"Conceit" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a year, it was taken to the market-place, where they burned it, believing that the smoke went "to the place where the dead man's soul was." [Footnote: Herrera's Hist. America, ii, 133.] From this or some similar conceit the ...
— Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines • Lewis H. Morgan
... Friday, as promised in my letter from Princeton, for which I will apologize when we meet. I arrived here in good plight on Friday evening. Augustine came down about noon on Saturday. We have made some satisfactory progress in our business. Seeing the great men of other countries puts me in more conceit of ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... few, I hope—who are sunk below that state; who have lost their sense of right and wrong; who only care to fulfil the lusts of the flesh in pleasure, ease, and vanity. There are those in whom the voice of conscience is lead for a while, silenced by self-conceit; who say in their prosperity, like the foolish Laodiceans, 'I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing,' and know not that in fact and reality, and in the sight of God, they are 'wretched, and miserable, and ...
— The Water of Life and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... naturally suppose that he would appreciate these motives, and that he would be glad, when scarce settled on his throne, to secure the powerful friendship of King David. No!—he was young, insolent, inconsiderate, and fond of practical joking,—a vulgar-minded fellow, puffed up with conceit at his elevation to power. Hanun took the servants, the ambassadors of David, and shaved off half their beards, and cut off the lower half of all their clothes, and sent them back to David. And when it was told unto David that ...
— The Village Pulpit, Volume II. Trinity to Advent • S. Baring-Gould
... to the responsive look of the stranger, and marvelled. Here was no parrot-like repetition of word she had heard oft repeated by his elders; the boy was talking a native tongue, and speaking of things that were real to him. There was no assumption of godliness nor conceit, no holier-than-thou smirk about the child. It was all sincere, as a boy would promise to speak to his own father about a friend's need. It touched Ruth and tears ...
— The Search • Grace Livingston Hill
... main industry of Sorrento consists in the culture of the orange; and the dark groves, covered with their globes of shining yellow fruit, "like golden lamps in a green light," to quote Andrew Marvell's charming conceit, constitute the chief feature of its environs. Even the coat-of-arms of the medieval city, showing a golden crown encircled by a wreath of the dark glossy leaves, attests the antiquity of this industry here. The cultivation of the orange in Southern Italy is by ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... Indian temper beats the conceit out of the Irish. You'll control yours when you're older, for there's nothing you won't do when you put your mind to it, and you'll see the need for not making a fool of yourself too often. But as for its present liking for exercise—it's a long way ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... question may now be asked, is this distinction palpable? Is it a mere conceit of Science, or what human interests attach to it? If it cannot be proved that the resulting moral or spiritual beauty is higher in the one case than in the other, the biological distinction is useless. And if the objection is pressed that ...
— Natural Law in the Spiritual World • Henry Drummond
... to have his equal.[3] But of all the Latin historians, Tacitus had the greatest influence. 'There is no learning so proper for the direction of the life of man as Historie; there is no historie so well worth the reading as Tacitus. Hee hath written the most matter with best conceit in fewest words of any Historiographer ancient or moderne.'[4] This had been said at the beginning of the first English translation of Tacitus, and it was the view generally held when he came to ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various
... as hardly as the Archbishop himself. Then follows a remark which refers to Mozart's proneness to place undue reliance on promises, instead of using his own judgment. 'You have judgment,' says Leopold, 'but a trifle too much of conceit and self-love, and you are inclined to be over-confiding, and to open your heart ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham
... his ready apprehension of things, he was able to do more in one hour than others could do in many days by hard study and close application; and yet he was ever humble, and never exalted with self-conceit, the common foible ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... wonder. It is not enough for them to be told they are "fearfully and wonderfully made," but they must attend schools to learn why they live, move, and have their being. Such is man, blinded by his self-conceit; blasted not by the excess, but by the partial light which bursts upon him: whereas woman moves clear in her apprehension, because she believes that "whatever is, is right;" and great in her intelligence, because she ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 2, July 8, 1850 • Various
... unfortunately the case, the question is put less with the genuine desire for knowledge than for the purpose of exhibiting the acumen of the questioner, the form is strongly tinged with the deep orange that indicates conceit. It was at a theosophical meeting that this special shape was encountered, and it accompanied a question which showed considerable thought and penetration. The answer at first given was not thoroughly ...
— Thought-Forms • Annie Besant
... appreciated by a writer who feels that he has consumed thirty or forty pages of foolscap in vain. I had been over two hours at that work. I had put all the brains I possessed in it. Many of the sentences so pleased me that I had turned back with pardonable conceit to read them over and admire them: but now, like a destroying angel, came the news that shook from beneath my beautiful superstructure its very foundations, and left me nothing but the humiliation of so ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 39., Saturday, December 24, 1870. • Various
... invite people and to pay for them, and disliked to be invited and paid for. He was never inwardly content on any occasion unless a great deal of money was spent, and he could be sure enough of the large amount only when he himself spent it. He was too simple for conceit or for pride of purse, but always felt any arrangements shabby and sneaking as to which the expense hadn't been referred to him. He never named what he paid for anything. Also Delia had made him understand that if they should go to Saint-Germain as guests of the artist ...
— The Reverberator • Henry James
... wild boar, for each empty cartridge brought in a human hand, the hand of a man, woman, or child. These hands, drying in the sun, could be seen at the posts along the river. They are no longer in evidence. Neither is the flower-bed of Lieutenant Dom, which was bordered with human skulls. A quaint conceit. ...
— The Congo and Coasts of Africa • Richard Harding Davis
... ruffle the temper of the philosophic historian, who, without being foolishly vain, had certainly no need of what has been said to be the one form of prayer in which his countrymen, torn as they are by theological differences, agree; "Lord! gie us a gude conceit o' oursels." But when, to all this, these same Southrons added a passionate admiration for Lord Chatham, who was in Hume's eyes a charlatan; and filled up the cup of their abominations by cheering for "Wilkes and Liberty," ...
— Hume - (English Men of Letters Series) • T.H. Huxley
... home, I tread on the pride of Greece and Rome; And when I am stretched beneath the pines, Where the evening star so holy shines, I laugh at the lore and the pride of man, At the sophist schools, and the learned clan; For what are they all in their high conceit, When man in the ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman
... Fame," very adroitly improves on a witty conceit of Butler. It is curious to observe that while Butler had made a remote allusion of a window to a pillory, a conceit is grafted on this conceit, with even more ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... conceit would have brought upon himself a fine snubbing, but today I was in high feather, and accordingly very pleasant, and resolved to amuse myself by ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... to me, Davie lad, where you got such a conceit of yourself. One would think you were in folks' secrets, and spoke with authority. It will do here at home with Katie and your mother and me, but I am thinking other folk would laugh ...
— David Fleming's Forgiveness • Margaret Murray Robertson
... from their earliest times the use not only of good books, but of good company—those live books, which are such pleasant and sometimes such profitable reading. Society has this good at least: that it lessens our conceit, by teaching us our insignificance, and making us acquainted with our betters. If you are a young person who read this, depend upon it, sir or madam, there is nothing more wholesome for you than to acknowledge ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... against peace on any such conditions. Several other warriors expressed their readiness to contend against Rustem, and they flattered themselves that by a rapid succession of attacks, one after the other, they would easily overpower him. The Khakan was pleased with this conceit and permitted Shinkul to begin the struggle. Accordingly he entered the plain, and summoned Rustem to renew the fight. The champion came and struck him with a spear, which, penetrating his breast, threw him off ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... "And what was your right to make the simple fool break her worthy father's contract, through your love PASSAGES, as your conceit ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... about the surrounding country; and Senorita Isolda frequently found herself contrasting the genial, hearty friendliness and chivalrous courtesy of her brother's English friends with the stiff, haughty, overbearing manner and overweening conceit of the Spanish officers, who seemed to think that such attentions as they chose to pay her ought to be regarded as a vast condescension ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood
... me, and words to come unbidden, till sometimes I had almost to restrain myself from rising from the pew where I was seated, ascending the pulpit stairs, and requesting the man who had nothing to say, to walk down, and allow me, who had something to say, to take his place. Was this conceit? Considering what I was listening to, it could not have been great conceit at least. But I did restrain myself, for I thought an encounter with the police would be unseemly, and my motives scarcely of weight in the court to which they would ...
— Adela Cathcart - Volume II • George MacDonald
... Pygmaean matron.—Ver. 90. According to AElian, the name of this queen of the Pigmies was Gerane, while other writers call her Pygas. She was worshipped by her subjects as a Goddess, which raised her to such a degree of conceit, that she despised the worship of the Deities, especially of Juno and Diana, on which in their indignation, they changed her into a crane, the most active enemy of the Pygmies. These people were dwarfs, living either in India, Arabia, or Thrace, and they were said not to ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... that I am anxious about him? Let me tell you, my little girl, I shall not drag upon myself the responsibility of increasing the self-conceit of any of ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... into groups and expressed their amazement. Of course all Swedes were conceited, but they would never have believed that all the conceit of all the Swedes put together would reach such a pitch as this. They confided to each other that Tillie was "just a little off, on the subject of her niece," and agreed that it would be as well not to excite her further. Tillie got a cold reception at rehearsals for ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... of goodness; partly, too, there is a fault in the supply, a foolish desire on the part of the makers to give maturity to their instruments, wherein they always completely fail, yet they will not give up their conceit. Here, again, were we dealing with matters of greater magnitude, the evil influence would be lessened, the artistic impulses would still be felt, though in a less degree; whereas so contracted is ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... Betty," cried Anita, interrupting him. "She can swim better than I can, and I thought I was pretty good." There was no conceit in this remark—it was ...
— The Outdoor Girls on Pine Island - Or, A Cave and What It Contained • Laura Lee Hope
... it was so, and from that time Paw and Maw, and Seth and Masters, and even YOU and ME, dear, had nothing else to do. That was love as I know it; not Seth's sneaking rages, and Uncle Ben's sneaking fooleries, and Masters's sneaking conceit, but only love. And knowing that, I let Seth rage, and Uncle Ben dawdle, and Masters trifle—and for what? To keep them from me and my boy. They were satisfied, and ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte
... similar accompaniments. He could not conceive, if he had any accurate knowledge of the human heart, that such an extraordinary attention to dress and the decoration of the person, or such a critical examination of these with a view of procuring admiration, could produce any other fruits than conceit and affectation, or vanity and pride. Nor could he conceive that all these preparations, all this previous talk, all this previous consultation, about the fashions, added to the employment itself of the decoration of the ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume I (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... since I beheld a portrait of a very, very small literary man. It was easy to discern from it that the small author lives in the belief, that, wherever he goes, he is the object of universal observation. The intense self-consciousness and self-conceit apparent in that portrait were, in the words of Mr. Squeers, "more easier conceived than described." The face was a very commonplace and rather good-looking one: the author, notwithstanding his most strenuous exertions, evidently could make nothing of the features to distinguish him from ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various
... reference at all to their quality. Nor was his Reverence's own voice the first to subside into that gravity which became the solemnity of the occasion; or even whilst he continued the interrogatories, his eye was laughing at the conceit with which it was evident the inner man was not competent to grapple. "Well, Kelly, I can't say but you've answered very well, as far as the repealing of them goes; but do you perfectly understand all the commandments of ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... complete expression being a picture in the Uffizii, of Venus rising from the sea, in which the grotesque emblems of the middle age, and a landscape full of its peculiar feeling, and even its strange draperies, powdered all over in the Gothic manner with a quaint conceit of daisies, frame a figure that reminds you of the faultless nude studies of Ingres. At first, perhaps, you are attracted only by a quaintness of design, which seems to recall all at once whatever you have read of Florence in the fifteenth century; ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... and most of the other members and decorations are of frequent occurrence in erections of the same aera. A peculiarity is alone observable in the smaller arches of the second row, in which the artist has indulged himself in what may be termed an architectural conceit, lengthening, to a very disproportionate degree, and almost in the moorish fashion, the part above the capital, in order that the whole might range in a line with the larger arch in the centre. The truncated appearance of the wall on either side, leads to the obvious inference, that either this ...
— Architectural Antiquities of Normandy • John Sell Cotman
... "This fellow must be put into the poor house."—Ib. p. 22. "I have seen the breast works and other defences of earth, that were thrown up."—Ib., p. 24. "Cloven footed animals are enabled to walk more easily on uneven ground."—Ib., p. 25. "Self conceit blasts the prospects of many a youth."—Ib., p. 26. "Not a moment should elapse without bringing some thing to pass."—Ib., p. 36. "A school master decoyed the children of the principal citizens into the Roman camp."—Ib., p. 39. ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... by vain conceit perchance, On public taste to foist thy stale romance. Though Murray with his Miller may combine To yield thy muse just half-a-crown per line? No! when the sons of song descend to trade, Their bays are ...
— Marmion • Sir Walter Scott
... garde,—le meme comme Napoleon,—le petit Caporal." With a hearty laugh we bade "le petit Caporal" bon nuit, and returned to our hotel, asking ourselves what need there could be for the Philosopher's Stone, whilst there existed such a talisman as Conceit? ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay
... that Allah (magnified be His name!) created of angels[FN126] and men and Jinn, and the love of the Truth was inherent in him, for he knew naught but this; but whenas he saw himself unique in such dignity, there entered into him pride and conceit, vainglory and arrogance which revolted from loyalty and obedience to the commandment of His Creator; wherefore Allah made him inferior to all creatures and cast him out from love, making his abiding- place to be in disobedience. So when he knew that Allah (glorified be His name!) ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... that people like you do a great deal of damage to Christianity. You only flatter human conceit. You get hold of some emotional creature and work upon his feelings until in an access of self-absorption he feels that the universe is standing still while the necessary measures are taken to secure his personal salvation. You flatter this poor soul, and then you go away and ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... certainly at least modified my conceit. I was always the dunce of the party—the smallest child knew more of woodcraft than I did, and had something to tell of everything. Seeing Oogahnahbayah, a small eagle-hawk, flying over, they would say, 'He eats the emu eggs.' He flies over where the ...
— The Euahlayi Tribe - A Study of Aboriginal Life in Australia • K. Langloh Parker
... and wonder at it. It has a druidical look, away down in the umbrageous cellar there whose numerous vaulted passages, and far glens of gloom, resemble the dark, damp depths of primeval woods. So strongly did this conceit steal over me, so deeply was I penetrated with wonder at the chimney, that one day—when I was a little out of my mind, I now think—getting a spade from the garden, I set to work, digging round the foundation, especially at the corners thereof, obscurely prompted by dreams of striking upon some ...
— I and My Chimney • Herman Melville
... calm. Spring, with its budding leaves and flowers, did not produce on me the sinister effect of which the poets speak, who find in the contrasts of life the mockery of death. I looked upon that frivolous idea, if it was serious and not a simple antithesis made in pleasantry, as the conceit of a heart that has known no real experience. The gambler who leaves the table at break of day, his eyes burning and hands empty, may feel that he is at war with nature like the torch at some hideous vigil; but what can the budding leaves say to a child who ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... using his good fortune, SAUNDERS accumulated a pile of most egregious testimonials, and these he regarded as the mainspring of success in life. He had early discovered in himself a singular capacity for drawing salaries, and as he had unbounded conceit and unqualified ignorance, he conceived himself to be fit for any post in life to which a salary is attached. He had also really great gifts as a crampon, or hanger-on, and neglected no opportunity, while he made ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 3, 1892 • Various
... that ever was, if relying less on her Merit, or warned by a recent Experience, she had guarded against some of her own Sex, whom she must think envied her Elevation, and watch'd her Ruin; but as an illusory Conceit that a Passion which had subsisted for many Years, would never be extinguished, brought her into the very Misfortune from which ...
— The Amours of Zeokinizul, King of the Kofirans - Translated from the Arabic of the famous Traveller Krinelbol • Claude Prosper Jolyot de Crbillon
... venomous qualitee. (2) It is a vulgar fallacie that the affection of mankind for the Practise is a proof that it is good for them; inasmuch as men are ledd astray by a mode, & furthermore, the affectation & conceit of the patient persuadeth him he is benefited; yet how shall one drug cure of all diseases men of all complexions? (3) Men are by this custom disabled in their goods, spending many pounds a year upon this precious stinke, and are no better than drunkards. (4) It is a great ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... to do more than name one or two of the more noted Kabbalists of post-Zoharistic ages. Isaac Lurya (1534-1572) was a saint, so devoid of self-conceit that he published nothing, though he flourished at the very time when the printing-press was throwing copies of the Zohar broadcast. We owe our knowledge of Lurya's Kabbalistic ideas to the prolific writings ...
— Chapters on Jewish Literature • Israel Abrahams
... displayed so much understanding, that they and their disciples were astonished. This is a lesson to youth, who should, gladly and submissively receive instruction, and may with respectful eagerness question their superiors. Let them avoid all offensive forwardness and conceit of their knowledge and attainments; remembering that he who could have taught the wisest of the Jewish doctors, sat at their feet listening and ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox
... salient points, of our conversation, we had reached the church, where, if I found the sermon neither healing nor inspiring, I found the prayers full of hope and consolation. They at least are safe beyond human caprice, conceit, or incapacity. Upon them, too, the man who is distressed at the thought of how little of the needful food he had been able to provide for his people, may fall back for comfort, in the thought that there at least was what ought to have done them good, what ...
— The Seaboard Parish Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... said Merry, laughing, as much through the excitement produced by this intelligence, as at his conceit, "that Captain Munson would never carry wood aloft, when he can't carry canvas. I remember, one night, Mr. Griffith was a little vexed, and said, around the capstan, he believed the next order would be to rig in the bowsprit, and ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... that this statement is not a mere fanciful conceit, I will produce the evidence on which it rests. Very far the most ancient judicial proceeding known to us is the Legis Actio Sacramenti of the Romans, out of which all the later Roman Law of Actions ...
— Ancient Law - Its Connection to the History of Early Society • Sir Henry James Sumner Maine
... all, but a most serious panegyrist, who never laughs, but does sometimes make his readers laugh, when they see his very unbecoming, mocking grimaces against the "old masters"—not that it can be fairly asserted that it is a laughable book. It has much conceit, and but little merriment; there is nothing really funny after you have got over, (vide page 6,) that he "looks with contempt on Claude, Salvator, and Gaspar Poussin." This contempt, however, being too limited for the "graduate of Oxford," in the next page he enlarges ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... Mr. Vivian wouldn't think of such a thing. He understands the nature of things, and knows his own position. There is a conceit about the ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... blessed woods and streams, her poor blurred avenues, her crumbling roads, the piteous havoc of the proud estate stood him in splendid stead. Anthony found himself not only talking, but waxing enthusiastic. The queer conceit that Gramarye had responded to his cry for help filled him with exultation. Out of his grateful mouth her ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... sketches—actually "living pictures"—of the fashionable footmen at Bath, beside which the strokes in that diverting piece "High Life below Stairs" seem almost flat. The simperings of these gentry, their airs and conceit, we may be sure, obtain now. Once coming out of a Theatre, at some fashionable performance, through a long lane of tall menials, one fussy aristocrat pushed one of them out of his way. The menial contemptuously pushed him back. The other in a rage said, "How dare you? Don't you know, I'm the Earl ...
— Pickwickian Manners and Customs • Percy Fitzgerald
... Ay, by Jesu, may you, sir, and (in my conceit) our whole nation should sustain the loss by ...
— Every Man In His Humour • Ben Jonson
... developed; and they diligently devoted themselves to the task of checking these, so that in addition to loving my parents I was soon taught to honour and obey them. Then, when I was five years old, I was sent to school, where, mixing with other boys, any especial conceit of myself that I might have had was quickly nipped in the bud. At school, in addition to a fair, useful education, I was taught to reverence and respect my seniors and superiors, to be obedient, to ...
— The First Mate - The Story of a Strange Cruise • Harry Collingwood
... seeing herself convicted of terrible selfishness and conceit, while her heart was throbbing even painfully with humility and gratitude. "You have done me a great honour, and if you would not be disappointed—if you would bear with me—if you are not deceiving yourself in your nobleness—I ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... ever met, Oo-koo-hoo and George Bernard Shaw would have become fast friends; for George, too, insists on the very same thing. But does not the average man, from his great store of conceit, draw the flattering inference that it is he and he alone who does the courting, and that his success is entirely due to his wonderful display of physical and mental charm; while the average woman looks in her mirror and laughs in her ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... lose, anyway. He'll take the conceit out of these Army hikers," predicted some of the knowing ones ...
— Dick Prescotts's Fourth Year at West Point - Ready to Drop the Gray for Shoulder Straps • H. Irving Hancock
... doctor had one annoying habit—imagined he had the right to poke fun at everybody simply because he was a doctor. "The man's riddled with conceit, like all these professionals," ...
— In a German Pension • Katherine Mansfield
... is allied conceit and ostentation, shows itself in proportion to the size of the writing, the taller and more flourished the upstrokes and the longer the downstrokes, the greater the self-assertiveness. The flourish beneath ...
— The Detection of Forgery • Douglas Blackburn
... chandelier, or, as the Jew remembered in the version of the Evangels, like the gifts those bearded wise men, of whom he might resemble one, brought to the manger of the infant Christ—gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Struck by the conceit, he looked again at the baby's face—the baby but a few days or weeks old—and he felt, in spite of himself, ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... enhavi. Compromise kompromiti. Compromise kompromiso. Compulsion devigo. Compunction memriprocxo. Computation kalkulo. Compute kalkuli. Comrade kamarado. Concave kaveta. Conceal kasxi. Consecutive intersekva. Concede cedi. Conceit malmodesteco. Conceited malmodesta. Conceive gravedigxi. Concentrate koncentrigi. Concentric koncentra. Conception (idea) elpenso. Concern koncerni. Concern (anxiety) zorgemo, malkvieto. Concerning ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... the doorway of the next room, was Carson himself. The great painter had undressed him and revealed him. What a comment to hang in one's own home! The abiding impression of the portrait was self-assurance; hasty criticism would have called it conceit. All the deeper qualities of humanity were rubbed out for the sake of this ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... understand," rejoined the other, with adorable conceit. "You aren't used to it yet, but one soon gets into it, you know! See how perfectly at my ease I ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... his own tenants, and with his little gift to your uncle's. Mrs. Fortescue allows him to be the best of landlords: I might have told you that, had I thought it necessary to put you into some little conceit of him. He has qualities, in short, that may make him a tolerable creature on the other side of fifty: but God help the poor woman to whose lot he shall fall till then! women, I should say, perhaps; since he may break half-a-dozen hearts before that time.—But to the point I was ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... soiled pink fleshings and any time the dramatic interest begins to run low and gurgle in the pipes a male comedian pumps it up again by striking or kicking a woman. But to kick her is regarded as much the more whimsical conceit. This invariably sets the audience rocking with uncontrollable merriment. Howsomever, I am not writing a critique of the merits of the performance. If I were I shou1d say that to begin with the title of the piece was wrong. It should have been ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... Colossal conceit! What amazing ignorance or oversight of natural laws! These Llott scientists could see no farther than their snub noses, or at least no farther than the satellite system of Jupiter. And Ianito was complimenting the astronomer on ...
— The Copper-Clad World • Harl Vincent
... own and his friends' experiences. But mentally the boy is Tolstoi himself, revealed in all the awkwardness, self-consciousness, and morbidity of youth. The boy's pride, vanity, and curious mixture of timidity and conceit do not form a very attractive picture, and were not intended to. Tolstoi himself as a young man had little charm, and his numerous portraits all plainly indicate the fact. His Satanic pride made frank friendship with him almost an impossibility. Despite our immense ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps
... though she determined to have it out with him sometime during this holiday they had planned. But somehow, as he stepped carelessly along, a dashing manliness in every motion, a breath of the great plains coming with his sunburnt face and belted waist, he and his self-conceit jarred to her against this sordid court and these children's desolate lives. How dared he talk as he did about only wanting what was fair, she thought! How had he the heart to care only for himself and his mates while in these city ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller
... to consider. For me, would it not be the better part to show her that the greatest happiness of the greatest number should be my first consideration? Certainly there is nothing in a man I despise more than conceit in affairs of this sort. When I hear one of my sex boasting of his 'conquests,' I turn from him in disgust. 'Conquest' implies effort; and to lay one's self out for victories over the other sex always reminds me of pigeon-shooting. On the other hand, we must make allowances for our position of advantage. ...
— My Lady Nicotine - A Study in Smoke • J. M. Barrie
... have a rather poetical conceit in accounting for the movements of the celestial bodies. Their theory is that the sun rules the heavens. He is a big chief; the moon is his squaw, and the stars are his children. The sun devours his children whenever he is able to catch them. They are constantly ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... dwelt upon this last hope; he considered his first interpretation of the conduct of the widow as much more probable. Finally, by a natural reaction, of mind over matter, the triumphant boasting of the chevalier ceased at the same time with his conceit. His face was no longer distorted by grotesque vanity; for it expressed the better qualities of the chevalier—resolution, courage—we would add loyalty, for it was impossible to add more frankness to his conceit than was to ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... takes to itself legs, and runs off occasionally. But, at any rate, there is quite enough to make her a great prize, and an object of admiration and attention to all the little men—not to the old hands, like White and Sumner; they are built up in their own conceit, and wouldn't marry Sam Weller's 'female marchioness,' unless she made love to them first, like one of Knowles's heroines. But the juveniles are crazy about her. Robinson went off more ostentatiously ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... the old-style S [s] has been retained. Much of the flavour of Acetaria is lost if it is scanned too hurriedly; and one should remember also that Latin and Greek were the gauge of a man of letters, and if the titles and quotations seem a bit ponderous, they are as amusing a conceit as the French and German complacencies of ...
— Acetaria: A Discourse of Sallets • John Evelyn
... Burton says of the Arabs, "Above all their qualities, personal conceit is remarkable; they show it in their strut, in their looks, and almost in every word. 'I am such a one, the son of such a one,' is a common expletive, especially in times of danger; and this spirit is not wholly to be condemned, as it certainly ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... lay. The others probably saw that I needed discipline. I must have been dull, or I should have been on my guard for set-backs from Halse, Addison, or the mischievous Doanes. When a boy's head begins to grow large and his self-conceit to sprout, he is sometimes ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... from my bed, Mrs. Lorraine, merely to lecture my conceit by proving that there are in this world wiser heads than that of Vivian Grey, on my honour you are giving yourself a great deal of ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... imitation of a Greek epigram, Politian, being on such friendly terms, would enclose a Greek epigram of his own, on the same interesting insect—not, we may presume, out of any wish to humble Scala, but rather to instruct him; said epigram containing a lively conceit about Venus, Cupid, and the culex, of a kind much tasted at that period, founded partly on the zoological fact that the gnat, like Venus, was born from the waters. Scala, in reply, begged to say that his verses were ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... stoical grandeur that commands respect. Indeed, in all that Margaret spoke, wrote, or did, no cynic could detect the taint of meanness. Her elation came not from opium fumes of vanity, inhaled in close chambers of conceit, but from the stimulus of sunshine, fresh breezes, and swift movement upon the winged steed of poesy. Her existence was bright with romantic interest to herself. There was an amplitude and elevation in her aim, which were ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... urge any arguments against the self-conceit of Amaranthe: that her beauty could be in any degree diminished was a supposition that she would not admit into her thoughts. She added more ornaments to the profusion that already glittered on her person, ...
— The Flower Basket - A Fairy Tale • Unknown
... in Manu's book of law. Outside of this highest Being, there is nothing real. The world of sense, or nature, (Maya, the female side of Brahma), is mere seeming and illusion of the senses. The human spirit is a part of Brahma, but perverted, misled by this same illusion to the conceit that he is individual. This illusion is done away with by a deeper insight, by means of which the dualism vanishes from the wise man's view, and the conceit gives place to the true knowledge that Brahma alone really ...
— A Comparative View of Religions • Johannes Henricus Scholten
... I am lost in conceit, but there is another girl here who I begin to think looks with a certain kindness on me. Her name is Elsie V., and she is the only daughter and heiress of an old family in this place. She is a portentous and almost fearful creature. If I should tell you ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... secret trials, chastenings, which none but they and God can understand, the Lord is cleansing them from their secret faults, and making them to understand wisdom secretly; burning out of them the chaff of self-will, and self- conceit, and vanity, and leaving only the pure gold of righteousness. How many sweet and holy souls, who look cheerful enough before the eyes of man, yet have their secret sorrows. They carry their cross unseen all day long, and lie down to sleep on it ...
— Out of the Deep - Words for the Sorrowful • Charles Kingsley
... road to the point where by making a slight detour among some pines he could cross farther down, a striking but wholly incongruous figure emerged from the trees. With shining top hat, fur-lined coat, gauntlets and cane, M. Lalonde, the Montreal detective, came forward with his professional conceit no whit impaired by juxtaposition with these glacial and solitary surroundings. He handed his card to the priest and bowed ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... other. "There's a man out east bin awfully cut up in a mowin'-machine," said he, glancing up at Miss Custer sideways from under his broad-brimmed straw hat, sure that she would appreciate the news, he being the first to tell it; for he had a boyish conceit that Miss Custer had a very high opinion of him, and even indulged the fancy that if he were a man—say twenty-one—instead of a youth of seventeen, he could cut out all them downtown fellers that hung ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... room" had a hand-woven carpet on the floor, made of a material called "drugget." A few old prints, in glaring colors, were on the walls. There was a Sacred Heart and an odd-looking picture of the dead Christ resting in a tomb, with an altar above and candles all around it. It was a strange religious conceit. On another wall was a coffin plate, surrounded with waxed flowers and framed, with a little photograph of a young man in the center of the flowers. The chairs were plain enough, but covered with a coarse hand-made lace. It was not Mac's kind of a room, at all. It made me shudder and wonder how ...
— The City and the World and Other Stories • Francis Clement Kelley
... Clodd's conceit shot upward to a point that in the case of anyone less physically robust might ...
— Tommy and Co. • Jerome K. Jerome
... nothing is contemptible. To him, even the follies of his fellow-passengers are manifestations of human nature, revelations of the material from which scholars and politicians no less than drunkards and inconstants are gradually in course of time developed. Somebody described "conceit" to me the other day as egotism in which contempt for others is involved. It was agreed between us that egotism was normal, since happiness is not to be attained without a sense of personal utility to the world, and no objection was urged against it. Vanity was to be tolerated, ...
— Nonsenseorship • G. G. Putnam
... oaf's conceit, and standing closely over him, we got a path made round the corner of the dump to our door, so that we could come and go with decent ease; and he even enjoyed the work, for in that there were boulders to be plucked up bodily, bushes to be uprooted, and other occasions for athletic ...
— The Silverado Squatters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the commonest surroundings, enduring the straits of poverty, lack of education, no accomplishments, how could she take her place in the front rank of Mount Morris society? And the boys—how would they accept this rusticity and probably self conceit? ...
— The Girls at Mount Morris • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... this, that I had actually set out to find the first lieutenant when reflection and common sense came to my aid and asked me what was this thing that I was about to do. The answer to this question was, that with the self-sufficiency and stupendous conceit which my father had especially cautioned me to guard against, I was arrogating to myself the possession of superhuman sagacity, and (upon the flimsy foundation of a wild and extravagant fancy, backed by a mere chance resemblance, which after all might prove to be no resemblance at all if Richards ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... accidents of life have contributed to the result. Why should you not be loved for yourself? You have an interesting appearance. I think you very pretty. You have choice accomplishments and agreeable conversation and the sweetest temper in the world. You want a little self-conceit, my dear. If I were you and admired, I should never think ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... and greatly disappointed; for it was an utter negation and defeat of the policy which they had prescribed. The General, like a good soldier, quietly and submissively acquiesced; but Mr. Seward, a man of expedients and some conceit, was unwilling and unprepared to surrender the first place in the Administration, and virtually publish the fact by an Executive mandate which upset his promised and preferred arrangements. It was then that he became aware of two things: first, that neither himself ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... true; but he also doubts whether it be false; and, either from his impatience of the theories which infidelity proposes in its place, as inspiring yet stronger doubts, or in revenge for the peace of which he has been robbed, he never seems more at home than in ridiculing the confidence and conceit of that internal oracle, which professes to solve the problems which, it seems, Christianity leaves in darkness; and in pushing the principles on which infidelity rejects the New Testament to their ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... took the greatest pains in his instruction. Before the end of her Freshman year she twice succeeded in getting through his guard and landing a thrust on his well-rounded figure; and though to keep down her conceit he told her that he must be losing, along with his slenderness, some of his youthful agility, he confessed to his wife that teaching Miss Marshall was the best fun he had had in years. The girl was as quick as a cat, and ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... puzzled myself with the mysteries of the Ten Attributes, and the mystic symbolism of God's Beard, whereof every hair is a separate channel of Divine grace; and once I came to comical humiliation from my conceit that I had succeeded by force of incantations in becoming invisible. As this was in connection with my wife, who calmly continued looking at me and talking to me long after I thought I had disappeared, I am reminded to say something of this companion of my boyish years. For, alas! ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... now and here,—and these people assemble every week to converse upon them. What more rational thing could they do? If they came together to snivel and cant, and to support one another in a miserable conceit of being the elect of the human species, we might object. But no description can show how far from that, how opposite to that, is the tone, the spirit, the object, of the Friday-evening ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... give himself away; he intended, indeed, precisely the contrary; but, after every round of conversation Miss Boyson felt herself more and more richly provided with materials for satire at the expense of England and the English tourist, his invincible conceit, insularity, and condescension. She was a clever though tiresome woman; and expressed herself best in letters. She promised herself to write a "character" of General Hobson in her next letter to an intimate friend, which should be a masterpiece. Then, having ...
— Marriage a la mode • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... you," said Warner, with a smile. "Natural you should think him good-looking. But don't it show a little self-conceit, Louisa?" ...
— Luke Walton • Horatio Alger
... from his heart's core; — Her, who of all bad women is the worst, He still had censured, in his wiser lore, If by his brother Aquilant accurst, Her Gryphon, in his partial love, excuses, For mostly self-conceit ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... my last quarter was cut short in the middle; which untoward event arose from no arrogance or supercilious conceit on my part, as though I had perfected myself in the mysteries of pigeon-wing and balancez, but from the abrupt departure of the professor himself, who, true to the name indicative of his constitutional levity, found it convenient to disappear betwixt two days, ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... I wish you not to be ignorant, brothers, of this mystery; that you may not be wise in your own conceit. For hardness in part has come upon Israel, till the fullness of the gentiles shall come in, [11:26]and so all Israel shall be saved; as it is written, A deliverer shall come from Zion, he shall turn away impiety from Jacob. [11:27]And this is the promise to them from ...
— The New Testament • Various
... authority—and will obtrude his literary eloquence into our solemn courts of law, he deserves—what does he not deserve?—to be addressed henceforth by a name suggestive at once of ignorance, presumption, and conceit, ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... is no conceit," I persisted. "Is it conceit to say my hair is black? It is black, and everybody can see it is. I have nothing to do with it. Nature made it black, and black it is, and I know it. Should I gain anything by contending that it was red? I don't see that I should. However," ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross
... individuals of the province, the enjoyment of gainful, or an immunity from onerous offices; they may operate upon the people to whom they relate; but no province can confer provincial privileges on itself. They may have a right to all which the king has given them; but it is a conceit of the other hemisphere, that men have a right to all which they ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... organizations. At least to this wonderful prescience of future sugar-value did Mr. Linden himself attribute his rise in the world, and gradual increase in rotundity, riches, and respectability. This constant success engendered, as it is too apt to do, inordinate egotism, conceit, self-esteem, vanity. There was scarcely a social, governmental, or economical problem which he did not believe himself capable of solving as easily as he could eat his dinner when hungry. "Common-sense business-habits"—his favorite phrase—he believed to be quite sufficient ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... Montreal, mixing his metaphors as topers mix drinks. But I had long since learned not to remonstrate against these outbursts of explosive eloquence—not though all the canons of Laval literati should be outraged. "What, Sir?" he had roared out when I, in full conceit of new knowledge, had audaciously ventured to pull him up, once in my student days. "What, Sir? Don't talk to me of your book-fangled balderdash! Is language for the use of man, or man for the use of language?" and he quoted from Hamlet's soliloquy in a way ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... generously but intelligently." He talked rapidly on, with his manner as full of unexpressed and inexpressible intensity as the voice of the violin, with his frank egotism that had no suggestion of vanity or conceit. "Because I systematize my time, I'm never in a hurry, never at a loss for time to give to whatever I wish. I didn't refuse to keep you waiting for your sake but for my own. Now the next hour belongs to you and me—and we'll forget about time—as, if we were dining in a restaurant, ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... So wickedness means, not merely open crimes which are punishable by the law, but all which comes out of a man's own wilfulness and perverseness— injustice (which is the first meaning of iniquity), cunning, falsehood, covetousness, pride, self-conceit, tyranny, cruelty—these seem to be what the Scripture calls wickedness. Of course one cannot draw the line exactly, in any matters so puzzling as questions about our own souls must always be: but on the whole. I think you will find this ...
— The Good News of God • Charles Kingsley
... That very knowledge, when you come to think of it, is itself a very distinct step in moral progress. Before the war we were growing morally conceited; we thought ourselves much better, more advanced in morality, than we really were, and this conceit was acting as a real barrier to our farther advance. A sharp lesson was needed to take this conceit out of us—to remind us that as yet we are only at the bare beginnings of moral advance—and not, as some of us fondly imagined, next door to the goal. This sudden awakening to the ...
— Progress and History • Various
... from their own engagements and hurry of business, or from indolence, or from conceit and vanity, have neglected looking out of themselves, as far as my experience and observation reaches, have from that time not only ceased to advance and improve in their performance, but have gone backward. They may be compared to men ...
— Seven Discourses on Art • Joshua Reynolds
... dog, ordering the growling, discontented ones to be quiet, and comforting the patiently waiting ones with a light jest concerning the next piece. Suddenly he raised his eyes, and his quick glance rested on Gotzkowsky's smiling, placid face. "Ah, you laugh," said he, "and in your human conceit you find it quite beneath one's dignity to occupy one's self with dogs, when there are so many human beings. Let me tell you, you don't understand any thing about it! You don't know dogs at all, and ...
— The Merchant of Berlin - An Historical Novel • L. Muhlbach
... seems to jump at most admirable conclusions by some process, not at all akin to it. Consonantly enough to this, he hath been heard to deny, upon certain occasions, that there exists such a faculty at all in man as reason; and wondereth how man came first to have a conceit of it—enforcing his negation with all the might of reasoning he is master of. He has some speculative notions against laughter, and will maintain that laughing is not natural to him—when peradventure the next moment his lungs shall crow like Chanticleer. He says some of the best things in ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... sentiment of the postures of naked children playing or sleeping. It did me good even to watch the violinists drawing their bows so masterly—every motion a study. I allow'd myself, as I sometimes do, to wander out of myself. The conceit came to me of a copious grove of singing birds, and in their midst a simple harmonic duo, two human souls, steadily asserting their ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... thank you as I should like, nor indeed you either, Mr. Harker. I am deeply grateful to you all for what you have done for me. Truly a man should take heed of his self-conceit, lest he fall, as I ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice
... for my conceit in imagining that I could play with such a dangerous man as Meeker proved himself to be, especially since I had seen through his disguise almost from the first. One of two things in Manila would have saved me ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore
... to him, that actually sinneth, or omitteth his Duty. Enthusiasm indeed, which, in its highest Stages, is a kind of spiritual Madness, may have on some Minds a quite different Effect; and the Poor Soul, that is subject to this gloomy and tyrannical Principle, may conceit strange things; it may at one Time imagine itself under the Guilt of Adam's Sin, which it never committed; and fancy itself a Saint in Jesus Christ (and what not) at another: it is a mad Principle, fruitful of false Doctrines, Chimeras, and Monsters. It matters not whether (as in the Case ...
— Free and Impartial Thoughts, on the Sovereignty of God, The Doctrines of Election, Reprobation, and Original Sin: Humbly Addressed To all who Believe and Profess those DOCTRINES. • Richard Finch
... be lacking, however, the glow of tender feeling in self-love. The projection of the self-interest to others has a passion, a melting in it that self-love never seems to possess, though it may be constant and ever-operating. Self-regard, self-admiration or conceit may be very high and deeply felt, but though more common than real admiration for others, it seldom reaches the awe and reverence that ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... call them—I mean the class now being spoiled by petting in England—let them be told (perhaps it may be said plainest by their best friends) that there are just as many proud exclusives among them as in any other stratum of society, and that they have at least a full share too of conceit, foppery, ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... always to get their own way. They are very adroit and not too scrupulous about the means they use to attain their ends. They have that absolute belief in themselves which their friends call self-confidence and their enemies conceit. ...
— The Winning of Popular Government - A Chronicle of the Union of 1841 • Archibald Macmechan
... could plunge a dagger into my bosom, when I hear myself everywhere pitied, and observe the triumph of my enemies, who say that this is always the case with vain persons, whose heads are turned with conceit, who affect to despise forms and such petty, ...
— The Sorrows of Young Werther • J.W. von Goethe
... the institution of our club, Sir Joshua Reynolds was speaking of it to Garrick. 'I like it much, (said he), I think I shall be of you.' When Sir Joshua mentioned this to Dr. Johnson, he was much displeased with the actor's conceit. 'HE'LL BE OF US, (said Johnson) how does he know we will PERMIT him? The first Duke in England has no right to hold such language.' However, when Garrick was regularly proposed some time afterwards, ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... a coal passer came up the stairs, and he was swearing at the delay in being relieved. Something told Mr. Reardon this fellow would make trouble, so without warning he hit the coal passer a light rap "to take the conceit out av him." Two minutes later the coal passer had joined his fellows ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... discipline too. Laziness, worldliness, the absorption of attention with other things, self-conceit, prejudice, and, I was going to say, almost above all, the taking of our religion and religious opinions at secondhand from men and teachers and books —all these stand in the way of our hearing the Spirit of God when ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren
... departments of some Western Powers, of the rank corruption that reigned on the Neva, where every secret had its price; of the insane conceit of Berlin, which had forgotten nothing and learned nothing since the days of Moltke; of the luxurious laziness of Pall Mall, where superannuated soldiers dozed in front of their dusty pigeon-holes after apoplectic ...
— The International Spy - Being the Secret History of the Russo-Japanese War • Allen Upward
... Pantheisticon (1720). The outcry raised by the orthodox party against the "poor gentleman" who had "to beg for half- crowns," and "ran into debt for his wigs, clothes, and lodging," together with his own vanity and conceit, changed him from being a somewhat free- thinking Christian into an infidel and atheist or Pantheist. He died in extreme poverty at Putney ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield
... is, without any special training, by mere gift of birthright, competent to any task that may be set him, is commonly said to have come in with Andrew Jackson; and President Eliot, of Harvard, has dubbed it a "vulgar conceit."[68:1] It is undoubtedly a dangerous doctrine to become established as a tenet of national belief and least of all men can the head of a great institution for the training of the nation's youth afford to encourage it. None the less, when the American character is ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... all they could to foment this spirit of discontent among those who were ordinarily well disposed. They assumed the responsibility of declaring that the trip into Germany had been indefinitely postponed. Probably, with the self-conceit incident to human nature, they really believed they were no worse than the best of the crew, and they desired to involve all their shipmates in the odium of the insubordination which ...
— Down the Rhine - Young America in Germany • Oliver Optic
... was new. Everything was to be done—to be made; and who was so capable for both, in their own conceit, as that swarm of worn-out lobbymen and contractors who, having thoroughly exploited "the old concern," now gathered to gorge upon the new. And by the hundred flocked hither those unclean birds, blinking bleared eyes at any chance bit, whetting foul bills to peck at carrion ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... are a number of fine speeches in this book: "Oh eyes, no eyes, but fountains fraught with tears;" there's a conceit: Fountains fraught with tears. "Oh life, no life, but lively form of death;" is't not excellent? "Oh world, no world, but mass of public wrongs;" O God's me: "confused and filled with murder and misdeeds." Is't not simply the best that ever you heard? Ha, how ...
— Every Man In His Humour • Ben Jonson
... hinder him, sending her airy spies Forth with delusion to entrap his eyes, As would have fired a hermit's chill desires Into a flame; his greedy eye admires The more than human beauty of her face, And much ado he had to shun the grace; Conceit had shaped her out so like his love, That he was once about in vain to prove Whether 'twas his Clarinda, yea or no, But he bethought him of his herb, and so The shadow vanished; many a weary step It led the prince, that pace with it still kept, Until it brought him by a hellish ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... it not been for the tutors who came to give me lessons, as well as for St. Jerome (who at intervals, and very grudgingly, applied a spur to my self-conceit) and, most of all, for the desire to figure as "clever" in the eyes of my friend Nechludoff (who looked upon distinctions in University examinations as a matter of first-rate importance)—had it not been for all ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... and fine conceit,—the good man's play Of quiet fancies, meet to while away The slow hours ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... of Russia, is well able to estimate at its true worth the insatiable greed of Germany and the ever-encroaching character of her ruler. Because of his own self-control and disinterestedness, the Tzar must have been able to gather from William's words and works a very fair idea of his unbounded self-conceit; of that vanity which, like its emblem the eagle of the outspread wings, aspires to cover ...
— The Schemes of the Kaiser • Juliette Adam
... seems as if there was some mystery in it. I will, however, talk to your father about it, and we will hear what he shall say. In the meantime, raise your spirits, and don't be so easily alarmed. You are naturally nervous and timid, and this is merely a poor, cowardly conceit that has got into your head; but your own good sense will soon show you the folly of yielding to a mere fancy. Amuse yourself on the spinet, and play some brisk music that will cheer your spirits; it ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... I noticed that the little paths were paved with what looked like circular tiles, but which, on inspection, I found to be old-fashioned stone ink-bottles, buried bottom upwards; and I was meditating upon the quaint conceit of the forgotten scrivener who had thus adorned his habitation—a law-writer perhaps, or an author, or perchance even a poet—when I perceived the number that I was seeking inscribed on a shabby door in a high wall. There was no bell or knocker, so, lifting the ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman
... the essential nature of the individual soul, and that it is mere delusion on the Self's part to ascribe to itself agency. 'By the attributes (guna) of Prakriti, actions are wrought all round.' He who is deluded by self- conceit thinks 'I am the agent'; 'when the seer beholds no other agent than the gunas'; 'Prakriti is said to be the cause of all agency of causes and effects, whilst the soul is the cause of all enjoyment of pleasure ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut
... anything generous; but the stateliness of the patricians in Edinburgh, and the servility of my plebeian brethren (who perhaps formerly eyed me askance) since I returned home, have nearly put me out of conceit altogether with my species.' ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun
... to the clean, unvarnished truth in dogged fashion, and had so impressed all by his simple story, in which he seemed only trying to tell facts, no matter how they bore upon himself, that even the prosecutor was out of conceit with his side ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... the other; simplicity may be improved, but pride and conceit never. Well, I don't discourage you; I think it will please Sir Everard, from what he said when I jested with him about it; only I hope that intolerable papa, with his brogue, and his snuff, and his Latin, and his insufferable long stories about the Duke of Berwick, will find ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... Halliday is just working you, Johnny, for an easy mark. You think it's pride that's holding you back from taking dad's offer and staying here and settling down. But it isn't that at all, Johnny. It's just plain conceit and swell-headedness, and I hate to tell you this, but ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... Croisette—a superb animal—a "patch" on Sarah, who was at this time as thin as a harrow. Even then I recognized that Sarah was not a bit conventional, and would not stay long at the Comedie. Yet she did not put me out of conceit with the old school. I saw "Les Precieuses Ridicules" finely done, and I said to myself then, as I have often said since: "Old school—new school? What does it matter which, so long as ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... entertained with the Glastonbury Thorn. When we have wondered at that a little, "Father," saith the son, "let us have the Spirit in the Wood." After that, "Now tell us how you served the robber." "Alack!" saith Sir Harry, with a smile, "I have almost forgotten that; but it is a pleasant conceit, to be sure;" and accordingly he tells that and twenty more in the same order over and over ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... may bring food out of the earth, and wine that maketh glad the heart of man, and oil to make him a cheerful countenance, and bread to strengthen man's heart. Whilst the unbeliever, blinded by his self-conceit, is worshipping his own little stock of knowledge, and neglecting God, let us be singing our Te Deum—"We praise Thee, O God, we acknowledge Thee to be ...
— The Life of Duty, v. 2 - A year's plain sermons on the Gospels or Epistles • H. J. Wilmot-Buxton
... personage who called himself a chevalier, and who professed extraordinary skill in the diseases of the eye, dining one day with the bar on the Oxford circuit, related many wonders which he had done. Bearcroft, a little out of humour at his self-conceit, said—"Pray, Chevalier, as you have told us a great many things which you have done, try to tell us something which you cannot do." "Nothing so easy," said Taylor; "I cannot pay my share of the dinner-bill; and that, sir, I must ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... education, or, as she phrased it, the "fetchin' up" of children, which she held should be performed to the letter of the old stiff rule. In this manner she had already trained up six sons, who were all following their fortunes upon the seas, and, on this account, she had no small conceit of her abilities; and when she thought she discerned a lamb being left to frisk heedlessly out of bounds, her zeal was stirred to bring ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... distinction. But his lot was thrown upon stormy times, and a most difficult crisis amongst tribes, whose native ferocity was exasperated by debasing forms of superstition, and by a nationality as well as an inflated conceit of their own merit absolutely unparalleled, whilst the circumstances of their hard and trying position under the jealous surveillance of an irresistible lord paramount, in the person of the Russian Czar, gave a fiercer edge to ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey |
