"Grumbler" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... it is a nuisance bringing us up like this," chorused Mr Quadrant, a fellow-grumbler of the same kidney. "We might have carried on as we were standing, if those blessed Parlyvoos, had only let us alone; while now, when we do make a start again, the wind will most probably have headed ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... you, old grumbler? You shall stay here and guard the lady, if you are so much afraid of your beautiful self; and I will take command ...
— The Old Bell Of Independence; Or, Philadelphia In 1776 • Henry C. Watson
... I'd rather let the things remain where they are, than have to bring them all this way," exclaimed the worst grumbler of the party. ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... beauty. It is to the methods of that new harvest that the President has boldly led our attention in his admirable Proclamation of Amnesty. It is to the details of it that each loyal man has to look already. It is but a few weeks since we heard a sentimental grumbler, at a public meeting, lamenting over the discomforts of the freed slaves in the Southwest, as he compared them with their lost paradise. Men of his type, to whom the present is always worse than the past, succeed in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... to the man who, strictly obeying the ship's orders, never even spoke to the man at the wheel? Now to come to the next point. This correspondent girds at my having had a special cabin and a special steward. Why! the envious grumbler! if he had been as specially unwell as I was—but there, I own I lose patience with him—didn't I go out as a "Special," and if a Special doesn't have everything special about him, he is simply obtaining money under false pretences. I've a great mind—I ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, July 25, 1891 • Various
... quiet and stable home life of an island people, have done more than anything to make the Englishman a deceptive personality to the outside eye. He has for centuries been permitted to grumble. There is no such confirmed grumbler—until he really has something to grumble at, and then no one who grumbles less. There is no such confirmed carper at the condition of his country, yet no one really so profoundly convinced of its perfection. A stranger might well think from his utterances that he was spoiled ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... watch outside. Ridley too had heard a spiteful whisper or two, but it had seemed too preposterous for him to attend to it. "You are young, Hardcastle," he said, with a smile, "or you would know that there is nothing a grumbler will not say, nor how far men's ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge
... about the unconscious power of thought waves, and certainly one grumbler can often spread dissatisfaction through an entire community. Perhaps the black looks which Ingred encountered from the disappointed tennis-players in her form turned into naughty sprites who whispered treason in the ears of the juniors, or perhaps it was a mere coincidence that mutiny suddenly ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... lived a man who had nearly as many children as there were sparrows in the garden. He had to work very hard all day to get them enough to eat, and was often tired and cross, and abused everything and everybody, so that people called him 'Father Grumbler.' ...
— The Brown Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... amazingly like parchment, upon which a long, sharp nose stuck downward, morosely and ominously. This was Alexandra, the servant of old of the student bird-houses; the friend and creditor of all the students; a woman of sixty-five, argumentative, and a grumbler. ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... of the same opinion, and found myself nearly in the same predicament with the grumbler at my left hand; but I did not betray my ignorance by venturing a remark. This brought forcibly to my mind a story that had recently been told me by a dear primitive old lady, a daughter of one of the first Dutch settlers in the Upper Province, over ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... trow it," quoth the Saxon, even in that day a grumbler; "but I take it, the main difference between thee and me is, that I can say what mislikes me out like a man; and it would fare ill with thy limbs or thy life if thou wert as frank in the grim land of ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... were delighted with the hot springs, and after the fashion of sailors were pretty ready at giving them names according to their peculiarities. One was "The Grumbler;" another "The Bear-pit." A whistling hissing spring became "The Squealer." One that gurgled horribly, "The Bubbly Jock;" whilst others were, "The Lion's Den," from the roaring sound; "The Trumpet Major;" and the noisiest of all, from which a curious clattering ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn
... friends, come in," said the warden;—he was still warden then. "Come in, and sit down;" and he took the hand of Abel Handy, who was the nearest to him, and led the limping grumbler to a chair. The others followed slowly and bashfully; the infirm, the lame, and the blind: poor wretches! who had been so happy, had they but known it! Now their aged faces were covered with shame, and every kind word from their master ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... 'Now, grumbler,' retorted the intrepid child, putting her gloved hand suddenly over her father's mouth; Stanway submitted. The picture of the two in this delicious momentary contact remained long in Twemlow's mind; and he thought that Stanway could not be such a ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... with this melodious grumbler one evening, and, having been much dispirited by the proceedings of the day, was scraping consolation out of its deepest notes, when his landlady (who was fortunately deaf, and had no other consciousness of these performances than a sensation of something ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... christened his vieille garde his grognards: tough and true as steel, they yet would have their growl. Now the lads of the Eighty-Eighth, having proved themselves better men even than the veteran guards of the Corsican corporal, also claim the grumbler's privilege, setting forth sundry griefs and grave causes of complaint. They are not allowed the word "Pyrenees" upon their colours, although, at the fight of that name, they not only were present, but rendered ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... its bright upright fearlessness—his shoulders were learning to bend, his head to slouch forward. One needed but to glance at him to see that Geoffrey Tudor was fast becoming that most disagreeable of social characters, a grumbler! And with grumbling unrepressed, and indulged in, come worse things, for it has its root in that true ...
— Great Uncle Hoot-Toot • Mrs. Molesworth
... grumbler, it is quite certain he cannot do worse than you do. My jaws ache now with trying to eat the food you gave us this morning. Another week and you would have starved the whole ...
— The Lion of the North • G.A. Henty
... conduct from him of a high moral standard, and be careful at this early age to avoid the common fault of giving a dog a bad name. If it is said on all sides that a child has an uncontrollable temper, is an inveterate grumbler, is lacking in all power of concentration, or has a tendency to deceit, it is likely that the child will act up to his reputation. He comes in time to regard this failing of his as part of himself just as much as is the colour of his hair or the length of his legs. ...
— The Nervous Child • Hector Charles Cameron
... grumbler, in his usual tone, Received him with a curse: "To Pomerania straight begone! Ugh! how he smells of eau de Cologne! Why, brimstone isn't worse. He'd best be off to heaven again, Or he'll infect hell's ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... to-morrow never came. What kindness I've known has been from my own people; a poor bird will pull out its own feathers to cover another. But I can't complain; I have had bad days, but there are folks who have had worse. And the women have always been good to me. Bengta was a grumbler, but she meant it kindly; Karna sacrificed money and health to me—God be thanked that she didn't live after they took the farm from me. For I've been a landowner too; I had almost forgotten that ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... as though she understood, Howesha the Grumbler, opening wide her mouth, proceeded to give a series of very fine imitations, including those of a nest of spitting snakes, a sobbing woman, and a choking dog—all of which she concluded by her masterpiece, of a child masticating sticky ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest
... to be empty just then, with the exception of North and the injured man. North aroused himself and looked around. Seeing no listeners near, he went up to the grumbler, and began ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... sympathise with a middle-aged grumbler, who, after reading Mr. Palgrave's Memoir and Introduction, should exclaim, 'Why was there not such an edition of Scott ...
— Goldsmith - English Men of Letters Series • William Black
... sincere republican, saw and dreaded for his country's sake the secret views and inordinate ambition of Bonaparte. He was a grumbler by nature; yet he never evinced discontent in the discharge of his duties as a soldier. He swore and stormed, but marched bravely to the cannon's mouth: he was indeed courage personified. One day when he was in the trench at St. ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... porridge. He did not relish in his mouth the same thing that the wind was distributing impartially into ears and eyes. He said he could take in—at the pores—enough of that to suit his liking. But he was no grumbler, as a rule. He worked hard and incessantly, Colonel Barter determining to keep his men of the Yorkshire Light Infantry quite up to the mark. It was necessary to take every precaution against surprise, and for commanding officers to remain eternally on the qui vive. It needed considerable ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... and the party of emigrants he was leading made very good progress on their journey towards the settlement. The only grumbler was Mrs Clagget, as she trudged on with a long stick in her hand, sometimes by the side of the Diceys, and at others addressing her remarks to Mrs Jones. However, as it was so evident that she ...
— The Voyages of the Ranger and Crusader - And what befell their Passengers and Crews. • W.H.G. Kingston
... would put to shame the most inveterate grumbler. Her buoyant spirits were infectious. Her ringing, merry laugh was cheering ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour |
