Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Story-Telling
A schoolboy’s tale, the wonder of an hour!
Byron—Childe Harold. Canto II. St. 2.
A story, in which native humour reigns,
Is often useful, always entertains;
A graver fact, enlisted on your side,
May furnish illustration, well applied;
But sedentary weavers of long tales
Give me the fidgets, and my patience fails.
Cowper—Conversation. L. 203.
In this spacious isle I think there is not one
But he hath heard some talk of Hood and Little John,
Of Tuck, the merry friar, which many a sermon made
In praise of Robin Hood, his outlaws, and their trade.
Drayton—Polyolbion.
This story will never go down.
Henry Fielding—Tumble-Down Dick. Air I.
Ich weiss nicht was soll es bedeuten,
Dass ich so traurig bin:
Ein Märchen aus alten Zeiten
Das kommt mir nicht aus dem Sinn.
In vain would I seek to discover
Why sad and mournful am I,
My thoughts without ceasing brood over
A tale of the times gone by.
Heine—Die Lorelei. E. A. Bowring’s trans.
When thou dost tell another’s jest, therein
Omit the oaths, which true wit cannot need;
Pick out of tales the mirth, but not the sin.
Herbert—Temple. Church Porch. St. 11.
Soft as some song divine, thy story flows.
Homer—Odyssey. Bk. XI. L. 458. Pope’s trans.
I hate
To tell again a tale once fully told.
Homer—Odyssey. Bk. XII. L. 566. Bryant’s trans.
And what so tedious as a twice-told tale.
Homer—Odyssey. Bk. XII. Last line. Pope’s trans.
Quid rides?
Mutato nomine de te fabula narratur.
Why do you laugh? Change but the name, and the story is told of yourself.
Horace—Satires. I. 1. 69.
But that’s another story.
Kipling—Mulvaney. Soldiers Three. Farquhar—Recruiting Officer. Last scene. Sterne—Tristram Shandy. Ch. XVII.
It is a foolish thing to make a long prologue, and to be short in the story itself.
II Maccabees. II. 32.
An’ all us other children, when the supper things is done,
We set around the kitchen fire an’ has the mostest fun
A-list’nin’ to the witch tales ’at Annie tells about
An’ the gobble-uns ’at gits you
Ef you
Don’t
Watch
Out!
James Whitcomb Riley—Little Orphant Annie.
I cannot tell how the truth may be;
I say the tale as ’twas said to me.
Scott—Lay of the Last Minstrel. Canto II. St. 22.
I could a tale unfold whose lightest word
Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood,
Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres,
Thy knotted and combined locks to part
And each particular hair to stand on end,
Like quills upon the fretful porpentine.
Hamlet. Act I. Sc. 5. L. 15.
Which his fair tongue—conceit’s expositor—
Delivers in such apt and gracious words,
That aged ears play truant at his tales,
And younger hearings are quite ravished.
Love’s Labour’s Lost. Act II. Sc. 1. L. 72.
And thereby hangs a tale.
Taming of the Shrew. Act IV. Sc. 1. L. 60. Also found in Othello. Act III. 1; Merry Wives of Windsor. Act I. 4; As You Like it. Act II. 7.
For seldom shall she hear a tale
So sad, so tender, yet so true.
Shenstone—Jemmy Dawson. St. 20.
With a tale forsooth he cometh unto you, with a tale which holdeth children from play, and old men from the chimney corner.
Sir Philip Sidney—The Defense of Poesy.
In after-dinner talk,
Across the walnuts and the wine.
Tennyson—The Miller’s Daughter.
A tale in everything.
Wordsworth—Simon Lee.