"Prate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... wall-papers. These show the distinctive gifts by which Morris most widely influenced the Victorian traditions. It is not easy to explain why one design stirs our curiosity and quickens our delight, while another has the opposite effect. Critics can prate about natural and conventional art without helping us to understand; but a passage from Mr. Clutton-Brock seems worth quoting as simply and clearly phrased.[53] 'Morris would start', he says, 'with ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... 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 ...
— American Poetry, 1922 - A Miscellany • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... now with state affairs, I prate of Pitt and Fox; I ask the price of rail-road shares, I watch the turns of stocks: And this is life! no verdure blooms Upon the withered bough. I save a fortune in perfumes,— I'm not a ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, No. - 288, Supplementary Number • Various
... Therefore—therefore I order you to hold your foul prate! (Rises.) It grows late. Go hang helm and harness in ...
— Henrik Ibsen's Prose Dramas Vol III. • Henrik Ibsen
... thy tongue. Henceforth it will, I think, prate no good to thee. Wroth with thee are the AEsir, and the Asyniur. Sad shalt thou ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson
... "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
... 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
... 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 his ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... interrupted 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 wish ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... ward, instead of merely suggesting it and giving up when she said no. If you had followed your heart, you would have choked the name and amount out of her and paid that devilish debt. You walk away in a case like that, and then have the nerve to come here and prate to me about following your heart. I'll wager my last dollar your heart is sore because you were not allowed to help her; but on the proposition that you followed its promptings I wouldn't stake a penny. That's ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... danger, and the devil far fled. By the very reason of their security they are overcome of the devil and their own flesh, and fall unawares from the Gospel. They have just enough connection with it to be able to prate of it, boasting themselves Christians but giving no indication of ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther
... the other. And of course no party could exist five minutes unless it had some good in it. There are several admirable principles in the Populist creed; there are enough windy theories to upset the Constitution of which they prate; and, by the way, the more wrong-headed a would-be statesman is the more hysterically does he plead for the Constitution. As to the other Senator—I sympathize as deeply with the farmer as any man, and I hoped against hope ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... the prate Of statute and state, We once held with these fellows— Here, on the flood's pale-green, Hark how he bellows, Each bluff old Sea-Lawyer! Talk to ...
— Poems of American Patriotism • Brander Matthews (Editor)
... 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 work ...
— A Bundle of Ballads • Various
... to 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 daunted. True, she heard ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... thy prate, nor be busy, For I will not believe thee; The body was seen by me Fastened on the cross with nails; With a sharp spear they pierced him, So that it passed through the heart; To the earth the blood fell, And made him soon dead. That body cannot live, Nor rise up ...
— Everyman and Other Old Religious Plays, with an Introduction • Anonymous
... me ridiculously inconsistent for gentlemen upon this floor to prate so much about a republican form of government, and rise here and offer resolution after resolution about the Monroe doctrine and the downtrodden Mexicans, while they force upon the people of this District a government not of their own choice, because the voter ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... And dost thou prate of all that man shall do? Canst thou, who hast but plagues, presume to be Glad in his gladness that comes after thee? Will his strength slay thy worm in Hell? Go to: Cover thy ...
— The House of Life • Dante Gabriel Rossetti
... and oratories of noble and burgess were rich with ivories exquisitely carved, with sculptures and paintings, tapestry and enamels: the very utensils of common domestic use were beautiful. Men did not prate of art: they wrought in love and simplicity. The very word art, as denoting a product of human activity different from the ordinary daily tasks of men, was unknown. If painting was an art, even so was carpentry. A mason was an artist: so was a shoemaker. ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... having omitted to carry the Anthology with me—I mean Bland and Merivale's.—What has Sir Edgar done? And the Imitations and Translations—where are they? I suppose you don't mean to let the public off so easily, but charge them home with a quarto. For me, I am 'sick of fops, and poesy, and prate,' and shall leave the 'whole Castilian state' to Bufo, or any body else. But you are a sentimental and sensibilitous person, and will rhyme to the end of the chapter. Howbeit, I have written some 4000 lines, of one kind or another, ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... "Oh, you prate! Are not the graves dug over at certain fixed periods anyway? What evil is there in that it happens some years ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors • 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, Flamineo and Marcello, ...
— The White Devil • John Webster
... 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. ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... rushing behind him, and, by a rapidly conceived flank movement, giving Joseph a good sound kick. "How does the head of the family like the foot of the family? Don't ever prate of accidents of birth ...
— Mr. Bonaparte of Corsica • John Kendrick Bangs
... measures the Bolsheviks have been compelled to travel a long way from the ideals which originally inspired the revolution. But the situation is so desperate that they could not be blamed if their measures were successful. In a shipwreck all hands must turn to, and it would be ridiculous to prate of individual liberty. The most distressing feature of the situation is that these stern laws seem to have produced so little effect. Perhaps in the course of years Russia might become self-supporting without help from the outside world, but the suffering meantime ...
— The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism • Bertrand Russell
... not behoove Americans to stand on inviolate shores and prate of the wickedness of wrath. Moreover, this evil is not to be exorcised by a pious wish for it not to be. It is. And there is every excuse under the arch of ...
— In the Claws of the German Eagle • Albert Rhys Williams
... settled be, And then I hope we shall agree Without their help, whose high-brain'd zeal Hath long disturb'd the common weal; Greed out of date, and cobblers that do prate Of wars that still disturb their brain; The which you will see, when the time it shall be That the King comes home in ...
— Cavalier Songs and Ballads of England from 1642 to 1684 • Charles Mackay
... case for cold analytic judgment. It was not an occasion when long-haired critics could draw a diagram, and prate learnedly of "technique" and other topics that often make critics such insensate bores. "A Light from St. Agnes" was recognized intuitively as great. The soul of an audience never makes a mistake, ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... nothing to either in his true moments. Then, they were both great Poets. Some silly and sickly affectations connected with the accidents of birth and breeding may be observed in both, when they are not under the influence of 'the happier star.' Witness Burns's prate about independence, when he was an exciseman, and Byron's ridiculous pretence of Republicanism, when he never wrote sincerely about the Multitude without expressing or insinuating ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... down, that she thought me a dangerous man. Whereas now, John and I have shaken hands together, and dame Smith having seen that I have the face, and hands, and looks of a man, and walk upright, and prate, and laugh, and joke, like other people; and Joseph, that I can talk of taking his teeth out of his head, without doing him the least hurt; they will all, at my next visit, be much more easy and pleasant ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... infidelity prate of the horrors of slavery and defend a Godless theory of the State, I remember that those who had it in its purity did not regard the slave as a man. When I read the story of slavery and hear an exponent of free thought ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume 10 (of 10) • Various
... deal, Davy. My wits are nothing to yours. You'll shoot ahead of all your old friends, my boy, some day. But there's one thing you know nothing about—absolutely nothing—and you prate as if you did. Perhaps you must turn Christian before you do. I don't know. At least, so long as you're not a Christian you won't know what we mean by it—what the Bible means by it. ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Heaven's name in vain," cried Alan. "Who stood by while it was doing? Whose firmer hand lent aid to the murderer's trembling efforts? Whose pressure stifled her thrilling screams, and choked her cries for mercy? Yours—yours; and now you prate to me of pity—you, the slayer of the sleeping and ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... I fear these happy days when we Can loll in cooling shades while others toil For us, on stipends which like widow's mite Are small: will in the future disappear. These men who prate of slavery in these isles Do know full well that witness false they bear. We buy not souls and on the record place Their names among the chattels which we own, But their life's labor for a certain sum We purchase, when in times of ...
— 'A Comedy of Errors' in Seven Acts • Spokeshave (AKA Old Fogy)
... DOWNRIGHT. Prate again, as you like this, you foist* you. Your consort is gone. Had he staid he had shared with ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... thou'lt do: Woo't weep? Woo't fight? Woo't fast? Woo't tear thyself? Woo't drink up eisel? Eat a crocodile? I'll do't. Dost thou come here to whine? To outface me with leaping in her grave? Be buried quick with her, and so will I: And, if thou prate of mountains, let them throw Millions of acres on us, till our ground, Singeing his pate against the burning zone, Make Ossa like a wart! Nay, an thou'lt mouth, I'll rant as well ...
— The Journal of Arthur Stirling - "The Valley of the Shadow" • Upton Sinclair
... we die?" asked Ghek. "Your people prate of the just laws of Manator, and yet you would slay three strangers without telling them of what crime ...
— The Chessmen of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... names of actors with whom perhaps they have never exchanged a word, in the silly belief they are raising themselves in the estimation of their auditors. It is an odd conceit, yet it prevails with the would-be fast young men of the present day. To hear some of these mollycoddles prate one who was not acquainted with their weaknesses would imagine these chaps were on intimate terms with players—who, as a rule, are slow to cultivate new acquaintances, attend strictly to their own business, and do not particularly relish ...
— A Pirate of Parts • Richard Neville
... 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 himself, and ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... very definite idea. He 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 ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... graunte it; but does his grave majestie looke like a lorde of that mettall? Come, come, be not seveare; let us prate whylst ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. III • Various
... 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 amiable, but eloquent. Some ...
— 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
... honour which is harmed by gossip! What slanderous tongues say of me as a disgrace I deem the highest honour; but if you are of a different opinion, and held it when you wooed me, you would be wiser to prate less loudly of the proud word 'honour,' and ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... his own feet dislodged as he feverishly climbed the rocks. Above him, on the other side of the road, towered the hill where he had sat and dreamed as a boy, where Rochester had come and encouraged him to prate of his ambitions. ...
— The Moving Finger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... 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 and proper. ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt • Franklin D. Roosevelt
... who prate about Bibliolatry, and labor to lower men's estimate of the Bible. They may spare their breath. The people who idolize the Bible too much are creatures of their own imagination only, and not living men and women. People may love ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... and confronting him with an anger before which he recoiled, appalled. "Do you dare to stand there and prate of honour—you? Do you forget why he stood his trial? Do you forget why he is dying, and can you not see the vile thing that you are doing in arguing flight, that you talk of honour thus, and deny his claim to it? Mon Dieu! Your effrontery stifles me! La Boulaye was right when he said that ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... BECKET. Prate not of bonds, for never, oh, never again Shall the waste voice of the bond-breaking sea Divide me from the mother church of England, My Canterbury. Loud disturbances! Oh, ay—the bells rang out even to deafening, Organ and pipe, ...
— Becket and other plays • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... 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, ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell
... Nor is Chicago the leading city in crime, since it is only seventh on the list, which is headed by four Southern cities, and San Francisco and Los Angeles. In view of such a terrible condition of affairs, it seems ridiculous to prate of the protection ...
— Anarchism and Other Essays • Emma Goldman
... 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. Maugre-bleu! We hold them cheap enough. We heed not the idle bark ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... 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
... to misunderstand me, those are the worst!—especially the ill-natured people, the classical people who bray about music, stride straight to the notes, and have no patience till they come to Beethoven; who foolishly prate and fume about my unclassical management, but at bottom only wish to conceal their own unskilfulness, their want of culture and of disinterestedness, or to excuse their habitual drudgery. Lazy people without talent I cannot undertake ...
— Piano and Song - How to Teach, How to Learn, and How to Form a Judgment of - Musical Performances • Friedrich Wieck
... Jaw," says Captain Night. "I shall be thirstier anon from listening to your prate. Will you hurry now, Gadfly, or is the sun to sink before we get ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... Here's no such subject for you to out-doe, Out-shine, out-live (though well you may doe too In other Spheres:) For Fletchers flourishing Bayes Must never fade while Phoebus weares his Rayes. Therefore forbeare to presse upon him thus. Why, what are you (cry some) that prate to us? Doe not we know you for a flashy Meteor? And stil'd (at best) the Muses Serving-creature? Doe you comptroll? Y'have had your Jere: Sirs, no; But, in an humble manner, let you know Old Serving-creatures oftentimes are fit T' informe young ...
— The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher in Ten Volumes - Volume I. • Beaumont and Fletcher
... the day, Hogan, for you and me to prate of honour?" asked Crispin bitterly, yet with averted gaze. "God knows my honour is as like honour as a beggar's rags are like unto a cloak of ermine. What signifies another splash, another rent in that which is tattered beyond all semblance ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... land! The Huns are thundering toward the citadel; They prate of Culture but their path is Hell; Their light is darkness, and the bloody sword They wield and worship is their only Lord. O land where reason stands secure on right, O land where freedom is the source ...
— The Poems of Henry Van Dyke • Henry Van Dyke
... woman started, alarmed 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, ...
— Ditte: Girl Alive! • Martin Andersen Nexo
... Jezebel. Well, prate not to me, daughter of Eliab; for I need it not. Tell me if you have fulfilled the mission given you this day, and what ...
— Gems Gathered in Haste - A New Year's Gift for Sunday Schools • Anonymous
... 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
... 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 on ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... I would fain see all the poets of these times pen such another play as that was: they'll prate and swagger, and keep a stir of art and devices, when, as I am a gentleman, read 'em, they are the most shallow, pitiful, barren fellows, that live upon the: face of ...
— Every Man In His Humor - (The Anglicized Edition) • Ben Jonson
... stage, Tricked for a part of woe and somber-drest. "Lo, who 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
... the light—to boast of science even as the handmaid of religion—they have shown a disposition to decry the alleged discoveries of science, to ridicule its supposed facts, to make light of a whole concatenation of evidence, to prate of the uncertainties and vacillations of science, to sneer at 'sciolists,' or 'mere men of science,' to warn against the 'babblings of science' and 'philosophy falsely so called,' and meantime they have betrayed ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... anger And why you prate thus: I have found your melancholy: Ye all want mony, and you are liberal Captains, And in this want will talk a little desperately: Here's gold, come share; I love a brave Commander: And be not peevish, do as Caesar does: He's merry with his wench now, be you jovial, And let's all laugh ...
— The False One • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... token, nor anything else by which I can test your story. Nay, sir, do not scowl at me,' he continued sharply. 'I am the mouthpiece of the King of Navarre, to whom this matter is of the highest importance. I cannot believe that the man whom he would choose would act so. This house you prate of in Blois, for instance, and the room with the two doors? What were you doing while mademoiselle ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... maim and mangle and kill each other with fractricidal hands, which ought to have been clasped in friendship and brotherhood. Yet these hireling priests, who consecrate the banners of war, dare to prate that God is a loving father and that we are all his children. What monstrous absurdity! What disgusting hypocrisy I Surely the parent of mankind, instead of allowing his ministers to mouth his name over the symbols of slaughter, would command ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote
... is not a very heroic attitude and will exclude them from any voice in the settlement. But we understand their position, and at least they are ready to fight for their own freedom. There are, however, individuals who are not ready to fight at all. They call themselves conscientious objectors, prate of the law of Christ, and pose as idealists. If they followed Christ they would sacrifice their lives for others, but they are only concerned for their own skins. Their place is in the shafts The true idealist lies ...
— Raemaekers' Cartoons - With Accompanying Notes by Well-known English Writers • Louis Raemaekers
... they are vanisht, and now they appear, fa, la, Sure they will tell Stories of what we do here, fa, la, la, Lie still my dear Chloris, enjoy thy Conceit, For the Babes are too young and too little to prate, fa, la, la. ...
— Wit and Mirth: or Pills to Purge Melancholy, Vol. 5 of 6 • Various
... scholar, and none of the soberest neither, inquired what the meaning of that concourse of people was (it being a week-day); and being told that one Bunyan, a tinker, was to preach there, he gave a lad twopence to hold his horse, saying he was resolved to hear the tinker prate; and so he went into the church to hear him. But God met him there by His ministry, so that he came out much changed; and would by his good will hear none but the tinker for a long time after, he himself becoming a very eminent preacher in that country afterwards." ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables
... that promise peace 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
... the man is there, it carries him through all difficulties as if they did not exist; every one of them has been foreseen and encountered in advance. Let no one come and prate about luck and chance. Amundsen's luck is that of the strong man who ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... danger to the fruit of their womb and to themselves, rather than not to fast when the others fast. They make a matter of conscience where there is none, and where there is matter of conscience they make none. This is all the fault of the preachers, because they continually prate of fasting, and never point out its true use, limit, fruit, cause and purpose. So also the sick should be allowed to eat and to drink every day whatever they wish. In brief, where the wantonness of the flesh ceases, there every reason for fasting, watching, laboring, eating this ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... hat at the dashingest possible tilt. Thus arrayed I fixed myself on the porch, to be smoking my pipe in a careless, indifferent way when she came. An egotist, you say—a vain man. No—just a man. For who when She comes would not look his best? We prate a lot about the fair sex and its sweet vanities. Yet it takes us less time to do our hair simply ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd
... tell her, then, you eternal babbler?" said his master, impatient of his prate, yet curious to know what it was all to ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... this a narrow life, prate in the North of our sympathy with the universal man, don't we? And so we extend a stomachic greeting to our Spanish brother that sends us wine, and a bow from our organ of ideality to Italy for beauty incarnate in Art,—see the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... heads, and prate fatuously that "there were giants in those days," ignorant of the thoroughly attested fact, that the average stature of the European races has increased some four inches since the days of the Crusaders, as shown by the fact that the common British soldier of to-day—Mr. Kipling's renowned "Tommy ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... You prate of duty and honor, of a patriot's glorious death, Of love of country, heroic deeds—nay, for shame's sake, spare your breath! Pray, what have you done for your country? Whose was the blood that was shed In the hellish warfare that ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... That only from her 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; But while ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... Alexander, he harde one of his souldyours crake and speake many yll wordes agaynst Alexander; wherfore he rapte hym on the pate with a iauelynge, sayenge: I hyred the to fyght agaynste Alexandre, and not to crake and prate. ...
— Shakespeare Jest-Books; - Reprints of the Early and Very Rare Jest-Books Supposed - to Have Been Used by Shakespeare • Unknown
... feeling, which is undoubtedly intense especially in the south of the Empire, may come to a head any day and prematurely explode. The nincompoops and quidnuncs and newspaper men ravenous for copy who prate about a "yellow peril" may, in this latter fact, find some slight excuse for their blatant lucubrations. There is no real "yellow peril." Poor old China, which has been so long slumbering, is just rousing herself and making arrangements ...
— The Empire of the East • H. B. Montgomery
... tell me that. But give me some food, and then I'll prate with you as long as you please. At present I am starving. Four-and-twenty hours have elapsed since ...
— The Bravo of Venice - A Romance • M. G. Lewis
... be tied By trustful faith and free affection. If ours be mutual love and pride, Who's going to "sever the connection"? Let plotters scheme, and pedants prate, They will not pick our true love's true lock Whilst truth and justice arm the State With friends ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., August 23, 1890. • Various
... prattling will please you, princess," replied Leander, "I will prate from morning ...
— The Little Lame Prince - And: The Invisible Prince; Prince Cherry; The Prince With The Nose - The Frog-Prince; Clever Alice • Miss Mulock—Pseudonym of Maria Dinah Craik
... "Come: it is your own handiwork. Why shouldn't you look at it? You can tell the world all about it afterwards, if you choose. Nobody would believe you. If they did believe you, they would like me all the better for it. I know the age better than you do, though you will prate about it so tediously. Come, I tell you. You have chattered enough about corruption. Now you shall look on it ...
— The Picture of Dorian Gray • Oscar Wilde
... my part, I cannot think what the women mean. It might be very well, if the Apollo Belvedere should suddenly glow all over into life, and step forward from the pedestal with that godlike air of his. But of the misbegotten changelings who call themselves men, and prate intolerably over dinner-tables, I never saw one who seemed worthy to inspire love—no, nor read of any, except Leonardo da Vinci, and perhaps Goethe in his youth. About women I entertain a somewhat different opinion; but there, I have the misfortune ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... you are referring to the one person in half a million to whom Art is anything more than a name. Dismissing the countless hordes who have absolutely never heard the word, and confining attention to the few thousands scattered about Europe and America who prate of it, how many of even these do you think it really influences, entering into their lives, refining, broadening them? Watch the faces of the thin but conscientious crowd streaming wearily through our miles of picture galleries and art museums; gaping, with guide-book in hand, at ruined temple ...
— Tea-table Talk • Jerome K. Jerome
... rich, the neighbourhood Lenski as a good match received,— Such is the country custom good; All mothers their sweet girls believed Suitable for this semi-Russian. He enters: rapidly discussion Shifts, tacks about, until they prate The sorrows of a single state. Perchance where Dunia pours out tea The young proprietor we find; To Dunia then they whisper: Mind! And a guitar produced we see, And Heavens! warbled forth we hear: Come to my ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... come to, and going through our performance without caring a rush for the Lord Chamberlain or the Middlesex magistrates, must convince all who know us, that we are for a thoroughly free trade in theatricals; but, nevertheless, we think the Great Unactables talk egregious nonsense when they prate about the possibility of their efforts working "a beneficial alteration in a law which presses so fatally on dramatic genius." We think their tom-foolery more likely to induce restrictions that may prevent others from exposing ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... preached now, it was to a dear, stupid lot of old marketwomen and overworked men and mischievous children. Oratory is a collaboration—let him wax eloquent about the precession of the equinoxes, and prate of Plato and Pythagoras if he wished—no one could understand him! Rome is wise—the crystallized experience of centuries is hers. Responsibility tames a man—marriage, political office, churchly preferment—read history ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... one be anything else, in such a country? And then—you don't know Manley, you see. It's horribly bad form, and undignified and all that, to prate of one's private affairs, but I just can't help bubbling over. I'm not looking for heaven, and I expect to have plenty of bumpy places in the trail—trail is anything that you travel over, out here; Manley has coached me faithfully—but I'm going to be happy. My mind is quite made ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower
... art not 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 Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various
... falsifying of all the pet Wagner doctrines—Ah! that odious, heavy, pompous prose of Wagner. In this erotic comedy there is no action, nothing happens except at long intervals; while the orchestra never stops its garrulous symphonizing. And if you prate to me of the wonderful Wagner orchestration and its eloquence, I shall quarrel with you. Why wonderful? It never stops, but does it ever say anything? Every theme is butchered to death. There is endless ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker
... thou, Claribel, Measure us back[407-62] to Naples? Keep in Tunis, And let Sebastian wake! Say, this were death That now hath seized them; why, they were no worse Than now they are. There be[407-63] that can rule Naples As well as he that sleeps; lords that can prate As amply and unnecessarily As this Gonzalo: I myself could make A chough[407-64] of as deep chat.[407-65] O, that you bore The mind that I do! what a sleep were this For your advancement! ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... 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 ...
— The Sylphs of the Season with Other Poems • Washington Allston
... goodly fruit, but only flowers That idly hide 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, making them ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... a shame that we, who prate so much about civilization and humanity, are content to degrade a fellow-being to such an office as this? Is it not time for reflection when we find ourselves willing to see in such a being matter ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... replied Aymer, "and therefore scarce angels in disguise, even though you prate of the clouds. So if you wish to measure blades I shall not balk you. Nathless," as he slowly freed his own weapon, "it is a ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott
... 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 ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, August 19th, 1914 • Various
... "What care we for the old world? It is as sad and mad and bad as we are—if we only knew! And who knows how much worse? It has petty bickerings, damning lies of spite and malice, trickery and thievery and corruption on its conscience. Let the little people of the world prate of their little things! We are free, dearest—and we defy it, don't we? Our ideals are never lost. And ideals are the life of love. Is love—a love like ours—a murderer ...
— One Day - A sequel to 'Three Weeks' • Anonymous
... children and simple-minded 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 with Carlyle, are all of the most pleasing nature, ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... 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 ...
— New Collected Rhymes • Andrew Lang
... seduce me then with words that have no meaning? Parrots so can learn to prate, our speech by pieces gleaning: Nurses teach their children so about ...
— Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age • Various
... throne a spider swings And snares the people for the kings: "Luther is dead; old quarrels pass; The stake's black scars are healed with grass"; So dreamers prate;—did man e'er live Saw priest or woman yet forgive? But Luther's broom is left, and eyes Peep o'er their creeds to where it lies. Spin, spin, Clotho, spin! Lachesis, twist! and Atropos, sever! In the shadow, year out, year in, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... 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 learning, but I've shivered all the time; And ...
— Songs and Other Verse • Eugene Field
... snatched it up and smashed it across his knee. "See, then, how I treat the symbol of my monarchy," he cried with a terrible laugh. "I shall soon demonstrate to you what a pricked balloon is this Kingship of which you prate. I believe that you, my own father, are ready to supplant me, I know that Julius, my cousin, is straining every nerve to procure my downfall; but you shall learn how a man who despises the pinchbeck honors of a throne can defeat your petty malice and miserable scheming. ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... Giue me this, or sell me that: and when the stranger should aske, What will you giue me for it? the beggar might answere: I haue ten or foureteene children, I will giue you some one or more of them, &c. For this rabble of beggars vseth thus fondly to prate with strangers. Now if there be any well-disposed man, who pitying the need and folly of these beggers, releaseth them of one sonne, and doth for Gods sake by some meanes prouide for him in another countrey: doth the begger therefore ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries - of the English Nation, v. 1, Northern Europe • Richard Hakluyt
... I shall be sending for your master to talk to you.—You know, gentlemen, what megrims I get, and what a numskull mine is. After drinking, we will chirp a little as is our wont; 'tis not amiss to prate in ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... not work except in darkness; Thought will not work except in Silence; neither will Virtue work except in Secrecy. Let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth! Neither shalt thou prate even to thy own heart of "those secrets known to all." Is not Shame (Schaam) the soil of all Virtue, of all good manners and good morals? Like other plants, Virtue will not grow unless its root be hidden, buried ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... win what it deserves. Let the fool prate of luck. The fortunate Is he whose earnest purpose never swerves, Whose slightest action or inaction serves The one great aim. Why, even Death stands still, And waits an hour ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... that it is the only adequate method. Critics exclusively trained in classics or in mathematics, who have never determined a scientific fact in their lives by induction from experiment or observation, prate learnedly about Mr. Darwin's method, which is not inductive enough, not Baconian enough, forsooth, for them. But even if practical acquaintance with the process of scientific investigation is denied them, they may learn, ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... "Thou dost prate like an ass, For were I to bend my bow, I could send a dart quite thro' thy proud heart, Before thou couldst strike ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... for the facts were probably never known to those who prate about the conquered rights from the crown. As you say, however, the civilization of a community is to be measured by its consciousness of the existence of all principles of justice, and a familiarity with ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper
... and this I have heard men say, And this 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
... death, yet at the present moment you have no natural driving force. It is all artificial, a matter of will. Do, for heaven's sake, get away from these skies and these streets, and leave all work and all social reforms behind. The first business of the citizen—prate as you like!—is to keep his nerves and his digestion in ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... what, my Dew, in idle mood, What prate I, minding not my debt? What do I talk of bad or good? The best is still ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the Grenadier Guards ceased to be objects of admiration, and the War Office would have howled with exquisite torture at sight of their hair and clothes. Speak of wrapping clothes around head or body to keep out the dust? It is sheer nonsense to prate so. Why it is hard enough to gape and gasp and catch a mouthful of sanded breath, without that added worry. There is nothing for it, but to grin and bear it and get through with the swallowing of that proverbial peck of dust in a life-time, ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh
... Fools! Flouting the sages Through history's pages And driving the dreary old seers into rages— The humbugging Magis Who prate that the wages Of Folly are Death—toast the Fools of all ages! They have ridden like froth down the whirlpools of time, They have jingled their caps in the councils of state, They have snared half the wisdom of life in a rhyme, And tripped into nothingness grinning at fate— Ho, ...
— Dreams and Dust • Don Marquis
... true disciple of Geber," cries Ferret. "No, sir," replied Mr. Clarke, "Counsellor Caper is in the conveyancing way—I was clerk to Serjeant Croker." "Ay, now you may set up for yourself," resumed the other; "for you can prate as unintelligibly as ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... he only notices external objects his ideas are confined to sensations; let him only see the physical world around him. If not, you may be sure that either he will pay no heed to you at all, or he will form fantastic ideas of the moral world of which you prate, ideas which you will never efface as long as ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... you going, by your theoretical treatises on philosophy, to make me learn the practical part of it, and prate upon learning while I ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... to your honour," said the traitor, for traitors love to prate of honour, "and will now admit you to the castle; but until we are in the ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... Why prate of peace? when, warriors all, We clank in harness into hall, And ever bare upon the board Lies the necessary sword. 1319 ROBERT LOUIS ...
— Handy Dictionary of Poetical Quotations • Various
... this or that—let them mind their homes and their children.' But the restless women who do these things have generally no homes or children to mind; what is the use of preaching the sacredness of motherhood when you will not allow them to be mothers? To what end prate of the duties of wifehood when you do not ask them to ...
— Modern marriage and how to bear it • Maud Churton Braby
... "Hold your prate and listen to me. The next time you look at a public-house say to yourself, Peter Crawley, that is not a public-house to you—it is a hospital, a workhouse, for a dunghill—for if you go in there John Meadows, that is your ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... sat at the 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 ...
— Journal of Jasper Danckaerts, 1679-1680 • Jasper Danckaerts
... dripping precipices Echo her stormy scream as she sails by— As that poor bird flies home, nor knows his loss, So Rustum knew not his own loss, but stood Over his dying son, and knew him not. But, with a cold incredulous voice, he said:— "What prate is this of fathers and revenge? The mighty Rustum never had a son." And, with a failing voice, Sohrab replied:— "Ah yes, he had! and that lost son am I. Surely the news will one day reach his ear, Reach Rustum, where he sits, and tarries long, Somewhere, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... he talk'd of management, What wond'rous blessings Heav'n sent On care, and pains, and industry; And truly he must be so free, To own he thought your airy beaux, With powdered wigs, and dancing shoes, Were good for nothing (mend his soul) But prate and talk, and ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber
... and Salisbury, lie there in obedience to the precepts and maxims inculcated into their minds in the churches and Common Schools of the North; precepts which impressed upon them the duty of manliness and honor in all the relations and exigencies of life; not the "chivalric" prate of their enemies, but the calm steadfastness which endureth to the end. The highest tribute that can be paid them is to say they did full credit to their teachings, and they died as every American should when duty bids him. No richer heritage was ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... singularity is, that when I say that Freedom is of God, and Slavery is of the devil, I mean just what I say. My fanaticism is, that I insist on the American people abolishing Slavery, or ceasing to prate of the rights of man. My hardihood is, in measuring them by their own standard, and convicting them out ...
— No Compromise with Slavery - An Address Delivered to the Broadway Tabernacle, New York • William Lloyd Garrison
... prating what the priest may 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 and what ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... While you prate of pride ancestral and the dead dreams of your youth, I, despite my birth and lineage, am a battler for the truth. To the work-worn, half-starved peasants of this realm my heart goes out— Those who, plundered and forgotten, find this life ...
— The Arena - Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897 • Various
... place where we can fight to advantage. Here in the strait betwixt Salamis and Attica we have space to deploy all our ships, while the Barbarians will be crowded by numbers. And if we once retreat?—Let Adeimantus and the rest prate about—'The wall, the wall across the Isthmus! The king can never storm it.' Nor will he try to, unless his councillors are turned stark mad. Will he not have command of the sea? can he not land his army behind the wall, wherever he wills? Have I not dinned ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... be a different thing indeed! Justice wears a sword, because she is of gentle birth. Work-people with axes must not prate of rights, or a prison will be their next one. Your right is to be disdained, young man, because you were not born a gentleman; and your duty is to receive scorn with your hat off. You like it, probably, because your father did. But come in, Daniel; ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... then (concludes the Stoic) take good words in your mouth, and prate before applauding citizens of honour, duty, and so forth, while you make your private lives a mere selfish calculation of expediency. We were surely born for nobler ends than this, and none who is worthy the name of a man would subscribe to doctrines which destroy all honour ...
— Cicero - Ancient Classics for English Readers • Rev. W. Lucas Collins
... low estate. About the joy and beauty of this world A long black veil is furled. Even the face of Heaven itself seems lost Behind a veil. It takes a fervent soul In these tense times To visualise a God so long defamed By insolent lips, that send out prayers, and prate Of God's collaboration in dark deeds, So foul they put to ...
— Hello, Boys! • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... of all fare?" Finn cried. "Strong drink, if it be too freely supplied, Or the prate of ...
— Ulf Van Yern - and Other Ballads • Thomas J. Wise
... he rasped; "go to that silken fool, His Majesty's Attorney. My politics are not those of the leather-jaws that prate ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... the Prior in a quivering voice, his eyes glistening and his cheeks red with anger, "dost thou prate to my very beard, sirrah? By Saint Hubert, thou hadst best save thy breath to cool thy pottage, else it may scald ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... I do, and bark. The world," added he, "is chiefly unjust and ungenerous in this, that all are ready to encourage a man who once talks of leaving it, and few things do really provoke me more than to hear people prate of retirement, when they have neither skill to discern their own motives, or penetration to estimate the consequences. But while a fellow is active to gain either power or wealth," continued he, "everybody produces some hindrance to his ...
— Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. - during the last twenty years of his life • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... crowd: Our gravity prefers the muttering tone, A proper mixture of the squeak and groan: No borrow'd grace of action must be seen, The slightest motion would displease the Dean; Whilst every staring Graduate would prate, Against ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... a beau, And sneers at some ill-natured wit below; But faith, if we should tell but half we know, There's many a spruce young fellow in this place, Wou'd never presume to show his face; Women are not so weak, what e'er men prate; How many tip-top beaux have had the fate, T'enjoy from mama's secrets their estate! Who, if her early folly had made known, Had rid behind the ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... patience, and be trew. This play was never liked, unlesse by few That brought their judgements with um, for of late First the infection, then the common prate Of common people, have such customes got Either to silence plaies, or like them not. Under the last of which this interlude, Had falne for ever prest downe by the rude That like a torrent which the moist south feedes, Drowne's both before ...
— The Faithful Shepherdess - The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher (Vol. 2 of 10). • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... call him a disguised and subtle 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 least. ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... harmonies, and they arise organically out of the firm 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 ...
— Purcell • John F. Runciman
... sure and firm-set earth, Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear Thy very stones prate of my whereabout, And take the present horror from the time Which now suits ...
— A Dish Of Orts • George MacDonald
... But the earl has a will of his own. He is a master worth serving though. And there is my lady Elizabeth and my lady Mary—not to mention my lord Herbert!—But,' he concluded, rubbing his injured knee with both hands, 'why do I prate of them to ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... house, and a little new family; just two of them, and just six months since they were made into a family, and set up housekeeping. As a matter of course everything in the house was new also. One may prate of antiquities, and the associations clinging about them that render them beautiful, but after all, every couple will always look back with delight to the time all their surroundings were fresh and pretty, yes, even though they were not pretty; ...
— Divers Women • Pansy and Mrs. C.M. Livingston
... high, tempestuous tone. "Canst thou so? Hast forgotten that the five-and-thirtieth rule of the order is that in the presence of a woman the face should be ever averted and the eyes cast down? Hast forgot it, I say? If your eyes were upon your sandals, how came ye to see this smile of which ye prate? A week in your cells, false brethren, a week of rye-bread and lentils, with double lauds and double matins, may help ye to remembrance of the laws ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... brain—this! this, you brainless idiot, who know not what a brain is"—and he tapped his brow repeatedly with an earnestness almost grotesque—"do you think that I will see this cast away, because you swill, swine that you are! Swill and prate in your cups!" ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... O pardon, Lord above! "My child, with pray'rs invoke his love, "The Almighty never errs?" "O, mother! mother! idle prate, "Can he be anxious for my fate, "Who never ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... the little boys. He dilated their hearts, and set them a prating; and was pleased with their prate. The doctor, who had never seen him before in the company of children, applauded him for his vivacity, and condescending talk to them. The tenderest father in the world, he said, could not have behaved more tenderly, or shewed himself more delighted with his own children, than he ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson
... with modesty. It is amazing how the use of language blunts the faculties of man - that because vain glory finds no vent in words, creatures supplied with eyes have been unable to detect a fault so gross and obvious. If a small spoiled dog were suddenly to be endowed with speech, he would prate interminably, and still about himself; when we had friends, we should be forced to lock him in a garret; and what with his whining jealousies and his foible for falsehood, in a year's time he would have gone far to weary ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the Church as to the pillar of truth; to lay all their 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 superior has only to persuade himself that the priest has ...
— Ten Reasons Proposed to His Adversaries for Disputation in the Name • Edmund Campion |
