"Braggart" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... secrets of the battlefield, but revealed none. She had seen them since she came to England, sitting with their elders, gray-haired fathers who talked war, war, war, while the young tongues—once so easily braggart—remained speechless. ...
— Four Days - The Story of a War Marriage • Hetty Hemenway
... up to the Bridge Deck to play Shuffle-Board, the Representative of the Tightest little Island on the Map took out his Note-Book and made the following Entry: "Every Beggar living in the States is a Bounder and a Braggart." ...
— Knocking the Neighbors • George Ade
... deny that these words are in a sense wrung from the Playboy, but what I do hold is that they prove how vital was the genius of the man who wrote them, who saw the joy there was yet in life for this braggart wastrel just as he saw that even such a miserable boyhood as Christy's knew a kind of poacher's joy in running wild on the bogs. Even for poor Nora, turned out on the roads with a tramp for companion, ...
— Irish Plays and Playwrights • Cornelius Weygandt
... for rest, where is it, and who hath obtained it? If a man is of high degree, adulation and envy almost kill him; if poor, everybody is ready to trample and despise him. If one would prosper, he must set his mind upon being an intriguer; if one would gain respect, let him be a boaster or braggart; if one would be godly, and attend church and approach the altar, he is dubbed a hypocrite, if he abstain from doing so, he becomes at once an antichrist or a heretic; if he is light-hearted, he is called a scoffer, ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne
... never spoke a word to her all night. The next morning we had made up our packs, and had already started, when we became aware that we had a dozen horsemen on our heels. The braggart Andalusians, who had been boasting they would murder every one who came near them, cut a pitiful figure at once. There was a general rout. El Dancaire, Garcia, a good-looking fellow from Ecija, who was called El Remendado, and Carmen herself, kept ...
— Carmen • Prosper Merimee
... of old men? No, Paul. De Brissac and I were on excellent terms. You ought to know me better. I do not climb into windows, especially when the door is always open for me. I am like my sword, loyal, frank, and honest; we scorn braggart's cunning, dark alleys, stealth; we look not at a man's back but into his face; we prefer sunshine to darkness. And listen," tapping his sword: "he who has done this thing, be he never so far away, yet shall this long sword of mine find him and ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... the Braggart, the Hedge-Priest, the Foole, and the Boy, Abate throw at Novum, and the whole world againe, Cannot pricke out fiue such, ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... Resident Magistrate the antechamber to the cell, and the cell the antechamber to the tomb. In all these ghastly and tragic dramas, enacted all over Ireland, Mr. Carson was the chief figure—self-confident, braggart, deliberate—winding the rope around his victim's neck with all the assured certainty of the British Empire, Mr. Balfour and the ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... that his own Casildea was more beautiful by far than the La Mancha knight's Dulcinea. Don Quixote suppressed a scornful smile that threatened to betray him, and controlled the feelings that the boasting errant's words provoked, while wondering at the braggart's audacity. He slyly expressed a doubt, however, that the valiant knight Don Quixote of La Mancha had let himself be vanquished by any living being. The Knight of the Grove then gave a description of Don Quixote which in every ...
— The Story of Don Quixote • Arvid Paulson, Clayton Edwards, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... like the braggart he was, And of winning the fight was peculiarly "poz;" And the voice of his backers was loud in their glee;— "We shall lick him in two ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, September 17, 1892 • Various
... but little out of the ordinary happened. Dick took especial care to avoid Lew Flapp, and the tall youth did not attempt to bother him. It was soon learned that Flapp was more of a braggart than anything else, and then even some of the smaller boys grew less ...
— The Rover Boys in Camp - or, The Rivals of Pine Island • Edward Stratemeyer
... is the vice or folly of the shallow-minded; so if you would not be thought so avoid boasting or affectations of any kind. The truly wise man is modest, and the braggart and coxcomb are ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost
... to 'Terrible', seventy-four, (Yo ho! for the swing of the sea!) And ye sank her in fathoms a thousand or more (Alas! for the might of the sea!) Ye taunt me and sing me her fate for a sign! What harm can ye wreak more on me or on mine? Ho braggart! I care not for boasting of thine — A fig for the wrath ...
— In Flanders Fields and Other Poems - With an Essay in Character, by Sir Andrew Macphail • John McCrae
... have been more written about and fought over than those of Amerigo Vespucci. Some will have it that he went only two voyages, and say he was a braggart and a vainglorious fool if he said he went more. Others think that he went at least four voyages and probably six. And most people are now agreed that these last are right, and that he who gave his name to the great double Continent of America was no swaggering ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... I can set a braggart quailing with a quip, The upstart I can wither with a whim; He may wear a merry laugh upon his lip, But his laughter has an echo that is grim. When they've offered to the world in merry guise, Unpleasant truths are swallowed with a will - For he who'd make his fellow-creatures ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... little for this; but the last part of the curse comes on almost at once and makes him afraid to be alone after dark, while the second is not long delayed. On the eve of setting out once more for Norway, he quarrels with and slays a braggart named Thorbiorn; during the voyage itself he is the unintentional cause of a whole household of men being burnt to death; and lastly, by his own quarrelsome temper, and some "metaphysical aid," he misses the chance of clearing himself by "bearing iron" (ordeal) before King Olaf at Drontheim. ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... same week I was annoyed to find that many of our men believed the version which Aiken had given of my conduct at Santa Barbara. There were all sorts of stories circulating through the Legion about me. They made me out a braggart, a bully, and a conceited ass—indeed, almost everything unpleasant was said of me except that I was a coward. Aiken, of course, kindly retold these stories to me, either with the preface that he thought I ought to know what was being said of me, or that he thought the stories would amuse ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... gawster. The enemy whom he so adroitly dispersed bore a strong family likeness to a fraternal nuisance, whom we recently inspected, being, in fact, a new edition, on toned paper and elegantly bound, of the braggart, "Brawnging Bill," and exhibiting the same feeble powers of resistance when his silly conceits were thwarted. Honest men, hoping reformation, rejoice to see him slink away, rejoice to see the gawsterer subdued, as when Theodore Hook rushed across Fleet Street to one, who was walking as proudly ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... that his father was a confirmed liar and braggart had for years cast a shadow over his days and the shadow had been made blacker by the fact that in a land where the least fortunate can laugh in the face of want he had more than once stood face to face with poverty. He believed that the logical answer to the situation was money ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... looked somewhat startled by the vibration of sincerity in his voice, and Sylvia, with her quick sympathy of divination, had turned almost as pale as the little boy, who, all his braggart turbulence gone, stood looking at them with a ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... of dinners at Captain Bragg's charge, yet his hospitality is so insolent, that none of us who frequent his mahogany feel any obligation to our braggart entertainer. ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... "packed like a hand-saw"—had kept at bay and put to flight now two, anon four, and then seven, and finally eleven of his assailants. We all can see, too, the roguish twinkle in Prince Hal's eyes as the braggart knight embellishes his lying tale with every fresh sentence, and are as nonplussed as he when, the plot discovered, Falstaff finds a way to take credit for his cowardice. Who would not forgive ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley
... are bold and carry the day. In all such matters, we of this country allow ourselves to be misrepresented by a comparatively few impudent people, with their own ends to serve. This book is somewhat open to like objections. Its title is too pretentious; its style is braggart, and tainted with the vulgarity of an English flash reporter; and yet this is tempered by a certain constraint, as if the writer could not but occasionally think how ill such a style was suited to his subject. The portrait ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... offender against party discipline, sweeping at him with his large, bony right hand, in uncouth gestures, as if he would clutch him and shake him. He would often use invectives, which he took care should never appear printed in the official reports, and John Randolph in his braggart prime was never so imperiously insulting as was Mr. Stevens toward those whose political action he controlled. He was firm believer in the old maxim ascribed to the Jesuits, "The end justifies the means," and, while he set morality at defiance, he was an early and a zealous champion of ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... to gazing at his guest with an equally distrustful air, since certain features in Chichikov's benevolence now struck him as a little open to question, and he had begin to think to himself: "After all, the devil only knows who he is—whether a braggart, like most of these spendthrifts, or a fellow who is lying merely in order to get some tea out of me." Finally, his circumspection, combined with a desire to test his guest, led him to remark that it might ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... been one of the household of Marie de Medicis, directed Corneille to the Spanish drama. The Illusion Comique, the latest of his tentative plays, is a step towards the Cid; its plot is fantastical, but in some of the fanfaronades of the braggart Matamore, imported from Spain, are pseudo-heroics which only needed a certain transposition to become the language of chivalric heroism. The piece closes with a lofty ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... the braggart in a moment will give in; The snare for some is pleasant, For the biter ...
— La Boheme • Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica
... that of Ireland before the conquest has been effected. But my royal heart is no whit appalled by such threats. I trust, with the help of the Divine hand—which has thus far miraculously preserved me—to smite all these braggart powers into the dust, and to preserve my honour, and the kingdoms which He has given me ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... very wing-ed Mercury—me, I say she hath, by torrential tongueful tumult (gentle lady!), constrained to don the habit of a base, brawling, beefy and most material Mars! Wherefore at my mother's behest (gracious dame!) I ride nothing joyful to be bruised and battered by any base, brutal braggart that hath the mind to try a ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... himself a braggart, Let him fear this; for it will come to pass That every braggart shall be found ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... hosten," "He hears the flies coughing." If a man is full of great schemes, he is told, "In Gedanken foert de Bur ok in't Kutsch." "In thought the peasant, too, drives in a coach." A man who boasts is asked, "Pracher! haest ok Lues, oder schuppst di man so?" "Braggart! have you really lice, or do you only scratch yourself ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... stiff-necked braggart!" bawled the priest. "Out wid y'r nonsense, and what good are y' thinkin' ye'll do—? Stir your stumps, ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... cousin, I do not feel in any very gentle frame of mind," rejoined the squire; "my ire has been roused by this insolent braggart, my blood is up, and I long ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... brave pirate of the plains!" cried Case, and he leered with braggart sneer into the faces of ...
— The Last Trail • Zane Grey
... the Count; to fight him is my affair, and I have sent a challenge. Since duelling is prohibited in Lithuania, I am going to the borders of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw; the Count, of course, is a braggart, but he does not lack courage, and will appear without fail at the appointed place. We will settle accounts; and, if God grants me his blessing, I will punish him, and then will swim over the Lososna, where the ranks of my brothers await me. I have heard that my father ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... sir, depend on it." Beaumaroy's air was suddenly confident, almost braggart. Mr. Saffron nodded approvingly. "But, anyhow, I can't very well start ...
— The Secret of the Tower • Hope, Anthony
... French dramatic poet Pierre Corneille when he wrote his famous play, Le Cid, in 1636, Ximena is given a much more prominent place in the story than that accorded to her in history. According to this version, Don Diego, father of Don Rodrigo, is given a mortal insult by the braggart Don Gomez, who is the father of Ximena. Young Don Rodrigo, eager to avenge the slight put upon his aged father, provokes Don Gomez to a duel and kills him. Ximena, who has loved Don Rodrigo, overcome by these tragic events, is at a loss to know what to do, and in her heart there ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... history of the Man and Woman, who lived on the Height of Land, just where Dog Ear River falls into Marigold Lake. This portion of the Height of Land is a lonely country. The sun marches over it distantly, and the man of the East— the braggart—calls it outcast; but animals love it; and the shades of the long-gone trapper and 'voyageur' saunter without mourning through its fastnesses. When you are in doubt, trust God's dumb creatures—and the happy dead who whisper pleasant promptings ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... once more upon British soil. Does not the Englishman, consciously or otherwise, put a curse on everything he touches? Doctor Bataille affirms it; indeed this quality of malediction has been specially dispensed to the nation of heretics by God himself; so says Doctor Bataille. Since the British braggart began to embattle Gibraltar, having thieved it from Catholic Spain, a wind of desolation breathes over the whole country. An inscrutable providence, of which our witness is the mouthpiece, has elected to set apart this rock in order that the devil and the English, who, he says, ...
— Devil-Worship in France - or The Question of Lucifer • Arthur Edward Waite
... in honour of a deceased warrior. The sculptors of those days had stocks of such funereal emblems in hand; as you may see still on the walls of St. Paul's, which are covered with hundreds of these braggart heathen allegories. There was a constant demand for them during the first fifteen ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... as a nun is she; One weak chirp is her only note; Braggart, and prince of braggarts is he, Pouring boasts from his little throat, Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link, Spink, spank, spink, Never was I afraid of man, Catch me, cowardly knaves, if you ...
— Required Poems for Reading and Memorizing - Third and Fourth Grades, Prescribed by State Courses of Study • Anonymous
... the utter silence was the shriek of the shells and the crash of their explosion. We were constantly checked by piles of fallen debris, and from one street we had to back the car out and go round by another way. At the end of a long street of ruined houses, many bearing the inscription of some braggart, "I did this," we found our wounded men. They were in a monastery near the bridge at which the Germans were directing their shells, several of which had already fallen into the building. There had been four wounded ...
— A Surgeon in Belgium • Henry Sessions Souttar
... widely different from what it is; and surely their bishops might have been better employed in remedying the neglect of their subordinates, than in attending political meetings, and delivering postprandial orations, savouring more of the braggart boastings of a drunken drumboy, than of the deliberate opinions of a dignified ecclesiastic. In their zeal as politicians, the Roman Catholic clergy have forgotten their duties as priests; and they are now beginning ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... his words, shaggy Hanak whirled his knobby bludgeon above his head, and shied it frantically at the officer, who warded off the blow with his sword, and the same instant a young private transfixed the braggart so vigorously that the end of his bayonet ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai
... found the world interesting. He may not be sympathetic with evil, but he finds it so interesting that he makes us, for the time being, take a fratricidal usurper like Hamlet's uncle, or a gross, sponging braggart like Falstaff, at his own estimate. Shakespeare is never shocked at anything that happens in the world; he knows the world too well for that. He offends the Puritan in us by his indifference; he is therefore probably the best kind of reading for Puritans. ...
— The Booklover and His Books • Harry Lyman Koopman
... anywhere in the Vasilievsky Ostroff, on the St. Petersburg side, or in the distant regions of Kolomna—individuals whose character is as difficult to define as the colour of a threadbare surtout. In his youth he had been a captain and a braggart, a master in the art of flogging, skilful, foppish, and stupid; but in his old age he combined all these various qualities into a kind of dim indefiniteness. He was a widower, already on the retired list, ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... these causes it was, could of course never be positively known, but, like a flash of lightning, the fellow changed his insolent, braggart manner to one of the most ...
— Angel Agnes - The Heroine of the Yellow Fever Plague in Shreveport • Wesley Bradshaw
... fine talking, tall talk, magniloquence, teratology^, heroics; Chauvinism; exaggeration &c 549. vanity &c 880; vox et praeterea nihil [Lat.]; much cry and little wool, brutum fulmen [Lat.]. exultation; gloriation^, glorification; flourish of trumpets; triumph &c 883. boaster; braggart, braggadocio; Gascon [Fr.], fanfaron^, pretender, soi-disant [Fr.]; blower [U.S.], bluffer, Foxy Quiller^; blusterer &c 887; charlatan, jack-pudding, trumpeter; puppy &c (fop) 854. V. boast, make a boast of, brag, vaunt, Puff, show off, flourish, crake^, crack, trumpet, strut, swagger, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... much-forgotten, mouthing, braggart duty, always owed, and seldom paid in any other coin than punishment and wrath, when will mankind begin to know thee! When will men acknowledge thee in thy neglected cradle, and thy stunted youth, and not begin their recognition in thy sinful manhood and thy desolate old age! Oh, ermined ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... of the other. Colonel Bath has necessarily united all suffrages. He is of course a very little stagey; he reminds us that his author had had a long theatrical apprenticeship: he is something too much d'une piece. But as a study of the brave man who is almost more braggart than brave, of the generous man who will sacrifice not only generosity but bare justice to "a hogo of honour," he is admirable, and up to his time almost unique. Ordinary writers and ordinary readers ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... praise-pipes of babes and sucklings," answered Gibbie; "but it does not follow that they can give advice. Don't you remember your mother saying that the stripling David was enough to kill a braggart giant, but a sore-tried man was wanted to ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... advantage, that they can form an impartial opinion of the merits of those who did. It is the pride and the honor of this noble Commonwealth of ours, that of the hundred thousand brave soldiers and sailors she sent to the war, there was but one notorious braggart; there was but one capable of parading up and down the Commonwealth, vaunting that he had hung a man; exhibiting himself as the Jack Ketch of the rebellion. I bow reverently to the brave, modest, patriotic ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... braggart, to play the Macedonian with me! I am no puny Persian, I warrant thee! What, man! have I not fought twenty years in the ring, and never lowered my arms once? And have I not received the rod from the editor's own hand ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... . . Lo, between Him and the judgment-seat there rose The Sword of Menace, ever keen To smite the braggart War-Wolf's foes! ...
— With Zola in England • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... of Belial! 'T is thou that liest, and art a cock-a-hoop braggart into the bargain, Master Edward Lister! Tell me that our master's daughter gave thee ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... had a boyish, chivalric idea that he would like to snatch Lily from this awful peril, as it seemed to him. Could it be really true? The older men said Williamson was a braggart. There might be no truth in it. He ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas
... that vague and poetic sense in which every knight selected some lady as the object of his dutiful devotion. She disdained the attentions of the most potent prince if his addresses were not honorable. Nor would she bestow her love on one of whom she was not proud. She would not marry a coward or a braggart, even if he were the owner of ten thousand acres. The knight was encouraged to pay his address to any lady if he was personally worthy of her love, for chivalry created a high estimate of individual merit. ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume V • John Lord
... amazement. Then he said: "I do perceive that thou art a fool; and with fools I never meddle." And seizing him once more by the shoulder, he thrust him into the street. "Speed on thy way, little braggart," he said, "even till thou comest to thy master, who must ...
— A Boy's Ride • Gulielma Zollinger
... sport of gods and men: and their English descendant, in spite of all his second-hand sentiment, holds the same opinion at his heart; for his first instinct, jolly honest fellow that he is, on seeing a snow alp, is to scramble up it and smoke his cigar upon the top. And this great stupid braggart, pretending to be a personage and an entity, which, like Pope's monument ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley
... they suffered it to stay; But with such insolence it flourished there, That, out of patience with its braggart's air, They bade it prove its claims ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... sort of apology, no doubt inspired by interested persons, for personal plus international reasons. They were high of heart, these dauntless confederates, in the early and middle stages of the captivity, and, indeed, they bore themselves with braggart defiance of public opinion, until many strong manifestations of inevitable trouble encompassed them, and, like all despots, who are invariably cowards, they lived in mortal terror lest this creature of theirs should break out into St. Helena leprosy ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... all ways, in back, in legs, and thighs, With softening phrases will the flaw disguise. So, if one friend too close a fist betrays, Let us ascribe it to his frugal ways; Or is another—such we often find— To flippant jest and braggart talk inclined, 'Tis only from a kindly wish to try To make the time 'mongst friends go lightly by; Another's tongue is rough and over-free, Let's call it bluntness and sincerity; Another's choleric; him we must screen, As cursed with feelings for his ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... many women who love madly with their hearts and souls? You talk like a college braggart. There are conquerors like yourself who, if we are to believe them, would devour a whole convent at their breakfast. These men excite my pity. As for me, really, I have always felt that it was most difficult to make one's self really loved. In these days of prudery, ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... seen With earrings, wreath, or chain. None deigned to feed on broken fare, And none was false or stingy there. A piece of gold, the smallest pay, Was earned by labour for a day. On every arm were bracelets worn, And none was faithless or forsworn, A braggart or unkind. None lived upon another's wealth, None pined with dread or broken health, Or dark disease of mind. High-souled were all. The slanderous word, The boastful lie, were never heard. Each man was constant to his vows, And lived ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... and Moth.] In the folios the direction is, enter Braggart and Moth, and at the beginning of every speech of Armado stands Brag, both in this and the foregoing scene between him and his boy. The other personages of this play are likewise noted by their characters as often as by their names. All this ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson
... other. Agamemnon's stately behaviour, Menelaus' irritation, Nestor's experience, Ulysses' cunning, are all productive of no effect; when they have at last arranged a single combat between the coarse braggart Ajax and Hector, the latter will not fight in good earnest, as Ajax is his cousin. Achilles is treated worst: after having long stretched himself out in arrogant idleness, and passed his time in the company of Thersites the buffoon, he falls ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... and we know not how long before, he was a sort of staple character, no set of Miracle-Plays being regarded as complete without him. And he was always represented as an immense swearer and braggart and swaggerer, evermore ranting and raving up and down the stage, and cudgelling the spectators' ears with the most furious bombast and profanity. Thus, in one ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... the dramatic poet must not indeed in any sense idealize, but he should render only the genuinely human, not the purely accidental, which, because accidental, is rare. For an individual to be at the same time a hero and a braggart is, however, quite accidental, and the result merely of a deficient or a perverted education. If one wishes to find firmness in the fact that a man knows in advance what he wants, that he forms his decision before he is acquainted with the controlling ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... could no longer suppress his indignation when at a little distance he saw his mustang, which this treacherous braggart had ...
— Joe's Luck - Always Wide Awake • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... one halfpenny-worth of bread, was not put there by himself as a trick to humour the jest upon his favourite propensities, and as a conscious caricature of himself. He is represented as a liar, a braggart, a coward, a glutton, etc. and yet we are not offended but delighted with him; for he is all these as much to amuse others as to gratify himself. He openly assumes all these characters to shew the humourous part of them. The ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... to send relief to his son, wishing the prince to win his spurs unaided, and earn the first-fruits of his fame single-handed against the heaviest odds; but the forcible feebleness of a minor poet's fancy shows itself amusingly in the mock stoicism and braggart philosophy of the King's reassuring reflection, "We have ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... whispered to himself, "I want me this braggart hewn to pieces, and then the rest beaten;" and added, aloud: "Ax! ax! chop! chop! and work for my profit!" Whereupon the ax leapt forward, and dealt such a blow upon Sir Paul that it pierced through ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 • Various
... directions call a pan coupe. On the inner angle are the gates of Wellings Park, the residence of Sir Anthony Fenimore, third baronet, and the most considerable man in our little community. Through these gates the car took me and down the long avenue of chestnut trees, the pride of a district braggart of its chestnuts and its beeches, but now leafless and dreary, spreading out an infinite tracery of branch and twig against a grey February sky. Thence we emerged into the open of rolling pasture and meadow on the highest ground of which the white Georgian house was situated. As ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... was no evidence to convict the poor soul, suspicion, that is worse than conviction, must so fix upon him that he's afraid to sleep his nights in his bed at home, but must go where never a braggart loon ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... to turn loose his real impulses to register what the director wanted of a bad man. In the rough-and-tumble life he had led, it had been Yeager's business to know men. He made no mistake about Harrison. The fellow might be a loud-mouthed braggart; none the less he would go the limit. The man ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... people hardening to Spartan lineaments in the fire, iron men to meet disaster, worshippers of a discerned God of Laws, and just men too, thinking to do justice; he has Bull on the eye, the alternately braggart and poltroon, sweating in labour that he may gorge the fruits, graceless to a scoffer. And this is the creature to whose tail he is tied! Hereditary hatred is approved by critical disgust. Some spirited brilliancy, some persistent generosity (other than the guzzle's flash of it), might soften ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... self-contained and resolute he had a restless spirit. Fearless, without a touch of the braggart, his courage was of the valiant order, the quality that accompanies a lofty soul in a strong body. For his constant courtesy and habit of making sacrifices for his friends, he was in danger of being canonized ...
— The Story of Isaac Brock - Hero, Defender and Saviour of Upper Canada, 1812 • Walter R. Nursey
... into a pot-house brawl with a braggart boy," he cried. "The blackguard, dastard knave! Drag me away, Hal, lest I rush back like a fool and run him through! I have lost my wits. 'Tis the fashion for dandies to pour forth their bestial braggings, but never hath a man made my blood so boil and me so mad ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... and shy is she; One weak chirp is her only note. Braggart and prince of braggarts is he, Pouring boasts from his little throat: Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link, Spink, spank, spink; Never was I afraid of man; Catch me, cowardly knaves, if ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... you are my cousin, very far removed! But you are more than that. Your father saved my life in the Atlas. He has related it all to you—No? Well, that does not astonish me; for he was no braggart, that father of yours; he was a man! Had he not quitted the army, a brilliant career was before him. People talk a great deal of Pelissier, of Canrobert, of MacMahon, and of others. I say nothing against them; they are good men doubtless—at least ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... between us, my lord," I answered, "and I claim the right to cross swords in an affair of honour with all save those of royal blood. Grant me the satisfaction I demand, or I will brand you as a braggart and a coward throughout ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes
... answered Thistlewood, addressing the owner of the voice, who remained invisible; 'but I wasn't speaking in a braggart way.' ...
— Bulldog And Butterfly - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... their infant minds that they were the Tracys of Tracy Park, and entitled to due respect from their inferiors; and Tom, the boy of ten and a half, had profited by her teaching, and was the veriest little braggart in all Shannondale, boasting of his father's house, and his father's money, without a word of the Uncle Arthur wandering no one knew where, or cared ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... into ridicule, handing it about among his officers, speaking of us all as traitors whom he would put to death without mercy. He declared he would cut off and eat the ears of Cortes, and a great deal of such braggart nonsense, and of course made no answer to the letters. Just at this time Father Olmedo arrived, bringing with him the private letters and presents. He went in the first place to wait upon Narvaez, intending to assure him that ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... Bluecher,—were all old men; and the two last-named were very old men. It would be absurd to call either of them a great commander, but it is indisputable that they all had great parts in great wars. Benningsen can scarcely be called a good general of the second class, and he is mostly spoken of as a foolish braggart and boaster; but it is a fact that he did some things at an important time which indicated his possession of qualities that were highly desirable in a general who was bound to act against Napoleon. Having, in 1807, obtained command of the Russian army in Poland, he had what ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... false, noisy, hectoring braggart; a kind of Pistol or Bobadil.—Tasso, Secchia Rapita (i.e. "Rape ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... like a braggart for supper and hot wine, boasting he had ridden that day from Edinburgh, and that he must be up and across his horse by daylight in the morning, as he had need to be in Kilmarnock by noon. In this, which ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... a strange and sad thing that the English poets have cared little for England; or, caring for England, have had little sense of the spirit of the English. Many of our poets have written botanical verses, and braggart verses, many more have described faithfully the appearance of parts of the land at different seasons. Only two or three show the mettle of their pasture in such a way that he who reads them can be sure that the indefinable ...
— William Shakespeare • John Masefield
... plunderers, but suits not me: Shall I, the terror of this sinful town, Care, if a liveried lord or smile or frown? Who cannot flatter, and detest who can, Tremble before a noble serving-man? O, my fair mistress, Truth! shall I quit thee For huffing, braggart, puffed nobility? Thou, who since yesterday hast rolled o'er all The busy, idle blockheads of the ball, Hast thou, oh, sun! beheld an emptier fort, Than such who swell this bladder of a Court? Now plague on those who show a Court in wax! It ought to bring all courtiers on ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope
... at the time with M. de Saintonge, and he muttered, with a sneer, that it was not difficult to see the end, or that within the year the young braggart would sink to be a gaming-house bully. I said nothing, but I confess that I thought otherwise; the lad's disposition of his money and his provision for the future seeming to me so remarkable as to set him above ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... went, Sholto's step slowed, and lost its braggart strut and confidence. Behind him Laurence chuckled and laughed, smiting his thigh in his ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... in his braggart way This foolish tale he told, That his daughter could spin from bits of straw Continuous threads of gold! So boastful had he grown, forsooth, That he cared but little for the truth: But since this was a curious thing It came to the knowledge of ...
— On the Tree Top • Clara Doty Bates
... their mustachios or their money—covered with weapons, flannel and gold lace, spoke in an impressive manner, discussed plans of campaign, and behaved as though they alone bore the fortunes of dying France on their braggart shoulders; though, in truth, they frequently were afraid of their own men—scoundrels often brave beyond measure, but ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... The braggart now regretted having told so many lies, for he did not know how to escape the monarch's proposal. After reflecting a short time, he plucked up courage and said "I will gladly accept the position of son-in-law ...
— Roumanian Fairy Tales • Various
... Napoleon, but who, in my eyes, is nothing but an infamous tyrant, presumptuous enough to put a crown on his head, and ascend a throne to which he has no right whatever, and who, moreover, has treated us Germans as though we were his slaves. Ay, it is justice if we take from the robber of kingdoms, the braggart winner of battles, all that he has appropriated, and send him back to Corsica. That would be justice, your majesty; and if it is not administered, it is a morbid generosity that prevents it, and which is utterly out of ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... and pupils should endeavor to secure variety of interest in roles. At first, assignments are likely to be determined by apparent fitness. The quiet boy is not required to play the part of the braggart. The retiring girl is not expected to impersonate the shrew. In one or two appearances it may be a good thing to ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... respect have been paid. "After turning Mrs. Lemon's portrait over, in my mind, I am convinced that there is not a grain of bad taste in the matter, and that there is a manly composure and courage in the proceeding deserving of the utmost respect. If Lemon were one of your braggart honest men, he would set a taint of bad taste upon that action as upon everything else he might say or do; but being what he is, I admire him for it greatly, and hold it to be a proof of an exalted nature and a true heart. Your idea of him, is mine. I am sure he is an ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... army in the vicinity of Manassas and Fredericksburg under General John Pope, to operate against Richmond by the flank. General Pope from his infamous orders greatly incensed the people of the South, and from his vain boasting gained for himself the sobriquet of "Pope the Braggart." He ordered every citizen within his lines or living near them to either take the oath of allegiance to the United States or to be driven out of the country as an enemy of the Union. No one was to have any communication with ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... delicate frame, of the gentlest manners, habituated to all the soft elegances and refined enjoyments that attend high birth and fortune. Her mind alone was formed for such trials.' But in very many cases heroines have been women from whom few would have expected heroism. The blustering braggart does not often prove to be a hero in time of danger, and the gentle, unassuming woman is the type of which heroines are frequently made. The aristocracy the middle and the lower classes, have each given us ...
— Noble Deeds of the World's Heroines • Henry Charles Moore
... Dare I accuse wise Laska, Whose words find access to a monarch's ear, Of a base, braggart lie? It must have been Her spirit that appeared to me. But haply 170 I come too late? It has itself delivered Its own ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... character of the people, their grasp of nature, and their own conception of themselves and their relation to the world, can be seen.[49-*] Some languages have the strong impress of impersonality, without any loss of virility; others are strongly egotistic and self-assertive, with perhaps the braggart's lack of genuine strength. Each spoken language that we know has its own color and tone, to which our thought must respond, if we would know and use it well. To speak good Swedish, for instance, requires ...
— Commentary Upon the Maya-Tzental Perez Codex - with a Concluding Note Upon the Linguistic Problem of the Maya Glyphs • William E. Gates
... seemed especially friendly to the United States, and it was therefore with regret that on my return I found him in this respect greatly changed: he had become a severe critic of nearly everything American; his earlier expectations had evidently been disappointed; we clearly appeared to him big, braggart, noisy, false to our principles, unworthy of our opportunities. These feelings of his became even more marked as the Spanish-American War drew on. Whenever we met, and most often at a charming house which both of us frequented, ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... aging Charles IV (1788- 1808), boorish, foolish, easily duped. By his side sat his queen, a coarse sensuous woman "with a tongue like a fishwife's." Their heir was Prince Ferdinand, a conceited irresponsible young braggart in his early twenties. And their favorite, the true ruler of Spain, if Spain at this time could be said to have a ruler, was Godoy, a vain flashy adventurer, who was loved by the queen, shielded by the king, and envied by the heir. ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... me an' swindled me terribly, when he put off that old no-count hoss on me. Of course, I might have sued him, for a lie is a microbe which naturally develops into a lawyer's fee. But while it's a terrible braggart, it's really cowardly an' delicate, an' will die of lock-jaw if you only pick ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... am I to this people, Their tongues are all too bold—nor have they yet Been tamed to due submission, as they shall be. I must take order for the remedy; I will subdue this stubborn mood of theirs, This braggart spirit of freedom I will crush, I will proclaim a new law through the land; ...
— Wilhelm Tell - Title: William Tell • Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
... tear-fraught, detested of the gods! Alas, our father's curses now bear fruit. But it beseems not to lament or weep, Lest lamentations sadder still be born. For him, too truly Polyneikes named,— What his device will work we soon shall know; Whether his braggart words, with madness fraught, Gold-blazoned on his shield, shall lead him back. Hath Justice communed with, or claimed him hers, Guided his deeds and thoughts, this might have been; But neither when he fled the ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... legislature 'full justice for Ireland,' or to provide for the contingency of a perseverance in the refusal of that legislature to right the people of Ireland." Accordingly, a large concourse of people assembled at the Corn-exchange, and were addressed by the demagogue in that braggart style which he well knew would win its way to their feelings. In his speech Mr. O'Connell intimated his intention of forming a new association, the exertions of which were to be directed to obtain for ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... not long to wait. The Athenian soldiers stationed at Eion were chafing at their inaction, and mutinous speeches were heard on all sides. What a man was this Cleon, this cowardly braggart, under whom they were to take the field against the most daring and skilful leader in Greece! They had known what to expect from such a general, since the day when they sailed for Thrace. These murmurs reached the ears of Cleon, and he saw ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell
... "No braggart Heracles avails to bring Alcestis hence; nor here may Roland see The eyes of Aude; nor here the wakening spring Vex any man with memories: for there be No memories that cling as cerements cling, No force that baffles ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell
... leads an Empress who in turn leads an empire. Half suspicious and wholly unconvinced, he questions and demands the exact number of invulnerables that can be placed in line; and is forthwith assured, with braggart Chinese choruses, that they are as locusts, that the whole earth swarms with them, that the movement is unconquerable. Still unconvinced, the false eunuch takes his departure, and then the Throne decrees and counter decrees in ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... madly-wicked men Who sought to kindle flames of border war Have in confusion failed yet, once again, Their braggart plans ...
— Verses and Rhymes by the way • Nora Pembroke
... race; another drags in a surprisingly lofty-minded damsel who grows up pure and noble amid the most repulsive surroundings; another can never forget the lost will; another depends on a mock-modest braggart who kills scores of people in a humorous way. The mould remains the same in each case, although there may be casual variations in the hue of the material poured out and moulded. All these forlorn ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... vents against high heaven And heaven's high king his swelling blasphemies. Surely I trust that on his impious head The lightning shall be launched more fiery far Than are the rays of any noonday sun. To meet him with his braggart menaces Stout Polyphontus goes, a gallant soul, Who well can hold the post, so Artemis And all protecting gods his arm will aid. Tell us whose lot is ...
— Specimens of Greek Tragedy - Aeschylus and Sophocles • Goldwin Smith
... Riggs up down in the village—somewhere in a crowd. I want Riggs shown up as the coward, braggart, four-flush that he is. And insulted, ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... 'Burlman Rennuls,' dat's me, you know, Bushie; 'Burlman Rennuls,' says he, 'you's 'tirely welcome to de skelps, ef you kin take 'em widout cuttin' an' spilin' de skin.' H-yah, h-yah, h-yah!" And the black braggart laughed as sincerely as if he were for the moment self-deceived into thinking that he was dealing in facts. But quickly recovering his lofty air, which had vanished while he laughed, the Fighting Negro thus proceeded with ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... boastings, for the world Sure no braggart hath like thee: Thou art not the chosen chief— Thou hast not the champion's fee:— Without action, without force, Thou art but a giggling page; Yes, thou trembler, with thy heart Like ...
— Poems • Denis Florence MacCarthy
... mode of presenting the necklace, though unauthorized by Shakespeare, had the full approval of the company, and set them in good humour to receive Major Camperton as Armado the braggart. Nothing calculated to stimulate jealousy occurred again till the fifth act; and then there arose full ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... strange dog, Tommy Fox became more of a braggart than ever. He thought that he knew just about all there was to know. But with the coming of winter Tommy found that he had many things to learn. It was almost like living in a different world, for the ground was white everywhere. And though Tommy ...
— The Tale of Tommy Fox • Arthur Scott Bailey
... death: the battle of old and new, grown so fierce that the pietists denied the reformers Jewish burial; young men scorning their fathers and crying, "Culture, Culture; down with the Ghetto"; many in the reaction from the yoke of three thousand years falling into braggart profligacy, many more into fashionable Christianity. And the woman of the new generation no less apostate, Henrietta Herz bringing beautiful Jewesses under the fascination of brilliant Germans and the romantic movement, so ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... Pleasure' (No. xxxviii.) The original source is Boccaccio's 'Decamerone' (giorn. iii. nov. 9). Shakespeare, after his wont, grafted on the touching story of Helena's love for the unworthy Bertram the comic characters of the braggart Parolles, the pompous Lafeu, and a clown (Lavache) less witty than his compeers. Another original creation, Bertram's mother, Countess of Roussillon, is a charming portrait of old age. In frequency of rhyme and ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... rode down the Cossacks, plundered the stanitzas, and left behind the forts which were not carried amid the whirlwind of his first coming. There was no stopping; and before the garrisons along the line knew that Schamyl had come, he was gone; and when the Kabardians believed that the braggart who had threatened their land with plundering was shut up in his mountains six hundred wersts away, he was in ...
— Life of Schamyl - And Narrative of the Circassian War of Independence Against Russia • John Milton Mackie
... Will you be put in mind of his blind fortune, Which was your shame, by this unholy braggart, 'Fore ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... "counsellors", old and wise men, "sapientes" (like the 0. E. Thyle). The aged warrior counsellor, as Starcad here and Master Hildebrand in the "Nibelungenlied", is one type of these persons, another is the false counsellor, as Woden in guise of Bruni, another the braggart, as Hunferth in "Beowulf's Lay". At "moots" where laws are made, kings and regents chosen, cases judged, resolutions taken of national importance, there are discussions, as in that armed ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... saw at court, and worse, and more. Low fear Becomes the guilty, not th' accuser; then Shall I, none's slave, of high born or rais'd men Fear frowns, and my mistress, Truth! betray thee To th' huffing braggart, puft nobility? No, no; thou which since yesterday hast been Almost about the whole world, hast thou seen, O Sun! in all thy journey vanity Such as swells the bladder of our court? I Think he which made your waxen garden, ...
— English Satires • Various
... as a nun is she, One weak chirp is her only note, Braggart and prince of braggarts is he, Pouring boasts from his little throat: Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link, Spink, spank, spink; Never was I afraid of man; Catch me, cowardly knaves, if ...
— Twilight Stories • Various
... in the sudden sunshine, were becoming unmanageable and extravagant. On the bench there were but four prelates who were on the moving side,—Cranmer, Latimer, Shaxton, and Barlow,[528]—and among these Cranmer only approved the policy of the government. Shaxton was an arrogant braggart, and Barlow a feeble enthusiast. Shaxton, who had flinched from the stake when Bilney was burnt, Shaxton, who subsequently relapsed under Mary, and became himself a Romanist persecutor, was now strutting in his new authority, and punishing, ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... restored in this country, and Popery also—and I hate him because—what do you think? In one of his novels, published a few months ago, he has the insolence to insult Hungary in the presence of one of her sons. He makes his great braggart, Coeur de Lion, fling a Magyar over his head. Ha! it was well for Richard that he never felt the gripe of a Hungarian. I wish the braggart could have felt the gripe of me, who am 'a' magyarok kozt legkissebb,' the least ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... he was objectionable. For the fact, he was objectionable in every way: as a human being, a man, a citizen, a member of the Slocum County bar, and a veteran of our late civil conflict. He was shiftless, untidy, a borrower, a pompous braggart, a trouble-maker, forever driving some poor devil into senseless litigation. Moreover, he was blithely unscrupulous in his dealings with the Court, his clients, his brother-attorneys, and his fellow-men at large. When I add that he was given to spells of hard drinking, during which he became obnoxious ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... marble palaces, and it thinks it superfluous to level its roads. Eager for success, worshipping astuteness as devoutly as it worships speed, it is yet indifferent to the failure of others, and seems to hold human life in light esteem. In brief, it is a braggart city of medieval courage and medieval cruelty, combining the fierceness of an Italian republic with a perfect faith in mechanical contrivance and an ardent love of ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley
... thy brethren quelled Ward off the wolves whose hides should line thy throne, Wert thou no coward, no recreant to the bone, No liar in spirit and soul and heartless heart, No slave, no traitor—nought of all thou art. A thing like thee, made big with braggart breath, Whose tongue shoots fire, whose promise poisons trust, Would cast a shieldless soldier forth to death And wreck three realms to sate his rancorous lust With ruin of them who have weighed and found him dust. Get thee to Wales: there strut in speech ...
— Locrine - A Tragedy • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... Who've slept in down and satin all your years, Within the circle Lanciotto charmed Round Rimini with his most potent sword!— Fellows whose brows would melt beneath a casque, Whose hands would fray to grasp a brand's rough hilt, Who ne'er launched more than braggart threats at foes!— Girlish companions of luxurious girls!— Danglers round troubadours and wine-cups!—Men Whose best parts are their clothes! bundles of silk, Scented like summer! rag-men, nothing more!— Creatures as generous as monkeys—brave ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Francesca da Rimini • George Henry Boker
... back with a curt, scornful movement, and restraining her tears with the utmost strength of will, she said, forcibly jerking out every word, for she could hardly speak, her lips trembled so, "You can lie on the threshold, as you've done before, you braggart!" ...
— Absolution • Clara Viebig
... type," said Maxwell, with tacit enjoyment of the typicality of Pinney. "He hasn't the least chance in the world of working up into any controlling place in the paper. They don't know much in the Events office; but they do know Pinney. He's a great liar and a braggart, and he has no more notion of the immunities of private life than—Well, perhaps it's because he would as soon turn his life inside out as not, and in fact would rather. But he's very domestic, and very ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... South—awake—awake! And strike for rights full dear as those For which our struggling sires did shake Earth's proudest throne—while freedom rose, Baptized in blood of braggart foes. Awake—that hour hath come again! Strike! as ye look to Heaven's high throne— Strike! for the Christian patriot's crown— Strike! in the name of Washington, Who taught you once to rend the chain, Smiles now from heaven upon our cause, ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... but in vain, Can'st thou sit tamely, with the field unfought, And see this braggart glory in his gain? Where is thy god, that Eryx? Hath he taught Thine arm its vaunted cleverness for naught? To us what booteth thy Trinacrian name, Thy spoil-hung house, thy roof with prizes fraught?" Entellus said: "My spirit ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... Benavente, and Bejar, were brought to give in their adhesion to their old master. Liberal promises, indeed, had been made by the emperor, in the name of his grandson Charles, who had already been made to assume the title of King of Castile. But the promises of the imperial braggart passed lightly with the more considerate Castilians, who knew how far they usually outstripped his performance, and who felt, on the other hand, that their true interests were connected with those of a prince, whose superior talents and personal relations all concurred ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... of Junilus, Justinian elevated to this office Constantine, who was not unacquainted with law, but was very young and had never yet taken part in a trial; besides which, he was the most abandoned thief and braggart in the world. Justinian entertained the highest regard for him and showed him very great favour, condescending to make him the chief instrument of his extortion and sole arbiter in legal decisions. By this means Constantine in a short time amassed great wealth, but his insolence was outrageous, ...
— The Secret History of the Court of Justinian • Procopius
... all over the border. Gulden's no braggart. But he's been known to talk. He was a sailor—a pirate. Once he was shipwrecked. Starvation forced him to be a cannibal. He told this in California, and in Nevada camps. But no one believed him. A few ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... tame; No mark of sense, his eyes half-closed, He on a mighty dray-horse dozed: Fate never could a horse provide So fit for such a man to ride, Nor find a man with strictest care, So fit for such a horse to bear. Hung round with instruments of death, The sight of him would stop the breath 1590 Of braggart Cowardice, and make The very court Drawcansir[270] quake; With dirks, which, in the hands of Spite, Do their damn'd business in the night, From Scotland sent, but here display'd Only to fill up the parade; With swords, unflesh'd, of maiden ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... did. Although Brandon had seen many an adventure during his life on the continent, which would not do to write down here, he was as little of a boaster as any man I ever met, and, while I am in the truth-telling business, I was as great a braggart of my inches as ever drew the long-bow—in that line, I mean. Gods! I flush up hot, even now, when I think of it. So I talked a great deal and found myself infinitely pleased with Brandon's conversational powers, ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... sad tragedy, it was out of my power to mount upon it, nor could I even dismount from Rocinante, because they no doubt had me enchanted; for I swear to thee by the faith of what I am that if I had been able to climb up or dismount, I would have avenged thee in such a way that those braggart thieves would have remembered their freak for ever, even though in so doing I knew that I contravened the laws of chivalry, which, as I have often told thee, do not permit a knight to lay hands on him who is not one, ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... ago Mr. Edward Everett came up from the wilds of Devonshire to study law with Braggart and Pushem, in Chancery Lane. He was placed to board, by a prudent mother, with a quiet ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 3, March, 1891 • Various
... his great enterprise. She had heard, at various times, the embittered details of the disappearance of this money, little by little. Nearly a quarter of it, all told, had been appropriated by a sleek old braggart of a company-promoter, who had cozened Joel into the belief that London could be best approached through him. When at last this wretch was kicked downstairs, the effect had been only to make room for a fresh lot of bloodsuckers. There were so-called advertising ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... would also keep any friends you make, is never to speak of anyone without, in imagination, having them overhear what you say. One often hears the exclamation "I would say it to her face!" At least be very sure that this is true, and not a braggart's phrase and then—nine times out of ten think better of it and refrain. Preaching is all very well in a text-book, schoolroom or pulpit, but it has no place in society. Society is supposed to be a pleasant place; telling people disagreeable ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... the Eagle-hunter, The valiant fate-confronter, The soldier brave, and blunter Of speech than BISMARCK's self? This bungler all-disgracing, This braggart all-debasing. This spurious sportsman, chasing No ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., September 20, 1890 • Various
... placing these typified traits in juxtaposition in their conflict and contrast, struck the spark of comedy. Downright, as his name indicates, is "a plain squire"; Bobadill's humour is that of the braggart who is incidentally, and with delightfully comic effect, a coward; Brainworm's humour is the finding out of things to the end of fooling everybody: of course he is fooled in the end himself. But it was not Jonson's theories ...
— Cynthia's Revels • Ben Jonson
... I said, "is waiting. Only a fool would try to win a woman by drooling like a braggart in her doorway or by waiting upon her whims like a footman. They are all daughters of Herodias, and to gain their hearts one must lay the heads of his enemies before them with his own hands. Now, bend ...
— Options • O. Henry
... let our blades be fully tested." Spake the ancient Wainamoinen: "Not thy sword and not thy wisdom, Not thy prudence, nor thy cunning, Do I fear a single moment. Let who may accept thy challenge, Not with thee, a puny braggart, Not with one so vain and paltry, Will I ever measure broadswords." Then the youthful Youkahainen, Mouth awry and visage sneering, Shook his golden locks and answered: "Whoso fears his blade to measure, Fears to test his strength at broadswords, Into ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.
... cannot justice do unto my powers; and sat him down as who should say, There, it is not much yet he that hath an arse to spare, let him fellow that, an' he think he can. By God, an' I were ye queene, I would e'en tip this swaggering braggart out o' the court, and let him air his grandeurs and break his intolerable wind before ye deaf ...
— 1601 - Conversation as it was by the Social Fireside in the Time of the Tudors • Mark Twain |
