C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.

Story Telling

And thereby hangs a tale.

Shakespeare.

Soft as some song divine, thy story flows.

Homer.

He cometh unto you with a tale which holdeth children from play, and old men from the chimney corner.

Sir Philip Sidney.

This story will never go down.

Henry Fielding.

A schoolboy’s tale, the wonder of an hour!

Byron.

For seldom shall she hear a tale
So sad, so tender, yet so true.

Shenstone.

I cannot tell how the truth may be;
I say the tale as ’twas said to me.

Sir Walter Scott.

I hate
To tell again a tale once fully told.

Homer.

Tell me the tales that to me were so dear,
Long, long ago, long, long ago.

Thomas Haynes Bayly.

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.

And what so tedious as a twice-told tale.

Homer.

A story should, to please, at least seem true,
Be apropos, well told, concise, and new:
And whenso’er it deviates from these rules,
The wise will sleep, and leave applause to fools.

Stillingfleet.

In this our 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.

A story, in which native humor 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.
’Tis the most asinine employ on earth,
To hear them tell of parentage and birth,
And echo conversations dull and dry,
Embellish’d with,—He said,—and, So said I.

Cowper.

Story-telling is subject to two unavoidable defects,—frequent repetition and being soon exhausted; so that, whoever values this gift in himself, has need of a good memory, and ought frequently to shift his company.

Swift.

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.

Dear Ellen, your tales are all plenteously stored,
With the joy of some bride and the wealth of her lord,
Of her chariots and dresses,
And worldly caresses,
And servants that fly when she’s waited upon:
But what can she boast if she weds unbeloved?
Can she e’er feel the joy that one morning I proved,
When I put on my new gown and waited for John?

Bloomfield.

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