"Cant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... have been a cant saying in the reign of Charles II. It occurs in several novels, jest books and satires of the time, and was probably as unmeaning as such vulgarisms are ...
— Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of England • Robert Bell
... interest affecting great horror of slavery, and depicting the encouragement the measure would give to that evil in terms of great and even pious alarm. Never did a party resort more scandalously to cant and hypocrisy to serve a purpose than this, on the memorable occasion of "the sugar debate." The resolution was carried, and a bill embodying it rapidly passed the commons, but was resisted in the lords with much tenacity of purpose. This was in a considerable measure ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... of the Illinois Circuit Court: "I have seen much in Liberty that I agreed with, and much that I disagreed with, but I never saw any cant, hypocrisy, or insincerity in it, which makes ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 1, March 1906 • Various
... the real or supposed opinions or emotions of the moment follows, while apparently he guides, the phases of public opinion. Candour moreover compels the admission that, if Mr. Gladstone's action has led some politicians to "find salvation"—according to the miserable cant of the day—in the adoption of opinions which cannot be dignified with the name of convictions, many honest men both within and without the sphere of public life have under the countenance of a great name been ...
— England's Case Against Home Rule • Albert Venn Dicey
... have been esteemed without virtue, and caressed without good-humour. Pope was proud of his notice; Wycherley wrote verses in his praise, which he was charged by Dennis with writing to himself, and they agreed for awhile to flatter one another. It is pleasant to remark how soon Pope learned the cant of an author, and began to treat criticks with contempt, though he had yet ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... monster survives? Is it nothing that they have fallen, and yet such a wrong that the fetters of the bondman should fall? Is the claim of property in man so sacred, and the blood of our brothers so cheap? Have done with this heartless cant,—this prating about the constitutional rights of traitors! When the Moslem chief was marching to the chastisement of a revolted tribe, the insurgents, seeing disaster inevitable in a fair field, resorted ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... great matter what Mrs Hominy said, save that she had learnt it from the cant of a class, and a large class, of her fellow countrymen, who in their every word, avow themselves to be as senseless to the high principles on which America sprang, a nation, into life, as any Orson in her legislative halls. Who are ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... Or Turk of Mahomet's own kin; Clad in a mantle della guerre Of rough impenetrable fur; And in his nose, like Indian King, 255 He wore, for ornament, a ring; About his neck a threefold gorget. As rough as trebled leathern target; Armed, as heralds cant, and langued; Or, as the vulgar say, sharp-fanged. 260 For as the teeth in beasts of prey Are swords, with which they fight in fray; So swords, in men of war, are teeth, Which they do eat their ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... writing this paragraph for any other purpose than to protest against this never ending cant, affectation, and hypocrisy about money. It is one of the best things in this world—better than religion, or good birth, or learning, or good ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... the car on a wild cant to the left went astern, screwing herself round the angle of a track that overhung the pond. "If she only had two propellers, I believe she'd talk poetry. ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... Chesterton, an attack on cant. It was a story written by Dickens to protest against all he hated in the nature of oppression. Dickens hated the vulgar cant that only helps to bring self-advertisement: the ethic that the poor must listen to the rich, not because the rich are ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... out this morning we found it was blowing a bliz. so it was almost a case of having to remain in camp, but on second thoughts we thought it best to kick off as we cant afford to lay up on account of food, so thought it best to push on. I wonder if the Pole Party have experienced this. If so they could not travel as it would be in their face, where we have got it at our back. We have lost the outward bound track, so have decided to make a straight ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... it has kept me straight," said Nellie, earnestly. "I wouldn't touch a drop to save my life. Some people call us who don't drink fools just because a few humbugs make temperance a piece of cant. I think those who get drunk are fools or who drink when there's a prospect of themselves or those they drink with getting drunk. Drink makes a man an empty braggart or a contented fool. It makes him heartless not only ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller
... a better man, would have perished rather than submit to be kept by a harridan of fortune. Therefore this novel is, and, indeed, pretends to be, no exemplar of conduct. But, notwithstanding all this, I do loathe the cant which can recommend Pamela and Clarissa Harlowe as strictly moral, though they poison the imagination of the young with continued doses of 'tinct. lyttae', while Tom Jones is prohibited as loose. I do not speak of young women;—but a young man whose heart or feelings can be injured, or ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... a worn-out voluptuary. Mentula is a cant term which Catullus frequently uses for a libidinous person, ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... It's the cant of the day to underrate the House of Commons, and the work which it performs; don't you suffer yourself to join in the chorus of the simpletons. Your time cannot be better employed than in endeavouring to ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... and Lady Bolsover touched the girl's arm, "did I not know your ancestry I should imagine your father a scurvy Puritan and your mother a kitchen wench given to long hymns and cant of a Sunday. Are you sure this cavalier of yours was not some miserable sniveller who found time to favour you with a sermon? He disappeared so hastily that it would seem he was ...
— The Brown Mask • Percy J. Brebner
... unchastity, who, while she was plighting her troth to this same Eugene, were not ashamed to prostitute her to Strozzi! Cease your disgusting cant, and learn that I acknowledge and respect the tie that binds your daughter to her real spouse: and woe to you, if you dare trouble the current of her peaceful life! Farewell. Say to his majesty that I shall be forever grateful for the ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... here gives a minute and accurate description, took place on the 22d of July 1544, when Lord Gray's partizans were repulsed with a loss of upwards of sixty men.—(Adamson's Muses Threnodie, by Cant, pp. 70, 71, 112.) Lord Gray, in October that year, received from the Cardinal a grant of part of the lands of Rescobie in Forfarshire, for his "ready and faithful help and assistance in these ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox
... in their picturesque costumes of homespun or fur. Suddenly, through the ever-open gates of the forest, teams of horses crashed, drawing after them clanking log chains, and driven by men who carried saws and "cant hooks" on their broad shoulders. Loud halloos of greeting, cheerful words of encouragement, an eager and agreeable bustle of business, filled ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... for my friend, Thornberry; then hither again, to interest myself in the cause of this unfortunate: for which many would call me Quixote; many would cant out "shame!" but I care not for the stoics, nor the puritans. Genuine nature and unsophisticated morality, that turn disgusted from the rooted adepts in vice, have ever a reclaiming tear to shed on the children of error. Then, let the sterner virtues, that allow no plea for human frailty, stalk on ...
— John Bull - The Englishman's Fireside: A Comedy, in Five Acts • George Colman
... patience, just Heaven! Of all the cants which are canted in this canting world——though the cant of hypocrites may be the worst, the cant of criticism is ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... roughly, a brilliant passage, of short notes, which is founded essentially on a much simpler passage of longer notes. A cant term for the old-fashioned variation (e.g., the variations of the 'Harmonious Blacksmith') was 'Note-splitting,' which at once explains itself, and the older word 'Division.' A very clear example of Divisions may be found in 'Rejoice greatly' in ...
— Shakespeare and Music - With Illustrations from the Music of the 16th and 17th centuries • Edward W. Naylor
... "It's not that kind, General," he said. "There's no cant in the boy. He's more popular for it—that's often so with the genuine thing, isn't it? I sometimes think"—the young Captain hesitated and smiled a trifle deprecatingly—"that Morgan is much of the same stuff as Gordon—Chinese ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... cant make much of your letter except a riglemerole about pigs and dinamite and pictures but what they have to do with one another i dont know if you want some pork why dont you say so strait out like mr Hobson does i shall be killing one this week shall i send you ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 21, 1920 • Various
... remarked the manager. "I gave orders, at your request," he said to Tom, "that no one but the men in this part of the plant were to be present at the casting. I cant ...
— Tom Swift and his Giant Cannon - or, The Longest Shots on Record • Victor Appleton
... "if man you be in heart, not adamant, forbear that wicked cant until you have discovered What the surplus is, and Where it is. Will you decide what men shall live, what men shall die? It may be, that in the sight of Heaven, you are more worthless and less fit to live than ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... But, dear Wittmore, there's nothing so comical as to hear me cant, and even cheat those Knaves, the Preachers themselves, ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... stupidity of the average sex-twaddle. We have no illusions about each other. We know exactly what we are after. We know exactly how to attain it. I tell you what, Phipps, Female Emancipation is going to do away with a lot of cant and idealism. Knock the silly male on the head. There'll be an end of your chastity-worship, once women are fairly started on the game. They won't put ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... threw out much smoke, but no vital heat; here and there, the red glare of violence burst up through the dust of words and the insufferable cant of the world. ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... the Queen after a long pause, "—but that is one of the cant phrases that we have learned by heart. I mean just the reverse of what I have said. You can imagine the change that your words have ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... the first time it had ever occurred to me, that this detestable cant of false humility might have originated out of the Heep family. I had seen the harvest, but had never ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... fingers can not express more than rests in the heart and brain to give to their skill, and Thalberg, with all his immense talent, seems to have lacked the divine spark of genius. It goes without saying, to those who are familiar with the current cant of criticism, that the word genius is often applied in a very loose and misleading manner. But, in all estimates of art and artists, where there are two clearly defined factors, imagination or formative ...
— Great Violinists And Pianists • George T. Ferris
... worse: and if two or three faces can be rendered happy and contented, by a trifling improvement of outward appearance, I cannot help thinking that the object is very cheaply purchased, even at the expense of a smart gown, or a gaudy riband. There is a great deal of very unnecessary cant about the over- dressing of the common people. There is not a manufacturer or tradesman in existence, who would not employ a man who takes a reasonable degree of pride in the appearance of himself and those about him, in preference to a sullen, slovenly fellow, who works doggedly ...
— Sunday Under Three Heads • Charles Dickens
... cant, ere we were born, For feasts of death, and hatred's harvest wain Piled high, for princes from proud mothers torn, And soft despairs hushed in ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)
... twinkle would light the eye of its author, if some one should tell him that Homer, Dante, Shakspeare, and Milton were "kept bright" by the smiles and tears of woman. These, and one or two other passages in Halleck, are unworthy of his manly and cant-hating mind; and it is wonderful how they could have escaped his brilliant ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various
... dwellings of the medium, all was fear, consternation, doubt, and anxiety. Fanatical religionists of different sects had forced themselves into the family gatherings, and the wildest scenes of rant, cant, and absurdity often ensued. Opinions of the most astounding nature were hazarded concerning the object of this movement; some determining that it was a "millennium" and looking for the speedy reign of a personal Messiah and the equally speedy ...
— Hydesville - The Story of the Rochester Knockings, Which Proclaimed the Advent of Modern Spiritualism • Thomas Olman Todd
... black, when you hear yourself proved to be a liar and a hypocrite. At a public meeting in the Town-hall yesterday, I had the pleasure of hearing myself insulted by the speaker opposed to me in the question under discussion, by allusions to my private affairs; by cant about monsters without natural affection, family despots, and such trash; and when I rose to answer, I was met by a shout from the filthy mob, where the mention of your name enabled me at once to detect the quarter in which this base attack had ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... in Heb., derived by some from its six (shash) leaves, and by others from its vivid cheerful brightness. "His lips are lilies" (Cant. v. 13), not in colour, but ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... to record the debate that followed this harangue. Party speeches were delivered, which clothed the question in cant, and veiled its simple meaning in a woven wind of words. The motion was lost; Ryland withdrew in rage and despair; and Raymond, gay and exulting, retired to ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... what other women are doing in the fields of literature and art, I cannot help thinking an amount of brain power has been held in check among us. Yet I cannot abide those Northern women, with their suffrage views and abolition cant. They ...
— Iola Leroy - Shadows Uplifted • Frances E.W. Harper
... inclined to doubt), her mother was a Spaniard—Pah! one of the accursed race; kinswoman—perhaps, to his brother's murderers! His jaundiced eyes could see nothing but the Spanish element in her; or, indeed, in anything else. As Cary said to him once, using a cant phrase of Sidney's, which he had picked up from Frank, all heaven and earth were "spaniolated," to him. He seemed to recollect nothing but that Heaven had "made Spaniards to be killed, and him to kill them." If he had not been ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... writes in the fear of God and in the love of man, will not arrest the thoughts that flow from his pen, because he knows that they may—will be—insulted and profaned by the name of cant, and he himself held up as a hypocrite. In some hands, ridicule is indeed a terrible weapon. It is terrible in the hands of indignant genius, branding the audacious forehead of falsehood or pollution. But ridicule in the hands either of cold-blooded ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... Priest and public man as he was, there was not a line of hypocrisy or cant in his whole being. A sham was to him intolerable, the abomination of desolation standing where it ought not. Reckless of consequences, of danger, of his popularity, and of his life, he blurted out ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... dat to Bootsie Pitts, you cant fool me. (turns right) Guess Ah better go home and see mama. Ah ain't been round since Ah come from de white folk. You goin walk ...
— De Turkey and De Law - A Comedy in Three Acts • Zora Neale Hurston
... Rufus Holly, the cricketer, the laziest dreamer of a college decade. His religion was simple and practical; he had never had any morbid ideas; he had lived a healthy, natural, and honourable life, until he went for a mikonaree, and if he had no cant, he had not a clear idea of how many-sided, how responsible, his life must be—until that one particular day. This is what ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... had successful careers and can now afford to dine unwisely every night, and keep their daughters in well-dressed indolence, self-satisfied, self-aggrandising, self-advertising young politicians, who, having obtained an attentive public, delight to cant about the rights of the citizen and the good of the Empire, clever, intuitive, charming novelists, who apparently possess an unaccountable vein of dense non-comprehension on some points - all harp upon this theme ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... Ridley's. Honeyman looked at the boy's drawings from time to time, and said, "Hm, ha!—very clever—a great deal of fancy, really." But Honeyman knew no more of the subject than a deaf and dumb man knows of music. He could talk the art cant very glibly, and had a set of Morghens and Madonnas as became a clergyman and a man of taste; but he saw not with eyes such as those wherewith Heaven had endowed the humble little butler's boy, to whom splendours of Nature were revealed to vulgar ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... influence restrain him. He cared only for the praise or blame of the understanding few. Whatever the popular judgment, he knew there was a work to be done and that he had power to do it; and this was his personal ambition—to do that work in the world, and to do it without cant and humbug and self-seeking. Such were the aims that, newly returned to England, he confides to the sister who had ever prophesied great things of "her boy"; and in the end he made good the works spoken so boldly, yet ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley - A Character Sketch • Leonard Huxley
... did not like any one who said they were happy, or who said any one else was so. "It is all cant," he would cry; "the dog knows he is miserable all the time." A friend whom he loved exceedingly, told him on some occasion, notwithstanding, that his wife's sister was really happy, and called upon the lady to confirm his assertion, which she did somewhat ...
— Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. - during the last twenty years of his life • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... appeal more than any other is direct to the feelings, could not induce him to tell a sympathetic lie. Would that the writers and speakers of plain English, and of their mother-tongue in every vernacular, might take example from the conscientious creator, who would not put a particle of cant into the crooked marks and ruled bars which are such a mystery to the uninitiated, blot with one demi-semi-quaver of falsehood his papers, or leave aught but truth of the heavenly sphere at a single point on any line! Then our sternest utterance with each other would be concord, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... a desire for peace. A nation, like an individual, can covertly stab the peace of another while saying, "Art thou in health, my brother?" and even the peace of civilization can be betrayed by a Judas kiss. Professions of peace belong to the cant of diplomacy and have always characterized the ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... a cant phrase, is an exquisite "bit of Blarney;" but independent of the vulgar association, it has a multitude of attractions for every reader. Its interest will, however, be materially enhanced by the following admirable description from the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 396, Saturday, October 31, 1829. • Various
... and Cissy rite off. Why aint you done it? It's so long since you rote any. Mister Recketts ses you dont care any more. Wen you rite send your fotograff. Folks here ses I aint got no big bruther any way, as I disremember his looks, and cant say wots like him. Cissy's kryin' all along of it. I've got a hedake. William Walker make it ake by a blo. So no more at present from your loving little ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... France at last. I cant tell you much about it yet on account of its avin been so foggy since we got here. We didnt deboat in Paris as I was expectin. We sailed up a river to a town with a wall around it and got off there. I dont know what the wall was for ...
— "Same old Bill, eh Mable!" • Edward Streeter
... extract shouts, screams, and tears of mirth from thousands who scarce know the author's name—a politician without malice or self-seeking—and, best of all, a man without guile, and a Christian without cant. He, although a physician, was in effect the chaplain of the corps, and had enough to do in keeping them within due bounds; nay, is said on his deathbed to have called Pope to him, and given him serious ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... as it were, about which there was at one time infinite wrangling, as to what both the meaning and the expression should best be, so that they then had living significance in the mouths of those who used them, though they have become such mere shibboleths and cant formulae to ourselves that we think no more of their meaning than we do of Julius Caesar in the month of July. They continue to be reproduced through the force of habit, and through indisposition to get out of any familiar groove of action until it becomes too unpleasant for us to remain ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... contain one word of cant; he just wished me good luck, and told me to write to him whenever I felt that he could be of use to me. A less sensible man might have preached to me and talked about the "threshold of a career"; but, thank goodness, he knew what I wanted, and that if I had not made up ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... patronage to robbers and mariners. Thieves are dubbed by Shakespeare as St. Nicholas's clerks[51], and Rowley calls highwaymen by the same title. Possibly this may be accounted for by the association of the light-fingered fraternity with Nicholas, or Old Nick, a cant name for the devil, or because The Golden Legend tells of the conversion of some thieves through the saint's agency. At any rate, the good Bishop of Myra was the patron saint of scholars, and therefore was naturally selected as ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... Townsend, owner of the cross mine, I write you because I am afraid I aint got your pardners name right and because Ive got something on my mind that I cant keep any more. Im the girl that got burned at the High Light. Your pardner saved my life and you were awful kind to me. Everybody's been very kind to me too. I spose you know 111 not be able to work ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... "Yur lize wot cant be chawd of Chineece jaik; xekewted bi me fur a plitikle awfens, and et bi mi starven hogs, wich aint hed nuthin afore sence jaix boss stoal mi korn. BIL ROPER, and ov sich ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile
... tangere. I take this as the most obvious and at the same time the least hackneyed instance of a fundamental quality in the female tradition, which has tended in our time to be almost immeasurably misunderstood, both by the cant of moralists and the cant of immoralists. The proper name for the thing is modesty; but as we live in an age of prejudice and must not call things by their right names, we will yield to a more modern nomenclature ...
— What's Wrong With The World • G.K. Chesterton
... am rather weary of this word "gentlemanly," which seems to me to be often inappropriately used, and often, too, with such exaggerated distortion of meaning, while the full simplicity of the noun "man," and the adjective "manly" are unacknowledged—that I am induced to class it with the cant ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... Socrates was no fool—the populace was wrong—he was a man so natural and free from cant that he appeared to the triflers and pretenders like a pretender, and they asked, ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... or pigments enjoyed by the medivalists and unattainable now, it would be far better were they to make the best use of existing materials, and study their further development. There is no need for this cant cry of fugacity, which casts such a blight on modern art. Durable pigments are not yet obsolete, they have only to be employed and employed properly to furnish paintings equal in permanence to those of the old masters. "Titian," says Haydon, "got his colours from the colour shops on ...
— Field's Chromatography - or Treatise on Colours and Pigments as Used by Artists • George Field
... cant among friends!" said Alfred: "wouldn't you be excited at the hope of getting out ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... Passing through the common room, I saw a face which I thought I recollected. 'Is not that Turl?' said I to Hector—'Pshaw, d——n me, take no notice of such a raff,' replied he, and stalked away. I was too ignorant of college cant, at that time, to know that raff was the term of contempt ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... impious, preach his word without a call. Patrons, who sneak from living worth to dead, Withhold the pension, and set up the head; Or vest dull flattery in the sacred gown; Or give from fool to fool the laurel crown. And (last and worst) with all the cant of wit, Without the soul, the Muse's ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... the 'spike' is that 'ard you can't eat it nicely with less'n a pint of water," said the Carpenter, for my benefit. And, on asking him what the "spike" was, he answered, "The casual ward. It's a cant ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London
... miss that voice two worlds are loth, In which much wisdom spake so merrily. A voice, and no mere echo, thine, Of many tones, but manly ever. Thy rustic Biglow's rugged line A grateful world neglecteth never! It smote hypocrisy and cant With flail-like force; sleek bards that ripple Like shallow pools—who pose and pant, And vaguely smudge or softly stipple,— These have not brain or heart to sing As Biglow sang, our quaint Hosea, Whose "Sunthin in the Pastoral line," Full primed with picture and idea, Lives, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 22, 1891 • Various
... fight the South, however losing a game it might be. No true American need beg pardon of Europe for this war, which is the only apology we can make to civilization for slavery. Mr. Trollope states the worn-out cant that the secessionists of the South have been aided and abetted by the fanatical abolitionism of the North. Of course they have: had there been no slavery, there would have been no abolitionists, and therefore no secessionists. Wherever there is a wrong, there are always persons ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... mov'd, The ghostly Colourist reprov'd. And what didst Thou aspire to gain, Who dar'd'st the will of Jove arraign, That bounded thus within a span The little life of little man; With shallow art deriving thence Excuses for thy indolence? 'Tis cant and hypocritic stuff! The life of man is long enough: For did he but the half improve He would not quarrel thus ...
— The Sylphs of the Season with Other Poems • Washington Allston
... scope to those who possess and are able to impart this triumphing spiritual life. A head-master who makes his boys live at their highest level and act on their noblest impulses, because he does it himself, is a person of supreme value to the State. It would be well if we cleared our minds of cant, and acknowledged that such a man alone is truly able to educate; since the spiritual life is infectious, but cannot be propagated by ...
— The Life of the Spirit and the Life of To-day • Evelyn Underhill
... I can help her by sitting down to starve in her company; so I've made friends with the mammon of unrighteousness—you see my orthodox education was not wholly lost upon me! Voila tout! Honesty, I say, is for the most part cant, and at any rate only a relative term. I prefer substantial good. If you despise me, tant pis pour—one of us; whichever ...
— The Pagans • Arlo Bates
... treacherous and remorseless as the struggle between the artist man and the mother woman. Which shall use up the other? that is the issue between them. And it is all the deadlier because, in your romanticist cant, they ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... describing such institutions as the far-famed of Thebes, the Sacred Band annihilated at Chaeroneia, he was compelled to a reticence which permitted him to touch only the surface of the subject. This was inevitable under the present rule of Cant[FN359] in a book intended for the public: but the same does not apply to my version of The Nights, and now I proceed to discuss the matter serieusement, honnetement, historiquement; to show it in decent nudity not in suggestive fig-leaf ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... the printed version of this text, all apostrophes for contractions such as "can't", "wouldn't" and "he'd" were omitted, to read as "cant", "wouldnt", and "hed". This etext ...
— Pygmalion • George Bernard Shaw
... Script. Brit. cent. I.] and for that cause exceedinglie giuen to religion, especiallie the inhabitants of this Ile of Britaine, insomuch that the whole nation did not onelie take the name of them, but the Iland it selfe (as Bale [Sidenote: De ant. Cant. cent. lib. I.] and doctor Caius agree) came to be called Samothea, which was the first peculiar name that euer it had, and by the which it was especiallie [Sidenote: This Ile called Samothea.] knowne before ...
— Chronicles (1 of 6): The Historie of England (1 of 8) • Raphael Holinshed
... others." Now, Sir, this Sect, as I have been told, is very frequent in the great Town where you live; but as my Circumstance of Life obliges me to reside altogether in the Country, though not many Miles from London, I cant have met with a great Number of em, nor indeed is it a desirable Acquaintance, as I have lately found by Experience. You must know, Sir, that at the Beginning of this Summer a Family of these Apes came and settled for the Season not far from the ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... of Mark Twain's natural leaning toward ministers of the gospel, and the explanation of it is easier to realize than to convey. He was hopelessly unorthodox—rankly rebellious as to creeds. Anything resembling cant or the curtailment of mental liberty roused only his resentment and irony. Yet something in his heart always warmed toward any laborer in the vineyard, and if we could put the explanation into a single sentence, perhaps we might say it was because he could meet them on that ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... them? Right my Gallic friend! 'Tis my duty, sad but binding. Free the Wolf—to what good end? Loose the Snake—what vantage finding? Faction flusters, Cant appeals In the name of sham-humanity. Right, not wrath, my bosom steels; Softness ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, November 19, 1892 • Various
... Confucian or Taoist, the raison d'etre of Chinese longevity, and the saving health of China. But unfortunately he —Chwangtse—did not see that his own opposite, Philosopher Mang, was driving him an inch or two away from the Middle Line. So, with a more brilliant mind (a cant phrase that!) he stands well below Laotse; just as Mencius stands below K'ung Ch'iu. The spiritual down-breathing had reached a lower plane: soon the manvantara was to begin, and the Crest-Wave to be among the black-haired ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... so thoroughly regardless of display as Julia Clifford. To be let alone—to be suffered to escape in our own way, unharming, unharmed, through the dim avenues of life—was assuredly all that we asked from man. Perhaps—I say it without cant—this, perhaps, was all that we possibly asked from heaven. This was all that I asked, at least, and this was much. It was asking what had never yet been accorded to humanity. In the vain assumption of my heart I thought that my demands ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... thinking, of the exclusive portion of the nobility of this kingdom. To this fortunate circumstance are we indebted for the production of those brilliant efforts of genius, his fashionable novels, which so long as good taste, unsullied by exaggeration, cant, and quackery, continues to exist, cannot fail to instruct and amuse the thinking portion of ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... 'Tatler' into volumes, at the time of the establishment of the 'Spectator'. The old bent of the English mind was strong in Steele, and he gave unostentatiously a lively wit to the true service of religion, without having spoken or written to the last day of his life a word of mere religious cant. One officer thrust a duel on him for his zeal in seeking to make peace between him and another comrade. Steele, as an officer, then, or soon afterwards, made a Captain of Fusiliers, could not refuse to fight, but stood on the defensive; yet in parrying a thrust his sword pierced ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... be sure what the words mean. There is no use talking about a word till we have got at its meaning. We may use it as a cant phrase, as a party cry on platforms; we may even hate and persecute our fellow-men for the sake of it: but till we have clearly settled in our own minds what a word means, it will do for fighting with, but not for working ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... thy resistless light, Disperse those phantoms from my sight, Those mimic shades of thee: The scholiast's learning, sophist's cant, The visionary bigot's rant, The ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... read and praised by Charles II, and his court, and the one that best represents the spirit of the victorious party, is the satirical poem of Hudibras by Samuel Butler. The object of the work is to satirize the cant and excesses of Puritanism, just as the Don Quixote of Cervantes burlesques the extravagances and ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... poet and plagiarist, courtier and courtesan, Kipling and cant—these now dally by the banks of the Thames and dine off the peoples of the earth, just as once the degenerate populace of imperial Rome fed upon the peoples of the Pyramids. But the thing is near the end. The ...
— The Crime Against Europe - A Possible Outcome of the War of 1914 • Roger Casement
... dissipates pain and care and melancholy from the person on whom it falls. In short,' says he, 'its presence naturally changes every place into a kind of heaven.' After he had gone on for some time in this unintelligible cant, I found that he jumbled natural and moral ideas together into the same discourse, and that his great secret was ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... cant, but am satisfied that the chief reason why France does not succeed better in her revolutions is, because she lacks the steadiness which a sincere devotion to religion gives to a nation. The country needs less man-worship and more God-worship. It needs less adulation of beautiful ...
— Paris: With Pen and Pencil - Its People and Literature, Its Life and Business • David W. Bartlett
... in his Sermon on Cant. viii., Bilson in his Perpetual Government of Christ's Church, c. x. page ...
— The Divine Right of Church Government • Sundry Ministers Of Christ Within The City Of London
... Mr. Palsey "she cant guess the worst yet," out loud he added "hush Miss Winston, you are over fatigued, that is all, would you like a cup of coffee? the refreshment room is not ...
— Daisy Ashford: Her Book • Daisy Ashford
... known, that the Jewish nation have never done so. And this their obstinacy, as it is called, will not by this time, I think, appear unreasonable to any sensible man; and he will now be able to appreciate the justice of that idle cant about "the carnal Jews," and their "worldly-minded" expectation of a temporal prince, as their Messiah. Certainly, the Jews had very good reason, from their prophecies, to expect no Messiah but a Messiah who should sit on the throne ...
— The Grounds of Christianity Examined by Comparing The New Testament with the Old • George Bethune English
... consorting with gypsies, and they suffered under 5 Eliz. c. 20. In 1783 this statute was abolished, and was even considered "a law of excessive severity." For even a hundred years ago "the puling cant of sickly humanitarianism" was making itself heard to the injury of our sturdy old English legislation. To be killed by a poet is now an unusual fate, but the St. Leonard's, Shoreditch, register (1598) mentions how "Gabriel Spencer, being slayne, was buried." Gabriel was ...
— Books and Bookmen • Andrew Lang
... rope together.... My cook... a good-natured negro and a tolerable cook, so unused to a vessel that in the smoothest weather he cannot walk fore and aft without holding onto something with both hands. This fear proceeds from the fact that he is so tall and slim that if he should get a cant it might be fatal to him. I did not think America could furnish such a specimen of the negro race... nor did I ever see such a simpleton. It is impossible to teach him anything and... he can hardly tell the main-halliards from ...
— The Old Merchant Marine - A Chronicle of American Ships and Sailors, Volume 36 in - the Chronicles Of America Series • Ralph D. Paine
... to drop a shilling, often producing L5. The shepherds on the Wiltshire downs are also well paid, especially in lambing-time, when the greatest watchfulness and care are required. It has been stated that the labourer has no chance of rising from his position. This is sheer cant. He has very good opportunities of rising, and often does rise, to my knowledge. At this present moment I could mention a person who has risen from a position scarcely equal to that of a labourer, not only to have a farm himself, but to place his sons ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies
... And I had such an unpleasant sense of being outside, and not understanding, as I never felt before, and I did not like it a bit. I knew quite well that if Father had been there, he would have said it was all stuff and cant. But I did not feel so sure of my Aunt Kezia. And suppose it were not cant, but was something unutterably real,—something that I ought to know, and must know some day, if I were ever to get to Heaven! I did not like it. I felt that I was among a new sort ...
— Out in the Forty-Five - Duncan Keith's Vow • Emily Sarah Holt
... father, the gentle, endearing qualities of his mother. He was handsome, frank, and graceful; the expression of his face so truthful and unaffected, that it created an interest in his favour at first sight. Religious without cant, and clever without pretence, it is no wonder that his father, who was his sole instructor, reposed in the fine lad the utmost confidence, treating him more like an equal than a son, over whom he held the authority of ...
— George Leatrim • Susanna Moodie
... soft-'arted toffs, Kep in bounds it don't do no great 'arm. Poor old BUGGINS, he flushes and coughs; Gets hangry, he do, at my talk. I sez, keep on your hair, my good bloke, Hindignation ain't good for your chest; cut this Sosherlist cant, or you'll choke. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, February 22nd, 1890 • Various
... joyful thanksgiving today. If I should talk thus, you would be ready to ask me how I would like to change places with you. You would despise me, and I would despise myself, for indulging in such cant. Your lot is a hard one. The battle of life has gone against you—whether by your own fault or by hard fortune, it matters not, so far as the fact is concerned; this thanksgiving-day finds you locked in here, with ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald
... litill we leg, And it wes cant as any cleg, It wes wynd in ane wynden schet, Baythe the handis and the feit: Suppose this gaist wes litill Yit it stal Godis quhitell; It stal fra peteous Abrahame, Ane quhorle and ane quhim quhame; It stal fra ye carle of ye mone Ane payr of awld yin schone; It rane to Pencatelane, And wirreit ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott
... heritage with him, as it is with the genuine Gipsies. He has taken to it from choice, and the true-bred Romany will always regard him with contempt, as a mere migratory gaol bird, who knows no tongue of the roads beyond the cant or 'kennick' of thieves—a Whitechapel argot, familiarity with which at once tells its own tale. Fortunately, our existing law is sufficient to keep the nuisance in check, if only it be resolutely administered. The tramp, however, trades upon spurious ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... ruin my business, too?" snarled Duff. "Didn't they cant like a pair of hypocrites, and turn hundreds of their workmen against coming in to play in my place? Didn't these young hounds keep me from winning thousands of dollars of railroad money? Ash, I tell you, these young fellows have hit me hard! First, they broke up my ...
— The Young Engineers in Arizona - Laying Tracks on the Man-killer Quicksand • H. Irving Hancock
... chicken or squall like a cat, and because with his charming strains he does not mingle all sorts of discords and incongruous sounds—for assigning to the Robin the highest rank as a singing-bird. Let them say of him, in the cant of modern criticism, that his performances cannot be great, because they are faultless; it is enough for me, that his mellow notes, heard at the earliest flush of morning, in the more busy hour of noon, or the quiet lull of evening, come upon the ear in a stream ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... Duty pay; This knows to be indulgent, that t'obey. Here's no Sedition hatcht, no other Plots, But to entrap the Wolf that steals our Flocks. Who then wou'd be a King, gay Crowns to wear, Restless his Nights, thoughtful his Days with Care; Whose Greatness, or whose Goodness cant secure From Outrages which Knaves and ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... There were here many people of leisure and cultivation, fond of light and fanciful pursuits, and among others of forming verbal conceits. Hence, we find that the disciples were first called Christians at Antioch, no doubt, derisively,[30] and in Julian's time they had a cant saying that they had suffered nothing from the X or the K (Christ or Constantius). A celebrated school of rhetoric was established here, and no doubt some of the effusions penned at this time, abounded with rich ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... man was speaking seriously now. Muller felt that this was none of the whining cant people in authority among the Boers find it desirable to adopt. It was what he thought, and it chilled Muller in spite of his pretended scepticism, as the sincere belief of an intellectual man, however opposite to our own, is apt to chill us into ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... Marlay, I didn't look for cant from you. I don't believe that God cares. Everything goes on by the almanac and natural law. The sun sets when the time comes, no matter who is belated. Girls that are sweet and loving and trusting, like Katy, have always been and will always ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston
... a teacher, still less as a propagandist. I do not attempt to direct the jury. The choice rests exclusively with yourself.—And here rid your mind of any cant about moral obligations. Both ways have merit, both bring rewards—of sorts—are equally commendable, equally right. Only this—whether you choose blinkers, your barrel between the shafts and another man's ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... scholar, a writer, and a gentleman, and was favorably known to the literary circles by the eloquence, wit, and feeling of his former productions. What those productions were, I should have been rather puzzled to say, never having read, or even heard of them. This, however, was the cant criticism of the day, which is so exorbitant and unmeaning, and so universally cast in one mould, that I was in some tribulation, on reading over the article in print, to find that I had omitted the words, "native genius," which possesses a kind of common-law right to a place in all ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... obscure writers and talkers who at present infest our literature, and whose parrot-like repetition of their own stereotyped phraseology, mingled with some barbarous infusion of half Anglicised German, threatens to form as odious a cant as ever polluted the stream of thought or disfigured the purity of language. Happily it is not likely to be more than a passing fashion; but still it is a very unpleasant fashion while it lasts. As ...
— Reason and Faith; Their Claims and Conflicts • Henry Rogers
... dividend is to be declared once a year, an' th' shareholders can have ther choice whether they tak it aat i' tripe or trotters; an if th' first years' profit doesn't run to as mich as'll be a meal a piece, it'll be carried to a presarve fund, though what presarved tripe 'll be like aw cant tell." ...
— Yorksher Puddin' - A Collection of the Most Popular Dialect Stories from the - Pen of John Hartley • John Hartley
... not try to take back the boddy of Mister Peter. We berried it verry deep and it better remain here. Anny way, you cant mannage it till late summer. ...
— The Come Back • Carolyn Wells
... "is the mere cant of ignorant enthusiasm, which appealeth from learning and from authority, from the sure guidance of that lamp which God hath afforded us in the Councils and in the Fathers of the Church, to a rash, self-willed, and arbitrary interpretation of the Scriptures, ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... cant of the French critics, and of their advocates and pupils, that the English writers are generally incorrect. If correctness implies an absence of petty faults, this perhaps may be granted; if it means that, because ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... manufactures, agriculture—and the amenities of society and manners, were allowed to develop themselves in their own way, without reference to rule and preconcerted dogmas. Hence the peculiarities which mark the institutions of America—their utter freedom from cant and the shows and pageantry of state. Bank, titles, and caste were abolished; and the enormous gulfs which separate the European man from the European lordling were bridged over by Equality with the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... our mathematical investigations assure us on every hand, notwithstanding the cant of the more ignorant of the priesthood, that space, and therefore that bulk, is an important consideration in the eyes of the Almighty. The cycles in which the stars move are those best adapted for the evolution, without collision, of the greatest possible ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe
... which I should like to give expression might perhaps too readily fall into abstract or philosophical terms. They might, on the other hand, only too readily clothe themselves in cant phrases and assume the hortatory tone. I shall try to avoid dialectic or theory on the one hand, and preaching on the other. I take it that what I am to say is addressed chiefly to young men, and that it ought to serve ...
— The business career in its public relations • Albert Shaw
... applied to the sun in Cant. vi. already quoted, "Clear as the sun," may be taken as equivalent to "spotless." That is its ordinary appearance to the naked eye, though from time to time—far more frequently than most persons have any idea—there are spots upon the sun ...
— The Astronomy of the Bible - An Elementary Commentary on the Astronomical References - of Holy Scripture • E. Walter Maunder
... 'Cant help it. I'm a lone, lorn grass-widow, dear, but I will not sleep in my stays. And such news too! Oh, do unlace me, there's a darling! The Dowd The Dancing Master I and the Hawley Boy You ...
— Under the Deodars • Rudyard Kipling
... justify it on this particular voyage. Down, down, down the great hull would slide till Katy would hold her breath with fear lest it might never right itself again; then slowly, slowly the turn would be made, and up, up, up it would go, till the cant on the other side was equally alarming. On the whole, Katy preferred to have her own side of the ship, the downward one; for it was less difficult to keep herself in the berth, from which she was in continual danger of being thrown. The night seemed endless, for she was too frightened to ...
— What Katy Did Next • Susan Coolidge
... knows what I bore that night when he swore and bade me make tracks from his claim. I started to tell of the horrors of hell, when sudden his eyes lit like coals; And "Chuck it," says he, "don't persecute me with your cant and your saving of souls." I'll swear I was mild as I'd be with a child, but he called me the son of a slut; And, grabbing his gun with a leap and a run, he threatened my face with the butt. So what could I do (I leave ...
— Ballads of a Cheechako • Robert W. Service
... herself, she could interpret much that she saw in this new world. Cant phrases, bits of studio lore, artists' patter, their ways of looking at things, their manners of expression, their mannerisms, their little vanities, their ideas, ideals, aspirations, were fast becoming familiar to her. Also ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... and disgusted with this cant:—"The Carnatic is a country that will soon recover, and become instantly as prosperous as ever." They think they are talking to innocents, who will believe that by sowing of dragons' teeth, men may come up ready grown and ready armed. They who will give ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... Stratton and Jim Gladys took charge of it. Mike and Bob were running the cant-hooks, while Jim stood on top of the great pile of logs already decked. A slender, pliable steel chain, like a gray snake, ran over the top of the pile and disappeared through a pulley to an invisible ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... the following language to the majority:—"As to the greater part of the sect, it is, we apprehend, of little consequence what they study or under whom. It would be more amusing, to be sure, and more reputable, if they would take up the old republican cant and declaim about Brutus and Timoleon, the duty of killing tyrants and the blessedness of dying for liberty. But, on the whole, they might have chosen worse. They may as well be Utilitarians as jockeys or dandies. And, though quibbling about self-interest and motives, and objects ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... stern, hard-featured "exhorter," should have been invited to lead. But as the sweet-faced old leader called upon one and another to speak, and as many spoke with streaming eyes, D'Entremont quivered with sympathy. He was not so blind that he could not see the sham and cant of some of the speeches, but in general there was much earnestness and truth. When Priscilla rose in her turn and spoke, with downcast eyes, he felt the beauty and simplicity of her religious life. And he rightly judged that from the soil of a cult so severe there must grow some noble and heroic ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... was not in true keeping, as the simplest fare was all that was necessary to tempt the extremity of hunger, and stating that Adam and Eve, in 'Paradise Lost,' were too much like married people. He has furnished many a text for Coleridge to preach upon. There was no fuss or cant about him; nor were his sweets or sours ever diluted with one particle ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... frequented by serjeants at law: see Chaucer, Prol. Cant. Tales. There is a difference of opinion where it was situated: see Tyrwhitt's Gloss. The student in ecclesiastical history may compare Leo Allatius de ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 16, February 16, 1850 • Various
... herself be placed in the lowest dungeon." For them of Guise the princess was a thorn in the flesh, for she lacked not wits, or language, or courage, insomuch that they had some discussion about making away with her. [Memoires de Castelnau, p. 119; Histoire de l'Etat de France, Cant de la Republique que de la Religion, sous Francois II., by L. Regnier, Sieur de la Planche.] She demanded that at any rate able lawyers might act as counsel for her husband. Peter Robert and Francis de Marillac, advocates of renown in the Parliament ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... sister," says Robert; and Theodore: "selfish, unthankful as I am, the tears are in my eyes, and I thank God that I have such a sister." Of course one can use a religious dialect without meaning much by it, but these Sedgwicks were cultivated people, who thought for themselves, and did not speak cant ...
— Daughters of the Puritans - A Group of Brief Biographies • Seth Curtis Beach
... Uchtryd Ardywad Kad, and Kynwas Curvagyl, and Gwrhyr Gwarthegvras, and Isperyr Ewingath, and Gallcoyt Govynynat, and Duach, and Grathach, and Nerthach, the sons of Gwawrddur Kyrvach, (these men came forth from the confines of Hell), and Kilydd Canhastyr, and Canastyr Kanllaw, and Cors Cant-Ewin, and Esgeir Gulhwch Govynkawn, and Drustwrn Hayarn, and Glewlwyd Gavaelvawr, and Lloch Llawwynnyawc, and Aunwas {71d} Adeiniawc, and Sinnoch the son of Seithved, and Gwennwynwyn the son of Naw, and Bedyw the son of Seithved, and Gobrwy the son of Echel Vorddwyttwll, and Echel Vorddwyttwll ...
— The Mabinogion Vol. 2 (of 3) • Owen M. Edwards
... his servants round him to worship God. He comforts persecuted ministers, is fond of preachers; nay, can himself preach,—exhorts his neighbors to be wise, to redeem the time. In all this what "hypocrisy," "ambition," "cant," or other falsity? The man's hopes, I do believe, were fixed on the other Higher World; his aim to get well thither by walking well through his humble course in this world. He courts no notice: what could notice here do for him? "Ever in his great ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... cant name for a captive negro, or Polynesian, on board a slave or pirate ship." ('O.E.D.') But no instance is given of its ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... a memorable example of the cant and mendacity of an editor! and that total absence of critical judgment that could assert such matured reflection, in so exquisite a style, could ever have been "first conceptions, just as they came into the mind of Lady Gethin, ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... off it; but to be poor long enough to acquire a sense of proportion by coming to close grips with life; to learn what things and people really are, the good and the bad of them together; to have to weigh and measure cant and sentimentality and Christian charity—which last is a fearsome thing—in the balance with truth and common sense and human kindness. It is an experience that ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... and for all," cried Mr. Cumberland Vane, rapping his knuckles angrily on the table, "I tell you, once and for all, my man, that I will not have you turning on any religious rant or cant here. Don't imagine that it will impress me. The most religious people are not those who talk about it. (Applause.) You answer the questions and do ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... who ever heared of a Democrat nigger. Nigger neber did own enything so dey cant be Democrats en if dey vote a Democrat ticket dey is jes votin a lie. Cause no nigger neber did own slaves only the old nigger slave traders and dey werent nuthin but varmints anyway. Ye jes has to hev owned slaves to vote ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Kentucky Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... don't like Harry White: with a great deal of cant, which in him was sincere (indeed it killed him as you killed Joe Blackett), certes there is poesy and genius. I don't say this on account of my simile and rhymes; but surely he was beyond all the Bloomfields and Blacketts, and their collateral cobblers, whom Lofft and Pratt have or may kidnap ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... is, it belongs to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, as a property of nature, that He is understood to exist without any material substance and without any companionship of corporeal addition." Bernard likewise says (Hom. vi. super Cant.): "Let us assign incorporeity to God alone even as we do immortality, whose nature alone, neither for its own sake nor on account of anything else, needs the help of any corporeal organ. But it is clear that every created spirit needs corporeal substance." Augustine also says (Gen. ad lit. ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... said Cyril "you cant get round me like that, I know something is wrong, you might as well ...
— Daisy Ashford: Her Book • Daisy Ashford
... lending himself to be the mouthpiece of Spartan hypocrisy. To him the sounding phrases and lofty professions which he uttered may have meant something: but in their essence they were mere hollow cant, intended to divert attention from the true issue, and drag a peaceful and prosperous community into the private quarrels of Sparta. So degraded was now the tone of politics in Greece, even among ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell
... own face was transfigured. Mrs. Zelotes, also, seemed to radiate with a sort of harsh and prickly delight. She descanted upon the hard-earned savings which Andrew had risked, but she held her old head very high with reluctant joy, and her bonnet had a rakish cant. ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... so far as to say that the paper gives its holder a certain power in a certain quarter where such power is immensely valuable." The Prefect was fond of the cant ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various
... complexion, regular features, and a remarkably pretty figure. Marianne was still handsomer. Her form, though not so correct as her sister's, in having the advantage of height, was more striking; and her face was so lovely, that when in the common cant of praise, she was called a beautiful girl, truth was less violently outraged than usually happens. Her skin was very brown, but, from its transparency, her complexion was uncommonly brilliant; her features were all good; her smile was sweet and attractive; and in her eyes, which ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... garden. It is in this garden he dwells; it is there he walks. See 2 Cor. 6:16. When the south winds blow and the spices flow out he comes into his garden to eat his pleasant fruits; he gathers the myrrh and the spices, he eats honey and drinks wine and milk. See Cant. 4:16 and 5:1. This is sweet language, and is expressive of the purity of the Christian heart, where God dwells, and where he walks in the gentleness of his Spirit, delighting himself in the tender Christian graces that are budding and blooming all ...
— Food for the Lambs; or, Helps for Young Christians • Charles Ebert Orr
... about screaming for help. Her eyes said: 'I'm a woman; you're a man. How jolly!' Her eyes said: 'I was born to do what I'm doing now.' Her eyes said: 'Touch me—and we shall see'. But what chiefly enchanted Henry was her intellectual courage and her freedom from cant. In conversing with her you hadn't got to tread lightly and warily, lest at any moment you might put your foot through the thin crust of a false modesty, and tumble into eternal disgrace. You could talk to her about anything; and she did not pretend to be blind ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett
... vested interests. Rudimentary organs are, as has been often said, the survivals of these interests—the signs of their peaceful and gradual extinction as living faiths; they are also instances of the difficulty of breaking through any cant or trick which we have long practised, and which is not sufficiently troublesome to make it a serious object with us to cure ourselves of ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... the ordinary class of respectable men. He spoke well, yet without taste or discrimination in his language, was rather bald and gray, with small head and low perceptive powers; and judging from the particular tone of his voice and the cant terms he used, we should think he had figured among the Kentucky horse-traders, or made stump speeches in Arkansas. His dress was inclined to the gaudy. He wore a flashy brown-colored frock-coat with the collar laid very far back, a foppish white vest exposing his shirt-bosom ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... But France owes him a great debt. He was cruel, but in comparison with the cruelty of Lebon, of Barere, of Billaud-Varennes, his cruelty was tender mercy, He was a hypocrite, but his hypocrisy shows like candour beside the perfidy and the cant of Petion and of Robespierre, while in the great 'art and mystery' of government he was a master where these modern apes of despotism were ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... be one of the most stubborn fighters in the army, and at the same time a "Methodist of the Methodists." He was moreover a pure Christian gentleman and a churchman of the straightest sect. There was no cant superstitions or affectation in his make-up, and what he said he meant. It was doubtful if he ever had an evil thought, and while his manners might have been at times blunt, he was always sincere and ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... sentimental cant? Don't answer, if you think that. I can't trust my own mind any more, anyway; and," with an ugly laugh, "I'll know it all some day—the sooner ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers |
