"Ranting" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... "Marlowe's mighty line." Jonson, however, ridiculed, in his Discoveries, the "scenical strutting and furious vociferation" of Marlowe's hero; and Shakspere put a quotation from Tamburlaine into the mouth of his ranting Pistol. Marlowe's Edward II. was the most regularly constructed and evenly written of his plays. It was the best historical drama on the stage before Shakspere, and not undeserving of the comparison which it has provoked with the latter's Richard II. But the most interesting of Marlowe's plays, ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... Your great ranting, swaggering, roysters,[29] that are ignorant of the nature of the fear of God, count it a poor, sneaking, pitiful, cowardly spirit in men to fear and tremble before the Lord; but whoso looks back to jails and gibbets, to the sword and burning stake, shall see, that there, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... with his hands in his pockets, under the influence of it, without taking up even once the book about Mrs. Foat. He occupied the time in asking himself by what perversity of fate or of inclination such a charming creature was ranting upon platforms and living in Olive Chancellor's pocket, or how a ranter and sycophant could possibly be so engaging. And she was so disturbingly beautiful, too. This last fact was not less evident when she came down arranged for their walk. They left ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... vengeance of our very philanthropic Uncle Sam, but also the anathemas of the whole sect of philanthropists and negrophilists everywhere. To import them for years, however, into quiet places, evading with impunity the penalty of the law, and the ranting of the thin-skinned sympathizers with Africa, was gradually to popularize the traffic by creating a demand for laborers, and thus to pave the way for the gradual revival of the slave trade. To this end, a few men, bold and energetic, ...
— The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America - 1638-1870 • W. E. B. Du Bois
... me quite unmoved. No, not that exactly, for I am rather vexed at it for giving so many idiots an excuse for ranting and absurd sentimentality. Now just look at all these people on the beach. In reality they are bored to extinction, and enjoy the Boulevards infinitely more than this expanse of water, which is quite meaningless to them. ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... in the fear of his name, and did not suffer me to accept such cursed principles.' Prayer opened the door of escape; it led him to the fountain of truth. 'I began to look into the Bible with new eyes. Prayer preserved me from Ranting errors. The Bible was precious to me in those days.'[73] His study of the Holy Oracles now became a daily habit, and that with intense earnestness and prayer. In the mist of the multitude of sects with which he was on all sides surrounded, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... you speak as if this paltry sum were all the wealth of the Indies. Why, from Ormonde or Buckingham, with their twenty thousand, down to ranting Dicky Talbot, there was not one of my set who could not have bought me out. Yet I must have my coach and four, my town house, my liveried servants, and my stable full of horses. To be in the mode I must have my poet, and throw him a handful of guineas for his ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... to sit on the Bench, Hearing the Counsel, day by day, Canting and ranting, while they clench Their fists, and thump and hammer away: Be their arguments weak or strong, Whatever I say I'm in the wrong. Ah me! who would be, A ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, November 5, 1892 • Various
... considered best, trying to make them see that simplicity of delivery was not only the most beautiful but the most effective means to use and, by the end of a few months, when they had been allowed to experiment and express themselves, they began to see that mere ranting was not force and that a sense of reserve power is infinitely more impressive and inspiring than mere ...
— The Art of the Story-Teller • Marie L. Shedlock
... revolutionary horrors must have been unbearably bitter to the nobler portion of Alfieri's nature, we must admit that to see Alfieri himself, Alfieri so proud of his former ferocious love of liberty, turned into a mere ranting renegade, is an unendurable spectacle also; we should like to wash our hands of him as he tried to wash his hands ...
— The Countess of Albany • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... our vows are due, and not to fortune she has no power over our manners; on the contrary, they draw and make her follow in their train, and cast her in their own mould. Why should not I judge of Alexander at table, ranting and drinking at the prodigious rate ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... occasion, when Ancrum stumbled across him, he found Barbier, at first bubbling over with the war news; torn different ways; now abusing the Emperor for a cochon and a fou, prophesying unlimited disaster for France, and sneering at the ranting crowds on the boulevards; the next moment spouting the same anti-Prussian madness with which his whole unfortunate country was at the moment infected. In the midst of his gallop of talk, however, the ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... revolutions,—such as that, for instance, raging in the country of our miserable French neighbours. Save a very, very few indeed, the actors in those great tragedies do not bear to be scanned too closely; the chiefs are often no better than ranting quacks; the heroes ignoble puppets; the heroines anything but pure. The prize is not always to the brave. In our revolution it certainly did fall, for once and for a wonder, to the most deserving: but who knows his enemies now? His great and surprising ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... monks of the Wey seldom sung any psalms, And little they thought of religion or qualms; Such rollicking, frolicking, ranting, and gay, And jolly old boys were the ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... by birthright is free, Though the tyrant may deem him but born for his tool. Whatever the shout of the rabble may be— Whatever the ranting misuse of the fool— Still fear not the slave, when he breaks from his chain, For the man made a freeman ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... not remember one which is above the intellectual capacity of a boy of fifteen. He has printed many of his own letters, and in these letters he is always ranting or twaddling. Logic, eloquence, wit, taste, all those things which are generally considered as making a book valuable, were utterly wanting to him. He had, indeed, a quick observation and a retentive memory. These qualities, if he had been a man of sense and virtue, would scarcely of ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... borrowed from the compositor's desk, will give a notion of what we mean. Wild's face is too violent for the great man of history (if we may call Fielding history), but this is in consonance with the ranting, frowning, braggadocio character that Mr. Ainsworth has ...
— George Cruikshank • William Makepeace Thackeray
... confidently accuse him of extreme ignorance and temerity. Our readers will be amused to learn on what authority he has ventured to publish such a fable. He quotes, not the Journals of the Lords, not the Parliamentary Debates, but a ranting message of the Executive Directory to the Five Hundred, a message, too, the whole meaning of which he has ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... 381 Hugh Peters. This divine, who had been chaplain to Sir Thomas Fairfax, was notorious for his fanatical and ranting sermons. Having openly advocated and preached the death of Charles I, he was, at the Restoration, excluded from the general amnesty, tried for high treason, and executed 16 ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... was needed to show off the almost solitary splendour of Coriolanus. He is the proudest man in Shakespeare, and Sir Henry Irving is at his best when he embodies pride. His conception of the part was masterly; it had imagination, nobility, quietude. With opportunity for ranting in every second speech, he never ranted, but played what might well have been a roaring part with a kind of gentleness. With every opportunity for extravagant gesture, he stood, as the play seemed to foam about him, like a rock against which the foam beats. Made up as a kind of Roman Moltke, the ...
— Plays, Acting and Music - A Book Of Theory • Arthur Symons
... to be admired for standing up to-day against that damned demagogue, Lewis Rand! No matter if he is defeated. Every gentleman applauds him. You women adore victory, but let me tell you, a vanquished Federalist is still the conqueror of any ranting Republican!" ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... soberer lines than the fashion of the day affected; and his imagination breathed freely on the heights of the Latin Parnassus. Thus, while his friend Vittorio stormed up and down the quiet rooms, chattering about his horses, boasting of his escapades, or ranting against the tyranny of the Sardinian government, Odo, at the old Count's side, was entering on the great inheritance of ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... duly and regularly 'to hear us every Sunday,' a louder, stronger, and more urgent and thrilling cry, Repent! Repent! We want more fearless plain speaking, more personal appeal. It is not refined to preach of the grave and death, judgment and hell,—it is 'ranting:' but nevertheless let us 'rant;' let us be faithful; let us tell the sinner that he must die; and that he will die in his sins and perish for ever, except he repent and be converted that his sins may be blotted out. Let us tell ...
— From Death into Life - or, twenty years of my ministry • William Haslam
... an eligible student, E'en tho I am no poet in a sense, But just a hot-head youth with ways imprudent,— A rustic ranting rhymer like by chance Who thinks that he can make the muses dance By beating on some poet's borrowed lyre, To win some fool's applause and please ...
— The Book of American Negro Poetry • Edited by James Weldon Johnson
... la belle chose!" he said with ineffable contempt, and broke in upon the ranting melody with a ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... profound but what is obscure; nothing sublime but what is beyond the reach of mortal comprehension. To their vitiated taste the simple pathos, which o'ersteps not the modesty of nature, appears cold, tame, and insipid; they must have scenes and a coup de theatre; and ranting, and raving, and stabbing, and drowning, and poisoning; for with them there is no love without murder. Love, in their representations, is indeed a distorted, ridiculous, horrid monster, from whom common sense, ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... smile, "I have come out of all that, in proportion as my artistic self-consciousness has developed. For one thing, I am not so miserable as I was then, personally; then again, I have found my vocation. You know pretty well the phases I have passed through. Upon ranting radicalism followed a period of philosophical study. My philosophy, I have come to see, was worth nothing; what philosophy is worth anything? It had its use for myself, however; it made me by degrees self-conscious, and brought ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing
... furnished his favourite witches with servant imps to attend upon them. These imps were called, "The Roaring Lion," "Thief of Hell," "Wait-upon-Herself," "Ranting Roarer," "Care-for-Naught," &c., and were known by their liveries, which were generally yellow, sad-dun, sea-green, pea-green, or grass-green. Satan never called the witches by the names they had received at baptism; neither were they allowed, in his presence, so to designate ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... guard over his lips, and stinted himself to one bottle at a meal. He was found by the messengers of the government at a tavern table in Gracechurch Street, swallowing bumpers to the health of King James, and ranting about the coming restoration, the French fleet, and the thousands of honest Englishmen who were awaiting the signal to rise in arms for their rightful Sovereign. He was carried to the Secretary's office at Whitehall. He at first seemed to be confident and at his ease: but when Fuller appeared ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... time onwards, and we know not how long before, he was a sort of staple character, no set of Miracle-Plays being regarded as complete without him. And he was always represented as an immense swearer and braggart and swaggerer, evermore ranting and raving up and down the stage, and cudgelling the spectators' ears with the most furious bombast and profanity. Thus, in ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... seriously suppose that one who has studied the plays of that great man, Euripides, would ever begin a tragedy in such a ranting style? ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... physician. Whom could they call, but Dr. Bloxholme, an intimate old friend of Mr. Winnington, and to whose house he always went once a year? This doctor, grown paralytic and indolent, gave in to every thing the quack advised: Mrs. Masham all the while ranting and raving At last, which at last came very speedily, they had reduced him to a total dissolution, by a diabetes and a thrush; his friends all the time distracted for him, but hindered from assisting him; so far, that the night before he died, Thomson gave him another purge, though he could ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... to Portugal, nor during his short leaves of absence at home: none of that class ever crossed his path abroad, and he came home prepared to believe any thing that was told him of the supposed fanatics, whom he understood to be a sort of ranting dissenters. At Clifton, extremes then ran far; the gay people most violently denouncing their sober neighbors, and making up all sorts of scandal concerning them. Hannah More was pointed out as "queen of the Methodists," and a most infamous lie, wholly destructive ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth
... written in Diamond by Persons of the first Rank and Figure in Great Britain; relating to Love, Matrimony, Drunkenness, Sobriety, Ranting, Scandal, Politicks, Gaming, and many other Subjects, ...
— The Merry-Thought: or the Glass-Window and Bog-House Miscellany - Parts 2, 3 and 4 • Hurlo Thrumbo (pseudonym)
... acknowledged his Venus in this exulting Bacchante, regarded her with a grim and ire-foreboding countenance, while some of the senators of the village hastened to interpose. 'Whisht, gudewife; is this a time, or is this a day, to be singing your ranting fule sangs in?—a time when the wine of wrath is poured out without mixture in the cup of indignation, and a day when the land should give testimony against popery, and prelacy, and quakerism, and independency, and supremacy, ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... small portion of the ham and drank a glass of the brose to Mrs. Maclaren; and then after a great number of civilities, Robin took the pipes and played a little spring in a very ranting manner. ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson |
