"Boast" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... discovery of the human intellect, the last good news for man? That the soundest thinkers—they who have the truest and clearest notion of the universe are the savage who knows nothing but what his five senses teach him, and the ungodly who makes boast of his own desire, and speaks good of the covetous whom God abhorreth, while he says, "Tush, God hath forgotten. He hideth away his face, and God will ...
— Westminster Sermons - with a Preface • Charles Kingsley
... feature of this law granting admission to all other nations except our brethren of the United States of the North, was sufficient to goad us on to madness. Yes! the door of emigration to Texas was closed upon the only sister republic worthy of the name which Mexico could boast of in this new world. It was closed upon a people among whom the knowledge and the foundations of rational liberty are more deeply laid than among any other on the habitable globe. It was closed upon a people ...
— Texas • William H. Wharton
... it. Davie and Jem used to compare notes about these "talks," and used to boast to one another about the methods they took to prevent, or interrupt, or answer them, as the case might be. But when Miss Bethia spoke about Mr Bent and the funeral, it brought back the sermon and what his father had said to him on his way home, and all the troubled thoughts that ...
— The Inglises - How the Way Opened • Margaret Murray Robertson
... said, "L'Etat, c'est moi!" but this figure of speech becomes an empty, meaningless phrase beside what an army ant could boast,—"La maison, c'est moi!" Every rafter, beam, stringer, window-frame and door-frame, hall-way, room, ceiling, wall and floor, foundation, superstructure and roof, all were ants—living ants, distorted by stress, ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... to bring the devil before him, and taking his way to a thick wood near to Wittenburg, called in the German tongue, Spisser Holt, that is in English, the Spisser's Wood, as Faustus would oftentimes boast of it among the crew, being in jollity, he came into the wood one evening into the cross-way, where he made with a wand a circle in the dust, and within that many more circles and characters; and thus he past away the time until it was nine or ten of the clock in the night, then began ...
— Mediaeval Tales • Various
... front; but at the same time portly in his carriage. He wore his hair well powdered, exacted the utmost degree of ceremony and respect, and considered that even speaking to one of his officers was paying them a very high compliment: as for being asked to his table, there were but few who could boast of having had that honour, and even those few perhaps not more than once in the year. But he was, as I have said, very poor; and moreover he was a married man, which reminds me that I must introduce his lady, who, as the ship was on Channel service, had lodgings at the port ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... Indre-et-Loire, formerly the capital of the province of Touraine, and is built on a plain on the bank of the Loire. The houses are of a white stone, and in the principal streets well built and lofty: it is altogether one of the handsomest towns in France. The main street, the rue Royale, can boast of a foot pavement, which is seldom to be met with in this country. The environs of the town are also very beautiful; the luxuriance of the soil, abounding in vines, fruits, and every article of life, has attracted such numbers of English ...
— A Visit to the Monastery of La Trappe in 1817 • W.D. Fellowes
... received regularly through the courtesy of the rebel pickets, said prior to the fourth, in speaking of the "Yankee" boast that they would take dinner in Vicksburg that day, that the best receipt for cooking a rabbit was "First ketch your rabbit." The paper at this time and for some time previous was printed on the plain side of wall paper. The last number was issued on the fourth and announced ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... "The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, Await alike the inevitable hour. The paths of glory lead but ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett
... to Billy Jones's than I had remembered. If the pole held to get us down the other side of the long hill there was nothing before us but a mile of corduroy road through a jungle-thick swamp of hemlock, and then the one bit of really excellent going my road could boast,—three clear miles, level as a die, straight to the ...
— The La Chance Mine Mystery • Susan Carleton Jones
... a cell, hollowed out in the sides of a trench and so constructed as to keep out the earth, that the deceased may be able to sit up and answer the examining angels when they visit him in the tomb. There was, therefore, nothing improbable in Er Razi's boast that he could abide two ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... theories be true, the boast of the Atheist, that God is wasteful and a bungler, in that he wastefully scatters his sunlight, and sun-heat, in all directions into space, is set at naught. Nature has been misinterpreted. No sunlight nor ...
— New and Original Theories of the Great Physical Forces • Henry Raymond Rogers
... to boast, my lord, of the accident. I never made a merit of it. It was a mere accident, and cost me nothing. The service ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson
... little farm was the old Brevoort Where cabbages grew of the choicest sort; Full-headed, and generous, ample and fat, In a queenly way on their stems they sat, And there was boast of their genuine breed, For from old Utrecht had come their seed. —Gideon Tucker, "The Old ...
— Fifth Avenue • Arthur Bartlett Maurice
... His Humour," Carlo Buffone was formerly thought certainly to be Marston, as he was described as "a public scurrilous, and profane jester," and elsewhere as the grand scourge or second untruss [that is, satirist], of the time" (Joseph Hall being by his own boast the first, and Marston's work being entitled "The Scourge of Villainy"). Apparently we must now prefer for Carlo a notorious character named Charles Chester, of whom gossipy and inaccurate Aubrey relates that he was "a bold impertinent fellow...a perpetual talker ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson
... they call themselves sportsmen; we choose the flies, and we bait the spinning-hooks, and we show them where the fish lie, and then when they've hooked them, they can't get them out without us and the spoonnet; and then they go home to the ladies and boast of the lot of fish they killed—and who thinks of ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... of hearing their mother boast of the aristocratic family connection. She made haste to change ...
— The Young Surveyor; - or Jack on the Prairies • J. T. Trowbridge
... if thou hast more of truth than I, then show it me! I have power—power to cast around us darkness—thick darkness—and anon fill this darkened cave with spirits of fire, so that it shall blaze with light! Believest thou this? I do not boast to show this power, but to prove I seek not power, but truth and ...
— Saronia - A Romance of Ancient Ephesus • Richard Short
... an old man when Frank Owen went to work for him. At one time he had had a good business in the town, and used to boast that he had always done good work, had found pleasure in doing it and had been well paid for it. But of late years the number of his customers had dwindled considerably, for there had arisen a new generation which cared nothing about craftsmanship ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... opinion; and Lechler, while stating that the seven Epistles left on his mind an impression unfavourable to their genuineness, and inclining to Baur's view that the Curetonian letters are excerpts from the others, nevertheless adds, that he cannot boast of having arrived at a decided conviction of the spuriousness of the Ignatian letters. One or two of the remaining references in this note I have been unable to verify; but, judging from the names, I should expect that the rest would be found good for ...
— Essays on "Supernatural Religion" • Joseph B. Lightfoot
... must be very daring or foolish to write at all nowadays. And so many and such various masters of the craft, of such multifarious genius, what remains to be done that has not been done, or what to say that has not been said? Which of us all can boast of having written a page, a phrase, which is not to be found—or something very like it—in some other book? When we read, we who are so soaked in (French) literature that our whole body seems as it were a mere compound of words, do we ever light on a line, a thought, which is not familiar to us, ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... should obstinately inculcate to the people what they acknowledge they do not comprehend themselves? Should we have much confidence in a physician, who, after confessing that he was utterly ignorant of his art, should nevertheless boast of the excellence of his remedies? This, however, is the constant practice of our spiritual quacks. By a strange fatality, the most sensible people consent to be the dupes of these empirics who are perpetually obliged to avow ...
— Letters to Eugenia - or, a Preservative Against Religious Prejudices • Baron d'Holbach
... the burgesses of Lestiddle bait with earthworms which they dig out of their back gardens. Well, he accepted my pilchard bait, and pulled up two score of mackerel within as many minutes, which doubtless gave him something to boast about ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... we not boast of his capture yet, citizen Roger," resumed Robespierre imperturbably. "I tell you where the Englishman is. Do you look to it that ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... Civil War days and early Reconstruction, was simple as compared to present day togs. Cloth woven from homespun thread was the only kind Negroes had. Every house of any note could boast of a spinning wheel and loom. Cotton, picked by slaves, was cleared of the seed and spun into thread and woven into cloth by them. It was common to know how to spin and weave. Some of the cloth was dyed afterwards with dye ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Florida Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... pride of Coke. The monarch was of opinion that the constitution and the law allowed him personally to try causes between his loyal subjects. "By my soul," he said pettishly to Coke, who begged leave to differ, "I have often heard the boast that your English law was founded upon reason. If that be so, why have not I and others reason as well as you, the judges?" Coke explained why and by the manner of his explanation compelled the king to think no more ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... type, from which no deviation is permitted; and all are under State control, which in France restrains freedom of education by the same trammels as freedom of speech, or liberty of the press. The Minister of Public Instruction can boast that when the clock strikes his telegraphed order sets in motion the tongues of his Professors in Paris, in Strasburgh, in Lyons, and that the same lectures, in almost the same words, are delivered within the same hour to all the educated youth of France. This drilling ...
— University Education in Ireland • Samuel Haughton
... A distorted conscience image. Ah, the bombardments I have perfected. The hills of men I have blown up. Frenchmen, Germans, Italians. Yes, a word from me ... I pointed the cannon straighter.... But disregarding the boast ... you will admit ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht
... exterior of this celebrated city; but if its appearance be not more beautiful from without than within, I defy Mr. Salmon himself to launch forth very warmly in its praise. But of what avail are stately palaces, broad streets, or airy markets, to a town which can boast of such a treasure as the bodies of those three wise sovereigns who were star-led to Bethlehem? Is not this circumstance enough to procure it every respect? I really believe so, from the pious and dignified contentment of its inhabitants. They care not a hair ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... Armadale—because it is beginning with good news. I have produced the right impression on him already, and Heaven knows that is nothing to boast of! Any moderately good-looking woman who chose to take the trouble could make him fall in love with her. He is a rattle-pated young fool—one of those noisy, rosy, light-haired, good-tempered men whom I particularly detest. I had a whole hour alone ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... boast, as the poet considered it, of the Roman; a boast as high in its own line as that other boast, proper to the Greek nation, of literary pre-eminence, of exuberance of thought, and of skill and refinement ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... bring Native wreaths as offering. Simple though their show may be, Britain's worship in them see. 'Tis not price, nor outward fairness, Gives the victor's palm its rareness; Simplest tokens can impart Noble throb to noble heart: Graecia, prize thy parsley crown, Boast thy laurel, Caesar's town; Moorland myrtle still shall be Badge of ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... future. We shall have, beyond question, the ordinary collapse of speculation that follows a sudden expansion of paper currency. We shall have that shivering and expectant period when the sails flap and the ship trembles ere it takes the wind on the new tack. But it is no idle boast to say that there never was a country with such resources as ours. In Europe the question about a man always is, What is he? Here it is as invariably, What does he do? And in that little difference lies the security of our national debt for whoever has eyes. In America ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... neglected, could still afford to drowse in the sunshine and smile over the past. It remembered the time when its hospitality was the boast of the countryside, when its stables held the best string of horses in the State; when its smokehouse, now groaning under a pile of lumber, sheltered shoulders of pork, and sides of bacon, and long lines of juicy, sugar-cured hams; when the ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... donkey-man would be recounted and laughed over, and he would be politely asked when he was planning to resume his travels. This would be the end of the episode. To Constance, it had been merely an amusing farce about which she could boast when she returned to America. In her vivacious style it would make a story, just as her first meeting with Jerry Junior had made a story. But as for the play itself, for him, she cared nothing. Tony the man had made no ...
— Jerry • Jean Webster
... spirit had been breathed into the instrument, so the audience forgot the performer in the beautiful sounds he produced. Not so the poet; he remembered him, and named him, and wrote down his thoughts on the subject. "How foolish it would be for the violin and the bow to boast of their performance, and yet we men often commit that folly. The poet, the artist, the man of science in his laboratory, the general,—we all do it; and yet we are only the instruments which the Almighty uses; to Him alone the ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... planter is under the necessity of keeping up nurseries throughout the whole of his operations for the replacement of bad plants and redundant males. Of the latter ten per cent. seems to be about the best proportion to keep, but I would have completely dioecious trees. No person can boast to get a plantation completely filled up and in perfect order much sooner than fifteen years. Of the first batch planted, not more than one-half will turn out perfect females, for I do not take into account monoecious ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... forward, so that his thin, nervous face seemed always to be peering about. One had a sense of a pair of keen eyes, behind which a restless brain was constantly plotting. Some people rated Davenant as earning a quarter of a million a year, and it was his boast that no one who made money according to plans which he approved had ever been made to give any ...
— The Moneychangers • Upton Sinclair
... white beard. "Oh! you miserable creature, now you will soon know what it is to shudder," he cried, "for you must die." "Not so quickly," answered the youth. "If I am to die, you must catch me first." "I shall soon lay hold of you," spoke the monster. "Gently, gently, don't boast too much, I'm as strong as you, and stronger too." "We'll soon see," said the old man; "if you are stronger than I then I'll let you off; come, let's have a try." Then he led him through some dark passages to a forge, and grasping an axe he drove one ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... of the youthful bard, when, wandering forth in disgrace upon a doubtful world, he cast back a heavy look upon his paternal home, could he have foreseen, that, before many years, he should return to it covered with renown; that his name would become the boast and the glory of his native place; that his ashes would be religiously guarded as its most precious treasure; and that its lessening spire, on which his eyes were fixed with tearful contemplation, would ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... finds its way into that girl Feng's mouth," Pao-ch'ai laughed, "she knows how to turn it to the best account! What a fortunate thing it is that that vixen Feng has no idea of letters and can't boast of much culture! Her forte is simply such vulgar things as suffice to raise a laugh! Worse than her is that P'in Erh with that coarse tongue! She has recourse to the devices of the 'Ch'un Ch'iu'! By selecting, from the vulgar expressions used in low ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... came in contact with her shrank from irritating that temper by uttering the slightest syllable against the smallest of those creatures over whom she spread the aegis of her love. She would and did reproach them herself; she used to boast that she never spared them, but no one else might touch them with the slightest slur of a passing word. But Miss Phoebe inspired no such terror; the great reason why she did not hear of the gossip ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... austere in its appointments, yet so gracious, so full of the spirit of humanity without a note of ennui, or the rust of careless deeds. As this thought grew he looked at the face of the girl, then at the faces of the father and mother, and the memory of his boast came back—that he would win the stake he laid, to know the story of John and Audrey Malbrouck before this coming Christmas morning. With a faint smile at his own past insolent self, he glanced at the clock. It was eleven. "I have lost my ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... their good sense, and their intelligence, and their heart and their soul, and their wits. They emerge thence, and decamp from their families. All newspapers are pests; all, even the Drapeau Blanc! At bottom, Martainville was a Jacobin. Ah! just Heaven! you may boast of having driven your grandfather to despair, ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... only by the sword. An all-powerful governor who feared no assault would never trouble himself to assert that Might is Right. He would smile and sit still. The doctrine, when it is propounded by weak humanity, is never a statement of abstract truth; it is a declaration of intention, a threat, a boast, an advertisement. It has no value except when there is some one to be frightened. But it is a very dangerous doctrine when it becomes the creed of a stupid people, for it flatters their self-sufficiency, and distracts their attention from the difficult, ...
— England and the War • Walter Raleigh
... sassy, then on the run!" For the success of his present mission and all those listening ears he ended that boast in as fervent a tone as he ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... into the life of Fleet Street and held it his proudest boast to be a journalist. But he had his own ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... chanced to meet in a far country, and as neither had seen the other before, they began at once to boast. ...
— Tell Me Another Story - The Book of Story Programs • Carolyn Sherwin Bailey
... to thee, Hilda, for that," said the hermit heartily; "not that I boast of being sure to accomplish what I undertake, yet I never offer to attempt what I have not some reasonable hope of being able to do. But it is not strange that this old warrior should doubt of the courage or capacity of one who preaches the ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne
... by those who supported the trade, that they laboured under great disadvantages by being obliged to contend against the most splendid abilities which the House could boast. But he believed they laboured under one, which was worse, and for which no talents could compensate; he meant the impossibility of maintaining their ground fairly on any of those principles, which every man within those walls had been accustomed, from ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson
... are the fastest and strongest swimmer in any Gridley school. But a race with seven boys on a side will better represent the average abilities of the two schools. In baseball we tried to find out which school had the average best players. We didn't try simply to find out which school could boast of the one ...
— The Grammar School Boys in Summer Athletics • H. Irving Hancock
... As euery present Time doth boast it selfe Aboue a better, gone; so must thy Graue Giue way to what's seene now. Sir, you your selfe Haue said, and writ so; but your writing now Is colder then that Theame: she had not beene, Nor was not to be equall'd, thus your Verse Flow'd ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... rare rural quiet of the Kibe valley and the neighbourhood of her cousins the Walshinghams. Unhappily it did not fall in with the inflexible resolution of each and every one of the six leading towns of the see to put up, own, obtrude, boast, and swagger about the biggest and showiest thing in episcopal palaces in all industrial England, and the new bishop had already taken a short lease and gone some way towards the acquisition of Ganford House, two ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells
... beauties presented to him. Ashe and Kitty's friends laughed; the old general in charge of the Princeling took alarm. And presently Kitty's audacities, alack, carried away her discretion; she began, moreover, to boast of her ruse. Whispers crept round; and the general's ears were open. In a few days Kitty's triumph went the way of all earthly things. At a Court ball, to which her vanity had looked forward, unwarned, the Prince passed her with glassy eyes, returning the ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Patrick, let me boast the name, For my breast glows with no inferior flame, This gift was thine, expressive of thy love, Which spurning earthborn joys for those above Would teach my friend in sacred lore to grow, And feel the truths impressive as they flow. While with ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • Margaret Moyes Black
... to on fasts and festivals. This entire discrepancy between one social fact and all those which accompany it, and the radical opposition between its nature and the progressive movement which is the boast of the modern world, and which has successively swept away everything else of an analogous character, surely affords, to a conscientious observer of human tendencies, serious matter for reflection. It raises a prima facie presumption on the ...
— The Subjection of Women • John Stuart Mill
... next day but finer weather to follow. Gran declared he saw an iceberg on the 5th December, but it turned out to be a whale spouting. Our runs were nothing to boast of, 150 miles being well above the average, but the lengthening days told us that we were rapidly changing our ...
— South with Scott • Edward R. G. R. Evans
... that they were preparing the ground to plant young fir-trees on a clearing. Germans are so careful of their woods, they replant what has been cut down, so that they have a great wealth in wood that we cannot boast of in England. I believe that they would like to cut off all the dead branches in order to make the woods quite tidy! But this would be rather too big a job even for the ...
— Fairy Tales from the German Forests • Margaret Arndt
... amends, by giving you my daughter. All your vexations were but trials of your love, and you have nobly stood the test. Then as my gift, which your true love has worthily purchased, take my daughter, and do not smile that I boast she is above all praise." He then, telling them that he had business which required his presence, desired they would sit down and talk together till he returned; and this command Miranda seemed not at ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... Christianity! It is that chord which I should like to have heard vibrate in a fluent writer like you, and not eternally those paradoxes, those sophisms. But what matters it to you who date from yesterday and who boast of it," he added, almost sadly, "that in the most insignificant corners of this city centuries of history abound? Does your heart blush at the sight of the facade of the church of Saint-Louis, the salamander of Francois I and the lilies? Do you know why the ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... sun across his sight. There was a loud report, and one of the birds fell almost at his feet, dead. It was a sage-hen. Then the girl turned and walked towards him with as haughty a carriage as ever a society belle could boast. ...
— The Girl from Montana • Grace Livingston Hill
... went below for a salt shower, and after that the evening meal, which was never much to boast about. He went up to the bridge again to investigate Aden from the best standpoint. The evening lights were colouring splendidly the rocky heights of the range above the port. The anchored fleet spread far across the bay, the Tahiti being close to the desert ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... think coming to-day. There 's no use disfiguring the truth. I 'm a gambler, something of a fighter on the side, and folks don't say anything too pleasant about my peaceful disposition around these settlements; I have n't any home, and mighty few friends, and the few I have got are nothing to boast about. I reckon there 's a cause for it all. So, considering everything, I 'm about the poorest proposition ever was heard of to start a young ladies' seminary. The Lord knows old Gillis was bad enough, but I 'm a damned ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... mastered even more than the outlines of ancient and modern history, and with several periods I was tolerably conversant. I knew something of the past and present state of every country in the world, though I could not boast of knowing much about the mere names of the chief towns and rivers. I had read the lives of several men who had stood forward prominently in the world, and I had mastered some of the important facts of natural science. I need not further describe the amount ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... good old poet called Virgil. I am much pleased with the candour so conspicuous in the short advertisement to the public, in which Mr. Derrick seems very willing to run snacks in reputation with Mr. MacPherson, which will greatly rejoice that gentleman, who cannot justly boast of so extensive a fame as Mr. Samuel Derrick. The dedication is very elegant, though, I am apt to think, the author has neither praised Lord Pomfret nor himself enough; two worthy people, who, in my opinion, deserve it. But at last, we come to the poems themselves: and here I might ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
... abroad in the West Indys. He had brought his family into a way of being great; but dying at this time, his memory and name (his father being always and at this day a shoemaker, and his mother a Hoyman's daughter; of which he was used frequently to boast) will be quite forgot in a few months as if he had never been, nor any of his name be the better by it; he having not had time to will any estate, but is dead poor rather than rich. So we left the church and crowd, and I home (being set down on Tower Hill), and there ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... That was a foolish boast, for once more Manaia knelt and shot, and I turned my head and saw the blood spurt from Tamavili's naked chest as he fell down without a sound among the paddlers and a loud cry of anger and sorrow burst from his men. But in a moment a young sub-chief of Tufa named Lau Aula (the ...
— A Memory Of The Southern Seas - 1904 • Louis Becke
... could not enjoy the scene that Saturday evening; even my artistic eye, of which I used sometimes to boast, failed me then. I was feeling thoroughly uncomfortable, and the most lovely view on earth would have failed to ...
— Christie, the King's Servant • Mrs. O. F. Walton
... might be seen above the green blind of her parlour as the chaise turned into Mr Grey's gate. The stationer, the parish clerk, and the milliner and her assistant, had obtained a passing view of sundry boxes, the face of an elderly woman, and the outline of two black bonnets,—all that they could boast of to repay them for the vigilance of a ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... cut a swath along the Lupercal. Promoters grovel at his feet, and offer heaps of scads, if he will condescend to meet some other bruising lads. The daily journals print his face some seven columns wide, call him the glory of the race, the nation's hope and pride. And having thus become our boast, the wonder of our age, he battles with his larynx most, and elevates the stage. In fifty years when people speak the savant's name with pride, the pug's renown you'll vainly ...
— Rippling Rhymes • Walt Mason
... at length realize my boast, and send you Clement's long-promised "Pianoforte School" for Gerhard [Breuning's eldest son]. If he makes the use of it that I advise, the results cannot fail to be good. I shall see you very shortly now, ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826 Vol. 2 • Lady Wallace
... need From any hand; but doubly welcome when Conferr'd by those from whom we most expect them. O brother, brother, how shall I applaud thee? Ne'er can I rise to such a height of praise But your deservings will outtop me still: For in this point I am supremely bless'd, That none can boast so excellent a brother, So rich in all good ...
— The Comedies of Terence • Publius Terentius Afer
... native of the country, and rejoices in a brood of half-breeds, among whom are four girls, rather dusky, but not ill-favored. Next in order is the government-house,—that pitch-coated structure near the flag-staff. This is the only building, you observe, that can boast of a double tier of windows. Next, a little higher up, you see, is my own lodge, bedaubed with pitch, like the other, to protect it against the assaults of the weather, and to stop the little cracks. Down by the beach, a little farther on, that largest building ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... inquiry as to his plurality becomes natural and pertinent. For my part, I rank Mr. Irving the comedian above Mr. Irving the tragedian, just as I rank Nature above Art: each may be highest in its own way, yet the one may have a charm which the other cannot boast. Mr. Irving's tragedy sometimes requires working up, but his comedy is spontaneous and immediate. The needful working up of tragedy is no fault of the actor. Tragedy should hardly ever begin at once. The murder may come too soon. Premature rage is followed by untimely laughter. Digby Grant begins ...
— The Idler, Volume III., Issue XIII., February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly. Edited By Jerome K. Jerome & Robert Barr • Various
... revolutionists of 1793 used to say, "With bread and iron one can get to China." Russian pioneers had made good that boast nearly two centuries before it was uttered in Paris. The impelling force which set in motion the Muscovite tide originated with a man whose name is rarely heard outside Russia. Yet, if the fame of men were proportionate to the effect of their ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... gave way at the mention of Bothwell's name—a name connected with such a train of guilt, shame, and disaster. But the prolonged boast of Lindesay gave her time to rally herself, and to answer with an appearance of cold contempt—"It is easy to slay an enemy who enters not the lists. But had Mary Stewart inherited her father's sword as well as his sceptre, the boldest of her rebels should not upon that day have complained that they ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... mysterious beyond human conception, and that these tremendous possibilities are connected with our conduct here. It is surely wiser and more manly to walk silently by the shore of that silent sea, than to boast with puerile exultation over the little sand castles which we have employed our short leisure in building up. Life can never be matter of exultation, nor can the progress of arts and sciences ever fill the heart of a man who has a heart to be filled.' The value of all human ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... when the two felt almost a part of the deep—two mortals admitted into all the hidden evils that lurk thereon. Their lot to witness the inception of mighty tempests; to hear great gray waves boast of the harm they had done and the winds to plan their rending deeds. Perhaps they themselves would be called to the work, to deal to some proud vessel the death blow as so many ...
— Dan Merrithew • Lawrence Perry
... fully believe. That was not a wanton ruffian; but the other would spill blood like water, as I told you at the hall, and as no man now knows better than yourself. He was notorious even in Portuguese Africa on account of his atrocious treatment of the blacks. It was a favorite boast of his that he once poisoned a whole village; and that he himself tampered with the Lady Jermyn's boats you can take my word, for I have heard him describe how he left it to the last night, and struck the blows ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... neither French nor Labassecourien), he had dressed for the "situation" and the occasion. Not by the vague folds, sinister and conspirator-like, of his soot- dark paletot were the outlines of his person obscured; on the contrary, his figure (such as it was, I don't boast of it) was well set off by a civilized coat and a silken vest quite pretty to behold. The defiant and pagan bonnet-grec had vanished: bare-headed, he came upon us, carrying a Christian hat in his gloved hand. ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... discovered by a heavenly glorying and boasting in Jesus Christ; because this peace causeth the soul to set its face upon its enemies with faith of a victory over them for ever by its Lord Jesus—'Let him that glorieth, glory in the Lord' (Jer 9:23,24). And, 'My soul shall make her boast in the Lord; the humble shall hear thereof, and be glad' (Psa 34:2). (7.) Sometimes it is expressed or discovered by joy, 'joy unspeakable': because the soul, having seen itself reconciled to God, hath ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... had used her so cruelly. She being withdrawn, the Surgeon went down stairs, and invited the Mercer into the Surgery; and began with asking, How he found himself? The Mercer answer'd, truly he could not boast of a large share of Health, but that he made a shift to rub on; but adds he, Sir, your Lady had a sudden Disorder this Day, as she was at Dinner at my House; then, with a Smile, we once thought we must have made her ...
— The Tricks of the Town: or, Ways and Means of getting Money • John Thomson
... persist except by virtue of intellectual and moral conformity. The American intellectual habit has on the whole been just about as vigorous and independent as that of the domestic animals. The freedom of opinion of which we boast has consisted for the most part in uttering acceptable commonplaces with as much defiant conviction as if we were uttering the most daring and sublimest heresies. In making this parade of the uniform of intellectual independence, ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... pass'd a gall'ry, (held a secret way,) A voice in plaintive accents caught his ear, And from the neighb'ring closet came, 'twas clear: My dear Curtade, my only hope below, In vain I love;—you colder, colder grow; While round no fair can boast so fine a face, And numbers wish they might supply thy place, Whilst thou with some gay page prefer'st a bet, Or game of dice with some low, vulgar set, To meeting me alone; and when just now To thee I sent, with rage thou knit'st thy brow, And Dorimene, ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... happened that, one day, while the French and German armies were lying pretty close to each other, Marshal de Saxe sent a message to the enemy's camp, asking some of the German officers to dine with him; and after the meal he began to boast of his strength, as usual, till at last an old German general, who sat at his left, said that he would like to see a specimen of what his Excellency could do. Saxe made no answer, but took up a large silver dish, which was standing before him, in his strong white fingers (for, big and powerful ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, V. 5, April 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... the most conceited creature!" said the Stork. "Listen how their jaws are wagging; and for all that they can't clap properly. They boast of their gifts of eloquence and their language! Yes, a fine language truly! Why, it changes in every day's journey we make. One of them doesn't understand another. Now, we can speak our language over the whole earth—up in ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... rich in cattle and land, but he avowed frankly that he had not saved any money, and probably never would. His hand was always open to every man and he never remembered an obligation. He trusted every one. A proud boast of his was that neither white man nor red man had ever betrayed his trust. His cowboys took advantage of him, his neighbors imposed upon him, but none were there who did not make good their debts of service or stock. Belllounds was one of the great pioneers of the ...
— The Mysterious Rider • Zane Grey
... Duc d'Orleans, and how confident she was of her influence over him; and how she had hated all who had interfered in her marriage—merely because she could not bear to be under obligations to any one—a reason she was absurd enough publicly to avow and boast of. Her conduct was now based on those motives. This is an example of how in this world people work with their heads in a sack, and how human prudence and wisdom are sometimes confounded by successes which have been reasonably desired and which turn out to be detestable! ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... believe but teachers are more interested in their students when they are concerned for their spiritual development, as well as the mental. Brother Weldon said many of the professors at the State University are not Christian men; they even boast of it, ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... said, "O thou, most loyal squire that ever served knight-errant in this present age or ages past, whose goodness is more extensive than the beard of Trifaldin my companion here of present, well mayest thou boast thyself that, in serving the great Don Quixote, thou art serving, summed up in one, the whole host of knights that have ever borne arms in the world. I conjure thee, by what thou owest to thy most loyal goodness, that thou wilt become my kind intercessor ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... hast spoken well; and I boast, old man, that their disposition is such that the kindness will be remembered. And I will make an assembly of the citizens, and draw them up so as to receive the army of the Mycenaeans with a large force. First, I will send spies ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... George; "and that, I think, is rather a doubtful advantage for a lady. The class of ladies that like to boast of having gone where other ladies seldom go are generally of rather a masculine character; and I don't think they gain a very desirable kind of reputation by performing ...
— Rollo in London • Jacob Abbott
... will endeavour so to array our ranks and fight the enemy as not to impair the honour which we have gained in former battles. We did not come hither to quarrel with our allies, but to fight the enemy; not to boast about our ancestors, but to fight bravely for Greece. The coming struggle will clearly show to all the Greeks the real worth and value of each city, each general, and each single citizen." When the council of generals heard this speech, they allowed the claim of the Athenians, and gave up ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... sense of having been "low' on one occasion since his return,—on which point he began to hold forth to Herbert, the moment my revelation was finished,—he had no perception of the possibility of my finding any fault with my good fortune. His boast that he had made me a gentleman, and that he had come to see me support the character on his ample resources, was made for me quite as much as for himself. And that it was a highly agreeable boast to both of us, and that we must both be very proud of it, ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... seemed all a hollow ghost That would dissolve away; And life itself a random boast Of elements at play; And time a swift elusive gleam, And man the mockery of a dream, A foam-bell to a moment's ...
— Iolaeus - The man that was a ghost • James A. Mackereth
... the word had been fulfill'd, As might have been, then, thought of joy! France would have had her present Boast; And we our ...
— Poems In Two Volumes, Vol. 2 • William Wordsworth
... loathsome vats, he thought over a plan that had come to his racing mind. It wasn't much of a plan, and it seemed utterly futile in the face of the odds against him. But he had boasted, before starting this mad adventure, that Man's wits were superior to any bug's. It was time now to see if his boast had ...
— The Raid on the Termites • Paul Ernst
... closed my last letter I told you, my dear mother, that we should leave Montreal by sunrise the following day; but in this we were doomed to be disappointed, and to experience the truth of these words: "Boast not thyself of to-morrow, for thou knowest not what an hour may bring forth." Early that very morning, just an hour before sunrise, I was seized with the symptoms of the fatal malady that had made so many homes desolate. I was too ill to commence my journey, and, with a heavy heart, ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... that as it may, I welcome America in France both because it gives a narrative of America's tremendous effort, and because the book is written with a modesty which is very pleasing. America came to the job of fighting as a learner. Her soldiers did not boast of what they were going to do, but sat down solidly to learn, in order that she might be useful in the fighting-line. How she achieved her purpose the world now knows. If any fault is to be found with the author's style, it is that the limpidity and evenness of its flow make great events less ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, April 30, 1919 • Various
... the Little Russian gently. "It wasn't your fault you lived the way you did; and yet you understand that you lived badly. There are thousands of people who could live better than you, but who live like cattle and then boast of how well they live. But what is good in their lives? To-day, their day's work over, they eat, and to-morrow, their day's work over, they eat, and so on through all their years—work and eat, work and eat! Along with this they bring ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... only rented," I submitted: "yet, after all, to boast vaingloriously of their possessions is pardonable in those who have risen in the world, and aren't quite accustomed to it...." There were a pair of us ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... house a 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 weakness, to be all poured into the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... forget how we Spaniards feel," he began slowly. "You think us foolish to fight for a dying country. I know that it is dying; for I am not one of those who blind their eyes and boast. I know that we are bankrupt and disorganized, our men dying, and our enemies closing in on us. We cannot keep up with modern nations. But, Miss Stuart, it is still Spain, my native land; my friends are there, my memories are there. And ...
— A Prisoner of Morro - In the Hands of the Enemy • Upton Sinclair
... for you to boast, Irelander," retorted Blaise Renouf, the son of the lay choir-master, who had been brought specially from Rome to teach the choir-boys of the marshal's chapel the latest fashions in holy song. "We will either fight you with swords or not at all. We do not fight with our bare knuckles, being civilised. ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... his chief boast, if boasting it might be called—that he never botched the job. It is the common history of common hangmen, so I've been told, that they come after a while to be possessed of the devils of cruelty, and to take pleasure in the exercise ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... on the 21st of August, 1754, at Bellow Mill, in the parish of Auchinleck, Ayrshire. His father, John, was a miller and millwright, as well as a farmer. His mother's maiden name was Bruce, and she used to boast of being descended from Robert Bruce, the deliverer of Scotland. The Murdocks, or Murdochs—for the name was spelt in either way—were numerous in the neighbourhood, and they were nearly all related to each other. They are supposed to have originally come into the district ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles
... Baskerville classics are the noblest for the library table, so the Elzevirs are the neatest and prettiest for the pocket or the lecture-room. And to their great beauty of mechanical execution is generally added a scrupulous textual accuracy, which the great Birmingham printer did not boast. This edition of Seneca, for instance, is that of Gronovius. His dedicatory epistle, and the title-pages of Vols. II., III. and IV., are all dated 1658, but the general title-page in Vol. I. is 1659, as if, like White's Shakespeare, the first volume was the last published. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... Of Christian Men's Goods which are not common.—The riches and goods of Christians are not common, as touching the right, title, and possession, of the same, as certain Anabaptists do falsely boast. Notwithstanding, every man ought, of such things as he possesseth, liberally to give alms to the ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... we'd better not sit here gassing any longer. Tod, chase over and ask your dad where that wrench is—unless you've got a notion I can twist this thing off with my hands." He gave a playful tug as if to carry out his boast. ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Air on Lost Island • Gordon Stuart
... But the chief boast of the collection was in the varieties of the Genus Simia,—baboons and apes, chimpanzees, with their human visage, mockeries of man, from the dwarf monkeys perched on boughs lopped from the mayor's ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... English government, ever since the invasion of this island by the Saxons, may boast of this pre-eminence, that in no age the will of the monarch was ever entirely absolute and uncontrolled; but in other respects the balance of power has extremely shifted among the several orders of the state; and this fabric has ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... insinuates itself into, the hearts of its employees. It suggests, in fact, that we should not be late by offering us this small bonus. No insurance office and, up to the time of writing, no other assurance office has been able to boast as much. The same cause is at the bottom of the "Moon's" high reputation, both inside and outside. It does things in a big way. ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse
... the General's boast that he had never feed a doctor in his life, and his impression that a sound resort for any kind of ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... England may boast of two substantial monuments of its early history; to either of which it would not be easy to find a parallel in any nation, ancient or modern. These are, the Record of Doomsday (1) and the "Saxon Chronicle" (2). The former, which is little more than a statistical survey, but contains ...
— The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle • Unknown
... this school boast much of its originality, and seem to value themselves very highly, for having broken loose from the bondage of ancient authority, and re-asserted the independence of genius. Originality, however, we are persuaded, is rarer than mere alteration; and a man may change a good master for ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... ne'er Her warrior's dying wish shall hear. The passing zephyr bears no sigh, No wounded warrior meets the eye— Death is his sleep by Erie's wave, Of Raisin's snow we heap his grave! How many hopes lie murdered here— The mother's joy, the father's pride, The country's boast, the foeman's fear, In wilder'd havoc, side by side. Lend me, thou silent queen of night, Lend me awhile thy waning light, That I may see each well-loved form, That sunk beneath the ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various
... as mutton, Then held her master by the button: "Master, my heart and soul are wrung—till They can't abide that dirty dunghill: Master, you know I make your beer— You boast of me at Christmas cheer; Then why insult me and disgrace me, And next to that vile dunghill place me? By Jove! it gives my nose offence: Command the hinds ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay
... who 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, ...
— For Every Music Lover - A Series of Practical Essays on Music • Aubertine Woodward Moore
... possibility. When one of his little boys clapped his hands at the thought of the approaching holidays, the Doctor gently checked him, and repeated the story of his own early childhood; how his own father had made him read aloud a sermon on the text 'Boast not thyself of tomorrow"; and how, within the week, his father was dead. On the title page of his MS. volume of sermons, he was always careful to write the date of its commencement, leaving a blank for that of its completion. One of his children asked him the meaning of this. 'It ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey
... I presume, are from Paris." Madame smiled as she answered, a thin fine smile, richly seasoned with scorn. "Ah, mesdames! All the world can't boast of Paris as a birthplace, unfortunately. I also, I am a Norman, mais je ne m'en fiche pas! Most of my life, however, I've lived in Paris, thank God!" She lifted her head as she spoke, and swept her hands about her waist to adjust the broad belt, an ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... ashamed of it? Ay, utterly ashamed. And if we really know what sin is—if we really see the sinfulness of sin—if we really see ourselves as God sees us—we shall be too much shocked at the sight of our own hearts to have time to boast of our being able to see our own hearts. We shall be too full of loathing and hatred for our sins, too full of longing to get rid of our sins, and to become righteous and holy, even as God is righteous and holy, to give ...
— The Good News of God • Charles Kingsley
... Pharaoh. When they came before the king of Egypt, they spake to him, 'Thus said the Lord, the God of Israel, Let My people go, that they may hold a feast unto Me in the wilderness.' In the presence of the kings of the East and of the West, the sinner began to boast, saying: 'Who is the Lord, that I should hearken unto His voice, to let Israel go? Why comes He not before me, like all the kings of the world, and why doth He not bring me a present like the others? This God of whom you speak, I know Him not ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME III BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... inclined to do evil, and in their knavishness they exhibit a very great satisfaction in having done it; and truly whoever gave the name of island of Ladrones [robbers] was right; for they are robbers and boast of it, and are quite shameless and inclined to evil. They render account to no one, each man being sufficient to himself. Thus it was seen that, whenever the general gave some articles, such as beads, mirrors, and articles of barter, to the Indians who seemed to be the principals, they quarreled ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803, Volume II, 1521-1569 • Emma Helen Blair
... eyelids, and peeped out through the narrowest possible slits in the cunningest fashion. "Some experience you know. I am the last man to boast of it. A certain almost feminine sensibility—and there you have my secret. I read the character of women in their eyebrows. A woman's eyebrows. Oh, how loud they speak! I looked at Miss Whitworth's eyebrows, and I exclaimed, 'There is a book ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... shoulder as to a boyish petulance, for he thought it an idle boast. "To-morrow? Then come and pray with me in the cathedral, and after that we will cast up accounts—to-morrow," he said, with a poignant and exultant malice. A moment afterwards he was gone, and I was ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... instance, therefore, there is no ground for preferring the one to the other. While they stood severally in their father's presence, and before either had repented of his sin, they were both, and both alike evil. The blasphemer has no right to boast over the hypocrite, and the hypocrite has no right to boast over the blasphemer. In either case it is a body of sin, but there is a shade of difference in the colour of the garments. The one pretends to a goodness which he does not possess; and ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... passages have, I know, sunk indelibly into the memories of those present, you may rest perfectly secure that they will never go out beyond ourselves. No vanity will ever tempt any one of us to boast of what we have been allowed to read; we shall strictly adhere to your terms, and never mention or allude to the book. It is delightful, most interesting, and entertaining. You may, perhaps, imagine, by conceiving yourself in my place, remote ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... as if in mockery. I am—I make it my boast!— of that great multitude which regards Paul Lessingham as the greatest living force in practical politics; and which looks to him, with confidence, to carry through that great work of constitutional and social reform which he has set himself to do. I daresay that my tone, in speaking of ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... cold-blooded, as the English are. So, wise or foolish, right, wrong, or what might be, nothing would do for me but to take service, if I could, under Mrs. Castlewood. Your father was called Captain Castlewood then—as fine a young man as ever clinked a spur, but without any boast or conceit about him; and they said that your grandfather, the old lord, kept him very close and spare, although he was the only son. Now this must have been—let me see, how long ago?—about five-and-twenty years, I think. How old are you now, Miss Erema? ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... "and, till the rich will give more than a part of their wealth, till they will give time and attention to the wants of the distressed, never let them boast of charity. Let them open their hearts, and not their purses, and employ their minds in the service, if they are really actuated by humanity; or charitable institutions will always be the prey of the ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... love me in return?' Everard went on, his face still nearer. 'Am I anything like this to you? Have the courage you boast of. Speak to me as one human being to another, plain, ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... one by the stem, and dipped it in the sugar, but with a disparaging look. It was large and juicy, and possessed a rich flavor and an aromatic odor which French strawberries can seldom boast; but the countess would not have admitted the superiority even of American fruit over that of her own country, and after tasting a few of the strawberries returned to the cake which reminded her ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... pre-World War II experience with Negroes differed from that of the other branches of the naval establishment. Unlike the Marine Corps, the Coast Guard could boast a tradition of black enlistment stretching far back into the previous century. Although it shared this tradition with the Navy, the Coast Guard, unlike the Navy, had always severely restricted Negroes both in terms of numbers enlisted and jobs assigned. A small group of Negroes ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... whole effort of your mind is to destroy. Because others build slightly and eagerly, you employ yourself in kicking down their houses, and contract a sort of aversion for the more honorable, useful, and difficult task of building well yourself." It was the boast of Sydney Smith in old age that he had very little to change in the opinions which he had at various times advanced,—that he had seen every important measure which he had advocated passed and become recognized as beneficent. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... is to describe them as materialists. As to the concluding fling at the fire-philosophers, it rebounds from them upon some of the most eminent leaders of modern science; those in whose mouths the Rev. James Martineau places the following boast: "Matter is all we want; give us atoms alone, and we ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... how could I but be glad, Whilst that methought I justly made my boast That only I the only mistress had? But now, if e'er my face with joy be clad, Think Hannibal did ...
— A Defence of Poesie and Poems • Philip Sidney
... the most illustrious paladins of Christendom, were 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
... that he hed noticed with pain that them niggers alluz hed money, and wuz alluz dresst well, while we, their sooperiors, hed no money, and nothin to boast uv in the way uv ...
— "Swingin Round the Cirkle." • Petroleum V. Nasby
... little endearments; and Patipata, now accustomed to speak to her, exclaimed: "Beautiful insect, how happy art thou!—thou wanderest from flower to flower, without giving the preference to any—thou knowest not love—thou hast not found ingratitude! I, a king, can not boast of such happiness. I adore the lovely Princess Papillette, and am dismissed from her court. I am ugly, it is true; but were I ever so handsome, I should not be more fortunate, for I ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... we may have eliminated one-half of his phrases and terms we nevertheless obtain in the other half all the riches of which we boast and of which we make a display."—Compare together a lexicon of two or three writers of the sixteenth century and one of two or three writers of the seventeenth. A brief statement of the results of the comparison ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... The boast of heraldry,[4] the pomp of pow'r, And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, Awaits alike th' inevitable hour. 35 The paths of glory ...
— Selections from Five English Poets • Various
... these men are all alike—they have no delicacy. I suppose, when he goes home, he will boast to every one of how he has enjoyed the embraces of Hera, the wife of Zeus! Why, he may tell them that I am in love with him! And they will believe it; they will know nothing about ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... of travelling so far, if one has not something to boast of when one returns? If I say I have hunted and killed the rhinoceros and elephant, they may reply to me, 'So have we;' but if I add the giraffe, that will silence them; don't you observe, Swinton, I then remain master of the field? But here ...
— The Mission; or Scenes in Africa • Captain Frederick Marryat
... much public apprehension, with so overpowering a suspicion that every shadow held a rifle that my heart leapt in my breast, and I was suddenly sick with fear when some one stepped across the road and put his hand on my arm. You see I have nothing much to boast about myself. My relief was only slightly modified when I saw that it was the Rat. The Rat had changed! He stood, as though on purpose under the very faint grey light of the lamp at the end of the bridge, and seen thus, he did in truth seem like an ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... countenance told me too truly what had happened. I felt his pulse: it had ceased to beat. Thus, at the age of sixty, after having served the State for nearly thirty years with unsullied honour and integrity, Sir Thomas Gresham was taken to his rest. Surely the annals of the City of London can boast of no more illustrious name. He greatly raised the credit of the Crown in foreign parts by the skill with which he contrived to manage the exchange with foreign countries. He laid the foundation of England's ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston
... vessels was concerned, were nearly equal. So furious or so obstinate a sea-fight had not been seen for a long time. They had always the wind upon our fleet, yet all the advantage was on the side of the Comte de Toulouse, who could boast that he had obtained the victory, and whose vessel fought that of Rooks, dismasted it, and pursued it all next day towards the coast of Barbary, where the Admiral retired. The enemy lost six thousand men; the ship of the Dutch Vice-Admiral was blown up; several others were sunk, ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... household and thy wife as well? Now therefore be assured of this, that the passionate spirit of man dwells within the ears; and when it has heard good things, it fills the body with delight, but when it has heard the opposite things to this, it swells up with anger. As then thou canst not boast of having surpassed the king in conferring benefits formerly, when thou didst to us good deeds and madest offer to do more of the same kind, so now that thou hast turned to shamelessness, thou shalt receive not thy desert but ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 2 (of 2) • Herodotus
... seeing it? The vision floated before her with point after point of entrancing loveliness, old history, present luxury, hereditary rank and splendour, and modern power. It was like nothing in Eleanor's own home. Her father, though a comfortable country gentleman, boasted nothing and had nothing to boast in the way of ancestry, beyond a respectable descent of several generations. His means, though ample enough for comfort and reasonable indulgence, could make no pretensions to more. And Ivy Lodge was indeed a pleasant ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume I • Susan Warner
... progress since the times of the Memphite kings. Prom the period when Egypt aspired to become one of the great powers of the world, she doubtless endeavoured to bring her naval force to the same pitch of perfection as her land forces could boast of, and her fleets probably consisted of the best vessels which the dockyards of that day could turn out. Phoenician vessels of this period may therefore be regarded with reason as constructed on lines similar to those of the Egyptian ships, differing from them merely in the minor ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 4 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... the frost from our windows, and we encountered no snow on the track; and, indeed, the fall was not deep, except on the high peaks about us. Even if the engineering of the road were not so interesting, it was something to be again amidst mountains that can boast a height of ten thousand feet. After we passed the summit, and began the zigzag descent, we were on a sharp lookout for sunny Italy. I expected to lay aside my heavy overcoat, and sun myself at the ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... inconsistency prevailed also in other directions. In the matter of business Jadwin's economy was unimpeachable. He would cavil on a half-dollar's overcharge; he would put himself to downright inconvenience to save the useless expenditure of a dime—and boast of it. But no extravagance was ever too great, no time ever too valuable, when bass ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... I would rather prove my self to be a Gentleman, by being learned and humble, valiant and inoffensive, vertuous and communicable, then by a fond ostentation of riches; or (wanting these Vertues my self) boast that these were in my Ancestors; [And yet I confesse, that where a noble and ancient Descent and such Merits meet in any man, it is a double dignification of that person:] and so, if this Antiquitie of Angling (which, for my ...
— The Compleat Angler - Facsimile of the First Edition • Izaak Walton |
