ideots

Updated: May 12, 2025

There must, in all large associations, be a mixture of good and bad; but when it is incontrovertible that the principal members of the Convention are monsters, who, we hope, are not to be paralleled that the rest are inferior rather in talents than wickedness, or cowards and ideots, who have supported and applauded crimes they only wanted opportunity to commit it is not possible to conceive, that any people in the world could make a similar choice.

An English Lady - A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, Complete: Described in a Series of Letters from an English Lady: with General: and Incidental Remarks on the French Character and Manners

One's ear occasionally catches a few half-suppressed notes of a proscribed aire, but the unhallowed sounds of the Carmagnole and Marseillois are never heard, and would be thought more dissonant here than the war-whoop. In fact, the only appearance of gaiety is among the ideots and lunatics. "Je m'ennuye furieusement," is the general exclamation.

An English Lady - A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, Part II., 1793: Described in a Series of Letters from an English Lady: with General: and Incidental Remarks on the French Character and Manners

"I would have all men," replied Belfield, "whether philosophers or ideots, act for themselves.

Fanny Burney - Cecilia; Or, Memoirs of an Heiress — Volume 1

One's ear occasionally catches a few half-suppressed notes of a proscribed aire, but the unhallowed sounds of the Carmagnole and Marseillois are never heard, and would be thought more dissonant here than the war-whoop. In fact, the only appearance of gaiety is among the ideots and lunatics. "Je m'ennuye furieusement," is the general exclamation.

An English Lady - A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, Complete: Described in a Series of Letters from an English Lady: with General: and Incidental Remarks on the French Character and Manners

There must, in all large associations, be a mixture of good and bad; but when it is incontrovertible that the principal members of the Convention are monsters, who, we hope, are not to be paralleled that the rest are inferior rather in talents than wickedness, or cowards and ideots, who have supported and applauded crimes they only wanted opportunity to commit it is not possible to conceive, that any people in the world could make a similar choice.

An English Lady - A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, Part III., 1794: Described in a Series of Letters from an English Lady: with General: and Incidental Remarks on the French Character and Manners

Thus is his Being one uniform and consistent Series of chearful Diversions and moderate Cares, without Fear or Hope of Futurity. Health to him is more than Pleasure to another Man, and Sickness less affecting to him than Indisposition is to others. I must confess, if one does not regard Life after this manner, none but Ideots can pass it away with any tolerable Patience.

Joseph Addison - The Spectator, Volume 1: Eighteenth-Century Periodical Essays