"Brag" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... she was here at hame and safe and sensible, the Morrison o' the Morrisons had only to reach his hand to her and say, 'Coom, lass!' But noo that she is back wi' head high and notions alaft, he'd no accept her! She's nowt but a draft signed by Sham o' Shoddy and sent through the Bank o' Brag and Blaw! No! He'd no' accept her! And now back wi' ye to yer tickety-tack! I hae my orders, and the Queen o' Sheba might yammer ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... that walk by dark is clear gold all the way down to bed-rock. Ef yer husband's in California, I'll find him fur yer, in spite of man or devil—I will, an' I'll be on the trail in half an hour. An' you'd better stay here till I come back, or send yer word. I don't want to brag, but thar ain't a man in the Gulch that'll dare molest anythin' aroun' my shanty, an' as thar's plenty of pervisions thar—plain, but good—yer can't suffer. The spring is close by, an' you'll allers find firewood by the door. An' ef yer want help about anythin', ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... shouldn't hes'tate none to mention him as a top-sawyer among liars, the same bein' his constant boast an' brag. He accepts the term as embodyin' a compliment, an' the quick way to get his bristles up is to su'gest that his genius for mendac'ty ...
— Faro Nell and Her Friends - Wolfville Stories • Alfred Henry Lewis
... foreign advisers also, or one at least; for Mr. W.H. Russell, self-appointed plenipotentiary near the Court of St. Jefferson, is said to have lent the aid of his valuable military experience to that commanding officer so appropriately named Captain Bragg. But, Bragg or no brag, it is almost a moral impossibility that a slaveholding ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... of the other men. "The kid is bound to be a regular, all right. He doesn't brag, and I don't believe he's looking for ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys in the Ranks - or, Two Recruits in the United States Army • H. Irving Hancock
... night sky is a beautiful thing, even though Deimos and Phobos are nothing to brag about. If you walk outside, maybe as far as the rocket field, you notice ...
— Fee of the Frontier • Horace Brown Fyfe
... to do without—" ("They'll learn that," Mis' Abby Winslow said; "they'll learn....") "Happening as it does to most every one of us not to have no Christmas, they won't be no distinctions drawn. None of the children can brag—and children is limbs of Satan for bragging," she added. (She was remembering a brief conversation overheard that day between Gussie and Pep, the ...
— Christmas - A Story • Zona Gale
... West, madam," said Dave. There was nothing in his voice to suggest that he had caught the note in hers. "Most of our business men—at least, those bred in the country—have thrown a lasso in their day. You should hear them brag of their steer-roping yet in the Ranchmen's Club." Irene's eyes danced. Dave had already turned the tables; where her mother had implied contempt he had set up a note of pride. It was a matter of pride among these square-built, daring Western men that ...
— The Cow Puncher • Robert J. C. Stead
... brag about, didn't I?" demanded Washer, his intemperate little pompadour bristling, and his waxed mustache as waspish as if ...
— Five Thousand an Hour - How Johnny Gamble Won the Heiress • George Randolph Chester
... the poor masses in the slums. Down at the bottom I would be more at home, for I know full well what it is to be bleached by the blues of adversity. In saving the masses though, by a direct appeal, I did not think I could do much to brag about down here, for they don't understand more than half you say to them in English and their suspicion sours the half they take in before they make any use of it. This would have made it extra hard for me, because advice ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... cried a little, I think, and then we all sat down to High Tea, and I am scarcely yet the woman I used to be. It was a height! And a weight! And a length! After tea Mr. Warren made a speech, and said that Bulcester had come back to him, and I was afraid that he would brag dreadfully, but he did not; he was too happy, I think. And then Mr. Truman made a speech and said that though they felt obliged to own that they had come to the conclusion that though Anti-vaccination was a holy thing, still (in the circumstances) vaccination was good enough. But they ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... thought that they should not brag. All this tall talk did not help them. They should consider each other's feelings. He also had received an instruction from the burghers whom he represented, and that instruction was that if he could adduce proofs after this meeting that they were able to continue the war, then Utrecht would ...
— The Peace Negotiations - Between the Governments of the South African Republic and - the Orange Free State, etc.... • J. D. Kestell
... Canada, the land beloved of God; We are the pulse of Canada, its marrow and its blood: And we, the men of Canada, can face the world and brag That we were born in Canada beneath ...
— Flint and Feather • E. Pauline Johnson
... noticing the blank alarm which this announcement caused among the youth with whom he had been playing the ancient game of brag. ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... do that easily enough, but you'll never live to brag about it. If the officers don't hang you, Hank Hazletine will make daylight shine through your hide! He is only waiting ...
— Two Boys in Wyoming - A Tale of Adventure (Northwest Series, No. 3) • Edward S. Ellis
... said she meant William McMicken by that, and that she might not get him after all—for a good many thought they would never make a match, their dispositions were so contrary. William was of a dreadful quiet turn, and a great home body; and as for being rich, he had nothing to brag of, though he was high larnt and followed the ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... not Amount even to that. I say myself Our army is mere trash, the Cossacks only Rob villages, the Poles but brag and drink; The Russians—what shall I say?—with you I'll not Dissemble; but, Basmanov, dost thou know Wherein our strength lies? Not in the army, no. Nor Polish aid, but in opinion—yes, In popular opinion. Dost remember ...
— Boris Godunov - A Drama in Verse • Alexander Pushkin
... them, are still shunn'd By those of choicer nostrils. What do you call this house? Is this your palace? did not the judge style it A house of penitent whores? who sent me to it? To this incontinent college? is 't not you? Is 't not your high preferment? go, go, brag How many ladies you have undone, like me. Fare you well, sir; let me hear no more of you! I had a limb corrupted to an ulcer, But I have cut it off; and now I 'll go Weeping to heaven on crutches. For your gifts, I will return them ...
— The White Devil • John Webster
... long ways," summed up Sam to Sandy after Westlake had turned in and Mormon had yawned himself off to bed. "He sure knows a heap, he don't brag, he's on the square an' he ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... time atter de War 'fore I married. Us didn't have no weddin'; jus' got married. My old 'oman had on a calico dress—I disremembers what color. She looked good to me though. Us had 16 chilluns in all; four died. I got 22 grandchillun and one great grandchild. None of 'em has jobs to brag 'bout; one of 'em larned to run ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... brag about 'home brewing' any more," said another, "or 'home tailoring,' or 'home shoemaking.' Why all this talk about ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... torture begins, before you brag!" this to Miriam. Then turning to some of the soldiers, he cried: "Strip her, don't leave a rag upon her, and treat her from top to toe ...
— The Mark of the Beast • Sidney Watson
... little friends in from the street. "The very best bow," Noey used to say, "Haint made o' ash ner hick'ry thataway!— But you git mulberry—the bearin'-tree, Now mind ye! and you fetch the piece to me, And lem me git it seasoned; then, i gum! I'll make a bow 'at you kin brag on some! Er—ef you can't git mulberry,—you bring Me a' old locus' hitch-post, and i jing! I'll make a bow o' that 'at common bows Won't dast to pick on ner turn up their nose!" And Noey knew the ...
— A Child-World • James Whitcomb Riley
... all the lave of them," said another, "snurling up her neb at a man for lack of gear. Why didna he brag of ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... you like," he said, with a laugh. "I'm not much to look at. And, Jane, neither you nor Lassiter, can brag. You're paler than I ever saw you. Lassiter, here, he wears a bloody bandage under his hat. That reminds me. Some one took a flying shot at me down in the sage. It made Wrangle run some.... Well, perhaps you've more to tell me than ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey
... reference of them to this figure may afford a mode of explanation in parsing, whenever they are introduced by a preposition, and not by a nominative: as, "A kind of conquest Caesar made here; but made not here his brag Of, came, and saw, and overcame"—Shak., Cymb., iii, 1. That is,—"of having come, and seen, and overcome." Here, however, by assuming that a sentence is the object of the preposition, we may suppose the pronoun I to be understood, as ego ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... considerers and arguers "Oh now just see me believe!" We are like boys taking turns jumping in the Great Vacant Lot, seeing which can believe the furthest. We need to be reminded that a man cannot simply bring a little brag to God, about His world, and make a religion out of it. I do not doubt in the least, as a matter of theory, that I have the wrong spirit—sometimes—toward the scientific man who lives around the corner of my mind. It seems to me he is always suggesting important-looking unimportant ...
— The Voice of the Machines - An Introduction to the Twentieth Century • Gerald Stanley Lee
... that overrul'd I oversway'd, Leading him prisoner in a red-rose chain: Strong-temper'd steel his stronger strength obey'd, Yet was he servile to my coy disdain. 112 O! be not proud, nor brag not of thy might, For mastering her that foil'd the god ...
— Venus and Adonis • William Shakespeare
... gets the land, and throws away the gun! Brag and coward, miller! It is for me to ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... and v.), used affectedly, like "humour," in many senses, often very vaguely and freely ridiculed by Jonson; humour, disposition, whims, brag(ging), hector(ing), etc. ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson
... saying with the Spaniards, Artes inter haeredes non dividi. {25b} Yet these have inherited their fathers' lying, and they brag of it. He is a narrow-minded man that affects a triumph in any glorious study; but to triumph in a lie, and a lie themselves have forged, is frontless. Folly often goes beyond her bounds; but ...
— Discoveries and Some Poems • Ben Jonson
... his hand. "Blair and I, and you too, Mr. Fullerton, not to mention Roche, are all business men, and we don't brag about money. But you know that if I fitted out and endowed ten steamers, I should still be a fairly comfortable man. If you can't keep a steamer going with L4,000 a year, you don't deserve to have one, and if I choose to put down one hundred thousand, and you satisfy me as to the ...
— A Dream of the North Sea • James Runciman
... hear the robins brag about the sweetness of their song, Nor do they stop their music gay whene'er a poor man comes along. God taught them how to sing an' when they'd learned the art He sent them here To use their talents day ...
— The Path to Home • Edgar A. Guest
... heaven With all disaster unto thine and thee! For both thy younger brethren have gone down Before this youth; and so wilt thou, Sir Star; Art thou not old?' 'Old, damsel, old and hard, Old, with the might and breath of twenty boys.' Said Gareth, 'Old, and over-bold in brag! But that same strength which threw the Morning Star ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson
... billiards as well as most men. Look here now! Daly's dead. We can't bring him to life again, can we? If you shoot me, you'll be nothing to the good, and have every spare man in the three colonies at your heels. This is a game of brag, though the stakes are high. I'll play a card. Listen. You shall have a hundred fivers—500 Pounds in notes—by to-morrow at four o'clock, if you'll let Mrs. Knightley and the doctor ride to Bathurst for the money. What do ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... ingeniously and indefatigably women may mask their hearts from public gaze and comment, they do not mock their own reason by such flimsy shams, and Salome could find no prospect of gain in playing a game of brag with ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... "O, you can brag; but when a fellow can go and set a man's barn afire, without wincing, he's worse than I am; that's all I've ...
— In School and Out - or, The Conquest of Richard Grant. • Oliver Optic
... Down-Easters, as the yankees are termed generally, whittle when they are making a bargain, as it fills up the pauses, gives them time for reflection, and moreover, prevents any examination of the countenance—for in bargaining, like in the game of brag, the countenance is carefully watched, as an index to the wishes. I was once witness to a bargain made between two respectable yankees, who wished to agree about a farm, and in which whittling was ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... at Chilblains Base—so named by a wiseacre American navy man back in the twentieth century—was nothing to brag about. Thousands of square miles of powdered ice that has had nothing to do but blow around for twenty million years is not at all inspiring after the first few minutes unless one is obsessed by the morbid beauty ...
— Unwise Child • Gordon Randall Garrett
... pretty much everything, though in a different way. For instance, they are making short work of Italian. They speak better than I do, after all these years," he declared with delighted self-depreciation, "though perhaps that's not much to brag of. One of them has got the accent and the other the grammar, so they pull very well together. Then the younger one can ...
— A Venetian June • Anna Fuller
... to bear the brunt, And check the German Kaiser's stunt, We still can brag, and wave the flag, But send the British to ...
— War Rhymes • Abner Cosens
... Kirsty; '—and I'll do what I brag o'!' she added, throwing her stocking on the patch of green sward about the stone, and starting to her feet with a laugh. 'Is't to ...
— Heather and Snow • George MacDonald
... with delight. Only Max was a little quiet. Teddie Gowan did everything a little better than he, Max, could do; it would be insupportable if Teddie were able soon to brag that he whooped louder ...
— In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner
... upwards she had lived in opulence; and now, for my sake, had become poor,—so nobly poor. Truly, her pretty little brag [in this letter] was well founded. No such house, for beautiful thrift, quiet, spontaneous, nay, as it were, unconscious—minimum of money reconciled to human comfort and human dignity—have I ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... foolish people who assume that gushing women are shallow, but this is jumping at conclusions. A recent novel gives us a picture of "a tall soldier," who, in camp, was very full of brag and bluster. We are quite sure that when the fight comes on this man with the lubricated tongue will prove an arrant coward; we assume that he will run at the first smell of smoke. But we are wrong—he stuck; and when the flag was carried down in the rush, he ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard
... is come to town on purpose: she says, all her friends are in London, and she will not survive them. But what will you think of Lady Catherine Pelham, Lady Frances Arundel, and Lord and Lady Galway, who go this evening to an inn ten miles out of town, where they are to play at brag till five in the morning, and then come back—I suppose, to look for the bones of their husbands and families under the rubbish. The prophet of all this (next to the Bishop of London) is a trooper of Lord Delawar's, who was yesterday sent to Bedlam. His colonel sent to the ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... not that demonstration is unwise, but that as long as a demonstration is still felt necessary, and therefore kept ready to hand, the subject of such demonstration is not yet securely known. Qui s'excuse, s'accuse; and unless a matter can hold its own without the brag and self-assertion of continual demonstration, it is still more or less of a parvenu, which we shall not lose much by neglecting till it has less occasion to blow its own trumpet. The only alternative is that it is an error ...
— Life and Habit • Samuel Butler
... spiritual, will ever bring the greatest people in the world, the people of the Kentucky mountains, into their just inheritance! You see how completely identified I am again when I indulge in Kentucky brag,—which is not so different after all from the brag of other sections, and I promise not to let this grow upon me either, for work and not brag is before me, as you know. I want you to see, however, that I continue to feel the mountaineer is ...
— The Boy from Hollow Hut - A Story of the Kentucky Mountains • Isla May Mullins
... official name is the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, and who is now the Official Pastor and Infallible and Unerring Guide of every Christian Science church in the two hemispheres, hear Simple Simon that met the pieman brag of ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... off now for the jolliest time out!" cried Job as he vaulted into the saddle one June day, bound for the Yosemite Valley, that wonderful spot of which Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote on the old hotel register: "The only place I ever saw that came up to the brag." ...
— The Transformation of Job - A Tale of the High Sierras • Frederick Vining Fisher
... two hogs where one was killed before, inherits the earth, sees his name and fame heralded in every periodical; while the other, the real man—God, it's unbelievable, neither more nor less; and still it's true to the last detail. Again, it's all civilization, the civilization we brag of; ...
— The Dominant Dollar • Will Lillibridge
... never suspected these injuries to his pride. They were delighted at his favor with the Prince. Poor Louisa could conceive of nothing finer for her son than these evenings at the Palace in splendid society. As for Melchior, he used to brag of it continually to his boon-fellows. But Jean-Christophe's grandfather was happier than any. He pretended to be independent and democratic, and to despise greatness, but he had a simple admiration for money, power, honors, social ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... the minds of descendants also has a certain influence — young men in quarrels sometimes brag of the number of heads taken by their ancestors, and the prowess or success of an ancestor seems to redound to the courage of the descendants; and it is an affront to purposely and seriously belittle the head-hunting results ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks
... tutor of George Sand's father.] had taught me And indeed I found the lucky shoe, where it had fallen in a dark corner and not been seen. Whisky alone was accused. My knees hurt me very much for a few days but, I did not brag of them; and the explorations ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... an art in itself, and although there are many who undertake to do this work, there are but few who can pivot a staff in such a manner that it will bear close inspection under the glass. We often hear watchmakers brag of the secrets they possess for hardening pivot drills, but I fancy they would be somewhat surprised if they traveled around a little, to find how many watchmakers harden their drills in exactly the same way that they ...
— A Treatise on Staff Making and Pivoting • Eugene E. Hall
... promise. It is a prosperity that shall bless Kansas into a Virginia or a North Carolina by virtue of the same means which has crowned the Slave-country with the wealth, the civilization, and the intelligence it has to brag of. It is such a prosperity as ever follows after the footsteps of Slavery,—a prosperity which is to blight the soil, degrade the minds, debauch the morals, impoverish the substance, and subvert the independence of a loathing population, if the joy of the President ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... all these growing millions simply minding their business, is impressive to me,—more so than all the gilt buttons and padded chests of the Old World; and there is a certain powerful type of "practical" American (you'll find him chiefly in the West) who doesn't brag as I do (I'm not practical), but who quietly feels that he has the Future in his vitals—a type that strikes me more than any I met in your favourite countries. Of course you'll come back to the cathedrals and Titians, ...
— The Point of View • Henry James
... wonder More at the strength of body than of mind; 'Tis equally the same to see me plunge Headlong into the Seine, all over armed, And plow against the torrent to my point, As 'twas to hear my judgment on the Germans, This to another man would be a brag; Or at the court among my enemies, To be, as I am here, quite off my guard, Would make me such another thing as Grillon, A blunt, hot, honest, ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... damned sorry for it," said Marmaduke, emphatically. "It was a mean thing for Douglas to do, with all his brag ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... could not tell from Harry's story exactly how much encouragement Laura had given him, nor what hopes he might justly have of winning her. He had never seen him desponding before. The "brag" appeared to be all taken out of him, and his airy manner only asserted itself now and then in a comical imitation of its ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 5. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... to advocate the disuse of boots and shoes, or the abandoning of the improved modes of travel; but I am going to brag as lustily as I can on behalf of the pedestrian, and show how all the shining angels second and accompany the man who goes afoot, while all the dark spirits are ever looking out ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... To see them, who had tried in their patronizing way to get us to give up our home and go into apartments, selling up and letting apartments themselves! Them! They hadn't a tenth of the fight in them my little colonial mother had, for all their big bosoms and tall brag about their independence and the fine offers they had when they were single. Some of the men too were in misfortune after a while. Some disaster sent up a big wave which washed them off their little rafts. I used to ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... course of acquaintanceship with stage heroes has been, so far as we are concerned, to create a yearning for a new kind of stage hero. What we would like for a change would be a man who wouldn't cackle and brag quite so much, but who was capable of taking care of himself for a ...
— Stage-Land • Jerome K. Jerome
... who brag of being good Spaniards ought to imitate him. You can see very well now, since the Suez Canal was opened, corruption has come here. Before, when we had to double the Cape, there were not so many worthless people coming out here, ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal
... buying the boat," he said, "but that's hopeless. The more we paid for it the louder the owner would brag. The Germans would be 'on' in a minute. We've simply got to steal it. It's up to you to find out the man's proper name and address, and we'll send him the money from the first ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... or mock gentry, seemed to consider it as the most indisputable privilege of a gentleman not to pay his debts. They were ever ready to meet civil law with military brag of war. Whenever a swaggering debtor of this species was pressed for payment, he began by protesting or confessing that 'he considered himself used in an ungentlemanlike manner;' and ended by offering to give, instead of the value of his bond or promise, 'the satisfaction ...
— Richard Lovell Edgeworth - A Selection From His Memoir • Richard Lovell Edgeworth
... will shuffle and crow, crook and hide, feign to confess here, only that they may brag and conquer there, and not a thought has enriched either party, and not an emotion of ...
— An English Grammar • W. M. Baskervill and J. W. Sewell
... how lucky it was you did him that grand service, poor Goodson! I never liked him, but I love him now. And it was fine and beautiful of you never to mention it or brag about it." Then, with a touch of reproach, "But you ought to have told ME, Edward, you ought to have told your ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... darkness fell around, a mocking bird was nigh, Inviting pleasant, soothing dreams with his sweet lullaby; And sometimes came the yellow dog to brag around all night That nary 'coon could wollop him in a stand-up barrel fight; We simply smiled and let him howl, for all Mizzourians know That ary 'coon can beat a dog if the 'coon gets half a show! But we'd nestle close and shiver when the mellow moon had ris'n And the hungry nigger sought ...
— John Smith, U.S.A. • Eugene Field
... brag of having been educated here, though Mount Morris doesn't set out to furnish teachers, but the training of young ladies. Mother likes it because there was no opportunity of making undesirable acquaintances," and Louie gave her head ...
— The Girls at Mount Morris • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... to thy dressing-room, and I'll to mine— Attire thee for the altar—so will I. Whoe'er may claim me, thou'rt the man shall have me. Away! Despatch! But hark you, ere you go, Ne'er brag of ...
— The Hunchback • James Sheridan Knowles
... and worn red coats, and ate blood-puddings, and drank ale, and hurrahed for King George forevermore. This is the truth, fellow-citizens, for I cannot tell a lie,—you know I cannot tell a lie. But I don't want to brag over you, and if you will still be good Yankee Christians, brave and industrious, I will still be the father of your country, world without end, Amen! Band, please ...
— Stories of Many Lands • Grace Greenwood
... River in de Dutch Fork of Newberry County. I was a slave of Cage Suber. He was a fair master, but nothing to brag about. I was small at slavery time and had to work in de white folks' house or around the house until I was big enough to go to de ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves • Works Projects Administration
... you the temerity to get off that old nonsensical remark? Poverty is everything to be ashamed of. Did you ever see a person not ashamed of his poverty? Certainly not. Of course, when a man gets very rich he will brag so loudly of the poverty of his youth that one would never suppose that he was once ashamed of it. ...
— The Third Violet • Stephen Crane
... sounding much more manful and valiant than Deerslayer! 'Twouldn't be a bad title to begin with, and it has been fairly 'arned. If 't was Chingachgook, now, he might go home and boast of his deeds, and the chiefs would name him Hawkeye in a minute; but it don't become white blood to brag, and 't isn't easy to see how the matter can be known unless I do. Well, well,—everything is in the hands of Providence; this affair as well as another; I'll trust to that for getting my ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... boy," he said, with his shrewd smile, "never brag of catching a fish until he is on dry ground. I've seen older folks doing that in more ways than one, and so making fools of themselves. It 's no use to boast of anything until it 's done, nor then either, ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... It never seemed to me anything to brag of. Dad says the Spanish-American War grew a crop of newspaper-made heroes, manufactured by reporters who really took more risks and showed more nerve than the ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... to be a little sordid, pilfering rogue, who would purloin from every body, and beg every body's bread and butter from him; while, as I have heard a reptile brag, he would in a winter-morning spit upon his thumbs, and spread his own with it, that he might keep it all ...
— Clarissa, Volume 2 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... way into the stables, where he lingered to slap his mare on the back and brag about her, and then Mark had to be introduced to the pig. 'What I call a 'andsome pig, yer know,' he remarked; 'a perfect picture, he is' (a picture that needed cleaning, Mark thought)—'you come down to me in another ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... complimentary address, a very gruff hoarse voice bade Mr Groves 'hold his noise and light a candle.' And the same voice remarked that the same gentleman 'needn't waste his breath in brag, for most people knew pretty well what sort of ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... But, unfortunately, like an unskilful general, he confided more in the number than the spirit or discipline of his forces. Arnall, Concanen, and Henley, were wretched auxiliaries; yet they could not complain of indifferent pay, since Arnall used to brag, that, in the course of four years, he had received from the treasury, for his political writings, the sum ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... found pleasure in thinking of the objections which were contained in them. Also, I read some of Hume's Essays; and perhaps that on Miracles. So at least I gave my Father to understand; but perhaps it was a brag. Also, I recollect copying out some French verses, perhaps Voltaire's, in denial of the immortality of the soul, and saying to myself something like ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... do," said Mrs. Wiley, decisively. "I'll put the cream in the churn, an' you jest work off' some o' your steam by bringin' the butter for us afore you start for the bridge. It don't do no good to brag afore your own women-folks; work goes consid'able better'n stories at every place 'cept the loafers' bench at ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... said Dunghill; "You talk about your heart and wrung-ill: Where would you be, I'd like to know, Had I not fed and made you grow? You of October brew brag—pshaw! You would have been a husk of straw. And now, instead of gratitude, You rail in ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay
... TO BOUNCE. To brag or hector; also to tell an improbable story. To bully a man out of any thing. The kiddey bounced the swell of the blowen; the lad bullied the ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... and reckless young fellows in the dance, was hailed by all present; for their outrageous mirth was in character with the genius of the place. The dance went on with spirit; brag dancers were called upon to exhibit in hornpipes; and for this purpose a table was bought in from Frank's kitchen on which they performed in succession, each dancer applauded by his respective party as ...
— The Hedge School; The Midnight Mass; The Donagh • William Carleton
... too, off a tree," answered my cousin, not to be outdone, for boys are wont to brag of their honourable scars, "and it hurt a great deal, but I mean falling from higher still. One of the sailors I talked to on board ship had fallen from a mast, and he told me that he went over and over; the first time ...
— The Story of the White-Rock Cove • Anonymous
... John Falstaff. Once Falstaff was boasting that he and three men had beaten and almost killed two men in buckram suits who had attacked and tried to rob them. The prince led him on and gave him a chance to brag as much as he wanted to, until finally Falstaff swore that there were at least a hundred robbers and that he himself fought with fifty. Then Prince Hal told their companions that only two men had attacked Falstaff ...
— Famous Men of The Middle Ages • John H. Haaren, LL.D. and A. B. Poland, Ph.D.
... in answer to the invitation; then, after a pause, he added: "we didn't want to brag about it, but ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... but don't say that he will go straight to the city. I would send this by him if he did. I am afraid he will loiter about and be taken—do make them go on fast—he has left. I could not hear much he said—some who did don't like him at all—think him an impostor—a great brag—said he was a dentist ten years. He was asked where he came from, but would not tell till he looked at the letter that lay on the table and that he had just brought back. I don't feel much confidence in him—don't believe he is the one thee alluded to. He was asked his name—he looked ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... When you bid all your friends to the marriage of a poor couple, that is to say, your Wits and Necessities—alias, a poet's Whitsun-ale—you shall swear that, within three days after, you shall not abroad, in bookbinders' shops, brag that your viceroys, or tributary-kings, have done homage to you, or paid quarterage. Moreover, when a knight gives you his passport to travel in and out to his company, and gives you money for God's sake—you will swear not to make scald and wry-mouthed jests upon his knighthood. ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... and commenced to brag before him, praising the upright conduct of Danveld, and the impression it made upon ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... will fit my dolly's jacket!" cried Susie, dancing around and hugging it in glee. "It will, mamma! A real live baby! Now Tilde needn't brag of theirs. We will take it home, won't ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... which closely resembles it. There is, however, no such correspondence, for impressions of ferns are almost completely wanting at Mogi, and even of pines there is only a single leaf-bearing variety which closely resembles the Spitzbergen form of Sequoia Langsdorfii, Brag. On the other hand, there are met with, in great abundance, the leaves of a species of beech nearly allied to the red beech of America, Fagus ferruginea, Ait., but not resembling the recent Japanese varieties ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... haven't gone five miles yet, according to Verny's map, and there is still that walk home, so don't brag too much, Julie," advised ...
— Girl Scouts in the Adirondacks • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... a word with you, Mr. St. Clair," said Donald Ward, as he hammered the thole pins into their holes. "You're angry with Captain Hercules Getty, and I don't altogether blame you. The captain's too fond of brag, and that's a fact. He can't hold himself in when he meets a Britisher. He's so almighty proud of the whipping his people gave the scum. But there's no need for you to be angry with me. I'm an Irishman myself, and not a Yankee. I fought in North Carolina, under ...
— The Northern Iron - 1907 • George A. Birmingham
... daily in receipt of glorious news from Bragg, but there are so many rumors without foundation that we hardly know what he has done. I hope he will not rest until he has driven the foe across the Ohio. You have our brag fighting general with you now, and I know you will ...
— History of the Eighty-sixth Regiment, Illinois Volunteer Infantry, during its term of service • John R. Kinnear
... bowman in particular, "Strike me, O hero. We desire to witness thy manliness. Having achieved some feats in battle, O brave warrior, thou shouldst then boast. O sire, they that are heroes fight in battle to the best of their powers, without indulging in brag. Fight now with me to the best of thy might. I will quell thy pride." Having said these words the Suta's son quickly struck the son of Pandu and pierced him, in that encounter, with three and seventy shafts. Then Nakula, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... discovery about ME. Yes, she made it, and as against me, of course, against all of us, at sight of me; so that if Eliza has bragged at Eastridge about New York, she has at least bragged in New York about Eastridge. I didn't clearly, for Mrs. Chataway, come up to the brag—or perhaps rather didn't come down to it: since I dare say the poor lady's consternation meant simply that my aunt has confessed to me but as an unconsidered trifle, a gifted child at the most; or as young and handsome and dashing at the most, and not as—well, as what I am. Whatever I ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... Gasconade. Boasting. The inhabitants of Gascony (Gascogne) a province in the south-west of France, are proverbial not only for their impetuosity and courage, but for their willingness to brag of the possession of these qualities. Excellent examples of the typical Gascon in literature are D'Artagnan in Dumas's Trois Mousquetaires (1844) and Cyrano in Rostand's splendid ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... any magnitude in Jerrold's life was his assuming the editorship of "Lloyd's Newspaper." This journal, which before his connection with it had no position to brag of, rose under his hands to great circulation and celebrity. Every week, there you traced his hand at its old work of embroidering with queer and fanciful sarcasm some bit of what he thought timely and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various |
