"Prolix" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... enough, but he is fond of the sound of his own voice, his style is prolix, and I don't ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... not have gone into this prolix detail of opinions from any consideration of their special importance on the present occasion; but having happened to state that such was the actual opinion of the government of England at the present time, and the accuracy ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... writer and the poet. It is easier to give the instance than the reason, but I suppose the cause of the rhythmetical impotence must lie somewhere in the want of the power of concentration. For is it not true that the most prolix poet is capable of briefer expression than the least prolix prose writer, or ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... quotation. He loved poetry passionately, and the sympathetic voice with which he would recall page after page of it—English, French, German, or Italian—is a thing always to be remembered. But notwithstanding the instructive part he played in every conceivable conversation, he was never prolix, ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... of the schism, of the charges of the Greeks against the Latins, are deposited in the epistles of Photius, (Epist Encyclica, ii. p. 47—61,) and of Michael Cerularius, (Canisii Antiq. Lectiones, tom. iii. p. i. p. 281—324, edit. Basnage, with the prolix ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... other at Carrion de los Condes, a town in the Kingdom of Leon. Some of his companions had been admitted at Lerida, and at Balaguer, in Catalonia, under very extraordinary circumstances, which are omitted not to be too prolix. Zachary and Gautier, who had been sent into Portugal, had had much to suffer in the beginning; but Queen Urraqua, the wife of Alphonso II, who then reigned, was a most pious princess. She, having caused their Institute to be ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe
... of the desert, and did speak out with that great thunder-voice of his, not by words which he thought to be great, but by actions, by feelings, by a history which were great! His Koran has become a stupid piece of prolix absurdity; we do not believe, like him, that God wrote that! The Great Man here too, as always, is a Force of Nature: whatsoever is truly great in him springs ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... down without system, or order, as they have presented themselves, and have been related in a manner which I have attempted to make entertaining and instructive, without being prolix or tedious. They will be chiefly interesting to the people of the South; though much may, and, I hope, will be read by those of the North. Some of my happiest days have been passed in the North: at Cambridge some of my sons ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... I am getting somewhat trivial and prolix; but there was hardly an incident in my two days' tramp which did not give me some small fresh insight into the terra incognita of the country; and there may be those among my readers, to whom it is not ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... said, "and my brain is so easily tired out that I am forced to read a great deal to recreate myself. That's why you see me reading so much." The book in which he was at the moment seeking recreation was a ponderous work on metaphysics by a prolix Scotchman, treating in many dreary chapters of such amusing topics as the unity of the act of perception with the object perceived! As may be supposed of such a man, whose illness forbade action and whose interior trials made contemplation an agony, he chafed sometimes ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... While giving this somewhat prolix account of an altogether imaginary adventure, he had started to his feet, and accompanied his speech with a series of pantomimic gestures; dancing and flinging his arms about, as he professed to have done while defending himself against the footpads. ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... poems, the poems of England and Germany give indication of a progress in style from a more archaic and repressed, to a more developed and more prolix kind of narrative. The difference is considerable between Hildebrand and Waldere, between Finnesburh ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... poetry, he holds a high, perhaps the highest place, among English letter writers: and the collection of his letters appended to Southey's biography forms, with the biographical portions of his poetry, the materials for a sketch of his life. Southey's biography itself is very helpful, though too prolix and too much filled out with dissertations for common readers. Had its author only done for Cowper what he did for Nelson! [Our acknowledgments are also due to Mr. Benham, the writer of the Memoir prefixed to the Globe Edition ...
— Cowper • Goldwin Smith
... in my judgment been so often misunderstood, and the general merits of the actor, who then played it, so unduly appreciated, that I shall hope for pardon, if I am a little prolix upon these points. ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... a simple thing—educational, and—I beg your pardon, you must go? Of course. I am afraid I have been prolix; but my dear Morris, bear that in mind. A little discussion upon those inscriptions would be beneficial to the boy—I could tell him things he would be proud to know—and it would enable me to send a profitable description to the ...
— Glyn Severn's Schooldays • George Manville Fenn |
