"Croaker" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... is, according to Mr. Laing, a great genius, a more than prophet of the new religion, on this point suddenly collapses into "a dreadful croaker," styling his own age "barren, brainless, soulless, faithless." [4] But the reason is, of course, that "he suffered from chronic dyspepsia" and was unable "to eat his three square meals a day." A very consistent explanation for an avowed materialist, but slightly destructive to ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell
... was sure of you, my dears, from the first," he said. "The Major's an old croaker, but he'd go, too, if it were not necessary for him to stay in New York and attend to business. But we mustn't lose any time, if we're going to direct the politics of the Eighth District Election ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Work • Edith Van Dyne
... representation. But the piece, notwithstanding, brought the author 400 pounds, to which the sale of the book, with the condemned passages restored, added another 100 pounds. Furthermore, Johnson, whose 'Suspirius' in 'The Rambler' was, under the name of 'Croaker,' one of its most prominent personages, pronounced it to be the best comedy ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... the day before of a heaven where people were, presumably, to find their height of enjoyment in an eternity of rest. She supposed that was the best of it. Old Mrs Goodenough was always sighing for rest, and Deacon Croaker prayed every week to be set free from the trials and tribulations of this present evil world, and brought into everlasting peace. An endless passivity seemed a dreary outlook to her active soul, which was sighing to plume its cramped wings, and ...
— A Princess in Calico • Edith Ferguson Black
... croaker, will you?" one Chester rooter called out. "How anybody could pick a flaw with this splendid day beats me all hollow. Why, it was made on purpose for Chester to lick that boasting Harmony team, and send them ...
— Jack Winters' Baseball Team - Or, The Rivals of the Diamond • Mark Overton
... the fireside. Not to insist, however, on that point, with what glee the few hungry and thirsty old Ravens belonging to the Red Tarn Club must have flocked to the Ordinary! Without asking each other to which part this, that, or the other croaker chose to be helped, the maxim which regulated their behaviour at table was doubtless, "First come, first served." Forthwith each bill was busy, and the scene became animated in the extreme. There must have been great difficulty to the most accomplished of ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... ours is enchanting," said the doctor, when assailed by a chorus of doubts. "But it carries its deceptive smiles too far. The very beauty of the Cordillera is a sign of storm. I am sorry to be a croaker; yet we ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... his string. Cruel it seems. Let people get fond of each other: lure them on. Then tear asunder. Death. Explos. Knock on the head. Outtohelloutofthat. Human life. Dignam. Ugh, that rat's tail wriggling! Five bob I gave. Corpus paradisum. Corncrake croaker: belly like a poisoned pup. Gone. They sing. Forgotten. I too; And one day she with. Leave her: get tired. Suffer then. Snivel. Big spanishy eyes goggling at ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... a croaker, and one who pants when eating. Fancy has great weight. Shall we profit by it? Shall we yield to this weight because it is natural? No, but by resisting ...
— Pascal's Pensees • Blaise Pascal
... times; after which he stirred the fire a little more, and examined it carefully to see that it was all right; but he did not seem quite satisfied, and was proceeding to re-adjust the coals when Bob Croaker, one of the big boys, who was a bullying, ill-tempered fellow, and had a spite ...
— Martin Rattler • R.M. Ballantyne
... catch the pig and put it into the car—we're going to take it to Mr Haffigan's. [He gives Larry a slap on the shoulders that sends him staggering off through the gate, and follows him buoyantly, exclaiming] Come on, you old croaker! I'll show you how ...
— John Bull's Other Island • George Bernard Shaw
... were always a croaker. So long as the members of this lodge stand together there is no power in the United States that can touch them. Sure, have we not tried it often enough in the lawcourts? I expect the big companies ...
— The Valley of Fear • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... it!" cried Dennie joyously. "It's you, Croaker, sure pop. My eyes did not deceive me. I thought they had, Croaker. I thought I must be laboring under a mental strain. When I saw you coming up the street I says to myself, 'That's The Croak.' Then I took another look, and says, ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg
... five. Croaker! Five crows mean someone's going to be sick. And which way did they go ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham
... "Where is he taking you to? This white man is throwing you away. Your garments already smell of blood." It is curious to observe how much identity of character appears all over the world. This man was a noted croaker. He always dreamed something dreadful in every expedition, and was certain that an eclipse or comet betokened the propriety of flight. But Sebituane formerly set his visions down to cowardice, and Sekeletu only laughed at him now. The general voice was in my favor; ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... croaker you are, Dave," said Mr. Gordon lightly. "Don't lose sleep about any section. A night's rest is far too valuable to be squandered. These young folks want to see the sights, and I'll take them around for an hour ...
— Betty Gordon in the Land of Oil - The Farm That Was Worth a Fortune • Alice B. Emerson
... asleep with his mouth open and the flies buzzing about him looks to me like a Krooboy. Well, upon my word, old Croaker, they do look—I say, do you see that ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... pushed him into any show of speed. The animal's long, melancholy face, his habit of braying mournfully in the moonlight—until Westerners compared him unfavorably with the coyotes of the Plains—had earned him the name Croaker; and he was part of the loot they had brought out of the ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... broth."—"By a leaf," cries a Porter with a chest of drawers on his knot, and, passing between them, capsizes both at once, then makes the best of his way on a jog-trot, humming to himself, Ally Croaker, or Hey diddle Ho diddle de; and leaving the fallen heroes to console themselves with broken heads, while some officious friends are carefully placing them on their legs, and genteelly easing their pockets of the possibles; after which they toddle ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... their jokes and jibes; Happy the croaker, the lugubrious forecaster of trouble; Happy Jack, the ugliest, the stupidest, the softest-hearted man of them all. He had "betched" there would be someone killed, over these Dot sheep; he had predicted trouble of every conceivable kind; and they had laughed ...
— Flying U Ranch • B. M. Bower
... croaker, Reuben, but I knows what I knows. I have been through a job like that I am telling you of, once; and I don't want to do it again. I will tell you about it, some day. I ain't saying as I expect any such thing will happen, on board the Paramatta. God forbid. She's a tight ...
— A Final Reckoning - A Tale of Bush Life in Australia • G. A. Henty
... bread trap o' yourn," Romescos shouts at the top of his voice. "You're only a green croaker from the piny woods, where gophers crawl independent; you ain't seen life on the borders of Texas. Fellers, I can whip any man in the crowd,—can maker the best stump speech, can bring up the best logic; and can prove that the best frightenin' man is the best man in the nigger business. Now, ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... want to be a croaker," began Bab, after a little hesitation, "but have you noticed that mother seems worried about something? When I was talking yesterday about how crazy I was to go to Vassar some day, mother looked ...
— The Automobile Girls in the Berkshires - The Ghost of Lost Man's Trail • Laura Dent Crane
... from a croaker. The kindest soul living Was he, and he sorrowed For all in the village, Not only for one. His conscience had pricked him While serving his haughty And rigorous Barin, 140 Obeying his orders, So cruel and oppressive. ...
— Who Can Be Happy And Free In Russia? • Nicholas Nekrassov
... spruce took a fresh start, and they grew vigorously together—for a while. Then the pine outstripped its nursling, and threatened to smother it. The spruce was the more valuable; the other was at best little more than a shrub. The croaker raised his voice: the black heath had turned green, but it was still heath, of no value to any one, ...
— Hero Tales of the Far North • Jacob A. Riis
... croaker. Wesley and Theodosia were married, in the golden prime of the Indian summer, and settled down on their snug little farm. Dosia was a beautiful bride, and Wesley's pride in her was amusingly apparent. He thought nothing too good for her, the Heatherton people ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... a whole may undergo self-poisoning. But, on the other hand, democracy is a kind of religion, and we are bound not to admit its failure. Faiths and Utopias are the noblest exercise of human reason, and no one with a spark of reason in him will sit down fatalistically before the croaker's picture. The best of us are filled with the contrary vision of a democracy stumbling through every error till its institutions glow with justice and its customs shine with beauty. Our better men shall show the way and we shall ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... of his people than she is of mine. Her mother was an American girl. She was educated in Washington. New Mexico is in America, not in Spain. Don't forget that, you old croaker." ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine
... Tautog Rosefish Tomcod Haddock Ling Cusk Summer Flounder Flatfish Muscallonge Northern Muscallonge Striped Mullet Common Mackerel Bonito Sauger Yellow Perch White Bass Striped Bass White Perch Sea Bass Scup Spotted Weakfish Croaker Bergall Spadefish Whiting Cod Burbot Hake ...
— New York at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis 1904 - Report of the New York State Commission • DeLancey M. Ellis
... you are under an obligation to do anything, or if it be your intention to do anything, the probability is that the thing will be done; but the Northern family of languages ventures no nearer than that towards the expression of the bare, awful idea of Future Time. It was no wonder that Mr. Croaker was able to cast a gloom upon the gayest circle, and the happiest conjuncture of circumstances, by wishing that all might be as well that day six months. Six months! What might that time not do? Perhaps you have not read a little poem of Barry Cornwall's, the idea of which must come home ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... made him ashamed that he had ever for a moment listened to Drexley the lunatic, and Rice, miserable croaker. He held ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... everything, and I know we shall always have enough to live on. But there is something about those two men I do not like. They were very angry at your refusal of their offer. I could see that. Tom, I don't want to be a croaker, but I think you'll have to watch out for those men. They're going to be your enemies—your rivals in the airship field," and Mr. Swift shook his ...
— Tom Swift and his Air Scout - or, Uncle Sam's Mastery of the Sky • Victor Appleton
... filmed with death's opaque curtains, but bravely, slowly smiled. "I'm down but not out, darlin'. That brute of a doctor jolted me hard; I nearly took the count—but I'm—still in the ring. Harness me up, Lucius. I'll show that sawbones the power of mind over matter—the ould croaker!" ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... prophet of Jehovah, but he had been the friend and counsellor of King Josiah, and was the leading statesman of the day in the ranks of the opposition. But distinguished as he was, his voice was disregarded, and he was probably looked upon as an old croaker, whose gloomy views had no reason to sustain them. Was not Jerusalem strong in her defences, and impregnable in the eyes of the people; and was she not regarded as under the special protection of the Deity? Suppose some austere priest—say such a man as the Abbe Lacordaire—had risen ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume II • John Lord
... reason for it to be tight, and it's not goin' to keep OUR money tight! You're always runnin' to the woodshed to hide your nickels in a crack because some fool newspaper says the market's a little skeery! You listen to every street-corner croaker and then come and set here and try to scare ME out of a big thing! We're IN on this—understand? I tell you there never WAS better times. These are good times and big times, and I won't stand for any other kind o' talk. This country's on its feet as it never was before, and ...
— The Turmoil - A Novel • Booth Tarkington
... the old lags would do it on his head, and fetch it easy, too. He's a scholar, and could get to be a wardsman in the infirmary, or medicine factotum for the croaker, or maybe book-keeper for the governor. But he's earned no remissions, and he'll fill his time afore he slings ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... the museum. I looked up the Darwin book and decided that he was right; not Darwin; the old croaker." ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... were a croaker before," Field said, "except just before the last fight; but certainly things have gone very badly lately. Three disasters in seven or eight days are a facer; but I cannot think that we shall not succeed next time. When Warren's division is ...
— With Buller in Natal - A Born Leader • G. A. Henty
... said Mr. Croaker, the elder and richer of the two, "I must not let that young scapegrace Jumper get the better of me. A pretty joke indeed that he should think of the beautiful Miss Leapfrog, he who is not worth a rap, and is ...
— The Comical Creatures from Wurtemberg - Second Edition • Unknown
... stigmatized the modern game as it was played by University students as a barbaric spectacle, dangerous to limb, if not to life. Horace has always been more or less of a pepper-pot, but he is not exactly a croaker, and he served in the war with distinction. Hence his diatribe made me frown, even though it rather amused me. It was written in the autumn of the year before Fred went to Cambridge, and I read it aloud to the family circle as being of interest ...
— The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant
... red-haired man, and said: "O croaker on the dead branch, now is the wind such that no rowing of thine may catch up with it: so in with the oars now, and turn about, and thou shalt ...
— The Story of the Glittering Plain - or the Land of Living Men • William Morris
... ould croaker," says Mrs. Daly, giving her a good-humored shake, "An' now sit down, Miss Monica an' Miss Kit, do, till I get ye the sup o' tay. Mrs. Moloney, me dear, jist give the fire a poke, an' make the kittle sing us a song. 'Tis the music we ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... acquaintance at Burlington, Benjamin's business was soon well advertised. Many people were taken by surprise, and most of them predicted a failure, since there were two printers in town already. One day Samuel Nickle, an old citizen of the town, known somewhat as a croaker, was passing by, and, looking ...
— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer
... No, sir! I ain't of those that turn. You may call me hard names, if you like, but you know very well that I ain't a croaker." Ricardo changed his tone. "If I said nothing for a while, it was because I was ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... hot head and cold heart, flaming heart and chilled head. He will be for God and the enemy of God; will expect heaven and tamper with hell. With rage he will go up, laughing come down. Ho! He will be for you and against you; eager, slow; a wooer, a scorner; a singer of madrigals, ah, and a croaker afterwards. There is no stability in him, neither length of love nor of hate, no bottom, little ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... although properly belonging to a continental race. It differs from our common frog in wanting a dark mark that runs from eye to shoulder, and in having, instead of it, a light mark—a streak—from head to tail along the centre of the back. The male is a more portentous croaker than our own familiar musicians, by virtue of an air-bladder on each cheek, into which air is forced, and in which it vibrates powerfully during the act of croaking. This kind of frog is always in ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... audience of seven frogs, listening to a speaker, or croaker, in the middle; and Bewick has set himself to show in all, but especially in the speaker, essential frogginess of mind—the marsh temper. He could not have done it half so well in painting as he has done by the abstraction ...
— Ariadne Florentina - Six Lectures on Wood and Metal Engraving • John Ruskin
... "Peace, thou croaker! I did not send for thee to prophesy, but to prove; I would break a lance and hold a tilt at thine argument. Now, I have a weapon in reserve which shall break down thy defences—the web of thy reasoning ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... mortification; cold comfort; regret &c. 833; repining, taking on &c. v.; heart-burning, heart-grief; querulousness &c. (lamentation) 839; hypercriticism. inquietude, vexation of spirit, soreness; worry, concern, fear &c. 860. [person who is discontented] malcontent, grumbler, growler, croaker, dissident, dissenter, laudator temporis acti[Lat]; censurer, complainer, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... "What an old croaker you've become," cried Tom. "I thought you would have been the last person to talk in ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston
... "You're a d—d old croaker," said Woodward, "and take delight in predicting evil. Here, my good woman," he added, turning to the other, "there's an additional half-crown for you, and I won't ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... preach—I hate to prate— - I'm no fanatic croaker, But learn contentment from the fate Of this East India broker. He'd everything a man of taste Could ever want, except a waist; And discontent His size anent, And bootless perseverance blind, Completely wrecked the peace of mind ...
— The Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... CROAKER, guardian to Miss Richland. Never so happy as when he imagines himself a martyr. He loves a funeral better than a festival, and delights to think that the world is going to rack and ruin. His favorite phrase is "May ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... young woman, settling the folds of her tunic. 'Now thou talkest as they say the Nazarenes talked—methinks thou art one of them. Well, I can prate with thee, grey croaker, no more: thou growest worse and worse—Vale! O Hercules, send us a man for the lion—and another ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... an "Outside Croaker.")—I find that since I started off shopping this morning, I have lost my purse, my handkerchief, the keys of all my boxes and drawers, a silver-mounted scent-bottle, my season-ticket, and a pocket-book containing priceless materials for the plot of a three-volumed novel. This comes ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 13, 1892 • Various
... dismal-minded croaker you are this morning!" exclaimed George Sheldon with unmitigated disgust; "a regular raven, by Jove! You come to a fellow's office just as matters are beginning to look like success—after ten years' plodding ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... spiteful croaker, who was trying out of jealousy to mar her happiness, she turned confidingly to the manly form beside her, and from the noble expression beaming from his eyes imbibed a fire which defied the whole spirit-world, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... cause dere won' no bricks en won' no saw mills to make lumber when I come along. Oh, my white folks live in a pole house daubed wid dirt too. Us just had some kind of home-made bedstead wid pine straw bed what to sleep on in dem days. Sew croaker sack together en stuff em wid pine straw. Dat how dey make dey mattress. Didn' get much clothes to wear in dat day en time neither. Man never wear no breeches in de summer. Go in his shirt tail dat ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 1 • Various
... hate to prate - - I'm no fanatic croaker, But learn contentment from the fate Of this East India broker. He'd everything a man of taste Could ever want, except a waist; And discontent His size anent, And bootless perseverance blind, Completely wrecked the peace of mind Of ...
— Fifty Bab Ballads • William S. Gilbert
... to put in your two cents' worth, you old croaker?" said Herb, giving Jimmy a poke in his well padded ribs. "I'll win that prize just as well by not working as you will by working. You know you're too fat and lazy, to make up a set ...
— The Radio Boys' First Wireless - Or Winning the Ferberton Prize • Allen Chapman
... croaker I am," she said. "I never told this to any one before. Thea—it is my very biggest secret. You'll never tell any one, will you? Never! never! Father says if I'm good I'll be beautiful enough for him. But oh, I wish I ...
— An Australian Lassie • Lilian Turner
... as well soon as syne, you waste your breath, Sholto," said Earl Douglas, "and it ill becomes a young knight, let me tell you, to be so chicken-hearted. The next time I will leave you at home to hem linen for the bed-sheets. Malise is a licensed croaker, but I thought better of you, ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... me a croaker," said Mr. X——-, tranquilly smoking, "and doubtless say to yourself, colonel, that I am injudicious in thus discouraging a soldier, who is fighting for this cause. A year ago I would not have spoken to you thus, for ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... rouse the cook," he said to himself, with a smile. "That fellow little thinks how useful he is in keeping up my spirits. The most inveterate croaker and grumbler in the world—and yet, according to his own account, the only cheerful man in the whole ship's company. John Want! ...
— The Frozen Deep • Wilkie Collins
... croaker," he said, after a moment, "I know. I ought after all this time to try to make myself more agreeable; but you must pardon me if this was the first thing that came into my mind. Elinor is looking a great deal better than ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... bothered if I can explain the kind of anxiety that came over me after a time. You'll think me a regular professional croaker but really I suppose, at bottom, it was some sort of feeling that the whole thing, this shouting and cheering and thumping the table—was premature. And then I suppose it was partly my knowledge of Peter. It wasn't like him to behave in this sort of way. ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... about the vessel, I detected Reginald Maltravers in the hold. It is not usual to allow women so far below decks; but I had insisted on seeing everything. Perspiring, begrimed, and mopping the moisture from his brow with a piece of cotton waste, there he stood in the guise of a—of—a croaker, is it, ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis
... of wet sand, and the number of black stones and rocks, covered with sea-weed, which were visible along the skirts of the shore, that the hour of tide was past. The young traveller expected a burst of indignation; but whether, as Croaker says in "The Good-natured Man," our hero had exhausted himself in fretting away his misfortunes beforehand, so that he did not feel them when they actually arrived, or whether he found the company ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... is to go about darkening the views of others, by perpetual complaints of evil, and awakening those considerations of danger and distress, which are, for the most part, lulled into a quiet oblivion. This he has done very strongly in his character of Suspirius[636], from which Goldsmith took that of Croaker, in his comedy of The Good-Natured Man[637], as Johnson told me he acknowledged to him, and which is, indeed, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell |
