"Blab" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... poems read without a name We justly praise, or justly blame; And critics have no partial views, Except they know whom they abuse; And since you ne'er provoked their spite, Depend upon 't, their judgment's right. But if you blab, you are undone: Consider what a risk you run: You lose your credit all at once; The town will mark you for a dunce; The vilest doggrel Grub Street sends Will pass for yours with foes and friends; And you must bear the whole disgrace, Till some ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... I'm smoking," he said sullenly, after a feeble attempt at evasion. "Go in and blab on me, if you feel you must, ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... steal it back again to-night, and make off up the road with it. He went off a-grinnin' over the slick way he'd fooled you, and I jes' had to come and tell, 'cause you've been so good to me. I'll never forget the little kid's givin' me the coat off his own back, if I live to be a hundred. Now don't blab on me, or the boss would ...
— Two Little Knights of Kentucky • Annie Fellows Johnston
... worse things done on the quiet," maintained Carlier, with a hoarse laugh. "Trust him! He won't thank you if you blab. He is no better than you or me. Who will talk if we hold our tongues? ...
— Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad
... I must be off, or else I shall lose my train. By the way, when you come alongside do not make any sign that you have met me before. It is just as well that none of my crew should know that it is a planned thing, for if we ever happened to put in here again they might blab about it, and it is just as well not to give them the chance. Good-by, my lad; I hope that all will go well. But, you know, you are doing a very risky thing; for the assisting of a runaway slave to escape is about as serious an ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... it a moment, and then he says: 'I tell you what. I shouldn't blab this all round the parish, if I was you. You won't get no credit for truth-telling, and a miracle's wasted on a set of fools. But if you like, I'll shut down the lock again upon a holy word that no one but me shall know, and neither ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... 'I should think you was rather out of sorts too, unless you mean as little harm when you throw pewter pots about, as you do when you blab and—' ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... latter snarled. "An' have somebody come along an' find him! Like as not he'd hang on long enough to blab all he knows, an' then where would we be? Where would we be even if somebody run acrost his body? I ain't takin' no chances like that, ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... private lives, dress, and talk of artists, men of letters, politicians. Your professional work will sink below the level of servants' gossip in a public-house parlour. If you happen to meet a man of known name, you will watch him, will listen to him, will try to sneak into his confidence, and you will blab, for money, about him, and your blab will inevitably be mendacious. In short, like the most pitiable outcasts of womankind, and, without their excuse, you will live by selling your honour. You will ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang
... thou asham'd to kiss? then wink again, And I will wink; so shall the day seem night; Love keeps his revels where there are but twain; Be bold to play, our sport is not in sight: 124 These blue-vein'd violets whereon we lean Never can blab, nor ...
— Venus and Adonis • William Shakespeare
... talk like a fool. Think I'm one, mates?—think I'm going to do as I said, and let him go and blab, so as to get into favour here? That's just what I don't ...
— Nic Revel - A White Slave's Adventures in Alligator Land • George Manville Fenn
... "A blab!—by heavens, Major M'Toddy, I don't know what to say—if I thought the fellow really meant to insinuate any thing of that kind, I would horsewhip him though I met him ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... who shall quite assure us, that it would not still be treachery, even now, for those who have unwound his clues, and traversed his labyrinths to the heart of his mystery,—for those who have penetrated to the chamber of his inner school, to come out and blab a secret with which he still works so potently; insensibly to those on whom he works, perhaps, yet so potently? But there is no harm done. It will still take the right reader to find his way through these new devices in letters; ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... from the poisonous yew, Beneath whose ill shade no plant ever grew. Some say he's a birch, a thought very odd; For none but a dunce would come under his rod. But I'll tell the secret; and pray do not blab: He is an old stump, cut out of a crab; And England has put this crab to a hard use, To cudgel our bones, and for drink give us ver-juice; And therefore his witnesses justly may boast, That none are more properly knights of the post, But here Mr. Wood complains that we mock, Though ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... come up sooner to town, otherwise she would have sent it. Anne had a cold and a swelled face. She and Eleanor were going to France, and she persuaded Fanny to go with them. To make a long tale short, they shut her up in a convent lest she should blab the great secret, 'James Stuart is ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... score. But what is more foolish than those, or rather more happy, who daily reciting those seven verses of the Psalms promise to themselves more than the top of felicity? Which magical verses some devil or other, a merry one without doubt but more a blab of his tongue than crafty, is believed to have discovered to St. Bernard, but not without a trick. And these are so foolish that I am half ashamed of them myself, and yet they are approved, and that not only by the common people ...
— The Praise of Folly • Desiderius Erasmus
... that bluff! You know too much already, and if I followed my hunch, I'd scrag you now, to play safe. Dead men don't blab, as a rule—though one may have, last night. I came here to be generous, to give you a last chance. I've fought tooth and nail, myself, for my place at the top, and I like a game scrapper, even if he is on the wrong side. You've ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... was sent to blab about it in every tavern in Paris town. He was sent to frighten the Red Cap out of Paris town. He was suffered to blab to you that you might set your neck in a noose and be driven to ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... signify not a jot in comparison of the pleasure that a woman has in connexion with a man. Whereof I have more than once been minded to make experiment with this mute, no other man being available. Nor, indeed, could one find any man in the whole world so meet therefor; seeing that he could not blab if he would; thou seest that he is but a dull clownish lad, whose size has increased out of all proportion to his sense; wherefore I would fain hear what thou hast to say to it." "Alas!" said the other, "what is't thou sayst? Knowest thou not that we have vowed our virginity to God?" "Oh," rejoined ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... evidence, he would say, "Io son uomo, io non parlo" ("I am a man, I know how to hold my tongue") and he would rather die than betray an accomplice who is his friend and probably his compare. Nor need the criminal fear that the victim or anyone in the secret whether accomplice or not, will blab. A man with a wound on his face, made obviously by a knife, will swear to the police that in drawing a cork he fell and cut himself with the bottle. He does not intend his assailant to go unpunished, but he will not have the police interfering if he can prevent ...
— Castellinaria - and Other Sicilian Diversions • Henry Festing Jones
... for Pietermaritzburg pass your lips. I did all the shooting, and I'm not a bit ashamed of it; but, by the eternal God, if you open your lips to a soul, I'll shoot you like a dog or a cannibal! Remember that, sonny, and say it quietly over to yourself the first time you feel that you want to blab. Now, shake hands." ...
— Stories by English Authors: Africa • Various
... had come out, the young man accompanied us a little distance, and then, drawing Master Simon aside into a green lane, they walked and talked together for nearly half-an-hour. Master Simon, who has the usual propensity of confidants to blab everything to the next friend they meet with, let me know that there was a love affair in question; the young fellow having been smitten with the charms of Phoebe Wilkins, the pretty niece of the housekeeper at the Hall. Like most other love concerns, it had brought its ...
— Bracebridge Hall • Washington Irving
... that could be had out of her. Even when she reached her home again, and Mrs. Byrne followed her in, afraid of leaving the frightened woman alone lest she should "blab" the whole secret to the first person she met,—even then Mrs. Cregan could not speak until she had gathered up the broken dishes and propped the broken chair against the wall, as frantically as if she were trying to conceal the evidence of a crime. Then she sank down on a sofa and burst into ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... on Bottom Level, in the Fourth Ward?" I asked. "He won't blab about that. He doesn't blab things where ...
— Four-Day Planet • Henry Beam Piper
... and she herself also, are a good deal to me. As to blabbing, I never blab; I saw her, she spoke to me; I slept at the lodge; I ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... guards and guards—I have rehearsed it all Inside the turret here a hundred times Don't ask the way of whom you meet, observe! But where they cluster thickliest is the door Of doors; they'll let you pass—they'll never blab 115 Each to the other, he knows not the favorite, Whence he is bound and what's his business now. Walk in—straight up to him; you have no knife: Be prompt, how should he scream? Then, out with you! Italy, Italy, my ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... Again, he has been seen in disguise, walking into a gate of Paris (April 11). {52d} On April 14, Walton, from Florence, writes that James has had news of his son, is much excited, and is sending Fitzmorris to join him. The Pope knows and is sure to blab. {52e} On May 3, Yorke mentions a rumour, often revived, that the Prince is dead. On May 9, the Jacobites in Paris show a letter from Oxford inviting Charles to the opening of the Radcliffe, 'where they assure him of better reception than the University has had at Court ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang
... blab on me? I'm anxious about this, because it's got out somehow that I'm back again. I landed at Kenmare in a fishing-boat from the New York packet, the Osprey, on Tuesday fortnight, and three of the newspapers had it before I was a ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... and I'll tell you about this spotting business. You help me, and I'll help you. One blab and back you go to where you came ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... office, and his patron hardly noticed him. He was pacing up and down the little room, like a wild beast in its cage, and exclaiming, "Just heavens! that this Pinkus should turn out such a traitor! He will blab the whole matter; he ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... Life: And if my death might make this Iland happy, And proue the Period of their Tyrannie, I would expend it with all willingnesse. But mine is made the Prologue to their Play: For thousands more, that yet suspect no perill, Will not conclude their plotted Tragedie. Beaufords red sparkling eyes blab his hearts mallice, And Suffolks cloudie Brow his stormie hate; Sharpe Buckingham vnburthens with his tongue, The enuious Load that lyes vpon his heart: And dogged Yorke, that reaches at the Moone, Whose ouer-weening Arme I haue pluckt back, By false accuse ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... policeman went by this evening. Well then, you see (gives him the spade), you get down into the cellar and dig a hole right in the corner; the earth is soft there, and you'll smooth it over. Mother earth will not blab to any one; she'll keep it close. Go then; ...
— Redemption and Two Other Plays • Leo Tolstoy et al
... two will go and blab on us," said the man, angrily. "At least the girl will. She won't promise to keep her secret. I have no fears for the man; ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... doubt, have been discovered in them, and human bones; but, beyond this, all is surmise and uncertainty. Often, when yet a boy, and engaged in fishing in the King's Burn, have we mounted these pyramids, and felt that we were standing on holy ground. "Oh," thought we, "that some courteous cairn would blab it out what 'tis they are!" But the cairns were silent; and hence the necessity we are under of professing our ignorance of what they refused to divulge. But there is a large opening in the side of one of these cairns, respecting which ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... been gathering round Reginald, admiring his spirit in confronting the tall boy, now drew back, and the words "tell-tale!" "blab!" "sneak!" were distinctly heard. And Reginald found himself standing alone, deserted by those who had drawn near in sympathy with him, for Thompson was the tyrant ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... do't with Modesty and Silence: For Virtue's but a Name kept free from Scandal, Which the most base of Women best preserve, Since Jilting and Hypocrisy cheat the World best. —But we both love, and who shall blab the ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... let that house," Mr. Waddington wound up, striking the palm of one hand with the fist of the other. "What do I give you forty-four shillings a week for, I should like to know? To go and blab trade secrets to every customer that comes along? If you couldn't get him to sign the lease, you ought to have worked a deposit, at any rate. He'd have had to forfeit that, even if he'd found ...
— The Double Life Of Mr. Alfred Burton • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... such ideas in her head," cried Patricia stabbing her hat-pins into her hat to secure it on the hanger. "Of course, she'll be sorry for part of it, but right is right, and justice ought to be done. But there, I'll blab it all myself if I don't look out. Hurry up, Judy, let's get the cocoa stewing ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther
... said Roy. "Amber Lake and I don't blab. There'll be a nine days' mystery over his disappearance. Then his lot will set up some other tin god—and ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... unless you blab in one of these blitherin' fits. What does that kid know? Nothin'. He's found our gold, an' he's hid it away. He wants to keep it, an' you know what a stubborn devil he is. This is just a try on, an' they'll get nothin' out o' Dick Haddon. If they do they get the gold, an' ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... hell. An' Texas he swore he was only a common an' honest road-agent, an' never heard of the Legion. But the Frenchman showed a yellow streak. He might have taken the offer. But Texas cussed him tumble, an' made him ashamed to talk. But if they git Frenchy away from Texas they'll make him blab. He's like a greaser. Then there was a delay. The big crowd of miners yelled for ropes. But the vigilantes are waitin', an' it's my ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... down for his vengeance once he knew I was here, whereas at present he had probably forgotten all about me. Besides, if I walked in boldly I would get no news. If japp and he had a secret, they would not blab ...
— Prester John • John Buchan
... man, and you shall get out too. If you blab, they'll flog the life out of me, but I will ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... yet awhile, young man I heard what you and your friend said just before we closed in on you. Do you suppose I am going to let you get out and blab ...
— The Rover Boys on the Plains - The Mystery of Red Rock Ranch • Arthur Winfield
... the man, growing more excited, and leaning further across the table; 'I'll tell you, because I knows you for an eddicated man, and won't blab. S'pose yer thinks, like the rest of the world, that the chaps wot smears, for it ain't drawing, the pavement with bits of bacon, a ship on fire, and the regulation oysters, does them out of their own 'eads?' Hubert nodded. 'I'm not surprised that you do, all the ...
— Vain Fortune • George Moore
... the countryside I call it. Lord, if they only knew what I know, then, indeed—but enough. Marshal Gilles is a mighty scholar as well, and hath Henriet the clerk—a weak, bleating ass that will some day blab if my master permit me not to slice his gizzard in time—he hath him up to read aloud Latin by the mile, all out of the books called Suetonius and Tacitus—such high-flavoured tales and full of—well, of things ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... I never tol' de fust livin' soul in dis world. It got round de quarter some way, I dunno how, an' some of dem fool niggahs had to go an' blab it. Will you take keer on it ...
— True To His Colors • Harry Castlemon
... and perfect; but where's the use of it, if nobody else can be made to see it? I tried my best to catch the young men in my net. But, provoking things, they wouldn't be caught. Between ourselves—mind, don't blab it out—young men are the greatest noodles that were ever put upon the face of the earth. I never yet saw one that could be depended upon to stand by. I am sure, as you know, no one ever stood by me—when there was a parson at hand. ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 7, May 14, 1870 • Various
... he is being watched. That is the only way we can hope to get the pup back again. So mind you hold your tongue. Not a word to anybody on your life. Not a syllable. Be dumb as the grave and let me see how capable you are of keeping your own counsel. The trouble with most people is they blab everything. They can't wait to tell it. Let anything happen and they are off to confide it to some one before you can say Jack Robinson. Now don't you do that—at least not this time. Hold your tongue. This isn't ...
— Walter and the Wireless • Sara Ware Bassett
... well, you women. To say women and enough's said. Everything is froth and bubble to you. All of a sudden you blab out words that don't make the least sense. The worst you'd get would be a flogging; but it means ruination to the husband.—Say, my dear, you are as familiar with him as if ...
— The Inspector-General • Nicolay Gogol
... you see, An' I ruther guess 'at she Must be kinder sweet on me, So we 're keepin' company. Honest Injun! this is true, Ever' word I 'm tellin' you! But you won't be sich a scab Ez to run aroun' an' blab. Mebbe 't ain't the way with you, But you know some fellers do. Spoils a girl to let her know 'At you talk about her so. Don't you know her? her name 's Liz, Nicest girl in town she is. Purty? ah, git out, you gilly— Liz 'ud purt 'nigh knock you silly. Y' ought 'o see ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... Cleek off-handedly, "I'm not one to blab. You needn't be afraid o' that. By the way, who's the chap with the black mustache a-stragglin' all over 'is fyce? An' the narsty eye? Saw 'im with Borkins, the man wot engaged me night ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew
... And at his parture, Bound my secrecy, By his affectious love, not to disclose it: But care of him, and pity of your age, Makes my tongue blab what my ...
— 2. Mucedorus • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... francs, if you like it better. A genuine bargain. But we have talked enough, 'mio caro'; you deceive yourselves if you think you are going to make me blab. No, indeed! I am not the one to allow myself to become entangled. I am now as mute and silent as ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... of these, Secrecy: it is indeed the virtue of a confessor. And assuredly the secret man heareth many confessions; for who will open himself to a blab or a babbler? But if a man be thought secret, it inviteth discovery, as the more close air sucketh in the more open; and as in confession the revealing is not for worldly use, but for the ease of a man's heart, so secret men come to the knowledge of many ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... nineteenth," said Pete. "Now a few kind words for you as the individual, Mr. George Marsh, quite aside from your capacity as a banker. You report to Zurich that I applied for a loan and you refused it—not a word more. I'm tellin' you! Put a blab on your office boy." He rolled his thumb at young Hudson. "And hereafter if you ever horn in on my affairs so much as the weight of a finger tip—I'm tellin' you now!—I'll appear ...
— Copper Streak Trail • Eugene Manlove Rhodes |
