"Know nothing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... means Bottomless Spring. There's a little trading-post, the last and the wildest in northern Arizona. Withers, the trader who keeps it, hauls his supplies in from Colorado and New Mexico. He's never come down this way. I never saw him. Know nothing of him except hearsay. Reckon he's a nervy and strong man to hold that post. If you want to go there, better go by way of Keams Canyon, and then around the foot of Black Mesa. It'll be a long ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey
... "I know nothing of thy errand, Gino, nor of thy reason for wishing to change thy master's livery for the dress of a common boatman. Thou art far more comely with those silken flowers than in this faded velveteen; and if I have ever said aught ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... lodge-keeper, his house being the nearest, to ask for assistance. I saw no one near my father when I returned, and I have no idea how he came by his injuries. He was not a popular man, being somewhat cold and forbidding in his manners, but he had, as far as I know, no active enemies. I know nothing ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... any risk," he said; "at least, you don't run any risk which I cannot make it worth your while to incur. It is not the first time you have received a temporary guest on my recommendation. You know nothing about the citizen Glaire, except that he is recommended to you by me. I am responsible; you can, on occasion, make me so. The citizen may remain with you a short time; can hardly remain long. Say, citizen, is it agreed? I ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... know, sir," said I, as he looked from Simmons to me. "I don't wear stays, and I know nothing about them. If Simmons were to fetch a pair of Mrs Simmons's, sir," resumed I, "you could ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... the sole surviving son of Peter I. and Eudoxia Lopukhina, was horn on the 19th of February 1690. The young tsar married the boyarinya Lopukhina at his mother's command. We know nothing of the bride except that she was beautiful, modest and "brought up in the fear of the Lord.'' She would, doubtless, have made a model tsaritsa of the pre-Petrine period, but, unfortunately, she was no fit wife for such a vagabond of genius ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... They blockaded the French garrison by land, and a small squadron, under Captain Ball, began to blockade them by sea, on the 12th of October. Twelve days afterwards Nelson arrived. "It is as I suspected," he says: "the ministers at Naples know nothing of the situation of the island. Not a house or bastion of the town is in possession of the islanders: and the Marquis de Niza tells us they want arms, victuals, and support. He does not know that any Neapolitan ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... face flushed angrily. "Shut up, younker!" he said savagely. "Don't speak about things ye know nothing about." ...
— Thankful Rest • Annie S. Swan
... your thoughts are wide of this world," he said kindly. "Try to recall them! I can tell you nothing, for I know nothing. ... you ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... "The wares which we make are made because they are needed: men make for their neighbours' use as if they were making for themselves, not for a vague market of which they know nothing, and over which they have no control: as there is no buying and selling, it would be mere insanity to make goods on the chance of their being wanted; for there is no longer anyone who can be compelled to buy them. So that whatever is ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris
... some stores of the essence would be found in his casket. I was deceived—not a drop! What I there found I knew not how to use or apply, nor did I care to learn. What I sought was not there. You see a luminous shadow of myself; it haunts, it accosts, it compels you. Of this I know nothing. Was it the emanation of my intense will really producing this spectre of myself, or was it the thing of your own imagination,—an imagination which my will impressed and subjugated? I know not. At the hours when my shadow, real or supposed, was with ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... there is nothing more seldom met with in the world than genuine travellers. For those who travel from curiosity, from ennui, for health, or for fashion, or in order to write books, belong not to them, and know nothing of that intoxicating repose." * [* "Aus der Gesellschaft," ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... that it was long before his merit came to be acknowledged. That he once complained to him, in ludicrous terms of distress, 'Whenever I write any thing, the publick make a point to know nothing about it:' but that his Traveller brought him into high reputation.[721] LANGTON. 'There is not one bad line in that poem; not one of Dryden's careless verses.' SIR JOSHUA. 'I was glad to hear Charles Fox say, it was one of the finest poems in the English language.' LANGTON. 'Why was you ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... This Torngarsuk is the chief of the good spirits, and dwells in a pleasant abode under the earth or sea. He is not, however, supposed to be God, who is named Pirksoma, i.e. "He that is above," and about whom most Eskimos profess to know nothing. As might be expected, the weakness of body and agitation of mind resulting from such exercises carried on in solitude throw into disorder the imaginative faculty of the would-be diviner, so that wonderful figures of men and monsters swim before his mental ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne
... except, of course, that I should wish to see her settled before I'm gone. A man dies happier, you understand, if he is certain whom his only child is going to marry; for when he is dead I suppose that he will know nothing of what happens to her. Or, perhaps," he added, as though by an afterthought, "he may know too much, and not be able to help; which ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... life of St. Vincent de Paul does not aim at supplanting larger biographies, but it contains enough to make the reader feel that to know nothing of St. Vincent would be a serious loss to anyone who desires a knowledge of the History of the Church and her advance towards the solution ...
— Mr. Edward Arnold's New and Popular Books, December, 1901 • Edward Arnold
... hadn't been Sunday, I could have sneaked off to town and dodged the little talk Auntie insists on givin' about the folly of amateurs tacklin' jobs they know nothing about. As it is I has to stick around and take the gaff. Then about ten o'clock Basil Pyne has to show ...
— Torchy and Vee • Sewell Ford
... sorry I heard what I did, Jennie; sorry to think that you are so poor as to lay the vilest construction on an affair of which you evidently know nothing, and sorry you could not keep your views to yourself." It was the habit of all of Levice's relatives to listen in silence to any personal reprimand the dignified old man ...
— Other Things Being Equal • Emma Wolf
... Urne in the first edition of the book (1514), but is not traced further back than an epitomator, who wrote more than 200 years after Saxo's death. Saxo tells us that his father and grandfather fought for Waldemar the First of Denmark, who reigned from 1157 to 1182. Of these men we know nothing further, unless the Saxo whom he names as one of Waldemar's admirals be his grandfather, in which case his family was one of some distinction and his father and grandfather probably "King's men". But Saxo was a very common name, and ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... subtile disputations of those men who, by their poor shell of finite capacity and reason, presume to empty the ocean of God's infiniteness, by finding out answers to all the objections of carnal reason against all those mysteries and riddles of the Deity. I profess, I know nothing can satisfy reason in this business, but to lead it captive to the obedience of faith, and to silence it with the faith of a mystery which we know not. Paul's answer is one for all, and better than all the syllogisms of such men, "Who art thou, O man! who disputest? Dispute thou: I will ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... last proof was passing through our hands, we received from our medical friends in Boston, the account of a matter so interesting to surgeons, and, indeed to everyone, that we take the opportunity of introducing it here. We know nothing more of this new method of eschewing pain than what is contained in the following extracts from two private letters, kindly written to us by our excellent friends Dr. Ware and Dr. Warren, of Boston—both men of the highest eminence in their ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton
... present at my ball that I didn't ask. I've got a wonderful memory for faces, and I know. Several fellows asked me afterwards what he was doing there. I was told by someone that he was one of your waiters, but I didn't believe that. I know nothing of the Grand Babylon; it's not quite my style of tavern, but I don't think you'd send one of your own waiters to watch my guests—unless, of course, you sent him as a waiter; and this chap didn't do any waiting, though he did ...
— The Grand Babylon Hotel • Arnold Bennett
... that's all. Perhaps hit her head in falling. I've often had them like this before, and they are pretty well all right in a few hours. We have a lot of people up here in summertime who know nothing about managing a boat—no offence to you, sir—I daresay you are well accustomed to ...
— More about Pixie • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... "Know nothing of him there—the old man and old woman said so, at any rate," answered Polke. "He seems to have cleared out. And now here's fresh bother, though I don't know if it's anything to do with this. Mr. Neale's missing—never been seen since six ...
— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher
... sagely, and with a curt "Come with me!" orders you to follow him. You protest energetically, and point to the signature. He shakes his head emphatically as he growls "No! No!" and continues, referring to the owner of the signature on your "pass," "we know nothing about him! You must see my Commanding Officer." Reaching this official, who regards you as a criminal who has escaped, you suddenly learn that the "pass" is not a passport for your movement through Germany, but is valid only for the Army Corps in ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... weeks, from all I c'n hear. Mebbe she reely thinks it's jest headaches ails him when he comes back from town—I dunno. You can't never tell what idees a woman's got tacked away under her hair—from all I c'n gether. I don't p'tend to know nothing about 'em—don't want to know—he-he! But I guess," he hinted cunningly, "I know as much about 'em as you do—hey, Kenneth? You don't seem to ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower
... in the present age, be deemed a recompence for their thrusting themselves in between us and Nature. Surely it is a substitution of little things for great when we would put a whole country into a nobleman's livery. I know nothing which to me would be so pleasing or affecting, as to be able to say when I am in the midst of a large estate—This man is not the victim of his condition; he is not the spoiled child of worldly grandeur; ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... said, 'you know nothing of me but what you have seen in the mirror; and I, who cannot even name my parents, learn that you are ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Various
... surprise at this address. "I do not know what you are talking about," said he. "I know nothing about any gold. If there was any in the jar, which I very much doubt, it must be there still, for the jar has never been disturbed since you yourself placed ...
— Tales of Folk and Fairies • Katharine Pyle
... now stand, Mantes is the oldest. While conscientiously trying to keep as far away as we can from technique, about which we know nothing and should care if possible still less if only ignorance would help us to feel what we do not understand, still the conscience is happier if it gains a little conviction, founded on what it thinks a fact. Even theologians—even the great theologians ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams
... allowed him to leave Condillac alive, for she realized that did she do so he would stir up trouble enough to have them outlawed. He must perish here, and be forgotten. If questions came to be asked later, Condillac would know nothing ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... remembered having begged Jordan to help her in this matter several times before. Then he had had no incentive, but to-day——Ah, now he would give her a divorce quietly! The social world in which she hoped to move would know nothing of ...
— Rose O'Paradise • Grace Miller White
... oxen from his ranche where he kept his cattle. He went to the officer in command of Fort Belknap, got a force from him, and then marched to those Indians, sixty miles from there, and told them they must pay for the oxen. They said, "We know nothing about your oxen; our people are here; here are our women and children; we have not killed them; we have not stolen them; we have enough to eat; we are happy; we have raised corn; we have sold corn; we have corn to sell; we have sold it to your ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... off here he throwed me," went on the man. "But he—he was a raving maniac. He turned on me before I could get up, and bit and kicked and trampled me till I didn't know nothing—was asleep, or something. When I came to—woke up—he was still hanging around. He's around here yet! I heard him all day—yesterday! He's off there to the east somewheres. He's—he's looking for me. I kept still whenever I'd see him or hear him, and then when he'd move ...
— Bred of the Desert - A Horse and a Romance • Marcus Horton
... winter apples up on the mantelpiece. Beyond the mere facts that you are a bachelor, live at Hedge-gutheridge in County Surrey, do a great deal of writing, belong to the Fraternal Order of Zebras, and shaved yourself very quickly this morning, I know nothing whatever about you." ...
— The Adventures of the Eleven Cuff-Buttons • James Francis Thierry
... to tell, no discovery that can be made. Yet in thinking out what I have to say about the religion of the Burmese, I have found that I must tell again some of the life of the Buddha, I must rewrite this ten-times-told tale, of which I know nothing new. And the reason is this: that although I know nothing that previous writers have not known, although I cannot bring to the task anything like their knowledge, yet I have something to say that they have not said. For they have written of him as they have learned from books, whereas ...
— The Soul of a People • H. Fielding
... It is impossible, perhaps, to speak on this point without committing oneself beyond what present facts will sustain; and yet it is equally impossible, and perhaps would be impolitic, not to reason upon the subject. Although we know nothing of what an atom is, yet we cannot resist forming some idea of a small particle, which represents it to the mind; and though we are in equal, if not greater, ignorance of electricity, so as to be unable to say whether it is a particular matter or matters, or mere motion ...
— Experimental Researches in Electricity, Volume 1 • Michael Faraday
... amen; they swarm into the fire Like flies—for what? no dogma. They know nothing; They ...
— Queen Mary and Harold • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... me more about your illness—or rather your recovery. I know nothing except that you had a successful operation which all the London surgeons said was ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... you alone in the world? If you are, there is no need to say more. But if you have a family, a father or a mother, think of all the sorrow that might come to them from such a letter as yours addressed to a poet of whom you know nothing personally. All writers are not angels; they have many defects. Some are frivolous, heedless, foppish, ambitious, dissipated; and, believe me, no matter how imposing innocence may be, how chivalrous a poet is, ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac
... "I know nothing of what you call letters," he said. "We draw pictures, on a fabric formed of prepared skins, or of a composition of silk and gum, but chiefly on a paper prepared from the leaves of the aloe. Besides the pictures there are marks, which ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty
... example, one has just learned that Andrew Jones, the local blacksmith, has had an explosion of powder in his shop, causing a loss of a hundred dollars, with no insurance. One should ask oneself if this story would be worth while to readers who know nothing of Andrew Jones or the town where the accident has occurred. Manifestly not; and the story should not be sent. But if one learns that the accident was caused by the premature explosion of a bomb Jones was making for ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... if they did ruin themselves they would have to either set to work to earn an honest living or blow out their brains, if they have any to blow out. I can assure you that I don't feel at all exultant at getting all this money, and I think that my father was quite right in wishing that I should know nothing about it until I married; but, on the other hand, I am heartily glad, more glad than I can say, Mark, that you ...
— Colonel Thorndyke's Secret • G. A. Henty
... "You know nothing at all about it," she declared, with spirit. "In trying to make things better you're content to spin theories, while we put ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... his slaughter. We have told the reason why. It suited his purpose. After that, having derived from the deed all the required advantage, he concealed it. Orders were given to the Elysean journals to be silent, to Magnan to omit, to the historiographers to know nothing. They buried the slain after midnight, without lights, without processions, without prayers, without priests, by stealth. Families were enjoined not ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo
... only of grammatical, but, as we have said, of social superiority. He says plainly enough, no matter how polite or scientific he may try to seem, "I was better born and bred than you, and acquired these correct turns of expression, of which you know nothing, from cultivated relatives;" or, "I live in cultivated circles, and am consequently familiar with the best usage, which you, poor fellow! are not. I am therefore able to decide this matter without argument or citations, and your best course is to take my corrections ...
— Reflections and Comments 1865-1895 • Edwin Lawrence Godkin
... give her twenty minutes," said the manager, winking across his glass. "I've never let her hear me, and she mustn't hear you either. She must know nothing at all about it; nobody must, except ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
... sick wife reproved him gently, praying him to remember how his fears had been turned to joy before, he reproached her in his turn for sitting in the house and pretending to judge of what she could know nothing about, and bade her come out and see for herself how all things were working ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... dry lips with his tongue. Furtively he glanced back toward the cave where the girl was hidden. She could not see him. Nor could Dinsmore. They would know nothing about it till long after he had gone. Their stupidity had brought the Apaches upon them. If they had taken his advice the savages would have missed them by ten miles. Why should he let their folly destroy him too? If he escaped he ...
— Oh, You Tex! • William Macleod Raine
... "I choose to know nothing about it, except that it carries more probability than most stories one hears. The world in general is, fortunately, not incredulous, and I have seen a man 'broke' on lighter evidence. Well, you will take ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... pay for their passage?" asked Eben;—but meeting Mr. Reed's eyes, he went on in an injured tone, "I know nothing but what you choose to tell me. True, you forgot to advertise for me to put in an appearance and hear of something to my advantage, but I supposed, very naturally, that coming here I should learn that ...
— Donald and Dorothy • Mary Mapes Dodge
... "I know nothing in architecture at once so exquisite and so wild and so strange in the expression of self-conquest achieved almost in a dream. For observe, these barbaric races, educated in violence—chiefly in war and in hunting—cannot feel or see clearly as they are gradually civilized whether ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... and you know nothing about me, and nothing about the sort of love of which I am capable. Every atom of your flesh is as dear to me as my own: in pain and sickness it would still be dear. Your mind is my treasure, and if it were broken, it would be my treasure still: if you raved, my arms should confine you, and not ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... God made the world, and set it off by a first impulse. We know nothing about the details, though further on you shall hear what is generally supposed to have taken place; we only know that, at some remote age, this world, probably very different from what it is now, together with the other planets, was sent spinning off into space on its age-long journey. These planets ...
— The Children's Book of Stars • G.E. Mitton
... I could tell the ecstasy there must be in that life to come! Do not say I know nothing about it. This much I know, and it is enough for me—the being a Soul implies conditions of divine superiority. In such a being there is no dust, nor any gross thing; it must be finer than air, more impalpable than light, ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... communication with their army in front, and put them in a very ugly position if they were defeated. No doubt that's why they have stationed that regiment there. Anyhow, it makes it awkward for us. We should be sure to be questioned where we are going, and as I know nothing whatever of the geography of the place we should find it very difficult to satisfy them. We must cross the river somewhere else. There are sure to be some boats somewhere along the banks; at any rate, the first thing to do is to move ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... queer for a man who don't know nothing, Cheyenne. Did yuh think mebby it wasn't all NL beef you ...
— Rim o' the World • B. M. Bower
... exclaimed, "Do you know what you're talking about? Do you realize that it would take a mint of money to do all the fool things that these silly reformers are always putting up to you? My lawyer looks after all those matters. Of course I know nothing about it—!" ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... 'We don't know nothing about admirals here,' said the sergeant of the guard. 'The time for seeing prisoners is over for the day, and if you do not take your ill-favoured body out of this I may try the weight o' my ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... voluntarily encountered great dangers, undertook great labours, sustained great sufferings, all for a miraculous story, which they published wherever they came; and that the resurrection of a dead man, whom during his life they had followed and accompanied, was a constant part of this story. I know nothing in the above statement which can, with any appearance of reason, be disputed; and I know nothing, in the history of the human species, similar ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley
... before books; that religion is one of the phases of thought through which the world is passing; that all creeds were made by man; that everything is natural; that a miracle is an impossibility; that we know nothing of origin and destiny; that concerning the unknown we are all equally ignorant; that the pew has the right to contradict what the pulpit asserts; that man is responsible only to himself and those he injures, and that all have a right ...
— The Ghosts - And Other Lectures • Robert G. Ingersoll
... Mrs. Doss sentimentally, "I don't know nothing jollier than courting time. Such little ordinary things seem ...
— If Only etc. • Francis Clement Philips and Augustus Harris
... after the porter. As soon as she had disappeared, he rushed to the light to look at his boot. Yes, there were spots, but not very plain, all covered with mud. But who would distinguish them? Nastasia could know nothing, thank heavens! Then with trembling hand he tore open the notice, and began to read. At last he understood; it was simply the usual notice to report himself at the office of the district that day ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... will have sounded your heart with a delicate touch, and have asked you your secrets; she affects ignorance, to learn everything; there are some things she never knows, not even when she knows them. You alone will be uneasy, you will know nothing of the state of her heart. The great ladies of old flaunted their love-affairs, with newspapers and advertisements; in these days the lady has her little passion neatly ruled like a sheet of music with its crotchets and quavers and minims, its ...
— Another Study of Woman • Honore de Balzac
... bottom and on the mountain side capable of cultivation yield enough wheat, corn, turnips, cabbages, and potatoes to give the natives food. Their life is one of work with few pleasures, and yet they are content because they know nothing else. ...
— Across Mongolian Plains - A Naturalist's Account of China's 'Great Northwest' • Roy Chapman Andrews
... two elements of weakness in the academic work: First, I very much fear that we take into it every year too many green teachers, who know nothing about your methods. This pulls the whole tone of the academic work down before you can train them into your methods. I am quite sure that though you might not get teachers who have had so much book training, that it would ...
— Booker T. Washington - Builder of a Civilization • Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe
... staying here?" Bertie asked his brother impatiently, two days after they had arrived at Cuzco. "I dare say these old ruins and fortresses, and so on, are very interesting to people who understand all about the Incas; but as I know nothing about them, I don't see how you can expect me to get up any interest in an old wall because you tell me that it is one of the remains of a palace belonging to some old chap I never heard of. I shall be very glad when Dias says that the mules have had enough rest and that we can set ...
— The Treasure of the Incas • G. A. Henty
... Mrs. Tate, I am going to pay last week's board and a week in advance. If the mother comes, she is to know nothing of this visit—absolutely not a word, and, in return for your silence, you may use this money for—something ...
— The Circular Staircase • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... other persons who could send me such an intimation. I was obedient, very obedient; only in paying my contribution to these two scoundrels, I could not help letting them know how inconsiderately they had behaved. 'Consider what a step you have taken,' said I to them; 'they know nothing at my house, and you have told them all. My wife, who carries on the concern in her name, will perhaps turn me out, and then I must be reduced to the lowest ebb of misery.'—'Oh! you can come and rob with ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... [5] We know nothing for certain of this person. Lightfoot suggests that it was Epaphroditus, whom St Paul would thus commission not only orally but in writing, as a sort of credential. One curious and most improbable conjecture is that it was St Paul's wife. Renan (Saint Paul, p. 148) ...
— Philippian Studies - Lessons in Faith and Love from St. Paul's Epistle to the Philippians • Handley C. G. Moule
... know nothing of him. He is new with the duke since my time. I do not owe him anything, save a grudge for that blow this morning. Mon dieu, monsieur, I am thankful to you for befriending me. Dying for Monsieur is all in a day's work; we expect to do that. But, my faith, if I had died ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle
... to; and, as before observed, I got the names of several, with the name of the king or chief of each. Hence I conclude, that the country is divided into several districts, each governed by a chief; but we know nothing of the extent of his power. Balade was the name of the district we were at, and Tea Booma the chief. He lived on the other side of the ridge of hills, so that we had but little of his company, and therefore could not see much of his power. Tea seems a ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... of his flesh were thought." It is not in mere intensity of phrase, but in the fitness of it to the feeling, the character, or the situation, that this phase of the imaginative faculty gives witness of itself in expression. I know nothing more profoundly imaginative therefore in its bald simplicity than a line in Webster's "Duchess of Malfy." Ferdinand has procured the murder of his sister the duchess. When her dead body is shown to him ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... Many people know nothing about a real apology. A lukewarm apology is more insulting than the insult. A handsome apology is the handsomest thing in the world—and the manliest and the womanliest. An apology, like chivalry, is sexless. Perhaps because ...
— From a Girl's Point of View • Lilian Bell
... tired out with his useless solicitations at this office, to obtain redress from the court of Spain for the loss of the Dover Cutter, has laid the matter before Congress, and the Senate have desired me to report thereon to them. I am very sorry to know nothing more of the subject, than that letter after letter has been written to you thereon, and that the office is in possession of nothing more than acknowledgments of your receipt of some of them, so long ago as August, 1786, and still to add, that your letter of January ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... you say, 'I know nothing about all this; I have my aims, and on the whole I secure a tolerable satisfaction for them,' do you not know a nameless unrest? If you do not, then you are so much the poorer and the lower, and you have murdered part of yourself. ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... future. I cannot think this description happy, either in form or substance, but for the present it may pass. Dr. Wace continues, that it is not "his difference from Christians." Are there then any Christians who say that they know nothing about the unseen world and the future? I was ignorant of the fact, but T am ready to accept it on the authority of a professional theologian, and I proceed to Dr. ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... us. We perish all our lives day after day in toil, always in filth, in deceit. And others enjoy themselves and gormandize themselves with our labor; and they hold us like dogs on chains, in ignorance. We know nothing, and in terror we fear everything. Our life is night, a dark night; it is a terrible dream. They have poisoned us with strong intoxicating poison, and they drink our blood. They glut themselves to corpulence, ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... make the liquor called beer, which is drank by the people of the north as wine is among us in Italy. They have large and extensive woods; make their buildings with walls; and have a great number of towns and castles. They build ships and navigate the sea; but they have not the loadstone, and know nothing about the use of the compass; on which account these fishermen were held in high estimation, insomuch that the king sent them with twelve ships to the southward to a country called Drogio. In their voyage thither, they had such ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... nice appetising meals for you when you come home tired from your work; keep your clothes in repair; do the washing; and generally look after domestic affairs. Oh, you may smile as much as you like. I dare say you think that I know nothing about such matters; but I do; and I flatter myself ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... shell-fish, which do not, however, live near shore. 2. Also the greatest depth which has been reached with the rake or the dredge is not destitute of molluscs, since we find there a great number which only live at this depth, and without instruments to reach and bring them up we should know nothing of the cones, olives, Mitra, many species of Murex, Strombus, etc. 3. Finally, since the discovery of a living Encrinus, drawn up on a sounding line from a great depth, and where lives the animal ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard
... that I detest ever having any thing to do with him; for unless one watches him as a cat would watch a mouse, he is sure to cheat or play one some trick or other.' 'What sort of tricks do you mean?' inquired the little boy. 'Why, I will tell you,' replied the other. 'You know nothing of the games we have at school, so if I was to tell you how he plays at them, you would not understand what I meant. But you know what walking about blindfold is, don't you? Well! one day, about a dozen boys agreed to have a blind race, and the boy who got nearest the goal, which was a stick driven ...
— The Life and Perambulations of a Mouse • Dorothy Kilner
... the workingmen, and which give immediately strength and impetus to the needs of the class struggle and to the organization of the workers as a class. The Parisian gentlemen had their heads filled with the most empty Proudhonian phraseology. They chatter of science, and know nothing of it. They scorn all revolutionary action, that is to say, proceeding from the class struggle itself, every social movement that is centralized and consequently obtainable by legislation through political ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter
... and valuable: but if you suffer from it, it is because you have not basis, stamina; and probably you deserve to be slighted. This, however, is true only when people have become somewhat concentrated. Children know nothing of it. They live chiefly from without, not from within. Only gradually as they approach maturity do they cut loose from the scaffolding and depend upon their own centre of gravity. Appearances are very strong in school. Money and prodigality ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... in the review; by which, on his own grounds, he wastes as much more paper than the author, as the copies of a fashionable review are more numerous than those of the original book; in some, and those the most prominent instances, as ten thousand to five hundred. I know nothing that surpasses the vileness of deciding on the merits of a poet or painter,—(not by characteristic defects; for where there is genius, these always point to his characteristic beauties; but)—by accidental failures or faulty ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... the same sound, the repetition of a particle, the smallest deviation from propriety, the slightest defect in construction or arrangement, swell before their eyes into enormities. As they discern with great exactness, they comprehend but a narrow compass, and know nothing of the justness of the design, the general spirit of the performance, the artifice of connection, or the harmony of the parts; they never, conceive how small a proportion that which they are busy in contemplating bears to the whole, or ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... in my travels, vague mention made of such an order," answered Fernand; "but I never experienced any curiosity to seek to learn more—and, indeed, I may say, that I know nothing of the Rosicrucians save ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... much obliged to you for the compliment you pay me," answered Jack, "and for the good opinion you have formed of my courage; but I have no great fancy for undertaking what I know nothing about. Men do not always agree as to the goodness of a cause, and what you may consider a good cause, you will pardon me for saying it, I ...
— John Deane of Nottingham - Historic Adventures by Land and Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... confess that I know nothing about it. And I didn't pick up much from the work we had here while you were away. With all credit to the Lieutenant, he does not know the practical side of geological surveying, and while he interested us all, he did not give us the ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Geological Survey • Robert Shaler
... it was the conduct of Caesar that saved him. It was in his house that the alleged intrusion had taken place, and he had satisfied himself by a private examination of its inmates that the charge was true. But now he professed to know nothing at all about the matter. Probably the really potent influence in the case was the money which Crassus liberally distributed among the jurors. The fact of the money was indeed notorious. Some of the jury had pretended that they were in fear ...
— Roman life in the days of Cicero • Alfred J[ohn] Church
... Scepticism to know nothing, and to assert nothing in regard to any subject, but at the same time not to affirm that knowledge on all subjects is impossible, and consequently to have the attitude of still seeking. The standpoint ...
— Sextus Empiricus and Greek Scepticism • Mary Mills Patrick
... to tell you, Lester," he said, "that your guess was right. The mysterious Frenchman came over on La Touraine, landing at noon yesterday. He came in the steerage, and the stewards know nothing about him. What time was it ...
— The Mystery Of The Boule Cabinet - A Detective Story • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... tilts for wood and shelter. By night the wolves would come stealthily to prowl among the deserted lanes; and the fishermen, asleep in their clothes under caribou skins, or sitting close by the stove behind barred doors, would know nothing of the huge, gaunt forms that flitted noiselessly past the frosted windows. If a pig were left in his pen a sudden terrible squealing would break out on the still night; and when the fisherman rushed out the pen would be empty, with nothing whatever ...
— Northern Trails, Book I. • William J. Long
... been able to explain how opium produces sleep, or how bark cures intermittent fevers; and yet few, it is hoped, will be so absurd as to desist from the use of these important articles because they know nothing of the principle of their operations." Or if the argument is preferred, in the eloquent language of ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... honest—that is all; don't cram their heads with things that will take them years and years to unlearn; tell them facts—it is just as easy. It is as easy to find out botany, and astronomy, and geology, and history—it is as easy to find out all these things as to cram their minds with things you know nothing about,* and where a child knows what the name of a flower is when it sees it, the name of a bird and all those things, the world becomes interesting everywhere, and they do not pass by the flowers—they are not deaf to all the songs of birds, simply because ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... is much more discreditable than what is called hard dealing. They say of the Turks, that they know nothing of two prices for the same article; and that to ask an abatement of the lowest shopkeeper is to insult him. It would be well if Christians imitated Mahometans in this respect. To ask one price and take another, or to offer one price and give another, besides the loss of time ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett
... country, which, as far as mere proportions and dimensions go, would appear to be entirely safe, but which, on account of the quality of the iron with which they are made, are entirely unsafe; and there always will be, as long as public officials purchase iron which they know nothing about, to put into bridges. When a bridge is finished, the ordinary examinations never detect the quality of the iron; so that the wise remarks of many inspectors, or the opinions of those in charge of these structures, as to the exact condition ...
— Bridge Disasters in America - The Cause and the Remedy • George L. Vose
... personal enemies who deliberately slandered me, which tales were repeated by others who knew nothing about the affair. The fact is that when I heard of the episode I immediately possessed myself of documents proving that not only did I know nothing whatever about the matter, but could not possibly ...
— In the World War • Count Ottokar Czernin
... we certainly know nothing definite regarding its actual material dimensions; its augmentation* by emanations from the tails of myriads of comets that come within the Sun's vicinity; the singular changes affecting its expansion, since it sometimes does not apper to extend beyond our Earth's ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt
... though perhaps it cannot excuse, the passive attitude of Longinus, the successor of Narses, who in Ravenna represented the emperor in Italy, perhaps till the year 584. We know nothing of any attempts he may have made to stem the barbarian flood, and indeed the only incident in his career with which we are acquainted is romantic rather than military or political. For when Rosamond, the queen ...
— Ravenna, A Study • Edward Hutton
... silent for a time; then raising his large, melancholy eyes, till they rested affectionately upon the bright, laughing countenance of his friend, he spoke: "I can well believe that you know nothing of the pangs inflicted by unhappy love; for you are handsome, distinguished, and gifted. I, who am none of these, can tell you what it is to love adversely. It is to love with passion; to be parted from the object of your love; and ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... language pesos; also a wooden tub full of precious incense, weighing about twenty-six hundred pounds, at eight ounces to the pound. This showed the country was rich in incense, for the natives of Paria have no intercourse with those of Saba; and in fact they know nothing of any place outside their own country. In addition to the gold and the incense, they presented peacocks such as are not found elsewhere, for they differ largely from ours in the variety of their colours. ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt
... to and I'm ready to die for it. I've got nothing to say," answered the man with still more of the determination of misery in his voice. "My neighbors don't know nothing about it and I don't want 'em to. Just let them keep quiet and let it all die ...
— The Daredevil • Maria Thompson Daviess
... craft wilt thou follow? Take up one that is seemly," "None other will I take," answered he, "but that of making shoes." "Lord," said she, "such a craft becomes not a man so nobly born as thou." "By that however will I abide," said he. "I know nothing thereof," said Kieva. "But I know," answered Manawyddan, "and I will teach thee to stitch. We will not attempt to dress the leather, but we will buy it ready dressed, and will make the ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)
... say we know nothing,' Mr. Hervey went on, 'but that I am following with Mr. Justin to ...
— Miss Mouse and Her Boys • Mrs. Molesworth
... touching to note Mr Sharp's anxiety to lay hold of these men. He chanced to know nothing about them, save in connexion with the Langrye accident, but his long experience in business had given him a delicate power of perception in judging of character, which was not often at fault. He, as it were, smelt the presence of fair ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne
... inadequacy of Agnosticism was to be seen not only on the intellectual side. Its practical effects were necessarily determined by its negations. Since we could know nothing of the ultimate power, it was plainly our wisdom to turn our attention elsewhere. It followed that, if morality was to be upheld, it must be based upon other than the familiar sanctions. For awhile it was enthusiastically ...
— God and the World - A Survey of Thought • Arthur W. Robinson
... children of his master, and his never-failing respect toward his mistress, dares say he fears the negro's savageness. No one who knows the negro's religious sensibility and his unshaken faith in Christ, dares say he fears. No. Only those fear who know nothing at all about the negro. They fear whose creed is given them by men thirsting for the negro's blood, that it may ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... is Hilda's mistake, then. She is responsible for my opinions. I know nothing. The wisdom I am dispensing so freely is entirely hers. You must go and see Hilda and her babies, and you will understand all ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... he ventured to say, "that that would look rather mechanical—rather stagey, in fact? I know nothing about writing; but I should think you would want to deal mostly with the expression ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... that there town. But Biddy, she likes Mrs. Booth, and even if it was true, which it ain't Biddy says, who could of blamed her? Fur things ain't joyous around that house the last year, since Miss Estelle's come there to live. The perfessor, he's so full of scientifics he don't know nothing with no sense to it, Biddy says. He's got more money'n you can shake a stick at, and he don't have to do no work, nor never has, and his scientifics gets worse and worse every year. But while scientifics is worrying to the nerves of a fambly, ...
— Danny's Own Story • Don Marquis
... I, monsieur, who am the business. And I know nothing about it." She sighed. Then with her blue apron—otherwise she was dressed in unrelieved black—she rubbed an imaginary speck from the brass banding of the cask. "This, I suppose you know, was for ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... him, expressed here by the terms of unsearchable breadth, length, depth, and height; the better will he be able in his heart to conceive of the excellent glory and greatness of the things that are laid up in the heavens for them that fear him. They that know nothing of this greatness, know nothing of them; they that think amiss of this greatness, think amiss of them; they that know but little of this greatness, know but little of them: But he that is able to comprehend with all saints what is the ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... it include any politicians of either color, white or black?—A. No politicianers didn't belong to it, because we didn't allow them to know nothing about it, because we was afraid that if we allowed the colored politicianers to belong to it he would tell it to the Republican politicianers, and from that the men that was doing all this to us would get hold of it too, ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various
... transmutation of his ideas into another form of speech becomes a simple and natural process. To those who already know Chopin and are striving to play his music, this book will be invaluable, as giving a deep insight into the meaning and proper mode of rendering his compositions. To those who know nothing of him, and who are still floundering amid the fade and flimsy productions that would fain hide their emptiness and vulgarity under the noble name of music, this life of a true musician will reveal a new world, a new purpose for the drudgery of daily ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... M. Lerins (ah! what an admirable friend you have there!) desires also to inform me that you are, sir, what is called nowadays, a beautiful soul. What is 'a beautiful soul?' I know nothing of the species." While thus speaking he seemed to be looking by turns for a fly on the ceiling and a pin on the floor. "I have old-fashioned ideas of everything, and I do not understand the vocabulary ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... entering the room of a tragedy, in spite of the long association I have had with Kennedy in the scientific detection of crime. Particularly did I have the feeling in this case. The death of a man is tragic, but I know nothing more affecting than the sudden and violent death of a beautiful woman—unless it be ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve
... "I know nothing, therefore I cannot tell. You came to me anonymously—that is, your identity aside from the name you bear was unknown to me. The money which supports ...
— A Little Miss Nobody - Or, With the Girls of Pinewood Hall • Amy Bell Marlowe
... water and dress it in various ways and make many dishes of it." "And how should we come by fire in the sea? We know not broiled nor boiled nor aught else of the kind." "We also fry it in olive-oil and oil of sesame.[FN269]" How should be come by olive-oil and oil of sesame in the sea? Verily we know nothing of that thou namest." "True, but O my brother, thou hast shown me many cities; yet hast thou not shown me thine own city." "As for mine own city, we passed it a long way, for it is near the land whence ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... Thusa, I know nothing about it," asserted Louis. "I never saw it till you pointed it out to me. Whatever it means, it must be genuine. Do you ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... does fooling and toying sometimes go that I know nothing a young woman has to be more cautious of; so far had this innocent girl gone in jesting between her and I, and in talking that she would let him lie with her, if he would but be kinder to me, that at last she let him lie with her in earnest; and so empty was I now of all principle, that I encouraged ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe
... and then said, with a great effort, 'The Indians have burnt the estancia; one of the men has escaped and brought the news. We know nothing more. Perhaps she is ...
— Out on the Pampas - The Young Settlers • G. A. Henty
... speaking deliberately with his beautifully modulated voice, and his eyes twinkling with the memory of the thing, 'I soon found that the greaser's contempt for the gringos was immeasureably greater than their's for him. "Bah," he would say, "they know nothing." And it was so. He could go into a cattle car on a pitch dark night and make the bulls stand up, a feat that none of the white men would have attempted. I asked him how he did this and he told me the answer in three words, "I know them." He could go into a herd of cattle just let loose ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten
... several important men in your own city have helped me to land this evening from a vessel which will not disembark her passengers till the morning. Therefore, it is fairly obvious that you run several sorts of risk by refusing to help me in finding my daughter, and I can hardly believe that you know nothing about her movements. . . . Come, my man, don't be both a fool ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... me into a perfect passion of sorrow. To say that there is anything in its subject save what is lovely, true, deeply affecting . . . is to say that there is no light in the sun, and no heat in the blood. . . . I know nothing that is so affecting, nothing in any book I have ever read, as Mildred's recurrence to that 'I was so young—I ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... made out. A few, Montgeron says, translate, after the ecstasy, what they have declaimed, during its continuance, in an unknown tongue; but for this, of course, we have their word only. The greater part know nothing of what they have said, when the ecstasy has passed. As ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... of a journey, of the beginning and end of which I know nothing, I had come to a great city, whose name, if it was ever told me, ...
— The Valley of Vision • Henry Van Dyke
... house in St. George's which Biondello is in the habit of frequenting. He probably finds some peculiar attractions there, but of this I know nothing. It happened a few days ago that he there met assembled together a party of civil and military officers in the service of the government, old acquaintances and jovial comrades of his own. Surprise and pleasure ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... alike," he said, with an impatient shrug. "They know nothing of the world, and place no faith in those who are competent to advise them. I had given you credit, my charming cousin, for ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... she answered firmly. "We mustn't ever allow ourselves to entertain such a thought. Marian may have foolishly risked money of her own that we know nothing of, but as for anything else—Marian is still a member of our sorority and the honor of the Phi Sigma Tau is ...
— Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School - or The Parting of the Ways • Jessie Graham Flower
... this quarter of the town, and therefore you could know nothing of it, that the sultan's daughter was yesterday to go to the baths. I heard this as I walked about the town, and an order was issued that all the shops should be shut up in her way thither, and everybody keep withindoors, to leave the streets free for her and her ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes |
