"Brag" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... as I listened, I was dangerously near admiring him. He was certainly exaggerating; but it couldn't all be brag. The life of this spy of the first water, of international fame, must be rather marvelous; to defy one's enemies with success, to journey calmly through their capitals, to stroll undetected among ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... moment, unhurt, except for a knock on the eye against his gun, which he was carrying before him; and after a minute's rueful look he joined heartily in the shouts of laughter of his father and brother at his expense, "Ah, Charley, brag is a good dog, but holdfast is a better. I never saw a more literal proof of the saying. There, jump up again, and I need not say look out ...
— On the Pampas • G. A. Henty
... preterits are sometimes put by enallage for participles, a reference of them to this figure may afford a mode of explanation in parsing, whenever they are introduced by a preposition, and not by a nominative: as, "A kind of conquest Caesar made here; but made not here his brag Of, came, and saw, and overcame"—Shak., Cymb., iii, 1. That is,—"of having come, and seen, and overcome." Here, however, by assuming that a sentence is the object of the preposition, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... good example," said Dorg Seay. "Under a white foreman, I'll bet that's a good lot of darkies. They were just about the right shade—old shiny black. As good cowhands as ever I saw were nigs, but they need a white man to blow and brag on them. But it always ruins one to ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams
... region, buying land of those who wished to sell, and employing all those who desired to work. If he was impatient for the verification of these promises by Northwick, he was too polite to urge it; and did nothing worse than brag to him as he bragged about him. He probably had his own opinion of Northwick's reasons for the silence he maintained concerning himself in all respects; he knew from the tag fastened to the bag Northwick ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... commenced their old game of brag, by puffing their ticket as a national and conservative ticket, the very thing they denied. Now let us look into the soundness and nationality of the HEAD of the ticket. We have before us a copy of a work published in 1839, by Robert Mayo, M. D., entitled, "Political Sketches ...
— Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture; • William Gannaway Brownlow
... Look here now! Daly's dead. We can't bring him to life again, can we? If you shoot me, you'll be nothing to the good, and have every spare man in the three colonies at your heels. This is a game of brag, though the stakes are high. I'll play a card. Listen. You shall have a hundred fivers—500 Pounds in notes—by to-morrow at four o'clock, if you'll let Mrs. Knightley and the doctor ride to Bathurst for the money. ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... down, it struck me that, whatever his qualities might be, his personal appearance was against him. One of his fore legs was shaped like the handle of our punch-ladle, and the remaining three legs, about the fetlock, were slightly bunchy. Besides, he had no tail to brag of; and his back had a very hollow sweep from his high haunches to his low shoulder-blades. I was much pleased, however, with the fondness and pride manifested by his owner, as he held up, by both sides ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... love and such a welcome when at last they were brought back to Verde, where Pike was nursed back to strength and health, where Nellie was caressed as a heroine, and where little Ned was petted and well nigh spoiled as "the boy that shot an Indian"—and if he did brag about it occasionally, when he came east to school, who can blame him? But when they came they did not this time try ...
— Sunset Pass - or Running the Gauntlet Through Apache Land • Charles King
... thronged with persons flying to the country a day or two before the threatened event; and they were all unmercifully ridiculed when the day passed over quietly. Walpole in one of his amusing letters speaks of a party who went "to an inn ten miles out of town, where they are to play at brag till five in the morning, and then come back—I suppose, to look for the bones of their husbands and families under the rubbish!" Jokers who were out late amused themselves by bawling in the watchmen's ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... she'll brag of having been educated here, though Mount Morris doesn't set out to furnish teachers, but the training of young ladies. Mother likes it because there was no opportunity of making undesirable acquaintances," and Louie ...
— The Girls at Mount Morris • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... [Footnote: Deschartres: the tutor of George Sand's father.] had taught me And indeed I found the lucky shoe, where it had fallen in a dark corner and not been seen. Whisky alone was accused. My knees hurt me very much for a few days but, I did not brag of them; and ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... to be looked to: the woods beyond the blacksmith's shop that uster be; the fringe of alder and buckeye by the crossing below your house—p'ints where they kin fetch you without a show. Thar's two ways o' meetin' them thar. One way ez to pull up and trust to luck and brag. The other way is to whip up and yell, and send the whole six kiting by ...
— Jeff Briggs's Love Story • Bret Harte
... associated in the loving memory of play-goers his Bob Acres in Sheridan's "Rivals," thought by many to be his capital part—a personification where all the foibles of the would-be man-of-the-world: his self-conceit, his brag, his cowardice, are transformed into virtues and captivate our hearts, dissolved in the brimming humor which yet never overflows the just measure, ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... handsome French, one, and we will have the sum of twenty-one dollars,—enough to purchase as handsome a dressing-bureau as I would ask. So you see. Mr. Jones, that our cheap furniture is not going to turn out so cheap after all. And as for looks, why no one can say there is much to brag of." ...
— Trials and Confessions of a Housekeeper • T. S. Arthur
... "Several reasons. I couldn't brag much about licking anybody I outweigh by eighty-two pounds. I can't figure out your logic—if any—but I'm pretty sure now it wouldn't do either of us any good. Just ...
— The Galaxy Primes • Edward Elmer Smith
... found it extremely difficult to find out much about Merriwell, as he persistently avoided talking about himself. If he had been one of the kind of fellows who go around and brag about themselves and what they have done he would not have aroused so much interest; but the very fact that he would not talk of himself made the students curious to ...
— Frank Merriwell at Yale • Burt L. Standish
... don't belittle me ner mek light of me ternight. I kain't endure hit. Heven't ye got no idee how master much I loves ye? Don't ye see thet ther two of us war made fer each other? I don't aim ter brag none—but ye knows I'm ther only man hyar-abouts thet understands ye—thet ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... to one another that I am not small of stature; but when you come to Giant Town you will see greater folk still. So do not brag too much of your own powers, for the Giant folk will not put up with the boasting of such insignificant little fellows as ...
— Told by the Northmen: - Stories from the Eddas and Sagas • E. M. [Ethel Mary] Wilmot-Buxton
... the god of peace. It does satisfy the mothers of the land at whose hearth and fireside no jingoistic war has placed an empty chair. It does satisfy the daughters of the land from whom bluster and brag have sent no loving brother to the dissolution of the grave. It does satisfy the fathers of this land and the sons of this land who will fight for our flag, and die for our flag when Reason primes the rifle, when Honor draws ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... he said. "What an untidy chap he is with his togs, and how he gets them mixed! Don't want to brag; but I believe I could get anything out of my drawers with my eyes shut. Well, I suppose it was because of dad. He always used to say that a soldier's traps should be neatly packed together in the smallest space. Perhaps it's in the ...
— Glyn Severn's Schooldays • George Manville Fenn
... I brag about being busy, but I'm not the only busy person about this wickyup. Olie and Dinky-Dunk talk about summer-fallowing and double-discing and drag-harrowing and fire-guarding, and I'm beginning to understand what it all means. They are out with their teams all day long, working like ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... here at home, boys, in old Hoosierdom, Where strangers allus joke us when they come, And brag o' their old States and interprize— Yit settle here; and 'fore they realize, They're "hoosier" as the rest of us, and live Right here at home, boys, ...
— Green Fields and Running Brooks, and Other Poems • James Whitcomb Riley
... sir; those Greasers are worse than no guards at all. They'll sit there in the corral and smoke papellitos by the hour, and brag about how they fought their way through the Apaches with Harvey's mules; but for our purpose they're worse than useless. At the first sign of an attack they'd be stampeding out into the darkness, and that's ...
— Foes in Ambush • Charles King
... railings thereof to the leader running from the roof to the area, and swung myself therein some eighty feet above the concealed pavement of our backyard—so called, perhaps, because of its dimensions which were just about that square. It was a little improvement, though nothing to brag of. What fitful zephyrs there might be, caused no doubt by the rapid passage to and fro on the roof above and fence-tops below of vagrant felines on Cupid's contentious battles bent, to the disturbance of the still air, soughed softly through the meshes of my hammock ...
— R. Holmes & Co. • John Kendrick Bangs
... horror. "Oh me, oh my! Don't you think of that ever again, Miss Rosanna! If anything in the world happened to your hair, well, I don't want to think what your grandmother would do to me. Your hair is her pride and glory. It is the only thing I ever heard her brag about. 'You can tell Rosanna in a crowd as far as you can see her,' says she, 'by her hair; just that dark color full of streaks of gold like, and curls at that.' No, Miss Rosanna, you can learn to sew and cook and take care of yourself, ...
— The Girl Scouts at Home - or Rosanna's Beautiful Day • Katherine Keene Galt
... or mock gentry, seemed to consider it as the most indisputable privilege of a gentleman not to pay his debts. They were ever ready to meet civil law with military brag of war. Whenever a swaggering debtor of this species was pressed for payment, he began by protesting or confessing that 'he considered himself used in an ungentlemanlike manner;' and ended by offering to give, instead of the value of his bond or promise, ...
— Richard Lovell Edgeworth - A Selection From His Memoir • Richard Lovell Edgeworth
... made upon any occasion, no man durst bring before him anything that was profane or unclean. That kind of wit had never any countenance then. He was so great an example of conjugal affection, that they who did not imitate him in that particular, durst not brag of their liberty; and he did not only permit, but direct his bishops to prosecute those scandalous vices, in the ecclesiastical courts, against persons of eminence, and near relation to ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume III (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland I • Francis W. Halsey
... these our times that did behold This motion strange of this unwieldy plant Now boldly brag with us that are men old, That of our age they no advantage want, Though in our youth we ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe
... thee plain, it is a shame for thee, With such a sum to tempt necessity; No less than ten pounds, sir, will serve your turn, To carry in your purse about with ye, To crake and brag in taverns of your money: I promise ye, a man that goes abroad With an intent of truth, meeting such a booty, May be provoked to that he never meant. What makes so many pilferers and felons, But such ...
— Sir Thomas More • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... brag, amusing as it was to others, was continually getting him into scrapes. We had an old mate, Adam Stallman by name, who was proportionably as tall, grave, and silent, as Dicky was little, ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... interest. The worst that can be said of American scenery is that its best points are separated by long intervals; the best can hardly be put too strongly. Places like the Yosemite Valley (of which Mr. Emerson said that it was the only scenery he ever saw where "the reality came up to the brag"), the Yellowstone Park, Niagara, and the stupendous Canon of the Colorado River amply make good their worldwide reputation; but there are innumerable other places less known in Europe, such as the primeval woods and countless lakes of the Adirondacks, the softer beauties of the Berkshire ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... chase when he is weaponless, when he runs and kills his quarry with a club. Here we have the essence of the matter. The hunter is proudest of his achievement in which he has not had the help of deadly weapons. Unconsciously he will brag and glow over that conquest wherein lay greatest peril to him—when he had nothing but his naked hands. What a hot gush of blood bursts over him! He goes back to his barbarian state when a man only felt. The ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... and the agitation and commotion of her mind, made Phoebe almost more animated and brilliant than usual. Her eyes shone with the anxiety and excitement of the crisis, and a little, too, with the glory and delight of success; for though Clarence Copperhead was not very much to brag of in his own person, he still had been the object before her for some time back, and she had got him. And yet Phoebe was not mercenary, though she was not "in love" with her heavy lover in the ordinary sense of the word. She went towards him now, and stood near him, looking at him with a ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... 'Tis equally the same to see me plunge Headlong into the Seine, all over armed, And plow against the torrent to my point, As 'twas to hear my judgment on the Germans, This to another man would be a brag; Or at the court among my enemies, To be, as I am here, quite off my guard, Would make me such another thing as Grillon, A blunt, hot, honest, downright, ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... face flamed. "Oh, you hound!" she hissed, "you hound!" and then she laughed softly, hysterically. "That is the gentleman for you! The seed of kings, no less! What a brag it was! That is the gentleman for you!—to put the blame on me. No, Sim; no, Sim; I will not betray you to Miss Mim-mou', you need not be feared of that; I'll let her find you out for herself and then it will be too late. And, oh! I hate her! hate ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... injuries to his pride. They were delighted at his favor with the Prince. Poor Louisa could conceive of nothing finer for her son than these evenings at the Palace in splendid society. As for Melchior, he used to brag of it continually to his boon-fellows. But Jean-Christophe's grandfather was happier than any. He pretended to be independent and democratic, and to despise greatness, but he had a simple admiration for money, power, honors, social distinction, and he took unbounded pride ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... fit my dolly's jacket!" cried Susie, dancing around and hugging it in glee. "It will, mamma! A real live baby! Now Tilde needn't brag of theirs. We will take it home, won't ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... hidden conviction, expressed privately in clubs and by women over their knitting, that the French soldiers were poor fellows as fighting men, filled with sentimentality, full of brag, with fine words on their lips, but with no strength of courage or endurance. British soldiers coming back wounded from the first battles and a three weeks' rearguard action, spread abroad the tale that "those French fellows were utterly useless and had run like rabbits before the German advance." ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... seem to brag, Carrie, but you saw the coat that just walked out on Mrs. Gronauer? My little mother she was a humpback, Carrie, not a real one, but all stooped from the heavy years when she was helping my father to get his start. Well, anyway, that little stooped back was one of the reasons why ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... truly, Miss EMMY; but that's only jest by the way, 'ARRY ain't one to brag of bong four tunes; but wot I wos wanting to say Is about this here "spiling the River" which snarlers set down to our sort. Bosh! CHARLIE, extreme Tommy rot! It's these sniffers as want to ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 15, 1891 • Various
... untiringly the fallibilities in various popes and everybody else. When Cellini goes out and kills a man before breakfast, he absolves himself by showing that the man richly deserved his fate. The braggart and bully are really cowards at the last. A man who is wholly brave would not think to brag of it. He would be as brave in his calm moments as in moments of frenzy—take old John Brown, for instance. But when Cellini had a job on hand he first worked himself into a torrent of righteous wrath. He poses as the injured one, the victim of double, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... to Smelter's ice-houses in three express wagons at four o'clock in the morning. It ain't goin' to cost over two dollars a head, whiskey and all. Then, Dan Kelly is fixed, and the Loo boys. Mike, I don't like to brag, and I ain't around throwin' no bokays at myself as a reg'lar thing, but I want to say right, here, there ain't another man in this city—no, nor the State neither—that could of worked his precinck better'n I have this. I tell you, I'm within five or ...
— In the Arena - Stories of Political Life • Booth Tarkington
... Well, you see, I've been away from Boston so long, and am back so short a time, that I can't realize your luxuries and conveniences. In Florence we ALWAYS walk up. They have ascenseurs in a few great hotels, and they brag of it in immense signs on the ...
— The Elevator • William D. Howells
... own reward, let me without brag or boasting be allowed to state, that in my own case, it did not disappoint my exertions. I had sat down a tenant, and I was now not only the landlord of my own house and shop, but of all the back tenements to the head ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir
... a blade where lay his heart's love, And voice for thee have I left him none, To brag he still seeks thee over the hills When thou ...
— Along the Shore • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... top with the United States Senate or at the bottom with the poor masses in the slums. Down at the bottom I would be more at home, for I know full well what it is to be bleached by the blues of adversity. In saving the masses though, by a direct appeal, I did not think I could do much to brag about down here, for they don't understand more than half you say to them in English and their suspicion sours the half they take in before they make any use of it. This would have made it extra hard for me, because advice was all I had to use in saving the country. Up in the United States Senate ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... the devil do I care about his opinions? let him preach and stick to his controversy with Father Tom—from whom he hadn't so much to brag of—but as for you, Fergus, you are, to spake plainly, a thorough ass. What d—d stuff you have been letting out of you! Go and find, if you can, some purer world for yourself to live in, for, let me ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... mind that's a sewer; Well, 'e knows what it is, for I'll lay 'e's bin there. And you'd make a 'orse into cat'smeat on skewer. My eye, but just ain't you a nice-spoken pair! I ain't goin' to foller you two like a shadder, Your 'eads is a darned sight too swelled up with brag. If you don't want to bust and go pop like a bladder, Why you'd best take my tip—put 'em ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, May 14, 1892 • Various
... help noticing the blank alarm which this announcement caused among the youth with whom he had been playing the ancient game of brag. ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... for him up Fort Sumner way," he told his fellow-wolves, nor did he take the trouble to lower his voice because he saw several cow-boys from neighboring outfits among his auditors. It was a tradition among those who lived by the forty-five thus to brag and then—make good. And it was a firmly established habit in Lincoln County to mind your own business; so the project, while it became generally ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt
... not help liking the man although his manners were hardly to his taste. Braund did not brag, but it was easy to see that he considered money a passport to any society. He was good-looking although his features were somewhat coarse, and his abrupt manner of speaking might have offended ...
— The Rider in Khaki - A Novel • Nat Gould
... and come over here this morning, the rascally police with their search-warrant might have been down upon Mr. Kearney without a warning. They were all stiff and cold enough at first: they are nothing to brag of in the way of cordiality even yet—Dick especially—but they have asked me to stay and dine, and, I take it, it is the right thing to do. Send me over some things to dress with—and believe ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... address, a very gruff hoarse voice bade Mr Groves 'hold his noise and light a candle.' And the same voice remarked that the same gentleman 'needn't waste his breath in brag, for most people knew pretty well what sort of stuff he ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... will work," Rick explained. He hated to brag about an idea and then have it turn out to be a dud. Consequently, he seldom mentioned that he was working on anything until he knew it would ...
— Smugglers' Reef • John Blaine
... parades and its flags and its sham enthusiasms. I am bored by London and its life, by its smart life and by its servile life alike. I am bored by theatres and by books and by every sort of thing that people call pleasure. I am bored by the brag of people and the claims of people and the feelings of people. Damn people! I am bored by profiteers and by the snatching they call business enterprise. Damn every business man! I am bored by politics and the universal mismanagement of everything. I am bored by ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells
... George, like a man who had come through it himself. I've been there, and I know how it is. When I first struck New York I hadn't even a ragged dollar bill to my back. Of course every successful man will tell you the same of himself, but it is mostly brag, and in half the instances it isn't true at all; but in my case—well, I wasn't subscribing to the heathen in those days. I made up my mind that poverty didn't pay, and I have succeeded in remedying the state of affairs. But I haven't forgotten how it felt to be hard up, and I sympathise ...
— One Day's Courtship - The Heralds Of Fame • Robert Barr
... information upon all matters of the universe; above all, the instinct of finding the shortest way to any scene of official interest to the policeman, fireman, or ambulance surgeon,—a singular being, not professionally criminal; tough histrionically rather than really; full of its own argot of brag; hysterical when crossed, timid through great ignorance, and therefore dangerous. It furnishes not the leaders but the mass of mobs; and it springs up at times of crisis from Heaven knows where. You might have driven through all the streets of Canaan, ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... man. His extraordinary likeness to his master attracted her, for she was a hearty worshipper of Napoleon. She talked of Paris, the Empress, the Court; she talked of her son and his campaigns, asking the General's opinion and advice, but cleverly leading him off when he began to brag of his own doings; so cleverly that he had no idea of her tactics. He was a little dazzled. She was a very handsome woman; her commanding fairness, her wonderful smile, the movements of her lovely hands and arms, the almost confidential charm of her manner; ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... company care to have a man reeling drunk among them? Or to see another tearing his hair, and blaspheming, for having lost, at play, more than he is able to pay? Or a whoremaster with half a nose, and crippled by coarse and infamous debauchery? No; those who practice, and much more those who brag of them, make no part of good company; and are most unwillingly, if ever, admitted into it. A real man of fashion and pleasures observes decency: at least neither borrows nor affects vices: and if he unfortunately has any, he gratifies them with choice, ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... all names can tickle the town, Anacreon, Tom Little, Tom Moore, or Tom Brown, [1]— For hang me if I know of which you may most brag, Your Quarto two-pounds, or your ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... buying the boat," he said, "but that's hopeless. The more we paid for it the louder the owner would brag. The Germans would be 'on' in a minute. We've simply got to steal it. It's up to you to find out the man's proper name and address, and we'll send him the money from the first ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... I told them, too, that if some of those people who made so much noise didn't look out, they would get turned off the place, just as Venus and her gang got turned off last year. The fact is, they are trying to play brag, as such people often will; but they will all go to work in a few ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various
... like all egomaniacs before him. He wants to brag. We get into a Subterro Jetjeep and drive about twenty miles through the underground countryside to the entrance to a cave guarded by some extra tall Subterrors. Hitler the Third leads us into the spelunker's nightmare and we finally ...
— Operation Earthworm • Joe Archibald
... be truer to say that NEARLY everybody can. And the London market is so glutted with new Americans that, to succeed there now, they must be either very clever or awfully queer. The Brys are neither. HE would get on well enough if she'd let him alone; they like his slang and his brag and his blunders. But Louisa spoils it all by trying to repress him and put herself forward. If she'd be natural herself—fat and vulgar and bouncing—it would be all right; but as soon as she meets anybody smart she tries to be slender and queenly. ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... don't know much 'bout painters, either, youngster. Brag's a good dog, but Holdfast's a better ...
— The Young Trail Hunters • Samuel Woodworth Cozzens
... your master, who is? Am I in the habit of keeping any of my harmless fellow-creatures at a distance? I despise the cant of modern Liberalism; but it's not the less true that I have, all my life, protested against the inhuman separation of classes in England. We are, in that respect, brag as we may of our national virtue, the most unchristian people in ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... advice has not the effect I had hoped it would have. Lucy, Nancy, are perpetually calling upon me to tell them something of Sir Charles Grandison; and when I begin, I know not how to leave off. My uncle rallies me, laughs at me, sometimes reminds me of what he calls my former brags. I did not brag, my dear: I only hoped, that respecting as I did every man according to his merit, I should never be greatly taken with any one, before duty added force to the inclination. Methinks the company of the friends I am with, does not satisfy ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson
... without any reference to those conventional aids which civilization has the folly to think necessary to the performance of that agreeable duty, was any criterion, I certainly fancied that I had a right to brag of having taken a full view of that most piquant specimen of the brute creation, the California "elephant." But it seems that I was mistaken, and that we miners have been dwelling in perfect palaces, surrounded by furniture of ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... of the diplomats here is intrinsically hostile to the Union. Not one really wishes its disruption. Some brag so, but that is for small effect. All of them are for peace, for statu quo, for the grandeur of the country (as the greatest consumer of European imports); but most of them would wish slavery to be preserved, and for this reason they would have been glad to greet Breckinridge ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski
... Hannah Straight Tree, "hear her brag because she has a white memory! If the teacher praised me, I should ...
— Big and Little Sisters • Theodora R. Jenness
... "Phew!" And a long, low whistle blew. "Come, now, really that's the oddest Talk for one so very modest. You brag of your East! YOU do? Why, I bring the East to YOU! All the Orient, all Cathay, Find through me the shortest way; And the sun you follow here Rises in my hemisphere. Really,—if one must be rude,— ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... now is that wealthy Americans as a class feel no genuine interest in art or literature. They do not form a true aristocracy, but a plutocracy, and are for the most part very poorly educated. It was formerly the brag of the Winthrops and Otises that they could go through college and learn their lessons in the recitation-room. Now they go to row, and play foot-ball, and after they graduate, they leave the best portion of their lives behind them. Then if they have a talent for business they become absorbed ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... thee not see the error of thy ways, Angus MacLean? If it should be given me to pluck thee as a brand from the burning! Thee will not again brag of war and revenge, nor sing vain and ruthless songs, nor use dice or cards, nor ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... weighty and crushing and so completely out of the French mode of fighting that the Slasher was mentally as well as bodily stunned by them and gave up, muttering, "I'm floored. Except the Skeleton with his iron bones and the Schoolmaster, no one till now could brag of having set his ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... the temerity to get off that old nonsensical remark? Poverty is everything to be ashamed of. Did you ever see a person not ashamed of his poverty? Certainly not. Of course, when a man gets very rich he will brag so loudly of the poverty of his youth that one would never suppose that he was once ashamed of ...
— The Third Violet • Stephen Crane
... accord—said she jest couldn't git back to sleep. She loves children, Mr. Mostyn, an' she seems to think as much o' Robby as if he was her own. I ketched 'er cryin' last night when she was settin' waitin' in the dark for 'im to git to sleep. La, la, folks brag powerful on Miss Dolly, but they don't know half o' the good she does on the quiet. She tries to keep 'em from findin' out what she does. I know I'm grateful to 'er. If the Lord don't give me a chance to repay 'er for her kindness ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... wanted her when she was here at hame and safe and sensible, the Morrison o' the Morrisons had only to reach his hand to her and say, 'Coom, lass!' But noo that she is back wi' head high and notions alaft, he'd no accept her! She's nowt but a draft signed by Sham o' Shoddy and sent through the Bank o' Brag and Blaw! No! He'd no' accept her! And now back wi' ye to yer tickety-tack! I hae my orders, and the Queen o' Sheba might yammer ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... one of the motives that stimulates them;—the eclat of having made the largest crop with a given number of hands, is also a powerful stimulant; the southern newspapers, at the crop season, chronicle carefully the "cotton brag," and the "crack cotton picking," and "unparalleled driving," &c. Even the editors of professedly religious papers, cheer on the melee and sing the triumphs of the victor. Among these we recollect the celebrated Rev. J.N. Maffit, recently editor of a religious paper ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... cut in, "you must all remember that our Caius not only never boasts but is absurdly reticent about anything he has done of such a kind that most men would brag of it. Towards his chums and cronies he is open-hearted and as unreserved as a friend could be about everything else, but especially close with them about such matters. So I know nothing of his powers concerning ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... off now for the jolliest time out!" cried Job as he vaulted into the saddle one June day, bound for the Yosemite Valley, that wonderful spot of which Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote on the old hotel register: "The only place I ever saw that came up to the brag." ...
— The Transformation of Job - A Tale of the High Sierras • Frederick Vining Fisher
... "I can understand their feeling a bit sore about it. I'm not exactly given to brag when I'm away from my own country—one hears too much of that all the time—but between you and me, I shouldn't say that it was possible for two crimes like that to be committed in New York City and for the murderer to get off ...
— The Illustrious Prince • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... 'ad laid one," he replied. "And it began to brag so much about it that I couldn't stand it, so I took the egg, and it looked so lonely all by itself in my 'and that I took the others ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill
... 'fore I married. Us didn't have no weddin'; jus' got married. My old 'oman had on a calico dress—I disremembers what color. She looked good to me though. Us had 16 chilluns in all; four died. I got 22 grandchillun and one great grandchild. None of 'em has jobs to brag 'bout; one of 'em ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... one chance in a million of our escaping," said Beany, "and he wanted us to have a lot of inside dope to tell our people. Of course it was all brag, almost every bit of it. We could see one thing. Those fellows were all sore. They didn't know what at, but they were sore just the same. Our ...
— The Boy Scouts on a Submarine • Captain John Blaine
... O, rather say One went to brag, the other to pray; One stands up close and treads on high, Where the other dares not lend his eye; One nearer to God's altar trod, The ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... surprised, for he had all along believed that a fellow who could lift his hand to strike a small girl must be a coward at heart, no matter how much he might bluster and brag. ...
— The Saddle Boys of the Rockies - Lost on Thunder Mountain • James Carson
... father] in a fondling voice calls one of the Vari; and another, who is club-footed, he calls a Scaurus. [Thus, does] this friend of yours live more sparingly than ordinarily? Let him be styled a man of frugality. Is another impertinent, and apt to brag a little? He requires to be reckoned entertaining to his friends. But [another] is too rude, and takes greater liberties than are fitting. Let him be esteemed a man of sincerity and bravery. Is he too fiery, let him be numbered among persons of spirit. This ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... terms, nauseated him. The advertisements of "Psychics," "World-famous Mediums," "Palmists," "Horologists," and only the devil himself knows what else, filled him with disgust, added to his already poor opinion of sick humanity. Of these Viola now formed a part—as an actress shares the envy, the brag, the selfish, blatant struggle for success which is reflected in the advertising columns of dramatic journals. He ran down each column of "display ads" of The World of Spirit, timorously, almost expecting to see a notice of "the marvellous ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... empire in this Northland. If I let my work be cluttered up by all the little rules made by little men for other little ones, my plans would come to a standstill. I am a practical man, but I keep sight of the vision. No need for me to brag. What I have done speaks for me as a guidepost to what I mean ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine
... sure, almost careless, touch abashed her, and the occasional fragments of autobiography which he let fall, showed her that she was a limited and ignorant recluse compared to this boy of twenty-five. In matters of money and achievement she might brag, but in matters of love she was strangely subservient to him, because in such matters he had everything ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... affectedly, like "humour," in many senses, often very vaguely and freely ridiculed by Jonson; humour, disposition, whims, brag(ging), hector(ing), etc. ...
— Volpone; Or, The Fox • Ben Jonson
... gout, Madam, that ungallant disorder, and had I a mind to brag, I could boast of a little rheumatism too; but I scorn to set value on such trifles, and since your ladyship does me the honour to bespeak my company, I will come if 'twere in my coffin and pain. May I hope your ladyship will favour us at Maria's nuptials? Sure the Graces were ever attended ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... from headquarters that this party must be used up, except such as are too young to tell tales. We got to do it. They been acting terrible mean ever since we wouldn't sell them anything. If we let them go on now, they been making their brag that they'll raise a force in California and come back and wipe us out—and Johnston's army already marching on us from the east. Are we going to submit again to what we got in Missouri and in Illinois? ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... Raven's Nest, makes Mr. Aristobulus Brag use the provincialism "I swanny;" "by which," observes the author, "I suppose he meant—I swear!" Of course, this has nothing to do with swearing by swans, more than sounding like it; argument of sound being very different from sound argument. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 63, January 11, 1851 • Various
... last men in the world to brag was Lieutenant Carroway. Nothing but the great thirst of this morning, and strong necessity of quenching it, could ever have led him to speak about himself, and remember his own little exploits. But the farmer was pleased, and said, "Tell ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... brag away. Everything over there is ten times bigger and better than here—the apples are the size of pumpkins, and the brooks are so wide you can't see across them, and it takes you years to ride round a single farm! We know! You needn't ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... ourselves, and fall the worst of us! And whether (which) of us that goeth aback, and this fight will forsake, be he in each land proclaimed for a recreant! Then may men sing of one such king, that his brag (or threat) hath made, and ...
— Brut • Layamon
... signed "Henry Thomas, James & Sons," the District Contract Agent's vague reply on the file before me commences: "Sir (or Madam);" and I feel now, as I did then, that it is not in the best of taste for him to brag as he does about his telephone and his "Private Branch Exchange" on the very paper on which he writes ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, February 25th, 1920 • Various
... 'twill chafe my ghost in Hades' realm, where heroes shine, Should I hear the shepherd boasting To his Argive concubine? Let him boast, the girlish victor, Let him brag; not thus, I trow, Were the laurels torn from Hector, ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... would bite like fun on a morning like this. There were plenty of big worms, too, in the old watering-pot, tough as worms should be after a good scouring in a heap of wet moss. Just another five minutes and he'd get up, and when he met Adela at breakfast he could brag about what a good one he was at early rising, and show her all the beautiful ...
— In the King's Name - The Cruise of the "Kestrel" • George Manville Fenn
... to brag of as against the manual worker. He, too, is only moderately efficient in doing his particular job. There are brilliant exceptions—bookkeepers who add columns of figures with great speed and precision, ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... leave here to-morrow, but don't say that he will go straight to the city. I would send this by him if he did. I am afraid he will loiter about and be taken—do make them go on fast—he has left. I could not hear much he said—some who did don't like him at all—think him an impostor—a great brag—said he was a dentist ten years. He was asked where he came from, but would not tell till he looked at the letter that lay on the table and that he had just brought back. I don't feel much confidence in him—don't believe ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... save his noble grace And grant him a place Endlesse to dwell, With the deuyll of hell, For and he were there We nede neuer feere, Of the fendys blake; For I vndertake He wolde so brag and crake, That he wolde then make The deuyls to quake, To shudder and ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... Jurand again and commenced to brag before him, praising the upright conduct of Danveld, and the impression it made upon the members of ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... idiomatic and graphic, adding: "In his frenzy, in the fire of his inspiration, are fused and poured out together elements hitherto considered antagonistic in poetry—passion, arrogance, animality, philosophy, brag, humility, rowdyism, spirituality, laughter, tears, together with the most ardent and tender love, the most comprehensive human sympathy which ever radiated its divine glow ...
— Walt Whitman Yesterday and Today • Henry Eduard Legler
... literary event of any magnitude in Jerrold's life was his assuming the editorship of "Lloyd's Newspaper." This journal, which before his connection with it had no position to brag of, rose under his hands to great circulation and celebrity. Every week, there you traced his hand at its old work of embroidering with queer and fanciful sarcasm some bit of what he thought timely and necessary ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... replied quite good-temperedly, "only no one cares to brag about their relations unless they want to be called a snob or a bore. It wouldn't do, you see, for a man to go about declaring that he had an uncle who was miles ahead of everybody else's uncle, or an aunt who could give a start to any other aunt in ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... said, with his shrewd smile, "never brag of catching a fish until he is on dry ground. I've seen older folks doing that in more ways than one, and so making fools of themselves. It's no use to boast of anything until it's done, nor then, either, for it ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... of brag, bluster, or bluff. It is a test of our sincerity. It requires solid and silent self-sacrifice. It challenges our honesty and our capacity for national work. It is a movement that aims at translating ideas into action. And the more we do, the more we find that much more must be done than ...
— Freedom's Battle - Being a Comprehensive Collection of Writings and Speeches on the Present Situation • Mahatma Gandhi
... instructions. Dick and Bob readily took them in hand, and, although the boys were awkward at first, they improved rapidly. They soon learned to throw the lasso with considerable skill, and Frank speedily took the lead in rifle-shooting, while Archie began to brag of his horsemanship. The former could bring a squirrel out of the top of the highest oak on the farm, at every shot; and his cousin could bend down from his saddle and pick up his sombrero from the ground, while his horse was going at the top of ...
— Frank Among The Rancheros • Harry Castlemon
... wished I might tell you all about my Clyde, but have not because of two things. One is I could not even begin without telling you what a good man he is, and I didn't want you to think I could do nothing but brag. The other reason is the haste I married in. I am ashamed of that. I am afraid you will think me a Becky Sharp of a person. But although I married in haste, I have no cause to repent. That is very fortunate ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... To brag or hector; also to tell an improbable story. To bully a man out of any thing. The kiddey bounced the swell of the blowen; the lad bullied the ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... when the storm had somewhat abated. "I know that sort of talk as well as my old shoe. Haven't I listened to it for hours? For goodness' sake, quit it. It doesn't wash. Let us come to the point at once without all this idiotic brag and gassing. You wrote me a letter shouting danger and ruin. What did it mean? Anything real, or merely a melodramatic blowing off of steam? Tell me. Let us have it out and have finished with it. What ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... praises, I think all true patriots ought to unite in redeeming the land from the imputation that such books are regarded as casting honor upon the section. God forbid we should really be brought so low as that we must perforce brag of such works; and God be merciful to that man (he is an Atlanta editor) who boasted that sixteen thousand of these books had been sold in the South! This last damning fact ought to have been concealed ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims
... around like a lot of burros—and gettin' nowhere. But Jim Waring's out after that bunch that got Pat. If I wasn't so hefty, I'd 'a' gone with him. I tell you the man that got Pat ain't goin' to live long to brag on it." ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert
... idea the fame of the professor had penetrated beyond the precincts of the university—if a university has precincts. He told me it had all the modern improvements, but I suspected at the time that was merely Renny's brag." ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... handles, including his neighbours' nerves; he has no mercy or pity or consideration for anyone serving him, and yet he's the kindest heart towards children and animals, and the good he does to them is about the only thing he don't brag about." ...
— Elizabeth Visits America • Elinor Glyn
... will drynke us so dry And sucke us so nye That men shall scantly Haue penny or halpennye God saue hys noble grace And graunt him a place Endlesse to dwel With the deuill of hel For and he were there We nead neuer feare Of the feendes blacke For I undertake He wold so brag and crake That he wold than make The deuils to quake To shudder and to shake Lyke a fier drake And with a cole rake Bruse them on a brake And binde them to a stake And set hel on fyre At his own desire He is such a grym ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... know where you are:—nay, 'tis true: there was never anything so sudden but the fight of two rams and Caesar's thrasonical brag of "I came, saw, and overcame:" for your brother and my sister no sooner met, but they looked; no sooner looked, but they loved; no sooner loved, but they sighed; no sooner sighed, but they asked one another the reason; no sooner knew the reason, but they sought the remedy: and in these degrees have ...
— As You Like It • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... thought that old Whitetail was afraid of him. The more he thought about it, the more tickled he felt and the more puffed up he felt. He began to talk to himself and to brag. Yes, Sir, Johnny Chuck began ...
— The Adventures of Johnny Chuck • Thornton W. Burgess
... smart youth who brag about having obtained kirsch for their tilleul, or rum in their tea, but such myths ...
— With Those Who Wait • Frances Wilson Huard
... I haven't the polish that those Eastern fellows put on, or that is put on them, but out here in the mountains I amount to somebody—you must let me brag a little, Sylvia—and if a man doesn't bow pretty low to Mrs. William Plummer, I'll have to get out my old six-shooter—I haven't carried one now for ten years—and shoot all the hair off the ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... spiritual, will ever bring the greatest people in the world, the people of the Kentucky mountains, into their just inheritance! You see how completely identified I am again when I indulge in Kentucky brag,—which is not so different after all from the brag of other sections, and I promise not to let this grow upon me either, for work and not brag is before me, as you know. I want you to see, however, that I continue to feel the mountaineer ...
— The Boy from Hollow Hut - A Story of the Kentucky Mountains • Isla May Mullins
... philosopher a temperament which must have commended itself to Mr Arnold almost as strongly as his literary quality, and very closely indeed connected with that—the temperament of equity, of epieikeia, of freedom from swagger and brag and self-assertion. And here, once more, the things receive precisely their right treatment, the treatment proportioned and adjusted at once to their own value and nature and to the use which their critic is intending to make of them. For it is one of the greatest literary excellences ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... characteristic of his attitude to Crashaw, and the rector suppled his back again, remembered the Derby office-boy's tendency to brag, and made the amende honorable. He even overdid his magnanimity and came too near subservience—so lasting is the influence ...
— The Wonder • J. D. Beresford
... employment he had was performed ill, at best unpleasantly. 'Great practical method and expertness' he may brag of; but is there not also great practical pride, though deep-hidden, only the deeper-seated? So shy a man can never have been popular. We figure to ourselves, how in those days he may have played strange freaks with his independence, and so forth: do not his own words betoken ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... upon, and five hundred knights own him lord." "I will encounter him," said Sir Gareth; "for if he be good knight and true as ye say, he will scarce set on me with all his following; and man to man, I fear him not." "Fie!" said the damsel, "for a dirty knave, ye brag loud. And even if ye overcome him, his might is as nothing to that of the Red Knight who besieges my lady sister. So get ye gone while ye may." "Damsel," said Sir Gareth, "ye are but ungentle so to rebuke me; for, knight or knave, I have done you good service, nor will I leave ...
— Stories from Le Morte D'Arthur and the Mabinogion • Beatrice Clay
... heard your lions and camels make speeches, instead of grace before and after dinner. I have heard songs, too, or something like 'em; but the porters have had all the burden, who were kept sober at the City charge two days before, to keep time and tune with their feet; for, brag what you will of your charge, all your pomp lies upon their back." In "Honoria and Memoria," 1652, Shirley has again repeated this humorous and graphic description of the land and water pageants of the good citizens of the day; he has, however, abridged the general detail, and added some degree ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury |
