Talk
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To Talk is to engage in the act of speech, generally with another person in the course of a conversation.
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- It would talk;
Lord, how it talked!- Beaumont and Fletcher, The Scornful Lady (c. 1613; printed 1616), Act IV, scene 1.
- But still his tongue ran on, the less
Of weight it bore, with greater ease.- Samuel Butler, Hudibras, Part III (1678), Canto II, line 443.
- With vollies of eternal babble.
- Samuel Butler, Hudibras, Part III (1678), Canto II, line 453.
- Words learn'd by rote a parrot may rehearse,
But talking is not always to converse,
Not more distinct from harmony divine
The constant creaking of a country sign.- William Cowper, Conversation (1782), line 7.
- But far more numerous was the herd of such,
Who think too little, and who talk too much.- John Dryden, Absalom and Achitophel (1681), Part I, line 533.
- Chi parla troppo non può parlar sempre bene.
- He who talks much cannot always talk well.
- Carlo Goldoni, Pamela (c. 1750), I. 6.
- What doesn't slumber under the shells of us all? One just needs courage to uncover it and be oneself. Or at least to discuss it. There isn't enough discussion in the world.
- Cesare Pavese, The Beach.
- At this Helen laughed outright. "Nonsense," she said. "You're not a Christian. You've never thought what you are.—And there are lots of other questions," she continued, "though perhaps we can't ask them yet." Although they had talked so freely they were all uncomfortably conscious that they really knew nothing about each other.
"The important questions," Hewet pondered, "the really interesting ones. I doubt that one ever does ask them."
Rachel, who was slow to accept the fact that only a very few things can be said even by people who know each other well, insisted on knowing what he meant.
"Whether we've ever been in love?" she enquired. "Is that the kind of question you mean?"- Virginia Woolf, The Voyage Out (1920), Chapter XI
Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations [edit]
- Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 777-78.
- "The time has come," the Walrus said,
"To talk of many things:
Of shoes—and ships—and sealing-wax—
Of cabbages—and kings—
And why the sea is boiling hot—
And whether pigs have wings.- Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass, Chapter III.
- Persuasion tips his tongue whene'er he talks.
- Colley Cibber, parody on Pope's lines.
- Whose talk is of bullocks.
- Ecclesiasticus, XXXVIII. 25.
- My tongue within my lips I rein;
For who talks much must talk in vain.- John Gay, introduction to the Fables, Part I, line 57.
- Stop not, unthinking, every friend you meet
To spin your wordy fabric in the street;
While you are emptying your colloquial pack,
The fiend Lumbago jumps upon his back.- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., Urania, A Rhymed Lesson, line 439.
- No season now for calm, familiar talk.
- Homer, The Iliad, Book XXII, line 169. Pope's translation.
- Talk to him of Jacob's ladder, and he would ask the number of the steps.
- Douglas Jerrold, A Matter-of-Fact Man.
- And the talk slid north, and the talk slid south
With the sliding puffs from the hookah-mouth;
Four things greater than all things are—
Women and Horses and Power and War.- Rudyard Kipling, Ballad of the King's Jest.
- Then he will talk—good gods, how he will talk!
- Nathaniel Lee, Alexander the Great, Act I, scene 1.
- In general those who nothing have to say
Contrive to spend the longest time in doing it.- James Russell Lowell, An Oriental Apologue, Stanza 15.
- Oft has it been my lot to mark
A proud, conceited, talking spark.- James Merrick, The Chameleon.
- His talk was like a stream which runs
With rapid change from rock to roses;
It slipped from politics to puns;
It passed from Mahomet to Moses;
Beginning with the laws that keep
The planets in their radiant courses,
And ending with some precept deep
For dressing eels or shoeing horses.- Winthrop Mackworth Praed, The Vicar.
- They never taste who always drink;
They always talk who never think.- Matthew Prior, Upon a Passage in the Scaligerana.
- I prythee, take the cork out of thy mouth that I may drink thy tidings.
- William Shakespeare, As You Like It (c.1599-1600), Act III, scene 2, line 12.
- If I chance to talk a little wild, forgive me;
I had it from my father.- William Shakespeare, Henry VIII (1613), Act I, scene 4, line 26.
- The red wine first must rise
In their fair cheeks, my lord; then we shall have 'em
Talk us to silence.- William Shakespeare, Henry VIII (1613), Act I, scene 4, line 43.
- What cracker is this same that deafs our ears
With this abundance of superfluous breath?- William Shakespeare, King John (1598), Act II, scene 1, line 147.
- No, pray thee, let it serve for table-talk;
Then, howsoe'er thou speak'st, 'mong other things
I shall digest it.- William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice (late 1590s), Act III, scene 5, line 93.
- Talk with a man out at a window—a proper saying.
- William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing (1598-99), Act IV, scene 1, line 190.
- My lord shall never rest:
I'll watch him, tame and talk him out of patience:
His bed shall seem a school, his board a shrift.- William Shakespeare, Othello (c. 1603), Act III, scene 3, line 22.
- Talkers are no good doers; be assur'd
We come to use our hands and not our tongues.- William Shakespeare, Richard III (c. 1591), Act I, scene 3, line 352.
- A gentleman, nurse, that loves to hear himself talk, and will speak more in a minute than he will stand to in a month.
- William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet (1597), Act II, scene 4, line 155.
- She sits tormenting every guest,
Nor gives her tongue one moment's rest,
In phrases batter'd, stale, and trite,
Which modern ladies call polite.- Jonathan Swift, The Journal of a Modern Lady.
- Good talkers are only found in Paris.
- François Villon, Des Femmes de Paris, II.
- Le secret d'ennuyer est celui de tout dire.
- The secret of being tiresome is in telling everything.
- Voltaire, Discours Preliminaire.
- Little said is soonest mended.
- George Wither, The Shepherd's Hunting.
