"Bragging" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... The tongue of the 'King of the Jews' waggeth no longer in profane bragging against Caesar. Let ...
— The Coming of the King • Bernie Babcock
... injury that has often been ignorantly predicted. No contributor need hope to cover two pages of a periodical with what might be adequately said in one, unless he assumes his editor to be as foolish as himself. The Spartans exiled Ctesiphon for bragging that he could speak the whole day on any subject selected; and a modern magazine is of little value, unless it has a Spartan at ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various
... bright eyes, and lived in defiance of everybody. And only see what he has lived to be! But it is the good Lord's doings and not mine, and not yours, Herman Brudenell, so don't thank me anymore for kindness that I never showed to Ishmael, and don't tell any more bragging lies about the checks for thousands of dollars that you never ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... she proceeded to tell her the receipt. The two girls passed on to talk about themselves. Ursula told all about the High School, and about her matriculation, bragging a little. She felt so poor here, in this ugly place. Miss Schofield listened with brooding, ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... wants! I believe you might take Parnell's place! Me fawther says you're certain to be nominated, and there's no opposition, of course. Anyhow, if there were, itself, you'd go in flying, just the same! You're the man we're all waiting for! Larry, old cock! The day will come when I'll be bragging that I was the one first gave you the ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... you ever read that garrulous, pleasant history? He tells his story like an old man past political service, bragging to his sons on winter evenings of the part he took in public transactions when his 'old cap was new.' Full of scandal, which all true history is. So palliative; but all the stark wickedness that actually ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 53. Saturday, November 2, 1850 • Various
... cheers for the inventors of poison-gas. Is there not an American who is supposed to have invented a breath of heaven whereby, drop one pop-cornful in Hampstead, one in Brixton, one in East Ham, and one in Islington, and London is a Pompeii in five minutes! Or was the American only bragging? Because anyhow, whom has he experimented on? I read it in the newspaper, though. London a Pompeii in five minutes. ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence
... like it, do I? I fancy I would. I should be too big a coward to run away, for then I should have to come back to face you, which would be worse, you know. I'm not going to do any bragging, however. Deeds, deeds. Not till I have laid out a Johnny, or he has laid me out, can I take rank with you after your rout of the man of millions. I don't ask you to ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... bragging. You prob'ly don't know how strong other people are. Why, once I knew a man in Philadelphi' who could bend iron ...
— The Lost Princess of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... furnished after every encounter our troops had with the Dutch. It was the young men—some mere boys of fifteen—who displayed, with pardonable ignorance, bragging insolence. The men of maturer years, with very few exceptions, behaved like men, and in the hour of victory in many instances restrained the braggarts from committing cowardly acts. In this fight at the Nek, Private Venables of the 58th, who ...
— Four Months Besieged - The Story of Ladysmith • H. H. S. Pearse
... Yonder, a peasant is driving to the reaping; perchance, he is satisfied with his lot.... What of that? Wouldst thou change with him? Remember thy mother: how insignificantly small were her demands, and what lot fell to her share? Thou hast, evidently, only been bragging before Panshin, when thou saidst to him, that thou hadst come to Russia in order to till the earth; thou hast come in order to run after the girls in thine old age. The news of thy freedom came, and thou didst discard everything, thou didst ...
— A Nobleman's Nest • Ivan Turgenieff
... different worlds we have been brought up in. But if a street-car ride is as much of a novelty to her as an automobile ride would be to me, I don't wonder that she spoke about it. I know I'd talk about my sensations in an auto if I'd ever been in one, and it wouldn't be bragging, either. Maybe all our other experiences have been just as different," she went on, her judicial mind trying to look at life from Ethelinda's view-point, in order ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston
... of friendly Indians they met, Ree secured a quarter of venison in exchange for a cheap trinket, and although he accompanied the performance with a great deal of bragging, Tom did show the boys that he was a past-master in the art of broiling venison steaks. The fine dinner they had as a result, set his tongue wagging more than ever, however, and John Jerome was more than anxious to take some of the vanity out ...
— Far Past the Frontier • James A. Braden
... the river, bragging all the way of the manner in which he was beginning to handle the oars. And then, at Katherine's suggestion, he waited to see if Mr. Selincourt would go over and visit the store for an hour ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... Bes'sus a cowardly bragging captain, a sort of Bobadil or Vincent de la Rosa. Captain Bessus, having received a challenge, wrote word back that he could not accept the honor for thirteen weeks, as he had already 212 duels on hand, but he was much grieved that he could not appoint an earlier day.—Beaumont ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... said Bill Moody in a bragging sort of way. "I think I can see a hole in a ladder as well as most people; and if that ain't land, why, ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... It is a lament upon the decay of England, 'this dear, dear land'. Since we began to be a nation we have always lamented our decay. I am afraid that the Germans, whose self-esteem takes another form, were deceived by this. To the right English temper all bragging is a thing of evil omen. That temper is well expressed, where perhaps you would least expect to find it, in the speech of King Henry ...
— England and the War • Walter Raleigh
... damned invisible houses," whimpered the old man. "They're fireproof. Nearly all our bombs fell on the tarmac, and they did hardly any damage at all. One of those devils was bragging about it to me. I couldn't see anything but his eyes. And they've taken away my gas-box," wailed ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various
... three years, and if we had not been in camp, and under arms, I would have challenged him a score of times. He is the most offensive of men. He brought his race prejudices continually to the front. When Lafayette was wounded, with some of his bragging company, nothing would do but Doctor Moran must go with them to the hospital at Bethlehem; yes, and stay there, until the precious marquis was out of danger. I'll swear that he would not have done this for Washington—he would have blustered about the poor fellows lying sick ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... confidently expected, and its grand consequences; to appear, as it were, afraid of trying the speed of his boat; afraid that she would be beaten; would give his rival a large opportunity for future bragging, and would place himself in no enviable light in the eyes of his crew and passengers—all of whom had already made up their minds for a race. On the other hand, to refuse the request of the lady—not very unreasonable ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... Ronicky Doone, "I don't ask no favors. Let your men come on. All I got to say is that I come from a county where every man wears a gun and has to learn how to use it. I ain't terrible backward with the trigger finger, John Mark. Not that I figure on bragging, but I want you to pick good men for my trail and tell 'em to step ...
— Ronicky Doone • Max Brand
... warned against Clancarty of the one eye, who was bragging, and lying, and showing his letters in the taverns of Dunkirk. The old feud of Scotch and Irish Jacobites went merrily on. Macallester called Murray a card-sharper, and was himself lodged in prison on a lettre de cachet. ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang
... talk away from clinics, adenoids, children's teeth, epidemics and the new education. But no joke was so good that Deborah could not promptly match it with some amusing little thing which one of her children had said or done. For she had a mother's instinct for bragging fondly of her brood. It was deep, it was ...
— His Family • Ernest Poole
... come—besides, he fell into the sewers, and would have been drowned, if I hadn't heerd him, and dragged him out. The chap wot played him that trick was this same Sydney; for a note was found this morning in Anthony street crib, bragging about it, and signed with his name. Now it seems that his wife that lives in this house, and who we are trying to skeer out of it, as we have done all the others that ever lived here—it seems that she hates Sydney like thunder and wants to be revenged on him for something—and ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... you had won his Land, With that sole arm propt by Divinity: Was not that bragging, and a wrong to ...
— A King, and No King • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... fetch him at the Thornleigh Arms. The doctor said it would be the death of her Gaffer, she declared—but old Martin wouldn't go. He had stayed till the very end, drinking healths with everybody, and boasting and bragging he had beaten Bob Wainwright, and he was th' owdest member now. At this point of the narrative Bob senior overturned his gruel—which till now he had respected on account of the flavouring—and kicked so hard at the bed-clothes ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)
... aforesaid that not a man should come to him; and for the brag and threat of Don Pedro, it was not that Spanish bravado that should make them yield a jot to their hindrance, but they were as ready to make resistance as he to offer an injury. Whereupon Cavalero the messenger left bragging, and began to persuade them in quiet sort and with many words; but all his labour was to no purpose, and as his threat did nothing terrify them, so his persuasion did nothing move them to do that which he required. At the last he ...
— Voyager's Tales • Richard Hakluyt
... a whimsical smile: "Yes. Isn't he a grand, foolish old dear? He's such a roistering, bragging personage that I've named him Benvenuto Cellini—though he's neither liar nor thief. He must have told you ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott
... may see Falstaff, as Shallow saw him, when he was a boy and page to Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk; you may see him all along the current of his mature years; his highway robberies on Gadshill; his bragging narrative to Prince Henry; his frolicsome, paternal, self-defensive lecture to the prince; his serio-comic association with the ragamuffin recruits at Coventry; his adroit escape from the sword of Hotspur; his mendacious self-glorification over the body of Harry ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... to be avoided as much as possible. But now, in the silence, the growing darkness of that little chamber, with Chevet's threat echoing in my ears, he came to me in clear vision—I saw his dull-blue, cowardly eyes, his little waxed mustache, his insolent swagger, and heard his harsh, bragging voice. ...
— Beyond the Frontier • Randall Parrish
... 17th Mr. Gerstenmaier and I drove to Ira, Ohio, to visit Mr. Cranz and take advantage of his invitation to inspect his nut planting. At this moment I believe that his invitation was made with the subtle purpose of bragging about his excellent crop of Thomas black walnuts and filberts. The trees were originally planted by squirrels and later grafted by Mr. Cranz. They grow at the bottom of a huge hill or escarpment 200 feet high at the top of which is his planting of 20 mollissima chestnuts. It's a long ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Thirty-Eighth Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... in vain his cloud of debt to clear, At last He woke to find his foolish dreaming past, And all his best-of-life the easy prey Of squandering scamps and quacks that lined his way With vile array, From rascal statesman down to petty knave; Himself, at best, for all his bragging brave, A gamester's catspaw and a banker's slave. Then, worn and gray, and sick with deep unrest, He fled away into the oblivious West, ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... of his bragging old regiment and of the bragging brigade which for the last six months he had commanded. He was the idol, not because he was good and gracious, not because he spared his soldiers or treated them as fellow-citizens, but because he had led them to victory and made them ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... Spanish historians whom I have consulted make mention of Sir Wilfrid as the real author of the numerous triumphs which now graced the arms of the good cause, this is not in the least to be wondered at, in a nation that has always been notorious for bragging, and for the non-payment of their debts of gratitude as of their other obligations, and that writes histories of the Peninsular war with the Emperor Napoleon, without making the slightest mention of his Grace the Duke of Wellington, ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Christ's words are a douche of cold water to condense the steam which was so noisily escaping, to turn the vaporous enthusiasm into something more solid, with the particles nearer each other. His object was not to repel, but to turn an ignorant, somewhat bragging vow into a calm, humble determination, with a silent 'God helping me' for its foundation. To repel is sometimes the way to attract. Jesus Christ would not have any one coming after Him on a misunderstanding of where he is going, or what he will have to do. It shall ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... sticking it in the chair and pulling it out for a while, and then continued: "Oh, yes, what I was going to tell you was the little spat me and Lige had over Johnnie. Lige was in my room in the court-house waiting to see a man in the court, and was bragging to me about how smart John was, and says Lige, 'He's found some earth over in Missouri—yellow clay,' he says, 'that's just as good as oatmeal, and he ships it all over the country to his oatmeal mills and mixes it with the ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... those who shall be forced to undergo that which God, in his just judgment, shall inflict upon them. O then they will cry, One dram of ease for my cursing, swearing, lying, jeering tongue. Some ease for my bragging, braving, flattering, threatening, dissembling tongue. Now men can let their tongues run at random, as we used to say; now they will be apt to say, Our tongues are our own, who shall control them? (Psa 12:4). But then they will be in ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... by the imputation of bragging, and certain that slang was vulgar, whatever billiards might be, bore herself still more loftily, and resolved to snub him explicitly if he addressed her again. But he did not; for they presently came to a narrow ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... Pineapple, which is only a Cheddar under its crisscrossed, painted and flavored rind. Yet Brick is no more distinguished than either of the hundred percent Americans, and in our opinion is less worth bragging about. ...
— The Complete Book of Cheese • Robert Carlton Brown
... these worldly-wise young things of this the third year of our Prohibition are not necessarily less virtuous technically than their own crinolined grandmothers. Only these days they are not bragging about their virtue. ...
— Nonsenseorship • G. G. Putnam
... great bully that, isn't he, Trader? There'll be fun in front of the Fort to-night. For he's only bragging, of course—eh?" ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... covetous old Father neatly bubbled by his Slave of a round Sum of Money; to find the young Spark his Son (miserably in want of Cash) joyn with the Slave in the Intrigue, that he may get somewhat to stop his Mistress's Mouth, whom he keeps unknown to his Father; to see a bragging Coxcomb wheadled and abus'd by some cunning Parasite; to hear a Glutton talk of nothing but his Belly, and the like. Our Plots go chiefly upon variety of Love-Intrigues, Ladies Cuckolding their Husbands most dextrously; Gallants danger upon ...
— Prefaces to Terence's Comedies and Plautus's Comedies (1694) • Lawrence Echard
... solemnly, and professed an undoubting belief that our queen's arms were blessed and our victory sure. All the letters which he writ after his battles show awe rather than exultation; and he attributes the glory of these achievements, about which I have heard mere petty officers and men bragging with a pardonable vainglory, in no wise to his own bravery or skill, but to the superintending protection of Heaven, which he ever seemed to think was our especial ally. And our army got to believe so, and the enemy learnt to think so too; for we never entered into a battle ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... two days. He tucked his napkin round his neck, and ate with his knife. Kohn-Hamilton was horribly shocked by his voracity and his peasant manners. And he was, hurt, too, by the small amount of attention that his guest gave to his bragging. He tried to dazzle him by telling of his fine connections and his prosperity: but it was no good: Christophe did not listen, and bluntly interrupted him. His tongue was loosed, and he became familiar. His heart was full, and he overwhelmed Kohn with his simple confidences ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... he reflected, "and probably one of the aristocrats that Shaw meets at his recently ennobled sister's place. He is forever bragging about them. I must find out who Shaw's last British lion is," and just as he arrived at this decision the person appeared who ...
— The Man Between • Amelia E. Barr
... Johnny Jewel, the wonderful birdman that had his picture in all the papers and was getting thousands of dollars for exhibition flights. Tex, Aleck, Bud, Bill—Mary V, too, gol darn her!—would go around bragging just because they used to know him! And right then he'd sure play even for some of the insults they ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... that; for, it is a common saying, among our people, that the German and Low Dutch fortune-tellers are the best known. They have had, or pretend to have had, witches in New England; but no one, hereabouts, puts any faith in the pretence. It is like all the bragging of these ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... If you say to him, 'the gas fixture is bright tonight,' he'll say, 'Oh, yes—but I'm brighter.' Somebody told him once that the kindling wood that started the fires was stupid, and he wouldn't even stop his bragging then. 'Oh, yes,' he said, 'but I'm a great deal stupider than the kindling wood and I'll prove it.' So he sat down and wrote those verses and called 'em all Sandwiches, and everybody agreed that he was the ...
— Andiron Tales • John Kendrick Bangs
... is a heathen custom and not to be tolerated here. If she's so fond of living in church we can quote to her Hamlet's advice to Ophelia—'Get thee to a nunnery!' Why, Bess, I was mortified to death the other night when Bradley dined here, he's all the time bragging about his menagerie, and I tried to bluff him out and make him believe we were waited on by angels in disguise, and you know what happened. He came, saw, and I was regularly knocked out. You let us in; we waited on ourselves; cook had prepared the seven-o'clock dinner ...
— Paste Jewels • John Kendrick Bangs
... literary drama, turning on some plot of love or tale of seduction, and there was alongside of this a popular sort of farce known as the Commedia dell' Arte, in which only the outline of the plot was sketched, and the characters, usually typical persons as the Lover, his Lady, the Bragging Captain, the Miser, would fill in the dialogue and such comic "business" as tickled ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... to ship as cabin boy; but I won't be gone long." Uriah couldn't help bragging a little as he told his good fortune. "I'm going to be like Paul Jones and that crowd—if it takes ...
— The New Land - Stories of Jews Who Had a Part in the Making of Our Country • Elma Ehrlich Levinger
... years that I have been visiting Avalon there has been a run of tuna. But the average weight was from sixty to ninety-five pounds. Until this season only a very few big tuna had been taken. The prestige of the Tuna Club, the bragging of the old members, the gossip of the boatmen—all tend to make a fisherman feel small until he has landed a big one. Come to think of it, considering the years of the Tuna Club fame, not so very many anglers have captured a blue-button tuna. I ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey
... do rush into and do the thing, which being done, they are content, as being persuaded that now they are without doubt in a happy condition, because they have done such things, like unto the Pharisee, who, because he had done this and the other thing, said therefore, in a bragging way, "Lord, I thank thee that I am not as this publican"; for I have done thus and thus; when, alas! the Lord give him never a good word for his labour, but rather ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... incidental grimness, they strike me as in it. Also, kindly observe the Captain and Adar; I think that knocks spots. In short, as you see, I'm a trifle vainglorious. But O, it has been such a grind! The devil himself would allow a man to brag a little after such a crucifixion! And indeed I'm only bragging for a change before I return to the darned thing lying waiting for me on p. 88, where I last broke down. I break down at every paragraph, I may observe; and lie here and sweat, till I can get one sentence wrung out after another. Strange doom; after having worked so ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and the French fought a bloudy battle near Mons" (1709, "Malplaquet"), the Oxford honest men, like Colonel Henry Esmond, thought "there was not any the least reason of bragging." The young King of England, under the character of the Chevalier St. George, "shewed abundance of undaunted courage and resolution, led up his troups with unspeakable bravery, appeared in the utmost dangers, and at ...
— Oxford • Andrew Lang
... me if, to all future posterity coming after us, the word 'Macleod' don't shut up their jaws from bragging of British valour just about as tight as the death-squeeze of a boa-constrictor ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 23, 1841 • Various
... 'Oh, you 're bragging, Mr. nephew of an illustrious personage,' I said, going up to Asanov; 'you haven't any ...
— The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... support from the troops led by the king. Those two enormous masses of soldiers, beaten and demoralised, met on the road to Erfurt; it needed only the appearance of some French regiments to throw them into utter confusion. The rout was total, and was a just punishment for the bragging of the Prussian officers. The results of this victory were incalculable, and made us ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... Royal Highness of Chester, and I won't have any dealings with the likes of You!' If you had been a Princess of the blood you couldn't have put on more side, and so, of course, we judged your words by your actions, and thought you were bragging when you meant nothing of the sort. Now, just make up your mind, like a sensible girl, to forget your own importance, and don't always be on the lookout for insults to your dignity. Your dignity will look after itself ...
— Tom and Some Other Girls - A Public School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... kitchen and back-yard, all in their best clothes and in high spirits, were exhilarating, and with many whoops and much "hollering," we climbed the yard fence, and, disdaining a road, of course, set out down the hill across the field, taking long strides, each one bragging loudly of what ...
— The Long Hillside - A Christmas Hare-Hunt In Old Virginia - 1908 • Thomas Nelson Page
... death took him to the house of Hades, his sons divided his estate and cast lots for their shares, but to me they gave a holding and little else; nevertheless, my valour enabled me to marry into a rich family, for I was not given to bragging, or shirking on the field of battle. It is all over now; still, if you look at the straw you can see what the ear was, for I have had trouble enough and to spare. Mars and Minerva made me doughty in war; when I had picked my men to surprise the enemy with an ambuscade I never gave death ...
— The Odyssey • Homer
... Lowlands?" Opinion reserved. I like the action of the story, but I hate a hero who is always bragging about himself. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... prisoners insulting us, Master Fred—I mean captain. It's this ne'er-do-well of a brother o' mine bragging and bouncing because his hair's grown a bit longer than mine. He keeps calling me crop-ears, sir, and showing off as if he was ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn
... "I'll tell of a little conquest of my own. I use it because it is the first that comes to my mind, not that I'm given to bragging about my success in these matters. I suppose you've seen the opera at the ...
— Tales From Bohemia • Robert Neilson Stephens
... was the only person aboard who did any bragging as a result of it. She declared that now the United States had come to the rescue of the world, she had no fear of German raiders or Germans in any ...
— The Boy Allies with Uncle Sams Cruisers • Ensign Robert L. Drake
... World. In all that Alvar Nunez writes, he shows a grandeur of soul and spirit far different from the writings, not only of the conquerors of the New World, but of the conquerors of Africa of to-day. For him no bragging of his exploits.*1* All that he says he sets down modestly and with excuses (as every now and then, 'Me pesa hablar de mis trabajos'), and as befits a gentleman. Lastly, he leaves the reader (when describing his captivity in Florida), by telling ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham
... me, and my countrymen; camel he un'stand my language, he no like Englishman, Englishman, he no un'stand riding camel, he no un'stand loading camel, only my countryman he un'stand camel," etc., etc.; but with all his bragging about the camels going so long without water, when we had been only four days gone from Beltana, Saleh and Coogee had held a council and decided that I must be remonstrated with, in consequence of my utter ignorance, stupidity, and reckless treatment of the camels. Accordingly on the fourth ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... people at their own estimate," replied Maisie, whose downright nature much disliked Flossie's habit of bragging. ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... do it. I never spared myself. I dissected others, of course; but I dissected myself most, clear to the bone. I even took a sort of joy in it when it hurt most, for I felt it was my contribution and big. I'm not bragging now, mind. I'm merely telling you as it was. I've gone on doing this for ten years, I say. When I failed again I tried harder still. I still believed in myself—and others. Recognition, appreciation, might be delayed, but eventually it would come, it must; for this was my work,—to ...
— The Dominant Dollar • Will Lillibridge
... conceit of superiority in purity; they were baring themselves, as it were with a garment flung-off at each retort. He reproached them for undermineing their countrymen; whose Falstaff panics demanded blood of animals to restore them; and their periods of bragging, that they should brandify their wits to ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... He must have been strongly tempted to retort: "I wasn't whacked, so sucks!" and to describe that picturesque incident when he smashed the prefects' cane, for his milk was the praise of men. But he had to choose whether, by a little honourable bragging, he should gratify his desire for glory, or by a martyr's silence he should give himself the satisfaction of playing a fine hero. The latter was the stronger motive. He kept silence, and only hoped that his valorous deeds would ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... at her command. She called her suitor "Isidore:" this, however, she intimated was not his real name, but one by which it pleased her to baptize him —his own, she hinted, not being "very pretty." Once, when she had been bragging about the vehemence of "Isidore's" attachment, I asked if she loved him ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... thy boasting and bragging," said his housewife, "and thou shouldst not utter such stuff and silliness to any one than thyself. As for me, I will willingly give Kari meat and other good things, which I know will be useful to him; but on Bjorn's hardihood, ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous
... "No; I don't believe I have mastered the idea well enough to do any really sincere bragging as yet. However, if you ever beat us at anything except brag, then I'm going to try to copy your form in the ...
— The High School Boys' Canoe Club • H. Irving Hancock
... Parnassus. Recessional surprises one like a noble recantation of nearly all the other verse Mr. Kipling has written. But, apart from Recessional, most of his political verse is a mere quickstep of bragging and sneering. ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... to hear this story, say so," demanded Shadow. "These little boys got to bragging what each could do. Says one, 'I kin climb our apple tree clear to the top.' Says the other, 'Huh! I can climb to the roof of our house.' 'Hum,' says the first boy, 'I can climb to the roof of our house, an' it's higher'n ...
— Dave Porter in the Far North - or, The Pluck of an American Schoolboy • Edward Stratemeyer
... ancestors, which are handed down from father to son, and form the principal topic of conversation. So, too, the savage Ahts of Vancouver Island sit round their fires singing and chatting; "and the older men, we are told, lying and bragging after the manner of story-tellers, recount their feats in war, or the chase, to a listening group." Mr. Im Thurn has drawn an interesting picture of the habits at night of the Indian tribes of Guiana. The men, if ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... Gentiles, sometimes to one nation, and sometimes to another; and that our city hath been liable to several calamities, while their city [Alexandria] hath been of old time an imperial city, and not used to be in subjection to the Romans." But now this man had better leave off this bragging, for every body but himself would think that Apion said what he hath said against himself; for there are very few nations that have had the good fortune to continue many generations in the principality, but still the mutations in human affairs have put them ...
— Against Apion • Flavius Josephus
... Moses, you haven't said a word about your business yet, and I've been a bragging about my farm and ...
— The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair - Their Observations and Triumphs • Charles McCellan Stevens (AKA 'Quondam')
... like young men. I'll prove the prettier fellow of the two, And wear my dagger with the braver grace And speak, between the change of man and boy With a reed voice; and turn two mincing steps Into a manly stride; and speak of frays, Like a fine bragging youth; and tell quaint lies— How honorable ladies sought my love, Which I denying, they fell sick and died; I could not do withal: then I'll repent, And wish, for all that, that I had not killed them; And twenty of these ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... that pose; one doesn't know which is uppermost in it, sloth or strength! That's how I would cast you in bronze. You aimed a just reproach at my egoism and vanity! Yes! yes! it's useless talking of one's-self; it's useless bragging. We have no one yet, no men, look where you will. Everywhere—either small fry, nibblers, Hamlets on a small scale, self-absorbed, or darkness and subterranean chaos, or idle babblers and wooden sticks. Or else they are like this: they ...
— On the Eve • Ivan Turgenev
... Thomas More heard, he laughed, and made this Question to be put up for him to answer; Whether Averia capta in Withernamia sunt irreplegibilia? Adding, That there was an Englishman that would dispute thereof with him. This bragging Thraso, not so much as understanding the Terms of our Common Law, knew not what to answer to it, and so became ridiculous to the whole City ...
— The Lives of the Most Famous English Poets (1687) • William Winstanley
... her. He can often render her little services, help her over rough places, and make life as pleasant again for her. All this can be so managed that no one, save perhaps a lynx-eyed rival, will know anything about it. He will certainly not make her the talk of the office by bragging of his conquest, and laying wagers as to his chance of success, or get her into hot water by ...
— The Etiquette of Engagement and Marriage • G. R. M. Devereux
... pomp, and circumstance of war to the defence of their country in this her hour of danger and of need. As a child, I loved to see the colors of the holiday-soldiers flapping in the wind and flaunting in the sun on "muster-day." Nay, was not an uncle of mine (he is an old man now, and is fond of bragging of the brave days of old, when he was a gay and gallant sunshine-soldier) the standard-bearer of a once famous company of fair-weather soldiers?—dead now, most of them, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... is his—irrevocably his. To be his wife—oh rapture, heavenly bliss! Yet I must spurn his love. I will not bear All China's cold contempt; man's scoffing sneer. What glory would be mine could I but tame This bragging conqueror. Pronounce his name In high divan, and chase him from our city, Abashed and in despair. But yet, with pity My heart would surely break. Come, virgin pride And woman's art my shame and grief to ...
— Turandot: The Chinese Sphinx • Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
... been more pleased with a bright, beautiful, grown-up daughter than was Mr. Nathaniel. He was always bragging about her. And well he might,—for never was a better-dispositioned girl, or a livelier. She entered right into our country-life, was merry with the young folks and wise with the old ones. Aunt Chloe said she was good ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... ounce. He is, I'll go bail he is. Look at him! Guy heng, Grannie, did ye ever see the like, now! It's absolute perfection. Kitty, I couldn't have had a better one if I'd chiced it. Where's that Tom Hommy now? The bleating little billygoat, he was bragging outrageous about his new baby—saying he wouldn't part with it for two of the best cows in his cow-house. This'll floor him, I'm thinking. What's that you're saying, Mistress Nancy, ma'am? No good for nothing, am I? You were right, Grannie. 'It'll be all joy soon,' you ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... crowded around her. They admired her boldness in doing and in bearing pain when her arm was broken. They all went along with her with great respect to the doctor, and then they took her home in triumph and all of them were bragging about her ...
— Three Lives - Stories of The Good Anna, Melanctha and The Gentle Lena • Gertrude Stein
... of excellence, have already given knowledge of themselves to the world; and this alone ought to suffice them; I mean the fact that they have proved their manhood and achieved renown. Yet one must needs live like others; and so in a work like this there will always be found occasion for natural bragging, which is of divers kinds, and the first is that a man should let others know he draws his lineage from persons of worth and ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... Gorby to himself, as the door closed on his brother detective; "but he's bragging now. There isn't a link missing in the chain of evidence against Fitzgerald, so I defy him. ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume
... and see the store built. The stocking of it and the appointment of a storekeeper would be matter for further correspondence. Japp was delighted, for, besides getting rid of me for several weeks, it showed that his advice was respected by his superiors. He went about bragging that the firm could not get on without him, and was inclined to be more insolent to me than usual in his new self-esteem. He also got royally drunk over ...
— Prester John • John Buchan
... him. Johnny Fairfax had no interests in the city; he had no fear; his viewpoint was free from all sham; he was newly in from the outside. Through his eyes things fell into perspective. Suddenly San Francisco upper society became to Keith what it really was: a welter of cheap, bragging, venal, self-seeking men, with here and there an honest fine character standing high above. And he began, but dimly, to see that the real men of the place were not—as yet—well known. Probably one of the most impressive and typical figures of the time was Justice of the Supreme Court Terry. ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... to refund to the little boy: and proposed a bill of exchange at three months. It is true Duval's father does not pay the Doctor, and the lad never has a shilling, save that which he levies; and though he is always bragging about the splendor of Freenystown, Co. Cork, and the fox-hounds his father keeps, and the claret they drink there—there comes no remittance from Castle Freeny in these bad times to the honest Doctor; who is a kindly man enough, and never yet ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... answered: "What's the use Of this bragging up and down, When three women and one goose Make a market in your town!" Every Scald Satires scrawled On poor ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... this patronage, Offut went about the region bragging in his extravagant way that his clerk "knew more than any man in the United States," would some day be President, and could now throw or thrash any man in those parts. Now it so happened that some three miles out from New Salem lay Clary's Grove, the haunt of a gang of frontier ruffians ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse
... mother's brother, and a winsome young man he was as ye would have found between Tweed and Tyne; and 'Jonathan,' says he to me, 'when ye gang to drive hame the herd, I shall go wi' thee, for the sake of a bout with the bold, bragging Cunningham, of Simprin—for I will lay thee my sword 'gainst a tailor's bodkin, it ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... the arch was ready to receive the sugar vat in which two thousand ears of corn were to be steamed. Pliny Pickett was in charge, with Ulysses Watts, sheriff, and Coroner Bogle as assistants. They had fired up already, and were sitting blissfully by in the blistering heat, bragging about the sort of meal they were going to purvey, and speculating on whether the imported band would play enough, and how the ball games would come out, and naming over the folks who were expected to arrive ...
— Scattergood Baines • Clarence Budington Kelland
... of parchment does not make science. I don't fear the men of the schools. I study animals in the fields and the stable, without bragging. I haven't my equal for raising them, nor for knowing ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau
... three were together, Ferdy began, what he probably meant for banter, to laugh at Gordon for bragging about his plantation. ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... be bragging," was her puzzled afterthought. "Just like Jesus is not helping me one bit, for very fast I went and bought the brown shoes and stockings after I had prayed to stop being vain. And the teachers looked ...
— Big and Little Sisters • Theodora R. Jenness
... powerful class by terror, rhetoric, and organised sentimentality, may drive their people to war, but the day draws near when they cannot keep them there; and how shall they face the pure nations of the East when the day comes to do it with but equal arms? I had seen Ireland in my own time turn from the bragging rhetoric and gregarious humour of O'Connell's generation and school, and offer herself to the solitary and proud Parnell as to her anti-self, buskin following hard on sock; and I had begun to hope, or to half-hope, that we might be the first in Europe to seek unity as deliberately ...
— Four Years • William Butler Yeats
... thesis, but it made the Progressists very angry. What! they had not the People behind them! They were only exploiting, not representing the People! And while the Court organs chuckled over this flank attack on their bragging foes, the Liberal organs denounced Lassalle as the catspaw of reaction. The whilom "friends of the working-man," in their haste to overturn Lassalle's position, tumbled into their own pits. Schulze-Delitzsch himself, founder of co-operative working-men's societies, ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... conscience of the novelist in me imagines such an inference. But however this may be, there is certainly no question concerning the intention of a correspondent who once wrote to me after reading some rather bragging claims I had made for fiction as a mental and moral means. "I have very grave doubts," he said, "as to the whole list of magnificent things that you seem to think novels have done for the race, and can witness ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... was bragging of her exploit. She spoke in English for the pleasure it gave her to triumph ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner
... have been told that it did. It is a very delightful stage of civilization where people's shells are still soft, if they have shells at all. There is an accessibility, a breeziness and camaraderie about even the prominent men—the bulwarks of business and public life. We are accused of bragging and "boosting" in the West. I am afraid it is true. They are the least pleasant ...
— The Smiling Hill-Top - And Other California Sketches • Julia M. Sloane |
