"Glib" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... so many estates," he continued, "shrink into next to nothing—so many widows who thought they were well off, suddenly waking up and finding themselves at the mercy of the world—the little they have often being taken away from them by the first glib sharper who comes long—that I sometimes think every man should give his family a show-down once a year. It would surely save a lot of worries ...
— Mary Minds Her Business • George Weston
... necessary for a man to possess some education; and my master, although he had been at the best school in England, that is, the most expensive, and also at College, was almost totally illiterate, so we let the Church scheme follow that of the coach. At last, bethinking me that he was tolerably glib at the tongue, as most people are who are addicted to the turf, also a great master of slang; remembering also that he had a crabbed old uncle, who had some borough interest, I proposed that he should ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... harm, the more so because of the rather mawkish sentimentality with which it is decked out; for if any scoundrel is really the instrument of God's will, why should he be blamed for his scoundrelism? And we observe how yet once more, by a glib and vapid phrase—"I believe in the {62} infinitude of wisdom and love; there is nothing else"—the fact of evil has been triumphantly got rid of. In words, that is to say, but not in reality; for in reality there is a great deal else—sin, and shame, and remorse, ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... carried out was certainly a genuine triumph. Steve openly congratulated the two efficient cooks on their "masterly skill"; though Max laughingly warned the others to "beware of the Greeks bearing gifts," for there might be a base motive hiding behind all that glib praise. Steve protested that he meant every word of it; but then it was well known that Steve hated to do any cooking himself, and hence was fain to laud the efforts of others in that line, doubtless in the hope of encouraging them to "keep right on ...
— At Whispering Pine Lodge • Lawrence J. Leslie
... The lank, black, twine- like hair, pingui-nitescent, cut in a straight line along the black stubble of his thin gunpowder eye-brows, that looked like a scorched after-math from a last week's shaving. His coat collar behind in perfect unison, both of colour and lustre, with the coarse yet glib cordage, which I suppose he called his hair, and which with a bend inward at the nape of the neck,—the only approach to flexure in his whole figure,—slunk in behind his waistcoat; while the countenance lank, dark, very hard, and with ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... fails. Perhaps nobody but a green-turbaned Hadji could so speedily have screwed information out of secretive Arabs, paid to be silent. And he had to fit deductions into spaces of the puzzle left empty by fibs and glib self-excusings. What he did learn was this: a dragoman had come, in a small boat, from a steam dahabeah to the Enchantress Isis while we were away at Kasr Ibrim. He presented credentials written out for him in Cairo by Miss Rachel Guest, ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... morning," proceeded the money-lender, with a grim contempt for all our raillery, "when you played your pretty trick upon me, so glib and smooth, and up to every move, the pair of you! One borrowing the money, and the other paying me back in my very own ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung
... mare, in Bourke, and he was anxious to get her into the yards before the horse sales were over; this was to be the last day of the sales. Jim was the best "barracker" of the two; he had great imagination; he was a very entertaining story-teller and conversationalist in social life, and a glib and a most impressive liar in business, so it was decided that he should hurry on into Bourke with the mare and sell her for Bill. Seven ...
— Children of the Bush • Henry Lawson
... got my story pretty glib by this time; I had reeled it off with increasing particulars to the Westchester Park station-master, and the head man at the stables, and General Filbert, and I was so letter-perfect that I had a vision of the whole thing, especially of my talking with the general while I kept ...
— Between The Dark And The Daylight • William Dean Howells
... of a fight for independence, were heard throughout Norway. Meetings were held more or less secretly, and at each of them was some one with well-filled pockets and glib tongue, to enlarge on the country's wrongs, and promise assistance from an outside irresistible power as soon as they showed that they meant to strike for freedom. No one openly named the power. That was not necessary; it ...
— Animal Heroes • Ernest Thompson Seton
... lad was more self-conscious, had a more glib way of expressing his convictions, but even he hid his purpose in the war under a covering of irony and cynical jests. It was the spirit of the old city and the pride of it which helped him to suffer, and in his daydreams was ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... conversation with him," continued the earl, "in the book-room, and I think I have convinced him that it is for your mutual happiness"—he paused, for he couldn't condescend to tell a lie; but in his glib, speechifying manner, he was nearly falling into one—"mutual happiness" was such an appropriate prudential phrase that he could not resist the temptation; but he corrected himself—"at least, I think I have convinced him that it is impossible that he should any longer look upon Miss Wyndham as ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... anything she said would be taken down by myself and used in evidence against her," was the glib response. ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... him to Chicago at about one o'clock. The other boys, in little groups, or in pairs, were smoking and talking. Tyler wanted to join them, but he did not. They seemed so sufficient unto themselves, with their plans, and their glib knowledge of places, and amusements, and girls. On the train they all bought sweets from the train butcher—chocolate maraschinos, and nut bars, and molasses kisses—and ate them as greedily as children, until their hunger ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... resplendar De [12], bold dame," cried the knight by the side of Edward, while a lurid flush passed over his cheek of bronze; "but thou art too glib of tongue for a subject, and pratest overmuch of Woden, the Paynim, for the ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... a spit-box over dere. By chance, have you got any 'bacco? Make me more glib if I can chew and spit; then I 'members more and better de things ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 1 • Various
... Jewish boy's sudden prosperity, there were deeply-marked dark circles about his eyes. The Bowery's delights were telling upon the frightened lad, who had sealed his glib tongue now behind lying lips. Flattered by the "cop's" familiar manner, Emil greedily swallowed the ground bait artfully scattered by ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage
... sun-birth," Hildebrand responded, with glib emphasis. "The glory of Solomon, the sword of Caesar, the beauty of Adonis, the lyre of Orpheus, the strength of Hercules, the grace of Apollo, the sum of all possibilities—God-man, or man-God, what ...
— The Proud Prince • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... to take this latter remark for anything but the glib boldness of an erotic child. But he was not making any assurances to himself that he was right. Bessy Bell was fifteen years old, according to time. But she had the physical development of eighteen, and a mental range beyond his ken. The lawlessness ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey
... talk too glib about the judgments of Providence. The bad boys don't always git drownded when they go fishin' Sundays—they often git home with long strings of trout, and lick the good boys on their way home from Sunday-school. Such is real life, ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley
... dominant question has prevailed. Assuming the truth of the two main generalizations of Socialism, taking that statement of intention for granted, how is the thing to be done? They put aside the glib assurances of the revolutionary Socialists that everything would be all right when the People came to their own; and so earned for themselves the undying resentment of all those who believe the world is to be effectually mended by ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... of Horizon about his commercial travelling were simply brazen and glib lying. All the samples of drapers' goods, suspenders gloire and buttons helios, the artificial teeth and insertible eyes, served only as a shield, screening his real activity—to wit, the traffic in the body of woman. True, at one time, some ten years ago, he had travelled over Russia ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... lead us toward mutual understanding. They clear up the deadlocks that come from the hard and fast use of terms, they establish mutual charity as an intellectual necessity. The common way of speech and thought which the old system of logic has simply systematized, is too glib and too presumptuous of certainty. We must needs use language, but we must use it always with the thought in our minds of its unreal exactness, its actual habitual deflection from fact. All propositions are approximations ...
— First and Last Things • H. G. Wells
... come a short distance, I overtook a little maiden whom I asked the name of that town, so that I might ask the way thither if I should come into a valley where I could not have pointed it out any longer. I pleased the young girl very much by presenting her with my card, and induced her to use her glib tongue volubly in telling me about their schools—what they studied, how long the terms last, &c. She would get along very well in our Pennsylvania German dialect. When we parted, she skipped away and proudly showed the card which she had received ...
— The Youthful Wanderer - An Account of a Tour through England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany • George H. Heffner
... is not at home," she answered, with glib mendacity. And then she wondered why it was that Weldon's pallor turned from white to gray, as he went away down ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... golden. In a day of tiny waists hers could have been spanned by Ben Westerveld's two hands. He discovered that later. Just now he thought he had never seen anything so fairylike and dainty, though he did not put it that way. Ben was not glib ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber
... adaptable and subtle to conceal at once the fact that Mrs. Pickering's general appearance and manner had completely taken her breath away. Also, she was annoyed that Lady Gertrude Muenster was there to-day. Lady Gertrude was one of her great cards. She was a clever, glib, battered-looking, elderly woman, who, since her husband had once been at the Embassy in Vienna, had assumed a slight foreign accent; it was meant to be Austrian but sounded Scotch. Lady Gertrude looked rather muffled and seemed to have more thick veils and feather boas on than was necessary ...
— Bird of Paradise • Ada Leverson
... English equivalents for terms which were used for a century or two past in every-day Japanese speech. Those who know most about these facts, are most modest in attempting with English words to do justice to Japanese thought; while those who know the least seem to be most glib, fluent and voluminous in showing to their own satisfaction, that there is little difference between the ethics of Chinese ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... and watch himself, and mislead one who had looked up to him ever since they were children. Yet, all the time, he had a feeling that, since he alone knew all the circumstances of his case, he alone was entitled to blame or to excuse himself. The glib judgments that moralists would pass upon his conduct could be nothing but the imbecilities of smug and pharisaic fools—of those not under this drugging spell—of such as had not blood enough, perhaps, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... coadjutor. Eloquent Attorney-General! He blows out from him, better or worse, what crude or ripe thing he holds: not without result to himself; for it leads to a Bishoprick, though only a Constitutional one. Fauchet approves himself a glib-tongued, strong-lunged, whole-hearted human individual: much flowing matter there is, and really of the better sort, about Right, Nature, Benevolence, Progress; which flowing matter, whether 'it is pantheistic,' or is pot-theistic, only the greener mind, in these ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... name," said the glib Tam; "we were brought up in the same village, the village of Glascae, and tramped off to the same college at six every morning when the bummer went. There'd we ...
— Tam O' The Scoots • Edgar Wallace
... applause, the silence and constraint that hung over the assembly must have stirred a fear that something terrible had happened, which would be increased by Peter's question. It was a merciful opportunity given her to separate herself from the sin and the punishment; but her lie was glib, and indicated determination to stick to the fraud. That moment was heavy with her fate, and she knew it not; but she knew that she had the opportunity of telling the truth, and she did not take it. She had to make the hard choice ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... store, That is most Fat and Greasy; We have likewise to feast our Chaps, And make them glib and easie. ...
— Wit and Mirth: or Pills to Purge Melancholy, Vol. 5 of 6 • Various
... was glib and treacherous. Min lost her foothold and fell directly under the horse's hoofs as they came heavily down. The animal, freed from her detaining hand, sprang forward, dragging the laden sleigh over the ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... his ephemeral existence, and his consequent horror of ennuyering his world—in short, to perceive the joke of life is rarely given to our people, whilst it forms the mainspring of the Parisian's savoir plaire. The finesse of the Frenchman, acquired in long loafing and clever cafe cackle—the glib go and easy assurance of the petit creve, combined with the chic of great habit—the brilliant blague of the ateliers—the aptitude of their argot—the fling of the Figaro, and the knack of short paragraphs, which allows him to print of a picture "C'est bien ecrit!" and ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler
... magnifying trifles. The countryman finds the town a chop-house, a barber's shop. He has lost the lines of grandeur of the horizon, hills and plains, and, with them, sobriety and elevation. He has come among a supple, glib-tongued tribe, who live for show, servile to public opinion. Life is dragged down to a fracas of pitiful cares and disasters. You say the gods ought to respect a life whose objects are their own; but in cities they have betrayed you to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... fear general society, and show embarrassment in the every-day surroundings—are eloquent when they get on their feet. Many a shy boy at college has astonished his friends by his ability in an after-dinner speech. Many a voluble, glib boy, who has been appointed the orator of the occasion, fails utterly, disappoints public expectation, and sits down with an uncomfortable mantle of failure upon his shoulders. Therefore, the ways of shyness are inscrutable. Many a woman who has never known what it is to be bashful ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... the dinner on the train, which had been so poor; about London, about dances. She was really very nervous, and chattered from fear. Morel sat all the time smoking his thick twist tobacco, watching her, and listening to her glib London speech, as he puffed. Mrs. Morel, dressed up in her best black silk blouse, answered quietly and rather briefly. The three children sat round in silence and admiration. Miss Western was the ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... 'There are (there) common people and officers; there are the altars of the spirits of the land and grain. Why must one read books before he can be considered to have learned?' 4. The Master said, 'It is on this account that I hate your glib-tongued people.' CHAP. XXV. 1. Tsze-lu, Tsang Hsi, Zan Yu, and Kung-hsi Hwa were sitting by the Master. 2. He said to them, 'Though I am a day or so older than you, do not ...
— The Chinese Classics—Volume 1: Confucian Analects • James Legge
... fashion, very fond of using strong expressions and superlatives in conversation; and, though the dissipated artificial life which they lead prevents their cherishing any strong legitimate passion, the language of passion in affected tones slips for ever from their glib tongues, and every trifle produces those phosphoric bursts which only mimick in the dark the ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... turned to Francesca, and told her at a great rate, for in Italian he was glib, to go back to the Signora in the top garden and tell her he had encountered his old friend the Signora Arbuthnot, and was going for a walk with her and would present himself to ...
— The Enchanted April • Elizabeth von Arnim
... God so glib, Sammy? 'Tis marvel He don't strike ye blind, lad. Or there's your innards, Sam, here's that may whip out your liver, lad—So!" I saw the glitter of the hook, heard Smiling Sam's gasping scream as the steel bit ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... he never married, Hakon had a son Harald Slettmali (smooth-talker, or glib of speech), and two daughters, Ingibiorg and Margret. Ingibiorg afterwards married Olaf Bitling, king of the Sudreys; and Ragnvald Gudrodson, the great Viking, was of her line, and, as we shall see, in 1200 or thereabouts, ...
— Sutherland and Caithness in Saga-Time - or, The Jarls and The Freskyns • James Gray
... all possess the inalienable right of doing as much work as they can and getting as much for it as Providence and their owners shall please. To these things are added in time, if the brother be worthy, the power of glib speech that neither man nor woman can resist when a meal or a bed is in question, the eye of a horse-cope, the skill of a cook, the constitution of a bullock, the digestion of an ostrich, and an infinite adaptability to all circumstances. But many die before they attain to this degree, and the ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... secret, and chilled us with unwelcome truths. I know of no harder experience than this. It takes time and trouble to persuade ourselves that the things we want to do are the things we ought to do. We balance our spiritual accounts with care. We insert glib phrases about duty into all our reckonings. There is nothing, or next to nothing, which cannot, if adroitly catalogued, be considered a duty; and it is this delicate mental adjustment which is disturbed by Father Faber's ridicule. "Self-deceit," he caustically observes, "seems ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier
... means,' he began, listening vaguely to the glib patter that seemed to come from another mouth. 'Your father, my dear young lady, I venture to think is now really on the road to recovery. Dr Simon makes excellent progress. But, of course—two heads, we know, are so much better than ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... surface of my mind Glib, motley rumours zig-zag without rest, While deep within the darkness of my breast Monstrous desires, lean, sinister and blind, Slink through unsounded night and stir the slime And ooze of ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... described after all, as may be remembered by the readers of the Carol, to to have been intrinsically "a mere nothing; you might learn to whistle it in two minutes." Say that in twenty minutes, or, at the outside, in half-an-hour, any ordinarily glib talker might have rattled through these comic recollections of Mr. Magsman, yet, when rattled through by Dickens, the laughter awakened seems now in the retrospect to have been altogether out of proportion. In itself the subject was anything but attractive, relating, as it did, merely to the escapade ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... a slight tinge of Slavic blood, were a tough, sturdy race, not specially graceful in social manners, but with unusual keenness of understanding and clearness of judgment. Those who lived in the capital had been glib of tongue and ready to scoff from time immemorial: all were capable of great exertions; industrious, persistent, and ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... be influenced to go. Far more important, immigration will probably become negligible not only during the war, but for some time after it. Usually the reason for leaving home lies in the crowded population of European States and the lack of opportunity for advancement, plus the glib tongue of some agent of a contractor or of a steamship company. In recent years those who have come have not been desirable additions to our population because they came from nations alien in blood, language, religion and institutions, and were not ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... spectator. It was as if he was momentarily expecting to look upon some vague object that affrighted him, and sometimes really did see it. Mr. Jennings had consulted high medical authority (as Hurstley judged), to wit, the Union doctor of last scene, an enterprising practitioner, glib in theory, and bold in practice—and it had been mutually agreed between them that "stomach" was the cause of these unhandsome symptoms; acridity of the gastric juice, consequent indigestion and spasm, and generally a hypochondriacal ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... o' speech than you can make pretence to," said the woman abruptly. "I often wonder that of two twin-brothers one should be so glib and t'other so mum-chance." ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... to the brother was a Universalist. I crossed over the Muskingum River to Marietta. The first Methodist family I stopped with there, the lady was a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, but a thorough Universalist. She was a thin-faced, Roman-nosed, loquacious Yankee, glib on the tongue, and you may depend upon it I had a hard race to keep up with her, though I found it a good school, for it set me to reading my Bible. And here permit me to say, of all the isms I ever heard of, ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... me begun to titter and snicker at anybody's havin' the power, and I sez, eyein' 'em sternly, "Do you know what you're laughin' at, young men? You talk about it real glib, but have you any idee of the greatness and overwhelmin' might of the Force you're speakin' of? That Power wuz at Pentecost in cloven tongues of flame, and strange voices and words that no man could utter. Saul laughed at the Power but ...
— Samantha at Coney Island - and a Thousand Other Islands • Marietta Holley
... fain would say Her word, but in his restless way Sir Barbour nipped that word; The other three were dumb perforce— Except Sir Barbour's glib discourse, No ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... word with indescribable bitterness—"this herding of men like cattle—they treat us no better than pigs here. The fellows drop their dung in the very room where they sleep. What is one to expect of a place like this? Ce n'est pas une existence"—his French was glib and faultless. ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... but this is the nearest one," explained the glib-tongued Count, seemingly much relieved by the prospect of Fitzroy's early arrival. "You don't deserve to be pulled out of a difficulty so promptly, Smith," he went on, eying the ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... not need their asseverations of veracity; the truth shone through their uncouth stories. They were widely different from the glib patter that runs out of a crook's mouth in the presence of an official. Some of these men were seasoned criminals; often they did not themselves understand how iniquitous was the "deal" that had been given them, being too much inured to the tricks and ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... it is true, shown a glib tongue, but on the present occasion he was so deeply affected by Chin Ch'uan-erh's fate, and vexed at not being able to die that very instant and follow in her footsteps that although he was now fully conscious that his father was speaking ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... befall thee, Adam of Wills!" said a stout woman, to one of the speakers; "thou wert ever a tough fighter; and the cudgel and ragged staff were as glib in thine hands as a beggar's pouch on alms-days. Show thy mettle, man. I'll spice thee a jug of barley-drink, an' thou be ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... a various and motley company of the riff-raff and raggabash of the island,—young and elderly, silent and glib—rough as a pigskin, and smooth as their sleeves at the elbow; with just one feature common to the whole pack of pick-thanks, and that was a look of ...
— Capt'n Davy's Honeymoon - 1893 • Hall Caine
... they need seek no farther, then. I have told them that I will be their backer at need; I made the deal wi' them direct and ye have nowt to do with it. You are ill to please, young man! You come here with a very singular story, and nowt to back it but a glib tongue and your smooth, innocent-like young face—and you go back hame with a heaped gowpen of gold, and mair in the kist ahint of that. I think ye do very weel ...
— Copper Streak Trail • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... her company. His smacking of a gentlewoman is somewhat too savoury, and he mistakes her nose for her lips. A very woodcock would puzzle him in carving, and he wants the logick of a capon. He has not the glib faculty of sliding over a tale, but his words come squeamishly out of his mouth, and the laughter commonly before the jest. He names this word college too often, and his discourse beats too much on the university. The perplexity of mannerliness ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... upon her! There's language in her eye, her cheek, her lip, Nay, her foot speaks; her wanton spirits look out At every joint and motive of her body. O! these encounterers so glib of tongue That give a coasting welcome ere it comes, And wide unclasp the tables of their thoughts To every tickling reader! Set them down For sluttish spoils of opportunity, And daughters of ...
— The History of Troilus and Cressida • William Shakespeare [Craig edition]
... these?" he asked, with biting scorn. "Tell the Duke and Lord Cheisford where I found them! Let us hear your glib young tongue telling the ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... (I was very glib in all this; for I had thought it out all beforehand, if ever there should be an alarm of ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... only because of his clamour he made himself important. If he had one abiding trait, it was his desire of astonishing people, and in some way, best known to himself, managed to cause the circulation of the most extraordinary stories wherein he, himself, was the chief actor. He was glib, voluble, dexterous, ubiquitous, a teller of funny stories, a ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... to fix his attention upon these statistics; he began moodily to twist a button of his jacket and to concentrate a new-born and obscure but lasting hatred upon the court-house. Miss Raypole's glib voice continued to press upon his ears; but, by keeping his eyes fixed upon the twisting button he had accomplished a kind of self-hypnosis, or mental anaesthesia, and was but dimly aware of what ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... point and focus, in these days, by reason of her increasing references to Claims, and the All-Mind, and to the fact that the pain in a neglected tooth was only a manifestation of cowardly unbelief. The doctor scented mischief in the glib phrases. He held his peace heroically, though, albeit now and then he longed to shake his babbling patient as the ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... attitude of respect for Edwin was now more securely based upon impartial intelligence than before; it owed less to her weakness for seeing the best in people. As for Edwin, he was saying to himself: "I wish to the devil I could talk to her without spluttering! Why can't I be natural? Why can't I be glib? Some chaps could." And Edwin could be, with ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... thought and speech. Apparently not so in China. There is so much craft, so much diplomacy, so much subtle legerdemain that, if he chooses, the Chinese may give you no end of trouble to inform yourself on the simplest subject. The Chinese, like so many cavillers and calumniators, all glib of tongue, who know better than any nation on earth how to turn voice and pen to account, have taken the utmost advantage of extended means of circulating thought, with the result that an Englishman such as myself, even were I a deep scholar of their language, would have the greatest difficulty ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... suggested, the mother suggestion, the need of companionship and advice from an older woman, Molly's intolerance of conventionalities, all went home; though it was some time before the trio entirely absorbed the meaning of the glossy phrases and glib vocabulary. The letter passed about in silence after Sandy had read it, Sam and Mormon plowing through the maze of ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... been said of the Talleyrand Club that the only qualifications required for admittance to its membership are a frock-coat and a glib tongue. To explain the whereabouts of the Talleyrand Club were only a work of supererogation. Many hansom cabmen know it. Hansom cabmen know more ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... meant a deal to her, you see; he had been the one man she trusted. She had gloried in his fustian rhetoric, his glib artlessness, his airy scorn of money; and now all this proved mere pinchbeck. On a sudden, too, there woke in some bycorner of her heart a queasy realisation of how near she had come to loving Kennaston. ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... are the thought-quarries back of what people see in every human life. Men must be silent thinkers before their words or deeds can have either great beauty or power. Extemporaneousness anywhere is of small value. Glib, easy talkers, who are always ready to speak on any subject, who require no time for preparation, may go on chattering, forever, but their talk is only chatter. The words that are worth hearing come out of thought-quarries ...
— Making the Most of Life • J. R. Miller
... near-sighted and unsuspicious. The geography lesson was the most exciting event of the day,—a prize-ring, in which the two at the head of the class were chief actors. When a question reached Mary Morgan, the class held its breath for a time. When she answered with glib accuracy, the breath exhaled in chagrin audible to all but the teacher. Out of class I was noticed, cheered, and commended, and exhorted to hold on in the course of truth and uprightness—encouragement corresponding to the rubbing down and ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... was the quick, glib answer which fell from Panna's tongue, "he isn't at home, and won't come before morning. He has been called to a ...
— How Women Love - (Soul Analysis) • Max Simon Nordau
... that knew To act when rear rank got itself in front. And ah, we knew to mount a gallant guard, To fix our sentries, and to prime them well With varied information that might serve To help them in their duties and to make Them glib and eloquent when called upon In all the changes of this martial life. And we could march in line and march in fours, And bear ourselves ferociously and well When the inspecting officer appeared. And, one great day—it was our apogee— ...
— Punch, Volume 156, January 22, 1919. • Various
... are given a piece of Greek Testament to translate, for mercy's sake do not be too glib. Dinna translate a thing until you are sure it is there. They have an unholy habit of leaving out a couple of verses some place in the middle, and you're just the one to tumble head-first into the lacuna. (I ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay
... Bascomb, suddenly rounding upon the man, "you are extraordinarily free and glib with your information. Now, are you a traitor to your own people, or is your information false and intended to ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... Profferest greeting in the faces of flowers, Blowest in the firmamental glory, Renewest in the heart of the sad human All faiths, guard thou the innocent spirit Into whose unknowing hands this noontide Thou pourest treasure, yet scarce recognised, That unashamed before man's glib wisdom, Unabashed beneath the wrath of chance, She accept in simplicity of homage The hidden holiness, the created emblem To be in her, until death shall take her, The source ...
— Georgian Poetry 1918-19 • Various
... power, and the least are interesting, but they must not be confounded. There is the glib tongue and cool self-possession of the salesman in a large shop, which, as is well known, overpower the prudence and resolution of housekeepers of both sexes. There is a petty lawyer's fluency, which ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... to the abhorred office stool so as to learn the better the workings of its slow machinery. He tells us he only obtained the mastery of his pen by toiling faithfully, but inborn in him was the art of talking. Even as a petti-coated child, we read he gesticulated to aid his glib tongue. W. E. Henley (whose acquaintance Louis made about 1875, and who helped Stevenson with his chary praise and frank criticism) says of his friend, "He radiates talk. He will discourse with you of morals, music, marbles, men, manners, meta-physics, medicine, mangold-wurzel, with equal ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • E. Blantyre Simpson
... he, "you are a glib comforter. Tell me," he added, "from this height we should surely be able to ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... street of shops; the cheese-monger's very small, the chemist's very smart, the pastry-cook's very dowdy, and the green-grocer's very dark, I was still looking out at the view thus presented, when I was suddenly apostrophized by a glib, disputatious voice ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... of the little waist in a somewhat provocative fashion, only too conscious of the grey-blueness of her fine eyes, and the modish cut of her clothes. She had a knack which seemed to Laura both desirable and unattainable: that of appearing to be engrossed in glib chat with her companion, while in reality she did not hear a word Laura said, and ogled everyone who passed, out of the ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson
... labored assiduously to correct his grammar, and so well succeeded at the task that except when he was among associates and relapsed into the argot of the breed, he used language fit for a college professor—fit for some college professors anyway. At thirty he was a glib, spry person with a fancy for gay housings. At forty-five, when he reached the top of his swing, he had the looks, the vocabulary and the presence of an ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... at all—or scarcely at all. His last name was Nicholas, and his parents, long before they became his parents, traced their origin to some obscure Czechoslovakian province—long before we became so glib with our Czechoslovakia. His first name was Dewey, knowing which you automatically know the date of his birth. It was a patriotic but unfortunate choice on the part of his parents. The name did not fit him; was too mealy; not debonair enough. Nick. ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber
... was a High German doctor, of the first class. He had taken his diploma of Beelzebub in the Black Forest, and was gifted with as fine a hand to force a card—with as glib a tongue to harangue a mob at wakes and fairs, as any professor since the birth of the fourth grace of life,—swindling. He would talk until his head smoked of his list of miraculous cures—of his balsams, his anodynes, his elixirs; ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... God, that glib-tongu'd Aiken, My very heart and soul are quakin', To think how we stood sweatin', shakin', An' pish'd wi' dread, While he, wi' hingin' lips and snakin', [sneering] Held up ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... began the auctioneer, in his glib tones, "we are presenting to-day a most unusual opportunity. Prizes will be distributed to many enterprising people of Gridley, though these prizes are all so valuable that I trust none of them will go ...
— The High School Boys' Canoe Club • H. Irving Hancock
... Was this story of the landlord a glib lie of Captain Barstow's to account, with a detail which should carry conviction, for the suspiciously new pack of cards? And if so, did her father believe in its truth? Had the packs been waiting in Captain Barstow's coat pocket in the hall until the fitting ...
— Running Water • A. E. W. Mason
... at least write down a few paragraphs which would give them some faint impression of that time and place. But I had no sooner taken out my note-book and put down a sentence or two than I stuck fast. How foolish and feeble written words are anyway! With what glib facility they describe, but how inadequately they convey. A thousand times I have thought to myself, ...
— The Friendly Road - New Adventures in Contentment • (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker
... glib tongue of yours has not been blabbing. Catherine! What is Miss Bertram's Christian name ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... literature is at least as valuable as an Athenoum critic's, ranked Paine very high as a political writer, and affirmed of his "Rights of Man" that it was "a powerful and explicit reply to Burke." But Hazlitt had read Paine, which we suspect many glib critics of to-day have not; for we well remember how puzzled some of them were to explain whence Shelley took the motto "We pity the Plumage, but Forget the Dying Bird" prefixed to his Address to the People on ...
— Arrows of Freethought • George W. Foote
... dead, while the wonderful brain was busy with thoughts that stirred the profoundest depths of his nature. There are beliefs that come to us at which reason may laugh, but which it can not shake or disturb. There are questions that the glib unbeliever may ask that we can not answer. But away down in our hearts is a faith which the whole world can not remove, and which can be uprooted only by ourselves. Woe to him who dares lay ...
— The Hunters of the Ozark • Edward S. Ellis
... came to him, and with glib and easy profession said, "I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest." This seemed all that could have been asked. No man could do more. Yet Jesus discouraged this ardent scribe. He saw that he did not ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... walking on ahead, knew nothing of the love scenes just behind them. They talked of many things, of the moonlight and the river and the scent of the flowers, but all the time Hugh felt diffident and tongue-tied. He had not the glib tongue of Gavan Blake, and he felt little at ease talking common-places. Mary Grant thought he must be worried over something, and, with her usual directness, ...
— An Outback Marriage • Andrew Barton Paterson
... connection with a first outbreak, such as the Silesian workers' revolt, is not to play the schoolmaster to this event, but to study its peculiar character. For this a certain amount of scientific insight and some goodwill is necessary, whereas for the other operation a glib phraseology, saturated in ...
— Selected Essays • Karl Marx
... Cheng's wife, a Miss Wang, and has now been married for the last two years. This Mr. Lien has lately obtained by purchase the rank of sub-prefect. He too takes little pleasure in books, but as far as worldly affairs go, he is so versatile and glib of tongue, that he has recently taken up his quarters with his uncle Mr. Cheng, to whom he gives a helping hand in the management of domestic matters. Who would have thought it, however, ever since his marriage with his worthy wife, not a single person, whether high or ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... to the very limit. Even in this case, he said that he started out with the idea of shooting the rapids, and if we hadn't flustered him so, he would not have bumped into the bank and turned about so many times. Dutchy was a very glib talker. He nearly persuaded us that it was all done intentionally, and his thrilling account of the wild dash between the rocks and through the shower of spray stirred us up so that we all had ...
— The Scientific American Boy - The Camp at Willow Clump Island • A. Russell Bond
... be better than to see sons growing up, good Catholics in all external observances, devoted to the order of society and Mother Church, and at the same time showy Latinists, furnished with a cyclopaedia of current knowledge, glib at speechifying, ingenious in the construction of an epigram or compliment? If some of the more sensible sort grumbled that Jesuit learning was shallow, and Jesuit morality of base alloy, the reply, like that of an ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... mountaineers were ignorant indeed in their sort, but far too sophisticated to entertain aught but the most contemptuous disbelief in her pretensions of special foresight and mysterious endowment. They did not fear her discrimination, and told their story, through an interpreter, with a glib disregard of any uncanny perspicacity on her part. She was one of the many Indians of the reservation who speak no English. Her cabin was far from Quallatown, and indeed at a considerable distance from any ...
— The Ordeal - A Mountain Romance of Tennessee • Charles Egbert Craddock
... I then requested my companions to give a true account of what they had seen. The wonderful things lost nothing in the telling, the climax always being that they had finished the whole world, and had turned only when there was no more land. One glib old gentleman asked, "Then you reached Ma Robert (Mrs. L.)?" They were obliged to confess that she lived a little beyond the world. The presents were received with expressions of great satisfaction and delight; and on Sunday, when Sekeletu made his appearance at church ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... would suppose, the easiest thing in the world for the glib-tongued Hiram to reply to such an interrogatory; but there was something awful in that gaze—not severe, nor stern, nor condemnatory, but awful in its earnest, truthful, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... glib tongue, fellow!" said Amyas, who was thoroughly out of humor; "and a sneaking down visage too, when I come to look at you. I doubt but you are a Papist too, ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... Hill Street, who plays and sells flutes, trumpets, and fiddles, and grand pehanners. He was talking to Egloskerry, that very small bachelor-man with money in the funds. I was going by, I'm sure, without thinking or expecting a nod from men of that glib kidney when in my ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... their gaze, would be sure to attract and convince them—than which nothing is farther from the truth—not only so, however, but many of the statements and most of the arguments which sound plausibly enough on the glib tongue of a popular speaker read very differently indeed, when put down in cold-blooded letter-press, and published in the pages of a book. I protest strongly against making a mystery of London infidelity. It has spread and is spreading, I know, and it is well ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... pointed me out in Hyde Park to his companion, and lightly assured her that I was as mad as a dingo dog. From the moment after the phrase's utterance to that of the slapping of my knee, it had been altogether absent from my mind. Now it haunts me. It reiterates itself after the manner of a glib phrase. I am glad I am not in a railway carriage; the cranks would amuse the wheels with it all night long. As it is, the surf tries to thunder it out on the shingle just a few yards away from my window. I keep asking myself: why a dingo dog? If ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... believed that the best and highest of their own idols had better means and skill of measurement: I can never forget the pregnant expression of one of the ablest of that school and party—Lord Cockburn—who, when some glib youth chanced to echo in his hearing the consolatory tenet of local mediocrity, answered quietly: "I have the misfortune to think differently from you—in my humble opinion, Walter Scott's sense is a still more wonderful ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... theater, and again visited the green-room; and this time Vane determined to do himself more justice. He was again disappointed; the actress's manner was ceremoniously polite. She was almost constantly on the stage, and in a hurry when off it; and, when there was a word to be got with her the ready, glib Sir Charles was sure to get it. Vane could not help thinking it hard that a man who professed no respect for her should thus keep the light from him; and he could hardly conceal his satisfaction when Pomander, at night, bade him farewell for a fortnight. ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... of the influence of sympathy. There are some natures that are gifted with a blessed power to bring consolation to men. It is not that they are glib of tongue or facile of speech, but somehow the very pressure of their hand is grateful to the saddened heart. The simple and kindly action, of which we think nothing, may tell powerfully on others, and unclose fountains of feeling deep down ...
— Life and Conduct • J. Cameron Lees
... reproduction of the test of Carmel in the impotence of all other schemes and methods of social and spiritual reformation and the power of the Gospel. In it and its effects God answers by fire. Let the opposers, who are so glib in demonstrating the failure of Christianity, do the same with their ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... the world's people has made thee glib of tongue," said he, eyeing me, and smiling as ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... conviction that her end was to be obtained not by producing good books, but by inducing certain people to say that her books were good. She did work hard at what she wrote,—hard enough at any rate to cover her pages quickly; and was, by nature, a clever woman. She could write after a glib, commonplace, sprightly fashion, and had already acquired the knack of spreading all she knew very thin, so that it might cover a vast surface. She had no ambition to write a good book, but was painfully anxious to write a book that the critics ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... the glib grandmother interposed. "Ye jes' gin we-uns a sniff an' a sup, an' then ye tuk the kittle that leaks an' shook the rest of the coffee beans from out yer milk-piggin inter it, an' sot out an' marched yer-self through the laurel—I wonder nuthin' didn't ketch ye! howsomever naught is never ...
— The Raid Of The Guerilla - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... over a year in France and we are told that "Addison spoke the language like a native "—a glib expression, still able-bodied, that means little or much. From France Addison followed down into Italy, and spent a year there, residing in various small towns with the same object in view that ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... generally with a result of sufficiently good sense, but in some such disorganized mass as if they had thrown it up rather than spoken it. It seemed to me that this was almost as much by choice as necessity. An Englishman, ambitious of public favor, should not be too smooth. If an orator is glib, his countrymen distrust him. They dislike smartness. The stronger and heavier his thoughts, the better, provided there be an element of commonplace running through them; and any rough, yet never vulgar force of expression, such as would knock an ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... yet beseech your majesty, (If, for I want that glib and oily heart, To speak and purpose not, since what I well intend I'll do't before I speak,) that you make known, It is no vicious blot, murder, or foulness, No unchaste action, or dishonored step That hath deprived me of your grace ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... who, with a glib tongue, protests that his conscience drove him from the Church, that his enslaved intelligence needed deliverance, search him and you will find a skeleton in his closet; and if you do not find it, it is there just the same. A renegade priest some years ago, held forth before a gaping audience, ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... to some extent in Kimberley, but most of all in Johannesburg. You are soon able to recognise his points and identify him at a distance. He is a little too neatly dressed and his watch-chain is a little too much of a certainty. His manner is excessively glib and fluent, yet he has a trick of furtively glancing round while he talks, as if fearful of being overheard. For the same reason he speaks in low tones. He must often be discussing indifferent topics, but he always looks as if he were hatching a ...
— With Rimington • L. March Phillipps
... the flourish of doubtful expressions, and endeavour to reduce his words to direct, positive, intelligible propositions, and then compare them one with another, he will quickly be satisfied, there was never so much glib nonsense put together in well-sounding English. If he think it not worth while to examine his works all thro', let him make an experiment in that part, where he treats of usurpation; and let him try, whether he can, with all his skill, make Sir Robert intelligible, and consistent ...
— Two Treatises of Government • John Locke
... to the feelings which were animating the breasts of his companions. Dealing blows right and left, they simultaneously set upon the surrounding Arabs, the old fellow who had bought the girl being the first knocked over, and the auctioneer with the glib tongue the second, the others, who drew their daggers, having their weapons whirled from their hands; while the greater number, astonished by the suddenness of the attack, took to flight in all directions, pursued by the now infuriated seamen. The girls crowded ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... says nothing. It is curious. The whole world and all its marvelous distractions seem to have resolved themselves into the curt sentence, "It rains." And somehow the great financier's faculty for the glib manipulation of platitudes which has earned him a reputation as a powerful economist seems for the moment to have abandoned him. His eyes remind one of a boy standing on tiptoe and staring over a fence ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... new thought. Just why had he chosen St. Martin's? Was it only a coincidence? Or had he, subconsciously at least, picked this particular world? He had always considered himself the unwilling subject of glib persuaders ... but mightn't some inner compulsion of his own have put the ...
— Monkey On His Back • Charles V. De Vet
... side of the empty fireplace when we arrived, he smoking his evening pipe of Oronooko, and she working at her embroidery. The moment that I opened the door the man whom I had brought stepped briskly in, and bowing to the old people began to make glib excuses for the lateness of his visit, and to explain the manner in which we had picked him up. I could not help smiling at the utter amazement expressed upon my mother's face as she gazed at him, for the loss of his jack-boots exposed a pair of interminable spindle-shanks which ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the man in glib babu English. "I am seeking Captain King sahib, for whom my brother is veree anxious to be servant. Can you kindlee tell me, sir, where I ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... We sent Burnes to Cabul, and we betrayed him in the most dastardly way by the mouth of a Minister. England, the great mother, was not answerable for that most unholy of crimes; it was the talking men, the glib Parliament cowards. Burnes was cut to pieces and an army lost. Crime brings forth crime, and thus we had to butcher more Afghans. Every inch of India has been bought in the same way; one war wins territory which must be secured by another ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... precisely in making patent the impenetrable mystery of her, and of the tangled complex of striving and aspiration of which she is so helplessly a part. It is in this sense that "Sister Carrie" is a profound work. It is not a book of glib explanations, of ready formulae; it is, above all else, ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... rather the captain's face, lingered for some time in my memory. I was no prophet, as I say; but I was something else: I was an observer; and one thing I knew, I knew when a man was terrified. Captain Trent, of the British brig Flying Scud, had been glib; he had been ready; he had been loud; but in his blue eyes I could detect the chill, and in the lines of his countenance spy the agitation of perpetual terror. Was he trembling for his certificate? In my judgment, it was some livelier kind of fear that ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... continue his mendicant rounds, with the volume slipped into the pocket of his ragged coat; and although he would sometimes keep it quite a while, yet it came always back again at last, not much the worse for its travels into beggardom. And in this way, doubtless, his knowledge grew and his glib, random criticism took a wider range. But my library was not the first he had drawn upon: at our first encounter, he was already brimful of Shelley and the atheistical "Queen Mab," and "Keats—John Keats, sir." And I have often wondered ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson |
