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More "Claptrap" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... cheek and made him wish he had money to buy up the stock of the vociferous little boys. Suddenly the notes of the organ rolled out into the hall, and he became aware that the overture or prelude had begun. This, too, seemed to him a piece of claptrap, but he didn't wait to think of it; he instantly edged out of his place, which he had chosen near the end of a row, and reached one of the numerous doors. If he had had no definite plan he now had at least an irresistible ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... of mind and superiority to prejudice were American in the truest and best sense; but Washington showed the same qualities in private life and toward individuals which he displayed in regard to communities. He was free, of course, from the cheap claptrap which abuses the name of democracy by saying that birth, breeding, and education are undemocratic, and therefore to be reckoned against a man. He valued these qualities rightly, but he looked to see what a man was and not who he was, which is true democracy. ...
— George Washington, Vol. II • Henry Cabot Lodge
... cross-examination of catchwords and the exposure of platitudes. Popular government is no more free from catchwords and platitudes than any other political, religious, or social cause which interests a great many people, and is the subject of much discussion. Even the Historical Method has its own claptrap. But one must not make too much of these things. "In order to love mankind," said Helvetius, "one must not expect too much from them." And fairly to appreciate institutions you must not hold them up ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley
... terms. "They talk," says Maxwell, "about a knowledge of the stage as if it were a difficult science, instead of a very simple piece of mechanism whose limitations and possibilities anyone may see at a glance. All that their knowledge of it comes to is claptrap, pure and simple.... They think that their exits and entrances are great matters and that they must come on with such a speech, and go off with another; but it is not of the least importance how they come or go, if they have something ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... to tell him where the fork was to be had which belonged to the knife, why, even that were not only unworthy of the man, but so utterly unlike him, for he never indulged in rhetoric or rhodomontade or claptrap, that one would be inclined to think he was beside himself, or had been dining out, like Daniel Webster when he proposed, in the Senate Chamber, to plant our starry banner on the outermost verge, the Ultima Thule, of our disputed territory, heedless ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... makes fun of all these things because all these things, or nearly all of them, are really very funny. But a large number of those who might otherwise read and enjoy Dickens are undoubtedly "put off" (as the phrase goes) by the fact that he seems to be echoing a poor kind of claptrap in his choice of incidents and images. Partly, of course, he suffers from the very fact of his success; his play with these topics was so good that every one else has played with them increasingly since; he may indeed have copied the old jokes, but he certainly renewed them. For instance, ...
— Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens • G. K. Chesterton
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