"Prate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... went those pretty babes, Rejoicing at that tide, Rejoicing with a merry mind, They should on cock-horse ride. They prate and prattle pleasantly, As they rode on the way, To those that should their butchers be, And ...
— A Bundle of Ballads • Various
... old man! Neither good nor ill wilt thou ever prate of mortal more, for I've drawn thy sting. Once thou wert kind to me; twice, in return, did I steal for thee, and once took a beating from thy shoulders. But thou wert more loyal to thy master than thou wert friend to me—and in a matter such as this, I take no chances. As I ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... with desperate tenacity to the Restrictive law of May 31st, they virtually confess that their hopes of success involve the continued exclusion of Three Millions of adult Frenchmen from the Registry of Voters. When they prate, therefore, of the people's desire for Revision, the Republican retort is ready and conclusive—"Repeal the law of May 31st, and we can then tell what the people really desire. But so long as you maintain that law, you confess that you ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... quoted Mallarme and Paul Verlaine. She was a triumph at Tango teas; At Vorticist's suppers he sought to please. She thought that Franz Lehar was utterly great; Of Strauss and Stravinsky he'd piously prate. She loved elegance, he loved art; They were as wide as the poles apart: Yet—Cupid and Caprice are hand and glove— They met at a dinner, ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service
... at the word. "Nay, but of course not. 'Tis nothing to prate about: come along home," said she harshly, pushing the child. Ditte was unaccustomed to be spoken to in this manner, and ...
— Ditte: Girl Alive! • Martin Andersen Nexo
... and somewhat aggressively burst into a guffaw of derisive laughter. "Miss Loomis is just one of those admirable women," said he, "that empty-headed idiots prate about. I wish other people had half her sense." A luckless way of essaying the defence of the absent, for it reflected ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... noise or confusion in the scolding of herring-wives than in the public disputes of men of this profession? I had rather my son should learn in a tap-house to speak, than in the schools to prate. Take a master of arts, and confer with him: why does he not make us sensible of this artificial excellence? and why does he not captivate women and ignoramuses, as we are, with admiration at the steadiness of his reasons and the beauty of his order? why does he not sway and persuade us to ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... read, and to reflect upon what she read, and to apply it to the purpose for which it is valuable, viz. in enlarging her mind and cultivating her taste; but she had never been accustomed to prate, or quote, or sit down for the express purpose of displaying her acquirements; and she began to tremble at hearing authors' names "familiar in their mouths as household words;" but Grizzy, strong in ignorance, was no wise ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... hath scanty weal, except * To while away the time in chat and prate: Then shun their intimacy, save it be * To win thee lore, or better ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... wished to give up his shop, to retire from business, and for some time he had been thinking of going to see Sidonie, in order to interest her in his new schemes. That was not the time, therefore, to make disagreeable scenes, to prate about paternal authority and conjugal honor. As for Madame Chebe, being somewhat less confident than before of her daughter's virtue, she took refuge in the most profound silence. The poor woman wished that ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet
... as I, perhaps you would change your tune. Anyway, I'm a thief,—make the most of that,—but I'm not a devil from hell, God strike me dead! I would have you to know I've an honour of my own, as good as yours, though I don't prate about it all day long, as if it was a God's miracle to have any. It seems quite natural to me; I keep it in its box till it's wanted. Why, now, look you here, how long have I been in this room with you? Did you not tell me you were alone in the house? Look at your gold ...
— Stories By English Authors: France • Various
... have edgtooles I graunte it; but does his grave majestie looke like a lorde of that mettall? Come, come, be not seveare; let us prate whylst they whysper. ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. III • Various
... it fifty years! 'Tis steep! To climb so high a gradient? Prate of Guides? Are we not roped? The Danger? Nay, the Turf, No less nor more than mountain peaks, my friend, Hears talk of Roping,—but the Jubilee! Nay, there you have me: old Francesco once (This was in Milan, in Visconti's time, Our wild Visconti, with one lip askance, ...
— New Collected Rhymes • Andrew Lang
... be thanked that made us friends; Men prate of wealth in empty words, I Sit here content as '90 ends. And sip my grog, and smoke ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., January 3, 1891. • Various
... of those niggard souls, who deem That poesy is but to jingle words, To string sweet sorrows for apologies To hide the barrenness of unfurnished hearts, To prate about the surfaces of things, And make more thread-bare what was quite worn out: Our common thoughts are deepest, and to give Such beauteous tones to these, as needs must take Men's hearts their captives to the end of time, So that who hath not the choice gift ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various
... child That sups the moment's joy, and nothing heeds Time past or time to come, but fills all needs With present kindness. She would laugh and talk, Take arms, suffer embraces, even walk The terrace 'neath the eyes of all her fate, And seem to heed what they might show or prate, As if her whole heart's heart were in this house And not at fearful odds and perilous. And should one speak of Paris, as to say, "Would that our lord might see thee go so gay About his house!" Gently she'd bend her head Down to her breast ...
— Helen Redeemed and Other Poems • Maurice Hewlett
... the scholars were renewed, and further intimations of violence were exhibited. Again the peas rattled upon the hands and faces of the halberdiers, till their ears tingled with pain. "Prate to us of the king's favorites," cried one of the foremost of the scholars, a youth decorated with a paper collar: "they may rule within the precincts of the Louvre, but not within the walls of the university. ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... as you will, I deserve it. A man may prate of his own secrets if he like, but he should be careful of those of other people. I trusted yours to another, and am ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... devotion and most attentive service on the part of natives, and they are deserving of the kindest and most considerate treatment; but it has often made me indignant to hear people, who have had little or no experience of living in the midst of a native population, prate of the rights of our "black brothers," and argue as if the latter thought, judged, amused themselves, or, in short, behaved, as the white men do, who have the advantage of hundreds ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... my Dew, in idle mood, What prate I, minding not my debt? What do I talk of bad or good? The best ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... uncertain: "Time to taste life," another would have said, "Up with the curtain!" This man said rather, "Actual life comes next? Patience a moment! Grant I have mastered learning's crabbed text, Still there's the comment. 60 Let me know all! Prate not of most or least, Painful or easy! Even to the crumbs I'd fain eat up the feast, Ay, nor feel queasy." Oh, such a life as he resolved to live, When he had learned it, When he had gathered all books had to give! Sooner, he spurned it. Image the whole, then execute the parts— Fancy ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning
... prate endlessly?[755] Those high-prancing mares run over the vast plain afar. Neither art thou so much the youngest amongst the Greeks, nor do thine eyes see most sharply from thy head: but thou art always prating with words. Nor is it at all necessary ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer
... Powerful multepova. Powerless senpotenca. Practical praktika. Practice (custom) kutimo. Practice praktiko, kutimo, uzado. Practise praktiki. Prairie herbejo. Praise lauxdi. Prank petoleco—ajxo. Prate babili. Prattle babili. Pray (religious) pregxi. Pray (to request) peti. Prayer pregxo. Prayer-book pregxlibro. Preach prediki. Preacher predikisto. Preaching predikado. Preamble antauxparolo. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... soon in full swing, revelling in all the jests and topicalities of the play, where the strikers and pacifists, the profiteers, the soldiers and munition workers of two thousand odd years ago, fight and toil, prate and wrangle and scheme, as eager and as alive as their descendants of to-day. Soon his high, tempestuous laugh rang out; Elizabeth's gentler mirth answering. Sometimes there was a dispute about a word or a rendering; she would put up ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... free will, I would do little else, only my father and tutor are angry sometimes, and only Miss Lucy there gives herself airs about my being busy, for all she can sit idle by a well-side the whole day, when she has a handsome young gentleman to prate with. I have known her do so twenty times, if ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... replied Blueskin. "Take my life, if you're so disposed. You're welcome to it. And let's see if either of these women, who prate of their love for you, will ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... life's iron diadem: It should grow alway like that Eastern tree Whose limbs take root and spread forth constantly; That love for one, from which there doth not spring Wide love for all, is but a worthless thing. Not in another world, as poets prate, Dwell we apart above the tide of things, High floating o'er earth's clouds on faery wings; But our pure love doth ever elevate Into a holy bond of brotherhood All earthly things, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... prate of the competition of Bombay with Manchester and the like. The real competition is the competition of Regent Street with the Rue de Rivoli, of Brighton and the south coast with the Riviera, for the spending money of the American Trusts. What is all this growing love of pageantry, ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... Milovka study-house boasted even Cabbalists starving themselves into celestial visions and graduating for the Divine kiss. How infinitely restful after the Milovka market-place! No more, for that day at least, would he prate of ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... might prate about wealth till commonplace print was exhausted, but as matter of habit, few Americans envied the very rich for anything the most of them got out of money. New York might occasionally fear them, but more often laughed or sneered at ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... who preach the gospel of man's pre-eminence;—you who prate of God and know nothing whatsoever about Him! The horse, dog, cat,—even the wild animals, whose vices, perchance, pale beside your own, may go to Heaven before you. The Supreme Architect is neither a Nero, nor a Stuart, nor a clown. He will recompense all who deserve recompense, be they ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell
... talk to me about knowing," said the other, rather contemptuously. "Sure I gev in to you that he has a power o' prate, and the gift o' the gab, and all to that. I own to you that he has the-o-ry, and che-mis-thery, but he hasn't the craps. Now, the man that has the craps is the man for ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... off'rings; and wither'd murder, Alarum'd by his sentinel, the wolf, Whose howl's his watch,—thus with his stealthy pace, With Tarquin's ravishing strides, towards his design Moves like a ghost.—Thou sure and firm-set earth! Hear not my, steps, which way they walk; for fear The very stones prate of my whereabout, And take the present horror for the time Which ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... committed many barbarous murders, and being at last upon the point of discovery fell of his own hand. And the nightmare at the cross-roads was the regular punishment, according to the laws of England, for an act which the Romans honoured as a virtue! Whenever an Englishman begins to prate of civilisation (as, indeed, it's a defect they are rather prone to), I hear the measured blows of a mallet, see the bystanders crowd with torches about the grave, smile a little to myself in conscious superiority—and take a thimbleful of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... nothing to be hoped for? Is not a soul athirst a joyous thing? Where lies content to him whose eye doth rest on higher things? What satiation can compare to hope? Yet who among the satisfied hath need of hope? What can he hope for if he's satisfied? 'Tis but conceit, and nothing more, to prate of satisfaction! God spare the day when I am satisfied! I do not want the earth, Yet nothing less will leave me quite content; And once 'tis mine, I'm very sure you'll find me roaming off ...
— Cobwebs from a Library Corner • John Kendrick Bangs
... our black Lady of Altoting, I'll soon stop thy prate, chitterling!" bellowed the ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... the sugar prate! They do not care one dump About the blacks and their sad state— Just please to pass ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, July 24, 1841 • Various
... before the question has been asked, it has accomplished good works; yea, it is always engaged in doing good works. Whoever does not do such good works is void of faith; he gropes and mopes about, looking for faith and good works, but knows neither what faith nor what good works are, though he may prate and babble ever so much about ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau
... prating what the gurus prate, But to love, as God hath loved them, all things, be they small or great; And true bliss is when a sane mind doth a healthy body fill; And true knowledge is the knowing what is good ...
— Indian Poetry • Edwin Arnold
... they wrote that another man wrote of a carl in Norroway." —"Ye have read, ye have felt, ye have guessed, good lack! Ye have hampered Heaven's Gate; There's little room between the stars in idleness to prate! O none may reach by hired speech of neighbour, priest, and kin Through borrowed deed to God's good meed that lies so fair within; Get hence, get hence to the Lord of Wrong, for doom has yet to run, And. . .the faith that ye share with Berkeley Square uphold you, Tomlinson!" * * ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... You may prate of the fervour of Phoebus Of days that are calm and serene, When a tint as of teak is imposed on the cheek That is commonly pallid (when clean); But we have a taste that's aesthetic; Mere sunshine seems vulgar and crude, As we ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, August 19th, 1914 • Various
... march of individual parts. Excepting sometimes for a special purpose, he does not dump them down as accompaniment to an upper part. The "false relations" and "harsh progressions" of which the theorists prate do not exist for an unprejudiced ear. In writing the flattened leading note in one part against the sharpened in another he was merely following the polyphonists, and it sounds as well—nay, as beautiful—as any other discord, or the same discord on another degree of the scale.[2] ...
— Purcell • John F. Runciman
... prate to me?' said Redgauntlet, bending his brows. 'I, sir, transact my own business; you, I am told, act by ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... years, at the climate, the country, and the people; to drawl out her maudlin regrets for olive groves, and pout for the Bay of Naples; to talk of her loves; exhibit a cameo or a crucifix, (the parting pledge of some inamorato, probably since hanged), prate papistry, and profess liberalism; pronounce the Roman holidays "charming things," and long to see the carnival, and the worship of the Virgin together, imported to relieve the ennui ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... hear me, You shall have time to prate. My Lord Brachiano— Alas! I make but repetition Of what is ordinary and Rialto talk, And ballated, and would be play'd a' th' stage, But that vice many times finds such loud friends, That preachers are charm'd silent. You, gentlemen, ...
— The White Devil • John Webster
... table, began to groan and quake gradually until at length the whole bench shook. Then rising up she began to pray, shrieking so that she could be heard as far as the river. This done, she was quickly in the dish, and her mouth began immediately to prate worldly and common talk in which she was not the least ready. When the meal was finished, Ephraim obtained a horse for himself and his wife, and we followed him on foot, carrying our travelling bags. Our host took us to the path, and Ephraim's servant was to act as our guide. ...
— Journal of Jasper Danckaerts, 1679-1680 • Jasper Danckaerts
... you will not betray me," said Pratinas, who in fact considered precautions that were necessary to take among so blundering and thick-witted people as the Latins, almost superfluous. He muttered to himself, "I wouldn't dare to do this in Alexandria,—prate of a murder,—" and then glanced again ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... the first time Hal struck a false note. Newspaper men, as a class, abhor public speaking. So much are they compelled to hear from "those bores who prate intolerably over dinner tables," that they regard the man who speaks when he isn't manifestly obliged to, as an enemy to the public weal, and are themselves most loath thus to add to the sum of human suffering. Merely by way of saving the situation, Wayne, the city editor, ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... the Harz country, who was a preacher at one of the churches, took the lead; and he was certainly the most important and most dangerous personage among them. He accounted the civil authorities, with their rights, no more as Christians than he did the clergy and the hierarchy; and began already to prate of universal equality and communism. This novel and exciting doctrine soon won adherents, and propagated the 'spirit of revelation.' Already disturbances were brewing. But the magistrates took vigorous and timely measures. ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... sober Mervale, he leaned his face on his hands, and endeavoured to recall the words of Zanoni in their last meeting. Yes, he felt Nicot's talk even on art was crime; it debased the imagination itself to mechanism. Could he, who saw nothing in the soul but a combination of matter, prate of schools that should excel a Raphael? Yes, art was magic; and as he owned the truth of the aphorism, he could comprehend that in magic there may be religion, for religion is an essential to art. His old ambition, freeing itself from the frigid prudence with which Mervale ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... up his head in anger. "If I, his father, can let him go, why should you prate like women? The lad is my son, and he shall win his spurs—and more, and more, maybe," ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the epilogue, by rule, Should come and turn it all to ridicule; Should tell the ladies that the tragic bards, Who prate of Virtue and her vast rewards, Are all in jest, and only fools should heed 'em; For all wise women flock to mother Needham. This is the method epilogues pursue, But we to-night in everything are new. Our author ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... up against that confounded artist-fellow! That had upset him, most absurdly. A half good-looking sort of fellow: a fellow who could prate with a certain brio; not unlikely to make something of a figure in the eyes of a girl like Cecily. ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... themselves in dark Holes, Closets, Beds, &c. We are all for Humour, Gallantry, Conversation, and Courtship, and shou'dn't endure the chief Lady in the Play a Mute, or to say very little, as 'twas agreeable to them: Our amorous Sparks love to hear the pretty Rogues prate, snap up their Gallants, and Repartee upon 'em on all sides. We shou'dn't like to have a Lady marry'd without knowing whether she gives her consent or no, (a Custom among the Romans) but wou'd be for hearing all the Courtship, all the rare and fine things that Lovers can say to each other. ...
— Prefaces to Terence's Comedies and Plautus's Comedies (1694) • Lawrence Echard
... Prate, ye who will, of so-called charms you find across the sea— The land of stoves and sunshine is good enough for me! I've done the grand for fourteen months in every foreign clime, And I've learned a heap of ...
— Songs and Other Verse • Eugene Field
... obtained the primacy by the evangelic voice of our Lord and Saviour, saying, "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church," etc.(202) To it was given the fellowship of the most blessed Apostle Paul, that chosen vessel who not at a different time, as heretics prate, but at one time and on one and the same day by a glorious death, was crowned together with Peter in agony in the city of Rome under the Emperor Nero. And they equally consecrated the said holy Roman Church to Christ and placed it over all the others in the whole ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... grieved at his vagary, to have the act lauded as an instance of Roman virtue. I look upon the famed Brutus, when he thought it a matter of conscience to witness, as well as order, his sons' execution, to have been a vain unfeeling fool or a madman. Let us have no prate about conscience proceeding from a hard heart; these are frightful notions when they become infectious. A handful of such madmen are enough, if allowed to have their way, to enact the horrors of a French Revolution. All this you know, Eusebius, better ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various
... complaints before the Church; to hold for heathen all who are cast out of the Church; and that nevertheless so many men for so many centuries should not know where the Church is or who belong to it! This much only they prate in the darkness, that wherever the Church is, only Saints and persons destined for heaven are contained in it. Hence it follows that whoever wishes to withdraw himself from the authority of his ecclesiastical ...
— Ten Reasons Proposed to His Adversaries for Disputation in the Name • Edmund Campion
... shame his lineage, for lo, Your brother's good still seems your injury. Envious you are, and proud, and foes to heaven; Love of your neighbour still you loathe and hate, And only seek what must your ruin be. If to Pistoja Dante's curse was given, Bear that in mind! Enough! But if you prate Praises of Florence, 'tis to wheedle me. A priceless jewel she: Doubtless: but this you cannot understand: For pigmy virtue grasps not ...
— Sonnets • Michael Angelo Buonarroti & Tommaso Campanella
... cheeks, did rumple passionate, Like AEschylus—and tried to prate On trolling tongue, of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... But why prate history, why evoke phantoms of the past, when we can gaze on this exquisitely concrete thing—this glad and simple creature of Hokusai? Let us emulate his calm, enjoy his enjoyment as he sprawls before us—pinguis, iners, placidus—in the pale twilight. Let us not seek to identify him as god or ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... fellow. And is any one more open, [and less reserved] than usual in such a degree as I often have presented myself to you, Maecenas, so as perhaps impertinently to interrupt a person reading, or musing, with any kind of prate? We cry, "[this fellow] actually wants common sense." Alas! how indiscreetly do we ordain a severe law against ourselves! For no one Is born without vices: he is the best man who is encumbered with the ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... leader. But Christian stayed away from the meeting and carried the hostages off to Denmark against his plighted faith. There Gustav was held prisoner a year. All that winter rumors of great armaments against Sweden filled the land. He heard the young bloods from the court prate about bending the stiff necks in the country across the Sound, and watched them throw dice for Swedish castles and Swedish women,—part of the loot when his fatherland should be laid under the yoke. Ready to burst with anger and grief, he sat silent at their ...
— Hero Tales of the Far North • Jacob A. Riis
... they swallow Spanish figges deuour any hooke baited for them. He is not fit to trauell, that cannot with the Candians liue on serpents, make nourishing foode euen of poyson. Rats and mice engender by licking one another, he must licke, he must croutch, he must cogge, lye and prate, that either in the Court or a forraine Countrey will engender and come to preferment. Bee his feature what it will, if he be faire spoken he winneth frends: Nonformosus erat, sed erat facundus Vlysses; Vlysses the long traueller was not ...
— The Vnfortunate Traveller, or The Life Of Jack Wilton - With An Essay On The Life And Writings Of Thomas Nash By Edmund Gosse • Thomas Nash
... day I did not hate Nor doubt, nor quail nor curse. I, reverencing the people, did not bate My reverence of their deed and oracle, Nor vainly prate Of better and of worse Against the great conclusion of their will. And yet, O voice and verse, Which God set in me to acclaim and sing Conviction, exaltation, aspiration, We gave no music to the ...
— The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume IV • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... Why prate of social status, class, or rank when earth Is common tenting-ground, the heritage of all mankind? Except in purity is there no royal birth, No true nobility but nobleness of heart ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard
... the Old Travelers. We love to hear them prate and drivel and lie. We can tell them the moment we see them. They always throw out a few feelers; they never cast themselves adrift till they have sounded every individual and know that he has not traveled. Then they open their throttle valves, and how they do brag, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... you are a handsome young fellow, and I do not want handsome young fellows about my niece. I see too many of them: they have little fortune, and less shame; they give me a deal of trouble; no good can come of their smirking and smiling, their foppery and their forward prate. My niece I believe has much more prudence than is usual with the young minxes of the present day. But no matter for that: I am sure there is no prudence in setting gunpowder too near the fire. I have heard her talk ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... forget sentiment, to think of his material and nothing else, is, for a while at least, the king's highway of progress. Here, in England, too many painters and writers dwell dispersed, unshielded, among the intelligent bourgeois. These, when they are not merely indifferent, prate to him about the lofty aims and moral influence of art. And this is the lad's ruin. For art is, first of all and last of all, a trade. The love of words and not a desire to publish new discoveries, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... unmov'd waves seems fast asleep, And oft again the blust'ring North In angry heaps provokes them forth. If then this world, which holds all nations, Suffers itself such alterations, That not this mighty massy frame, Nor any part of it can claim One certain course, why should man prate, Or censure the designs of Fate? Why from frail honours, and goods lent Should he expect things permanent? Since 'tis enacted by Divine decree That nothing mortal shall ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan
... of all fare?" Finn cried. "Strong drink, if it be too freely supplied, Or the prate of a ...
— Ulf Van Yern - and Other Ballads • Thomas J. Wise
... by this Congress is more menacing than merely a return to the past—bad as that would be. Our resplendent economic autocracy does not want to return to that individualism of which they prate, even though the advantages under that system went to the ruthless and the strong. They realize that in thirty-four months we have built up new instruments of public power. In the hands of a people's Government this power is wholesome ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... rare that they are hardly to be found in perfection among the sons of men. The very fact of his greatness made his failings all the more dangerous and unfortunate. To be blinded by the splendor of his fame and the lustre of his achievements and prate about the sin of belittling a great man is the falsest philosophy and the meanest cant. The only thing worth having, in history as in life, is truth; and we do wrong to our past, to ourselves, and to our posterity if we do not strive to render simple justice always. We can ...
— Daniel Webster • Henry Cabot Lodge
... while they swell their armouries and armies; when all the statesmen that chatter of the people's weal as they steal up to the locked casket where coronets are kept; when all the men who talk of "glory," and prate of an "idea" that they may stretch their nation's boundary, and filch their neighbour's province—when all these are no longer in the land, and no more looked on with favour, then I will believe your cry that you hate the toys which ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... them together. He was told that the people had come out to hear one Bunyan, a tinker, preach. He instantly dismounted, and gave a boy twopence to hold his horse, for he declared he was determined to hear the tinker PRATE. So he went into the church, and heard the tinker; but so deep was the impression which that sermon made on the scholar, that he took every subsequent opportunity to attend Bunyan's ministry, and himself became a renowned preacher of ...
— Life of Bunyan • Rev. James Hamilton
... fops and fools together prate, O'er punch or tea, of this or that, What silly poor unmeaning chat Does all their talk engross! A nobler theme employs my lays, And thus my honest voice I raise In well-deserved strains to praise The ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... people, and the very babies in Concord knew and loved him. "Incorrigible spouting Yankee" he called himself; but he was rather a silent man in reality, and did not care to talk excepting when he had somewhat to say. He did not prate eternally of silence, as Carlyle did, while wreaking himself upon speech in the most frantically vehement manner all his days, but he knew when and how to be silent. The glimpses he gives of Mrs. Emerson, in the long correspondence ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... burst out to Doctor Keltridge over a cigar, one day; "we are bound by all our articles of indenture, we preachers, to prate about the hand of the Lord and special Providences, when all the time we know the trouble came out of somebody's running up against simple, scientific law. It's theology, not science, we poor beggars are set up to preach, even in funeral sermons ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... "Prate not to me, but depart from this tent," said the Grand Master; "the Marquis shall not confess this morning, unless it be to me, for I part not from ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... half world Nature seems dead.... Thou sure and firm-set earth, Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear Thy very stones prate of my whereabouts. ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese
... glanced at one another; and one of them, whose name was Melantho, spoke bitterly to Odysseus, and reviled him, saying: "Thou wretched old man, why goest thou not to find a bed in the smithy, or wherever else thou canst, instead of loitering here, and vexing us with thy prate? Either thou hast drunk a cup too much, or else thou art stricken in thy wits. Get thee gone, lest a stronger than Irus lay his hand upon thee and break ...
— Stories from the Odyssey • H. L. Havell
... tireless, restless, working. Only when men of other races, dark-skinned, dark-haired, and dark-eyed, passed his mental vision, was there the stillness of lazy rest; and Marmot was pleased, for he loved to prate of the Anglo-Saxon and the work they had done, and would do, for the world ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... lips the truth he'd seek, When seated with him 'neath a pear tree's shade, Contriv'd at ease and her arrangement made. The story I shall presently relate; The butler, strong, well dress'd, and full of prate: Who often made the other servants trot, Stood near when madam hit upon her plot, To whom she said, I wish the fruit to taste; On which the man prepar'd with ev'ry haste, To climb the tree, and off the produce shook; ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... art thou," they ask, "that thou shouldst fret To find, forsooth, one single heart undone? The page thou turnest there is purple-wet With blood that gushed from Caesar overthrown! Lo, who art thou to prate of sorrow?" Yet, This little woe, it is my own, ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various
... should not recollect it till this moment," replied Parravicin. "But be your inamorata whom she may—even the rich widow of Watling-street, of whom you prate so much—you must put ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... old herders, unshaved and hairy, Whose old tongues are never weary, Just outside my chamber-door Prate of sheep dips for ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... not dronk[e] hance how he be gins to prate The malowperte sleminge is a little to ...
— The Interlude of Wealth and Health • Anonymous
... he, witnessing for truth and freedom, steadfastly and defiantly opposed oppression, so those who catch his spirit today will do as he did and will realise as duty—"While wrong is wrong let no man prate ...
— The Higher Powers of Mind and Spirit • Ralph Waldo Trine
... or demon? 290 With new kings rise new altars. But, proceed; You are sent to prate your master's will, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... now elate, His grinning Rival 'gan to prate. Oh, fie! my friends; upon my word, You're too severe: he should be heard; For Mind can ne'er to glory reach, Without the usual aid of speech. If thus howe'er, you seal his doom, What hope have I unknown ...
— The Sylphs of the Season with Other Poems • Washington Allston
... on Beauty bare. Let all who prate of Beauty hold their peace, And lay them prone upon the earth and cease To ponder on themselves, the while they stare At nothing, intricately drawn nowhere In shapes of shifting lineage; let geese Gabble and hiss, but heroes seek release From dusty ...
— American Poetry, 1922 - A Miscellany • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... They tell me your ancestral Protestantisms are fast breaking down. Your churches are turning into concert and lecture rooms. Catholicism is growing among you,—science gaining on the quack-medicines! But there—there—I'll not prate. Forgive me. This has been a fascinating half-hour. Only, take care! I have seen you a Catholic once, for ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... feel, can you be so shallow as to dream that I feel nothing? What is your love for Tom Faggus? What is your love for your baby (pretty darling as he is) to compare with such a love as for ever dwells with me? Because I do not prate of it; because it is beyond me, not only to express, but even form to my own heart in thoughts; because I do not shape my face, and would scorn to play to it, as a thing of acting, and lay it out before you, are you fools enough ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... intolerable impudence and cant!" said Julian, starting from his seat, aroused by his hypocritical prate into unwonted intolerance; and he suddenly observed, by the cowering attitude which Hazlet assumed, that the worthy youth was afraid of receiving at his head the water-bottle, on which Julian's hand was resting. Julian thought it best to avoid the temptation, and hoping Hazlet would ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... loquacity, loquaciousness; talkativeness &c. adj.; garrulity; multiloquence[obs3], much speaking. jaw; gabble; jabber, chatter; prate, prattle, cackle, clack; twaddle, twattle, rattle; caquet[obs3], caquetterie[Fr]; blabber, bavardage[obs3], bibble-babble[obs3], gibble-gabble[obs3]; small talk &c. (converse) 588. fluency, flippancy, volubility, flowing, tongue; flow of words;.flux de bouche[Fr], flux de mots[Fr]; copia ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... with Farmer Crouder, "Began to prate of corn; "And we found out they talk'd the louder, "The ...
— Wild Flowers - Or, Pastoral and Local Poetry • Robert Bloomfield
... seed of Time, New men, that in the flying of a wheel Cry down the past, not only we, that prate Of rights and wrongs, have ...
— Contributions to All The Year Round • Charles Dickens
... dead thoughts and emotions has not already been delved within her, though she is but five years old. I, a stranger, a passer-by, know more of her life than she does and, in consequence, I am more truly she than she herself. After that let him who will prate of the feeling of identity ...
— Marguerite - 1921 • Anatole France
... jackasses we Americans are!" he continued. "We talk of liberty and demand license; we prate of democracy and ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... Diomed, with his cloak up to his mouth, 'the night grows cold; I cannot stay here while you prate to that blind girl: come, let her follow you home, if you ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... here, and desires to be my bedfellow to-night. So I shall not have an opportunity to sit down with that seriousness and attention which the subjects of yours require. For she is all prate, you know, and loves to set me a prating; yet comes upon a very grave occasion—to procure my mother to go with her to her grandmother Larking, who has long been bed-ridden; and at last has taken it into her head that she is mortal, and therefore will make her will; a work ...
— Clarissa, Volume 2 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... sad blunder— What can be come over me lately, I wonder? The Prince was as cheerful as if all his life He had never been troubled with Friends or a Wife— "Fine weather," says he—to which I, who must prate, Answered, "Yes, Sir, but changeable rather, of late." He took it, I fear, for he lookt somewhat gruff, And handled his new pair of whiskers so rough, That before all the courtiers I feared they'd come off, And then, Lord, how ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... force me to write a book about Italy myself, to give them 'the loud lie.' They prate about assassination; what is it but the origin of duelling—and 'a wild justice,' as Lord Bacon calls it? It is the fount of the modern point of honour in what the laws can't or won't reach. Every man is liable to it more or less, according ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... bring this vulgar scoundrel to the dust, but at what a price! The convict's dress now worn by his brother would soon be worn by him. And what solace would it be then that the same suit would be worn by the impostor also? Yet why prate of solace in a matter like this? What alternative was left to him? In what quarter of the sky was the light dawning for him? He was traveling toward the deepening night, and the day of ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... knows it not, it levels at her life; Should she presume to prate of such high matters, The meddling harlot, dear she should ...
— Jane Shore - A Tragedy • Nicholas Rowe
... that shall be quaff'd To loyalty's devotion, And here's to fortune that shall waft Your ship across the ocean, And here's a smile for those who prate Of Davy Jones's locker, And here's a pray'r in every fate— God bless ...
— John Smith, U.S.A. • Eugene Field
... "'How you prate!' said the mother, checking her. 'If you do not instantly tie up your tongue, and think more respectfully of the good people, I shall ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... talks, mind you! with the believer in the ballot over there; and so arrives at his conclusions on the subject of secret voting—and then, all these return to this "down-trodden," "aristocracy- ridden," "effete old kingdom," and prate about the glorious way in which their several theories work across the ocean—not one of them having resided long enough beneath the stars and stripes to be able to judge of the truth of what they allege, as they are quite contented to take for gospel the hearsay with which ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson
... admirable thing this is! Suppose there should be one or so, in the whole church, that understands somewhat besides English: shall I not think that he understands that better? Must I (out of courtship to his Worship and Understanding; and because, perhaps, I am to dine with him) prate abundance of such stuff, which, I must needs know, nobody understands, or that will be the better for it but ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... to fool me!" cried Laura indignantly. "What you've got you're welcome to, but for Heaven's sake don't prate around here about loyalty and ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow |
