"Namby-pamby" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to which he introduced his readers created a sensation by reason of its very novelty. His brilliant, but withering critiques were more eagerly looked for than the most thrilling of his stories, and though the little, namby-pamby authors whom the gleaming sword mowed down by tens were his and the Messenger's enemies for life, the interested readers that were gathered in by hundreds were loud in their praise of the progressiveness of the magazine and the genius of the man ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... the Sweetbriars a better spirit had come over the entire school. Mrs. Tellingham in secret spoke of this as the direct result of Ruth's character and influence; for although Ruth Fielding was not namby-pamby, she was opposed to every form of rude behavior, or to the breaking of rules which everyone knew ...
— Ruth Fielding in Moving Pictures - Or Helping The Dormitory Fund • Alice Emerson
... these ginks better than we do, and they've put the boots into them from the start," growled Tom. "There's been no namby-pamby dealing with the Huns in the bridge- heads where they've held control. They've made the Boches walk Spanish. If they didn't uncover when the flag went by, they knocked their hats off for them. They know that the only argument that a Hun understands ...
— Army Boys on German Soil • Homer Randall
... vulgarly supposed, only a great poetess. The word poetess is bad English, and it conveys a particularly bad compliment. Nothing is more remarkable about Mrs. Browning's work than the absence of that trite and namby-pamby elegance which the last two centuries demanded from lady writers. Wherever her verse is bad it is bad from some extravagance of imagery, some violence of comparison, some kind of debauch of cleverness. ...
— Varied Types • G. K. Chesterton
... who started out so gay and care-free, in tattered dresses, barefooted and dusty, walking and driving the loose cattle. Too many excursions and pleasure jaunts had reduced their horses to skeletons before the real trials of the journey had fairly begun. But the women of '52 and '53 were not of the namby-pamby sort. When the trials came they were brave and faced privations and dangers with the same fortitude as ...
— Reminiscences of a Pioneer • Colonel William Thompson
... burdens that must be borne—none but those who lived through all these troubles could count half of them. If such came now, would the body of the nation strive to stand against them, or fall in the dust, and be kicked and trampled, sputtering namby-pamby? Britannia now is always wrong, in the opinion of her wisest sons, if she dares to defend herself even against weak enemies; what then would her crime be if she buckled her corselet against the world! To prostitute their mother ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... rapidly, a wonderful constitution; but it was touch and go. Marjorie was simply wonderful, I'll do her that credit. Between ourselves, Hugh, I always regarded Marjorie as rather weak, namby-pamby, early Victorian—you know what I mean; but she's a woman, and it has touched her. She wouldn't leave him. Honestly, I believe she did more for him than all ...
— The Imaginary Marriage • Henry St. John Cooper
... Boston in 1862, I published by Putnam in New York a book entitled "Sunshine in Thought," which had, however, been written long before. It was all directed against the namby-pamby pessimism, "lost Edens and buried Lenores," and similar weak rubbish, which had then begun to manifest itself in literature, and which I foresaw was in future to become a great curse, as it has indeed done. Only five hundred ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... of employers and employed. Away with these palliatives; let us rejoice when we see working men starving and ill-clad, for in that way their eyes will be opened. The brute who gets the uttermost farthing out of the toil of his wage-slaves is more a friend to us and our cause than any namby-pamby Socialist, such as the late Dukeling of New Wanley. Socialist indeed! But enough. We have probably heard the last of this parvenu and his loudly trumpeted schemes. No true friend of the Revolution can ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... own business, Frank Bowman! You're one o' them foolish folk, too, that's allus tryin' ter hide the trewth 'cause it's bitter. Sure 'tis bitter; 'twas meant ter be. An' these namby-pamby people in this world that can't stand the trewth to be told ...
— The Mission of Janice Day • Helen Beecher Long
... none but honorable men in its body. If this Senator had yielded to temptation and had offered a bribe, he was a soiled man and ought to be instantly expelled; therefore he wanted the Senator tried, and not in the usual namby-pamby way, but in good earnest. He wanted to know the truth of this matter. For himself, he believed that the guilt of Senator Dilworthy was established beyond the shadow of a doubt; and he considered that in trifling with his ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 7. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... Mr. Culpepper, hastily. "Now, look here; you go on a different tack. Take a glass of ale like a man or a couple o' glasses; smoke a cigarette or a pipe. Be like other young men. Cut a dash, and don't be a namby-pamby. After you're married you can be ...
— Ship's Company, The Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... your last book much better than the rest of them; but I don't like your heroine. She strikes both Julia and myself [Julia is his wife, who is acquainted with no literature but the cookery-book] as rather namby-pamby. The descriptions, however, are charming; we both recognised dear old Ramsgate at once. [The original of the locality in the novel being Dieppe.] The plot is also excellent, though we think we have ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn
... humidity, indescribable in colouring and form. Their full cup and the accents which experience had graven under them were something he had never dreamed of realizing. It was a Cosway; but a Cosway broadened and without a hint of genteel namby-pamby or overelaborate finesse. Hubert was fairly satisfied. Madame Mineur had little to say. During the sittings she seldom spoke, and if their eyes met, the richness of her glance was a compensation for her lack of loquacity. ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... do it," he shouted, "I'll close the theatre to-morrow and sack every one in it. I'll buy any theatre in New York where you try to present your namby-pamby play. I'll buy every manager she goes to for an engagement, every newspaper that says a word of praise of any work of yours. I tell you I'll stand behind the scenes and pull the strings which shall ...
— The Cinema Murder • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... indeed," Elsie cried, with a little contemptuous laugh. "I don't want any spoilt little namby-pamby cry-babies along with me; but that's no reason why I, a girl, should fetch milk for Robbie to drink while he stays at home. ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... trivial and the intimate, which, when joined to a natural talent for observation and a picturesque narrative style, enable the possessor to illuminate a circle and a period in a fashion never achieved by the most learned lucubrations of the profoundest scholars. Thanks to his Boswellising powers, 'Namby-Pamby Willis,' as he was called by his numerous enemies, has left an admirably vivid picture of the literary society of London in the 'thirties,' a picture that steadily increases in value as the period at which it was painted recedes ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... opportunity before, so now I make haste to say that I thank you for showing me that a fellow need not be of the namby-pamby kind because he lets the stuff alone. I used to think that boys with any spirit must drink and carouse, occasionally, but I've learned better now. I ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... Woolhorton, Iden's solicitor, from whom he had borrowed money, overtook her, walked his horse, and began to talk to her in his perky, affected, silly way. Of all the fools in Woolhorton town there was none equal in pure idiotcy to this namby-pamby fellow—it was wonderful how a man of Iden's intelligence could trust his affairs to such a man, the more so as there was at least one good lawyer in the place. This is very characteristic of the farming race; they will ...
— Amaryllis at the Fair • Richard Jefferies
... had wandered over the face of the earth with her father and Valentine Hawkehurst. The few elder girls remaining at the Lodge thought Miss Paget unsociable because she preferred a lonely corner in the gardens and some battered old book of namby-pamby stories to the delights of their society, and criticised her very severely as they walked listlessly to and fro upon the lawn with big garden-hats, and arms ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... services can be done than to banish namby-pamby trash from juvenile literature, and to substitute for it what is healthy and jolly and interesting. This is the work that "The Nursery" performs for little children, and we therefore take pleasure in its ...
— The Nursery, No. 169, January, 1881, Vol. XXIX - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... for you!" I cried. To hear that namby-pamby woman, who is about as capable of understanding you as an old cat, talking about your being firm! You see what you get by being quiet and patient! People would like you much better if you refused to be comforted, and wore a ...
— Stepping Heavenward • Mrs. E. Prentiss
... girls, who give evidence of no more thought than is evinced by their namby-pamby chatter, call their existence living? They mistake pertness for wit; audacity for cleverness; disrespect to old age for independence; and general bad manners for individuality. Has nobody ever trained these girls to think? What kind of schools do they attend? Who ...
— From a Girl's Point of View • Lilian Bell |
