"Boast" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... married Diogenes, or to drown a dozen Dukes of Clarence, and some of them containing five thousand gallons of the still unvexed Catawba. It was there that we made acquaintance with the "Golden Wedding" champagne, the boast of the late proprietor,—an acquaintance which we trust will ripen into an enduring friendship. If there is any better wine than this attainable in the present state of existence, it ought, in consideration of human ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... the full measure of the strength of the enemy. But when once Aleck had made up his mind that victory was possible, and had given them the call for the final effort, then his team put their bodies and souls into the pull, and never drew back till something came. Their driver was accustomed to boast that never yet had they ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... be disputed by many men who have quit drinking and who beat themselves on the chests and boast: "I never think of it! Never, I assure you! I quit; and after a few days the thought of drinking never entered my mind." I have only one reply for these persons; and, phrasing it as politely as I can, I say to them that they are all liars. Moreover, they are the ...
— The Old Game - A Retrospect after Three and a Half Years on the Water-wagon • Samuel G. Blythe
... the corrective qualities of mathematics; but I was too happy to heed her or care. I was stronger and better, I believe, from that day; though I had not much to boast of. A true tonic had been administered to me; my fainting energies took ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... in some cases you will be surprised to see my opinions of certain men, some of whom, in many respects, I may perhaps think differently of now. Gibbon said of certain Pagan philosophers, that 'their lives were spent in the pursuit of truth and the practice of virtue.' I cannot boast of having passed my life in the practice of virtue, but I may venture to say that I have always pursued truth; and you will see evidence of the efforts I have made to get at it, and to sum up conflicting statements of facts with ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... Irish peer for whom an ancient title had been revived. He was remotely descended from the Stuarts of Scotland, and therefore had royal blood to boast of. He had been well educated, and in many ways was a man of pleasing manner. On the other hand, he had early inherited a very large property which yielded him an income of about thirty thousand pounds a year. He had estates in Ireland, ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... It was an unfortunate boast, for Chaplin in the course of his experience as a hotel-keeper had acquired a peculiar skill in dealing with gentlemen whose room he preferred to their company, and the words were hardly out of Lawson's mouth before he found himself caught by the collar and arm and hustled ...
— The Trembling of a Leaf - Little Stories of the South Sea Islands • William Somerset Maugham
... were entirely extinguished by this stroke, and hadn't a word to say for themselves, while Kitty casually mentioned Horace Fletcher, Lyceum Hall, and Cousin Jack, for they had only a little Freshman brother to boast of, and were not going to ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... who have lived among the people can understand its innumerable ramifications and its remarkable effects. Every caste, down to the lowest, is endlessly sub-divided. There are Brahmans who would as soon eat, drink, and intermarry with people of low caste, as with many who like themselves boast of Brahmanical blood. In books the Sudras are described as the fourth, the low, servile caste; but in fact a vast number in Northern India, who are loosely reckoned Hindus, are far below the Sudras, and thus the Sudras acquire a relatively high place. ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy
... extracted the most interesting passages, which were commented upon, picked to pieces, discussed, attacked, and defended with equal enthusiasm and determination, both by believers and sceptics. Rare privilege! my uncle enjoyed during his lifetime the glory he had deservedly won; and he may even boast the distinguished honour of an offer from Mr. Barnum, to exhibit him on most advantageous terms in all the principal cities in the ...
— A Journey to the Interior of the Earth • Jules Verne
... the Duke of Rutland, in the beginning of the last century, was compelled to "keep up fires from Lady-day to Michaelmas behind his sloped walls," in order to insure the ripening of his grapes; yet winter grapes he had, and it was a great boast in that time. The quiet country squires—such as Sir Roger de Coverley—had to content themselves with those old-fashioned fruits which would struggle successfully with out-of-door fogs. Fielding tells us that the garden of Mr. Wilson, where Parson ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... the party of ruffians had been heard to say they were acting for James VIII., and were charged to disarm all rebels. Others had heard Westburnflat boast, in drinking parties, that Ellieslaw would soon be in arms for the Jacobite cause, and that he himself was to hold a command under him, and that they would be bad neighbours for young Earnscliff; and all that stood out for the established ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... are trained to be strictly honorable in regard to one particular matter, while they have little honor to boast of in anything else. Many a man, for instance, will not steal your money; but he will lay hands on everything of yours that he can enjoy without having to pay for it. A man of business will often deceive you without ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Studies in Pessimism • Arthur Schopenhauer
... to puff your idol-fires, And heap their ashes on the head; To shame the boast so often made, [4] That we ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... today as I think that I have lanceed her in the best New York can offer. It has not been all downhill work. Her father's name entitled her to it; but he hated society, so he was more of a drawback than anything else. I couldn't boast of any social position in Buffalo, and it's extraordinary how well that was known here. However, the fact of my being of a good, sterling, unpretentious family did help in the end, when I got started, and people saw I was serious ...
— The Smart Set - Correspondence & Conversations • Clyde Fitch
... hideous and agonizing punishments to which men of their class could be exposed. It was with such terrors staring them in the face that the men whose words are recorded in this little work delivered their speeches from the dock. It is surely something for us, their countrymen, to boast of, that neither in their bearing nor in their words was there manifested the slightest trace of weakness, the faintest exhibition of any feeling which could show that their hearts were accessible to the terror which their situation was so well calculated to inspire. No cheek grew pale, ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various
... window-boxes filled. My sister helped me to place them, but when her back was turned I arranged them over again. I can't tie a veil on the way she can, but I can arrange flowers to look—well, I won't boast. ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell
... not tell to strangers what was indifferent, or perhaps amusing, to them? Oh, Sister Agatha, is it necessary that we expose ourselves to the derision of the world? We do not serve God by doing that. And when you speak of pride, is it not that very feeling which leads you to boast of our having come from so many and such distant lands? Do you not wish to demonstrate by that means how your faith has penetrated into all parts of the world? That is, after all, pride under the garb ...
— Sister Carmen • M. Corvus
... were rather disgusted with Gould when he talked in the way he did, and Buller let him see it. "It's awfully bad form to ask a fellow to your house, and then boast that he can't do things that he never tried before, so well as ...
— Dr. Jolliffe's Boys • Lewis Hough
... arming for the great tournament, to which they had been summoned by herald and trumpet; and the Batavian hero, without a crown or even a country, but with as lofty a lineage as many anointed sovereigns could boast, was ambitious to distinguish ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... spot his own, Extols the treasures of his stormy seas, And his long nights of revelry and ease; The naked negro, panting at the line, Boasts of his golden sands and palmy wine, 70 Basks in the glare, or stems the tepid wave, And thanks his gods for all the good they gave. Such is the patriot's boast, where'er we roam, His first, best country ever is, at home. And yet, perhaps, if countries we compare, 75 And estimate the blessings which they share, Though patriots flatter, still shall wisdom find An equal portion dealt to all mankind, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... vital powers, worsted in an unequal struggle, are pushed back upon themselves, and, by a reversal of their whole functions, fester to gangrene, to death; and instead of what was but just now the delight and boast of the creation, there will be cast out in the face of the sun a bloated, putrid, noisome carcass, full of stench, and poison, an offence, a horror, a lesson ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... comes in handy. You can use it with effect in company—it stamps you as a person of culture and travel—and it impresses other people; but then I always could pick up foreign languages easily. I do not wish to boast—but with me it amounts ...
— Roughing it De Luxe • Irvin S. Cobb
... have no reason to boast of parentage, after what I have seen this night," said the girl, in a saddened voice. "I had a mother, it is true; but of her name even, I am ignorant—and, as for my father, it is better, perhaps, that I should never know who he was, lest I speak ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... upon the cellar-steps, and the three men previously sent below staggered from the doorway, bearing a huge safe which nearly broke them down. Somerset knew that his father's box, or boxes, could boast of no such dimensions, and he was not surprised to see the chest deposited in front of Miss Power. When the immense accumulation of dust had been cleared off the lid, and the chest conveniently placed for her, Somerset was attended to, his modest box being brought up by one man unassisted, and ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... the officials of the prison take every precaution to prevent such evil practices, yet, as a matter of fact, so long as prisoners are permitted to work in the mines it will be impossible to break up these terribly degrading and debasing practices. Oh, Kansan! you that boast of the freedom and liberty, the strength of your laws, and the institutions in your grand young State, what do you think of this disclosure of wickedness, equalling if not excelling the most horrible things ...
— The Twin Hells • John N. Reynolds
... boast, though I may have read and thought a little; and I know—it may be from much perusing, but I make no boast—that by the time a man's head is finished, 'tis almost time for him to creep ...
— Under the Greenwood Tree • Thomas Hardy
... audacity the German pamphlet tells the Spaniards that they have seized so many hundred thousand watches, so many hundred thousand rings, so much treasure of diamonds and jewels, so many paintings from rich men's houses, and the long boast ends with the statement that they "obtained nearly five billions of loot out of western Russia and have assessed two billions more upon the farmers, villages and ...
— The Blot on the Kaiser's 'Scutcheon • Newell Dwight Hillis
... seeing there was nothing to be got out of a king's attorney, died of grief or anger at finding, after an absence of nine months, that you had been enceinte six. I am brutal,—I not only allow it, but boast of it; it is one of the reasons of my success in commercial business. Why did he kill himself instead of you? Because he had no cash to save. My life belongs to my cash. M. Debray has made me lose 700,000 ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... well-nigh empty piazza. "As for the ladies, it is reported that if one of them is seen speaking to an Austrian, she is either assassinated or sent off to spend the rest of her days in a convent. At all events, it is certain that we have none of us any successes to boast of, except Von Rosenau, who has had an affair, they say, only he is pleased to be very mysterious ...
— Stories By English Authors: Italy • Various
... to say 'Thanky' when folks got me out of scrapes. But you never had much bringing up, though you do 'live in a house with a gambrel roof,'" retorted Ben, sarcastically quoting Sam's frequent boast; then he walked off, much disgusted ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 • Various
... of France, Portugal, and Spain, are now the best; while Italy can only boast of the wine made in Tuscany. The breeding of cattle is now chiefly confined to Denmark and Ireland. The corn of Sicily is still in great esteem, as well as what is produced in the northern countries: but England is the happiest spot in the universe for all the principal kinds of agriculture, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... for them between men whose studies and inclinations are the same. Indeed, I know nothing that gives me any pretence to think any gentlemen my inferior. I am a very private person myself, and if I have any thing to boast from my birth, it is from the good understanding, not from the nobility of my father. I must beg, therefore, that, in the future correspondence, which I hope we shall have, you will neither show me, nor think I expect, a respect to which I have no manner of title, and which ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... none of you much to boast," she said; "I'd wather have the animals." Then she turned her back and gazed around her ...
— A Little Mother to the Others • L. T. Meade
... the Flash freighted with materials for building a new house left the harbour of Batavia, taking away the young couple into the unknown Borneo, she did not carry on her deck so much love and happiness as old Lingard was wont to boast of before his casual friends in the verandahs of various hotels. The old seaman himself was perfectly happy. Now he had done his duty by the girl. "You know I made her an orphan," he often concluded solemnly, when talking ...
— Almayer's Folly - A Story of an Eastern River • Joseph Conrad
... undecided: She now puts off her vengeance till to-morrow. Her projects all appear to slay each other. "Some knowledge I have gained of this boy's fate," So did I say; "now of his ancestry They have begun to boast: from time to time Joad shows him to the factious, holds him up, As if another Moses, to the Jews, And lying oracles support his speech." These words did cause the blood to mount her brow: Ne'er lucky fable had such prompt effect. "Must I drag ...
— Athaliah • J. Donkersley
... sold his life, In the face of warning, With sharpened blades would slaughter, But would himself be slain by spears and crosses. {111b} According to the compact, {111c} he meditated a convenient attack, And would boast {111d} of a pile of carcases Of gallant men of toil, Whom in the upper part of Gwynedd ...
— Y Gododin - A Poem on the Battle of Cattraeth • Aneurin
... "The Ten-Million-Dollar Baby," and thus made his wealth a dangerous incubus before he was out of the nursery. Everywhere the same tale is told. The dollar has a power of evoking curiosity which neither valour nor lofty station may boast. Plainly, then, the millionaire is not made of common day. Liquid gold flows in his veins. His eyes are made of precious jewels. It is doubtful whether he can do wrong. If by chance he does, it is almost certain that he cannot be punished. The mere sight and touch of him have a virtue far greater ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley
... sing the praise of snuff— Give me, ye gods, I pray, enough— Let others boast their wine; Let some prefer the nice morceau And piquant joys of feasting know, The bliss of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 333 - Vol. 12, Issue 333, September 27, 1828 • Various
... and who still saw before him the figure of HAMET, proceeded in his purpose: 'I knew,' said he, 'that in thy judgment I should be condemned; and yet, the preservation of life is the strongest principle of nature, and the love of virtue is her proudest boast.' 'Explain thyself,' said ALMORAN, 'for I cannot comprehend thee.' 'I mean,' said Osmyn, 'that he, whose life depends upon the caprice of a tyrant, is like the wretch whose sentence is already pronounced; and who, if the wind does but rush ...
— Almoran and Hamet • John Hawkesworth
... person who has failed to adjust his religion to his growing powers and his intellectual horizon, has failed in one of the most important functions of growth, just as if his cranium failed to expand and to give room to his brain. Being microcephalous is a misfortune, and nothing to boast of. ...
— The Social Principles of Jesus • Walter Rauschenbusch
... engaged, knows everything and everybody. Not only that, she has done both for a considerable term of years. You remember the joke about her being torn between the desire not to exceed the age of forty-five and yet to boast a friendship with Lord Beaconsfield? Well, she can have known Frederic Lethbridge, and all about him, without being a day over forty, as that is Sir Lionel's age, and Mrs. Lethbridge was a distant relative ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... Valley could not boast of much, apparently, in the way of population. Cabins and houses were widely scattered, as if the inhabitants did not care to encroach upon one another. But the one store, built of stone, and stamped ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... Isaac also. Ishmael once boasted to Isaac, saying, "I was thirteen years old when the Lord spoke to my father to circumcise us, and I did not transgress His word, which He commanded my father." And Isaac answered Ishmael, saying, "What dost thou boast to me about this, about a little bit of thy flesh which thou didst take from thy body, concerning which the Lord commanded thee? As the Lord liveth, the God of my father Abraham, if the Lord should say unto my father, Take now ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... graced with immense apple pies, or saucers full of preserved peaches and pears; but it was always sure to boast an enormous dish of balls of sweetened dough, fried in hog's fat and called doughnuts or olykoeks, a delicious kind of cake, at present little known in this city, ...
— Eighth Reader • James Baldwin
... after many vicissitudes, to Rouen, and finally in 1594 to Lisbon. Here they remained, always recruiting their numbers from England, till 1861, when they returned to England. Syon House is now established at Chudleigh in Devon, the only English community that can boast an unbroken conventual existence since pre-Reformation times. Some six other Bridgittine convents exist on the Continent, but the order is now composed only ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... (uneme) to dance, wearing only waist-cloths. Mane watched the spectacle for a while, and on resuming his work, his accuracy of aim was momentarily at fault. The Emperor rebuked him for having made an unwarranted boast and handed him over to the monono-be for execution. After the unfortunate man had been led away, one of his comrades chanted an impromptu couplet lamenting his fate, whereat the Emperor, relenting, bade a messenger gallop off on "a ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... GIDEON." That was all. None of the fulsome praise, the superlative, necessary definition given to lesser performers. He had been, he remembered, "GIDEON, America's Foremost Native Comedian," a title that was at once boast and challenge. That necessity was now past, for he was a national character; any explanatory qualification would have been an insult to the public intelligence. To the world he was just "Gideon"; that was enough. It gave him pleasure, as he sauntered along, ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... face was smooth shaven—or had been some two days back. He smiled chronically, just as chronically he swung his shoulders and body with a sort of swagger, but the smile was vapid, and the swagger an empty boast. ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... fragrant hands bestow; 25 And yours the love that kings delight to know. Yet think not these, all beauteous as they are, The best kind blessings heaven can grant the fair! Who trust alone in beauty's feeble ray Boast but the worth[11] Balsora's pearls display: 30 Drawn from the deep we own their surface bright, But, dark within, they drink no lustrous light: Such are the maids, and such the charms they boast, By sense unaided, or to virtue ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... interests shared in common, but most of all, it would seem, by the very genius of the place. The genius of Cotswolds imparts to those who come beneath his influence the art of existing appropriately in the houses that were built at his inspiration. They do not boast of their privilege like the people of Sussex. They are not living up to a landscape so much as to an architecture, and their voices lowered harmoniously with the sigh of the wind through willows and aspens have not to compete with the ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... those of an ancient people, who might as well have worn a jacket of lead for the comfort they had of their boast. The beauty of laws for human creatures is their adaptability to ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Mrs. Ferrin sent in memorials and addresses with the petitions she yearly forwarded. One of these, in reply to the oft-made boast of man's unsolicited amelioration of woman's condition, carried the following retort: "The Powers tell us much has been done to ameliorate the condition of woman without any effort on woman's part. It would add a huge feather to their caps should ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... having a friend, if one may not boast to him? I heard yesterday that Murray has sold in a week the whole edition of 1500 copies of my book, and the sale so pressing that he has agreed with Clowes to get another edition in fourteen days! This has done me a world of good, for I had got into a sort of dogged ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... protector do honour to your generous heart; but recollect that your old friends were not the only persons who could appreciate and value your fine talents; to be esteemed worthy the honourable appellation of your patron is a glory which the proudest might envy; and, although I cannot boast of being a Minerva, who, after all, was possibly no wiser than the rest of us, I shall always feel proud and happy to serve you with my utmost credit and influence. "I return you my best thanks for the wishes you express, and the attachment ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... not my purpose in this little volume to make any boast of myself as an historian. Bookmaking is not my profession; neither do I propose to go into extensive details more than it is necessary to harmonize the coincidents of events as they occurred and the effect they produced in the development of an unusual Christian career, ...
— Conversion of a High Priest into a Christian Worker • Meletios Golden
... I will not be dictated to, and the army had best understand that. I do not want Kitchell in this country any more than you do. He has made a boast of being Confederate leading what he terms Mounted Irregulars. But to my knowledge he never held a commission from the South, and he is nothing but an outlaw trading on the unsettled state of the territory. That is recognized by every decent man in Arizona. And that covers those you call 'Rebels' ...
— Rebel Spurs • Andre Norton
... bodie to an hoast, Sayd that the hands were scouts, discouering harmes, The feete were horsemen, thundring on the coast, The brest, and stomacke, footmen, huge in swarmes. But for the head, in soueraigntie did boast, It Captayne was, director of alarms, Whose rashness, if it hazarded an ill, Not hee alone but all the hoast ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, v. 7 - England's Naval Exploits Against Spain • Richard Hakluyt
... belongings, I crossed to where trente et quarante was being played—a game which could boast of a more aristocratic public, and was played with cards instead of with a wheel. At this diversion the bank made itself responsible for a hundred thousand thalers as the limit, but the highest stake allowable was, as in ...
— The Gambler • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... proposed bill? Evidently, there was need of a secret and courageous study of the situation. Corruption was in the very air; she had known it was there for a long time; but this was the first real evidence of it in definite shape. And yet,—the story might have been but the idle boast of a half-drunken washerwoman. What should she do? Send for Judge Bateman?—Bailey?—Allingham? Not yet. She would look into it ...
— A Woman for Mayor - A Novel of To-day • Helen M. Winslow
... cases a greater number of journals than the entire continent boasted in 1776, and in each of the States of Ohio, New York and Pennsylvania more than the extra-metropolitan press of either France, Austria, Prussia or Russia can now boast. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... superficial reading, it is not even, strictly speaking, light reading. Our sympathies are as much committed to the characters as if they were the predestined victims in a Greek tragedy. The modern writer of comedies may be said to boast of the brittleness of his characters. He seems always on the eve of knocking his puppets to pieces. When John Oliver Hobbes wrote for the first time a comedy of serious emotions, she named it, with a thinly-disguised contempt for her ...
— Twelve Types • G.K. Chesterton
... People were by no means distressed, for they believed that Gage would soon take his revenge. Military men were puzzled and provoked at the state of affairs at Boston. "How often," said a general at the war office to one who had held command in America, "have I heard you American colonels boast that with four battalions you would march through America, and now you think that Gage with 4,000 men and forty pieces of cannon mayn't venture out of Boston."[99] However, things would, it was expected, soon wear a different face, for about 5,500 men were on their ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... fearful cost. The records of Assyria are full of terrible deeds—of towns and cities without number given to the flames, of the devastation of fertile fields and orchards, of the slaughter of men, women, and children, of the enslavement of entire nations. Assyrian monarchs, in numerous inscriptions, boast of the wreck and ruin they brought to many ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... here that I ever saw before in nature!—Well, now I may boast I've been in a real ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... they are punished as prostitutes are, elsewhere. Females stroll about the streets, beckon to the men, stare at them, whistle and cry psh! to them; chuckle them under the chin and do all manner of tricks, without the least sense of shame. These females boast of their victories, as dandies, with us, plume themselves on their intimacy with ladies, whose only favor may have been a sharp box on the ear. None are here blamed for besieging a young male with love letters and presents. But a young ...
— Niels Klim's journey under the ground • Baron Ludvig Holberg
... agreed to come out and was arrested. This was the close of an arduous hunt, a great many of the Police having been almost continuously in the saddle day and night in cold weather for weeks. They were determined that no one should boast of eluding the Police by ...
— Policing the Plains - Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous North-West Mounted Police • R.G. MacBeth
... kept, and the like; by which they plainly confess that these honors were more than their due and such as their friends would not believe if they had not been told. Whereas a man truly proud thinks the greatest honors below his merits, and consequently scorns to boast. I, therefore, deliver it as a maxim, that whoever desires the character of a proud man ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... without biting his tongue. The carpet-baggers ran all the way from "good to middling." Some went South with fair ability and good morals, where they lost the latter article and never found it; while many more went South to get all they could and keep all they got. The Negro could boast of numerical strength only. The scalawag managed the Negro, the latter did the voting, while the carpet-bagger held the offices. And when there were "more stalls than horses" the Negroes and scalawags occasionally ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... sides, and both arrive themselves at, and incline others to, thoughtful and unbiased conclusions upon all problems and issues, have Truth in fullest measure. The final test of wisdom is this,—how does a man live? What spirit does he manifest? How does he act under trial and temptation? Many men boast of being in possession of Truth who are continually swayed by grief, disappointment, and passion, and who sink under the first little trial that comes along. Truth is nothing if not unchangeable, and in so far as a man takes his stand upon Truth does ...
— The Way of Peace • James Allen
... farmer, my grandfather a blacksmith, and beyond that my ancestors may have been street-sweepers, for anything I know; but whatever they were, I fancy they were honest men, for that has always been our boast, though, like President Jackson's, our coat-of-arms is nothing but ...
— A Modern Cinderella - or The Little Old Show and Other Stories • Louisa May Alcott
... written (Prov. 28:25): "He that boasteth and puffeth up himself, stirreth up quarrels." Now strife is apparently the same as quarrel. Therefore it seems that strife is a daughter of pride or vainglory which makes a man boast ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... will be safely caught and held by nine out of ten of the privileged race. They had been conspicuous judges and admirals, lawyers and servants of the State for some years before the richness of the soil culminated in the rarest flower that any family can boast, a great writer, a poet eminent among the poets of England, a Richard Alardyce; and having produced him, they proved once more the amazing virtues of their race by proceeding unconcernedly again with ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... declared himself, That all his eloquence came only but by practice, the which also required the favour of his auditory: and further, he thought them fools and madmen (as indeed they be no less) that therefore would make any boast of themselves. In this they were both alike, that both of them had great credit and authority in their orations to the people, and for obtaining that they would propound: insomuch as captains, and they that had armies in their hands, stood ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various
... he is not so base as to boast of the ruin he has made; heaven forbid that one who has a drop of my blood in his veins should sink low enough for that; but the facts, your presence here, this cruel desertion of your friends, the insane tenacity with which you cling to this ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... great object of the Cuban troops in Eastern Cuba has been to waylay the baggage-trains carrying these supplies. Again and again they have been attacked, the guard slaughtered, and the provisions captured. The Cubans have begun to boast that such comforts as their army is now enjoying have been supplied to them through these ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 47, September 30, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... in the highest spirits, stepping jauntily along like a man who has fulfilled a mission. But when he came to boast himself to Dora, he found to his chagrin that he had only earned a scolding. Dora flushed up, her ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... utilising the heat from the depths of the earth, and by natural hot springs which flow from deep bores. Another fine city of which we may well be proud is Electropolis, on Lake Athabaska. Electropolis can boast of 100,000 inhabitants, and most enterprising citizens they are. Their great idea is to work everything by electricity, and to them belongs the credit of all the latest discoveries in electrical science. Their beautiful city is a great centre of attraction for scientific men, and many European electricians ...
— The Dominion in 1983 • Ralph Centennius
... What grateful millions had the statesman hail'd: Whose wisdom made the broils of nations cease, And taught the world humanity and peace! But, though he fail'd, succeeding ages here The vain, yet pious efforts shall revere; Boast in their annals his illustrious name, Uphold his greatness, and confirm ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson
... affections are wounded in those points in which all may, nay, must, feel. Let the morality of Shakespeare be contrasted with that of the writers of his own, or the succeeding age, or of those of the present day, who boast their superiority in this respect. No one can dispute that the result of such a comparison is altogether in favour of Shakespeare;—even the letters of women of high rank in his age were often coarser than his writings. If ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... obtain Universal Suffrage and Annual Parliaments." The statement of Margarot, that the London police sought to prevent his journey to Edinburgh, should have been a warning to members to measure their words well. Unfortunately, Margarot, a vain hot-headed fellow, at once began to boast of the importance of the Radical Societies; though fluctuating in number, they were numerous in London; there were thirty of them in Norwich; and in the Sheffield district their members numbered 50,000. "If," he added, "we could get a ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... thought of Mr. Gubb at all. Then Mrs. Phillipetti, daughter-in-law of General Phillipetti, who was Ambassador to Siberia in 1867, asked for Mr. Gubb. Mrs. Phillipetti was in charge of the Hot Waffles Booth, No. 13, aided by seventeen ladies of the highest society Riverbank could boast, and they served hot waffles with their own fair hands to all who chose to buy. The cooking of the waffles, being a warm task in late June, had been turned over to three colored women, hired for the occasion, and to complete the "ongsomble" and make ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler
... Timur might boast that at his accession to the throne Asia was the prey of anarchy and rapine, while under his prosperous monarchy a child, fearless and unhurt, might carry a purse of gold from the East to the West. Such was his ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... at one time dazzled Italy by the boldness and brilliancy of her violin playing, was his pupil when she was seven years old. The only other person who could boast having direct instructions from him was his young fellow townsman, Camillo Ernesto Sivori (1815-1894), who was in his day a great celebrity in European musical centres, and who was familiar to concert-goers in this country, especially ...
— For Every Music Lover - A Series of Practical Essays on Music • Aubertine Woodward Moore
... may humbly boast For her the loud waves call; The hamlet feeds the nation's host, ...
— The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes, Volume I • George MacDonald
... spoke, unless questioned. Never did he boast of being able to accomplish, or having successfully performed, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... you're going to do it all," exclaimed Wilma. "This very day I discovered all the old hothouse frames stored away in the carriage-house, as good as new; and Mam Daphne told me so many tales about the violets and the lettuce that used to be the boast of Marchmont every winter, that I went over to consult papa's old gardener. Sister has actually consented to let me try my hand at raising both. I haven't told her yet that it is my ambition to furnish the fashionable club houses this winter with extra fine lettuce at fancy prices. ...
— Cicely and Other Stories • Annie Fellows Johnston
... too for a little hour forget responsibility and fall in with the spirit of the times; while we tipple and toast, and vainly boast: "The ...
— Mistress Nell - A Merry Tale of a Merry Time • George C. Hazelton, Jr.
... she could not boast great powers of intuition, was dowered with a keen observation, and she had not spent a week at Lilac Lodge without putting two and two together and making four of them. She had noticed a great change in Diana. The girl was moody ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... vaunt and Death may boast, But we laugh his pow'r to scorn; He is but a slave at most,— Night that ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... it is the impossibility of knowing what better measure to adopt: my education fitted me for nothing more than the most simple occupations of life; I am but a feller of trees, a cultivator of land, the most honourable title an American can have. I have no exploits, no discoveries, no inventions to boast of; I have cleared about 370 acres of land, some for the plough, some for the scythe; and this has occupied many years of my life. I have never possessed, or wish to possess anything more than what could be earned ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
... sense, as a reward for all she had gone through. There was some spite in it too—a feeling of vengeance against all who looked down on the rag and bone man, although they themselves had little to boast about. ...
— Ditte: Girl Alive! • Martin Andersen Nexo
... which Master Constable Dogb. You haue: I knew it would be your answere: well, for your fauour sir, why giue God thankes, & make no boast of it, and for your writing and reading, let that appeare when there is no need of such vanity, you are thought heere to be the most senslesse and fit man for the Constable of the watch: therefore beare you the lanthorne: this is your charge: You shall ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... over which twilight was slowly stealing, and which seemed to broaden the thoroughfares, throw back the edifices, and lend them the quivering, soaring aspect of the palaces of dreamland. No other capital in the world could boast a scene of such aerial pomp, such grandiose magnificence, at that hour of vagueness, when falling night imparts to cities a dreamy semblance, the infinite of ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... gentleman of Leyden; and although the lady was not at that age at which tender passions are usually inspired—being sixty—and though she could not, like Mademoiselle Ninon de l'Enclos, then at Paris, boast of charms which defied the progress of time,—for Mrs. Silverkoop was as red as a boiled lobster, and as unwieldy as a porpoise; and although her mental attractions did by no means make up for her personal deficiencies,—for she was jealous, violent, ...
— Catherine: A Story • William Makepeace Thackeray
... be a pride that ranks with virtues, it is that we feel from friendships with the worthy. Mr. Mallet, therefore, must forgive me, that I boast the honour he has done my Merope—I have so long been a retreater from the world, that one of the best spirits in it told me lately, I had made myself an alien there. I must confess, I owe so many obligations to its ornaments of most distinguished genius, that I must have ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... proved that he made no vain boast when he asserted his ability to follow their track. A lifetime on the plains, and a natural fitness for the life, had made him own brother to the Indian in the matter of nosing out dim trails. The crushing of a tuft of grass, a broken twig, all the half-hidden signs that ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... the rise of any power which might threaten her dominion of the seas. The silver-pewter streak of channel kept her safe from invasion by any continental power, yet she could land troops across the Channel and throw the weight of her forces in the balance when her dominion was threatened. It is her boast that she has always won the "last battle," which is sufficient. She had only 30,000 troops in the allied army under Wellington, which delivered the finishing ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... do the most wonderful of your wilderness traveling. On those days you look back fondly, of them you boast afterwards in telling what a rapid and enduring voyager you are. The biggest day's journey I ever undertook was in just such a case. We started at four in the morning through a forest of the early spring-time, where ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White
... that he had at one time been engaged to her mother; but he spared her the knowledge of her perfidy. Mrs. Huntington had already told her daughter of what she designated a conquest of Tom Kinsella, as she was ever inclined to boast of the number of scalps of former suitors and ...
— Molly Brown's Orchard Home • Nell Speed
... Indeed, Demetrius's boast as to his own importance in Alexandria was soon verified. The customs officials were all obsequiousness when they went through the form of levying on the cargo of the ship. The master of the port was soon in ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... some French authors have strangely affirmed that it is of British origin. Having once gained footing among us, it has established itself in our country, to the vexation and loss of the sportsman, and the annoyance of the veterinary surgeon. However keepers, or even men of education, may boast of their specifics, it is a sadly fatal disease, and destroys fully one-third ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... such a complete view of an old wall, that it effectually prevented us from seeing anything else. The rooms, or rather holes, assigned to us, were so miserable, that we tried the solitary opposition shop the place can boast—the Hotel de Provence—but found that here we should fare rather worse than in the Hotel de France. There was a third establishment—a tavern, rejoicing in the magniloquent title of "Hotel of the Britannic Isles"—but as this hostelry was entirely occupied by sailors ...
— Notes in North Africa - Being a Guide to the Sportsman and Tourist in Algeria and Tunisia • W. G. Windham |
