Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Talk
It would talk;
Lord, how it talked!
Beaumont and Fletcher—The Scornful Lady. Act IV. Sc. 1.
But still his tongue ran on, the less
Of weight it bore, with greater ease.
Butler—Hudibras. Pt. III. Canto II. L. 443.
With vollies of eternal babble.
Butler—Hudibras. Pt. III. Canto II. L. 453.
“The time has come,” the Walrus said,
“To talk of many things:
Of shoes—and ships—and sealing-wax—
Of cabbages—and kings—
And why the sea is boiling hot—
And whether pigs have wings.
Lewis Carroll—Through the Looking Glass. Ch. III.
Persuasion tips his tongue whene’er he talks.
Colley Cibber—Parody on Pope’s lines.
Words learn’d by rote a parrot may rehearse,
But talking is not always to converse,
Not more distinct from harmony divine
The constant creaking of a country sign.
Cowper—Conversation. L. 7.
But far more numerous was the herd of such,
Who think too little, and who talk too much.
Dryden—Absalom and Achitophel. Pt. I. L. 533.
Whose talk is of bullocks.
Ecclesiasticus. XXXVIII. 25.
My tongue within my lips I rein;
For who talks much must talk in vain.
Gay—Introduction to the Fables. Pt. I. L. 57.
Chi parla troppo non può parlar sempre bene.
He who talks much cannot always talk well.
Goldoni—Pamela. I. 6.
Stop not, unthinking, every friend you meet
To spin your wordy fabric in the street;
While you are emptying your colloquial pack,
The fiend Lumbago jumps upon his back.
Holmes—Urania. A Rhymed Lesson. L. 439.
No season now for calm, familiar talk.
Homer—Iliad. Bk. XXII. L. 169. Pope’s trans.
Talk to him of Jacob’s ladder, and he would ask the number of the steps.
Douglas Jerrold—A Matter-of-Fact Man.
And the talk slid north, and the talk slid south
With the sliding puffs from the hookah-mouth;
Four things greater than all things are—
Women and Horses and Power and War.
Kipling—Ballad of the King’s Jest.
Then he will talk—good gods, how he will talk!
Nathaniel Lee—Alexander the Great. Act I. Sc. 1.
In general those who nothing have to say
Contrive to spend the longest time in doing it.
Lowell—An Oriental Apologue. St. 15.
Oft has it been my lot to mark
A proud, conceited, talking spark.
James Merrick—The Chameleon.
His talk was like a stream which runs
With rapid change from rock to roses;
It slipped from politics to puns;
It passed from Mahomet to Moses;
Beginning with the laws that keep
The planets in their radiant courses,
And ending with some precept deep
For dressing eels or shoeing horses.
Praed—The Vicar.
They never taste who always drink;
They always talk who never think.
Prior—Upon a Passage in the Scaligerana.
I prythee, take the cork out of thy mouth that I may drink thy tidings.
As You Like It. Act III. Sc. 2. L. 12.
If I chance to talk a little wild, forgive me;
I had it from my father.
Henry VIII. Act I. Sc. 4. L. 26.
The red wine first must rise
In their fair cheeks, my lord; then we shall have ’em
Talk us to silence.
Henry VIII. Act I. Sc. 4. L. 43.
What cracker is this same that deafs our ears
With this abundance of superfluous breath?
King John. Act II. Sc. 1. L. 147.
No, pray thee, let it serve for table-talk;
Then, howsoe’er thou speak’st, ’mong other things
I shall digest it.
Merchant of Venice. Act III. Sc. 5. L. 93.
Talk with a man out at a window—a proper saying.
Much Ado About Nothing. Act IV. Sc. 1. L. 190.
My lord shall never rest:
I’ll watch him, tame and talk him out of patience:
His bed shall seem a school, his board a shrift.
Othello. Act III. Sc. 3. L. 22.
Talkers are no good doers; be assur’d
We come to use our hands and not our tongues.
Richard III. Act I. Sc. 3. L. 352.
A gentleman, nurse, that loves to hear himself talk, and will speak more in a minute than he will stand to in a month.
Romeo and Juliet. Act II. Sc. 4. L. 155.
She sits tormenting every guest,
Nor gives her tongue one moment’s rest,
In phrases batter’d, stale, and trite,
Which modern ladies call polite.
Swift—The Journal of a Modern Lady.
Good talkers are only found in Paris.
François Villon—Des Femmes de Paris. II.
Le secret d’ennuyer est celui de tout dire.
The secret of being tiresome is in telling everything.
Voltaire—Discours Preliminaire.
Little said is soonest mended.
George Wither—The Shepherd’s Hunting.