"Self-confidence" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sketches of character, but in his best books he did not always prune sufficiently, and in his last work, Wild Wales, he seemed to me to have lost the faculty altogether. Mr. Murray long refused to publish it unless it was curtailed, and Borrow, with his usual self-will and self-confidence, refused to retrench the trivialities. Either he got his own way in the end, or he revised his manuscript to ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... The retreat of the Prussian army, whose numbers had been reduced by disease till an advance on Paris became impossible, and a brilliant victory won by Dumouriez at Jemappes which laid the Netherlands at his feet, turned the panic of the French into a wild self-confidence. In November the Convention decreed that France offered the aid of her soldiers to all nations who would strive for freedom. "All governments are our enemies," cried its President; "all peoples are our allies." In the teeth of treaties signed only two years before, and of the stipulation ...
— History of the English People, Volume VIII (of 8) - Modern England, 1760-1815 • John Richard Green
... two newspaper workers, Marrineal overtopped them both; the supple strength of Banneker as well as the gnarly slenderness of Edmonds. He gave an impression of loose-jointed and rather lazy power; also of quiet self-confidence. He began to talk at once, with the easy, drifting commentary of a man who had seen everything, measured much, and liked the glittering show. Both of the others, one his elder, the other his junior, felt the ready charm of the man. Both were content to listen, waiting for the clue to his intrusion ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... writing which, judging from the full abstracts given in translation in the Times, appear to have been interspersed, and except the undoubting self-confidence and aplomb with which a historical survey, reversing the common ideas of mankind, was delivered, there was little new to be learned from M. Renan's treatment of his subject. Perhaps it may be described as the Roman Catholic theory of the rise of the Church, put in an infidel point ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... magnanimously because he had seen that the doctor liked Elspeth, and that she liked him for liking her. Elspeth never spoke to him of such things, but he was aware that an extra pleasure in life came to her when she was admired; it gave her a little of the self-confidence she so wofully lacked; the woman in her was stirred. Take such presents as these to Elspeth, and Tommy would let you cast stones at himself for the rest of the day, and shake your hand warmly on parting. In London Elspeth had always known quickly, almost ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... organized farmers of Western Canada have attained a measure of self-confidence which enables them to declare themselves in definite language. While seeking wider markets and the real value of their products, they have been opposed always to any scheme which accomplishes higher prices at the expense of the consumer or of the British ...
— Deep Furrows • Hopkins Moorhouse
... occurred, though they knew it not. They had not taken sufficiently into account the fact that black leather bags may be both stout and peculiar, and in some degree similar without being identical. Hence Smith and Jenkins in their self-confidence had settled, as we have seen, that Captain Lee was "their man," whereas their man was comfortably seated in another carriage, and by his side the coveted bag, which was similar in some points to that of the captain, but different in ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne
... helping students: "We need not so much an increase of beneficiary funds as an increase of the opportunities for students to earn their living." This is partly to enable them to pay; for their courses and thereby acquire an education, but chiefly because through supporting themselves they gain self-confidence and ...
— The Trade Union Woman • Alice Henry
... young, none too old. Doctors recommend swimming as the best all-around exercise. It is especially beneficial to nervous people. Swimming reduces corpulency, improves the figure, expands the lungs, improves the circulation of the blood, builds up general health, increases vitality, gives self-confidence in case of danger, and exercises all the muscles in the body at one time. As an aid to development of the muscular system, it excels other sports. Every ...
— Swimming Scientifically Taught - A Practical Manual for Young and Old • Frank Eugen Dalton and Louis C. Dalton
... of the history of Adam and Eve, therefore, is a beautiful lesson in obedience to God, and a striking exhortation to fear God. This is also Paul's principal object in his first Epistle to the Corinthians, nearly all of which is written against the self-confidence of the human heart. For, although God is merciful, yet men are not therefore to sin; he is merciful to those only who fear ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther
... Build Mental Power How to Develop Self-Confidence in Speech and Manner How to Read and Declaim How to Speak in Public How to Develop Power and Personality in Speaking Great Speeches and How to Make Them How to Argue and Win Humorous Hits and How to Hold an Audience Complete Guide to Public Speaking Talks on Talking Fifteen Thousand ...
— Successful Methods of Public Speaking • Grenville Kleiser
... teaching is not prohibited. Verse 14—a reference to Eve, who, though created last, sinned first, is merely such a suggestion as we would make to a daughter whose mother had been in fault. The daughters are not blamed for the mother's sin, merely warned by it; and cautioned against self-confidence, which could make them presume to teach over man. The Bible tells us of many prophetesses approved of God. The Bible is truly democratic. Do as you would be done by, is its golden commandment, recognizing neither male nor female ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... utter failure of all my schemes and the collapse of my theories as to evident causes of the phenomenon, I began to be harassed and worried, almost unconsciously at first, by the ever-present thought, the daily anticipation, and the increasing dread of the hallucination. The self-confidence that first supported me in my nightly encounter diminished on each occasion, and the curiosity which stimulated me to the study of the phenomenon rapidly gave way to the sentiment akin to terror when I proved myself incapable of ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... and lost, it is your first duty to do away the moral effect of defeat,—the want of that self-respect and self-confidence, which are its immediate followers, and which, so long as they last, are the most powerful auxiliaries of your enemy. It is scarcely necessary to remark that, to effect this object,—to reinspire a beaten army with hope, and to reassure it of victory,—we ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck
... dangerous to know;" but, when the fashionable Apollo called at Melbourne House, she "flew to beautify herself." Flushed by his conquest, he spent a great part of the following year in her company, during which time the apathy or self-confidence of the husband laughed at the worship of the hero. "Conrad" detailed his travels and adventures, interested her, by his woes, dictated her amusements, invited her guests, and seems to have set rules to the establishment. "Medora," on the other hand, ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... the stages," he continued, watching her with a malicious calmness of self-confidence. "When gentry of his sort are first struck with a lady, but not very deep, they speak out their admiration bold and gallant; when they find they're hit seriously, but haven't made sure of her, they speak of her with make-believe carelessness or ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... welcomes now the promise of his chastity (though chastity were itself a kind of death) as the pledge of his abiding always with her. And these thoughts were but infixed more deeply by the sudden stroke of joy at his return home in ceremonial trim and grown more manly, with much increase of self-confidence in that brief ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... took Jack over Solomon's trail and gave him the lay of the land and much good advice. A young man of Jack's spirit, however, is apt to have a degree of enterprise and self-confidence not easily controlled by advice. He had been traveling alone for three days when he felt the need of more exciting action. That night he crossed the Charles River on the ice in a snow-storm and captured a sentinel and brought him ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... wisdom of working through the accepted channels of business. Those who had scoffed at the Rochdale plan of cooperation, in the homely belief that any scheme made in America must necessarily be better than an English importation, came to see that self-confidence and independence must be tempered by willingness to learn from the experience of others. Most important of all, these experiments in business taught the farmers that the middlemen and manufacturers performed services essential to the agriculturalist and that the production and distribution ...
— The Agrarian Crusade - A Chronicle of the Farmer in Politics • Solon J. Buck
... Cologne, was never equalled in the sixteenth century. As the Church declined, so did the churches. Take St. Peter's at Rome, colossal in conception and enormously unequal in execution. With characteristic pride and self-confidence Pope Julius II to make room for it tore down the old church, and other ancient monuments, venerable and beautiful with the hoar of twelve centuries. Even by his contemporaries the architect, Bramante, ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... well, they can be shown how to cross them with diagonals, and make circles inside of the squares, and outside of them, and encouraged to draw on the other side of the slate, from their own fancy, or from objects. Entire sympathy and no destructive criticism should meet every effort. Self-confidence is the first requisite for success. If they think they have had success, it is indispensable that it should be echoed from without. Of course there will be poor perspective; and even Schmidt's method of perspective cannot be introduced to very young children. A natural talent ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... a well-regulated lesson and their co-operation is gained, while, through the poor results of a lesson indifferently planned, they lose self-confidence ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Household Management • Ministry of Education
... they had done before old age, and sometimes the undue prolongation of their active lives has been a grave misfortune, not only to their own reputations, but also to the nations they influenced. Often, indeed, while faculties diminish, self-confidence, even in good men, increases. Moral and intellectual failings that had been formerly repressed take root and spread, and it is no small blessing that they have but a short time to run their course. In the case of men of great capacities the follies of age are ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... purifying tendency, like the "live coal" of old which the angel passed over the lips of Isaiah. It inures the soul to struggling, and the mind to persevering labor and self-confidence: it keeps the imagination away from the temptations of luxury, and the still more fatal one of idleness, that parent of vice. It, moreover, becomes one of the most fruitful sources of happiness to the man whom God permits to come out of the crowd and take his place at the ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... replied, "I have never doubted that you would make a success one day, for you are wonderfully clever, and only need a little more self-confidence in making yourself known. I wish I could feel anything like so sure of earning money. For I shall have to, that is now certain. Poor father, who gets weaker and weaker, talked to us the other day ...
— Will Warburton • George Gissing
... of details, bordering on caricature (observe the protruding lower lip, 'nez retrousse,' and overhanging forehead). The head, in profile, turned to the right, is proudly planted on a massive neck and shoulders, and the short tufted hair stands up erect. The expression is that of fierce, insolent self-confidence and malevolence; it is engraved in facsimile in Ottley's 'Italian School of Design,' and it is described in that work, p. 33, as 'Finely expressive of scornfulness and pride, and ...
— Aratra Pentelici, Seven Lectures on the Elements of Sculpture - Given before the University of Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1870 • John Ruskin
... you are—the greater the confidence the greater the risk. But only if your self-confidence results in carelessness. Now do you know how ...
— Four Max Carrados Detective Stories • Ernest Bramah
... girl one remembers. The oval of her face was perfect; and within that fascinating frame the most happy disposition of line and feature, with an admirable complexion, gave an impression of health, strength, and what I might call unconscious self-confidence—a most pleasant and, as it were, whimsical determination. I will not compare her eyes to violets, because the real shade of their colour was peculiar, not so dark and more lustrous. They were of the wide-open kind, and looked at one frankly in every mood. I never did see the ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... could proceed with leisurely step and serene brow amid the heated, breathless, tugging, anxious multitude. It seemed to indicate a steadiness of nerve, a systematic habit, a wise and deliberate forecast, a self-control and self-confidence, and a belief in their watches, to which I never hope to attain this side of Old Charon's ferry itself. And yet somebody is nearly always late. Quite as likely, however, it is somebody who is too early,—because he really ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... his firm, heavy steps resounding through the house. Johnson could hear his boots creaking as he walked about the floor above him, and the sound was a consolation to him. It was crisp and decided, the tread of a man who had plenty of self-confidence. Presently, still straining his ears to catch what was going on, he heard the scraping of a chair as it was drawn along the floor, and a moment later he heard the door fly open and someone come rushing downstairs. Johnson sprang up with his hair bristling, ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... themselves. Still I should be wrong if I did not express my concern at the want of energy and push displayed by the 11th Division. It cannot all be want of experience as 13th have shown dash and self-confidence. Turks were almost negligible yesterday once you got ashore. To-day there was nothing to stop determined commanders leading such fine men as yours. Tell me what is wrong with the 11th Division. Is it the Divisional Generals or Brigadiers or both? I have a first-rate ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume 2 • Ian Hamilton
... me so often and if he had not displayed such complete self-confidence I should have told him what the A.S.P.L. really was and warned him to be very careful about enlisting Lalage's aid. But I was nettled by his manner and felt that it would be very good for him to find out his mistake for ...
— Lalage's Lovers - 1911 • George A. Birmingham
... a little more charity for all, a little more love; with less bowing down to the past, and the silent ignoring of pretended authority; a brave looking forward to the future, with more self-confidence and more faith in our fellow men, and the race will be ripe for a great ...
— Love, Life & Work • Elbert Hubbard
... destinies of Rome. But Vergil saw in the character of Dido herself a danger to Rome's future far greater than the sword of Hannibal. His very sense of the grandeur of Rome's destinies frees him from the vulgar self-confidence of meaner men. Throughout his poem he is haunted by the memories of civil war, by the sense of instability which clings to men who have grown up in the midst of revolutions. The grandest picture in the AEneid reflects the terror of ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... equally unpromising. In no walk of life is success the meed of merit or victory the unfailing guerdon of heroism.[105] Such wisdom as is within man's reach is often a positive disadvantage in life, owing to the modesty it inspires as pitted against the self-confidence of noisy fools. Besides, should it contrive to build up a stately structure, a small dose of folly, with which all human wisdom is largely alloyed, is capable, in an instant, of undoing the work of years.[106] In a word, the wise man is often worse off ...
— The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur • Emile Joseph Dillon
... up his horse and passed her by without a look of recognition? But the hypothesis is contrary to the fact, and suggests a fruitless speculation. It would seem that his evil genius had planned deliberately to put his resolution to the supreme test, first by filling him with arrogant self-confidence, then by firing his blood with a triumph over his enemy, and finally by placing within the reach of his hand the very woman whom most of all, in his heart of hearts, he longed ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... to profit by their advice, in which case I commend the good sense of the arrangement, or they were, in his belief, antagonists, in which case the determination to approve himself a consummate general, neither indolent nor incautious, was bold, I admit, but indicative of a laudable self-confidence. Here, however, we must part with Iphicrates and his ...
— Hellenica • Xenophon
... Kaskaskia, and have a little house of his own, a cart and two oxen; and when he had made enough by hauling bales from the wharf, he could set up in trade. His breast lifted and fell freely as he looked into this large and possible future. The patience and frugality and self-confidence of the successful man of affairs were born ...
— Old Kaskaskia • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... his old misgivings about Estra. There was something about the effeminate Venusian which irritated the big geologist; it always does make a strong man suspicious to see a weaker one show such self-confidence. Van Emmon drew the doctor and Billie aside, while Smith and Estra went on with the test. Said ...
— The Lord of Death and the Queen of Life • Homer Eon Flint
... machines—in their work of reconnaissance, photography, artillery direction, and the like. But we did not know how this general theory of combat is given practical application. When I think of the depths of our ignorance, to be filled in, day by day, with a little additional experience; of our self-confidence, despite warnings; of our willingness to leave so much for our "godfather" Chance to decide, it is with feelings nearly akin to awe. We awaited our first patrol almost ready to believe that it would be our first victorious combat. We had no realization ...
— High Adventure - A Narrative of Air Fighting in France • James Norman Hall
... rose, so rose his vital energy and his self-confidence, and when he prepared to quit his dwelling, in his most costly clothing, he had arrived once more at the decision of the night before, and had again resolved to fight for his purpose, without—and if need ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... should still be intrusted with the command of the Potomac army, that it should be strongly reinforced, and that by constant pressure upon its commander his indecision of character might be overcome. Those who were near to McClellan believed that he was learning greater self-confidence, for the Antietam campaign seemed a decided improvement on that of the Chickahominy. The event, in great measure, justified this opinion, for it was not till Grant took command a year later that any leadership superior to McClellan's was developed. ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... Royal of England, and awaited his comments. A little later Leverrier, the French astronomer, completed the same problem, and waiting for no authority beyond his own, flung his discovery out to the world with the self-confidence ...
— Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals • Maria Mitchell
... would not have been difficult for Darius to defend his kingdom, had he properly guarded the mountain passes through which Alexander must needs march to invade Persia. Here again Darius was infatuated, and he, in his self-confidence, left the passes over Mount Taurus and Mount Amanus undefended. Alexander, with re-enforcements from Macedonia, now marched from Gordium through Paphlagonia and Cappadocia, whose inhabitants made instant submission, and advanced to the Cilician Gates—an impregnable pass in the Taurus ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... Her self-confidence sufficiently convinced Loo, who was always ready to leave something to chance. But Colville shook ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... equanimity, but she hoped to prevent any overt act on his part that might fatally antagonize these women, whose good will she had struggled so hard to regain for his sake. So, she faced him with an air of happy self-confidence, and spoke with the most musical cadences of her voice, the while the caress of her eyes sought to beguile the frown from ...
— Making People Happy • Thompson Buchanan
... though temporary, daily contact), while admitting that her manner and manners were beautiful, had to admit also that she was an extremely difficult young person "to get to know". A gilt-edged, bumptious young subalternknut, who commenced the voyage apoplectically full of self-admiration, self-confidence, and admiring wonder at his enormous attractiveness, importance, and value, finished the same in a ludicrously deflated condition—and a quiet civilian, to whom the cub had been shamefully insolent, was moved to present him with a ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... transformation of Simon into Cephas, we may note as we read the story. There were three years between the beginning of the friendship of Jesus and Simon and the time when the man was ready for his work. The process was not easy. Simon had many hard lessons to learn. Self-confidence had to be changed into humility. Impetuosity had to be chastened and disciplined into quiet self-control. Presumption had to be awed and softened into reverence. Thoughtfulness had to grow out of heedlessness. Rashness had to be subdued into ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... too, have confessed to the truth of them. Michael had not the light hand, which is so necessary when young men work together in a companionship of which the cordiality is an essential part of the work; neither had he in the social side of life that particular and inimitable sort of easy self-confidence which, as he had said just now, enables its owner to float. Except in years he was not young; he could not manage to be "clubable"; he was serious and awkward at a supper party; he was altogether without the effervescence which is necessary in order to avoid flatness. He did his work ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... might succeed in her design upon Narramore; if she failed, the 'poorer man was still to be counted upon, for she knew the extent of her power over him. It was worth the endeavour. Perhaps, in her insolent self-confidence, she did not fear the effect on Narramore of the disclosure that might be made to him. And who could say that her boldness was not likely ...
— Eve's Ransom • George Gissing
... contrast, when we discussed our interests in the Midlands in a room overlooking the coast and hills of Cardiganshire, where one turned from watching the waves breaking crisply on the beach, to study a map of some property in Rutland pastures. It has been accounted a signal proof of Roman self-confidence, that bidders could be found for a piece of land on which Hannibal was encamped at the moment of sale. The situations are not quite parallel. But people who could seriously debate, as we did, on the purchase of a freehold ...
— Uppingham by the Sea - a Narrative of the Year at Borth • John Henry Skrine
... optimistic every minute. Three men still believed in him, which was much. Also, the crowd could not flurry him as it did some of the others who were not accustomed to so great an audience; rather, it acted as a tonic and brought back the poise, the easy self-confidence which had belonged to one Andre de Greno, champion bareback rider. So that, when the rough-riding began, Andy's nerves were ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... he would have said to a frightened child, and there was much of the frightened child about Elizabeth then. The Eustace mystery had given her a shock which subsequent events had done nothing to dispel, and she had lost that jauntiness and self-confidence which was her natural armour against the ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse
... infinite self-confidence. And it's no fatuous egotism, either. A sort of suave, unshakable trust in himself. Abe Ruef's the cleverest politician San Francisco's known in many years—perhaps since Broderick. He makes such men as Burns and ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... only to refer to the resignation of Louis, the retirement of Lucien, and the resistances of Fesch; they alone could stem the will of Napoleon and sometimes break a lance with him.—Passion, sensuality, the habit of considering themselves outside of rules, and self-confidence combined with talent, super abound among the women, as in the fifteenth century. Elisa, in Tuscany, had a vigorous brain, was high spirited and a genuine sovereign, notwithstanding the disorders of her private life, in which even appearances were not sufficiently ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... driving of Pope from his vaunted positions in its front; the Maryland campaign with its deliberate withdrawal from an army of twice its strength; finally the bloody check to Burnside,—had furnished a succession of triumphs which would lend any troops self-confidence and high courage. But, in addition to all this, the average of the men of this army were older and more hardened soldiers than those of the Army of the Potomac. The early conscription acts of the Confederacy had made it difficult for men once inured to the steady bearing ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... Urged on by the hope of profit, they have overcome difficulties of no ordinary kind, which have made the more timid and weak-hearted quail, and relinquish the enterprises in which they were engaged; whilst the resolute and undaunted have persevered, and the reward they have obtained is wealth, self-confidence in difficulties and dangers, and a fund of accurate information on many interesting points. Hence almost every Overlander you meet ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey
... fatal significance. Colonel Carmichael and Stafford looked at each other. Hitherto they had faced the situation coolly enough, with their eternal national optimism and self-confidence. This man had wrenched down the veil, and they stood before a chasm to which there seemed no shore, no bottom. It was the end, ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... in a deep voice, throwing up her eyes. But she would not venture an argument with Dr. Baker. He had all the cheery self-confidence of the old established local doctor, who knows himself to be a power, and neither Mrs. Seaton nor her restless intriguing little husband had ever yet ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... could follow him. His nerve, his judgement, his intuition, were things apart. Again and again his knife cut away death, but grazed the very springs of life in doing it, until his assistants were as white as the patient. His energy, his audacity, his full-blooded self-confidence—does not the memory of them still linger to the south of Marylebone Road and the ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle
... rival propositions to urge, for they gained self-confidence from drill and guard-duty, and were growing impatient of inaction. "Ought to go to work, Sa,—don't believe in we lyin' in camp eatin' up de perwisions." Such were the quaint complaints, which I heard with joy. Looking over my note-books of that ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... the slate washed clean,' as Dolly says, and we can begin all over again?" She held out her hand, entreatingly, and the shy lad took it for a moment, then dropped it as if its touch had burned. A sudden wave of his old bashfulness had swept over him, for though he had gained much self-confidence during those weeks in camp it would be a long time before he conquered the timidity of his nature, if ...
— Dorothy's Travels • Evelyn Raymond
... his attention on critical distinctions of philology, upon the difference of idiom, the beauty of felicitous expression, or the artificial combinations of syntax. 'I can read and understand a Latin author,' said young Edward, with the self-confidence and rash reasoning of fifteen, 'and Scaliger or Bentley could not do much more.' Alas! while he was thus permitted to read only for the gratification of his amusement, he foresaw not that he was losing for ever ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... with the archdeacon against Eleanor. It will be said that he should never have suspected her.—Alas! he never should have done so. But Mr. Harding was by no means a perfect character. In his indecision, his weakness, his proneness to be led by others, his want of self-confidence, he was very far from being perfect. And then it must be remembered that such a marriage as that which the archdeacon contemplated with disgust, which we who know Mr. Slope so well would regard with equal disgust, did not appear so monstrous to Mr. Harding because in his charity he did not ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... him. He was not a rebuke, but a stimulus, and banished morbidity. Some twenty years her senior, he preserved a gift that she supposed herself to have already lost—not youth's creative power, but its self-confidence and optimism. He was so sure that it was a very pleasant world. His complexion was robust, his hair had receded but not thinned, the thick moustache and the eyes that Helen had compared to brandy-balls had an agreeable menace in them, whether ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... have been discouragement in the coolness of the glance that she turned upon him, but Jase had the blessing of self-confidence. ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... Mme. de Beauseant, but on mature consideration, what can you say to a woman whom you have never seen, a complete stranger? And Gaston had little self-confidence. Like most young persons with a plentiful crop of illusions still standing, he dreaded the mortifying contempt of silence more than death itself, and shuddered at the thought of sending his first tender ...
— The Deserted Woman • Honore de Balzac
... just at that time, there was not one, beside himself, who judged that such precaution was absolutely requisite; so little did his conduct on the occasion bear the marks of rashness, or a precipitate self-confidence! He landed with the marines at the upper end of the town of Kavaroah; the Indians immediately flocked round as usual, and shewed him the customary marks of respect, by prostrating themselves before him. There were no signs of hostilities, or much alarm among them. Captain ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... Self-respect or Dignity, Self-confidence, Love of Power, Ostentation, Ambition, Business Energy, Adhesiveness, Self-sufficiency, Playfulness, Approbativeness, Oratory, Honor, ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, March 1887 - Volume 1, Number 2 • Various
... Jove, whatever I may be: a man may talk to a pretty girl without any harm. I mayn't be as good as a parson, but, by Jove, I aint a fool," he muttered through his beard. He had begun to speak with a kind of sulky self-confidence; but his voice sunk lower as he proceeded. Jack Wentworth's elegant levity was a terrible failure in the hands of the coarser rascal. He fell back by degrees upon the only natural quality which enabled him to offer ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... self-confidence; so the boy suspected himself of crime, and instantly took to flight. His companions loved hunting; so three swifter boys followed him with a cheerful yell, secured him, and brought him ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... say, that, from the appearance of things just at that time, there was not one, beside himself, who judged that such precaution was absolutely requisite: so little did his conduct, on the occasion, bear the marks of rashness, or a precipitate self-confidence! He landed, with the marines, at the upper end of the town of Kavaroah: the Indians immediately flocked round, as usual, and shewed him the customary marks of respect, by prostrating themselves before him.—There were no signs of hostilities, or much alarm ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis
... in so agreeable a manner (and then her voice is all harmony when she touches a subject she is pleased with) that I could have listened to her for half a day together. But yet I am afraid, if she falls, as they call it, she will lose a good deal of that pathos, of that noble self-confidence, which gives a good person, as I now see, a visible superiority ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... daughter confidence in themselves and belief in their power to achieve. There is tremendous power in the early inoculation by the home influence of self-confidence, when it is tempered by modesty and ...
— A Woman of the World - Her Counsel to Other People's Sons and Daughters • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... asked Cecil. "Is it Count Paulo who speaks thus? Is it the pupil whom I taught to defy misfortune and rise superior to disaster with courageous self-confidence? Is it the son of my heart for whom I have left all, sacrificed all, for whom I have offered up my fatherland, my freedom, and my independence; whom I shall love until my last breath? Paulo, pluck up a good heart, my son! You have proposed to yourself ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... to reach the degree of excellence to which others among his classmates ascend more quickly. Or a lad whom the course has moved with a desire to take up some philanthropic endeavor may hesitate to pursue it through lack of the necessary gift or failure in self-confidence. The forces which enter into the making of character are so complex, including as they do not only acquisitions of new moral standards, but temperamental qualities, early training, potent example, physical stamina, dozens ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... nostrils of Dalis quivered as though with fear. His face was white with his illness; but out of his eyes peered the fanatic self-confidence of ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science July 1930 • Various
... of sharply rebuking such presumption, Jesus gently but impressively asked: "Are ye able to drink of the cup that I shall drink of, and to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?" The answer was full of self-confidence inspired by ignorant misapprehension. "We are able," they replied. Then said Jesus: "Ye shall drink indeed of my cup, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with: but to sit on my right hand, and on my left, is not mine to give, ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... into the urgent practical activities of the world. Our happiness was the happiness which comes of intense toil, with no fatigue to dog it, and from a consciousness of the vital issues which we were pursuing. But my companions had still intellectual faults and preferences, self-confidence, critical intolerance, boisterousness, wilfulness. Stranger still, I found coldness, anger, jealousy, still at work. Of course in the latter case reconciliation was easier, both in the light of common enthusiasm and, ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson
... inward strife and earnestness, which they exercised while under conviction, before they found "joy and peace in believing." They see such a heavenly sweetness in divine things, that they think it impossible they should "lose the relish all their days." This begets self-confidence, and they trust in their own strength to keep where they are, instead of eagerly pressing forward, in the strength of Christ, after higher attainments. The consequence is, they soon lose their lively sense ...
— A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females - Being a Series of Letters from a Brother to a Younger Sister • Harvey Newcomb
... felt quite the strangest emotion he had ever experienced in his life. His usual serene self-confidence and easy flow of words deserted him, and Verisschenzko, watching him, began to link certain things ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn
... win over India to Christianity, and Macaulay's famous Minute of March 7, 1835, disfigured as it is by the quite unmerited and ignorant scorn which he poured out on Oriental learning with his customary self-confidence, finally turned the scales in favour of the adoption of English as essential to the spread of Western education. One of the immediate objects in view—and incidentally as a measure of economy—was undoubtedly the training of Indians, and in much larger numbers, for the more ...
— India, Old and New • Sir Valentine Chirol
... Mr. Birdsall, with kindly energy, exhorted Uncle Sheba, who groaned aloud and said "Amen" as if in the depths of penitence. A long prayer followed which even moved old Tobe, for Aun' Sheba had shaken his self-confidence terribly. The little company broke up with hand-shaking all around, Tobe saying: "Sister Buggone, I bears no ill-will. I'se gwine ter look inter my speritool frame, an' ef I cotch de debil playin' hob wid me he's gwine to be put ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... to plow through these pages if you have not already met him, but for his faults, they were printed all over him like cities on a map. He was stubborn, rather reticent, sometimes unreasonable, and carried with him that air of stolid self-confidence which is apt to be found in one who has surmounted obstacles and risen in spite of handicaps. It was often said in the troop that one never knew how to ...
— Tom Slade at Temple Camp • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... forth. Bancel, young, glowing, eloquent, impetuous, overflowing with self-confidence, cried out that we ought not to look at the shortcomings of the Constitution, but at the enormity of the crime which had been committed, the flagrant treason, the violated oath; he declared that we might ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... than the deck of a steamer. And yet she seemed neither over-jewelled nor over-dressed. She had all the marvellous "aplomb" of her countrywomen, who can transgress all laws of fashion or taste, and through sheer self-confidence remain correct. ...
— The Great Secret • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... and she clasped her hands nervously together. It was a great moment, and her wonted self-confidence failed her on this threshold of another life. The downcast fame grew so anxious and troubled that Mrs Asplin became distressed at the sight, and, as usual, took ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey
... always on lands after they had been safeguarded by strips of plowing. On this particular land no fire had been set for the reason that four large stacks of wheat still stood waiting the thresher. In my irritation and self-confidence I decided to clear away the matted stubble on the same strip though at some distance from the stacks. This seemed safe enough at the time for the wind was blowing gently from ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... two remaining dimes, he entered. The feature of the bill was a detective melodrama. Nothing in the world could have better suited Willie's psychic needs. It recalled his earlier feats of the day, in which he took pardonable pride, and raised him once again to a self-confidence he had not felt since he entered the ever ...
— The Oakdale Affair • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... that the New World, which had swallowed up so many valiant Frenchmen, would have found him a grave. For a moment he could find no words to address his enemy—for as such he now saw from his defiant mien that La Pommeraye had come. But the old domineering self-confidence ...
— Marguerite De Roberval - A Romance of the Days of Jacques Cartier • T. G. Marquis
... his very self, as dwarfed in actual appearance, or developed after the divine ideal. Her sincerity was terrible. In her frank exposure no foible was spared, though by her very reproof she roused dormant courage and self-confidence. And so unerring seemed her insight, that her companion felt as if standing bare before a disembodied spirit, and communicated without reserve thoughts and emotions, which, even to himself, he ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... heroine trembled when she rang the bell, for all her distaste of the task had returned with redoubled force, but her self-confidence was soon restored under the genial warmth of the ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt
... severe scruples as to encouraging, by such graciousness, a person you didn't intend to marry; but she really thought, thrilling a little as she read the sentence, that this time, perhaps, Franklin might. Franklin himself never thrilled her; but the words he wrote renewed in her suddenly a happy self-confidence. Who, after all, was Franklin's superior in insight? Wrapped in the garment of his affection, could she not see with equanimity Helen's vagueness and Gerald's indifference? Why, when one came to look at it from the point of view of the soul, wasn't Franklin their superior in every way? It ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... passionate soul which might have appealed, and perhaps not in vain, to the dormant sympathies of the being who had created him. The young Montacute was by nature of an extreme shyness, and the accidents of his life had not tended to dissipate his painful want of self-confidence. Physically courageous, his moral timidity was remarkable. He alternately blushed or grew pale in his rare interviews with his father, trembled in silence before the undeserved sarcasm, and often endured the unjust accusation without an attempt to vindicate himself. Alone, and ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... not much of an oarsman. Big and strong, and heretofore so successful that his large self-confidence had never been badly jolted, he was quite at a disadvantage, this June afternoon, as he attempted to row pretty Annette Neil across the head of the lake to where she said the fishing was good. Twice already he had splashed her dainty, starched frock, ironed, ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll
... defended their opinions against imposing opposition. True, a youth must not be too forward in advancing his ideas, especially if they do not harmonize with those of older persons. Self-esteem and self-confidence should be guarded against. Still, in avoiding these evils, he is not obliged to believe any thing just because he is told so. It is better for him to understand the reason of things, and believe them ...
— The Bobbin Boy - or, How Nat Got His learning • William M. Thayer
... Christina, and implored her to give him a command, that he might have an opportunity of proving with his sword his devotion to her and to the daughter of his lamented sovereign. A command was given him; his talents were by no means contemptible; his self-confidence unbounded; intrigue and interest were not wanting to back such qualities, and at the period now referred to, Cordova, to the infinite vexation of many a greyhaired general who had earned his epaulets on the battle-fields of America and the Peninsula, was appointed commander-in-chief ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... he regarded me with the admiring eyes of the novice; but he had, even then, his own ideas as to how leaders ought to be written and newspapers edited, and he did not affect to conceal them. There was something that was irresistible in his candour, his enthusiasm, and his self-confidence. The Press was the greatest agency for influencing public opinion in the world. It was the true and only lever by which Thrones and Governments could be shaken and the masses of the people raised. In all this I was in strong sympathy with his opinions. ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... Their swagger, their self-confidence, their talk about the "rocky walls of Mur," evaporated in an hour. Now it was only of the disciplined and terrible regiments of the Fung, among whom every man was trained to war, and of what would happen to them, the civilized and domesticated Abati, a peace-loving people who rightly ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... you, nor anyone on earth can have complete, unruffled, continued happiness, but we can brace up and call our reserve will power, reason, and self-confidence to bear when we come to the marshy places along the road. We can pick our steps and get through the mire and sooner than we believe it possible we can get on the good solid ground; and as we travel, happiness will often come as a reward ...
— Evening Round Up - More Good Stuff Like Pep • William Crosbie Hunter
... beauty of her person; and he could never find an explanation. He had to be content with his knowledge that for some mysterious reason she had married this man so much older than herself and so unlike to her in character. Personal courage and an indomitable self-confidence were the chief, indeed the only, qualities which sprang to light in General Feversham. Lieutenant Sutch went back in thought over twenty years, as he sat on his garden-chair, to a time before he had taken part, ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... not be regarded as having been acquiesced in by us. And impelled by a belief in their power and great assurance, the kings, deprived of reason through anger, began to say this. And being moved by self-confidence and smarting under the insult offered unto them, the monarchs repeatedly exclaimed thus. Though their friends sought to appease them, their faces glowed with anger like those of roaring lions driven away from their preys. Krishna then understood that ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... hand, from the governing event of the day, had now become a pain and a distress. The exultant and exuberant self-confidence of the earlier correspondence, the practical dreams on paper which had stirred her enthusiasm and delight—they came, it seemed to her, to a sudden and jarring end, somewhere about the opening of September. The change was evidently connected with the ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... seated herself on the extreme edge of the easy-chair, as one braced for instant flight; nor did she wallow in the easy-chair, as one come to stay for the week-end. She carried herself in an unconventional situation with an unstudied self-confidence that he ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... methods by men whom they would necessarily regard as mischievous and mistaken inferiors. In short, whether the state acted in this matter as the ultra-superior person, or as the ultra-popular person, the result would be just the same. The focalised prejudices of the majority, or the privileged self-confidence of a certain select minority, would deprive independent thought in any other quarter of any means of expressing itself either by book or journal, and by thus depriving it of its voice would place it at an artificial ...
— A Critical Examination of Socialism • William Hurrell Mallock
... or two small parcels which apparently belonged to the girl at his side. He was a handsome man, tall and rather spare, with dark eyes and a soldierly look. His movements were quick and forceful, but a hint of what Mrs. Keith called swagger somewhat spoiled his bearing. She thought he allowed his self-confidence to be seen too plainly. The girl formed a marked contrast to him; she was short and slender, her hair and eyes were brown, while her prettiness, for one could not have called her beautiful, was of an essentially delicate kind. It did not strike one at first sight, but grew upon her acquaintances. ...
— Blake's Burden • Harold Bindloss
... shirt. A sudden thought crossed my mind: what if I were to remain at Manilla, and practise my profession? Young and inexperienced, I ventured to think myself the cleverest physician in the Philippine Islands. Who has not felt this self-confidence so natural to youth? I turned my back upon the ship, ...
— Adventures in the Philippine Islands • Paul P. de La Gironiere
... had succeeded instead in greatly increasing their confidence in themselves. The enemy had come to sow destruction; they had actually planted a seed that sprang instantly from the ground, bearing the bold and sturdy flower of self-confidence. Old dogs of war had been unleashed, and now a new pack was yelping ...
— Aces Up • Covington Clarke
... of the family devotion, but she entirely eclipsed the others now. Her daily letter from Martin, her new prospects, not only increased her importance in the other girls' eyes, but innocently inflated her own self-confidence. She received a diamond ring, and although at her father's request she did not show it for a few weeks, eventually it slipped mysteriously from the little chamois bag on her neck, and duly appeared on her left hand. She had promised to keep the engagement ...
— Sisters • Kathleen Norris
... emptying of self, if there is to be the filling with God. And the emptying of self is realised in that faith which forsakes self-confidence, self-righteousness, self-dependence, self-control, self-pleasing, and yields itself wholly to ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... Palanganas.[28] They are gifted with wonderful memory, and after the lapse of years they will repeat, word for word, speeches or sermons which they have heard only once. With this extraordinary power of memory, they combine a fertile fancy, and a boundless share of self-confidence. Wherever there is anything to be seen or heard, the Palanganas never fail to attend, and they repeat with the most ludicrous attitudes and gestures all that they hear, be it a sermon in church, a speech in Congress, or an address delivered at ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... marechal, the baron repeated to him so many times that M. de Villars was thoroughly convinced that what had happened had not been his fault, he having done everything that he could to prevent it, that the young chief began to feel his self-confidence and courage returning, and hearing that the marachal had expressed himself as very much pleased with his conduct, to which Vincel had borne high testimony, made up his mind to return to Nimes. They left Cardet at once, followed ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... the joyful character of the antique religions known to us [in western Asia] lies in the fact that they took their shape in communities that were progressive and, on the whole, prosperous." Weak groups were exterminated. Those which survived "had all the self-confidence and elasticity that are engendered by success in the struggle of life." "The religious gladness of the Semites tended to assume an orgiastic character and become a sort of intoxication of the senses, in which anxiety and sorrow were drowned for ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... have to take hold now and see about getting dinner for daddy," Janice responded, recovering a measure of her self-confidence. "Come on in, Amy, and ...
— Janice Day, The Young Homemaker • Helen Beecher Long
... the enthusiast; and behold, he had stumbled into the first sentimental trap in his path, and tricked his eyes with a Christmas-chromo vision of lovely woman dispensing coals and blankets! Luckily, though such wounds to his self-confidence cut deep, he could apply to them the antiseptic of an unfailing humour; and before he had finished dressing, the picture of his wide schemes of social reform contracting to a blue-eyed philanthropy of cheques and groceries, had provoked a ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... that under the serious gaze of those dark eyes all her self-confidence and determination had oozed away? Miss Carpenter's manner was kind, but her decision had been prompt and final. It seemed to Charlotte no ...
— The Pleasant Street Partnership - A Neighborhood Story • Mary F. Leonard
... supreme leadership, or control of policy, had been assumed by Lincoln. On April 1 he drafted that astonishing document entitled, "Some Thoughts for the President's Consideration," which at once reveals his alarm and his supreme personal self-confidence. This document begins, "We are at the end of a month's administration, and yet without a policy either domestic or foreign." It then advocates as a domestic policy, "Change The Question Before The Public From One Upon Slavery, Or About Slavery, for a question upon Union or Disunion." ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... I am my own deceiver—and I awaken to lament the self-confidence and assurance that were the source of my strength and courage. With flattering ecstasy I cried: It is he!... Alas! he replied not: It is she! And now he is gone—he has left me! Dreadful awakening from so beautiful ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin
... manifold bounties of Providence had produced a sedative effect; but now he grew restless once more. He felt that twinge of doubt, the pin-prick of illogical fear which during the last eighteen hours had again and again pierced his armor of self-confidence. Suppose things went against him! No, that would be too monstrous; that would mean no justice left in England, the whole fabric of society gone ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... were losing all," says Molly, in a despairing tone. "First John, and now—you. Oh, how difficult a thing is life! how hard, how cruel!" Yet only a month before she was singing its praises with all the self-confidence of ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... fleeting wonder over the sublime self-confidence which made this girl so certain he would care to see her again. Then, with a grip at the heart, he owned that ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White
... the keys firmly. His fingers began to play a rapid, skillful, silent concerto. His face had a look of intense concentration and of complete self-confidence. ...
— Breaking Point • James E. Gunn
... him; he does not care whether it is king or clown whom he teases; and in every step of his swift mechanical march, and in every pause of his resolute observation, there is one and the same expression of perfect egotism, perfect independence and self-confidence, and conviction of the world's having been made for flies. Strike at him with your hand, and to him, the mechanical fact and external aspect of the matter is, what to you it would be if an acre of red clay, ten feet thick, tore itself up from the ground ...
— The Queen of the Air • John Ruskin
... ballad Leonora was beguiled, by her singing, into a mood of vague but overpowering melancholy. It seemed tragic that that fresh and pure voice, that innocent vanity, and that untested self-confidence should change and fade as maturity succeeded adolescence and decay succeeded maturity; it seemed intolerable that the ineffable charm of the girl's youth must be slowly filched away by the thefts of time. 'I was like that once! And Jack too!' she thought, as she gazed absently at the pair in front ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... strong and virile and brutal in him seemed to harden and stiffen in the moment after he had seen the beach-comber collapse limply on the sand under the last strong knife-blow; and a sense of triumph, of boundless self-confidence, leaped within him, so that he shouted aloud in a very excess of exhilaration; and snatching up a heavy cutting-in spade, that had been dropped in the fight near the burning cabin, tossed it high into the air, catching it again as it descended, ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris
... never went to sea. There were indeed few companies on land to which he did not penetrate. Reared in a foundling hospital, and apprenticed to a Smithfield apothecary, his good looks, impulsive self-confidence, and unbounded talent for lying, carried him with eclat through the professions of quack doctor, juggler, and mountebank, gentleman about town, tramp, and quaker: to emerge triumphantly at last as the only son of a wealthy Anglo-Indian ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat
... gallantry with which the provincial troops had supported a long fire from the ships and awaited the charge of the enemy, and British soldiers had been twice driven back in disorder before their fire."[1] The pride which Americans naturally felt in such an achievement, and the self-confidence which it inspired, were increased when they learnt that the small force on Bunker Hill had not been properly reinforced, and that their ammunition was running short before they were dislodged from their position.[2] Had the character of the fighting on that day been other ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... had not left his office when his young friend's card was brought to him. Tempted for a moment to deny his own presence, he thought: 'No! What's the good? Bound to see him some time!' If he had not exactly courage, he had that peculiar blend of self-confidence and insensibility which must needs distinguish those who follow the law; nor did he ever forget that he ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Mollien, "habitually calm, pensive, and preserved without affectation a serious dignity, with little of that old audacity and self-confidence which had never met with insuperable obstacles.... As his thoughts were cramped in a narrow space girt with precipices instead of soaring freely over a vast horizon of power, ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... They were the Ironsides of the South, and each individual felt that he had a holy mission to fulfill. There were no obstacles they could not surmount, no position they would not assail. Enthusiasm and self-confidence were the fort of South Carolinians, and it was for them to raise the Rebel yell and keep it up while the storm of battle raged fierce and furious. They were the first to raise the banner of revolt, and right royally ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... learned how to swim while resting on the hands of his father, who was holding him in the waters of the Mulde River. In a few moments, to the amazement of the spectators, he was paddling around in the water like a duck. This is an example of his courage and self-confidence. In the same way he rapidly developed into a skilled, fearless mountain climber under the tuition of his father, when, as a seventeen-year-old boy, he was first taken on such trips. In the Tux district trips were taken from Lauersbach, and the more difficult the climb the more it pleased Oswald. ...
— An Aviator's Field Book - Being the field reports of Oswald Boelcke, from August 1, - 1914 to October 28, 1916 • Oswald Boelcke
... jealous love, she had dared to violate them, not the less did they now thoroughly revenge themselves. If her revolt against custom had resulted happily, it is not indeed likely that she would ever have reproached herself very seriously; but now that it had issued in failure, her self-confidence was gone and her conscience easily convicted her of sin. The outraged Proprieties, with awful spectacles and minatory, reproachful gestures, crowded nightly around her bed, the Titanic shade of Mrs. Grundy looming above her satellite ...
— A Love Story Reversed - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... woman,—and she had declined. She had refused him more than once, and he believed her implicitly when she told him that she could not love him. He had a way of believing people, especially when such belief was opposed to his own interests, and had none of that self-confidence which makes a man think that if opportunity be allowed him he can win a woman even in spite of herself. But if it were fated that he should not succeed with Henrietta, then,—so he felt assured,—no marriage would now be possible to him. In that case he must look out for an ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... and fearlessly and as such gains some respect, even from its own object. Other hatred plots and schemes, the intelligence lends itself to the plans completely and the whole personality suffers in consequence. Some hatred, weak and without self-confidence, or seeking the effect of surprise, is hypocritical, dissimulates, affects friendly feeling, rubs its hands over insults and awaits the opportune moment. This type is associated in all minds with a feeling of disgust, ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... feet. If any man ever loved a woman passionately and devoutly, Adrian loved Doria. For what it may be worth, put that to his credit: he sinned for love of a woman. And the rest? The tragic rest? His undertaking to write another novel? Indomitable self-confidence was the keynote of the man. Careless, casual lover of ease that he was, everything he had definitely set himself to do heretofore, he ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... a Negro and as an American, as swept on by the current of the nineteenth while yet struggling in the eddies of the fifteenth century,—from this must arise a painful self-consciousness, an almost morbid sense of personality and a moral hesitancy which is fatal to self-confidence. The worlds within and without the Veil of Color are changing, and changing rapidly, but not at the same rate, not in the same way; and this must produce a peculiar wrenching of the soul, a peculiar sense of doubt and bewilderment. Such a double life, with double thoughts, double duties, and ...
— The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois
... opportunities to them does not pauperize or degrade, but has the opposite effect of elevating and ennobling. It quickly establishes self-respect and self-confidence. The best and most effective way of helping people in need is to open a way whereby they may help themselves. The most effective charity is opportunity accompanied with kindly advice and a personal interest in ...
— Three Acres and Liberty • Bolton Hall
... rather the parental tolerance, was at last obtained for his experiment. The future author of the "Pere Goriot" was at this time but twenty years of age, and in the way of symptoms of genius had nothing but a very robust self-confidence to show. His family, who had to contribute to his support while his masterpieces were a-making, appear to have regretted, the absence of further guarantees. He came to Paris, however, and lodged in a garret, where the allowance made him by his father kept him neither from shivering nor from nearly ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... following day a sudden self-confidence replaced this uneasiness. He recalled the captain as he had seen him many times on the deck of his vessel, telling of his escapades when rowing in the harbor of Barcelona, or commenting to friends on his son's strength and intelligence. The image of the paternal hero now came to his mind with ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... they had to stay in and expect anything of on this earth! And as he looked out over the big yard, where the dinner-bell was just sounding and calling servants and day-laborers out of all the doors, all his self-confidence vanished. A despairing feeling of helplessness overwhelmed him, and made his face tremble with impotent ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... and intellectual self-confidence are not sufficient by themselves to enable a class to attain to this emancipatory position, and thereby exploit politically all social spheres in the interest of its own sphere. In order that the revolution of a people should coincide with the emancipation of a special class of ...
— Selected Essays • Karl Marx
... under the influence of the teaching at Cambridge of Erasmus; in scholarship subtle and erudite, in affairs guileless and easily swayed; timorous by nature, but capable of outbreaks of audacity as timid persons often are: a gentle and lovable man, but lacking in that robust self-confidence needed by one who would take a resolutely independent line; a man intended to be a student and forced by an unkind fate to assume the role of a man of action. Such a character, brought under the direct influence of a powerful will and a magnetic ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... pride and hope, would have caused a pang in Martin's heart. But now, changed for the better in his worst respect; looking through an altered medium on his former friend, the guardian of his childhood, so broken and bowed down; resentment, sullenness, self-confidence, and pride, were all swept away, before the starting tears upon the withered cheeks. He could not bear to see them. He could not bear to think they fell at sight of him. He could not bear to view reflected in them, the reproachful and ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... and, on this occasion, Spanish justice has not been in vain appealed to by their comrades; for, as I afterwards learned, the order for Errero's arrest was already made out at the moment when, in perfect self-confidence and enjoyment, he was entertaining me with lively songs, accompanied by himself on the guitar; and Medenilla has been again appointed to the command, that he may endeavour to repair ...
— A New Voyage Round the World, in the years 1823, 24, 25, and 26, Vol. 2 • Otto von Kotzebue
... much need to worry," said Tom, with a kind of dogged self-confidence that relieved Florette not a little. "I wouldn't of headed for here if I hadn't known I could do it without leaving any trace, 'cause I wouldn't want to get you ...
— Tom Slade with the Boys Over There • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... illusion, and reason loses its function at the moment of asserting its absolute authority. Notable lesson, taught us like so many others by the first experiments of the Greek mind, in its freedom and insight, a mind led quickly by noble self-confidence to ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... once the part of a man, it would seem hardly possible for her to go through the undertaking without more of self-confidence than were becoming in a woman: and the student may find plenty of matter for thought in the Poet's so managing as to prevent such an impression. For there is nothing like ostentation or conceit of intellect in Portia. Though knowing enough ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... self-confidence had come to him in Hannah's kitchen and Adam Craig, in the course of time, had crushed it out with a keen and understanding leer. Later it had returned with Adam's death, and the weary voice of Doctor ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... Mabel Ashbourne's life had been cloudless—a continual summer, an unchangeable Italian sky; and yet there were times when she was weary of it, when some voice within her murmured, "This is not enough." She was pretty, she was graceful, accomplished, gifted with a self-confidence that generally passed for wit; all the blood in her veins was the bluest of the blue, everybody bowed down to her, more or less, and paid her homage; the man she liked best in the world, and had so preferred from her childhood, was to be her husband; nobody had ever contradicted her, ...
— Vixen, Volume II. • M. E. Braddon
... finger, people ran after me and that one experience with her has broken me. Oh, don't think,' he went on quickly, 'that I am broken in love. I never loved her very much, it was just a passing passion, but she killed my self-confidence. After then, whenever I came to a crucial moment in my affairs, when the big manner, the big certainty was absolutely necessary for me to carry my way, whenever I was most confident of myself and my ability and my scheme, a vision of this damned girl rose ...
— The Clue of the Twisted Candle • Edgar Wallace
... and weary, sinking days, is burdened everywhere and every hour with the thought that Mrs. Exact thinks all her troubles are nothing but poor management, and that she might do just like her, if she would. With very little self-confidence or self-assertion, she is withered and paralyzed by this discouraging thought. Is it, then, her fault that this never-sleeping baby cries all night, and that all her children never could and never would be brought up by those exact rules which she hears of as ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... laughed, and Edward clenched his hands in rage at the easy self-confidence of him. The bolt was drawn back, and Reddin stood in the ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb
... have something to say; no one seemed willing to listen, and at last, by Lord Derby's interposition, they were "quieted down." Lord Ellenborough manifested most activity on the opposition side of the house, and what he said was spoken with energy, self-confidence, and commanding manner. Lord Lansdowne was the most active person on the ministerial benches, he moved about with a grace and affability which account for his great popularity in the house. His mode of putting down ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... is the power of self-confidence over everyone else, that Aunt M'riar entrusted twopence to this youth, quite forgetting that he was only eleven. Yet her faith in him was not ill-founded, for he returned like an echo as to promptitude. Only, unlike the ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... my companions whose intimacy was best worth cultivating; while with the others I had gained a standing which would effectually prevent their ever venturing seriously to annoy me; and, above all, I had acquired that degree of self-confidence, without which one is alike impotent to choose the good or to refuse the evil. And it was with an honest pride that I reflected, that this improvement in my position was mainly owing to a steady adherence to those ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... is wanting to these gentlemen, without which they cannot be expected to achieve the needful reconstruction of the orchestras, nor to enforce the needful reforms in the institutions connected with them, viz., energy, self-confidence, and personal power. In their case, unfortunately, reputation, talent, culture, even faith, love and hope, are artificial. Each of them was, and is, so busy with his personal affairs, and the difficulty of maintaining his artificial ...
— On Conducting (Ueber das Dirigiren): - A Treatise on Style in the Execution of Classical Music • Richard Wagner (translated by Edward Dannreuther)
... sing, timidly, like an artist afraid of an impending interruption. He uttered a few disconnected notes with anxious rests between them—love sighs they seemed, broken by sobs of passion. Then gradually he took courage, regained self-confidence, and entered on his full song, just as a soft breeze rose, swept over the island, and set all the trees and reeds rustling in ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez |
