"Babbler" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... less far off on different sides, to indicate, in the course of time, for what target we are aiming, and after an hour's talk, back and forward, to convey the purport of a single principle or a single thought. And yet while the curt, pithy speaker misses the point entirely, a wordy, prolegomenous babbler will often add three new offences in the process of excusing one. It is really a most delicate affair. The world was made before the English language, and seemingly upon a different design. Suppose we held our converse ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Dispatch me: for the fatal moment is at hand, which an old Sabine sorceress, having shaken her divining urn, foretold when I was a boy; 'This child, neither shall cruel poison, nor the hostile sword, nor pleurisy, nor cough, nor the crippling gout destroy: a babbler shall one day demolish him; if he be wise, let him avoid talkative people, as soon as he comes ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... his fathers did of old, 60 Chiefs of the pack, and first to climb the rock, Or plunge into the deep, or thread the brake With thorns sharp-pointed, plashed, and briers inwoven. Observe with care his shape, sort, colour, size. Nor will sagacious huntsmen less regard His inward habits: the vain babbler shun, Ever loquacious, ever in the wrong. His foolish offspring shall offend thy ears With false alarms, and loud impertinence. Nor less the shifting cur avoid, that breaks 70 Illusive from the pack; to the next hedge Devious he strays, there every mews he tries: ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... that loves his wife?" said Lady Richmond. "Behold now the rude babbler! Do you not believe, then, that we women deserve ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... The babbler opened his ears, no doubt secretly intending to appropriate this story to himself in future time, when none of the hearers should be present, and modestly owned, that all those he had mentioned were mere children's tricks, performed without any exertion, but that he had some in ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... (Hierococcyx varius), to which allusion has already been made, deposits its eggs in the nests of various species of babblers. The eggs of this cuckoo are blue, but are distinguishable from those of the babbler by their larger size. It may be noted, in passing, that this cuckoo does not extend far ...
— A Bird Calendar for Northern India • Douglas Dewar
... "No, little babbler," said he, patting her curls playfully; "you know what comes first of all. 'Woodland ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... which he understood, he was wise, and some observations which he made the other day, on the management of his workpeople, would have been thought original if they had been printed. The true artist knows that his hero must be a character shaping events and shaped by them, and not a babbler about literature. Frank, also, was so susceptible. He liked to hear her read to him, and her enthusiasm would soon be his. Moreover, how gifted he was, unconsciously, with all that makes a man admirable, with courage, with perfect ...
— Clara Hopgood • Mark Rutherford
... a reckless babbler and trickster, introduced this heresy, which originated with Epigonus, and was adopted by Cleomenes, and has thus continued to this day among his successors. Noetus asserts that there is one Father and God of the universe, and that He who had made all things was, when ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... knowingly deceived yourself. Result: a soap-bubble and inertia. Oh, gentlemen, do you know, perhaps I consider myself an intelligent man, only because all my life I have been able neither to begin nor to finish anything. Granted I am a babbler, a harmless vexatious babbler, like all of us. But what is to be done if the direct and sole vocation of every intelligent man is babble, that is, the intentional pouring ...
— Notes from the Underground • Feodor Dostoevsky |
