"Prate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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 countenance, and watch, ...
— The House of Life • Dante Gabriel Rossetti
... 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
... secret, says 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 coach that's now ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... Magdalen, and not to their own purity, that the Lucretias of modern life owe their freedom from stain. Charity, as even those of whose religion it makes a formal part have been compelled to acknowledge, creates a multitude of evils. The mere existence of conscience, that faculty of which people prate so much nowadays, and are so ignorantly proud, is a sign of our imperfect development. It must be merged in instinct before we become fine. Self-denial is simply a method by which man arrests his progress, and self-sacrifice a survival of the mutilation ...
— Intentions • Oscar Wilde
... may prate of the fervour of Phoebus Of days that are calm and serene, When a tint as of teak is imposed on the cheek That is commonly pallid (when clean); But we have a taste that's aesthetic; Mere sunshine seems vulgar and crude, As we gather ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, August 19th, 1914 • Various
... otherwise would only deserve our contempt, and which, if it did not thus deprave the understanding and the heart, might delight us by its poetical features, and furnish the imagination with much fantastical amusement. Are you not ashamed, old man, to think and prate in this way of the most virtuous, the most beneficent of men? How many human beings are fed and supplied with comforts by his extensive transactions? is he not always giving the needy a share in the blessings ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... in death, As in the extremest evil of all our lives, We can but curse or pray, but prate and weep, And all our wrath is wind that works no wreck, And all ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... for one thing," Selingman replied; "your Press, written for and inspired with the whole spirit of the bourgeoisie. You prate about your Empire, but you've never learnt yet to think imperially. But there, it is not for this I crossed the Channel. It is to be ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... But why prate history, why evoke phantoms of the past, when we can gaze on this exquisitely concrete thing—this glad and simple creature of Hokusai? Let us emulate his calm, enjoy his enjoyment as he sprawls before us—pinguis, iners, placidus—in ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... I set you on? Even for my love then, I beseech you, sir, To seek him out, and lest he prate of me To put your knife into him ere he come forth: Meseems this were not ...
— Chastelard, a Tragedy • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... better reason for their religious faith than barbarous tradition and the vote of ecumenical councils. Bigotry has quailed beneath the ringing blows of your iconoclastic hammer, dogmatism become more humble and the priesthood well-nigh forgotten to prate of a hell of fire in which the souls of unbaptized babes forever burn. Without intending it, perhaps, you have done more to promote the cause of true religion, more to intellectualize and humanize man's conception of Almighty God, than any ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... Alas, 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)
... at length to the pitchers?" In secret the children they smile, as they wait; At last, though, they stammer, and stutter, and prate, ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... the 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 ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... sugar prate! They do not care one dump About the blacks and their sad state— Just ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, July 24, 1841 • Various
... you knew it. If not—why prate about it? It's on my own feet I must stand and not on my father's. If I am of any use you will find it out fast enough, father or no father; if I'm not 'twere best you found that ...
— The Story of Wool • Sara Ware Bassett
... funeral, and still more angry because he would begin explaining and apologizing, first at the levee and then at the drawing-room; and he reprehended him very sharply at both places. An explanation afterwards took place through Lord Camden, to whom he said that he was angry because de Saumarez would prate at the levee, when he told him that it was not a proper place ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... liest, thou fiend! Not unawares The sinner swallows Satan's bait, Nor pits conceal'd nor hidden snares Seeks blindly; wherefore dost thou prate Of destiny and fate? ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... opportunely 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 many a ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... upon the point of discovery fell of his own hand. And the nightmare at the cross-roads was the regular punishment, according to the laws of England, for an act which the Romans honoured as a virtue! Whenever an Englishman begins to prate of civilisation (as, indeed, it's a defect they are rather prone to), I hear the measured blows of a mallet, see the bystanders crowd with torches about the grave, smile a little to myself in conscious superiority—and take a thimbleful of brandy ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... avocations. The houses[61] 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. ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... pretending breaks down quickly. What, after all, is the sum of those doings in the shrub-house? What would Pippa gain, were she in truth great haughty Ottima? She would but "give abundant cause for prate." Ottima, bold, confident, and not fully aware, can face that out, but Pippa knows, more closely than the woman rich and ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... of our houses, and much goods have been sold away to Phrygia and fair Meonia, for the hand of Jove has been laid heavily upon us. Now, therefore, that the son of scheming Saturn has vouchsafed me to win glory here and to hem the Achaeans in at their ships, prate no more in this fool's wise among the people. You will have no man with you; it shall not be; do all of you as I now say;—take your suppers in your companies throughout the host, and keep your watches and be wakeful every man of you. If any Trojan is uneasy about his possessions, ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... he is your doctor, he is more trouble to you than your disease: if he is on board ship with you, he disgusts you more than sea-sickness; if he praises you, he is more fulsome than blame. It is more pleasure associating with bad men who have tact than with good men who prate. Nestor indeed in Sophocles' Play, trying by his words to soothe exasperated Ajax, ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... 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 alleadge, ...
— 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
... roof cast over Hell, and if you were here, you might see the fire on the farther side of your walls kindling, to burn you down into Hell." Some mocked them, others threatened to stone them unless they ceased their unmannerly prate; but some few asked, "whither shall we fly?" "Hither," said the watchman, "fly hither to your lawful king, who yet offers you pardon through us, if you return to your obedience, and abandon the rebel Belial and his deceitful daughters. Though their appearance is so splendid, ...
— The Sleeping Bard - or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell • Ellis Wynne
... and thee! I never heard a man yet begin to prate of his conscience, but I knew that he was about to do something more than ordinarily ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... not 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 ...
— The Bravo of Venice - A Romance • M. G. Lewis
... the Red King, as the young girl was ushered into the banquet-hall, where the disordered tables, strewn with fragments of the feast, showed the ungentle manners of those brutal days. "How now, mistress! do you prate of kings and queens and of your own designs—you, who are but a beggar guest? Is it seemly or wise to talk,—nay, keep you quiet, Sir Atheling; we will have naught from you,—to talk of thrones and crowns as if you did even now hope to ...
— Historic Girls • E. S. Brooks
... such unlucky habits, or relapsed, and back again Brought the late-ejected devil with a score more in his train,— That's for you to judge. Reprieval I procured, at any rate. Ugh—the memory of that minute's fear makes gooseflesh rise! Why prate Longer? You've my story, there's your instance: fear ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... footstep he prints upon the turf or gravel of his garden—when he abstains from every sort of animal food—and, above all, when he abstains from his great pursuit of torturing his fellow men—then let him prate, if ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... to prate of plates and prints And "quick developers" before, In spite of not unfrequent hints That these in time become a bore; But then this photographic craze Seemed little but a foolish fad, While now its very latest phase Appears to ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 20, 1892 • Various
... Story was told, not a moment cou'd rest; While the OWL her brain rummag'd, (now quite on th' alert,) [p 21] For a few scraps of learning, by way of dessert: But the PEACOCK had no inclination to wait, And the PARROT was still more impatient to prate: So the Poem was read, and the OWL vow'd she never Had heard any Verses she thought ...
— The Peacock and Parrot, on their Tour to Discover the Author of "The Peacock At Home" • Unknown
... benumbed, unless the speaker stand in some true relation with his audience, it may be pardonable to imagine that a friend, a kind and apprehensive, though not the closest friend, is listening to our talk; and then, a native reserve being thawed by this genial consciousness, we may prate of the circumstances that lie around us, and even of ourself, but still keep the inmost Me behind its veil. To this extent, and within these limits, an author, methinks, may be autobiographical, without violating either the reader's rights or ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... 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 that particular class of ...
— A Pirate of Parts • Richard Neville
... 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
... agaynste 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
... you saucy malapert knave, Begin you with your master to prate and rave? Your tongue is liberal and all out of frame: I must needs conjure it, and make it tame. Where is that other Careaway ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Robert Dodsley
... cried, "what doth this fellow prate of? ... Past love? ... Thou profane boaster! ... how darest thou speak of love to the ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... 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
... 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 Court hath nothing ...
— The White Devil • John Webster
... weal, except * To while away the time in chat and prate: Then shun their intimacy, save it be * To win thee ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... if our young men go abroad, it is no longer for clothes, nor to seek new laws in wretched printing shops, nor to study eloquence in the cafes of Paris. For now Napoleon, a clever man and a swift, gives us no time to prate or to search for new fashions. Now there is the thunder of arms, and the hearts of us old men exult that the renown of the Poles is spreading so widely throughout the world; glory is ours already, and so we shall soon again have our Republic. From laurels always ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... me too wrought the same Alcimedon A pair of cups, and round the handles wreathed Pliant acanthus, Orpheus in the midst, The forests following in his wake; nor yet Have I set lip to them, but lay them by. Matched with a heifer, who would prate of cups? ...
— The Bucolics and Eclogues • Virgil
... 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, ...
— The Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... 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
... Society, again, it is clear that the scarcity is factitious; is the work of Girondins, and such like; a set of men sold partly to Pitt; sold wholly to their own ambitions, and hard-hearted pedantries; who will not fix the grain-prices, but prate pedantically of free-trade; wishing to starve Paris into violence, and embroil it with the Departments: ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... Peleg! Peleg! said Bildad, lifting his eyes and hands, thou thyself, as I myself, hast seen many a perilous time; thou knowest, Peleg, what it is to have the fear of death; how, then, can'st thou prate in this ungodly guise. Thou beliest thine own heart, Peleg. Tell me, when this same Pequod here had her three masts overboard in that typhoon on Japan, that same voyage when thou went mate with Captain Ahab, did'st thou not think of Death and the Judgment then? Hear him, hear ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... went those pretty babes, Rejoicing at that tide, Rejoicing with a merry mind They should on cock-horse ride. They prate and prattle pleasantly, As they ride on the way, To those that should their butchers be And work ...
— English Fairy Tales • Flora Annie Steel
... His lewd embraces met; she, with sharp speech Reproachful, to Ulysses thus replied. Why—what a brainsick vagabond art thou! Who neither wilt to the smith's forge retire For sleep, nor to the public portico, 400 But here remaining, with audacious prate Disturb'st this num'rous company, restrain'd By no respect or fear; either thou art With wine intoxicated, or, perchance, Art always fool, and therefore babblest now. Say, art thou drunk with joy that thou hast foiled The ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... even in this lone wood, Sweet lord, ye do right well to whisper this. Fools prate, and perish traitors. Woods have tongues, As walls have ears: but thou shalt go with me, And we will speak at first exceeding low. Meet is it the good King be not deceived. See now, I set thee high on vantage ground, From whence to watch the time, and eagle-like Stoop at thy will on ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson
... Anglo-Saxon blood, tireless, restless, working. Only when men of other races, dark-skinned, dark-haired, and dark-eyed, passed his mental vision, was there the stillness of lazy rest; and Marmot was pleased, for he loved to prate of the Anglo-Saxon and the work they had done, and would do, for the world ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... sups the moment's joy, and nothing heeds Time past or time to come, but fills all needs With present kindness. She would laugh and talk, Take arms, suffer embraces, even walk The terrace 'neath the eyes of all her fate, And seem to heed what they might show or prate, As if her whole heart's heart were in this house And not at fearful odds and perilous. And should one speak of Paris, as to say, "Would that our lord might see thee go so gay About his house!" Gently she'd bend her head Down to her breast and pluck a vagrant thread ...
— Helen Redeemed and Other Poems • Maurice Hewlett
... Don't prate of woman's function, sweet, Your only duty is to charm; Leave platform spouting, as is meet, To men; it cannot do them harm. Your influence comes from gracious ways, Your glory in the home doth lie; The guardian angel of our days, Until you bless ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. October 17, 1891 • Various
... took all of Mrs. Prate's stairway in two moderate leaps and was at her side instantly. A moment of explanation consoled the troubled looking woman for the appearance of a stranger in Dr. Belford's stead, and then on tip toe they turned ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... menace? it is naught to thee— 'Tis but the jealous raving, wild and frantic, Of those who would, but never can, be free;— Who, slaves to selfish passions bold ambition, Hold up their shackled arms in heaven's broad light, And prate of freedom, boast their high position, And strive to turn to interest ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... scientific logic, but 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 ...
— The Origin of Species - From 'The Westminster Review', April 1860 • Thomas H. Huxley
... woo't fast, woo't teare] Woo't weepe? Woo't fight? Woo't teare thy selfe? Woo't drinke vp Esile, eate a Crocodile?[6] Ile doo't. Dost thou come heere to whine; [Sidenote: doost come] To outface me with leaping in her Graue? Be[8] buried quicke with her, and so will I. And if thou prate of Mountaines; let them throw Millions of Akers on vs; till our ground Sindging his pate against the burning Zone, [Sidenote: 262] Make Ossa like a wart. Nay, and thoul't mouth, Ile ...
— The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 • George MacDonald
... confident I am Thy life is one of very little ease; Albeit men mock thee with their similes And prate of being "happy as a clam!" What though thy shell protects thy fragile head From the sharp bailiffs of the briny sea? Thy valves are, sure, no safety-valves to thee, While rakes are free to desecrate thy bed, And bear thee off—as foemen take their spoil— Far from ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... 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 ...
— The Journal of Arthur Stirling - "The Valley of the Shadow" • Upton Sinclair
... in 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 of ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... the tenses and moods of that amiable passion? But, my good friend, you have all this time spoke nothing but the paltry gossip which simpletons repeat from play-books and romances, till they give mere cant a real and powerful influence over their minds. Boys and girls prate themselves into love; and when their love is like to fall asleep, they prate and tease themselves into jealousy. But you and I, Frank, are rational beings, and neither silly nor idle enough to talk ourselves into any other relation than that of plain honest disinterested ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... but never have I read an untruth in her pages. There is good intelligence between her and some on board; and, trust me, she knows the paths of the ocean too well, ever to steer a wrong course. But we prate like gossiping river-men.—Wilt see ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... the dogs," said Little John; "Fryer, at my bidding be." "Whose man art thou," said the curtail fryer, "Come here to prate to me!" ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... a beauty in hopes to remove, Should I prate of her charms, and tell of my love; No thanks wait the praise which she knows to be true, Nor smiles for the homage she ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... three; so about was SHE - The maiden I wronged in Peninsular days . . . You may prate of your prowess in lusty times, But as years gnaw inward you blink your bays, And see ...
— Wessex Poems and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy
... of our Lord and Saviour, saying, "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church," etc.(202) To it was given the fellowship of the most blessed Apostle Paul, that chosen vessel who not at a different time, as heretics prate, but at one time and on one and the same day by a glorious death, was crowned together with Peter in agony in the city of Rome under the Emperor Nero. And they equally consecrated the said holy Roman Church to Christ and placed it over all the others in the whole world by ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... the King said with a new violence: 'do ye prate of these matters?' His heavy jaws threatened like a dog's. 'Hast thou set lousy knaves debating ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... corner, and does nothing when he is there but sit and growl; let him come out as 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 advancement, ...
— Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. - during the last twenty years of his life • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... "Prate not to me, my lord, of truth or honor amongst these savages," he replied. "Did not their chief himself but even now lie to me? Well knew the rascally heathen where the Spaniard hides! The truth indeed! They know not the ...
— Their Mariposa Legend • Charlotte Herr
... sentence gave these Sages four, Above the buried Emperor; It was no foolish women's prate That held them thus in ...
— A Celtic Psaltery • Alfred Perceval Graves
... follow. He will degenerate into a weakling, crushed beneath the inevitable diminutive—Flossie; or he will build up painfully, inch by inch, a barrier against the name's corroding action. He will boast of his biceps, flexing them the while. He will brag about cold baths. He will prate of chest measurements; regard golf with contempt; and speak of the ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber
... of the trust I placed in you, sirrah?' he rejoined, in a terrible voice; and stooping still farther forward he probed me with his eyes. 'You who prate of trust and confidence, who received your life on parole, and but for your promise to me would have been carrion this month past, answer me that? What of the trust I ...
— Under the Red Robe • Stanley Weyman
... much as you will, I deserve it. A man may prate of his own secrets if he like, but he should be careful of those of other people. I trusted yours to ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... welcome business, welcome strife, Welcome the cares, the thorns of life, The visage wan, the purblind sight, The toil by day, the lamp by night, The tedious forms, the solemn prate, The pert dispute, the dull debate, The drowsy bench, the babbling hall,— For thee, ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... 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 ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell
... prate of peace? when, warriors all, We clank in harness into hall, And ever bare upon the board Lies the necessary sword. In the green field or quiet street, Besieged we sleep, beleaguered eat; Labour by day ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 14 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... his vagary, to have the act lauded as an instance of Roman virtue. I look upon the famed Brutus, when he thought it a matter of conscience to witness, as well as order, his sons' execution, to have been a vain unfeeling fool or a madman. Let us have no prate about conscience proceeding from a hard heart; these are frightful notions when they become infectious. A handful of such madmen are enough, if allowed to have their way, to enact the horrors of a French Revolution. All this you know, Eusebius, better than I do, and will knit your brows ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various
... hold thy peace, old man! Neither good nor ill wilt thou ever prate of mortal more, for I've drawn thy sting. Once thou wert kind to me; twice, in return, did I steal for thee, and once took a beating from thy shoulders. But thou wert more loyal to thy master than thou wert friend to me—and in a matter such as this, I take no chances. ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... 'yes,' which you have spoken without knowing its significance, without knowing yourself. Shall you permit it to bind you for your whole life? Shall you allow it to make us both miserable for all time? No, Ada, love, that eternal, undying right of the human heart, must have its own. Men prate of guilt, others of destiny. It is destiny which is beckoning us to-day, and we must follow after. A ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner
... Do you know what you are talking about? Do you prate of patience, and waiting, and hope in the future to a man who has no future—to a man whose days are numbered, and who feels the creeping chills of death stealing over him every day as he sits beside ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... 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 play ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber
... "What dost prate about?" he asked, still speaking roughly for he was wroth with her and hated to see the gaping crowd of young, empty-headed fools congregating round him and this persistent suppliant hanging round ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... ''Sdeath, sir, do you prate to me?' said Redgauntlet, bending his brows. 'I, sir, transact my own business; you, I am told, act by ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... Alas! for human sorrow; Our Yesterday is nothingness, What else will be our Morrow? Still Beauty must be stealing hearts, And Knavery stealing purses; Still Cooks must live by making tarts, And Wits by making verses; While Sages prate and Courts debate, The same Stars set and shine; And the World, as it roll'd through Twenty-eight, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 351 - Volume 13, Saturday, January 10, 1829 • Various
... Newspapers might prate about wealth till commonplace print was exhausted, but as matter of habit, few Americans envied the very rich for anything the most of them got out of money. New York might occasionally fear them, but more often laughed or sneered at them, and never showed them ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... 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 ...
— Cavalier Songs and Ballads of England from 1642 to 1684 • Charles Mackay
... motherhood is heaven and hell.) This ever-growing argument of sex Is most unseemly, and devoid of sense. Why waste more time in controversy, when There is not time enough for all of love, Our rightful occupation in this life? Why prate of our defects—of where we fail, When just the story of our worth would need Eternity for telling; and our best Development comes ever through your praise, As through our praise you reach your highest self? Oh! had you not been miser of your praise And let our virtues be their own reward, ...
— Memories of Childhood's Slavery Days • Annie L. Burton
... polemics. The ballot enthusiast over here talks, and only talks, mind you! with the believer in the ballot over there; and so arrives at his conclusions on the subject of secret voting—and then, all these return to this "down-trodden," "aristocracy- ridden," "effete old kingdom," and prate about the glorious way in which their several theories work across the ocean—not one of them having resided long enough beneath the stars and stripes to be able to judge of the truth of what they allege, as they are quite contented to take for gospel the ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson
... 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 (who ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries - of the English Nation, v. 1, Northern Europe • Richard Hakluyt
... But Arschot swore that no man had the right to take precedence of him in the council of state, and that the appointment of this or any Spaniard was a violation of the charters of the provinces and of the promises of his Majesty. As if it were for the nobles of the obedient provinces to prate of charters and of oaths! Their brethren under the banner of the republic had been teaching Philip for a whole generation how they could deal with the privileges of freemen and with the perjury of tyrants. It was late in the day for the obedient Netherlanders to remember their rights. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... 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 ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, No. - 288, Supplementary Number • Various
... not righteousness; it is religion so called. But let us prate no more of these things; with which I, a demi-god, have but little in common. It ever impairs my digestion. ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... flesh and blood, as a matter of course! You may talk of iron, and prate of force; But, after all, and do what you can, The best—and cheapest—machine is Man! Wealth knows it well, and the hucksters feel 'Tis safer to trust them to sinew than steel. With a bit of brain, and a conscience, behind, Muscle works better than steam or wind. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, October 4, 1890 • Various
... laugh to hear the Fools prate about Preheminence: They would all fain be Masters, and yet they know they are but all my Servants; they make their Boast, of this and that, and talk of their great gains: and forget that I rule the Roast, and that both their gains and their ...
— The London-Bawd: With Her Character and Life - Discovering the Various and Subtle Intrigues of Lewd Women • Anonymous
... hadn't come up against that confounded artist-fellow! That had upset him, most absurdly. A half good-looking sort of fellow: a fellow who could prate with a certain brio; not unlikely to make something of a figure in the eyes of a girl like Cecily. ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... amuse them with words. With such a one, after fifteen or sixteen years' study, compare one of our college Latinists, who has thrown away so much time in nothing but learning to speak. The world is nothing but babble; and I hardly ever yet saw that man who did not rather prate too much, than speak too little. And yet half of our age is embezzled this way: we are kept four or five years to learn words only, and to tack them together into clauses; as many more to form them into a long discourse, divided ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... tray. Yet the semblance of the thing is there and this often deceives the very elect. Around every art studio are found the young men in velveteen who smoke infinite cigarettes, and throw off opinions about this great man and that, and prate prosaically in blase monotone of the Beautiful. Sometimes these young persons give lectures on "Art as I Have Found It"; but do not be deceived by this—the art that lives is probably being produced by small, shy, red-headed men who work on a top floor, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... Full oft in need of recreation,— Who rules the world,—right well may I, Who serve him in that high relation: Amuse me, then, before you fly.' Our cackler, pleased, at quickest rate Of this and that began to prate. Not he of whom old Flaccus writes, The most impertinent of wights, Or any babbler, for that matter, Could more incontinently chatter. At last she offer'd to make known— A better spy had never flown— All things, whatever she might see, In travelling from tree to tree. But, with ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... 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 ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... Farmer Crouder, "Began to prate of corn; "And we found out they talk'd the louder, "The ...
— Wild Flowers - Or, Pastoral and Local Poetry • Robert Bloomfield
... Perhaps the Milovka study-house boasted even Cabbalists starving themselves into celestial visions and graduating for the Divine kiss. How infinitely restful after the Milovka market-place! No more, for that day at least, would he prate of Self-Defence ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... under the influence of his or her own controlling Soul, to higher and ever higher perception and attainment. The great majority of the world's inhabitants live with less consciousness of this Spirit than flies or worms—they build up religions in which they prate of God and immortality as children prattle, without the smallest effort to understand either,—and at the Change which they call death, they pass out of this life without having taken the trouble to discover, acknowledge or use the greatest gift God has bestowed upon them. ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... Cambridge 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 ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables
... annals, point to it as the witness of their departed successions. Who on seeing New College does not recall William of Wykeham? and then, what a roll of proud names own this renowned university for their Alma Mater. The very stones "prate of the whereabout" of things connected with the development of great minds, and while we look without fatigue at the gorgeous mass of buildings in this university, we feel we are contemplating what carries an intimate connexion, in object at least, with that all of man which ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... heights nor fathomed your depths. And when they talk of you as familiarly as if they had taken out your auricles and ventricles, and turned them inside out, and wrung them, and shaken them,—when they prate of your transparency and openness, the abandonment with which you draw aside the curtain and reveal the inmost thoughts of your heart,—you, who are to yourself a miracle and a mystery, you smile inwardly, and are content. They are on the wrong scent, and you may pursue your ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... 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, ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... been accustomed 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, ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... 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 its own history. The great bulk of ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper
... 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 ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... man. I am a methodical man. Method is the thing, after all. But there are no people I more heartily despise than your eccentric fools who prate about method without understanding it; attending strictly to its letter, and violating its spirit. These fellows are always doing the most out-of-the-way things in what they call an orderly manner. Now here, ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... fault if I do not practise enough; for, of free will, I would do little else, only my father and tutor are angry sometimes, and only Miss Lucy there gives herself airs about my being busy, for all she can sit idle by a well-side the whole day, when she has a handsome young gentleman to prate with. I have known her do so twenty times, if you will ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... might prate of and should do with pleasure Except that they're far from the point of my song, Which is aimed at a dental adornment, a treasure Unheard of as yet by the ignorant throng, But an ivory fairer, More fleckless and rarer, Than ever was looted by trader ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 4, 1914 • Various
... words of Zanoni in their last meeting. Yes, he felt Nicot's talk even on art was crime; it debased the imagination itself to mechanism. Could he, who saw nothing in the soul but a combination of matter, prate of schools that should excel a Raphael? Yes, art was magic; and as he owned the truth of the aphorism, he could comprehend that in magic there may be religion, for religion is an essential to art. His old ambition, freeing itself from ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... a matter of arithmetic; it is the Infinite in us. I cannot but think you have been trying to justify in your own eyes the frightful position of a girl, married to a man for whom she feels nothing more than esteem. You prate of duty, and make it your rule and measure; but surely to take necessity as the spring of action is the moral theory of atheism? To follow the impulse of love and feeling is the secret law of every woman's heart. You are acting a man's part, and your Louis ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... "Let the fools prate!" responded Clementine, with an angelic smile. "I do not trouble myself to explain my affection for poor Fougas, but I love him very much, that's certain. I love him as a father, as a brother, if you prefer it, for he is almost as young as I. When we have resuscitated him, I will love him, ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About
... think not then to say 'Tis others' fault, nor foolishly upbraid The lot thyself for thine own self hast made. Say not the world's askew! with idle prate Of never-ending grief the hour grows late. Strike off my head! with many a tear he cries, And might, in sooth, draw tears ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... 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 for the success of the bimetallic envoys; but the farmer is of considerably ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... London. 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 society derives from ...
— Anarchism and Other Essays • Emma Goldman
... already calls "Rump" Parliament, you cannot continue to sit there; who or what, then, is to follow? "Free Parliament," right of election, constitutional formulas of one sort or the other—the thing is a hungry fact coming on us, which we must answer or be devoured by it! And who are you that prate of constitutional formulas, rights of Parliament? You have had to kill your king, to make pride's purges, to expel and banish by the law of the stronger whosoever would not let your cause prosper: there are but fifty or threescore of you left there, debating in these ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... I prate and prate, And never have I said what brought me here. Sirs, if you want a boat to-morrow morn, I'm bold to say there's ne'er a ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Jean Ingelow
... prime lot of jackasses we Americans are!" he continued. "We talk of liberty and demand license; we prate of democracy and we're ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... cried Laura indignantly. "What you've got you're welcome to, but for Heaven's sake don't prate around here about loyalty and honesty. ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... beforenamed prophetess, who while they all 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 host took ...
— Journal of Jasper Danckaerts, 1679-1680 • Jasper Danckaerts
... of reasons. She had somebody's else picture published for her that time; but later she had her very own published by the thousand until the little commoner, born in the most neglected corner of oblivion, grew impudent enough to weary of her fame and prate of the comforts ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... days, To spread about the itch of verse and praise; Nor like a puppy, daggled thro' the town, To fetch and carry sing-song up and down; Nor at Rehearsals sweat, and mouth'd, and cry'd, 225 With handkerchief and orange at my side; But sick of fops, and poetry, and prate, To Bufo left ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope
... Mail—"Commission-Exportation"—had a 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 ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet
... "He was fond enough of me last year, I know," she said to herself, recalling some of the dances and the good-night leave-takings at that time. "It's because he is so put upon by everybody now. What with Juan Can in one bed sending for him to prate to him about the sheep, and Senor Felipe in another sending for him to fiddle him to sleep, and all the care of the sheep, it's a wonder he's not out of his mind altogether. But I'll find a chance, or make one, before this day's sun sets. If I can once get a half-hour ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson
... after all? Have you no honour left? Is there nothing in you to which a woman can appeal? You talk of being human! You prate of your man's nature! And in the same breath you threaten an innocent girl with public infamy, if she will not disgrace herself of her own free will! Is that your love? Did I give you mine for that? Shame on you! And shame on ...
— The White Sister • F. Marion Crawford
... and sects. For they also have a word and boast much of their doctrine, but theirs is not the Word of truth whereby men are made children of God. They teach naught, and know naught, about how we are to be born God's children through faith. They prate much about the works done by us in the ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther
... With nothing to be hoped for? Is not a soul athirst a joyous thing? Where lies content to him whose eye doth rest on higher things? What satiation can compare to hope? Yet who among the satisfied hath need of hope? What can he hope for if he's satisfied? 'Tis but conceit, and nothing more, to prate of satisfaction! God spare the day when I am satisfied! I do not want the earth, Yet nothing less will leave me quite content; And once 'tis mine, I'm very sure you'll find me roaming off ...
— Cobwebs from a Library Corner • John Kendrick Bangs
... thy prate. Do I know my own mind, or do I filter my wits through thee? Did I not say that it is thine? Good, then—'tis thine, although it were thrice somebody else's; and thrice as much thy very own through having other owners. ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... Stella, and selected a blue cup with dragons on it. "At any rate," she continued, "it is very disagreeable of you to come here and prate like a death's-head ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al |
