"Brag" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... chap your pretty little hands in soap-suds! Pooh! don't a soldier on a campaign always wash his own linen? Clumsy as you see me, I was the best washerwoman in my squadron—and what a hand at ironing! Not to make a brag of it." ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... too, that, long before the waste lands are full, the very street-constable, on these poor terms, will have become impossible: without the waste lands, as here in our Europe, I do not see how he could continue possible many weeks. Cease to brag to me of America, and its model institutions and constitutions. To men in their sleep there is nothing granted in this world: nothing, or as good as nothing, to men that sit idly caucusing and ballot-boxing on the graves of their heroic ancestors, saying, "It is well, ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle
... 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 ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... indeed, four silver hanaps of his own, which had been left him by his grandmother, of happy memory, but no more like the beautiful carving of that in his guest's hand, than a peach was like a turnip—that was one of the famous cups of Tours, wrought by Martin Dominique, an artist who might brag ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... manner the learned Pilot discoursed to his pupil, being only too glad to have an excuse for showing off his superior knowledge; and Sammy drank it all in, having in mind the time when he should return to his far-away home and brag of his adventures to the ...
— How Sammy Went to Coral-Land • Emily Paret Atwater
... miles, I should say, Elmer, and it takes that boy Johnny a day and a night to get to our place with his load, all down-grade, too. You remember that Hen Condit never was anything to brag of in the line ...
— Afloat - or, Adventures on Watery Trails • Alan Douglas
... quick saying with the Spaniards, Artes inter haeredes non dividi. {25b} Yet these have inherited their fathers' lying, and they brag of it. He is a narrow-minded man that affects a triumph in any glorious study; but to triumph in a lie, and a lie themselves have forged, is frontless. Folly often goes beyond her bounds; ...
— Discoveries and Some Poems • Ben Jonson
... as astonishing as if my butcher were to brag about Kirke White. My doctor might retort with Keats; and my scrivener—if I had one—might knock them both down with the name of Milton. It would be a pretty set-to; but I cannot see that it would affect the relative merits of mutton and laudanum and the obscure products of scrivenage. Nor, ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... you like," he said, with a laugh. "I'm not much to look at. And, Jane, neither you nor Lassiter, can brag. You're paler than I ever saw you. Lassiter, here, he wears a bloody bandage under his hat. That reminds me. Some one took a flying shot at me down in the sage. It made Wrangle run some.... Well, perhaps you've more to tell me than I've got ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey
... falshood, or according to the Poets Language, which proceed from the Horny or Ivory Port, will be sentenced according to the Humour and Interest of several Parties who in spite of our Teeth will be our judges. Where I have been satyrical, 'tis without Malice or Revenge; and though I brag not of my Talent therein, I could have said much worse, of some Enemies to our Jewish Heroe. He that will lash others, ought not to be angry if the like be returned to himself: Lex talionis is a general and natural Law. I call not this an Answer to Absalom, ...
— Anti-Achitophel (1682) - Three Verse Replies to Absalom and Achitophel by John Dryden • Elkanah Settle et al.
... brag about this some day," he told Coburn uneasily. "But right now I'm scared to death. What do you ...
— The Invaders • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... brag about myself," he went on. "I don't fancy myself—in that way. I'm not specially proud of doing things—it's the things themselves that I care for. If some men had made a great fortune, they would be conceited about it. ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... "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
... "All right, Uncle Sam, 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 tell ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... said the old schoolmaster. 'I had no right to brag of my Greek to the gentleman, and he has ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... sir, did you ever hear of Nantucket? It is a port in the United States; and our harpooner happened to be there full four years after we lost this whale. Some Yankee whalers were treating him to the best of grog, and it was brag Briton, brag Yankee, according to custom whenever these two met. Well, our man had no more invention than a stone; so he was getting the worst of it till he bethought him of this whale; so he up and told how he had struck a right whale in the Pacific, and she had ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... a thing never done before, to make a hammer of that weight make 300 blows per minute; and, in fact, it is more a matter to brag of than for any other use, as the rate wanted is from 90 to 100 blows, being as quick as the workmen can manage the iron ...
— James Watt • Andrew Carnegie
... a 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 ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams
... because it has kept thee from a belief of thy need of repentance, and because it has emboldened thee to thrust thyself audaciously into the presence of God, and made thee even before his holy eyes, which are so pure, that they cannot look on iniquity (Hab. i. 13), to vaunt, boast, and brag of thyself; and of thy tottering, ragged, stinking uncleanness; for all our righteousnesses are as menstruous rags, because they flow from a thing, a heart, a man, that ...
— The Pharisee And The Publican • John Bunyan
... Mrs. Mountain, in a tone which implied that Samson had made a discovery of the first importance, and that this discovery unexpectedly confirmed her own argument. 'Let 'em have the least little bit of a chance for a brag, and where ...
— Julia And Her Romeo: A Chronicle Of Castle Barfield - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... you, O sweet miracle, An unexampled worship and devotion. Then too, with me your honour runs no risk; With me you need not fear a public scandal. These court gallants, that women are so fond of, Are boastful of their acts, and vain in speech; They always brag in public of their progress; Soon as a favour's granted, they'll divulge it; Their tattling tongues, if you but trust to them, Will foul the altar where their hearts have worshipped. But men like me are so discreet in love, That you may trust ...
— Tartuffe • Jean-Baptiste Poquelin Moliere
... brag about 'home brewing' any more," said another, "or 'home tailoring,' or 'home shoemaking.' Why all ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... without knowing his parents, and without their inviting you? Don't you know what that sort of thing means out here? Chelles did it to brag about you at his club. He wants ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... brag about the sweetness of their song, Nor do they stop their music gay whene'er a poor man comes along. God taught them how to sing an' when they'd learned the art He sent them here To use their talents day by day the dreary ...
— The Path to Home • Edgar A. Guest
... to love the fatness of the valley, while thinking of those mother ribs of its mountain fastness which are ever waiting to prop up its life. Just so put a wooden sword into the hand of the Hohenstieler, and let him brag of war, learning meanwhile ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... sorry for it," said Marmaduke, emphatically. "It was a mean thing for Douglas to do, with all his brag about his honor." ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... required to discover Sandy was less than half an hour, I watched him one day when he didn't know who I was—so I figured him for a man and a half and raised him a dollar a day. He doesn't know it, however. If he did, he'd brag about it, and I'd have to pay as much to men half as good. When he's chopped for us twenty years, fire him and give him that. He's earned it. Thus endeth the first lesson, my son. Now come ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... she would shout. 'You are raking in the money and buying your wife silk handkerchiefs, but the poor farm labourers have to creep on all fours. It's "Cut the corn, Sobieska and Maciek, and I will brag about like a gentleman!" You will see, he will soon call himself "Pan Slimaczinski."[1] He is the devil's own son, ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... to sit dismounted in close circle, for a confab. Occasionally a young brave, a vidette, exuberantly galloped for us, dared us, shook hand and weapon at us, no doubt spat at us, and gained nothing by his brag. ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... climbing the scholastic hill together. Already the girls and teachers of the Hall are beginning to brag about Nancy Nelson. She stands at the head of her class, she is stroke of the school eight, champion on the ice, and has won a state tennis championship medal in the yearly tournament of school clubs. She is no longer ...
— A Little Miss Nobody - Or, With the Girls of Pinewood Hall • Amy Bell Marlowe
... trailed her rose-spattered flounce over the marble floors just as unconcernedly, and she would have proceeded just as calmly to disabuse the mind of the princess of any idea that the possession of a mere man, be he prince or peasant, was anything to brag of. ...
— Anne's House of Dreams • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... not discover. His own name he heard more than once, and voluptuous raptures poured forth about lovely lips and hips and ankles from the herculean knight of the blunderbuss, amidst the maudlin admiration and hiccups of Larry, who continued to brag of his power, and profess his readiness to stand by his friend in carrying off ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... the world and know how to play a losing game at billiards as well as most men. 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 ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... poltroon, let us say. With fierce mustache, loud talk, plentiful oaths, and an immense stick, I keep up nevertheless a character for courage. I swear fearfully at cabmen and women; brandish my bludgeon, and perhaps knock down a little man or two with it: brag of the images which I break at the shooting gallery, and pass among my friends for a whiskery fire-eater, afraid of neither man nor dragon. Ah me! Suppose some brisk little chap steps up and gives me a caning in St. James's Street, with all the heads of my friends looking out of ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... was very proud of his running, and used to brag that in a foot race he could beat anything that lived between the Wide Grass Lands and the edge of the world. He used to talk about it to almost everybody that came along, and one day when he met one of the Turtle ...
— How Mr. Rabbit Lost his Tail • Albert Bigelow Paine
... "and it may be one of that crowd; but somehow I doubt it. In the first place I don't believe they were smart enough to fetch even a lantern along. You know they brag about how they can go into the woods with only a hatchet and a few cooking things, and enjoy life. But we didn't come up ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts on a Tour - The Mystery of Rattlesnake Mountain • George A. Warren
... man was a captain of the trained bands latterly," said the little constable. "Fellow," he cried to Mr. Garth, who rode along moodily enough in front of them, "did this Ray ever brag to you of what he did as captain ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... boisterous raillery of the Chief Trader. "Oh, ho," he began, "me freebooter, me captain av the looters av the North!" The Trader snarled at him. "What d'ye mean, by such talk to me, sir? I've had enough— we've all had enough—of your brag and bounce; for you're all sweat and swill-pipe, and I give you this for your chewing, that though by the Company's rules I can't go out and fight you, you may have your pick of my men for it. I'll take my pay for your insults in pounded ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... on the famous trotting-ground, The betting men were gathered round From far and near; the "cracks" were there Whose deeds the sporting prints declare The swift g. m., Old Hiram's nag, The fleet s. h., Dan Pfeiffer's brag, With these a third—and who is he That stands beside his fast b. g.? Budd Doble, whose catarrhal name So fills the nasal trump of fame. There too stood many a noted steed Of Messenger and Morgan breed; Green horses also, ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... calls those Egyptians whom he hates, and endeavors to reproach; for had he not deemed Egyptians to be a name of great reproach, he would not have avoided the name of an Egyptian himself; as we know that those who brag of their own countries value themselves upon the denomination they acquire thereby, and reprove such as unjustly lay claim thereto. As for the Egyptians' claim to be of our kindred, they do it on one of the following ...
— Against Apion • Flavius Josephus
... kind to me—and promises to be kinder. I believe I am named in his will. Yet, I wonder if it's much to brag of for a fellow with all his limbs sound, presumably his share of brains, and all that, to be expecting a lift-up in the world. Maybe I'm rather leaning back on the old gentleman's promises instead of looking ahead to paddling my own canoe. Anyway I'm not going to spoil my ...
— The Corner House Girls Growing Up - What Happened First, What Came Next. And How It Ended • Grace Brooks Hill
... imputation that he was going to spend the morning indoors. He was not vain of his brains, but he was of his cricket, and though wild horses would not have dragged from him the confession that he read Greek for pleasure long after he ought to have been asleep, he would brag of his batting averages to any one who ...
— The Rebellion of Margaret • Geraldine Mockler
... talking of my talents, my utter inability to remember in any comprehensive way what I read. I can vehemently applaud, or perversely stickle, at parts; but I cannot grasp at a whole. This infirmity (which is nothing to brag of) may be seen in my two little compositions, the tale and my play, in both which no reader, however partial, can find any story. I wrote such stuff about Chaucer, and got into such digressions, quite irreducible into 1 1/5 column of a paper, that I was perfectly ashamed ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... whose property it may have been or be, it has been used; and now your only safety is in making the best use of it. A little daring, a little audacity—it is that which ruins men. When you sit down to play brag, you must brag it out, or ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... is impressive to me,—more so than all the gilt buttons and padded chests of the Old World; and there is a certain powerful type of "practical" American (you'll find him chiefly in the West) who doesn't brag as I do (I'm not practical), but who quietly feels that he has the Future in his vitals—a type that strikes me more than any I met in your favourite countries. Of course you'll come back to the cathedrals and Titians, but there's a thought that helps one to do without them—the thought ...
— The Point of View • Henry James
... 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 famous. If a man will win battles and give his brigade a right to brag loudly of its doings, he may have its admiration and even its enthusiastic devotion, though he be as pitiless and as ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... High Tea, and I am scarcely yet the woman I used to be. It was a height! And a weight! And a length! After tea Mr. Warren made a speech, and said that Bulcester had come back to him, and I was afraid that he would brag dreadfully, but he did not; he was too happy, I think. And then Mr. Truman made a speech and said that though they felt obliged to own that they had come to the conclusion that though Anti-vaccination was a holy thing, still (in ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... Over the low door was an unframed portrait of "unser Kaiser," while Hindenburg completed the collection. Wooden hearts, on which were printed the names Liege, Maubeuge, and Antwerp, recalled the days when German hearts were light and German tongues were full of brag. ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin
... darkness fell around, a mocking bird was nigh, Inviting pleasant, soothing dreams with his sweet lullaby; And sometimes came the yellow dog to brag around all night That nary 'coon could wollop him in a stand-up barrel fight; We simply smiled and let him howl, for all Mizzourians know That ary 'coon can beat a dog if the 'coon gets half a show! But we'd nestle close and shiver when ...
— John Smith, U.S.A. • Eugene Field
... children to play with, while your Frenchman will invent some nonsensical thing and make an uproar for all the world to hear it. The other day Iona the coachman carved a little man out of wood, if you pull the little man by a thread he plays unseemly antics. But Iona does not brag of it. . . . I don't like Frenchmen as a rule. I am not referring to you, but speaking generally. . . . They are an immoral people! Outwardly they look like men, but they live like dogs. Take marriage for instance. With us, once you are married, you ...
— The Schoolmaster and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... ended the proudest and happiest time I ever had in my life. Indeed I almost had an adventure on my own account—une bonne fortune, as it was called at Brossard's by boys hardly older than myself. I did not brag of it, however, when I got back ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... disappointed. Hundreds of the big-horned fellows were in sight, but none in rifle shot, and there was no chance for us to get any nearer to them. We got near a couple of antelope and Mr. Bradford, who was a brag shot and had the best gun, proposed to kill them as we stood. The larger of the two was on his side and much nearer than the smaller one, but we fired together just as we stood. Bradford's antelope ran off unhurt: mine fell dead in its tracks. Bradford bragged no more ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... saw wood and gather swill, as Hal used to, than listen to that infernal old brag,' he was saying to himself, when he heard a wheezy sound behind him, and looking round saw the old brag in full pursuit ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... how any mortal can live up three pair of stairs. "Is there," says the enthusiastic for the first time in her life, "so delightful a sight in the world as the four honors in one's own hand, unless it be the three natural aces at brag?" Can comedy be finer than this? Has not every person some Matthews and James in their acquaintance—one all passion, and the other all indifference and vapid self-complacency? James, the good-natured fellow, with passions and without ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... play-actor'! I notice, mamma, you are the one always likes to brag when the girls and fellows like Norma Beautiful and Allan Hunt and Lester and—and all come up to the house. It's the biggest feather in your cap the way on account of papa the big names got to come ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst
... 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 it. But ...
— The Third Violet • Stephen Crane
... pocket, declares that it is all that is left of seven pounds which he had bought only "yesterday was seven-night." A consumption of seven pounds of tobacco in eight days is a pretty "tall order"! Then he goes on to brag of its quality—your right Trinidado—and to assert that he had been in the Indies, where the herb grows, and where he himself and a dozen other gentlemen had for the space of one-and-twenty weeks known no other nutriment than ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson
... death of doctor; such a terrible amount of brag and big talk, always about himself; always dread his calls; can never get so far as to return; a regular thorn ...
— Woman's Endurance • A.D.L.
... Uncle Eb. 'He ketched an ol' socker the fast thing. I went off by myself 'n got a good sized fish, but 'twant s' big 's hisn. So I tuk 'n opened his mouth n poured in a lot o' fine shot. When I come back Ab he looked at my fish 'n begun t' brag. When we weighed 'em mine was a ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... and v.), used affectedly, like "humour," in many senses, often very vaguely and freely ridiculed by Jonson; humour, disposition, whims, brag(ging), hector(ing), etc. ...
— Epicoene - Or, The Silent Woman • Ben Jonson
... and forwards, and he looked to me as if the beef was a little too thick on the outside of his forehead, for the brains to be active inside. Still, the Colonels have no fault to find with him, except that between times he would talk about drinking to Little Mac, and brag about the prospect, as the papers seem to say, of Fitz John Porter's being cleared. But then most of the Court did as much at that as he did. He did his duty in the trial, I guess, as well as his knowledge and old ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong
... amount, knows all his secrets. However, he blabbed to me at Bilkley: he takes a stiff glass. Damme if I think he meant to turn king's evidence; but he's that sort of bragging fellow, the bragging runs over hedge and ditch with him, till he'd brag of a spavin as if it 'ud fetch money. A man should know when to pull up." Mr. Bambridge made this remark with an air of disgust, satisfied that his own bragging showed a fine ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... weirdly improbable," O'Reilly smiled, "but ask Rosa or Jacket—the boy is bursting to tell some one. He nearly died because he couldn't brag about it to Captain Morin, and there won't be any holding him now. I'm afraid he'll tip off the news about that treasure in spite of all my warnings. Those jewels are a temptation; I won't rest easy until they're safely locked up in ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... must be currant, and the good thereof 740 Consists in mutual and partak'n bliss, Unsavoury in th'injoyment of it self If you let slip time, like a neglected rose It withers on the stalk with languish't head. Beauty is natures brag, and must be shown In courts, at feasts, and high solemnities Where most may wonder at the workmanship; It is for homely features to keep home, They had their name thence; course complexions And cheeks of sorry grain will serve to ply 750 The sampler, and to teize ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... liked this empty, tinkling symbol of a man. She wrote him a kind letter enclosing the money. It takes but little imagination to understand what such a creature would do with the cash; that he would hasten to celebrate the success of his cunning by a revel at which he could brag to some loose companion how neatly he had cheated a generous and noble woman. But he did something more, almost inconceivable in its baseness; he took that letter to the Queen's Proctor and showed it to that archive of centuried insapience as a proof that there had ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 24, November, 1891 • Various
... 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 holds ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... it won't,' said Villiers; 'Brag's a good dog, but he don't bite. I've tried that game on before, and it ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... from which the ceaseless stings of rifle-fire came, and the Fusiliers, whose colonel would have led them willingly enough, had their bayonets fixed, when some one hoisted the white flag, and by this act the remnants of two gallant regiments became prisoners of war. "Flags of truce!" said an "old brag" who recounted the story, with tears in his voice; "I wish they would leave the damned rags at home, or dye them all khaki colour, so that neither Dutchmen nor us could ...
— Four Months Besieged - The Story of Ladysmith • H. H. S. Pearse
... 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 Elevator • William D. Howells
... 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 Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... little ones to raise she give me to Nancy Bennett. I love her soul in her grave. I helped her to do all her work she taught me. She'd leave me with her little boy and go to church and I'd make cakes and corn bread. She brag on me. We'd have biscuits on Sunday morning. They ...
— Slave Narratives: Arkansas Narratives - Arkansas Narratives, Part 6 • Works Projects Administration
... Street,—with the church spire, which has the attractiveness and symmetry of an exaggerated marlin-spike, for a vanishing point,—are of themselves enough to show that the people here have no taste, and no feeling for this department of the Fine Arts, however much they may brag and bluster. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... for poor Schneider. He went to enlist and was told to register! Of course he's got a streak of the Persian in him on his mother's side, and used to brag about it, as we all know; but now it's done him in the eye, and he's fairly mad. Carl is in the commissariat and tells me we've got three million tins of sardines; so that's all right as far as it goes; but, if there's ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 30, 1914 • Various
... it. Let us despise ourselves for doing it, but not one another. By which I mean, reader, do not be hard on me for making a show of my labels in railway-carriages. After all, the question is whether a man 'bluff' well or ill. If he brag vulgarly before his strangers, away with him! by all means. He does not know how to play the game. He is a failure. But, if he convey subtly (and, therefore, successfully) the fine impression he wishes to convey, then you should stifle your wrath, and try to pick up a few hints. When I saw my fellow-passengers ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... movement 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 ...
— Freedom's Battle - Being a Comprehensive Collection of Writings and Speeches on the Present Situation • Mahatma Gandhi
... that the privy parts of women are at such a cheap rate? For in this city there are many virtuous, honest, and chaste women besides the maids. Et ubi prenus? said Panurge. I will give you my opinion of it, and that upon certain and assured knowledge. I do not brag that I have bumbasted four hundred and seventeen since I came into this city, though it be but nine days ago; but this very morning I met with a good fellow, who, in a wallet such as Aesop's was, carried two little girls of two or three years old at the most, one before and the other ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... that's a fine lad." "Why," he says, "it's th' length o' yo'r rule, an' my pocket comb, an' this piece o' band." "That's reight," said his fayther, "tha con goa hoam," put aw nooaticed 'at be did'nt brag abaat him quite so ...
— Yorkshire Ditties, First Series - To Which Is Added The Cream Of Wit And Humour From His Popular Writings • John Hartley
... A card game called "Brag" is also popular. Using a casino deck, the dealer deals each player three cards. It is similar to our poker, except for the fact that you only use three cards and cannot draw. The deck is never shuffled ...
— Over The Top • Arthur Guy Empey
... never seemed to me anything to brag of. Dad says the Spanish-American War grew a crop of newspaper-made heroes, manufactured by reporters who really took more risks and showed more nerve ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... Foudroyant, the vessel was trim When it fought with the French, for JOHN BULL, under Him, The Star of the Nile. Yes, it carried his flag, When it captured the Frenchman. There's no need to brag, Or to say swagger things of a generous foe. Besides, things have doosedly altered, you know. We're no more like NELSON than I to a Merman; We can sell his flag-ship for firewood, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, Sep. 24, 1892 • Various
... false enough to shirk their friends, But too faint-hearted to betray, Are, after all their twists and bends, But souls in Limbo, damned half way. No, no, we nobler vermin are A genus useful as we're rare; Midst all the things miraculous Of which your natural histories brag, The rarest must be Rats like us, Who let the cat out of the bag. Yet still these Tyros in the cause Deserve, I own, no small applause; And they're by us received and treated With all due honors—only seated In the inverse scale of their reward, The ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... Solomon—and there's a pretty bit of cheek, sir: him, a reg'lar heathen, going and getting himself called by a Christian name! I should like to give him Solomon—you'll fight with the best of them, sir. I often think about it. You'll fight with the best of them, sir. And 'tain't brag, Mr Archie Maine, sir—you let me see one of them beggars coming at you with his pisoned kris or his chuck-spear, do you mean to tell me I wouldn't let him have the bayonet? And bad soldier or no, I can do the ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... band-box dandy from the settlemints ever sot out to call me 'Mister' and got away alive to brag on't! Ketch hold, you infergotten, Turkey-fighting, silver-buttoned jack-a-dandy till I dip ye in the creek and soak a flour-ration 'r two out 'n that there pig-tail top-knot o' ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... speak a word with you, Mr. St. Clair," said Donald Ward, as he hammered the thole pins into their holes. "You're angry with Captain Hercules Getty, and I don't altogether blame you. The captain's too fond of brag, and that's a fact. He can't hold himself in when he meets a Britisher. He's so almighty proud of the whipping his people gave the scum. But there's no need for you to be angry with me. I'm an Irishman myself, and not a Yankee. I fought in North ...
— The Northern Iron - 1907 • George A. Birmingham
... to stay in the Straits and watch Parma. From every attainable source food and powder were collected for the rest—far short in both ways of what ought to have been, but, as Drake said, 'we were resolved to put on a brag and go on as if we needed nothing.' Before dawn the admiral and he were ...
— English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century - Lectures Delivered at Oxford Easter Terms 1893-4 • James Anthony Froude
... assume the proportions of a revolution. The unparalleled prosperity of the States caused the Americans—never backward in blowing their own trumpet—to assume an attitude of overweening confidence in themselves, and to brag offensively of what they considered to be their duty to mankind, namely, to convert all the world—by force if necessary—to republican principles. Such was the commencement of the great crisis in the history of the young Canadian nation—a crisis through which, ...
— The Dominion in 1983 • Ralph Centennius
... good for; but, however, when he's speakin' to them as don't know him, perhaps it ain't no more but fair that he should be allowed to speak for himself. Now if I say that accordin' to the best o' my knowledge and belief, what I offer you is the right kind o' help, you won't think it's brag or bluster, ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... cards, card games; whist, rubber; round game; loo, cribbage, besique^, euchre, drole^, ecarte [Fr.], picquet^, allfours^, quadrille, omber, reverse, Pope Joan, commit; boston, boaston^; blackjack, twenty- one, vingtun [Fr.]; quinze [Fr.], thirty-one, put, speculation, connections, brag, cassino^, lottery, commerce, snip-snap-snoren^, lift smoke, blind hookey, Polish bank, Earl of Coventry, Napoleon, patience, pairs; banker; blind poker, draw poker, straight poker, stud poker; bluff, bridge, bridge whist; lotto, monte, three-card monte, nap, penny-ante, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... has been made for German brag, these statements throw some light upon the standard of British flying at a comparatively early date in the war. Certainly no German airman could have made any such complaint a year later. In 1917 the ...
— The Mastery of the Air • William J. Claxton
... English,' he said grinning, 'will come last. When we have starved them and destroyed their commerce with our under-sea boats we will show them what our navy can do. For a year they have been wasting their time in brag and politics, and we have been building great ships—oh, so many! My cousin at Kiel—' and he looked over ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan
... does not brag much, ye see, I kin offer him small wages," said Dan'l, with a wink. "It's kinder takin' him at his ...
— New Burlesques • Bret Harte
... "Goin' to brag, are ye?" was his wife's remorseless comment. "Much good it'll do ye, talkin' to that hatchet-face. He ain't so pious as he looks, if ...
— The Calico Cat • Charles Miner Thompson
... thoughtfully. "I felt ready for anything when those war canoes were coming on, and I believe I should feel just the same if the lads were standing ready to board the schooner. But I don't know; perhaps I should be all of a squirm. I don't want to brag. It all depends. Those who make the most fuss, Frank, do ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... his eyeglasses back in their case, "th' ain't no brag ner no promises; he don't even say he'll do his best, like most fellers would. He seems to have took it fer granted that I'll take it fer granted, an' that's what I like about it. Wa'al," he added, "the thing's done, an' I'll be lookin' ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... pair:— "When in her wrath the Nation broke Her easy rest of love and peace, I was the latest who awoke. I sighed at passion's mad increase. I strained the traitors to my heart. I said, 'We vex them; let us cease.' I would not play the common part. Tamely I heard the Southrons' brag: I said, 'Their wrongs have made them smart.' At length they struck our ancient flag,— Their flag as ours, the traitors damned!— And braved it with their patchwork-rag. I rose, when other men had calmed Their anger in the marching throng; I rose, as might a corpse embalmed, Who hears God's mandate, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... bloom; pant, puff, gasp; spout; inflate, puff up, distend; explode, shatter; (Colloq.) boast, brag, bluster, vaunt, gasconade; ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... 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 come to a big metal ...
— Operation Earthworm • Joe Archibald
... 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 the ...
— Sunset Pass - or Running the Gauntlet Through Apache Land • Charles King
... 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
... seen mended by a beefsteak. Fish is better. Get a lover to eat, rouse up his appetites, and, to the same extent, you lessen his affections. Hot suppers keep down the sensibilities; and, gran'pa, after ours, to-night, you shall have the fiddle. If I don't make her speak to you to-night, my name's Brag, and you need never ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... "Brag on, ye auld greybeard," exclaimed the youth; "but while a Scott o' Harden has a finger to wag, no power on earth shall make his tongue say 'I am conquered!' So come on!—do your best—do your worst—here ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... there," said an experienced orchardist to me the other day. We were talking about the recently started theory that the best bearing orchards are to be found on the low lands of the prairies. "You just wait and see if these brag orchards ever bear another crop! It will be as it was after the severe winter of 1874 and '75, when the following autumn many of our orchards bore so profusely. The succeeding year the majority of the trees were as dead as smelts, and the balance never had vigor enough afterward to produce a ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 3, January 19, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... boasting to the gentlemen of the press of his own prowess. "The Japanese could not read in my face," said M. Witte, "what was passing in my heart." Isn't it wonderful? Would not the diplomatists of another age be ashamed of their confrere could they hear him brag of a rudimentary and long since dishonoured finesse? But the mere fact that M. Witte could make such a speech on American soil is a clear proof that the New World is not the proper field of diplomacy. The congresses of old were gay and secret. "Le congres," said ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley
... unsatisfactory for your purpose. Of course we all know very positively that the McLeods sprang from the best and most honorable clan of old Scotland. We have improved some in manners, for we no longer drive our foes into caves, and smoke them to death. (We only wish we could.) We no longer brag that we were not beholden to Noah, but had boats of our own—that would relate us too nearly to Lillith— but still we are proud of ...
— The Chignecto Isthmus And Its First Settlers • Howard Trueman
... down to it as a relic of the past. He says that people who have got old ruins ought to be very thankful that there is any of them left, but it's no use in them trying to fill up the missing parts with brag. ...
— Pomona's Travels - A Series of Letters to the Mistress of Rudder Grange from her Former - Handmaiden • Frank R. Stockton
... at them. And a milord who is poor—the very donkey-boys scorn him. You can do nothing without money," the girl said with almost fierce derision, "and you tell me you will give it away!" She laughed again angrily, as if such a brag was offensive and insulting to her own poverty. The boy who had never in his life known what it was to want anything that money could procure for him, treated the whole question lightly, and undervalued its importance ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... so angry at missing. I suppose every highwayman will now preserve the blue handkerchief he has about his neck when he is married, that he may die like a lord. With all his madness, he was not mad enough to be struck with his aunt Huntingdon's sermons. The Methodists have nothing to brag of his conversion, though Whitfield prayed for him and preached about him. Even Tyburn has been above their reach. I have not heard that Lady Fanny dabbled with his soul; but I believe she is prudent enough to confine her missionary zeal ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... sarsaparilla, log-wood, annatto, hemp, and all other dye-woods and pure food adulteration concessions cornered. He had five-sixths of the Boca de Thingama-jiggers working for him on shares. It was a beautiful graft. We used to brag about Morgan and E. H. and others of our wisest when I was in the provinces—but now no more. That peninsula has got our little country turned into a submarine without ...
— Options • O. Henry
... 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, ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... the World, give answer? They are whimpering to and fro— And what should they know of England who only England know?— The poor little street-bred people that vapour and fume and brag, They are lifting their heads in the stillness to yelp ...
— Kipling Stories and Poems Every Child Should Know, Book II • Rudyard Kipling
... disasters have immemorially and indiscriminately befallen tens and hundreds of thousands of those who have gone upon the waters; though but a moment's consideration will teach, that however baby man may brag of his science and skill, and however much, in a flattering future, that science and skill may augment; yet for ever and for ever, to the crack of doom, the sea will insult and murder him, and pulverize the stateliest, stiffest frigate he can make; nevertheless, by the continual repetition ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... soothe the sorrows of a suffering friend? The weather-cock of passion! fool inebriate! Who could with ruffian hand strive to provoke Hoar wisdom to intemperance! who could lie! Aye, swagger, lie, and brag!—Liar! Damnation!! O, let me steal away and hide my head, Nor view a man, condemn'd to harshest death, Whose words and actions, when by mine compar'd, Shew white as innocence, and bright as truth. I now would shun him; but that his ...
— Andre • William Dunlap
... side of the southern temperament, the faults that accompany these traits, are plainly stated by the great novelist. Enthusiasm turns to hypocrisy, or brag; the love of what glitters, to a passion for luxury at any cost; sociability, the desire to please, become weakness and fulsome flattery. The orator beats his breast, his voice is hoarse, choked with emotion, his tears flow conveniently, ...
— Frederic Mistral - Poet and Leader in Provence • Charles Alfred Downer |
