rattle quotes

Trust him as much as you would a rattlesnake with a silencer on its rattle.

- Dean Gooderham Acheson
  Advice to President Truman on J Edgar Hoover. Quoted in David S McLellan and David C  Acheson (eds)  Among Friends: Personal Letters of Dean Gooderham  Acheson (1980).

Tweedledum and Tweedledee Agreed to have a battle; ForTweedledum said Tweedledee Had spoilt his nice new rattle.

-Dodgson
Through the Looking-Glass, ch.4,'Tweedledum and Tweedledee'.

Give, you gods, Give to your boy, your Caesar, The rattle of a globe to play withal, Thisgewgaw world, and put him cheaply off: I'll not be pleased with less than Cleopatra.

-John Dryden
  Anthony.  All for Love, or The World Well Lost, act 2, sc.1.

Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song, Sweet Thames, run softly, for I speak not loud or long. But at my back in a cold blast I hear The rattle of the bones, and chuckle spread from ear to ear. See Marvell 556:62.

-T(homas) S(tearns) Eliot
  The Waste Land, pt.3,'The Fire Sermon'.

Since a woman must wear chains, I would have the pleasure of hearing 'em rattle a little.

- George Farquhar
  The Beaux' Stratagem, act 2, sc.2.

Our tastesgreatly alter. The lad does not care for the child'srattle, and theoldmandoesnotcarefor theyoung man's whore.

- Samuel known as Dr Johnson Johnson
  Quoted in  James Boswell The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), vol.2.

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle? Only the monstrous anger of the guns. Only the stuttering rifles'rapid rattle Can patter out their hasty orisons.

-Wilfred Owen
  'Anthem for Doomed Youth'.

La cruaute  , bien loin d'e"  tre un vice, est le premier sentiment qu'imprime en nous la nature; l'enfant brise son hochet, mord le te  ton de sa nourrice, e  trangle son oiseau, bien avant que d'avoir l'a"  ge de raison. Far from being a vice, cruelty is the primary feeling that nature imprints in us. The infant breaks its rattle, bites its nurse's nipple, and strangles a bird, well before reaching the age of reason.

- Donatien Alphonse Fran c° ois, Marquis de Sade
  La Philosophie dans le boudoir.

   Gentleness, docility, and a spaniel-like affection are, on this ground, consistently recommended as the cardinal virtues of the sex; and, disregarding the arbitrary economy of nature, one writer has declared that it is masculine for a woman to be melancholy. She was created to be the toy of man, his rattle, and it must jingle in his ears, whenever, dismissing reason, he chooses to be amused.

- Mary also known as Mrs Godwin Wollstonecraft
  AVindication of the Rights ofWoman, pt.1, ch.2.