"Stickler" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the stories she had heard. No one was in the sitting-room, or the kitchen proper, but she heard voices in what was called the summer kitchen, a roughly constructed place with a stone chimney and a great swinging crane. Here they did much of the autumn work, for Elizabeth was quite a stickler for having a common place to save ...
— A Little Girl in Old Salem • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... himself a whisky and soda then and there, for he had both in the cupboard, in his sitting-room. But he was a stickler for the proprieties: he had drunk red wine, Burgundy with his dinner and port after it, and after red wine brandy is the proper spirit. There would be brandy in the tantalus in the ...
— The Loudwater Mystery • Edgar Jepson
... home. Oh! isn't it a pity? [Weeping again.] Ah well! out of my heart's joy has flamed all this long history, and meanwhile you must be very uncomfortable. Take off that "abstraction blanket." Take it off, for I have nothing more to tell you. Gracious goodness! what a stickler you are! Well, then! I must pull it off myself. I will have it off, man! do you ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... it, monsieur," the captain laughed. "I suppose the king did not guess you were coming in your shirt. Anyway, his order was to fetch you direct. And direct you go. But never care. Our king's no stickler for toggery. He's known what it is himself to lack ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle
... where he drinks not his morning draught, and apprehends a drunkard for not standing in the king's name. Beggars fear him more than the justice, and as much as the whip-stock, whom he delivers over to his subordinate magistrates, the bridewell-man, and the beadle. He is a great stickler in the tumults of double jugs, and ventures his head by his place, which is broke many times to keep whole the peace. He is never so much in his majesty as in his night-watch, where he sits in his chair ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... and the reasonableness of the demand for a change. There is a very good bust of Chaucer, with a cap on, and there is a still more excellent bust of Lorenzo de Medici, which has also a cap; but we put the question to the most conservative of hatters, and to the greatest stickler for the etatus quo in head attire, whether he would tolerate the marble or bronze portraiture of either of those worthies with the modern hat upon its head? The idea is so preposterous, that, if fairly considered, it would make ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... me," the absurd and exaggerated stickler for the dignity of his sex wildly cried. "God knows how I love her, how I care for her happiness. But to go to her empty-handed,—but to put myself in the position of being kept by a woman,—God knows ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... always compounded of different proportions of these two factors,—regard for the wishes and demands of their users, and consideration of what is right and proper for those users, from whatever standpoint. The stickler for uniformity will lament this diversity, but it is probably a good thing. In many libraries, there are as many minds as there are men, and it cannot be and ...
— The Building of a Book • Various
... that proof rests on the petitioner. Because a case is undefended, it doesn't for one single shadow of a chance follow that the petitioner's plea is therefore going to be granted. No. The Divorce Court may be cynical, but it's a stickler for proof. The Divorce Court says to the petitioner, 'It's up to you. Prove it. Never mind what the other side isn't here to deny. What you've got to do is to satisfy me, to prove to me that these places and these circumstances were so. Go ahead. ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... felt it very hard to pity. But I am thinking that it is a great shame that the general should not do anything for Mr. Mordaunt's wife, for she was his own flesh and blood; and I am sure he had no cause to be angry at her marrying a gentleman of such old family as Mr. Mordaunt. I am a great stickler for birth, sir; I learned that from the late Lady W. 'Brown,' she said, and I shall never forget her ladyship's air when she did say it, 'Brown, respect your superiors, and never fall into the hands of the republicans ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... and, as the distance increased, sprang on to the side, and, his eyes dim with emotion, waved tender farewells. If it had not been for the presence of the skipper—a tremendous stickler for decorum—he ...
— Many Cargoes • W.W. Jacobs
... such a stickler for observing the rules that the Navy Department will have to send you there for some post or other. Probably you'll go back as a ...
— Dave Darrin's Fourth Year at Annapolis • H. Irving Hancock
... A well-known admiral—a stickler for uniform—stopped opposite a very portly sailor whose medal-ribbon was an inch or so too low down. Fixing the man with his eye, the admiral asked: "Did you get that medal for eating, my man?" On the man replying "No, sir," the ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... or I, has somewhere this resolute passage;[12] Scio (saies he) ex arena, silicibus & saxis, non Calcariis, nunquam Sulphur aut Mercurium trahi posse; Nay Quercetanus himself, though the grand stickler for the Tria Prima, has this Confession of the Irresolubleness of Diamonds;[13] Adamas (saith he) omnium factus Lapidum solidissimus ac durissimus ex arctissima videlicet trium principiorum unione ...
— The Sceptical Chymist • Robert Boyle
... country house monotonous and colourless, and were looking forward to the termination of their visit. The life they had led for the past fortnight was not their way of life. They met each morning for breakfast at nine o'clock—Miss Heredith was a stickler for the mid-Victorian etiquette of everybody sitting down together at the breakfast table. After breakfast the men wandered off to their own devices for killing time: some to play a round of golf, others to go shooting or fishing, generally not ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... facer. It never occurred to any of us—eh?—that this island might have an owner. To tell the truth, I'm a stickler for the rights of property, at home; but somehow the notion of an island like this belonging to any one had never entered my head. Yet the thing is reasonable enough when you come to think it over; and, of course, I saw that it put an entirely different complexion ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... audience was numerous if not select. All persuasions—for even in that remote region sectarianism had done much toward banishing religion—assembled promiscuously together and without show of discord, excepting that here and there a high stickler for church aristocracy, in a better coat than his neighbor, thrust him aside; or, in another and not less offensive form of pride, in the externals of humility and rotten with innate malignity, groaned audibly through his clenched ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... such a thing in open court. Such utterances he reserved for his cronies and confidants. Once he was under the dented tin dome where he sat for so many years he became so firm a stickler for the forms and the dignities that practically a sacerdotal air was imparted to the proceedings. As you might say, he was almost high church in his adherence to the ritualisms. Lawyers coming before him did not practice ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... to them," corrected the old dame, who was a stickler for etiquette. "They are genuine Princesses, ...
— A Coin of Edward VII - A Detective Story • Fergus Hume
... you remember—no fair back. The second hitch was just about equal; an' I gripped up the sackin' round your shoulders, an' creamed it into the back o' your neck, an' held you off, an' meant to keep you off till you was weak. Ten good minnits I laboured with 'ee by the stickler's watch, an' you heaved an' levered in vain, till I heard your breath alter its pace, an' felt the strength tricklin' out o' you, an' knew 'ee for a done man. 'Now,' thinks I, 'half a minnit more, ...
— Wandering Heath • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Countess de Santiago could be induced to pay a visit to Valley House, despite the fact that she had never met Lord and Lady Annesley-Seton. Like most women who had lived in Spanish countries, the Countess was rather a "stickler for etiquette," her friend Nelson Smith announced. Besides, her experience as an "amateur clairvoyante" made her quick to resent anything which had the air of patronage. One must go delicately to work to think out a scheme, if Lady Annesley-Seton ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... to be just," defended Dorothy. "She has rather prim ideas about things, but she's a stickler for principle. I am glad she's over her prejudice against ...
— Jane Allen: Right Guard • Edith Bancroft
... madam," objected the black sheep, whose name, by the way, was Stickler, "business does bring about much of the disaster that often appertains to wedded life, but mischief is sometimes done by other means, such, for instance, ...
— Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished - A Tale of City Arab Life and Adventure • R.M. Ballantyne
... The latter ought to have gone back to Eton, but he had teased and prayed to be allowed to "see the fun out," meaning the election. "And that devil's discomfiture when he finds himself beaten," he surreptitiously added, behind his father's back, who was a great stickler for the boy's always being "gentlemanly." So the earl had yielded. They arrived, as before, about breakfast-time, having traveled all night. Subsequently, they and Mr. Carlyle ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... given to us of a great soul—faithful always in the greatest? Yes, but no less faithful in the least. There seems a strange, almost grotesque impossibility in the thought that such an one should ever have come to be regarded as "a stickler ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 8 - Talmage to Knox Little • Grenville Kleiser
... only have they the right of defence. And there are instances to be found in all countries, which shew, that it is not the change of nations in the persons of their governors, but the change of government, that gives the offence. Bilson, a bishop of our church, and a great stickler for the power and prerogative of princes, does, if I mistake not, in his treatise of Christian subjection, acknowledge, that princes may forfeit their power, and their title to the obedience of their subjects; and if there needed authority in a case where reason is so plain, ...
— Two Treatises of Government • John Locke
... on this one occasion thought the voice of the people was right. After the bill had been carried half through, it was given up by ministry, the opposition to it proving so violent. My father was a great stickler for parliamentary consistency, and moreover he was of an obstinate temper. Ten years could make no change in his opinions, as he was proud to declare. There was at this time, during a recess of parliament, some intention among the London merchants to send addresses ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... controversy before us. Babberly, I feel sure, would have objected to the cigar if he had thought that Conroy favoured extreme defiance of the Government. Malcolmson, like many military men, is a great stickler for etiquette. He would have snubbed the cigar if he thought Conroy was inclined to moderation. As things were, we all warmly invited Conroy to desert his private encampment and join us round ...
— The Red Hand of Ulster • George A. Birmingham
... breather with sword and battle-axe should fighting matters become serious, had his vice dominus to lead his forces in the field—is an old-school country gentleman who is amiably at odds with modern times. While tolerant of those who have yielded to the new order, he himself is a great stickler for the preservation of antique forms and ceremonies: sometimes, indeed, pushing his fancies to lengths that fairly would lay him open to the charge of whimsicality, were not even the most extravagant of his crotchets touched and mellowed by his natural goodness of heart. ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier
... thing to do, and knowing what a stickler you are for les convenances, Edith, you will still permit me humbly to offer them. It is a most suitable match; I congratulate Sir Victor on his excellent taste and judgment. He is the best fellow alive, and you—I will say it, though you are my cousin—will be a bride even a baronet ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... dogmatism; opiniatry^, opiniativeness; fixed idea &c (prejudgment) 481; fanaticism, zealotry, infatuation, monomania; opinionatedness opinionativeness^. mule; opinionist^, opinionatist^, opiniator^, opinator^; stickler, dogmatist; bigot; zealot, enthusiast, fanatic. V. be obstinate &c adj.; stickle, take no denial, fly in the face of facts; opinionate, be wedded to an opinion, hug a belief; have one's own way &c (will) 600; persist &c (persevere) 604.1; have the last word, insist on having ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... Feeling; but he was no captain, but a great stickler to encourage Mansoul to rebellion. He received a wound in the eye by the hand of one of Boanerges' soldiers, and had by the captain himself been slain, but that he made a ...
— The Holy War • John Bunyan
... going the whole length of the principle. As Sancho, when reprimanded for mentioning his homely favourite in the Duke's kitchen, defended himself by saying, 'There I thought of Dapple, and there I spoke of him,' so the true stickler for Reform neglects no opportunity of introducing the subject wherever he is. Place its veteran champion under the frozen north, and he will celebrate sweet smiling Reform; place him under the mid-day Afric suns, and he ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... raggedest coat in Christendom could make him; but it was equally well known and a matter of public faith, that her grandfather, the great miller and baker, Lord Lardy-Cake, as the boys called him derisively, had literally bushels upon bushels of money. He was a famous stickler for ancient usages, and it was understood that there were twenty thousand spade guineas in an iron box under his bed. Any cottager in the whole country side could have told you so, and would have smiled at your ignorance; the thing was as well known as ...
— Amaryllis at the Fair • Richard Jefferies
... a great stickler for purity of election; although, had he considered the matter, he should have known that with him money was his only passport into that Elysium in which he had now lived for two years. He probably did not consider it; for when, in ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... that Salvat who wandered from workshop to workshop like an incorrigible ranter whom no employer would keep; those two, with their want and dirt and rebellion, had ended by incensing the vain little clerk, who was not only a great stickler for the proprieties, but was soured by all the difficulties he encountered in his own life. And thus he had forbidden ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... "despite of that discomfiture, there was nothing in the conduct of those engaged that should call a blush into the cheek of the most fastidious stickler for national glory. There is not an officer here present," he continued, "who is not prepared to attest with myself, that your column in particular behaved like heroes. By the way, I could wish to know, (but you will use ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... girl. If she is one of your high-steppers as to dignity and sense of honor, let him play mean and seem to do a few dirty tricks. If she's a stickler for manners and good taste, let him betray a few traits of boorishness or Philistinism; or if she has a keen sense of the ridiculous, let him make an ass of himself. I should say the last would be the surest cure and leave least ...
— Potts's Painless Cure - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... couldn't talk to him, and when, quite naturally and nonchalantly he would start in to do the most outrageous things, they had to teach him better, literally by force. If Pedder weren't such an old stickler for propriety, I could go more into detail. You needn't look offended, Ped, you know you are very easily shocked, and that you make it unpleasant for everybody. He was taken on by the English consul at Teerak, who was a good fellow, ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... his good genius urged, I'm a stickler for solid food, his one and only reason being not gormandising in the least but regular meals as the sine qua non for any kind of proper work, mental or manual. You ought to eat more solid food. You ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... evening train from Stourmouth, which stopped at Paulton Halt? Well—if there wasn't she must get out at Marychurch, and drive from there. She only trusted she would be in time to dress for dinner. Harriet was such a stickler for etiquette. ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... stickler for principles," Folco said, sourly; "he cares for no laws that he can break. But in this case he claims to be acting according to his right, since the breaking of the ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... gaol for the desecration of a saint's day. But even this rigour, so intolerable to laymen, so irritating to Protestants, could not shake his popularity. We shall best conceive him by examples nearer home; we may all have known some divine of the old school in Scotland, a literal Sabbatarian, a stickler for the letter of the law, who was yet in private modest, innocent, genial, and mirthful. Much such a man, it seems, was Father Dordillon. And his popularity bore a test yet stronger. He had the name, and probably deserved it, of a shrewd man in business and one that made the mission ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Picturedrome. True that the local dentist, who is a stickler for correct English, protests against the designation. I have pointed out to him that if a "Hippodrome" is a place where one sees performing hippos, then surely a place where one sees performing pictures is ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, March 18, 1914 • Various
... fortress in Bessarabia, captured from the Turks by Suvorov in 1790, after a peculiarly bloody siege. (Byron chose this episode for treatment in Don Juan, cantos vii and viii.) Mickiewicz makes Rykov give the name as Izmailov; Rykov is a bluff soldier, not a stickler for geographical nomenclature.] ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... by his melancholy disappointment, so that he would dig me in the ribs with his long forefinger and laugh at me because he had discovered my deception. My uncle was a nice observer (and diligent) of fashion, and a stickler for congruity of dress, save in the matter of rings and the like, with which, perhaps, he was in the way of too ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... her joy, not even the author of it. How beautiful, too, are the quiet words, 'Take up thy son'! She has no words; but, for all answer, comes close to him (there is no 'in' in verse 37), and once again, but with what different feelings, clasps his feet. Not even Gehazi, or any other stickler for propriety, has the heart to thrust her back this time. The story draws a curtain over that meeting in the prophet's chamber. Sad hearts who have vainly longed for such a moment, can fancy the rapture. But the day will come, not here, but in the upper chamber, when parted ones shall clasp each ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... A gentleman by birth, a rich and successful man, happy in his private life, a great stickler for justice, as a magistrate severe upon those who cheat and adulterate, a loyal and patriotic man, and always filled with the desire to promote the interests of the City which had received him and ...
— The History of London • Walter Besant
... irregularities," said the elder Cruger, whose diplomatic training had made him something of a stickler for formality and precedent. "There will be time enough ...
— The Music Master - Novelized from the Play • Charles Klein
... countryman, and a great stickler for the king and the church. At the Restoration, clergymen being scarce, he was asked if he thought he could preach; he answered that he could make a shift; upon which he was ordained, and got ...
— The Proverbs of Scotland • Alexander Hislop
... the Hakim-Effendi and one of the Giaour women. What would happen were this knowledge to come to Alfieri's ears? The man who had not scrupled to order the pursuit and capture—the death, if need be—of Royson himself and Abdur Kad'r, was not a stickler at trifles. It was reasonable to suppose that he was making overtures of peace solely because his scouts had revealed the size of the expedition. How would he act under these fresh circumstances? Judging by the pact, there could be only ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... the young men to her. Some of them may take a fancy to her. I have seen people eat sugar on tomatoes and pepper on ice-cream. There may be in Morovenia one—one would be sufficient—one bachelor who is no stickler for full-blown loveliness. I may find a man who has become inoculated with western heresies and believes that a woman with intellect is desirable, even though under weight. I may find a fool, or an aristocrat who has gambled. I may stumble ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade
... every face, the almost ghoulish satisfaction with which that close-knit group of friends seized upon an outsider as the probable murderer of that other outsider whom they had rashly taken into their sacred circle. Even Penny Crain, thorny little stickler for fair play that she was, relaxed with ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... a severe military critic, he was never an unjust one, neither did he spare his own men. Though not a martinet, which was foreign to every fibre of his nature, he was a stickler for rigid discipline. When the expedition was recalled, he was first quartered in Norwich, and then at the old familiar barracks of St. Helier, in Jersey. On his return to the latter place, in 1800, after leave of absence, ...
— The Story of Isaac Brock - Hero, Defender and Saviour of Upper Canada, 1812 • Walter R. Nursey
... he announced, with the most engaging simplicity. "We both stand in need of refreshment before we return to the serious business of our interview. You see me in my cook's dress; forgive it. There is a form in these things. I am a great stickler for forms. I have been taking some wine. Please sanction that proceeding by taking ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... "or at least the state in which it comes back is marvellous. I am not a stickler for dates, as you know, but if you could only contrive to fix a few periods in your minds, girls, just in a general way, you would not be so shamefully befogged. Your Anne of Denmark, Francesca, was the wife of James VI. of Scotland, who was James I. of England, and she ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... Athens. There Brutus found him in 43, when attending philosophical lectures in order to hide his political intrigues; and though Horace was a freedman's son, Brutus gave him the high dignity of a military tribuneship. Brutus as a Republican was, of course, a stickler for all the aristocratic customs. That he conferred upon Horace a knight's office probably indicates that the libertinus pater had been a war captive rather than a man of servile stock, and, therefore, only technically a "freedman." ...
— Vergil - A Biography • Tenney Frank
... most imaginative poem conceived, planned, and executed. It was at Mayfield, too, that those bitter stanzas were written on the death of Sheridan. There is a curious circumstance connected with them; they were sent to Perry, the well-known editor of the Morning Chronicle. Perry, though no stickler in a general way, was staggered at the venom of two stanzas, to which I need not more particularly allude, and wrote to inquire whether he might be permitted to omit them. The reply which he received was shortly this: "You may insert the lines in the Chronicle or not, as you please; I ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 13, No. 356, Saturday, February 14, 1829 • Various
... that; and, if they should, where's the danger? You, such a believer in the romantic—stickler for old knight-errantry—instead of regretting it, should be glad! Look there! Lovers coming from all sides—suitors by land and suitors by sea! Knights terrestrial, knights aquatic. No lady of the troubadour times ever had the like; none ever honoured by such a rivalry! Come, Carmen, ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... at all; and which seeks, in a feeble way, to cramp usage by setting up distinctions that never existed, and laying down rules which it requires uncommon ignorance of the language to make or to heed. Still there are lengths to which the most strenuous stickler for freedom of speech does not venture to go. There are prejudices in favor of the exclusive legitimacy of certain constructions that he feels bound to respect. He recognizes, as a general rule, for instance, that when the subject is in the singular it is desirable that the verb should ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... This stickler for etiquette was absolutely shocked; he held up his hands, began a declamation on the rules of evidence, and uttered so many Pharisaical platitudes that I only escaped annihilation by a hair's-breadth. He was ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... for the purpose of introducing his companion. Personally, he would as readily have performed this office on horseback, but he knew that the schoolmaster was a stickler for ceremony. While the introduction was going on, Pierre took Mr. Nash's horse by the bridle, and led the procession home. There, Madame stood in the porch eagerly waiting for news of "ce jeune ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... stammered her chum. "You being such a stickler for the rules, Ruth. You know, if we ...
— Ruth Fielding at Briarwood Hall - or Solving the Campus Mystery • Alice B. Emerson
... but though her merits and her riches have attracted many suitors, she has never been tempted to venture again into the happy state. This is singular, too, for she seems of a most soft and susceptible heart; is always talking of love and connubial felicity, and is a great stickler for old-fashioned gallantry, devoted attentions, and eternal constancy, on the part of the gentlemen. She lives, however, after her own taste. Her house, I am told, must have been built and furnished about the time of Sir Charles ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... on! The Department of the Interior running our public lands saw to that. Friday's paper might come out the following Monday or Wednesday, but it must come out. That word "consecutive" in the proof law was an awful stickler. But everyone who had hung around the print shop watching Myrtle work, took ...
— Land of the Burnt Thigh • Edith Eudora Kohl
... people be placed in charge of bureaus, or be given a minister's portfolio. I only wish to prove that eloquence is a gift which exerts today an influence out of proportion to its worth. It is overestimated. A good orator must be something of a poet, which means that he cannot be a stickler for truth and mathematical accuracy. He must be inspiring, quick, and excitable, able himself to kindle the enthusiasm of others. But a good orator I fear will rarely play a good game of whist or of chess, and will be ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... Phlegm. He Censures Cowley for too much Wit, and corrects him with none. He is a great Admirer of the incomparable Milton, but while he fondly endeavours to imitate his Sublime, he is blown up with Bombast and puffy Expressions. He is a great stickler for Euripides, Sophocles, Horace, Virgil, Ovid, and the rest of the Ancients; but his ill and lame Translations of 'em, ridicule those he would commend. He ventures to write for the Play-Houses, but having his ...
— The Present State of Wit (1711) - In A Letter To A Friend In The Country • John Gay |
