"Prate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... irrefutable truths would show how utterly unworthy and false are the vulgar taunts which attribute "treason" to those who, in the late secession of the Southern States, were loyal to the only sovereign entitled to their allegiance, and which still more absurdly prate of the violation of oaths to support "the Government," an oath which nobody ever could have been legally required to take, and which must have been ignorantly confounded with the prescribed oath ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... the French king, and I came over from Ireland especially to take a dying message and a token from my father to the Earl. That is all you need know about that; but I would have you leave off your prate of your friend the Earl of Westport, for I understand full well you couldn't distinguish between him and a church door, although 'tis scandalously little you know of church doors. So we will stop there on that point. Then I will go on to the next point. The next point is that I am going ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... be 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 ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... over this,—you 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. ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell
... Heaven be thanked that made us friends; Men prate of wealth in empty words, I Sit here content as '90 ends. And sip my grog, and smoke ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., January 3, 1891. • Various
... motives which most human beings who have not a stupid inflexibility of self-confidence must be liable to under a marked change of external conditions. In a life where the experience was so tumultuously mixed as it must have been in the Prate's, what a possibility was opened for a change of self-judgment, when, instead of eyes that venerated and knees that knelt, instead of a great work on its way to accomplishment, and in its prosperity stamping the agent as ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... they have driven their wives and families from their tables, is so degrading, and consists of such obscenities, that it would even be scouted at the table of the bribed, queen-slandering Italian witnesses in Cotton Garden. Yet some of these canting hypocrites, I understand, now begin to prate about morality! But I ought, and I do apologize to the reader for this digression, which I was led into by the circumstance of a gentleman, who dined with me yesterday, having given me a description of one of these ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... sensible and wary man, we call him a disguised and subtle fellow. And is any one more open, [and less reserved] than usual in such a degree as I often have presented myself to you, Maecenas, so as perhaps impertinently to interrupt a person reading, or musing, with any kind of prate? We cry, "[this fellow] actually wants common sense." Alas! how indiscreetly do we ordain a severe law against ourselves! For no one Is born without vices: he is the best man who is encumbered with the least. ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... this wur a damper an' th' biggest i'th' lot, An th' folks thay declared it wur Keighla plot, But one Jack o' Ludges sed he'd stop 'em thair prate, He'a learn 'em i' Keighla to insinuate, Thay'st hev no excurshuns for nowt but thair lip, And Shipla an' Bradford ...
— Th' History o' Haworth Railway - fra' th' beginnin' to th' end, wi' an ackaant o' th' oppnin' serrimony • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... 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 respect. Scarcely one of the very ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... as he, witnessing for truth and freedom, steadfastly and defiantly opposed oppression, so those who catch his spirit today will do as he did and will realise as duty—"While wrong is wrong let no man prate of peace!" ...
— The Higher Powers of Mind and Spirit • Ralph Waldo Trine
... trade, to forget sentiment, to think of his material and nothing else, is, for awhile at least, the king's highway of progress. Here, in England, too many painters and writers dwell dispersed, unshielded, among the intelligent bourgeois. These, when they are not merely indifferent, prate to him about the lofty aims and moral influence of art. And this is the lad's ruin. For art is, first of all and last of all, a trade. The love of words and not a desire to publish new discoveries, the love of form and not a novel reading of historical ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson
... "But when they prate of you and me, As the two gifts they want, Say Classic lore and Cookery Are things for which they pant; Believe me, my dear Heptarchy, They ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, September 17, 1892 • Various
... "And prate of spelling and reading as if they were the cardinal virtues?" returned his sullen companion. "By my halidame, I have two fair daughters at home who will lack husbands, I trow, for they can only spin and be chaste,—two maidenly gifts ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... might go to Milton, and steal, bit by bit, A description to suit my Spirit of Cant, A second-hand suit, but a "shplendid fit," As a Jew would assure me—but then I sha'nt. His work is to preach the humbug which passes For gospel among the "down-trodden masses;" And to prate of the "wrongs and indignities," which Are heaped on their ...
— Nothing to Say - A Slight Slap at Mobocratic Snobbery, Which Has 'Nothing - to Do' with 'Nothing to Wear' • QK Philander Doesticks
... scattering, in the epigram— Provided that by art, and in due time, They turned upon the thought, and not the rime. Thus in all parts disorders did abate; Yet quibblers in the court had leave to prate, Insipid jesters and unpleasant fools, A corporation of dull, punning drolls. 'Tis not but that sometimes a dextrous muse May with advantage a turned sense abuse, And on a word may trifle with address; But above all, avoid the fond excess, And think not, when ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... dandy, poetical, rose-water thieves; but real downright scoundrels, leading scoundrelly lives, drunken, profligate, dissolute, low; as scoundrels will be. They don't quote Plato, like Eugene Aram; or live like gentlemen, and sing the pleasantest ballads in the world, like jolly Dick Turpin; or prate eternally about "to kalon,"[*] like that precious canting Maltravers, whom we all of us have read about and pitied; or die whitewashed saints, like poor "Biss Dadsy" in "Oliver Twist." No, my dear ...
— Catherine: A Story • William Makepeace Thackeray
... to prate, to harangue, to debate, is now the ambition of all in the state. Each exercise-ground is in consequence found deserted and empty: to evil repute Your lessons have brought our youngsters, and taught our sailors to challenge, discuss, and refute The orders ...
— The Frogs • Aristophanes
... against the savage on their borders have become a nation that may defy every foe but that most dangerous of all foes, herself, destined to a majestic future if she will shun the excess and perversion of the principles that made her great, prate less about the enemies of the past and strive more against the enemies of the present, resist the mob and the demagogue as she resisted Parliament and King, rally her powers from the race for gold and the delirium of prosperity to make firm the foundations ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... when Izdubar will seek The cool enchantment of the cove, and slake His thirst with its sweet waters bubbling pure, Where Love has spread for him her sweetest lure, The maids expectant listening, watch and wait His coming; oft in ecstacies they prate O'er his surprise, and softly sport and splash The limpid waves around, that glowing flash Like heaps of snowy pearls lung to the light By Hea's[1] hands, his Zir-ri[2] to delight. And now upon the rock each maid reclines, While Ishtar's form beneath them brightly ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Literature • Anonymous
... their Chloes and Phyllises poets may prate, I sing my plain country Joan, These twelve years my wife, still the joy of my life, Blest day that ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... too—out-o'-place here, out-o'-date? The modern sort, the sort that gets on in this country, is a prime hand at cuttin' his coat to suit his cloth; for all that the stop-at-homes, like the writer o' that line and other ancients, prate about the Ethiopian's hide or the leopard and his spots. They didn't buy their experience dear, like we did; didn't guess that if a man DON'T learn to fit himself in, when he gets set down in such a land as this, he's a goner; any more'n they ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... portion of the Dominion; for the government seem to grasp the purse-strings with one hand while they hold a drawn sword in the other. There is no security to be found in any corner of the State; and no projects, formed for the future of its people. To be sure, certain parties prate and jabber about the Volunteer Service and national defenses; but what have they to defend? If their frontier were bristling to-morrow with forts and bayonets, all they could hope to accomplish would be the shutting out of American liberty ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh
... general human traits, nowhere more so than among those from whom they should not be expected; nowhere more so than among those who are debarred from hope. The great captains of industry so-called, themselves blown full of pride of circumstance, prate often of the inefficiencies of human cattle; yet continually the wonder remains that these same cattle continue to do that which their conscience tells them is right for them to do, and to do it for the sake of the doing. The lives of all ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough
... Farmer Crouder, "Began to prate of corn; "And we found out they talk'd the louder, "The oftner ...
— Wild Flowers - Or, Pastoral and Local Poetry • Robert Bloomfield
... anti-foreign feeling, which is undoubtedly intense especially in the south of the Empire, may come to a head any day and prematurely explode. The nincompoops and quidnuncs and newspaper men ravenous for copy who prate about a "yellow peril" may, in this latter fact, find some slight excuse for their blatant lucubrations. There is no real "yellow peril." Poor old China, which has been so long slumbering, is just rousing herself and making arrangements for defence against ...
— The Empire of the East • H. B. Montgomery
... are we so differently fashioned that thou, Eric, canst prate to me of happiness when my heart is racked with grief? Oh, Eric, I blame thee not, for thou hast not wrought this evil on me willingly; but I say this: that my heart is dead, as I would that I were dead. ...
— Eric Brighteyes • H. Rider Haggard
... Sanford! You drive me frantic! You prate the same foolishness. over and over! I don't want to hear any more about it. You said you had spoken the last word on the subject, now stop it! I, too, have said my final say. I shall do as I please, and I shall not consider myself accountable ...
— Raspberry Jam • Carolyn Wells
... it claimed to have for its foundation. Be it said to the credit of each society, sect and organization, they all responded heartily and co-operated with Penloe and Stella in helping forward the grand reform; for they saw it was useless to prate about love, purity, justice and freedom, with woman debarred by law from her legal and political rights and tolerating a social custom which excited the worst passions and bred prurient curiosity. It was a grand and glorious sight, such as the world had not ...
— A California Girl • Edward Eldridge
... geology be correct, was not always thus a watering-place; but seems, for a long period, to have been a place under water. The very stones prate of Neptune's whereabouts in days of langsyne. No one who has seen what heaps of rounded pebbles are gleaned from the corn-fields, or become familiar with the copious remains of fresh water shells and insects, which are kneaded into the calcareous deposits a little below ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... may prate of the pleasures of "early purl," Of the frizzled rasher's seductive curl, But, when I fear I can munch no more, When the thought of banquets becomes a bore, Roe, Bloater's Roe, upon toast they cast, And ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, July 23, 1892 • Various
... Dog, who saw the deed, Detesting the vexatious breed, Bespoke him thus: "When coxcombs prate, They kindle wrath, contempt, or hate; Thy teasing tongue, had judgment tied, Thou hadst ...
— Favourite Fables in Prose and Verse • Various
... Lord above! "My child, with pray'rs invoke his love, "The Almighty never errs?" "O, mother! mother! idle prate, "Can he be anxious for my fate, ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... 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, she heard what she could not comprehend, but she thought ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... 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, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, October 4, 1890 • Various
... can no longer fly after his wings are broken! Give us but our independence, allow us to take care of ourselves, grant us but a little strip of land like that of the Servians and Rumanians, give us a chance to lead a national existence, and then prate about our lacking manly virtues. What we lack is not genius (Genialitaet) but self-consciousness (Selbstgefuehl) and appreciation of our value as men (Bewusstsein der Menschenwuerde), of which ...
— The Haskalah Movement in Russia • Jacob S. Raisin
... prate about Bibliolatry, and labor to lower men's estimate of the Bible. They may spare their breath. The people who idolize the Bible too much are creatures of their own imagination only, and not living men and women. People may love the Bible unwisely, but not ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... Fools! Flouting the sages Through history's pages And driving the dreary old seers into rages— The humbugging Magis Who prate that the wages Of Folly are Death—toast the Fools of all ages! They have ridden like froth down the whirlpools of time, They have jingled their caps in the councils of state, They have snared half the wisdom of life in a rhyme, And tripped into nothingness ...
— Dreams and Dust • Don Marquis
... not work except in darkness; Thought will not work except in Silence; neither will Virtue work except in Secrecy. Let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth! Neither shalt thou prate even to thy own heart of "those secrets known to all." Is not Shame (Schaam) the soil of all Virtue, of all good manners and good morals? Like other plants, Virtue will not grow unless its root be hidden, buried from the eye of the sun. Let the sun shine on it, nay do but look at it ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... do you prate to me?' said Redgauntlet, bending his brows. 'I, sir, transact my own business; you, I am told, act ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... this, of a steady and systematic mind! Prate to us of the love of liberty, of self-dignity! Where are such things to be found in their reality, on their trial, if not in the scenes and the nation we ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... dear H.,—The date of my postscript "will prate to you of my whereabouts." We anchored between the Seven Towers and the Seraglio on the 13th, and yesterday settled ashore. [3] The ambassador [4] is laid up; but the secretary [5] does the honours of the palace, and we have a general invitation to his ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... 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 ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... mend myself by reclaiming my old right to send you letters. I doubt not I shall have much to tell you, could I overcome the hesitation to attempt a reasonable letter when one is driven to write so many sheets of mere routine as sixty-six (nearly sixty-seven) years enforce. I shall have to prate of my daughters;—Edith Forbes, with her two children at Milton; Ellen Emerson at home, herself a godsend to this house day by day; and my son Edward studying medicine in Boston,—whom I have ever meant and still mean to send that he may see your face when that professional curriculum ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II. • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... my Dew, in idle mood, What prate I, minding not my debt? What do I talk of bad or good? The best is ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... course, jealous, in all 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
... juvenis! Why should I exert myself to explain my opinions to coarse and common folk, who don't know what universalia entia rationis formae substantiales are? It certainly is absurdissimum to try to prate of colors to the blind. Vulgus indoctum est monstrum horrendum informe, cui lumen ademptum. Not long ago a man ten times as learned as you wished to dispute with me, but when I found that he did not know what quidditas was, I ...
— Comedies • Ludvig Holberg
... appeared to me by far the most luminous. In human life it is invariably the lower nature that needs to be reconciled and conciliated; whilst the higher nature, in proportion to its development, is forgiving and tolerant and wide-minded, and does not prate about its own high sense of justice requiring to be appeased. The best type of man punishes a wrong-doer in order that he may learn to do better and leave off tormenting and wronging his fellow-creatures; not to appease any instinct in ...
— Seen and Unseen • E. Katharine Bates
... for her to accept such a proposition as mine, especially after all that has happened, and still prate of 'sacred honor.'" ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... 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. A mason was an ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... the stern answer. "To come here and prate to me of my dead father's dissoluteness and of an ancient quarrel between him and yours, to bleat of my trumped-up course of piracy and my own ways of life as a just cause why I may not wed your sister whilst the real consideration in ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... 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 ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson
... busy woman," Nancy groaned, "and I've hammered my finger to a pulp, trying to open this crate, while you perch on a broken step-ladder and prate to me of legacies. The saucers to these cups may be in here, and I can't wait to find out. I'm perfectly crazy about this ...
— Outside Inn • Ethel M. Kelley
... soul!" he cried, "what doth this fellow prate of? ... Past love? ... Thou profane boaster! ... how darest thou speak of love to the Priestess of ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... "All this parrot-prate, I suppose, is only intended to vex me," cried the warrior king, who always considered himself, and very naturally, a person of such consequence as ever to be uppermost in the thoughts and minds of others. "If ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton
... 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 ...
— In the Claws of the German Eagle • Albert Rhys Williams
... 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
... talk of "time's compensation"! Who now may prate, "Evil is good misunderstood"? Surely such cogent blending requires some powerfully focalized ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... replied Blueskin. "Take my life, if you're so disposed. You're welcome to it. And let's see if either of these women, who prate of their love for you, will do ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... prate of patriotism! William B. Reed to declaim upon honor and patriotism! For the chimney-sweep to prate of cleanliness would not be more anomalous. With what grace does the defence of the United ...
— Nuts for Future Historians to Crack • Various
... or demon? 290 With new kings rise new altars. But, proceed; You are sent to prate your master's will, and not ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... fathoms deep in brine, and the glittering water falling from her tresses like golden stars; 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 Skimmer ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... influence "the many" have elbowed "the few," and the gentle circle of Art swarms with the intoxicated mob of mediocrity, whose leaders prate and counsel, and call aloud, where the Gods once spoke ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler
... twenty in 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 ...
— Anarchism and Other Essays • Emma Goldman
... cried, with quivering lips, "prate not to me of thy vain legends and gossip's tales! think not to snatch from me my possession in another, when thine own life is in my hands. Unhand the maiden! throw down thy sword! return home without further parley, ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... vulgar scoundrel to the dust, but at what a price! The convict's dress now worn by his brother would soon be worn by him. And what solace would it be then that the same suit would be worn by the impostor also? Yet why prate of solace in a matter like this? What alternative was left to him? In what quarter of the sky was the light dawning for him? He was traveling toward the deepening night, and the day of his life ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... shall be told, he was sorry that it had ever passed his lips. Still in the boat Sir Geoffrey applauded him, saying that his lady's melancholy had grown beyond all bearing, and that she did little but prate to him about his will and what colour of marble he desired ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard
... turns this people from us, they will become the prey of our recent enemies, and if that happens we can prate about the Treaty of Paris as much as we like. The Teuton will have more than balanced ...
— With the "Die-Hards" in Siberia • John Ward
... metal, at least to see that it was not mere dross they were casting into the crucible. Plainly, however, they despise any such nice distinctions. The most earnest prayer and the emptiest ceremonial prate are both alike to them. What sort of a process they imagine prayer to be may be at once perceived from the sort of trials to which they desire to ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton
... you know all I have endured. To me, earth has been a hell—not the place of flames and torments of which your divines prate, but the true hell—that of the conscience and the soul. I, too, a man whose whole nature was athirst for truth. I sought it first among its professors; there I found that they who, too idle or too weak to demonstrate their creed, took it upon trust, did what their fathers ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... "O this I have felt, and this I have guessed, and this I have heard men say, And this they wrote that another man wrote of a carl in Norroway." —"Ye have read, ye have felt, ye have guessed, good lack! Ye have hampered Heaven's Gate; There's little room between the stars in idleness to prate! O none may reach by hired speech of neighbour, priest, and kin Through borrowed deed to God's good meed that lies so fair within; Get hence, get hence to the Lord of Wrong, for doom has yet to run, And. . .the faith that ye share with Berkeley ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... All trees have very deal bear. A throat's ill. You shall catch cold one's. You make grins. Will some mutton? Will you fat or slight? Will you this? Will you a bon? You not make who to babble. You not make that to prate all day's work. You interompt me. You mistake you self heavily. ...
— English as she is spoke - or, A jest in sober earnest • Jose da Fonseca
... Bunions that afflict us prate Of Plasters unsurpassable, and hate To Cut a corn—ah cut, and let the Plaster go, Nor murmur if the Solace come ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Hood, "Thou dost prate like an ass, For were I to bend my bow, I could send a dart quite thro' thy proud heart, Before thou ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... swings And snares the people for the kings: "Luther is dead; old quarrels pass; The stake's black scars are healed with grass"; So dreamers prate;—did man e'er live Saw priest or woman yet forgive? But Luther's broom is left, and eyes Peep o'er their creeds to where it lies. Spin, spin, Clotho, spin! Lachesis, twist! and Atropos, sever! In the shadow, year out, year in, The silent ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • 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 ...
— The London-Bawd: With Her Character and Life - Discovering the Various and Subtle Intrigues of Lewd Women • Anonymous
... speech—of my intactness, Ye damage and deface me in your strife. Your aims, expressed with full and fair exactness. Mean fratricidal strife, war to the knife. Encounter hot, and fierce retaliation Must vainly prate about conciliation. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 29, 1893 • Various
... prate before mobs of Lord Salisbury's jobs and the villainous schemes of the Kaiser, Which will make them believe you've a plan up your sleeve if they'd only take you for adviser; You may cheerfully speak ...
— Lyra Frivola • A. D. Godley
... 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 ...
— The Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... mind the great truth that without an increase of African slaves from abroad, you may not expect or look for many more slave States."[27] Jefferson Davis strongly denied "any coincidence of opinion with those who prate of the inhumanity and sinfulness of the trade. The interest of Mississippi," said he, "not of the African, dictates my conclusion." He opposed the immediate reopening of the trade in Mississippi for fear of a paralyzing ...
— The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America - 1638-1870 • W. E. B. Du Bois
... has looked on Beauty bare. Let all who prate of Beauty hold their peace, And lay them prone upon the earth and cease To ponder on themselves, the while they stare At nothing, intricately drawn nowhere In shapes of shifting lineage; let geese Gabble and hiss, but heroes seek release From dusty ...
— American Poetry, 1922 - A Miscellany • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... 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
... my Lord, among other worse crimes, The whole was no more than a lie of The Times. It is monstrous, my Lord! in a civilis'd state That such Newspaper rogues should have license to prate. 90 Indeed printing in general—but for the taxes, Is in theory false and pernicious in praxis! You and I, and your Cousin, and Abb Sieyes, And all the great Statesmen that live in these days, Are agreed that no nation secure is from vi'lence 95 Unless all who must ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... that: and when the stranger should aske, What will you giue me for it? the beggar might answere: I haue ten or foureteene children, I will giue you some one or more of them, &c. For this rabble of beggars vseth thus fondly to prate with strangers. Now if there be any well-disposed man, who pitying the need and folly of these beggers, releaseth them of one sonne, and doth for Gods sake by some meanes prouide for him in another countrey: doth the begger therefore (who together ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries - of the English Nation, v. 1, Northern Europe • Richard Hakluyt
... a difference, lad," Cross pointed out, setting down the tankard of beer from which he had been drinking. "You talk sometimes that white-livered stuff about not hitting a man back if he wants to hit you, and you drag in your conscience, and prate about all men being brothers, and that sort of twaddle. A full-blooded Englishman don't like it, because we are all of us out to protect what we've got, any way and anyhow. But that doesn't alter ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the greater villain, you or I? You, who prate of your birth, rank and position in life, and propose a murder, or I, making no pretensions whatever, I that have committed a murder at the instigation of one of your class, in the hope of reward? Look you, Captain; neither ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson
... 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 such wild ...
— Chastelard, a Tragedy • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... prate less priggishly about honor because it is no longer a word with a single meaning." He paused a moment, then went on in a climax of vehemence. "From this moment on your New England code and my inherited chivalry may be hanged on the same gibbet! This revered temple ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... of his life and business, he has been occasionally obliged to imitate the ways of such small animals, he has done so, let us say it at once, clumsily, and like as a lion should. Many artists, we hear, hold his works rather cheap; they prate about bad drawing, want of scientific knowledge:—they would have something vastly more neat, ...
— George Cruikshank • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of all fare?" Finn cried. "Strong drink, if it be too freely supplied, Or the prate of a fool," ...
— Ulf Van Yern - and Other Ballads • Thomas J. Wise
... now 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 springs the ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... 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 Forth from her ...
— Helen Redeemed and Other Poems • Maurice Hewlett
... art a pretty fellow to prate about sallying forth at midnight to do good to thy fellow creatures!—Here we find thee, within an hour after thy departure from thy home, on an 'errand of mercy,' embraced in the soft arms of a pretty wanton, and revelling ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... of the living child, as of the dead one. Out upon the honour which is harmed by gossip! What slanderous tongues say of me as a disgrace I deem the highest honour; but if you are of a different opinion, and held it when you wooed me, you would be wiser to prate less loudly of the proud word 'honour,' and ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... "Howld your prate!" said the trumpeter, elegantly, and silenced all reply by playing a tune. As soon as it was ended, he turned to Andy and asked ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... 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 too ...
— Wessex Poems and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy
... know what is right. Besides, consult the grand thermometer of opinion, the price of the funds: on the 17th Brumaire at 11 francs, on the 20th at 16 and to-day at 21. In such a state of things I may let the Jacobins prate as they like. But let them not talk ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... cold incredulous voice, he said:— "What prate is this of fathers and revenge? The mighty Rustum ...
— Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and Other Poems • Matthew Arnold
... me, as I intended it should: it was as a tub to a whale; and after I had let them play with it a while, I claimed their attention, and, knowing that they always loved to hear me prate, went on. ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... made another sad blunder— What can be come over me lately, I wonder? The Prince was as cheerful as if all his life He had never been troubled with Friends or a Wife— "Fine weather," says he—to which I, who must prate, Answered, "Yes, Sir, but changeable rather, of late." He took it, I fear, for he lookt somewhat gruff, And handled his new pair of whiskers so rough, That before all the courtiers I feared they'd come off, And then, Lord, how ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... your honour," said the traitor, for traitors love to prate of honour, "and will now admit you to the castle; but until we are in the courtyard ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... prate to me Of deeds unjust and just, Moved by a story of good Or a monstrous tale of crimes— Me that can have no loves But star-eyed queens long dust, Me that can mourn no griefs But the tears ...
— A Legend of Old Persia and Other Poems • A. B. S. Tennyson
... head in anger. "If I, his father, can let him go, why should you prate like women? The lad is my son, and he shall win his spurs—and more, and more, maybe," ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... he only notices external objects his ideas are confined to sensations; let him only see the physical world around him. If not, you may be sure that either he will pay no heed to you at all, or he will form fantastic ideas of the moral world of which you prate, ideas which you will never efface as long ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... that talk to me of dishonour?—you that come straying here out of the night with your cicisbeo at your heels? You, with the dew on you and your dress bedraggled, arrive straight from companioning in the woods and prate to me of shame—of the blood of the Colonne!" He smote a hand on the table and spat forth a string of vile names upon her, mixed with curses; abominable words before which she drew back cowering, yet less (I think) from ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... another's—and if, as I may add in your case, they have no creeping, old, musty uncle Antonys to strengthen their prepossessions, as he does my mother's. Poor, creeping, positive soul, what has such an old bachelor as he to do, to prate about the duties of children to parents; unless he had a notion that parents owe some to their children? But your mother, by her indolent meekness, let me call it, has spoiled ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... busy now with state affairs, I prate of Pitt and Fox; I ask the price of rail-road shares, I watch the turns of stocks: And this is life! no verdure blooms Upon the withered bough. I save a fortune in perfumes,— I'm not a ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, No. - 288, Supplementary Number • Various
... a 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 ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... with the canons of 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 them, they may learn, ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley
... and protoplasm you matter-mongers prompt to prate; Of jelly-speck development and apes that ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton
... would be a different thing indeed! Justice wears a sword, because she is of gentle birth. Work-people with axes must not prate of rights, or a prison will be their next one. Your right is to be disdained, young man, because you were not born a gentleman; and your duty is to receive scorn with your hat off. You like it, probably, because your father did. But come ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... unto this frog, As like as is the puppy to the dog. He is of nature cold, his mouth is wide To prate, and at true goodness to deride. He mounts his head as if he was above The world, when yet 'tis that which has his love. And though he seeks in churches for to croak, He neither loveth ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... can you be so shallow as to dream that I feel nothing? What is your love for Tom Faggus? What is your love for your baby (pretty darling as he is) to compare with such a love as for ever dwells with me? Because I do not prate of it; because it is beyond me, not only to express, but even form to my own heart in thoughts; because I do not shape my face, and would scorn to play to it, as a thing of acting, and lay it out before you, are you fools enough to think—" but here ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... 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
... A care-free, laughter-loving, brave company, with every man a rider to make his womenfolk prate of his skill to all who would listen; with every man a lover of love and of life and the primitive joys of life. They worked, that company, and they made of their work a game that every man of them loved to play. And Dade, loving the things they loved and living the life they lived, ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... the sick man. "Silence your senseless prate! They will neither eat nor drink here. Tell the coachman that there are excellent accommodations at the Hurdlestone Arms for himself and his horses. But first see to your mistress—she is in a swoon. Carry her into the next room. And, mark me, Ruth—lock the door, ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... bowl that shall be quaff'd To loyalty's devotion, And here's to fortune that shall waft Your ship across the ocean, And here's a smile for those who prate Of Davy Jones's locker, And here's a pray'r in every fate— ...
— John Smith, U.S.A. • Eugene Field
... "One should not prate of one's duty, of course," she agreed. "Not that you do—far from it. But, as I was saying, our dear ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... went those pretty babes, Rejoicing at that tide, Rejoicing with a merry mind, They should on cock-horse ride. They prate and prattle pleasantly, As they rode on the way, To those that should their butchers be, And ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various
... want to prate such nonsense as that to these folks for? They won't need any kind of fertilizers in this country for twenty years. You'd better be resting instead of shooting such useless stuff as that ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... it? You can tell the world all about it afterwards, if you choose. Nobody would believe you. If they did believe you, they would like me all the better for it. I know the age better than you do, though you will prate about it so tediously. Come, I tell you. You have chattered enough about corruption. Now you shall look on ...
— The Picture of Dorian Gray • Oscar Wilde
... 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 rant as well ...
— The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 • George MacDonald
... babies in Concord knew and loved him. "Incorrigible spouting Yankee" he called himself; but he was rather a silent man in reality, and did not care to talk excepting when he had somewhat to say. He did not prate eternally of silence, as Carlyle did, while wreaking himself upon speech in the most frantically vehement manner all his days, but he knew when and how to be silent. The glimpses he gives of Mrs. Emerson, in the long correspondence with Carlyle, are all of the most pleasing ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... a true disciple of Geber," cries Ferret. "No, sir," replied Mr. Clarke, "Counsellor Caper is in the conveyancing way—I was clerk to Serjeant Croker." "Ay, now you may set up for yourself," resumed the other; "for you can prate as unintelligibly as ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... of Minstrels—may they be the last!— On half-strung harps whine mournful to the blast. While mountain spirits prate to river sprites, That dames may listen to the sound at nights; . . . . . . Next view in state, proud prancing on his roan, The golden-crested haughty Marmion, Now forging scrolls, now foremost in the fight, Not quite a felon, yet but ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... 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 ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... craze creed tribe drone bean shape steep brine stone bead state sleek spire probe beam crape fleet bride shore lean fume smite blame clear mope spume spite flame drear mold fluke quite slate blear tore flume whine spade spear robe dure spine prate smear poke ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey
... Pitt: hence this sale of sugar. To the Mother 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: hence this ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... clatter of the small stones which his own feet dislodged as he feverishly climbed the rocks. Above him, on the other side of the road, towered the hill where he had sat and dreamed as a boy, where Rochester had come and encouraged him to prate of his ambitions. ...
— The Moving Finger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... this Congress is more menacing than merely a return to the past—bad as that would be. Our resplendent economic autocracy does not want to return to that individualism of which they prate, even though the advantages under that system went to the ruthless and the strong. They realize that in thirty-four months we have built up new instruments of public power. In the hands of a people's Government this ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt • Franklin D. Roosevelt
... untravelled heart of Asia Minor, and are now almost in sight of Europe. The camp-fire is extinguished; the tent is furled. We are no longer happy nomads, masquerading in Moslem garb. We shall soon become prosaic Christians, and meekly hold out our wrists for the handcuffs of Civilization. Ah, prate as we will of the progress of the race, we are but forging additional fetters, unless we preserve that healthy physical development, those pure pleasures of mere animal existence, which are now only to be found among ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... so lightly of it. If you had had as many as I, perhaps you would change your tune. Anyway, I'm a thief—make the most of that—but I'm not a devil from hell, God strike me dead. I would have you to know I've an honor of my own, as good as yours, though I don't prate about it all day long, as if it were a God's miracle to have any. It seems quite natural to me; I keep it in its box till it's wanted. Why now, look you here, how long have I been in this room with you? ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... glad to hear that thou beginnest to prate; and find, by thy Yesterday's Vision, thou art so used to it, that thou canst not forbear talking in thy Sleep. Let me only advise thee to speak like other Men, for I am afraid thou wilt be very Queer, if ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... 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 ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... thousand brothers, Could not, with all their quantity of love Make up my sum: 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 ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... me!" cried Laura indignantly. "What you've got you're welcome to, but for Heaven's sake don't prate around here about loyalty and ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... he burst out to Doctor Keltridge over a cigar, one day; "we are bound by all our articles of indenture, we preachers, to prate about the hand of the Lord and special Providences, when all the time we know the trouble came out of somebody's running up against simple, scientific law. It's theology, not science, we poor beggars are set up to preach, even in funeral ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... species is a mere screen invented to conceal the massacre of individuals. I'm sick of these biologico-sociologico-anthropologico-historico treatises, with their talk of races, of nations, of classes, never of men! their prate about laws as if they were the real entities, and the people who are supposed to be subject to them mere indifferent particles of stuff! their analysis of the perfection with which the machine works, its combinations, ...
— The Meaning of Good—A Dialogue • G. Lowes Dickinson
... or women, whether strangers or kinsfolk, from whose religion he disagrees. 'It is not ancient impressions only,' said Pascal, 'which are capable of abusing us. The charm of novelty has the same power.' The prate of new-born scepticism may be as tiresome and as odious as the cant of gray orthodoxy. Religious discussion is not to be foisted upon us at every turn either by defenders or assailants. All we plead for is that when the opportunity meets the freethinker full in front, ...
— On Compromise • John Morley
... his hands, looked upwards, and said, "O God, I thank thee—he will live. Hush, hush, my sweet one, thou must not prate;" and he retired on tiptoe, and I heard him mutter triumphantly, as he walked away, "He ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... Fate, no Providence, no Chance, The will is all. So be it thou art pure, And strong of purpose, thy success is sure; But fools and sluggards prate of circumstance. ...
— Yesterdays • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... merely suggesting it and giving up when she said no. If you had followed your heart, you would have choked the name and amount out of her and paid that devilish debt. You walk away in a case like that, and then have the nerve to come here and prate to me about following your heart. I'll wager my last dollar your heart is sore because you were not allowed to help her; but on the proposition that you followed its promptings I wouldn't stake a penny. ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... tragic over it! If your father wins—and as the law stands he can scarcely fail to win—I shall be driven out of Upcote. But there will always be a corner somewhere for me and my books, and a pulpit of some sort to prate from." ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Diomed, with his cloak up to his mouth, 'the night grows cold; I cannot stay here while you prate to that blind girl: come, let her follow you home, if you wish to ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... good appointments and assume leading parts, and to be elected members of the venerable Westminster Assembly! They had not even had the courage to go to New England, though some of them had talked of doing so! And then their prate of this emigration to New England, which they had themselves declined, as the greatest undertaking for the sake of pure Religion, next to Abraham's migration out of his own country, that the world had ever seen! ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... may prate of the fervour of Phoebus Of days that are calm and serene, When a tint as of teak is imposed on the cheek That is commonly pallid (when clean); But we have a taste that's aesthetic; Mere sunshine seems vulgar and crude, As ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, August 19th, 1914 • Various
... of these quiet old places, there is much to be said that is depressing. While men prate about the decay of trade and the advance of poverty, how few people reflect on the snug fortunes which are amassed in out-of-the-way corners! We hear of jobbery in the metropolis, and jobbery in Government departments, but I take it that the corporations of some ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman |
