"Devourer" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... "the Eater," so called as being a devourer of books. He himself wrote books famous in their time. He was chancellor of the University at Paris, and died in 1198. The Summae logicales of Peter of Spain, in twelve books, was long held in high repute. He was made Cardinal Bishop of Tusculum in ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 3, Paradise [Paradiso] • Dante Alighieri
... or nun, is a great frequenter of houses, and a general devourer. Beside insects, it is very fond of flesh; for it frequently picks bones on dung-hills: it is a vast admirer of suet, and haunts butchers' shops. When a boy, I have known twenty in a morning caught with snap mousetraps, baited with tallow or suet. It will also pick holes in apples ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... tread of a mighty elephant. When thou art slain by me on the field of battle, let herons and hawks and jackals tear in glee thy limbs today on the ground. In a moment I shall today make this forest destitute of Rakshasas,—this forest that had so long been ruled by thee, devourer of human beings! Thy sister, O Rakshasa, shall today behold thyself, huge though thou art like a mountain, like a huge elephant repeatedly dragged by a lion. O worst of Rakshasas, thyself slain by me, men ranging these woods ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... little Massot was saying, "there's a rascal who trims his sails! I knew him as an anti-clerical, a devourer of priests, Monsieur l'Abbe, if you will allow me so to express myself; however, I don't say this to be agreeable to you, but I think I may tell you for certain that he has become reconciled to religion. At least, I have been told that Monseigneur Martha, who is a great converter, now seldom ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... the right, which was an intimation of a fortunate event, he took Themistocles by the hand, and bade him consecrate the three young men for sacrifice, and offer them up with prayers for victory to Bacchus the Devourer: so should the Greeks not only save themselves, but also obtain victory. Themistocles was much disturbed at this strange and terrible prophecy, but the common people, who, in any difficult crisis and great exigency, ever look for relief rather to strange and ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... months before Everingham was all that it is now. My plan was laid at Westminster, a little altered, perhaps, at Cambridge, and at one-and-twenty executed. I am inclined to envy Mr. Rushworth for having so much happiness yet before him. I have been a devourer of my own." ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... seventeenth century, passed into the Missions, and have been lost in the forests. The dampness of the air and the voracity of insects* render the preservation of books almost impossible in those regions (* The termites, so well known in Spanish America under the name of comegen, or 'devourer,' is one of these destructive insects.): they are destroyed in a short space of time, notwithstanding every precaution that may be employed. I had much difficulty to collect in the Missions, and in the convents, those ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... subtle methods of attack transcended those of the mere devourer of leaf-tissue, as radically as an inventor of most intricate instruments differs from the plodding tiller of the soil. In the center of one leaf, less disfigured than some of its fellows, I perceived four tiny ivory spheres, a dozen of which might rest comfortably ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... thrifty expedients to educate her younger offspring. Accordingly, I was kept at school, studying geography, arithmetic, history and the languages, until near twelve years old, when it was thought time for me to choose a profession. At school, and in my leisure hours, I had always been a greedy devourer of books of travel, or historical narratives full of stirring incidents, so that when I avowed my preference for a sea-faring life, no one was surprised. Indeed, my fancy was rather applauded, as two of my mother's brothers ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... of friendship at Montreal. "I have laid Oswego in ashes," said Vaudreuil; "the English quail before me. Why do you nourish serpents in your bosom? They mean only to enslave you." The deputies trampled under foot the medals the English had given them, and promised the "Devourer of Villages," for so they styled the Governor, that they would never more lift the hatchet against his children. The chief difficulty was to get rid of them; for, being clothed and fed at the expense of the King, they were in no haste to take leave; and learning that ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... and mother. 2. The period of time during which a person or thing exists, or has existed. A home for those who have no other. B.—1. A collection of printed sheets. 2. A small creeping animal without feet. A devourer of that which is written, C.—1. The edge, or brink, of a fountain or river. 2. A hardened mass of earthy matter. A mineral substance. D.—1. A rodent of the genus lepus. 2. A hollow sounding body of metal. A flower of the campanula kind. E.—1. An emblem of innocence. 2. An extremity. ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... for the full success its qualities warrant. This all reverts to the question of the editorial conception of a volume. Some books are not made for great sellers; they are written for the keen enjoyment of a select educated few; and if so presented that they fall into the hands of the popular novel devourer, they will surely be condemned, and the condemnation will reach and have its effect upon many who should legitimately have bought the book. On the other hand, a novel of no literary quality thrust into the hands of a person of bookish tastes will make an influential enemy, ...
— The Building of a Book • Various
... passed by, it entirely disappears. Nor is there ever, at least for a day or two of abstinence, that gnawing at the stomach, as some express it, which is so often felt by the flesh-eater and the devourer of other mixed and injurious dishes and which is so generally mistaken for true ...
— Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages • William Andrus Alcott
... information was so extensive on modern topics, as to induce a suspicion that he could only have collected so much information from reviews, as he was never seen reading, but always idle, and in mischief, or at play. He was, however, a devourer of books; he read eating, read in bed, read when no one else read, and had perused all sorts of books from the time he first could spell, but had never read a review, and knew not ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... by the many: they are known the least by those who reverence them most. They are, in short, idols, and their worship is not a faith, but a superstition. This kind of belief is not shaken even by experience. When a devourer of the novels of Scott, for instance, takes up Tom Jones, he, after a vain attempt to read, may lay it down with a feeling of surprise and dissatisfaction; but Tom Jones remains still to his convictions 'an epic in prose,' the fiction par excellence of the language. As for Clarissa ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 448 - Volume 18, New Series, July 31, 1852 • Various
... sorts. It is a common mistake of the arm-chair newspaper devourer to lump all soldiers together as quaint, bibulous, aitch-dropping innocents, lamblike and gauche in drawing-rooms, fierce and picturesque on the field, who (to judge by their published photographs) are continually on the grin and continually shaking hands either with ...
— Observations of an Orderly - Some Glimpses of Life and Work in an English War Hospital • Ward Muir
... even spared my orphan children? He has stolen everything I possessed, sold everything, pawned everything; he has left me nothing—nothing! What am I to do with your IOU's, you cunning, unscrupulous rogue? Answer, devourer I answer, heart of stone! How shall I feed my orphans? with what shall I nourish them? And now he has come, he is drunk! He can scarcely stand. How, oh how, have I offended the Almighty, that He should bring this curse upon me! Answer, you ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... shall cover thee with His feathers." How blessed it is to think of you as "beneath the shadow of a great rock in a weary land," safe in His strength, building on His [10] foundation, and covered from the devourer by divine protection and affection. Always bear in mind that His presence, power, and peace meet all human needs ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... would be eaten bare as by locusts. But at this season Nature by the simplest stroke—the flush of a commonplace cheek, the warm touch of a commonplace hand—in a twinkling redresses the balance. Forthwith the ideal devourer of crops and herbs not only loses his appetite, but arising, smacks the earth with a hoe till the clods fly and the fields laugh with harvest. Thereon he mops his steaming brow, bedecks him with a bunch of white ribbons, and jogs jovially to church arm in ...
— The Idler, Volume III., Issue XIII., February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly. Edited By Jerome K. Jerome & Robert Barr • Various
... a sudden glance of alarm, at which I could have laughed. Hitherto his sole concern had been his daughter, but it suddenly occurred to him that perhaps not even her years might set the Vicomtesse in safety from imprudences with this devourer of hearts, should he still chance ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini |
