"Mot" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... without the obbligato distribution of orders was inconceivable, even in democratic America, but the tongues of waggish gossips wagged so furiously that it was said only the stage manager was willing to accept his bauble. Brahms's bon mot touching the danger of criticizing the music of royalty, "because no one could tell who composed it," not being current at the time, the music of "Diana von Solange" was mercilessly faulted, as was also the libretto. It was certainly right royal poetry set to right royal music—an ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... form, it is no longer subject to the influence of personal opinions, no matter how full of genius they may be. But this "scientific socialism," which, on account of the backwardness of political economy, could be only a step ahead, was taken by the younger generation of Russia as the "dernier mot" of the science. The result was, that several narrow and exclusive dogmas were grafted on this doctrine. Thus, the theory of "class struggle" transformed itself into the absolute negation of all community interests between the diverse social strata. The "materialistic"—or rather "economic"—point ...
— Contemporary Russian Novelists • Serge Persky
... de mot le detail de nostre St. Hubert. Et j'ay eu soin que M. Woodstoc" (Bentinck's eldest son) "n'a point este a la chasse, bien moin au soupe, quoyqu'il fut icy. Vous pouvez pourtant croire que de n'avoir pas chasse l'a on peu mortifie, mais je ne ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Tournai, like that of Antoing and a good many small towns, is typical. The officers commanding in these districts either disregard the "mot d'ordre" given in Brussels or do not think it worth their while to keep up the sinister comedy played in the large towns. Here "Kultur" throws off her mask and the brute appears. We know at least where we stand. The conflict is cleared of all false pretence and paltry excuses. The councillors ...
— Through the Iron Bars • Emile Cammaerts
... offers of Philip II. with the shrewd remark, that all the favor he had to expect from this monarch in case of his success against England, was that of Polypheme to Ulysses;—to be devoured the last. A bon mot which was carefully copied into The English Mercury. The ambassador to Scotland, from an unfounded opinion that the discomfited armada sought shelter in the ports of that country under the faith of some secret engagement with James, had thought it necessary to bribe ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... Abbe Brigaud, folding his papers, "here is the first savant on record who has been known to make a bon-mot. It is true that ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... not begun to take them soon enough. The consumption of these drugs at that time almost surpassed belief. There was scarcely a sickly or hypochondriac person, from the Hill of Presburg to the Iron Gates, who had not taken large quantities of them." Mais voila le mot d'enigme. "'The Anglomania,"' was the answer to a query of the author, "'is nowhere stronger than in this part of the world. Whatever comes from England, be it Congreve rockets or vegetable pills, must needs be perfect. Dr Morison is indebted to his high office (!) for the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... know is, how these serious matters are viewed by an honest, enlightened, and devout scientific man. To solve the mysteries of the universe, as the French lady required a philosopher to explain his new system, "dans un mot," is beyond rational expectation. ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray
... March, exactly seventy-three days after my arrival at Zanzibar, the fifth caravan, led by myself, left the town of Bagamoyo for our first journey westward, with "Forward!" for its mot du guet. As the kirangozi unrolled the American flag, and put himself at the head of the caravan, and the pagazis, animals, soldiers, and idlers were lined for the march, we bade a long farewell to the dolce far niente of ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... which also received its cleansing treatment. After a bit of blanket had been cut from those on Skinner's bed, Tess slipped the infant into the basket, to see if it were long enough. The tiny feet did mot reach the bottom. ...
— Tess of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... is published under the sanction of the convention, proving that the national domains, that is, the estates of the king (sic), the nobles, the clergy, and the emigrants, are worth twenty milliards of livres. Deputies from the county of Mot Belliard demand its union with France. The old name of Marseilles is restored; it had been forfeited by a decree, and was called "Sans-nom." 18. The Abbe Maury is promoted to the dignity of cardinal. Troops sent from Paris ...
— Historical Epochs of the French Revolution • H. Goudemetz
... the slip of paper in his hand and stared at it. "The rates for fares and freights existing at the time of the passage of this act shall mot be increased on the roads leased or united under it." What his sensations were when he read it no man might have read in his face, but his hand trembled a little, and along silence ensued before he gave it back to his son with ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... temporiser avec Buonaparte. Moi je sais ce que sont ces guerres dont l'Europe saigne encore, comme une victime sous le couteau du boucher. Il faut en finir avec Napoleon Buonaparte. Vous vous effrayez a tort d'un mot si dur! Je n'ai pas de magnanimite, dit-on? Soit! que m'importe ce qu'on dit de moi? Je n'ai pas ici a me faire une reputation de heros magnanime, mais a guerir, si la cure est possible, l'Europe qui se meurt, epuisee ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... we may succeed in converting into a problem, the rules we should receive and observe as a law, which it is a crime to construe. Moreover, to persuade women that it is not to themselves they are indebted for the virtue they possess, might it mot deprive them of the most powerful motive to induce them to preserve it? I mean by that, the persuasion that it is their own work they defend. The consequences of such morality would be discouraging, and tend to diminish, in the eyes of a guilty woman, the importance ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... y a de ressources dans cette jeunesse.' 'In former years, however, M. le Commandeur,'... the doctor ventured to observe. Ivan Matveitch smiled as before. 'Vous rvez, mon cher,' he interposed: 'le commandeur n'a plus de dents, et il crache chaque mot. J'aime ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... Dec. 11.-Imprisonment of the young Pretender at Vincennes. Death of the proud Duke of Somerset; his will. Bon-mot of John Stanhope. ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... pas si haut! redescendons. Restons L'homme, restons Adam; mais non l'homme a tatons, Mais non l'Adam tombe! Tout autre reve altere L'espece d'ideal qui convient a la terre. Contentons-nous du mot: meilleur! ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... deistes, ales a Dieu, beau doulx amis. Ne oncques puis du cueur ne me pot issir; ce fut li moz qui preudomme me fera si je jamais le suis; car oncques puis ne fus a si grant meschief qui de ce mot ne me souvenist; cilz moz me conforte en tous mes anuys; cilz moz m'a tousjours garanti et garde de tous perilz; cilz moz m'a saoule en toutes mes faims; cilz moz me fait riche en toutes mes pouretes. Par foi fait la royne cilz moz fut de ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... are the red and blue French soldiers with their long spikey bayonets, or our Tommies with the short broad bayonets that don't look half so deadly though I expect they are much worse. You either have to have a written passport up here, or you must know the "mot" if challenged by the French sentries. All this from Havre and St Nazaire ...
— Diary of a Nursing Sister on the Western Front, 1914-1915 • Anonymous
... shelter against the murderous fire of their unseen enemy. The troops whom we thus dispersed and put to flight consisted, as I was afterward informed, of the greater part of Averil's cavalry division, and a great number of the men of this command were so panic-stricken that they did mot consider themselves safe until they had reached the opposite side of the Rapidan, when they straggled off for miles all through ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... is got from certain Eucalypts, e.g. E. resinifera, Smith, and E. corymbosa, Smith. "It is used in England under the name of Red-gum in astringent lozenges for sore throat." ('Century.') See Red Gum. The drug is Australian, but the word, according to Littre, is "Mot des ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... conjures up nothing so vividly as the mask of comedy, while his native Calvinism stands for the corresponding mask of tragedy. [Walpole's dictum that Life was a comedy to those who think, a tragedy for those who feel, was of later date than this excellent mot of Smollett's.] Religion in the sunny spaces of the South is a "never-failing fund of pastime." The mass (of which he tells a story that reminds us of Lever's Micky Free) is just a mechanism invented by clever rogues for an elaborate ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett |
