"Vaunt" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... see you, my son, I have a secret of a certain broth whereof these lentils and these sweet herbs do so tickle their palates that to satisfy them is a hard matter—more especially Orson and Jenkyn—who being nigh cured of their hurts do eat like four men and vaunt my cooking full-mouthed, insomuch that I must needs grow heedful ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... of any vaunt of superior shrewdness. His was merely the level-toned manner of an observer of facts ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... moment, That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows Whereon the stars in secret influence comment; When I perceive that men as plants increase, Cheered and checked even by the self-same sky, Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease, And wear their brave state out of memory; Then the conceit of this inconstant stay Sets you most rich in youth before my sight, Where wasteful Time debateth ...
— Shakespeare's Sonnets • William Shakespeare
... every sound, because it might possibly be the harbinger of him, he was busied in carefully looking over marriage articles, fixing the place of residence with his destined bride, or making love to her in formal process. Yet, Agnes, vaunt!—he sometimes thought on thee—he could not witness the folly, the weakness, the vanity, the selfishness of his future wife, without frequently comparing her with thee. When equivocal words and prevaricating sentences ...
— Nature and Art • Mrs. Inchbald
... he writes, "I am tired of railing against Destiny and myself.... There are moments in which I despair of all that is good, in which I feel it has been enjoined upon me to work against everything that makes a vaunt of specious happiness." But he took no manful and resolute steps to battle against his unhappy state; he continued to correspond with the lady of his affections, to gaze upon her portrait, to write to his friend about her, and to dwell upon the past, the hours he had spent ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... fain would fright my ear With the destruction and decay Of things familiar and dear, And vaunt of a swift-running day That sweeps the fair old Past away; Whatever else be strange and new, All other things may go or stay, So that there be ...
— A Jongleur Strayed - Verses on Love and Other Matters Sacred and Profane • Richard Le Gallienne
... singer held a glistening leaf, And said: 'The rose-tree and the apple-tree Have fruits to vaunt or flowers to lure the bee; And golden shafts are in the feathered sheaf Of the great harvest-marshal, the year's chief, Victorious Summer; aye, and 'neath warm sea Strange secret grasses lurk inviolably Between the filtering channels of ...
— The House of Life • Dante Gabriel Rossetti
... ill-founded rejoicings were going on in Lisbon at the time the flagship was chasing the Portuguese fleet across the Equator! It is difficult to say how the Portuguese admiral contrived to reconcile this premature vaunt, and the unwelcome fact of his arrival in the Tagus, with the loss of half his troops and ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 2 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... may deal with—make it thaw my blood And prompt my steps, were truer to the mark Of mind's requirement than a half-surmise That somehow secretly is operant A power all matter feels, mind only tries To comprehend! Once more—no idle vaunt 'Man comprehends the Sun's self!' Mysteries At source why probe into? Enough: display, Make demonstrable, how, by night as day, Earth's centre and sky's outspan, all's informed Equally by Sun's efflux!—source from whence If just ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... God!' But, strangely, it did not reflect itself in the woman's face. Something quite different there, lurking under the soft gaiety. Was it consciousness of this being the second time during the evening that she had employed the too common vaunt of the woman of that particular world? Did some ironic echo reach her of that same boast (often as mirthless and as pitiful as the painted smile on the cruder face), the 'I'm afraid I'm rather frivolous' of the well-to-do woman, whose ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... the achievement? Nobody cares whom she knows—nobody that is, but a climber like herself. To those who were born and who live, no matter how quietly, in the security of a perfectly good ledge above and away from the social ladder's rungs, the evidence of one frantically climbing and trying to vaunt her exalted position ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... empyreal heaven he had been chosen for father of revered Rome and of her empire; both which (to say truth indeed) were ordained for the holy place where the successor of the greater Peter has his seat. Through this going, whereof thou givest him vaunt, he learned things which were the cause of his victory and of the papal mantle! Afterward the Chosen Vessel went thither to bring thence comfort to that faith which is the beginning of the way of salvation. ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... truth, not high heroics. To flout the Pharisees was not reserved for Jesus. "Behold, ye fast for strife and contention," said Isaiah, "and to smite with the fist of wickedness." While some German writers, not content with the great men Germany has so abundantly produced, vaunt that all others, from Jesus to Dante, from Montaigne to Michael Angelo, are of Teuton blood, Jewish literature unflinchingly exposes the flaws even of a Moses and a David. It is this passion for veracity unknown among other peoples—is even Washington's story told ...
— Chosen Peoples • Israel Zangwill
... dereliction of independence would render us entirely useless for the purpose we mean to serve. On the other hand, nothing will render the work more interesting than the public learning, not from any vaunt of ours, but from their own observation, that we have access to early and accurate information on points of fact. The Edinburgh Review has profited much by the pains which the Opposition party have taken to possess the writers of all ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... hymeneal,{7} Or triumphal chaunt, Matched with thine would be all But an empty vaunt— A thing wherein we feel there is some ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin
... Earl.—None may the sweet carnation slight, It is the gardener's pleasure, Now he unfolds it to the light, Now shields from it his treasure. But no—the flower for which I pant, No rare, no brilliant charms can vaunt, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... white dashed with red and he is well-bred, pleasant and generous and doth thus and thus." And he went on to describe to her now his beauty and loveliness and then his perfection and bounty and ceased not to vaunt his charms and the generosity of his disposition, till he had made her in love with him; for there is no sillier cuckold than he who vaunteth to his wife another man's handsome looks and unusual liberality in money matters. So, when ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... the Jew and through him to the world, granted visible rewards and visible punishments, that was not the permanent scheme. God's administration is hid from vulgar eyes truly, but also from the eyes "of the wise and prudent." Man's wisdom may not vaunt itself. God's moral system is no well-lit room in which all furnishings are visible; rather a twilight gloom, where men and women grope. We know enough. Virtue is made very evident, and vice very despicable, ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... this, however, was a period posterior to all the incidents of this tale, we shall continue to call the young hunter by the name under which he has been first introduced to the reader. Nor was the Iroquois less struck with the vaunt of the white man. He knew of the death of his comrade, and had no difficulty in understanding the allusion, the intercourse between the conqueror and his victim on that occasion having been seen by several savages on the shore of the ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... of Ravenswood was concerned; but his was that considerate valour which does not delight in unnecessary risks. This, however, was a secondary consideration; the main point was to veil the indigence of the housekeeping at the castle, and to make good his vaunt of the cheer which his resources could procure, without Lockhard's assistance, and without supplies from his master. This was as prime a point of honour with him as with the generous elephant with whom we have already compared him, who, being overtasked, broke ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... his army would raise a bank higher than those walls, in confidence of whose strength he despised him, and that by only each man of his army taking a handful of earth; hereby making a show of the great number of his army, and aiming to affright him. Ahab answered, that he ought not to vaunt himself when he had only put on his armor, but when he should have conquered his enemies in the battle. So the ambassadors came back, and found the king at supper with his thirty-two kings, and informed ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... dark. Enough said now of this: For the other helps of man hid underground, The iron and the brass, silver and gold, Can any dare affirm he found them out Before me? None, I know, unless he choose To lie in his vaunt. In one word learn the whole: That all arts come to mortals from Prometheus. Aeschylus: Prometheus. ...
— Story of Orestes - A Condensation of the Trilogy • Richard G. Moulton
... other nations are wont to vaunt the glory of their achievements, and reap joy from the remembrance of their forefathers: Absalon, Chief Pontiff of the Danes, whose zeal ever burned high for the glorification of our land, and who would not suffer ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... I say. The Master-Weaver understands what we are here for and what we are doing, and that is enough. He has uses for every sound thread and doubtless one is as important as another. Vaunt not yourself O thread of purple, over your fellow-thread ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... inclined to like about you; inclined, I believe, to admire. The names of virtues exercise a charm on most of us; we must lay claim to all of them, however incompatible; we must all be both daring and prudent; we must all vaunt our pride and go to the stake for our humility. Not so you. Without compromise you were yourself: a pretty sight. I have always said it: none so void of ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Peter's was a German. Italy too, for artful fountains and figures that move by water and enact life. And next for fountains is Augsburg, where they harness the foul knave Smoke to good Sir Spit, and he turneth stout Master Roast. But lest any one place should vaunt, two towns there be in Europe, which, scorning giddy fountains, bring water tame in pipes to every burgher's door, and he filleth his vessels with but turning of a cock. One is London, so watered this many a year ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... so cool and well-dressed in the midst of it, you need not be offended or overwhelmed. Such is ever the naivety of great souls among those whose culture is primitive. It is like the boasted bravery of the eldest among little children, wholly an act of kindness and consideration, not a selfish vaunt. That they should be admired and trusted is for them a foregone conclusion; and when they call on that admiration and trust, they do it merely for the sake of those whom they would encourage and console, for whose sakes they will ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... empty vaunt, but a deliberate avowal of his real sentiments; for Mr Quilp, who loved nobody, had by little and little come to hate everybody nearly or remotely connected with his ruined client:—the old man himself, because ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... borne in thy womb. Who is he of us all, O beloved, that owe thee for birth, Who would give not his blood for his birth's sake, O mother, O Earth? What landsman is he that was fostered and reared of thine hand Who may vaunt him as we may in death though he die for ...
— Erechtheus - A Tragedy (New Edition) • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... Another Gascon vaunt! You know the scarf Lies with the enemy, upon the brink Of the stream,. . .the place is riddled now with shot,— No one can fetch ...
— Cyrano de Bergerac • Edmond Rostand
... destroyed upon its anniversary. Under the Monarchy, the very tombs were taught to flatter kings. Royal pride and luxury could not be moderated even on this theatre of death, and the bearers of the sceptre who had brought such ills on France and on humanity seemed even in the grave to vaunt a vanished splendor. The strong hand of the Republic should pitilessly efface these haughty epitaphs, and demolish these mausoleums which might recall the frightful ...
— The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Charles X • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... not courteous ayd of friends, To blaze my praise in verse, Nor, prowd of vaunt, mine authors ...
— The Survey of Cornwall • Richard Carew
... d'Aguilar slowly, yet as one who expected some such answer. "In age we are not unsuited, nor perhaps in fortune, while of rank I have enough, more than you guess perhaps. I vaunt not myself, yet women have thought me not uncomely. I should be a good friend to the house whence I took a wife, where perchance a day may come when friends will be needed; and lastly, I desire her not for what she may bring with her, though wealth is always welcome, ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard
... In vicious frolics fancy spirit. What is't to me by whom begot? Thou restive, pert, conceited sot. 90 Your sires I reverence; 'tis their due: But, worthless fool, what's that to you? Ask all the carriers on the road, They'll say thy keeping's ill bestowed. Then vaunt no more thy noble race, That neither mends thy strength or pace. What profits me thy boast of blood? An ass hath more intrinsic good. By outward show let's not be cheated; An ass should like an ass ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... of melody"; surpassing the "sound of vernal showers" and of "rain-awakened flowers" and "all that ever was joyous, clear and fresh"; "a flood of rapture so divine"; beside it a "hymenaeal chorus" or a "triumphal chaunt" is "but an empty vaunt"; "clear, keen joyance," "notes flow ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... cause be holy, do not weigh it in the scales of the market; if its objects be peaceful, do not seek to arm it with the weapons of strife; if it is to be the cement of society, do not vaunt it as the triumph ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... highly than any other flowers of the field. The Dutch are still notorious for their partiality to them, and continue to pay higher prices for them than any other people. As the rich Englishman boasts of his fine race-horses or his old pictures, so does the wealthy Dutchman vaunt him of his tulips. ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... us, "cannot be older than 1678, when the Grenadier Company was formed, and not later than 1714, when hand-grenades were discontinued," abundantly testify to the fact that the British soldier has also not lacked poets to vaunt his prowess. Many of the military songs have served as a distinct stimulus to recruiting, and possibly some of them were written with that express object in view. Sir Ian Hamilton, in his preface to Mr. Stone's collection of War Songs, ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... comrade and bed-fellow," answered Cuculain, "it is through me that thou shalt get thy death-wound, and I say not this as a vaunt, but as a prophecy." ...
— The Coming of Cuculain • Standish O'Grady
... also the lists of men capable of bearing arms. "The number," said he, "is great, but what can be expected from mere citizen soldiers? They vaunt and menace in time of safety; none are so arrogant when the enemy is at a distance; but when the din of war thunders at the gates they ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... can in craving be their vade mecums. Do not here produce ancient examples of the paragons of paillardice, and offer to match with my testiculatory ability the Priapaean prowess of the fabulous fornicators, Hercules, Proculus Caesar, and Mahomet, who in his Alkoran doth vaunt that in his cods he had the vigour of three score bully ruffians; but let no zealous Christian trust the rogue,—the filthy ribald rascal is a liar. Nor shalt thou need to urge authorities, or bring forth the instance of the Indian prince of whom Theophrastus, Plinius, ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... greatness of her glassy scepters vaunt; Not scepters, no, but reeds, soon bruised, soon broken; And let this worldly pomp our wits enchant; All fades, and scarcely leaves behind a token. Those golden palaces, those gorgeous halls, With furniture superfluously fair; Those stately courts, those sky-encountering ...
— Montaigne and Shakspere • John M. Robertson
... knows less warmly shared by other traders; But soi-disant Crusaders Caught paltering with the Infidels, like traitors, And hot enthusiast Emancipators Who the grim Slavery-demon gently tackle, Wink at the scourge, and dally with the shackle, Such, though they vaunt their zeal and orthodoxy, Seem—for ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, Sept. 27, 1890 • Various
... mournfully, doubtingly. "Will you have another coffee-cake?" says some one, and we remember that we are at Spillman's also. And, indeed, we might be more sensible to stay with our party always; eat cakes, drink wine, laugh at the old world, vaunt the new, read Baedeker and the Bible, say our orthodox Protestant prayers, with a special "Lead us not into Romanism" codicil, and go to bed, and dream of our own golden houses, Paris dresses, and ...
— Mae Madden • Mary Murdoch Mason
... mediaeval herald must proudly have remembered, so strengthened his associations with the Holy Roman Empire with something of that vague and shadowy historic dignity which the Scot was wont to value so much, and vaunt so high. On the eagle's breast is a shield, tressured like the royal standard, since Perth was the national capital until the "King's Tragedy" of 1457; but instead of the ruddy lion the shield bears the lamb with the banner of St. John, the ...
— Civics: as Applied Sociology • Patrick Geddes
... watched and waited his opportunity; he kept his eye settled upon them, to profit by the first opening which their folly should offer to the dreadful artillery of law. At last, said the minister, we will put to proof this vaunt of yours. We dare not bring you to trial, is your boast. Now, we will see that settled; and, at the same time, we will try whether we cannot put you down for ever. That trial was made, and with what perfection of success the reader knows; for let us remind him, that the perfection ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... "To vaunt a knowledge of the stoical philosophy," said the youth addressed as Sam, "might elicit a smile of incredulity upon the cheek of the parasite of pleasure; but there are moments in life when History fortifies endurance: and past study renders present deprivation ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the Tiber," the vain Roman cried, Viewing the ample Tay from Baiglie's side; But where's the Scot that would the vaunt repay, And hail the puny ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... — N. boasting &c. v.; boast, vaunt, crake|; pretense, pretensions; puff, puffery; flourish, fanfaronade[obs3]; gasconade; blague[obs3], bluff, gas*; highfalutin, highfaluting[obs3]; hot air, spread-eagleism [obs3][U. S.]; brag, braggardism[obs3]; bravado, bunkum, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... degraded ministers. He died on the 25th of February 1850, aged sixty-nine. In his will, there appears the following notice of the English war: 'The little fools beyond the Western Ocean were chastised and quelled by our troops, and peace was soon made; but we presumed not to vaunt our ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 433 - Volume 17, New Series, April 17, 1852 • Various
... the barbarous vaunt; "I will force the people to eat hay;" and without any order from the constituted authorities, some peasants, neighbours of the old minister, arrest him, take him to Paris, his son-in-law experiences the same fate, and the famished populace ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... Jean Richmond's son (in his own ruinous way), but not to the extent of being burdened with the cub half a dozen times a week. Gourlay was merely boasting—as young blades are apt to do of acquaintance with older roisterers. They think it makes them seem men of the world. And in his desire to vaunt his comradeship with Allan, John failed to see that Allardyce was scooping him out like ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... Hal, and bent his bow, "Just watch this famous shot; See that old willow by the brook— I'll hit the middle knot." Swift flew the arrow through the air, Madge watched it eager-eyed; But, oh! for Harry's gallant vaunt, The ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... ourselves. This might be very brief or at considerable length; it might suggest inquiries of any of the company or merely pledge an attentive and courteous hearing to whatever the guest might utter; it might refer to the past glory of the castle and its lord, or vaunt its present greatness ...
— Toasts - and Forms of Public Address for Those Who Wish to Say - the Right Thing in the Right Way • William Pittenger
... sore, provoking indignant remonstrances from Mistress Pennyquick. But I refused to let her coddle me, and as my appetite never failed, and I throve amazingly, the good woman at last ceased to lament, and, as I discovered, was wont behind my back to vaunt my ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... Kentucky (Mr. Beck), who seems to be the leading exponent on this floor of the party that is arrayed against the principle of this bill, has been pleased, in season and out of season, to cast odium upon the Negro and to vaunt the chivalry of his State, I may be pardoned for calling attention to another portion of the same dispatch. Referring to the various regiments under his command, and their conduct on that field which terminated the second war of American Independence, General Jackson says. "At the very moment ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... ugliness, used to say that 'he was but a quarter of an hour behind the handsomest man in England;' and this vaunt of his is said not to have been disproved by circumstances. Swift, when neither young, nor handsome, nor rich, nor even amiable, inspired the two most extraordinary passions upon ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... of my debt, I homeward turn. Farewell, my pet! When here again thy pilgrim comes, He shall bring store of seeds and crumbs. Henceforth I prize thy wiry chant O'er all that mass and minster vaunt: For men mishear thy call in spring, As 'twould accost some frivolous wing, Crying out of the hazel copse, "Phe—be!" And in winter, "Chic-a-dee-dee!" I think old Caesar must have heard In Northern Gaul my dauntless ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... makes thee partial in the law; for here, in the midst of thy boasts, thou hast not, because thou canst not say, thou hast fulfilled all righteousness. What madness then has brought thee into the temple, there in audacious manner to stand and vaunt before God; saying, "God, I thank thee, I am ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... the son bringeth home with him all his kin, and his friends, and all the others to his house, and maketh them a great feast. And then all his friends make their vaunt and their dalliance, how the fowls came thither, here five, here six, here ten, and there twenty, and so forth; and they rejoice them hugely for to speak thereof. And when they be at meat, the son let bring forth the head of his father, and thereof he giveth of the flesh to his ...
— The Travels of Sir John Mandeville • Author Unknown
... the stately child Of king Eetion, heard the wild queen's vaunt, Low to her own soul bitterly murmured she: "Ah hapless! why with arrogant heart dost thou Speak such great swelling words? No strength is thine To grapple in fight with Peleus' aweless son. Nay, doom and swift death shall he deal to thee. Alas for thee! What madness thrills thy soul? ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus
... would do me a great wrong by the supposition that I mention these circumstances to make a vaunt of my courage; I am sure that the fact of my having undertaken this journey alone will be sufficient to clear me from the imputation of cowardice. I wish merely to give future travellers a hint as to the best method of dealing ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer
... blessed is Thessaly: in both there reigneth a race sprung from one sire, from Herakles bravest in the fight. What vaunt is this unseasonable? Nay, now, but Pytho calleth me, and Pelinnaion[1], and the sons of Aleuas who would fain lead forth the loud voices of a choir of ...
— The Extant Odes of Pindar • Pindar
... worthy of this princess, who was the descendant of a long line of emperors. Mohammed II., having overrun all Greece, flushed with victory, was collecting his forces for the invasion of the Italian peninsula, and his vaunt, that he would feed his horse from the altar of St. Peters, had thrilled the ear of Catholic Europe. The pope, Paul II., anxious to rouse all the Christian powers against the Turks, wished to make the marriage of the Grecian princess promotive of his political ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... ought to have provided! If I have any doubts of myself, if I am not certain of producing those effects on the mind of Clifton which I know I ought to be able to produce, it becomes me to recede. Or rather it becomes me to apply myself, with the resolution of which I am so ready to vaunt, to attain that which is attainable, to discover the true means, the clue to his ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... themselves on their philosophical attainments vaunt in very eloquent words the superiority of the physical instrument over mere sensation. Evidently, however, the earnestness of this eulogy leads them astray. The most perfect registering apparatus must, in the long-run, ...
— The Mind and the Brain - Being the Authorised Translation of L'me et le Corps • Alfred Binet
... traditional kite flown by Gilderoy. The having at his beck this array of frowning metal lent Lieutenant Davis such an importance in his own eyes that his demeanor swelled to the grandiose. It became very amusing to see him puff up and vaunt over it, as he did on every possible occasion. For instance, finding a crowd of several hundred lounging around the gate, he would throw open the wicket, stalk in with the air of a Jove threatening a rebellious world with the dread thunders of ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... is different; and furthermore, what originated in a necessity has been mounted into a vaunt. In towns there is large rivalry in building tall houses. If one gentleman builds his house four stories high, and another gentleman comes next door and builds five stories high, then the former, ...
— I and My Chimney • Herman Melville
... love or longing are dead. Even while I write I feel dragged to her; a thousand voices cry to me that there is but one Ann, and when a few weeks ago the young Sieur de Blonay made so bold as to vaunt of his lady and her rose-red as above all other ladies and colors, my sword compelled him to yield the place of honor to blue—for whose sake you ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... produce repentance and shame, the one bringing grief, the other fear, and these they mostly make use of for purposes of correction. And so Diogenes, when Plato was being praised, said, "What has he to vaunt of, who has been a philosopher so long, and yet never gave pain to anyone?" For one could not say, to use the words of Xenocrates, that the mathematics are such handles to philosophy as are the emotions of young men, such as shame, desire, repentance, pleasure, pain, ambition, whereon reason ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... you cowardly assassin!" she blazed at him. "I might have guessed that in some such cutthroat manner would your vaunt of winning me at the sword-point ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... in Thetis' lap, All gods are subject to the like mishap. Stars daily fall ('tis use is all in all), And men account the fall but nature's course. Vaunting my jewels hasting to the west, Or rising early from the grey-ey'd morn, What do I vaunt but your large bountyhood, And show how liberal a lord I serve? Music and poetry, my two last crimes, Are those two exercises of delight, Wherewith long labours I do weary out. The dying swan is not forbid to sing: The waves of Hebrus[46] play'd on Orpheus' strings, When he (sweet music's ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... well, under whose name and cognisance they shall goe abroad and seeke their fortunes. How the world will entertaine them I know not, or what acceptance your credit may adde to their basenes I am yet uncertaine; but this I dare vaunt without sparke of vaine-glory that I have given you a taste of the best Italian fruites, the Thuscane Garden could affoorde; but if the pallate of some ale or beere mouths be out of taste that they cannot ...
— Shakespeare's Lost Years in London, 1586-1592 • Arthur Acheson
... scorn'd proves not 'Tis beauty lies, but lack of it. By Heaven's law the Jew might take A slave to wife, if she was fair; So strong a plea does beauty make That, where 'tis seen, discretion's there. If, by a monstrous chance, we learn That this illustrious vaunt's a lie, Our minds, by which the eyes discern, See hideous contrariety. And laugh at Nature's wanton mood, Which, thus a swinish thing to flout, Though haply in its gross way good, Hangs such ...
— The Angel in the House • Coventry Patmore
... indemnified the merchants for all the expenses of the expedition, and enriched the admiral and his crews. Drake returned to England in a kind of triumph, boasting that he had "singed the whiskers" of the king of Spain: nor was his vaunt unfounded; the destruction of the store-ships, and the havoc committed by him on the magazines of every kind, was a mischief so great, and for the present so irreparable, that it crippled the whole design, and compelled ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... especially such as may seem the most unsuitable Companions to him: Such a Man, when he falleth in the way with Persons of Simplicity and Innocence, however knowing he may be in the Ways of Men, will not vaunt himself thereof; but will the rather hide his Superiority to them, that he may ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... you one tear of pitty moue For all my woes, that onely shall suffise. When you Minerua in the sunne behold, At her perfections stand you then and gaze, Where in the compasse of a Marygold, Meridianis sits within a maze. And let Inuention of her beauty vaunt When Dorus sings his sweet Pamelas loue, And tell the Gods, Mars is predominant, Seated with Sol, and weares Mineruas gloue: And tell the world, that in the world there is A heauen on earth, on ...
— Minor Poems of Michael Drayton • Michael Drayton
... the Straits of Gibraltar. The conversation of the Sheikhs at length turned upon the Turks, and the country of Gog and Magog—whence they came, whom we all agreed to abuse as much as possible, since our antipathies were pretty equal. The Sheikhs then began very naturally to vaunt of their power in The Sahara, and I may embrace this opportunity of giving some outline of the Touarick nations of The ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... implacable enemies to those of Amabie, who are their next neighbours, and in amity with the Portuguese: as are also the kingdoms of Pobumbie, Namquimal and Lortribie. It is very probable that these 2 European settlements on this island are the greatest occasion of their continued wars. The Portuguese vaunt highly of their strength here and that they are able at pleasure to rout the Dutch, if they had authority so to do from the king of Portugal; and they have written to the viceroy of Goa about it: and though their request is not yet granted, yet (as they say) they live in expectation of it. These ...
— A Continuation of a Voyage to New Holland • William Dampier
... nigh our hills the auspices foretold, When he shall fail to vaunt his power who chain'd our sires of old, In iron bands who held them fast, but now he droops with fear; Delusion's age is past, and strife avows the smile, the tear, That sympathy or fondness ask,—and the sad world is fain To welcome ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... matter. When the tidings of his approach came to the ears of Sankharib, the King rode forth to meet his Minister, rejoicing in him with joy exceeding and received him lovingly and kissed him, and cried, "Well come and welcome and fair welcome to my sire and the glory of my realm and the vaunt of my kingdom: do thou require of me whatso thou wantest and choosest, even didst thou covet one-half of my good and of my government." The Minister replied, "Live, O King, for ever; and if thou would gift me bestow thy boons upon Abu Sumayk, ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... the self-love of every man was enlisted in this sentiment. To praise the South was to praise himself; to boast of its valor was to advertise his own intrepidity; to extol its women was to enhance the glory of his own achievements in the lists of love; to vaunt its chivalry was to avouch his own honor; to laud its greatness was to extol himself. He measured himself with his Northern compeer, and decided without hesitation in ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... impelled the coursers on,— A fearful ending for Ganelon. His every nerve was stretched and torn, And the limbs of his body apart were borne; The bright blood, springing from every vein, Left on the herbage green its stain. He dies a felon and recreant: Never shall traitor his treason vaunt. ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... but there's no reason why the fact should be noised abroad." Other provincial managers were much less anxious to conceal the paucity of their company. A country playbill, bearing date 1807, seems indeed to vaunt the system of doubling to which the impresario had been driven. The comedy of "The Busy Body" was announced for performance with the ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... a Bacchante's, A grape-spurt, a vine-splash, a tossed tress, flown vaunt 'tis! Suffer my singing, Gipsy of Seasons, ere thou go winging; Ere Winter throws His slaking snows In thy feasting-flagon's impurpurate glows! The sopped sun—toper as ever drank hard - Stares foolish, ...
— Poems • Francis Thompson
... frontier forts, as shall in discourse thereof more particularly appeare: whereby I conclude, that going with an Inuader, and in such an action as euery day giueth new experience, I haue much to vaunt of, that my fortune did rather cary me thither then into the wars of Flanders. Notwithstanding the vehement perswasions you vsed with me to the contrary, the grounds whereof sithence you receiued ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, v. 7 - England's Naval Exploits Against Spain • Richard Hakluyt
... responded to its stimulus with an enthusiasm denied to later times. It was work that appealed to persons of varying ranks and of varying degrees of learning. In the early part of the century, according to Nash, "every private scholar, William Turner and who not, began to vaunt their smattering of Latin in English impressions."[250] Thomas Nicholls, the goldsmith, translated Thucydides; Queen Elizabeth translated Boethius. The mention of women in this connection suggests how widely the impulse was diffused. Richard Hyrde says of the translation of Erasmus's ...
— Early Theories of Translation • Flora Ross Amos
... Ursula left Wiggiston. Miss Inger went to Nottingham. There was an engagement between her and Tom Brangwen, which the uncle seemed to vaunt as if it were an assurance of ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... malady, such an one as bringeth men to die. So the Wazir shortened his stages and tarried long at the watering stations and did his best to solace the King. Now when Shah Zaman drew near the capital of his brother he despatched vaunt couriers and messengers of glad tidings to announce his arrival, and Shahryar came forth to meet him with his Wazirs and Emirs and Lords and Grandees of his realm; and saluted him and joyed with exceeding joy and caused the city to be decorated in his honour. When, however, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... not vaunt Large demesnes, to feed my pleasure; I have favours where you want, That would buy respect with treasure. You have lands lie here and there, But my wealth is everywhere; And this addeth to my store— Fortune cannot ...
— Pastoral Poems by Nicholas Breton, - Selected Poetry by George Wither, and - Pastoral Poetry by William Browne (of Tavistock) • Nicholas Breton, George Wither, William Browne (of Tavistock)
... vices may not deceive us which appear to imitate virtue. For cunning tries to assume the character of prudence, and moroseness, in despising pleasures, wishes to be taken for temperance; and pride, which puffs a man up, and which affects to despise legitimate honours, seeks to vaunt itself as magnanimity; prodigality calls itself liberality, audacity imitates courage, hardhearted sternness imitates patience, bitterness justice, superstition religion, weakness of mind lenity, timidity modesty, captiousness and carping at words wishes to pass for ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero
... triumphal chant, Matched with thine would be all But an empty vaunt, A thing wherein we feel there is ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... thou that would'st forget The gamester's smile, the trader's vaunt, The statesman actor's face hard set, The kennel cry that cheers his taunt, Come where pure winds and rills combine To murmur peace ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)
... he-goat, the one-eyed, what shall be My saying of a knave, his fashion and degree? I rede thee vaunt thee not of praise from us, for lo! Even as a docktailed cur thou art esteemed of me. By Allah, without fail, to-morrow thou shalt see Me with ox-leather dress and ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... whom in Thy secret judgments pride deserved to be deluded, hath one thing in common with man, that is sin; another he would seem to have in common with God; and not being clothed with the mortality of flesh, would vaunt himself to be immortal. But since the wages of sin is death, this hath he in common with men, that with them he should be ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... are from the Richmond Whig—a paper beyond all comparison the most respectable and moderate in the whole South, and by no means of so little weight or character that its remarks can be passed by as mere Southern vaunt and idle bluster signifying nothing. It speaks the deep-seated belief and heartfelt conviction of even the most intelligent secessionists—for the editor of the Whig is not only one of these, but one of the most honest and upright men to ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... smiting sore: And this God is our God for evermore Through life, through death, while clod returns to clod. For though He slay us we will trust in Him; We will flock home to Him by divers ways: Yea, though He slay us we will vaunt His praise, Serving and loving with the Cherubim, Watching and loving with the Seraphim, Our very selves His praise ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... finally absorbed the Savonnerie, but that was after it had been established in the Louvre. Pierre Dupont who was director of tapestry works under Henri IV even goes so far as to vaunt the works of French production over those of "La Turquie." The taste of the day was doubtless far better pleased with the French colour and drawing than with the designs of ...
— The Tapestry Book • Helen Churchill Candee
... the positivist theory. It is evident, therefore, that one of the first results of positivism is to destroy even the rudiments of any machinery by which one man could govern, with authority, the inward kingdom of another; and the moral imperative is reduced to an empty vaunt. For what can be an emptier flourish than for one set of men, and these a confessed minority, to proclaim imperious laws to others, which they can never get the others to obey, and which are essentially meaningless to the only people to whom they are not superfluous? ...
— Is Life Worth Living? • William Hurrell Mallock
... chief, is all thy ancient valour lost? Where are thy threats, and where thy glorious boast, That propp'd alone by Priam's race should stand Troy's sacred walls, nor need a foreign hand? Now, now thy country calls her wonted friends, And the proud vaunt in just derision ends. Remote they stand while alien troops engage, Like trembling hounds before the lion's rage. Far distant hence I held my wide command, Where foaming Xanthus laves the Lycian land; With ample wealth (the wish of mortals) bless'd, A beauteous wife, and ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... affectionate delight? When and where shall I, under thee, feel for the last time any evil of any kind in my heart against my brother? Oh! to see the day when I shall suffer long and be kind! When I shall never again vaunt myself or be puffed up! When I shall bear all things, believe all things, hope all things, endure all things! O blessed, blessed Charity! with thy divine heart, with thy dove-like eyes, and with thy bosom full of pity, when wilt thou ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte
... accomplish the task to which we have set ourselves. What said the Lord unto Gideon, Judges vii.: 'The people that are with thee are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hands lest Israel vaunt themselves against me, saying, Mine own hand hath saved me. Now therefore go to, proclaim in the ears of the people, saying, Whosoever is fearful and afraid, let him return and depart early from Gilead.' Well, twenty-two thousand went back and at last Gideon had only ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford
... against thy country and these lords, Sylla, proceed from forth a traitor's heart; Whose head I trust to see advanced up On highest top of all this capitol, As erst was many of thy progeny, Before thou vaunt thy ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... Worse than remorse, and worse a thousand-fold, Than pangs of hunger. 'Tis the thirst of love, The rage and rapture of the ravening dove We name Desire. Ah, pardon! I offend; My fervor blinds me to the withering end Of all good council, and, accurst thereby, I vaunt anew the ...
— A Lover's Litanies • Eric Mackay
... glances of his dark eye, when aught was uttered in his hearing that affected, ever so remotely, his own condition; and, once or twice, by the haughty gleamings of ferocity that escaped him, when Eben Dudley was heard to vaunt the prowess of the white men in their encounters with the original owners of the country. The Puritan did not fail to note these symptoms of a budding intelligence, as the pledges of a fruit that would more than reward ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... grief at heart. But the son of Cronos and the other deathless gods whom rich-haired Rhea bare from union with Cronos, brought them up again to the light at Earth's advising. For she herself recounted all things to the gods fully, how that with these they would gain victory and a glorious cause to vaunt themselves. For the Titan gods and as many as sprang from Cronos had long been fighting together in stubborn war with heart-grieving toil, the lordly Titans from high Othyrs, but the gods, givers of good, whom rich-haired Rhea bare in union with Cronos, from Olympus. So ...
— Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica • Homer and Hesiod
... department, specialty. fakt-o fact. fal-i to fall. fald-i to fold. fals-i to falsify, forge, debase. fam-o fame, renown, rumor. famili-o family. familiar-a familiar, accustomed. fand-i (trans.), to smelt, fuse (metals, etc.). fanfaron-i to boast, vaunt oneself, brag. fantom-o phantom, ghost. far-i to make, do, render. faraon-o pharaoh (Egyptian ruler). farm-i to farm (as a tenant). farmaci-o pharmacy (knowledge of the use of drugs). fart-i to be in (good or bad) health. ...
— A Complete Grammar of Esperanto • Ivy Kellerman
... degree at Oxford and foreign travel, had scarcely is yet been either seen or heard of in the London world. He was known only in his own country as one of those quiet reserved dispositions little given to vaunt their accomplishments. Both Braybrooke and Jim Bloxam, having been appealed to by Captain Conyers, said they could form no idea whatever of his capabilities. They had never heard him say a word about running; and if he ever had done anything in that way, it was ...
— Belles and Ringers • Hawley Smart
... voyage down the Illinois, the case is different. Here, he is reported to have made a statement which admits but one interpretation,—that of the discovery by him of the Mississippi prior to its discovery by Joliet and Marquette. This statement is attributed to a man not prone to vaunt his own exploits, who never proclaimed them in print, and whose testimony, even in his own case, must therefore have weight. But it comes to us through the medium of a person, strongly biased in favor of La Salle and against Marquette ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman
... That strang necessity supreme is 'Mang sons o' men. I hae a wife and twa wee laddies, They maun hae brose and brats o' duddies; Ye ken yoursels my heart right proud is, I need na vaunt, But I'll sned besoms, thraw ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp
... Shakespeare's Cleopatra, whom age could not wither. On their way upstairs they had heard the sound of a harp, but it had ceased on their being announced, and Edith now stood beside it handsomer and haughtier than ever. It was a remarkable characteristic of this lady's beauty that it appeared to vaunt and assert itself without her aid, and against her will. She knew that she was beautiful: it was impossible that it could be otherwise: but she seemed with her own pride to ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... recently turned at the end of his beat; but the guide knew the country thoroughly, and professed to have no fears. To speak the truth, I had heard him, when in the ingle-nook, and warm with Old Rye, vaunt so loudly his own sagacity and courage, that I conceived certain misgivings as to how far either were to be relied on. That night, however, he fully maintained part of his character by leading us safety and surely through a perfect labyrinth of tracks, sometimes ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... dialogue, the first speech of Goliath is simple vaunt. Confident in his huge bulk and strength, he strides occasionally from side to side while speaking, elevating his arms and throwing his limbs about as if anxious to display his powerful sinews and muscular proportions. ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various
... declared vehemently. "It's all my doing—everything! Wholly my idea from the start!" The impulse to boast, to vaunt his cleverness, was not to be resisted. "I told Van Buren the game had only begun! ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... that skirts the way, Trembling lest passing hounds snuff out your lair! Listen at eventide on lonesome path For traveller's footfall, or the mule-bell's chime, Pouncing by hundreds on one helpless man, To cut him down, then back to your retreats— You dare to vaunt your sires? I call your sires, Bravest of brave and greatest 'mid the great, A line of warriors! you, a pack ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... the Potomac Henry Callister was frank in refuting the similar claims of wealthy Marylanders. "Some of the proudest families here vaunt themselves of a pedigree, at the same time they know not their grandfather's name. I never knew a good honest Marylander that was not ...
— Patrician and Plebeian - Or The Origin and Development of the Social Classes of the Old Dominion • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... me a fresh horse; Rally the vaunt-guard, or the day is lost, Yield, yield! I give you the honour of arms Shake my sword over you; will ...
— The Duchess of Malfi • John Webster
... mighty sovereign, That all this famous antique history Of some the abundance of an idle brain Will judged be, and painted forgery, Rather than matter of just memory: Since none that breatheth living air, doth know Where is that happy land of faery Which I so much do vaunt, but no where show, But vouch ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... to add, by taking thought, One cubit to thy stature? and hast thou, Or such as thou, Nature's whole fabric wrought? Not thine such vaunt—not thine to disavow The lustre of thy genuine origin. To the Most Highest, as thine author, bow With rapture of exulting faith, wherein Devotion's cravings their desire achieve, The bright ideal that they imaged, win. ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton
... gae zour black errand, Though it be to zour cost; Sen ze by me will nae be warn'd, In it ze sail find frost. The baron he is a man of might, He neir could bide to taunt, As ze will see before its nicht, How sma' ze hae to vaunt. ...
— Book of Old Ballads • Selected by Beverly Nichols
... undoubtedly be grounded upon a grandeur of actions and a splendor of worthy deeds, if men would not seem little, ungenerous, and puerile, but on the contrary, bulky, firm, and brave. But for a man to be elated by happiness, as Epicurus is, like sailors upon the festivals of Venus, and to vaunt himself that, when he was sick of an ascites, he notwithstanding called his friends together to certain collations and grudged not his dropsy the addition of good liquor, and that, when he called to remembrance the last words of Neocles, he was melted with a peculiar sort ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... Poor vaunt of life indeed, Were man but formed to feed 20 On joy, to solely seek and find and feast: Such feasting ended, then As sure an end to men; Irks care the crop-full bird? Frets ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning
... by Cellini's vaunt that if he only tried he was sure he could fly, put him under strict guard, saying, "Benvenuto e un pipistrello contrafatto, ed io sono ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... think we grow more wise When Radcliffe's page we cease to prize, And turn to Malthus, and to Hervey, For tombs, or cradles topsy-turvy; 'Tis sweet to flatter one's dear self, And altered feelings vaunt, when pelf Is passion, poetry, romance; — And all our faith's in three per cents." ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... crack your cheeks! rage! blow! You cataracts, and hurricanes, spout Till you have drenched our steeples, drowned the cocks! You sulphurous and thought-executing fires, Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts, Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder, Strike flat the thick rotundity of the world! Crack nature's molds, all germens spill at once, That make ingrateful men! Rumble thy belly full! Spit ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... this morning received his Diploma as Doctor of Laws from the University of Oxford. He did not vaunt of his new dignity, but I understood he was highly ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... de Cailon, a knight of Gascony, and Governor of Berwick, who had been heard to vaunt that he had sought the famous Black Knight, but could not find him, was returning to England, loaded with plunder, the fruit of an inroad on Teviotdale. Sir James thought it a pity that a Gascon's vaunt should be heard unpunished in Scotland, and made long forced marches ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous
... it, to vaunt princely robes, not princely virtues. Pride is it to lowte men of lower sort or pore {353} lasers, as is some men's guise."—The Third Booke of Nobilitye; writte in Latine by ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 180, April 9, 1853 • Various
... are judged should be applied to those that wrote when history was young, when the boundaries between the possible and the impossible were less clearly defined, or when, in fact, such boundaries hardly existed in men's minds. In this connection, even while we vaunt, we smile. After all, how much of our modern and so-called scientific history must strike the reasoning reader as mere theorizing or as special pleading based upon the slenderest evidence! Among the ...
— Roman History, Books I-III • Titus Livius
... those virtues of which you vaunt, are with me his worst offences—they have undone my love and marred my fortunes—the easy heart of Geraldine is captivated by the stripling's specious outside, while his talents and achievements secure him with the uncle ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... veins in his temples, and such a strained skin to his face that it seemed to hold his eyes open, and lift his eyebrows up. A man with a pervading appearance on him of being inflated like a balloon, and ready to start. A man who could never sufficiently vaunt himself a self-made man. A man who was always proclaiming, through that brassy speaking-trumpet of a voice of his, his old ignorance and his old poverty. A man who was ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... longer let the wicked vaunt, And, proudly boasting, say, "Tush, God regards not what we do; He never ...
— Walker's Appeal, with a Brief Sketch of His Life - And Also Garnet's Address to the Slaves of the United States of America • David Walker and Henry Highland Garnet
... "upon the simple condition that they should respect myself and my friends. Perhaps what I am about to say may seem strange to you, who are socialists, and vaunt humanity and your duty to your neighbor, but I never seek to protect a society which does not protect me, and which I will even say, generally occupies itself about me only to injure me; and thus by giving them a low place in my esteem, and preserving a neutrality ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... monstrous ugly hag is this, That dares control the pleasures of our will? Vaunt, churlish cur, besmeared with gory blood, That seemst to check the blossoms of delight, And stifle the sound of sweet Bellona's breath: Blush, monster, blush, and post away with shame, That seekst disturbance ...
— 2. Mucedorus • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... to be accounted wise, when in truth they are extremely silly, what, if to give them their due, I dub them with the title of wise fools: and herein they copy after the example of some modern orators, who swell to that proportion of conceitedness, as to vaunt themselves for so many giants of eloquence, if with a double-tongued fluency they can plead indifferently for either side, and deem it a very doughty exploit if they can but interlard a Latin sentence with some Greek word, which for seeming garnish they crowd in at a venture; and ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus
... this marvellous change; and experience evinces the truth of what they affirm, and which originates in the very nature of things. It is characteristic of human perversity to disbelieve what is imperceptible to reason or invisible to sense, and to vaunt itself upon that very infidelity as a distinctive mark of pre-eminence, which is, in fact, a proof of debasement and guilt. If a system of religion were to be so constructed as to be exempt from the ridicule of the profane, it must ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox
... overmastered his reason when he made this mistimed vaunt; for three soldiers, who had hitherto stood motionless like statues, made each a stride in advance, which placed them betwixt the municipal officers and the soldier, who was in the act of rising; then making at once ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... thy father in his weak old age. Fool, thou art slain, and by an unknown man! Dearer to the red jackels shalt thou be Than to thy friends, and to thy father old,' And, with a fearless mien, Sohrab replied:— 'Unknown thou art; yet thy fierce vaunt is vain. Thou dost not slay me, proud and boastful man! No! Rustum slays me, and this filial heart. For were I matched with ten such men as thee, And I were that which till to-day I was, They should be lying here, I standing there. But that beloved name unnerved my arm— That name, and something, ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... their summits. The literary class had ancient rule and precedent for every step in this ceremony, and so sharply criticised the emperor's disregard of these observances that they roused his anger. "You vaunt the simplicity of the ancients," he impatiently said; "you should then be satisfied with me, for I act in a simpler fashion than they did." Finally he closed the controversy with the stern remark, "When I have need of you I will let you ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 12 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... scann'd by long descent From ancestors illustrious, I could vaunt A lineage of the greatest; and recount, Among my fathers, names of ancient story, Heroes and god-like patriots, who subdu'd The world by arms and virtue. But that be their own praise; Nor will I borrow merit from the dead, Myself ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson |
