therefore, when he arrived at the edge of the river, he mounted cautiously, as Jenny had advised him to do. For the first half of the way, he went very well; but, when in the middle of the stream, ...
— The Eskdale Herd-boy • Mrs Blackford

... spell—the charms I loved glide back to my own soul, and the charmer, unconscious of change in himself, wonders what has wrought so sudden an alteration in me. Then come heart-burnings and self-reproaches against those I have foolishly loved, of treachery, hypocrisy, and ingratitude, which they cannot understand, and over which I mourn ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various

... continually wanting to love, to escape the blank lives of those who do not, and wanting not to love, to keep out of the miseries of those who do, I get foolishly warm and foolishly ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy

... felt like refusing the responsibility altogether. After all, her step-mother was a woman quite old enough to manage her own affairs. If she wished to foolishly imperil her health why need Esther care? Why indeed? But this train of reasoning never lasted long. Always there came a counter-question, "If you do not care, who will?" And the dearth of any answer settled the burden more ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay

... "I can't blame you. You are free to do as you please; but I shall go on. I need not expect others to act as foolishly as myself. This is my own affair, and you as well as Congo had better turn back. Leave me the dog, and I can track up the giraffe ...
— The Giraffe Hunters • Mayne Reid

... rich supply of frogs; but at last one day an adjutant was seen walking down the grass. With self-important step and craning his long neck forward, he came slowly on, hurrying a little when some frightened frog foolishly made a hop out of his way. At last he reached a gate leading into one of the private compounds, and there he paused. What he saw inside no one can guess, as the grass is kept short; and except in one corner far, far away from the gate, there were not half the fine fat ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various

... warred against their social affections, and have led solitary lives; some against their senses, and have abjured all pleasure in asceticism; some against reason, and have superstitiously feared to think; some against imagination, and have foolishly dreaded to read poetry or books of fiction; some against the political and patriotic principles, and have shrunk from public affairs,—all apprehending that if they were to give free range to their natural emotions their religious life ...
— A Short History of Monks and Monasteries • Alfred Wesley Wishart

... hitherto portrayed on the countenances of the Arabs, had given place to those of anxiety. They knew that an enemy was hovering around them,—an enemy whom they had wronged,—whose power they had undervalued, and whom they had foolishly restored to liberty. ...
— The Boy Slaves • Mayne Reid

... dear people, how I have preached and what I have preached. In spite of many interruptions, I have honestly handled each topic as best I could. The minister that foolishly runs races with himself is doomed to an early suicide. All that I claim for my sermons is that they have been true to God's Book and the cross of Jesus Christ—have been simple enough for a child to understand, and have been preached in full ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler

... Victoria Station on an April morning, being "seen off" by three kind friends, one of whom nearly lost his life by foolishly standing on the carriage step while the train steamed to the full extent of the platform. The risk our friend underwent only made us love him the more for his devotion to his chums; and, really, we would prefer to see no possible danger in such a friendly desire to prolong ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII. No. 358, November 6, 1886. • Various

... a magistrate who sits in Night Court has told me that medical investigation of the street-walkers he has sentenced revealed the fact that nine of every ten were diseased. When the men who foolishly think they are good 'sports' by debauching with these women learn that they are throwing away the health of their wives and children to come, as well as risking the contagion of diseases which can only be bottled up by medical ...
— Traffic in Souls - A Novel of Crime and Its Cure • Eustace Hale Ball

... taken up with such a weakling as Susan Posey! She sighed, and not so much thought as felt how kind it would have been in Heaven to have made her such a man. But the image of the delicate blonde stood between her and all serious thought of Clement Lindsay. She saw the wedding in the distance, and very foolishly thought to herself that she could not and would not go ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... have been a wise poet, Alcibiades, who, seeing as I believe, his friends foolishly praying for and doing things which would not really profit them, offered up a common prayer in ...
— Alcibiades II • An Imitator of Plato

... with his wits about him can imagine the rest of the talk, for he fell into an attitude of strong disapproval of the whole plan; stating in a cold legal way that Sandy had already let me in for more than one trouble; had caused me to spend large sums of money, foolishly doing the like himself; that we were both incapable of good husbandry; given to drinking more than was wise, and over fond of the society of persons whom we were pleased to call men of talent, but who were, by his judgment, doggerel-making ...
— Nancy Stair - A Novel • Elinor Macartney Lane

... There was something in that feeling peculiarly maddening, yet Cuckoo displayed no irritation. The sharp little demon at her elbow whispered to her to be silent, told her that she might learn, might yet understand, if she would play a part, and be no more the wildcat, the foolishly impulsive lady of the feathers. Valentine struck his hand upon ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens

... quite fair, and spoke English like an English girl, she would be very glad to receive her as a daughter, and for my sake love her very much. The toughest job was to tell my father. I was half afraid how he would take the matter. He did not scold me, or say I had been acting foolishly, but merely smiled and remarked that he had heard of midshipmen falling in love before, and that he had no doubt that Miss Carlyon was a very charming young lady; but that when I brought her over as my wife he should be able to pronounce a more decided ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston

... a time there was a dear little girl, whose name was Elsa. Elsa's father and mother worked very hard and became rich. But they loved Elsa so much that they did not like to have her do any work; very foolishly, they let her play all the time. So when Elsa grew up, she did not know how to do anything; she could not make bread, she could not sweep a room, she could not sew a seam; she could only laugh and sing. But she was so sweet ...
— Stories to Tell to Children • Sara Cone Bryant

... song? Well, well! Where was I, then?—From childhood I was wont To dream and dream, and babble foolishly Of things that were not and could never be. That habit clung to me, and mocks me now. For, as the youth lives ever in the future, So the grown man looks alway to the past, And, young or old, we know not how to live Within the present. In my dreams I was A mighty hero, girded for ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... said what he had to say, but he hardly knew how to get it said. And of what use could it be to talk to a young man who was altogether callous and without feeling? The remedy for the evil ought to be found in the mother's conduct rather than the son's. She, were she not foolishly weak, would make up her mind to divide herself utterly from her son, at any rate for a while, and to leave him to suffer utter penury. That would bring him round. And then when the agony of want had tamed him, he would be content to take bread and meat from her hand and would be humble. At present ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope

... But this very triumph actuated his political opponents amongst his own countrymen, amongst whom were undoubtedly adherents of the rival dynasty, to revenge, and blind to the interests of their people they foolishly and most brutally murdered this extremely capable and conscientious prince in the deer park near Topchider on June 10, 1868. The opponents of the Obrenovi['c] dynasty were, however, baulked in their plans, and ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth

... I'm foolishly sensitive," returned Jane, while she lifted the baby from her lap and placed him in a pile of cushions by the deep arm of the sofa, where he sat imperturbably gazing at the blue sky and the red wall from which the sparrow ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow

... gen'ral. "You, senor gen'ral, do you believe me an honest man?" And without even lookin' at me he says, "Pff—a foolish queschee-own, senor admiral. I have known you are honest from the mo-ment I have seen you spendin' your money foolishly at the hotel. And brave—as all American sailormen ...
— Sonnie-Boy's People • James B. Connolly

... as foolishly towards the dandelion as a lover should. At last he drew the stem through the button-hole of his velveteen jacket, and was ready to answer in person the shy invitation it ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne

... a long time!—'How may my innocent father, and that Brahmana also, escape the angry Surya's curse for my sake? Although energy and asceticism are capable of destroying sins, yet even honest persons, if they be of unripe age, should not foolishly court them. By foolishly acting in that way I have today been placed in a frightful situation. Indeed, I have been placed entirely within the grasp of this deity. Ye how can I do what is sinful by taking it on myself to surrender my ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... this abrupt and unexpected declaration. For some moments I was silent; but when I recovered from my surprise, I said, "Indeed, Sir, if you were determined to make me repent leaving my own party so foolishly, you have very ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney

... that he ended, rashly ended in a moment of despair, by marrying her, to silence the scandal that must otherwise have blighted her life as a woman for the rest of her days. Bear all this in mind (it is the sworn testimony of respectable witnesses); and pray do not forget—however foolishly and blamably he may have written about her in the secret pages of his Diary—that he was proved to have done his best to conceal from his wife the aversion which the poor soul inspired in him; and that he ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins

... wherein her soul brimmed over with weary emotion and fatigued passion, "I repeat all that I told you on that calm night beside the sea. I love you; I think of you day by day, hour by hour. But you have lied to me, and therefore I hate myself for having so foolishly ...
— The Doctor of Pimlico - Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime • William Le Queux

... of beauty's eye, Or last rich tint of an autumnal sky. And now in fleecy clouds the heav'ns appear. Again it darts, dreamer, there's naught to fear; Again, like a proud spirit of the sky, Though conquer'd, breaking forth in majesty. Britain, for thee this fearful warning sent, Oh! mock not foolishly its dire portent; For now that vice on all her malice wreaks, Charms on the stage, and in the assembly speaks; Now that with cheating fires she shameless dares, Fortunate where virtue once defied her snares; Again I say, for thee this warning sent, Oh! mark it well, mock ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume X, No. 280, Saturday, October 27, 1827. • Various

... arguing about these things. What a combination—young, lovely, virtuous! And I make you a bet the oaf of a husband does not appreciate her! Is it not always so? Now I—but of course I married foolishly, I married an artiste. If I had my time again I would choose in preference any sempstress. The artistes are for applause, for bouquets, for little dinners, but not ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick

... it is here that the hopeful influence of the American spirit, as I interpret it today, assumes its importance. That spirit is both idealistic and democratic. Idealistic in the sense that there is a profound and often foolishly optimistic belief in America that every son can be better than his father, better in education, better in taste, better in the power to accomplish and understand. Democratic in this sense, that with less political democracy ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby

... the 'Land of the Free'; but a traditionary freedom will not save you. It will not do to praise your fathers and build their sepulchres. Worse for you that you have such an inheritance, if you spend it foolishly and are unable to appreciate its worth. Sad if the genius of a true humanity, beholding you with tearful eyes from the mount of vision, shall fold his wings in sorrowing pity, and repeat the strain, 'O land of Washington, how often would I have gathered thy children ...
— Clotel; or, The President's Daughter • William Wells Brown

... body, Mrs. Ladybug had behaved very foolishly. And it was no wonder that she wanted to get away ...
— The Tale of Betsy Butterfly - Tuck-Me-In Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey

... works that we are set free by the faith of Christ, but from the belief in works, that is from foolishly presuming to seek justification through works. Faith redeems our consciences, makes them upright, and preserves them, since by it we recognise the truth that justification does not depend on our works, although ...
— Concerning Christian Liberty - With Letter Of Martin Luther To Pope Leo X. • Martin Luther

... not above three years that all the ready money was thus spending off; yet he spent it, as I may say, foolishly too, for he kept no valuable company neither, but generally with huntsmen and horse-coursers, and men meaner than himself, which is another consequence of a man's being a fool; such can never take delight in men more wise and capable than ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe

... Sarah, 'and then the fault was my own. I was young and giddy; Cousin Nancy was with me, and we were in a rail-car. In a near seat sat a very good-looking young man; Nancy looked toward him once or twice and, meeting his eye, began to giggle: I foolishly joined her; thus encouraged, our young gentleman opened a conversation. Nancy laughed immoderately; but I, being a few years older, soon controlled my silly giggling; and by the tone of my reply speedily silenced our would-be admirer. He turned his back upon us, and, so far ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various

... He laughed foolishly and leaned forward on the counter. As his arm touched the counter it brushed the smilax covered cigar box and sent the box and ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White



Words linked to "Foolishly" :   wisely, unwisely, foolish



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