"Shilly-shally" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... statement should seem queer, Or set down in a hurry, Go, ask (if he will be sincere) His bookseller—John Murray. Come, say, how many have been sold, And don't stand shilly-shally, Of bound and lettered, red and gold, Well printed works ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron
... likeness with internal unlikeness; not rhyming, but strongly alliterative, and in every case with a change of the interior vowel from a weak into a strong, generally from i into a or o; as 'shilly-shally', 'mingle-mangle', 'tittle-tattle', 'prittle-prattle', 'riff-raff', 'see-saw', 'slip-slop'. No one who is not quite out of love with the homelier yet more vigorous portions of the language, but will acknowledge the life and strength ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... made him say presently, "I should think now, Adam, you never have any struggles within yourself. I fancy you would master a wish that you had made up your mind it was not quite right to indulge, as easily as you would knock down a drunken fellow who was quarrelsome with you. I mean, you are never shilly-shally, first making up your mind that you won't do a thing, and then doing ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... This is what I have drafted as a possible reply. I shall tell Mr. Pakenham that his chief's avowal of intentions has made it our imperious duty, in self-defense, to hasten the annexation of Texas, cost what it may, mean what it may! John Calhoun does not shilly-shally. ...
— 54-40 or Fight • Emerson Hough
... A sharp frost hardened up the country during the night—and the sun rose boldly into a cloudless sky without any shilly-shally before nine o'clock. It was along iron-bound roads, with the meltings of yesterday converted to ice, that I drove to my allotted beat. There was a wonderful change from yesterday; the golden plover on the flats were not briskly moving on the moistening turf as before, though flocks ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... own. Cromwell would have never been heard of, save in Huntingdon Market-place, as a God-fearing yeoman, had Charles been strong and true. The King's weakness was Cromwell's opportunity. He dug his own grave with false promises, with shilly-shally, with an inimitable talent for always doing the wrong thing and choosing the wrong road. Open not so wide those reproachful eyes. Oh, I grant you, he was a noble king, a king of kings to walk in a ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... any more, doctor," he cried. "That's enough. I began to think you were playing fast and loose, and I said to myself, Doctor's got too much shilly-shally, willy-nilly in him to make a good leader of this expedition, but I don't now. I can see farther than I did, and that you've been weighing it all over and looking before you leaped. And that's the right way to succeed. Gentlemen, and you two youngsters, we've got ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... one spoke for me within a week. Why, our banns are to be cried to-morrow; come to church and hear 'em; that will learn ye not to shilly-shally so ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... replied Mrs. Ames. "If you think I'm going to stand that kind of disgrace, if you think I'm going to keep quiet while my babies' father is a cat's paw for fellows like that Greek and Freet, you are mistaken. And I'm not going to shilly-shally about it. Oscar, you are going to begin right now fighting with Mr. Manning for the Project or I'll ...
— Still Jim • Honore Willsie Morrow |
