"Wiseacre" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Crichton. He was known as a crack rider, a good roper, and a dead shot. Moreover, he had the reputation of being ready to fight at the drop of the hat. To the Rutherford boys he was a hero. Whether he was one also to Beulah her guest had not yet learned, but it took no wiseacre to guess that ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine
... will be noted later on. Here I wish to point out that the fourteen ingredients named may be divided into two groups of seven each—the egoistic and the altruistic. The prevailing notion that love is a species of selfishness—a "double selfishness," some wiseacre has called it—is deplorably untrue and shows how little the psychology of love ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... ago, just as well. And if I were to allege that my clock was made by Tubal Cain, before the flood, and for proof of the fact declare, that on the first of January, 3857 B. C., at 6 o'clock P. M., I had seen the two hands directly in line, and some wiseacre were to calculate the time, and find that at that hour the hands ought to have been just in that position, and conclude thence that I was undoubtedly one of the antediluvians, and the clock no less certainly a specimen of the craft of the first artificer ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... Some pessimistic wiseacre has said that all the dire and dreadful things in life drop out of a clear sky; that it is the unexpected which is to be feared, and that the unknown bridges are the ones in which dangers lurk and where calamity is to ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... been any doubt in the minds of any such wiseacre, either regarding their authenticity or their quality, he had only to listen to Oliver's presentation of his father and friend and to hear Richard say, in his most courteous manner and in ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... Well, this wiseacre, after his portentous introduction, fills the rest of his sixteen loosely printed double-columned octavo pages with a farrago of the most indescribable character, made up of brags, lies, promises, ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... jawing away about young Square-toes," struck in Gower. "He's no end of a sucking wiseacre, I dare say; but we've no time to lose, and I've got the fives ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... not in the nature of things, however, that the Saxon and Hessian indignation could be easily allayed. The Landgrave was extremely violent. "Truly, I cannot imagine," he wrote to the Elector of Saxony, "quo consilio that wiseacre of an Aldegonde, and whosoever else has been aiding and abetting, have undertaken this affair. Nam si pietatem respicias, it is to be feared that, considering she is a Frenchwoman, a nun, and moreover a fugitive nun, about ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... soul is sick, I ask the doctor: "How many kirats of hope?" and according to his answer "four" or "twenty" I feel gladness or despair. To own but one kirat, in this concern of property, is sometimes better than to own all the remaining three-and-twenty, as witness the affair of Johha, the greatest wiseacre this country has produced. Johha owned a house, consisting of a single room. Wishing to make a little money, he let his house to people for a yearly rent (which they paid in advance), reserving to himself the use of only one kirat of it. To show where his kirat ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall
... went down before him till there was but one great personality left who could talk to him as a father would to his wayward son. It was Bismarck, he who dragged Prussia from the depths and gave her the ideal for a world power. The cool calculating wiseacre said, 'Steady, lad,' so—he had ...
— The Sequel - What the Great War will mean to Australia • George A. Taylor
... true:—"Every day have these slangwhangers made furious attacks on each other and upon their respective adherents, discharging their heavy artillery, consisting of large sheets loaded with scoundrel, villain, liar, rascal, numskull, nincompoop, dunderhead, wiseacre, blockhead, jackass." As single words were not always explosive enough to make a report equal to their feelings, they had recourse to compounds;—"pert and prating popinjay," "hackneyed gutscraper," "maggot of corruption," "toad on a dung-heap," "snivelling ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... looked at, and, I feared, was going to check her; but he only said, "Proceed, Polly, proceed with that catechism—prove yourself the little wiseacre you are. If Miss Snowe were to blush and look confused, I should have to bid you hold your tongue; and you and I would sit out the present meal in some disgrace; but she only smiles, so push her hard, multiply the cross-questions. ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... say) of Queen Anne's reign, when I was a boy at a private and preparatory school for young gentlemen, I remember the wiseacre of a master ordering us all, one night, to march into a little garden at the back of the house, and thence to proceed one by one into a tool or hen house (I was but a tender little thing just put into short clothes, and can't exactly say whether the house was for tools or hens), and in that ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... Gallows. I touched it as I passed in. This engine is the first thing which greets the eyes of a newly-arrived prisoner. The new gaol is barely completed, is of pentagonal shape, and has eighteen radiating cells of a pattern approved by some wiseacre in England, who thinks that to prevent a man from seeing his fellowmen is not the way to drive him mad. In the old gaol are twenty-four prisoners, all heavily ironed, awaiting trial by the visiting Commission, ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... the press, and hearing the old man was very cholerick, I thought fit to raise it up—and only wrote—I referred my discourse then in hand to the discussion and judgment of sober persons, but not unto Thomas Wiseacre, for Senes bis pueri: These very words begot the writing of forty-two sheets against myself and astrology. The next year I quibbled again in three or four lines against him, then he printed twenty-two sheets against me. I was persuaded by Dr. Gauden, late Bishop of Exeter, to ...
— William Lilly's History of His Life and Times - From the Year 1602 to 1681 • William Lilly
... captured by the end of the trapping season, Indian Jake discharged his old debt with the Company. This was not sufficient, however, to re-establish confidence in him. There was a lurking suspicion among them, fostered by Uncle Ben Rudder of Tuggle Bight, the wiseacre and oracle of the Bay, that Indian Jake's payment of the debt was not prompted by honesty but by ...
— Troop One of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace
... behind." "They could scarcely have followed before,"—he objects, in the very accents of Boeotia. Nor will he pass "the hollow-sounding bittern" of the Deserted Village. A barrel may sound hollow, but not a bird—this wiseacre ...
— De Libris: Prose and Verse • Austin Dobson
... performed on a sonorous piano-forte, proceeded to wake the clangorous echoes of the Empyrean. They bade the prolyx Caucasian gentlemen not to misconstrue their inexorable demands, while they dined on acclimated anchovies and apricot truffles, and had for dessert a wiseacre's pharmacopoeia. Thus the truculent Pythagoreans had a novel repast ...
— 1001 Questions and Answers on Orthography and Reading • B. A. Hathaway
... the house shook on its foundations. My ladies began to say the Litany; I felt uncertain what to do; if I joined them it would be hypocrisy on my part, and if I did not it would look as if I were showing myself off as an ill-bred wiseacre, who cannot make allowance for country customs and female terrors. But I was wrong; they were not afraid; their faces were calm, even serene. It was evident that the familiar Litany was to them a sufficient armor against all dangers, ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... standing boast with Mr. Wiseacre that he had never been humbugged in his life. He took the newspapers and read them regularly, and thus got an inkling of the new and strange things that were ever transpiring, or said to be transpiring, in the world. But to all he cried "humbug!" "imposture!" "delusion!" ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 2 August 1848 • Various
... paper, made sacred to him by the hand of Emily Fotheringay. This was all he had in return for his passion and flames, his vows and protests, his rhymes and similes, his wakeful nights and endless thoughts, his fondness, fears and folly. The young wiseacre had pledged away his all for this: signed his name to endless promissory notes, conferring his heart upon the bearer: bound himself for life, and got back twopence as an equivalent. For Miss Costigan was a young lady of such ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... any cause of dissatisfaction, would have men to have a privilege to change their wives, or to repudiate them, deserves to be hissed at rather than confuted; for nothing can tend more to usher in all confusion and beggary throughout the world: therefore that wiseacre deserves," &c. [Footnote: Howell's Familiar Letters Book IV, Letter 7, addressed "To Sir Edward Spencer, knight," (pp 453-457 of edit. 1754.) The letter is dated "Lond. 24 Jan.," no year given; but the dates are worthless, being afterthoughts, when the ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... the Khoja began to reproach him. "You never thought it would come to this, my fine bird, did you?" said he. "And yet what a wiseacre you are! You know when it's day better than the sun himself, and can crow loud enough for all the world ...
— Miscellanea • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... harder; but this is one of those sayings which men love to repeat whether they are true or not. Such sayings themselves grow harder and adhere more firmly with age, and it would take many blows with a trowel to clean an old wiseacre of them. Many of the villages of Mesopotamia are built of second-hand bricks of a very good quality, obtained from the ruins of Babylon, and the cement on them is older and probably harder still. However that may be, I was struck by the peculiar toughness of the steel ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... simpleton, dolt, dunce, defective, witling, dotterel, driveler, blockhead, beetlehead, ninny, ignoramus, numskull, booby, clodpate, nincompoop, ass, wiseacre, dunderhead, halfwit, oaf, dullard, coot, mooncalf; zany, harlequin, buffoon, jester, merry-andrew, droll, clown, scaramouch. Associated Words: ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... atonement they can expect to obtain in hours of future dalliance, after they shall have made a tender of their person to this great deflowerer of the virginity of republics. We have, by our own wise (I will not say wiseacre) measures, so increased the trade and wealth of Montreal and Quebec, that at last we begin to cast a wistful eye at Canada. Having done so much toward its improvement, by the exercise of "our restrictive ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... the Bronx and once a week Mr. Bingle journeyed northward by subway and surface lines to visit his wife. A smart little doctor from Dr. Fiddler's staff made occasional visits to the Bronx and looked the part of a wiseacre when Mr. Bingle appealed to him for encouragement. He smiled knowingly and refused to commit himself beyond a more or less reassuring squint, a pursing of the lips, and the usual statement that if nothing happened she would be as fit as ever ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... noise in the country, and so greatly provoked were the people who resided in the other parishes that they absolutely accused her of being a witch, and sent old Gaffer Goosecap, a busy fellow in other people's concerns, to find out evidence against her. The wiseacre happened to come to her school when she was walking about with the raven on one shoulder, the pigeon on the other, the lark on her hand, and the lamb and the dog by her side; which indeed made a droll figure, and so surprised the man, that he cried out: "A ...
— Bo-Peep Story Books • Anonymous
... hands of guerrillas was a serious business then. An order had been issued by the wiseacre in command of the Army of the Potomac that all guerrillas taken should be put to death. This did not deprive the bushwhackers of a single man, but they naturally retaliated by a counter-order that all prisoners of theirs should be shot. In this game of pop and pop again the ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... poverty, and also because they knew that Lady Agnes Martling had long cared for him, and was most happily endowed with wealth and good looks also. When he left for Canada they were inwardly glad (they imagined that something might occur to end the engagement)—all except Richard, the wiseacre of the family, the book- man, the drone, who preferred living at Greyhope, their Hertfordshire home, the year through, to spending half the time in Cavendish Square. Richard was very fond of Frank, admiring him immensely for his buxom strength and cleverness, and ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... was affirmed by a friar who knew enough to write books, and Padre Damaso never disputed anything that he saw in print, a credulity of which many might have reason to complain. Although Fray Salvi made little use of violence, yet, as an old wiseacre of the town said, what he lacked in quantity he made up in quality. But this should not be counted against him, for the fasts and abstinences thinned his blood and unstrung his nerves and, as the people ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... for the little fellows," says the wiseacre, who sees you watching the smaller birds as they pass southward. Is it, though? What of the tiny winter wren which spends the zero weather with us? His coat is no warmer than those birds which have gone to the far tropics. And what of the flocks of ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... antiquarian!" exclaimed Alicia. "Look here, old Professor Wiseacre, what dynasty ...
— Two Little Women on a Holiday • Carolyn Wells
... with ruffled dignity, carefully dressed. His immaculate clothes and his solemn face were the two halves of his stock in trade. Under the clothes lay buried Ketchup the blacksmith; under the wiseacre face was Ketchup the ignoramus. Ignoramus he was, but not a fool. As he rode along back with Jonas, he plied the latter with questions. If he could get the facts of the case out of Jonas, he would pretend to have inferred them from the symptoms and ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston
... wiseacre in the House of Commons has said that Lord Chatham declared that not a gun should be fired in Europe without his leave. Lord C—— came into office when this country was involved in a war in which she had ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... cannot be said to be without letters which has its poetic brotherhood, limited though it be, and which reveres the memory of Cervantes, as the memory of Shakespeare is revered in no English seaport. Wiseacre should hie him to Cadiz on the 23rd of April, when the birth of Cervantes is celebrated, for in spite of intestine broils, Spaniards are true to the worship of the author of "Don Quixote," and his no less immortal attendant, ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... now prosperous city, he directed that P.P.C. cards be sent to all persons who had called upon him. It seems that the social convenances had not yet dawned upon this city, now the abode of arts and sciences, as the town wiseacre, learned in many things as well as social lore, was called upon for an elucidation of the three mysterious letters. Apparently he was not as able an exponent as was Daniel at Balshazzar's feast, who so readily deciphered "the handwriting on the wall." He ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur |
