"Pithy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... not, therefore, be displeased if, instead of rising from his seat and placing a chair, the banker merely bows and points to one. Lawyers, on the contrary, are expected to behave like any other gentlemen; so also physicians. The patient is directed in both cases to relate his grievances in short, pithy sentences; answer all questions clearly; apologise for taking up their time by asking them in turn—in consequence, he must say, of his own ignorance; and then finish by warmly thanking them for the attention they give to his affairs. Authors and artists must affect great ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 462 - Volume 18, New Series, November 6, 1852 • Various
... knowledge of the Navy or the sea. In 1893 E.J. Payne brought out a much handier edition of the Voyages of the Elizabethan Seamen to America which gives the very parts of Hakluyt we want for our present purpose, and gives them with a running accompaniment of pithy introductions and apposite footnotes. Nearly all historians are both landsmen and civilians whose sins of omission and commission are generally at their worst in naval and nautical affairs. But James ...
— Elizabethan Sea Dogs • William Wood
... careful study; they are full of wisdom and of an imaginative philosophy, expressed in pithy and telling form, which continually reminds the reader of Blake's ...
— Mysticism in English Literature • Caroline F. E. Spurgeon
... the fast naval cruiser Minneapolis before the mouth of the harbor. The number of these ships shows the importance attached to the duty. It was necessary to allow largely for the chapter of accidents; for, to apply a pithy saying of the Chief of the Naval Bureau of Equipment,—"the only way to have coal enough is to have too much,"—the only way to assemble ships enough when things grow critical, is to send more than barely enough. All those that received their orders proceeded as ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan
... propose a question. As our king, we put our lives and fortunes in your hands. If, therefore, the Eagle, the Vulture, and the Kite, should make a descent upon us, what means would you take for our defense?" This pithy question opened the eyes of the Birds to the weakness of their choice ...
— Aesop's Fables - A New Revised Version From Original Sources • Aesop
... stick of aromatic sumac, about three feet long, to the general thickness of less than half an inch, but leaving a head or button at one end. A ring was fashioned from a transverse slice of some hollow or pithy plant, so that it would slide freely up and down the slender wand, but would nob pass over the head. Eagle down was secured to the wooden head and also to the ring. In the dance (paragraph 129) the eagle down on the stick is burned off in the fire while the ring ...
— The Mountain Chant, A Navajo Ceremony • Washington Matthews
... cautious circumspection; he heedlessly ventured and lost. It was then to cover his delinquencies elsewhere, he exposed to sale the estate of Lochalsh; and it was then he was bitterly taught to feel, when his people, without an exception, addressed his Lordship this pithy remonstrance - 'Reside amongst us and we shall pay your debts.' A variety of feelings and facts, unconnected with a difference, might have interposed to counteract this display of devotedness besides ingratitude, but these habits, or his Lordship's reluctance, rendered ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie
... commons waver at the sound. In this crisis, Icilius, the betrothed of the virgin, appears, and delivers a long essay of some fifty double lines, upon the spirit and tendency of the Roman constitution. This is a great error. Speeches, when delivered in the midst of a popular tumult, must be pithy in order to be effective: nor was Appius such an ass as to have lost the opportunity afforded him by this dialectic display, of effectually securing ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... be said to bend gracefully to the variations of his subject, it still bends and does not break. In felicity and originality of epithet, the usual sign of a writer's genuineness of perception, he is excelled by no theologian of the time. He also has that power of pithy and pointed language which so condenses a statement of a fact or principle that it gives forth the diamond sparkle of epigram. The effect of wit is produced while the purpose is the gravest possible: as when he tells some brother religionists, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... or French orchard, perfectly useless as timber, but affording an inexhaustible supply of firewood. Besides the trees I have mentioned, there is the xanthorea, or grass-tree, a plant which cannot be intelligibly described to those who have never seen it. The stem consists of a tough pithy substance, round which the leaves are formed. These, long and tapering like the rush, are four-sided, and extremely brittle; the base from which they shoot is broad and flat, about the size of a thumb-nail, ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... the Proverbs is so called because it is such as containeth hard, dark, and pithy sentences of wisdom, by which is taught unto young men knowledge and discretion (1-6). Wherefore this book is not such as discloseth truths by words antecedent or subsequent to the text, so as other scriptures generally do, but has its texts or sentences more independent; ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... different salutary acts, but indiscriminately postulate for all the illuminating grace of the intellect and the strengthening grace of the will. It follows that to perform salutary acts the justified no less than the unjustified need actual grace. Our Saviour's pithy saying: "Without me you can do nothing,"(348) was not addressed to unbelievers or sinners, but to His Apostles, who were in the ...
— Grace, Actual and Habitual • Joseph Pohle
... [T]Diogenes Laertius, there is one Book under the Title peri paroimion concerning Proverbs: But that, probably, was nothing but a Collection of some of those short, remarkable, useful, pithy Sayings, which are of common Use in the World, and which every Nation has peculiar to it self. However, tho' we cannot exactly tell, what the Nature of that Performance was, because the Book is now lost, yet we are certain, on the other Hand, that the Design of ...
— A Critical Essay on Characteristic-Writings - From his translation of The Moral Characters of Theophrastus (1725) • Henry Gally
... subsided, went Where from a cistern, green and ruined, oozed A little rill, soon lost; there gathered he Violets, and harebells of a sister bloom, Twining complacently their tender stems With plants of kindest pliability. These for a garland woven, for a crown He platted pithy rushes, and ere dusk The grass was whitened with their roots nipped off. These threw he, finished, in the little rill And stood surveying them with steady smile: But such a smile as that of Gebir bids To Comfort a defiance, to Despair A welcome, at whatever ...
— Gebir • Walter Savage Landor
... And that pithy chapter in Machiavelli's Prince which treats of cruelty and clemency, and whether it be better to be loved or feared, anticipates the defence of the Terrorists, in the maxim that for a new prince it is impossible to avoid the ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3) - Essay 1: Robespierre • John Morley
... cardcase, but that mark of gentility was not at hand. He, however, made a page from his memorandum book serve his purpose, and took his leave amid the loud congratulations of the applauding crowd, with the following pithy address to the constables: 'I can't well see what use you are. A hundred years ago there were no police, and Lord Mayor's shows went off better than they do now. For my part, I can't see what you do here ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton
... scarcely-finished statue his respect increased for the new visitor to Lochias; for, with earnest frankness, he pointed out to him certain faults, and while praising the merits of the rapidly-executed figure he explained in a few brief and pithy phrases his own conception of the ideal Urania. Then shortly but clearly, he stated his views as to how the plastic artist must deal with the problems ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... friends. As he warmed with his subject, his hands would forsake his pockets and enforce his ideas by awkward gestures, but would very soon seek their easy resting-places. He pursued the question with reason and argument so pithy and forcible that all were amazed. The president, after the meeting, remarked to his wife that there was more in Abe's head than wit and fun; that he was already a fine speaker; that all he lacked was culture to enable him to reach the high ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... to Taxila a number of Brahmin ascetics noted for their skill in answering philosophical questions with pithy wisdom. An account of the verbal skirmish is given by Plutarch; Alexander ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... but her manner, which was soft to no one except to Lord Lynedale, was, when she spoke to me, especially dictatorial and abrupt. She seemed to make a point of carping at chance words of mine, and of setting me, down suddenly, by breaking in with some severe, pithy observation, on conversations to which she had been listening unobserved. She seemed, too, to view with dislike anything like cordiality between me and Lillian—a dislike, which I was actually at moments ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... that 'it must not be understood that every accident implies a total wreck, with the loss of all hands. If a ship carries away any of her important spars, or, on entering her port, strikes heavily against a pier, whereby serious damage is occasioned, the accident is duly registered in this pithy chronicle of Lloyd's. Nevertheless, as we glance up and down the columns, it is no exaggeration to say, that two-thirds of the accidents recorded are of the most serious description. We are unable to say to what degree this ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 423, New Series. February 7th, 1852 • Various
... through your local papers. Send them short, pithy communications, and, when possible, secure a column in each, to be edited by ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... asparagus and allow four stalks for each service. Trim to remove the pithy end of the stalk and then cook in boiling water until tender. Lift and drain well, then place in a dish and cover ...
— Mrs. Wilson's Cook Book - Numerous New Recipes Based on Present Economic Conditions • Mary A. Wilson
... But, on this occasion, up to the moment of putting his lips to the old woman's ear, Mr. Dimmesdale, as the great enemy of souls would have it, could recall no text of Scripture, nor aught else, except a brief, pithy, and, as it then appeared to him, unanswerable argument against the immortality of the human soul. The instilment thereof into her mind would probably have caused this aged sister to drop down dead, at once, as by the effect of an intensely poisonous infusion. What ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Irishman, strongly resembling the late actor Power in physiognomy, with the very brogue which Power sometimes gave to his personages. He was a man of pithy speech, communicative, and acquainted apparently with everybody of every class, whom we passed on the road. Besides him we had for fellow-passengers three very intelligent Irishmen, on their way to Dublin. One of them was a tall, handsome gentleman, with dark hair and hazel ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors - Vol. II Great Britain And Ireland, Part Two • Francis W. Halsey
... Trinity, who was then a young man, embodied the best opinion of the time in an excellent pithy letter. He wrote to me that the trial simply established, what every one believed, that "Sir William Wilde was a pithecoid person of extraordinary sensuality and cowardice (funking the witness-box ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... younger Fry. These verbal Deliveries being always publish'd in their most Publick Assemblies, serve instead of our Traditional Notes, by the use of Letters. Some Indians, that I have met withal, have given me a very curious Description of the great Deluge, the Immortality of the Soul, with a pithy Account of the Reward of good and wicked Deeds in the Life to come; having found, amongst some of them, great Observers of Moral Rules, and the Law of Nature; indeed, a worthy Foundation to build Christianity upon, were a true Method found out, and practis'd, ...
— A New Voyage to Carolina • John Lawson
... to Stockmar with regard to the character of her revered parents in the following "pithy" manner:—"My mother was bad, but she could not have become as bad as she was if my father had not been infinitely worse." The Regent was anxious to have the Princess married for two reasons, in the opinion of the judicious author of this memoir—because he wanted to be rid of his ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... a great gingerbread-colored carriage drawn by a pair of black Flanders mares with tails that swept the ground; and to commemorate the origin of his greatness he had for a crest a fullblown cabbage painted on the pannels, with the pithy motto Alles Kopf that is to say, ALL HEAD; meaning thereby that he ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... to the countess. When the late Duke of York consulted him, he stood whistling with his hands in his pockets; and the duke said, "I suppose you know who I am." The uncourtly reply was, "Suppose I do, what of that?" His pithy advice was, "Cut off the supplies, as the Duke of Wellington did in his campaigns, and the enemy will leave the citadel." When he was consulted for lameness following disease or accidents, he seldom either listened to the patient or made any inquiries, but would walk about ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, - Issue 493, June 11, 1831 • Various
... war, and of Fox after the death of Pitt, was that of a king who understood his kingly office; and his strict devotion to business, regardless of his own pleasure, could not have been exceeded by a merchant engrossed in lucrative trade. The many pithy and racy sayings recorded of him show an insight into men's characters and the realities of life not unworthy of Dr. Johnson. His simplicity, kindliness, and charity endeared him to his subjects. His undaunted courage and readiness to undertake sole responsibility, ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... discrimination stripped them of their deceptive appendages, and separated fallacies from truth, marshalling their arguments, so as to elucidate or detect each other. But in all his disputations, it was an invariable maxim with him never to interrupt the most tedious or confused opponents, though, from his pithy questions, he made it evident, that, from the first, he anticipated the train and consequences ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... purpose, or forestall any man's invention, but leave it every one to dilate and amplify as he shall think fit in his own judgment: let him advise with Siracides cap. 9. 1. "Be not jealous over the wife of thy bosom;" read that comfortable and pithy speech to this purpose of Ximenius, in the author himself, as it is recorded by Gomesius; consult with Chaloner lib. 9. de repub. Anglor. or Caelia in her epistles, &c. Only this I will add, that if it be considered aright, which causeth this jealous passion, be it just or unjust, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... Kenneth; 'we are to have some moving tableaux, illustrating certain pithy sayings. Miss Willoughby has mentioned the one we want you for,—"Music hath charms," etc. I think I am to pose as one of the villains. We are divided as to whether it is to be a duel or a cold-blooded murder; but I know my part is to transform my face from that in which diabolical hatred and ...
— Dwell Deep - or Hilda Thorn's Life Story • Amy Le Feuvre
... Rosary", by Mary M. Sisson, is a collection of well written and sensible paragraphs on amateur journalism, which ought to assist in arousing enthusiasm amongst many members hitherto dormant. Editor Dowdell's pithy little epigrams at the foot of each page form an entertaining feature, many of them being of considerable cleverness. Dowdell's Bearcat will soon revert to its original newspaper form, since Mr. Dowdell intends to make newspaper work his ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... finding that the bold reformer had only a new dogma in place of the old ones, seeing that dissenters, in their turn, were sometimes as ready as papists, with age, fagot, and excommunication. In 1526, Felix Mants, the anabaptist, is drowned at Zurich, in obedience to Zwingli's pithy formula—'Qui iterum mergit mergatur'. Thus the anabaptists, upon their first appearance, were exposed to the fires of the Church and the water ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... in Shakespeare. He spoke the words and uttered the thoughts of hostlers as well as of kings. Observe the common language in the Bible. It is curious to note the number of the pithy expressions daily appearing among us which are repetitions of what the people were saying in ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... miscellaneous treasures wore one unvarying smile upon his countenance during the whole time of my remaining with him. He saw me reject this, and select that; cry "pish" upon one article, and "bravo" upon another—with the same settled complacency of countenance. His responses were short and pithy, and I must add, pleasant: for, having entirely given up all hopes of securing any thing in the shape of a good picture, a good bust, or a genuine illumination from a rich old MS., I confined myself strictly to printed books—and obtained some very rare, precious, and beautifully-conditioned ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... he has no need of it; it is good, forcible 'Scots' after all, and the thoughts he clothes in it are as 'hame-ower' and as pithy ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • Margaret Moyes Black
... distinguished from the description of it, which will be given in due course), it may be well to say a few words upon the principles which have guided the writer in his treatment of the subject. These cannot be better expressed than in a very pithy sentence uttered by Professor Willis at the meeting of the Archaeological Institute at this very place in 1861. "In all investigations of this nature, I am of opinion that it is requisite to ascertain first whether there exist any contemporary documents which may throw light upon the history ...
— The Cathedral Church of Peterborough - A Description Of Its Fabric And A Brief History Of The Episcopal See • W.D. Sweeting
... I have one for thee from Oxford, pithy and apposite, sound and solid, and trimmed up becomingly, as a collar of brawn with a crown of rosemary, or a boar's head with ...
— Citation and Examination of William Shakspeare • Walter Savage Landor
... says, if he can say he knows anything, he knows that he believes it. When his attention is turned to his dismissal from earth, or his hope of glory, his emotions are tender and sweet. They are also very simple, and express themselves in a few brief and pithy sentences. His interest in all the affairs of the mission is unabated, and although he can no longer join us either in deliberation or associated prayer, he must be informed of all that occurs, and his heart is wholly with us in whatever we do. I do not conceive it possible that ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... Queen had a ready method of dealing with obnoxious authors, as poor Peter Wentworth discovered, who wrote A Pithy Exhortation to Her Majesty for establishing her Successor to the Crown, and for his pains was committed to the Tower, where he pined and died. This work advocated the claims of James VI. of Scotland, and was written in answer to a pamphlet ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield
... Madam, before you touch the instrument, To learne the order of my fingering, I must begin with rudiments of Art, To teach you gamoth in a briefer sort, More pleasant, pithy, and effectuall, Then hath beene taught by any of my trade, And there it is in ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... to find a recipe against baldness under the title of "The Age of Love." But then "The Age of Love" is an absurd and answerless question. Experience shows that all ages fall in love—and out again; so that, to quote the pithy Bacon again, "a man may have a quarrel to marry when he will." Octogenarians elope, and Mr. Gilbert's elderly baby died a blase old roue ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... creeds, Sundays, saints, Bibles, holy festivals, &c. But he believ' d always in the universal church, in the soul of man, invisibly rapt, ever-waiting, ever-responding to universal truths.—He was fond of pithy proverbs. He said, "It matters not where you live, but how you live." He said once to my father, "They talk of the devil—I tell thee, Walter, there is ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... much about law, but it would seem as if they had a pretty strong case," he answered. He went on to tell me what he knew of the matter in his clean, pithy sentences, often brutally cynical, as though he had not a spark of interest in any of it. Mr. Cooke's claim to the land came from a maternal great-uncle, long since deceased, who had been a settler in these ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... acquaintance with Newman Hall began during the darkest period of our Civil War, in August, 1862 Up to that time I had only known him as the author of that pithy and pellucid little booklet, "Come to Jesus," which has belted the globe in forty languages, and been published to the number of nearly 4,000,000 of copies. When our Civil War broke out, Dr. Hall (with John Bright and Foster and Goldwin Smith) threw himself ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
... but something led him happily to infringe the resolution, and then it became, "I will always, if possible, hear Daniel Wilson." Sentences of his were very memorable; for instance, "Nineteen- twentieths of sanctification consist in holy tempers," and, besides exhibiting a pithy force of language, his sermons were prepared with infinite care and labour. When at St. John's, where he had no parochial charge, he selected his text on Monday and carried it about with him, so to speak, all the week, chewing the cud of it as it were, looking it up in every authority, ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... frequent themes of his discourses were the ancient songs, the history, and the rules of propriety established by ancient sages (p. 64). When one of his contemporaries wished to do away with the offering of a lamb as a meaningless formality, Confucius reproved him with the pithy sentence, 'You love the sheep, I love the ceremony.' There were four things, we are told, which Confucius taught—letters, ethics, devotion of soul, and truthfulness (p. 66). When speaking of himself, he said, 'At fifteen, I had my mind bent on learning. ...
— Chips From A German Workshop - Volume I - Essays on the Science of Religion • Friedrich Max Mueller
... before the war, he proved by his success that even slaves work better for kindness. Of infinite good sense, but little education, he had a mind that went to the heart of things, and years ago the fame of his homely but pithy sayings stuck in the community. In connection with kindness to his negroes one of his sayings was, "Oh, kindness can't be classified—it takes in the ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... by many arrows, more or 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 ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... phraseology in which he had been wont to convey some of his strongest sentiments, and they could not in any degree enter into his feelings when, forgetting for a moment his circumstances, he came out with a pithy forecastle allusion to the politics or the Government of his ...
— The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne
... lastly, that the indulgence so often bestowed upon a first effort is as frequently converted into censure on the older offender. My arguments have, however, totally failed, and he remains obdurate and unmoved. Under these circumstances I have yielded; and as, happily for me, the short and pithy direction to the river Thames, in the Critic, "to keep between its banks," has been imitated by my friend, I find all that is required of me is to write my name upon the title and go in peace. Such, he informs me, is ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... of the deep indebtedness of the English language, both literary and colloquial, to America, for the old words she has kept alive and the new words and phrases she has invented. It is a sheer pedantry—nay, a misconception of the laws which govern language as a living organism—to despise pithy and apt colloquialisms, and even slang. In order to remain healthy and vigorous, a literary language must be rooted in the soil of a copious vernacular, from which it can extract and assimilate, by a chemistry peculiar to itself, whatever nourishment it requires. It must keep ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... Czechoslovakia, Jugoslavia, and Poland upheld M. Bratiano's contentions in brief, pithy speeches. President Wilson's lengthy rejoinder, delivered with more than ordinary sweetness, deprecated M. Bratiano's comparison of the Allies' proposed intervention with Russia's protection of the Christians of Turkey, and represented ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... is terse and incisive, and brilliant with epigram and point. It contains pithy aphoristic sentences which Burke himself would not have disowned. But these are not its best features: its sustained power of reasoning, its wide sweep of observation and reflection, its elevated ethical and social tone, stamp ...
— MacMillan & Co.'s General Catalogue of Works in the Departments of History, Biography, Travels, and Belles Lettres, December, 1869 • Unknown
... mission. How this result, this check, temporary only as it may prove, chagrined the Government, if not the people, and the mining and manufacturing interests of France, may be understood by the simple citation of a few short but pithy sentences from the Journal des Debats, certainly the most influential, as it is the most ably conducted, of Parisian journals:—"Le 'ZOLLVEREIN,'" observes the Debats, "a prodigieusement rehausse la Prusse; l'union douaniere avec la Belgique aurait, a un degre moindre ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... classes which had neither the leisure nor the training to master this very intricate economic problem. W. H. Harvey's Coin's Financial School was the most widely read campaign document, although hundreds of similar pamphlets and books had an enormous circulation. The pithy and plausible arguments of "Coin" and his ready answers to questions supposedly put by prominent editors, bankers, and university professors, as well as by J. R. Sovereign, master workman of the Knights of Labor, ...
— The Agrarian Crusade - A Chronicle of the Farmer in Politics • Solon J. Buck
... reactionaries, but as the day of the election approached he discovered that his adversaries were not at all particular about putting forth highly personal references to himself. Hathelsborough suddenly became flooded with handbills and posters, each bearing a few pithy words in enormous type. These effusions were for the most part in the form of questions, addressed to the recipients; there was a cynical and sinister sneer in all of them. "Who is Mr. Brent?" ...
— In the Mayor's Parlour • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... and the negro had both been making the best of their way towards the ruin, from the moment they discovered the situation of their friend, by this time they were within speaking distance of the spot itself. Wilder, in those brief, pithy tones that distinguish the manner in which a sea officer issues his orders, directed them to raise the ladder. When he was liberated, he demanded, with a sufficiently significant air, if they had observed the direction in which the stranger in ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... Randal's pithy and Spartan logic.)—"Upon my word sir, you express yourself very well. I must own that I began these questions in the hope of differing from you; ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... Then appears Howel Tightbelly, the miser, who in capital verse, with very considerable glee and exultation, gives an account of his manifold rascalities. Then comes his wife, Esther Steady, home from the market, between whom and her husband there is a pithy dialogue. Captain Riches and Captain Poverty then meet, without rancour, however, and have a long discourse about the providence of God, whose agents they own themselves to be. Enter then an old worthless scoundrel called Diogyn ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... school was harangued in short, pithy terms by Speug, and in obedience to his invitation Muirtown Seminary proceeded in a solid mass to the Count's residence, where they gave a volley of cheers. The Count was more gratified than by anything that had happened to him since he ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren
... any either before or since he first began the wyttie discourse of his Euphues, whose works, surely in respect of his singular eloquence and brave composition of apt words and sentences, let the learned examine and make tryall thereof, through all the parts of Rethoricke, in fitte phrases, in pithy sentences, in galant tropes, in flowing speeche, in plaine sense, and surely in my judgment, I think he wyll yeelde him that verdict which Quintillian giveth of both the best orators Demosthenes and Tully, that from the one, nothing may be taken away, to the other nothing ...
— John Lyly • John Dover Wilson
... excelling, and so wholly possessing the imagination of him that hears, that he should have something else to do, than to think of words. The way of speaking that I love, is natural and plain, the same in writing as in speaking, and a sinewy and muscular way of expressing a man's self, short and pithy, not so elegant and artificial as ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... coachmen know me by tongue as I pass. To be sure, to a mind in sober, serious, street-walking humour, it must bear an appearance of lunacy when one stamps with the hurried pace and fervent shake of the head which strong, pithy poetry excites."[10] I suppose anecdotes of this kind have been oftener told of Scott than of any other English poet. Indeed, Sir Walter, who understood himself well, gives the explanation in one of his diaries:—"I am sensible," he says, "that if there be anything good ...
— Sir Walter Scott - (English Men of Letters Series) • Richard H. Hutton
... a lady repeat the following pithy lines, and shall be glad if any of your readers can tell me who is the author, and where they ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 35, June 29, 1850 • Various
... 'order,' nevertheless, may be the 'better excused' in a 'familiar epistle,' (as this may be called,) you pardoning, Sir, the 'familiarity' of the 'word'; but yet not altogether 'here,' I must needs own; because this is 'a letter' and 'not a letter,' as I may say; but a kind of 'short' and 'pithy discourse,' touching upon 'various' and 'sundry topics,' every one of which might be a 'fit theme' to enlarge upon of volumes; if this 'epistolary discourse' (then let me call it) should be pleasing to you, (as I am inclined to think it will, because of the 'sentiments' ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... stripped off when the grain is hard, and carried in carts to the barns, and placed in corn cribs adapted for the purpose. The grains are taken off the pithy cylinder on which they grow, by being rubbed or scraped on a piece of iron: in America a bayonet (a weapon called by the Yankees Uncle George's toasting fork) is invariably used for the purpose: the cylinder, now bared of its grain, is called the cobb. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 384, Saturday, August 8, 1829. • Various
... consecrated as the scene of this tragic incident has received the name of Rock of the Lovers. The legend is prettily told by Mariana, (Hist. de Espana, tom. ii. pp. 253, 254,) who concludes with the pithy reflection, that "such constancy would have been truly admirable, had it been shown in defence of the true faith, rather than in the gratification ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... is that you're thinking too much about yourself. You should just think of Mrs. Allan and what would be nicest and most agreeable to her," said Marilla, hitting for once in her life on a very sound and pithy piece of advice. Anne ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... old temptation came back to wind up with a lecture or quotation. I ransacked all my classics, and met with many a wise and pithy saying, but not one pleased me. I was about to give up the search in despair, when, taking up a certain book, my eye caught a familiar red pencil-mark. "Eureka!" I cried, and I wrote in large letters, ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... two, to make a good Latin pun: 'Olim pia, nunc impia,' 'once pious, now impious,' or 'Olimpia, now impious,' as one chose to join or separate the syllables. Whole books have been filled with the short and pithy imaginary conversations between Marforio, the statue of a river god which used to stand in the Monti, and Pasquino, beneath whom the Roman children used to be told that the book of all ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... that Alesius heard of the cruel edict of the Scottish bishops, and it hardly admits of doubt that he submitted to Melanchthon, and got corrected by him, his little treatise against their decree, forbidding the New Testament Scriptures to be used by the laity in the vernacular. It is a very pithy and forcible bit of pleading for the right of the Christian laity to possess and study the Scriptures in their own tongue. This remarkable treatise struck the true key-note in the contest it ushered ...
— The Scottish Reformation - Its Epochs, Episodes, Leaders, and Distinctive Characteristics • Alexander F. Mitchell
... material which is treated with plain, common sense, good wit and no lack of humor. Thus it hits the need of the average man and woman, and all others that reckon themselves above the average. The whole book is pervaded by strong and pure moral feeling, and the chapters are well dotted with pithy anecdotes ...
— What a Young Woman Ought to Know • Mary Wood-Allen
... pains to be certain that it was his best. Perhaps there is a slight falling off in 'Following the Equator'; a trace of fatigue, of weariness, of disenchantment. But the last book of travels has passages as broadly humorous as any of the first; and it proves the author's possession of a pithy shrewdness not to be suspected from a perusal of its earliest predecessor. The first book was the work of a young fellow rejoicing in his own fun and resolved to make his readers laugh with him or at him; ...
— Inquiries and Opinions • Brander Matthews
... came into Egypt in this reign, and translated into Greek the Hebrew work of his grandfather Jesus, which is named the Book of Wisdom, or Ecclesiasticus. It is written in imitation of the Proverbs of Solomon; and though its pithy sayings fall far short of the deep wisdom and lofty thoughts which crowd every line of that wonderful work, yet it will always be read with profit and pleasure. In this book we see the earliest example that ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 10 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... had set up his "magic press" near London, and issued from it five volumes of small size indeed, but of remarkable vigour and merit. As soon as any notable attack was made on the Catholics, an answer was brought out in a wonderfully short time, and these answers were pithy, vigorous, and pointed, in no ordinary degree. When one remembers how much co-operation is needed to bring out even the slightest volume, one is truly astonished at the feat of bringing out so many and such good ones, while the hourly fear of capture, ...
— Ten Reasons Proposed to His Adversaries for Disputation in the Name • Edmund Campion
... the critical school takes the pithy aphorism "Melius autem est naturam secare quam abstrahere"[1] for his motto, the champion of free speculation may retort with another from the same hand, "Citius enim emergit veritas e falsitate quam e confusione;"[2] and each may adduce abundant historical proof that his method ...
— Freedom in Science and Teaching. - from the German of Ernst Haeckel • Ernst Haeckel
... them, along with the dissolution of their ancient state, the knowledge of Himself, the only living and true God, and of Jesus Christ whom He hath sent. 8. I have little more to add on the opinions of Confucius. Many of his sayings are pithy, and display much knowledge of character; but as they are contained in the body of the Work, I will not occupy the space here with a selection of those which have struck myself as most worthy of notice. The ...
— THE CHINESE CLASSICS (PROLEGOMENA) • James Legge
... probably dip into them here and there at intervals. By so doing he gradually makes his own anthology; but it may be that he will yet find place for another man's, if it has no pretension to completeness or authority, and will go into his pocket. Borrow is not a pithy writer, nor is he best when sententious; the following passages are, therefore, somewhat longer than is usual in this series of Anthologies. Even so, many of the best things in his books, especially from Wild Wales, have had to be omitted, because they are longer still. But ...
— The Pocket George Borrow • George Borrow
... of a true mushroom has a frill, the gills are free from the stem, they never grow down against it, but usually there is a small channel all around the top of the stem, the spores are brown-black, or deep purple black and the stem is solid or slightly pithy. It is said if salt is sprinkled on the gills and they become yellow the mushroom is poisonous, if black, they are wholesome. Sweet oil ...
— Vaughan's Vegetable Cook Book (4th edition) - How to Cook and Use Rarer Vegetables and Herbs • Anonymous
... was left him for humorous composition—though he certainly found leisure to issue "The Family Joe Miller." When he was in Edinburgh he married Robert Chambers' sister—a lady possessed of true Scottish wit, some of whose pithy remarks are still remembered, such as "The ladies who agitate for women's rights ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... winter we find him in Copenhagen, laboring with an intensity of creative ardor which he had never known before. His striking appearance, the pithy terseness of his speech, and a certain naive self-assertion and impatience of social restraints made him a notable figure in the polite and somewhat effeminate society of the Danish capital. There was ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... observation, he added a racy humor which those who knew him in his hours of relaxation and familiarity will not easily forget. His mind was stored with quaint and pithy phrases, and apt illustrations, which he not unfrequently seasoned with his native idiom, the broad Barnsley dialect. His north-country pronunciation, indeed, never entirely forsook him; and the singular graft ...
— Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel • John Yeardley
... controversies about the freedom of the will would have had no existence, if this pithy paragraph had been well pondered by those who oppose the doctrine of necessity. For they rest upon the absurd presumption that the proposition, "I can do as I like," is contradictory to the doctrine of necessity. The answer is; nobody doubts that, at any rate within certain limits, you ...
— Hume - (English Men of Letters Series) • T.H. Huxley
... and priceless for the young. Another word I permit myself to add. With Dickens, White was popular supremely for his eager good fellowship; and few men brought him more of what he always liked to receive. But he brought nothing so good as his wife. "He is excellent, but she is better," is the pithy remark of his first Bonchurch letter; and the true affection and respect that followed is happily still borne her ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... and never contemplated—the exigency beyond immediate solution. As James Dows, one of the coolest in judgment and wisest in counsel of the Executive Committee, pertinently described the situation in the pithy remark, "We started in to hunt cayotes, but we've got a grizzly bear on our hands, and we don't know what to do with him." The Executive Committee were not themselves masters of the situation. Behind them, subject to them and ready to obey their commands ...
— The Vigilance Committee of '56 • James O'Meara
... Among other pithy and patriotic points made by him in that great speech —[July 9, 1861.]—were these: "So long as there was a hope of a peaceful solution, I prayed and implored for Compromise. I have spared no effort for a peaceful solution of these troubles; I have ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... splendidly. I was eloquent, but at the same time concise. My choice of words was superb. I crystallised my ideas into pithy sentences which a ...
— Love Among the Chickens • P. G. Wodehouse
... during this troublous year of 1913. In this year, too, South Africa was visited by a drought which for severity was pronounced to be unprecedented in the knowledge of all the old inhabitants. Remarks — some pithy, some ugly — were made upon the drought by Dutchmen. They all remembered how the God of their fathers used to send them nice soaking rains regularly each spring-time, and that it usually continued to nourish the plants and other of the country's vegetation throughout the summer, and they concluded ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... might well go to the waste-paper basket without prolonged consideration. The serious and important part of the mail, some personal and some business, occupies the attention of several men; all such letters finding their way promptly into the proper channels, often with a pithy endorsement by Edison scribbled on the margin. What to do with a host of others it is often difficult to decide, even when written by "cranks," who imagine themselves subject to strange electrical ailments from which Edison alone can ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... values no feature of an economy save the capital invested in it, we cannot deny to the management of the Roman estates the praise of consistency, energy, punctuality, frugality, and solidity. The pithy practical husbandman is reflected in Cato's description of the steward, as he ought to be. He is the first on the farm to rise and the last to go to bed; he is strict in dealing with himself as well as with those under him, and knows more especially how to keep the ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... the timbered bench where fence posts were being cut by half a dozen of the Arrowhead forces. Two of these were swiftly detached and bade to repair the break in the fence by which one Timmins was now profiting, the entire six being first regaled with a brief but pithy character analysis of the offender, portraying him as a loathsome biological freak; headless, I gathered, and with the acquisitive instincts of a ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... generosissimum) will be found an element of anything like persistent strength in war,—thinking the saying of Lord Bacon (whom one quaintly called inductionis dominus et Verulamii) as true as it is pithy, that 'the more gentlemen, ever the lower books of subsidies.' It is odd enough as an historical precedent, that, while the fathers of New England were laying deep in religion, education, and freedom the basis of a polity ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... long since, a white-haired man, Pithy of speech, and merry when he would; A genial optimist, who daily drew From what he saw his quaint moralities. Kindly he held communion, though so old, With me a dreaming boy, and taught me much That books tell not, and I shall ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... to John Wallingford, was as pithy as his own to me. I told him my will was made, on a conviction of its perfect propriety, and assured him it would not be altered in a hurry; I told him the sugars were safe, and let him understand that they were already on their way to Hamburg, whence I hoped, ere long, to send him a good ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... Francis Davison, (author of a compilation entitled 'A Poetical Rhapsody,' published in 1593, and where 'The Soul's Errand' first appeared,) and to Joshua Sylvester, who prints it in his volume of verses, with vile interpolations of his own. Its outspoken energy and pithy language render it worthy of any ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... fain have patted him. Success to your search, Fidelity! And there sits a great yellow cat upon a window-sill, a very corpulent and comfortable cat, gazing at this transitory world, with owl's eyes, and making pithy comments, doubtless, or what appear such, to the silly beast. O sage puss, make room for me beside you, and we will be a ...
— Little Annie's Ramble (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Mylner, Tom Baker, Jack Straw, Jack Trewman, Jack Carter, and probably of many more. Some of the choicest flowers of the publications charitably written and circulated by them gratis are upon record in Walsingham and Knyghton: and I am inclined to prefer the pithy and sententious brevity of these bulletins of ancient rebellion before the loose and confused prolixity of the modern advertisements of constitutional information. They contain more good morality ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... the Times of 1852. In form, it is slightly larger than one leaf of this Journal; but in type, and in appearance, it is quite equal to the newspapers of a hundred years later. It is published 'by authority,' and contains pithy paragraphs, void of detail and without comment, under the headings of the different places whence the news is brought—the first and the last paragraphs being devoted to 'home news,' the latter dating usually from Whitehall, and supplying the place of the Court Circular. ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 438 - Volume 17, New Series, May 22, 1852 • Various
... in four quarto volumes: a wonderful work, whether considered from an historical, psychological, or philosophical point of view. His address on that occasion was masterly, and his conversation at various social functions instructive and pithy. I remember in one of them, especially, his delineation of the characteristics and services of Leibnitz, who was one of the founders of the Royal Academy, and it was perfection in that kind of conversation which is worthy of men claiming to possess immortal souls: for it brought out, especially, ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... omit the testimony of another, a more partial, perhaps, but even better informed judge. The Table Talk, edited by Mr. Nelson Coleridge, shows how pregnant, how pithy, how full of subtle observation, and often also of playful humour, could be the talk of the great discourser in its lighter and more colloquial forms. The book indeed is, to the thinking of one, at any rate, of its frequent readers, among the most delightful in the world. ...
— English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill
... doubt, from what Tasso says in his letters, whether he was fond of speaking in public, notwithstanding his debut in that line with the Fifty Amorous Conclusions.Nor does he appear to have been remarkable for his conversation. Manso has left a collection of one hundred of his pithy sayings—a suspicious amount, and unfortunately more than warranting the suspicion; for almost every one of them is traceable to some other man. They come from the Greek and Latin philosophers, and the apothegms ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... Burr, in 1866, to be "a new variety, bouquet not large, but handsome and compact. It is so firm that it remains an unusual length of time without running to seed or becoming pithy." ...
— The Cauliflower • A. A. Crozier
... and his correspondents. But taken as a whole, I know not any poetic epistles to be compared with them. They are just the letters in which one friend might unbosom himself to another without the least artifice or disguise. And the broad Doric is so pithy, so powerful, so aptly fitted to the thought, that not even Horace himself has surpassed it in "curious felicity." Often, when harvests were failing and the world going against him, he found his solace in pouring forth in rhyme his feelings ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp
... tell only a small part of the truth concerning them. They are, indeed and especially those spoken in Galilee, and reported for the most part in the Synoptists, the perfection of popular speech. How the short, pithy, sententious sayings cling to the memory like burs! Let almost any of them be commenced, and as Dr. Stalker says, the ordinary hearer can without difficulty finish the sentence. Christ was not afraid of a paradox. When, e.g., He said, "Whosoever smiteth thee on thy right cheek, ...
— The Teaching of Jesus • George Jackson
... Minister said something, not too much; to which one Prittwitz, head of a Silesian Family of which we shall know individuals, made pithy and pretty response, before swearing. "There were above Four Hundred of Quality present, all in gala." The customary Free-Gift of the STANDE Friedrich magnanimously refused: "Impossible to be a burden to our Silesia in such harassed war-circumstances, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... in my estimation means much." No doubt Chopin looked up with more respect and thought himself more indebted to Elsner than to Zywny; but that he had a good opinion of both his masters is evident from his pithy reply to the Viennese gentleman who told him that people were astonished at his having learned all he knew at Warsaw: "From Messrs. Zywny and Elsner even the greatest ass must ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... It's po'thry he's writin'—something 'pithy' he said, and 'lame' too. I dunna how a thing could be pithy and lame together, but them potes has hard ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... more and more do the incidental evils seem curable and the difficulties removable.' As the Crimean war went on, the usual cry for administrative reform was raised, and Mr. Gladstone never made a more terse, pithy, and incontrovertible speech than his defence for an open civil service ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... Tyanean sage, and consulted him upon the most important matters of State. Titus, the successor of that monarch, manifested equal confidence, and regarded him absolutely as an oracle. Apollonius, who really seems to have been a most sensible politician, wrote the following brief but pithy note to Titus, when the latter modestly refused the crown of victory, ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... dolape palms (Borassus ethriopicus), which were the only trees of that species in this neighbourhood. These palms are well adapted for canoes, as the bark, or rather the outside wood, is intensely hard for about an inch and a half, beneath which the tree is simply a pithy, stringy substance, that can be ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... Proverb.—A brief, pithy saying, condensing in witty or striking form the wisdom of experience; a familiar and widely known ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... even a doctor of divinity may go, is well shown in Schoelcher's pithy comment: "This is addressed to a man who pitilessly murdered as many prisoners after the battle as his courage had slain enemies during the combat." It is but just to the composer, however, to say that the great success of this oratorio had ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton
... note, and drank tea in the best drawing-rooms the Capital could boast of. So far my step-mother looked happy. I had not been awkward at introductions, nor dull in conversations. I had even made some very pithy remarks where they could do me most service, and knew the name of a historic personage to whom Lady Pendleton alluded vaguely, forgetting his title. I was invaded in my turn on our reception day by all the wealth and beauty of the capital. Great, pompous dames in heavy ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... as his readers now, were often driven to consider his meaning, and not unfrequently to make one out for themselves. This style of declamation has been not unaptly called "splendid nonsense," and it was after a display of this sort from Burke, that one of his audience made this pithy exclamation: "It is all very well, but I should like to hear it over again, that I might consider the sense." Burke also dealt in paradoxes occasionally; in short, he will seldom satisfy a careful reader, and his most ardent admirers have been known to confess themselves ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 550, June 2, 1832 • Various
... love. The next day, the wind being faire, they wente aborde, and their freinds with them, where truly dolfull was y^e sight of that sade and mournfull parting; to see what sighs and sobbs and praires did sound amongst them, what tears did gush from every eye, & pithy speeches peirst each harte; that sundry of y^e Dutch strangers y^t stood on y^e key as spectators, could not refraine from tears. Yet comfortable & sweete it was to see shuch lively and true expressions of clear & unfained love. ...
— Bradford's History of 'Plimoth Plantation' • William Bradford
... endorsed almost every word of this. In his pithy way, speaking of the distinction between natural and artificial objects, he says himself that if you planted a wooden bed and the wood could still grow, it would grow up, not a ...
— Progress and History • Various
... great works was condemned, withdrawn from exhibition, and relegated, as a mere wall-picture, to the decoration of the dining-room. Their place was taken by a replica of the original wafered announcement, to which, in particularly large letters, he had added the pithy rubric: 'NO SERVICE.' Meanwhile he had fallen into something as nearly bordering on low spirits as was consistent with his disposition; depressed, at once by the failure of his scheme, the laughable turn of his late interview, and the judicial blindness ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... new Tones she finds she is awaking From the trumpet which young Werner With low bows had handed to her. Easily from him she learneth What her father's cuirassiers blew As the call to charge in battle; Only a few notes and simple, But most pithy ...
— The Trumpeter of Saekkingen - A Song from the Upper Rhine. • Joseph Victor von Scheffel |
