"Pithily" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the P.R. who—whether from interest, vanity, or sheer cussedness, still pin their faith to this "huge, lumbering, soft, long-shanked, top-heavy, shambling, thump-shirking Son of a Gun," as NOBBY NUPKINS, of the Nautical Division, pithily called him the other day. If some of these credulous or conceited coves had witnessed the little trial "scrap" which took place recently (on the strict Q.T.), at the "Admiral's Head," in the presence ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. March 7, 1891. • Various
... him nothing. For a long time afterwards Punch gave no quarter to the 'Red Indian of debate' who, as Sir James Graham pithily phrased it, 'cut his way to power with a tomahawk.' The time came, however, when Disraeli could show his magnanimity. Leech, who had satirised him weekly, and so familiarised everyone with his face and figure ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... very old houses. On one is a stone slab with the words, "This is Sant Peter Street, 1624. R [a heart] W." This and its neighbour, Little Peter Street, obviously derive their names from the patron saint of the Abbey. Strype describes Great Peter Street pithily as "very long and indifferent broad." Great Peter Street runs at its west end into Strutton Ground, a quaint place which recalls bygone days by other things than its name, which is a corruption of Stourton, from Stourton House. The street is thickly lined by costers' barrows, and on ...
— Westminster - The Fascination of London • Sir Walter Besant
... Chatterton," said John, pithily, "would go to Scotland neither with me nor any other man, or I am greatly deceived in her character. Glara, my sister, how do you do?" He saluted the bride with ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... ministry:—"a sticket stibbler"? Take the sufficiency of Holy Scripture as a pledge for any one's salvation:—"There's eneuch between the brods o' the Testament to save the biggest sinner i' the warld." I heard an old Scottish Episcopalian thus pithily describe the hasty and irreverent manner of a young Englishman:—"He ribbled aff the prayers like a man at the heid o' a regiment." A large family of young children has been termed "a great sma' family." It was a delicious dry rejoinder to ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... the wish of Sir Wycherly, that you would draw near the bed, Mr. Wychecombe of Virginia," said the vice-admiral, pithily, though he extended a hand to, and smiled kindly on, the youth as the ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... in a moralizing mood; that is, I will fancy the dice have run wrong—or your double-barrel has hung fire—or a certain lady has looked cross—or any such weighty cause of gravity has occurred, and you give me the benefit of your seriousness.—'My dear Etherington,' say you pithily, 'you are a precious fool!—Here you are, stirring up a business rather scandalous in itself, and fraught with mischief to all concerned—a business which might sleep for ever, if you let it alone, ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... gone on, in the regular line of promotion, my dear sir," pithily inquired Captain Truck, "to what preferment would you have risen ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... on an hour longer, gentlemen, we should have been lost on the coast of Cornwall!" he said, pithily: "had we stopped where we were, the sloop-of-war would nave been down upon us in twenty minutes: by changing the course, in the way you have seen, he may get to leeward ward of us; if he find it out, he may change his own course, in the dark, being as likely to go wrong as to go right; ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... by Sydney Smith, the ideal divine of Holland House. The Plymley Letters[56] give his views most pithily. Smith, a man as full of sound sense as of genuine humour, appeals to the principles of toleration, and is keenly alive to the absurdity of a persecution which only irritates without conversion. But he also appeals to the danger of the situation. 'If Bonaparte lives,'[57] he says, ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen |
