"Boaster" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... ordinaire would blush to be found swaggering so. I am sure if you could consult the Duke of York, who is impaled on his column between the two clubs, and ask his late Royal Highness whether he thought he ought to remain there, he would say no. A brave, worthy man, not a braggart or boaster, to be put upon that heroic perch must be painful to him. Lord George Bentinck, I suppose, being in the midst of the family park in Cavendish Square, may conceive that he has a right to remain in his place. But look at William of Cumberland, with his hat cocked over his eye, prancing ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... had horses served with champagne in pails," the old boaster, Athanase Georgevitch, protested jealously. He was an advocate, well-known for his table-feats, who claimed the hardest drinking reputation of any man in the capital, and he regretted not to have ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux
... was soon made up; for after Ben Tinker had thrashed the little boaster he was satisfied, and Tommy did not dare to be cross. By this time they had ...
— Proud and Lazy - A Story for Little Folks • Oliver Optic
... of Gryphon, brother of Aquilant; but the faithless fair one took up with Mart[a]no, a most impudent boaster and a coward. Being at Damascus during a tournament in which Gryphon was the victor, Martano stole the armor of Gryphon, arrayed himself in it, took the prizes, and then decamped with the lady. Aquilant happened ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... same work. What they did you may judge of, when I tell you that, while two hundred and seventy-three Englishmen fell that day, only eighty-eight Americans were killed. I will not talk of what I myself performed, for I despise a boaster, but I did my share of ...
— Who Spoke Next • Eliza Lee Follen
... vice which may be despised, but hardly detested. Falstaff is a character loaded with faults, and with those faults which naturally produce contempt. He is a thief, and a glutton, a coward, and a boaster, always ready to cheat the weak, and prey upon the poor; to terrify the timorous and insult the defenceless. At once obsequious and malignant, he satirises in their absence those whom he lives by flattering. He is familiar with the prince only as an agent of vice, but of this familiarity ...
— Preface to Shakespeare • Samuel Johnson
... ever saw in my life; he is full of self-sufficiency and conceit, and believes himself equal to anything. He has no talent. I should like to see him opposed some day to one of our good generals; we should then see fine work. He is a boaster, and that is all. He is really one of the most silly men existing; and, besides all that, he is unlucky." Was not this opinion of Bonaparte, formed on the past, fully verified by ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... mocker," said Geburon, "that was not mocked, a deceiver that was not deceived, or a boaster that ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. V. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... door fastened against the fearful intruder. Davy, being foremost in the race, sat down, followed by his companion George, who, maugre his great apprehensions, could not forbear laughing heartily at the sudden melting away of the big-mouthed valour of this cowardly boaster. ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... discovery! all my delicate management destroyed! known all over the country! I'm off! and yet to have travelled so far, and not to have one glimpse of her! but then to be pointed at as a poor devil in love, a silly inconsistent boaster! no, that wont do—but then I may see her—yes, I'll see her once—just once—for three minutes, or three minutes and a half at most—no longer positively—Ponder, Ponder! (enter Ponder) Ponder, ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold
... own that my people have many ways, of which, as an honest man, I can't approve. It is one of their customs to write in books what they have done and seen, instead of telling them in their villages, where the lie can be given to the face of a cowardly boaster, and the brave soldier can call on his comrades to witness for the truth of his words. In consequence of this bad fashion, a man, who is too conscientious to misspend his days among the women, in learning the names of black ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... stood not far from the boaster, and he determined to silence him once for all. The next time he began to speak, he had barely said "Kerrump!" when the Crane had him by the leg. He croaked and struggled in vain, and in another moment he would have gone ...
— Wigwam Evenings - Sioux Folk Tales Retold • Charles Alexander Eastman and Elaine Goodale Eastman
... "Boaster!" thought Borromee, "he stammers already, and has only drunk four. Come, then, we can go on," said he, and he drew out a fifth for Chicot and one ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas
... said his mother, in distress. "Geoffrey Cliffe is not a man to be trusted. You and I know that of old. He is a boaster, and—" ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... destroy me, all they who come lie in the dust before me. Now, therefore, I pray you rebuke me no more till you see me beaten or a recreant, and then bid me go from you." "There shall soon meet thee a knight who shall repay thee all thy deeds, thou boaster," answered she, "for, save King Arthur, he is the man of most worship in the world." "It will be the greater honour to encounter him," said ...
— The Legends Of King Arthur And His Knights • James Knowles
... hollow. He evaded this by post-dating his discovery of the richness of the ore until he had reached Marysville. But he found some difficulty in recounting his good fortune: he was naturally no boaster, he had no desire to impress Collinson with his penetration, nor the undaunted energy he had displayed in getting up his company and opening the mine, so that he was actually embarrassed by his own understatement; and under the grave, patient eyes of his companion, told his story at best lamely. ...
— In a Hollow of the Hills • Bret Harte
... giving ocular evidence that I was no idle boaster, making a complete gyration on my heels, in very ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... "I was never a boaster,"—replied Santoris, cheerfully—"But you shall keep whatever opinion you like of me." And he drew from his pocket a tiny crystal phial set in a sheath of gold. "A touch of this in your glass of wine will make ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... waterfall. My horse, and he was a good one, couldn't make it. But I did. And when I come to it on the return trip with the doctor, he gave one look and folded his arms. 'Mark,' he said, 'I'm no boaster, but my life is not without value. I think it's my duty not to attempt this crossing.' 'Jim,' I said, 'if you don't your soul will be scotched. Don't you know it? Folks'll point at you as the doctor that didn't dare.' ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... the interior such an article is only used by the principal people, and his bridle also was of curious workmanship. The horseman had an extravagant idea of his own consequence, and seemed to be a prodigious boaster. He wore abundance of clothing, most of which was superfluous, but it made him excessively vain. He informed the travellers that he had been despatched by the king of Jenna, to meet them in the path, and to escort them to the capital; but understanding ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... and the rest of our hero sires; and we consume the rents and tributes of Ulster which they by their prowess conquered to us, and which flow hither in abundance from every corner of the province. Valiant men, too, will one day come hither and slay us as I slew that boaster, and here in Emain Macha their bards will praise them. Then in the halls of the dead shall we say to our sires, 'All that you got for us by your blood and your sweat that have we lost, and the glory of the Red ...
— The Coming of Cuculain • Standish O'Grady
... welcomed by Victor and Helene and by the very small Victor who was now nearly a year old. Victor and Helene had heard of the threats of vengeance, but knowing Rene, they had smiled. Was not Rene a great boaster? And the very young Victor, who knew nothing of the threats, thought his big uncle a very brave figure in his blue capote, his red muffler, and his ...
— Connie Morgan in the Fur Country • James B. Hendryx
... translations, by means of which it may be hoped that the gifted Borrow will ere long vindicate his lasting claim to scholarship—a claim to which it is to be feared he is indifferent, for he is no boaster, and does himself no justice; or, if he boasts at all, prefers, as with a species of self-sarcasm, the mention of his lesser, on which he dwells with zest, to that of his greater and more enduring triumphs. The "Targum" consists of translations from the ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... lacking, give way. fallido, -a frustrated, amiss. fama f. reputation, report, rumor; es —— it is said. famoso, -a famous, renowned, notorious. fanal m. lantern, light, beacon. fanfarrn m. boaster, bully. fango m. mud, mire, slime. fantasa f. fancy, imagination, caprice, whim. fantasma m. f. phantom, ghost, specter, scarecrow. fantstico, -a fantastic, imaginary. farsa f. farce, humbug. fascinar fascinate. ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup
... I reflected that my captivity upon the Bass, in view of a great part of the coasts of Fife and Lothian, was a thing I should be thought more likely to have invented than endured; and in the eyes of these two gentlemen, at least, I must pass for a boaster and a coward. Now I would take this lightly enough; tell myself that so long as I stood well with Catriona Drummond, the opinion of the rest of man was but moonshine and spilled water; and thence pass off into those meditations of a lover which are ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... was not going to give up because of first impressions. He had not met Montagu Jerrold before, but had heard of him often during the last three or four months since the Englishman "blew into" Lucky Star City. He was a boaster as well as a waster, no doubt; for according to himself, he knew "everybody at home," from the King down the whole gamut of the British peerage. Also he "claimed" to be an Oxford man, and it was that which, in this emergency, had focused Nick's ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... a boaster, Napoleon; and in your uncle's presence would be just as great a coward ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... Boaster though he was, there was little doubt as to Jordan's efficiency or his courage. He brought in the criminals he went out to get, some alive, some dead; prosecuted the first with zeal and collected the rewards with alacrity. The trouble ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... have to hedge on some of them, or put them through at a cost far beyond the profit. It came that way to a boaster of his intentions sometimes, especially so when a man spoke too quickly and assumed too much. Here he was standing face to a fight that did not appear to promise much more glory in the winning than in ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden
... wastrel and a boaster, but for all that Isak could bear him no grudge; he himself was too relieved at finding his neighbour in the house that evening instead of a stranger. Isak had the peasant's coolness of mind, his few feelings, stability, stubbornness; he chatted ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun
... thou art son of a god? A shameless boaster and a liar art thou! Hast ever spoken to thy divine sire? Give us some proof of thy sonship! No more child of the glorious Apollo art thou than are the vermin his children, that the sun breeds in the dust ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang
... the loins he came Of noble Dolon, and to war he brought The borrowed lustre of his grandsire's name, The strength and spirit of his sire of fame, Who for his meed, when offering to explore The Danaan camp, Pelides' car would claim. Poor fool! Tydides paid the boaster's score, And for Achilles' steeds he hankers now ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... I was both a coward and a boaster; but I have frequently remarked that the quality which we call cowardice in a child, is no more than implying a greater sense of danger, and consequently a superior intellect. We are all naturally cowards: education and observation teach us to discriminate between real ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... which will become loud anon if it be not checked, he smiles inwardly, and moralizes on the weakness of human nature. But the man who never jumps is not usually of a benevolent nature, and it is almost certain that he will make up a little story against the boaster. ...
— Hunting Sketches • Anthony Trollope
... he also had us served with a bird three times as large as Cleonymus,(1) and called the Boaster. ...
— The Acharnians • Aristophanes
... authority, Poundmaker, for many a year, has done little save to smoke, drink tea among the squaws, and tell lies, as long as the Saskatchewan river, about all the battles he fought when he was a young man, and how terrible was his name over all the plains. Poundmaker has always been successful as a boaster, and there is hardly a squaw on the whole reserve who does not think him to be one of the most illustrious and mighty men alive. Therefore he has never sued in vain for the hand of a pretty maiden without success; and he has now ...
— The Story of Louis Riel: The Rebel Chief • Joseph Edmund Collins
... boaster, O friend of many years, thy words cause me great mirth. Get thee to thy kennel, lest I do indeed come forth and ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie
... "I am no boaster, neither do I claim the gift of prophecy, like some of our saints yonder. But I am persuaded that a day will come when your words will be put to the proof. You will have to choose not between King ...
— St George's Cross • H. G. Keene
... been taught so much by Granny Fox that he began to feel very wise and very important. Reddy is naturally smart and he had been very quick to learn the tricks that old Granny Fox had taught him. But Reddy Fox is a boaster. Every day he swaggered about on the Green Meadows and bragged how smart he was. Blacky the Crow ...
— The Adventures of Reddy Fox • Thornton W. Burgess
... where can lie the cause? Shall thy Implement have blame, A Boaster, that when he is tried, fails, and is put to shame? 10 Or is it good as others are, and be their eyes in fault? Their eyes, or minds? or, finally, is this ...
— Poems In Two Volumes, Vol. 2 • William Wordsworth
... it was exported and the placing of a brand on each barrel. However this may be, we have Washington's own word for it, that his flour was as good in quality as any manufactured in America—and he was no boaster. ...
— George Washington: Farmer • Paul Leland Haworth
... be disclosed at the last day. Vengeance pursued her steps, she was lost; the villain to whom she had sacrificed herself boasted of the favours he had received. The fatal report was conveyed to her injured husband. He refused to believe what he thought impossible, but honour obliged him to call the boaster to the field. The wretch received the challenge with much more contentment than concern; as he had resolution enough to murder any man whom he had injured, so he was certain, if he had the good fortune to conquer his antagonist, he should be looked upon ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... Estrella's mountain-tide Back to the source, when tempest-chafed, to hie? Who, when Gascogne's vexed gulf is raging wide, Shall hush it as a nurse her infant's cry? His magic power let such vain boaster try, And when the torrent shall his voice obey, And Biscay's whirlwinds list his lullaby, Let him stand forth and bar mine eagles' way, And they shall heed his voice, and at ...
— Some Poems by Sir Walter Scott • Sir Walter Scott
... no fear. I am no boaster. But we cannot fight him here in Roan Kiti, which is open to the sea, and never can we make it a strong fort, for here we have no falat,{*} nor yet any great forest trees. But at Tokolme are many thousands ...
— The Call Of The South - 1908 • Louis Becke
... moment's warning, she must be told that Gudruna, in Laxdaela, threatened one of her three husbands with much the same treatment, and would have put her threat into execution if he had not behaved as she commanded him. In our Saga, too, the gudewife of Bjorn the boaster threatens him with a separation if he does not stand faithfully by Kari; and in another Saga of equal age and truthfulness, we hear of one great lady who parted from her husband, because, in playfully throwing a pillow of down at her, he unwittingly struck ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous
... plausible enough, the whole story. And if Mrs. East had snapped the dragoman up under the impression that he came from a man she had determined to meet, the fellow might be no more to blame than any other boaster, touting in his own interest. Still, I had an uneasy feeling that something lay hidden under Armenian plausibility. Bedr el Gemaly was perhaps a thief who had courted a chance for a big haul of jewellery. Yet if that were all, why hadn't he hopped off the tram, as it began to ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... very good, but he is so awkward and stupid that he constantly stumbles into trouble, thereby causing his acquaintances much unnecessary discomfiture and himself no end of embarrassment. He is, furthermore, a terrific boaster, as you will learn when you read of his many declarations of the pummeling he would give the ferocious Robber Fly, if ever he chanced to meet that devouring assassin. What Buster actually does when the unexpected encounter takes place will afford you a good laugh at his expense, and, ...
— The Tale of Tommy Fox • Arthur Scott Bailey
... "You're a boaster," she said, with the door open. "You always were. And you'll never lay a hand on him. You're like all bullies; you're ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... Angus, the seer o' ferlies, That sits on the stane at his door, And tells about bogles, and mair lies Than tongue ever utter'd before. And there will be Bauldy, the boaster, Sae ready wi' hands and wi' tongue; Proud Paty and silly Sam Foster, Wha quarrel wi' ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... uncontrolled boy, who spent most of his time in the street, played truant three days out of five, was a great boaster, and sneered at anything like goodness. He was vastly amusing, however, and generally was surrounded by a crowd of admiring lads who thought him quite a hero. He had completely fascinated Louis, who was blind to ...
— A Dear Little Girl • Amy E. Blanchard
... quiet during the two days of the trip, as though he were fully conscious of the heavy responsibility that rested upon his young shoulders. I had called him a boaster and it had cut him to ...
— Tales of the Malayan Coast - From Penang to the Philippines • Rounsevelle Wildman
... trying to awe you with the fierce words of a boaster and a bully? Test me, by looking back a little, and discovering what I have abstained from for the sake of my purpose, since I have been here. A word or two from my lips, in answer to the questions with which I have been baited, day after day, by ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... Jim was a great boaster and blusterer, glorying in the marvelous and dangerous. Had he lived in the heroic age, I have no doubt he would have regaled the ears of his listeners with blood curdling stories of his battles with giants, his ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... am no boaster of my love, Nor of my attributes; I have shared your splendour, And will partake your fortunes. You may live To find one slave more true than subject myriads: But this the Gods avert! I am content To be beloved on trust for what I feel, Rather than prove it to you in your ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... if only we had the wit to recognize ourselves in him. Or rather he is that element in us which we all like and despise in others, but which we will never for one moment confess to in ourselves—the coward, the boaster, the liar, but the child of nature. He, because he knows himself for all of these, can find his home in Sarostro's paradise. He does not want Sarostro's high wisdom; what he does want is a Papagena, an Eve, a child of nature like himself; and she is given ...
— Essays on Art • A. Clutton-Brock
... his own mind, "a man must cut his coat according to his cloth; I will try to get away as fast as I can." On this the giant said to him, "Go, little ragamuffin, and fetch me a jug of water." "Had I not better bring the well itself at once, and the spring too?" asked the boaster, and went with the pitcher to the water. "What! the well and the spring too," growled the giant in his beard, for he was rather clownish and stupid, and began to be afraid. "That knave is not a fool, he has a wizard in ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... boasting that he knew many and various tricks. Another among the bystanders said: "I know how to play a trick which will make whomsoever I like pull off his breeches." The first man— the boaster—said: "You won't make me pull off mine, and I bet you a pair of hose on it." He who proposed the game, having accepted the offer, produced breeches and drew them across the face of him who bet the pair of hose and won ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... was a bit of a boaster, had bragged, one evening at mess, of his swimming, which he said was famous in his school days; 'twas a lie, but ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... man who had just entered, "it is well known that Vestein and her father and mother were all fully willing. The girl could as easily have gone out of the door as the window. Snackoll is a boaster. He is as great in his talk as a fox ...
— An Orkney Maid • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... was the imagination of the spectator only that could find in their works that air of grandeur and dignity generally attributed to them. Raphael himself, he said, was very unequal, and many of his productions owed their glory only to tradition. Michael Angelo was a boaster, weakly vain of his knowledge of anatomy, and without a particle of grace. Real force of outline, grace of touch, and magic of colouring we must look for, he said, in the present age. Thence the conversation easily glided ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... at my side awoke, And with such helpless anguish as they feel Who know that they are weak as well as vile. I saw, through all his forward promises, Excuses, prayers, and pledges that were oaths (What he, poor boaster, thought I could not see), That he was shorn of will, and that his heart Was as defenseless as a little child's;— That underneath his fair good fellowship He was debauched, and dead in love with sin;— That love of me had made him what I loved,— That I could only hold him till the wave ...
— Bitter-Sweet • J. G. Holland
... man! I have talked myself deaf and dumb and blind, and never got a response. Just look at this magnificent autumn landscape! Look at it! look at it! Feast your eye on it! You have traveled; you have seen boaster landscapes elsewhere. Come, now, deliver an honest opinion. What do you ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... he said, with the same manly frankness he had always shown; "I have no desire to appear as a boaster or to make light of danger, but one of the truest adages is that it is not the barking dog that does ...
— Cowmen and Rustlers • Edward S. Ellis
... spake, a bird flew forth on the right hand, an eagle of lofty flight, and the host of the Achaians shouted thereat, encouraged by the omen, but renowned Hector answered: "Aias, thou blundering boaster, what sayest thou! Would that indeed I were for ever as surely the son of aegis-bearing Zeus, and that my mother were lady Hera, and that I were held in such honour as Apollo and Athene, as verily this day is to bring utter evil on all the Argives! And thou ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... you must not attach too much importance to what you have heard. Paul is a mere boy, and, of course, a boaster." ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... considered careful walk and placid mien, wend their way homeward, bearing their heavy udders to the house-mother, who, pail in hand awaiting their approach, pauses for a moment to mark the feathered boaster at her feet, as he makes his parting vaunt of a day well spent and summons "Partlet" to her vesper perch ...
— The Romantic Settlement of Lord Selkirk's Colonists - The Pioneers of Manitoba • George Bryce
... made such a noise in the parish, such a boaster, so quarrelsome, so litigious, no one could come near him. "The fashion changeth." He lies still as a mouse now, and can resent no injury done to ...
— The Village Pulpit, Volume II. Trinity to Advent • S. Baring-Gould
... it is true!" whispered the lithe boaster, with a gleeful quiver from head to foot. "Listen! First—purely, of course, for love of Anna—I have conspired with the General to marry her to Kincaid. And, second, also purely for love of her, I have ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... Spot couldn't help hearing what the Rooster said. And he hadn't even heart enough to answer that impertinent boaster. ...
— The Tale of Old Dog Spot • Arthur Scott Bailey
... boaster! and what is it you know? Why, nothing at all except to go out to merry-makings and lick your lips there. We'll soon see which he'll ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston
... while the flames were being kindled declared this Joan, who called herself the Maid, to be a liar, a plague, a deceiver of the people, a sorceress, superstitious, a blasphemer of God, presumptuous, a misbeliever in the faith of Christ, a boaster, idolatress, cruel, dissolute, a witch of devils, apostate, schismatic, and heretic. It was a heavy crime-sheet for a mere girl, and there was no knowing into what a monster she might grow up. So the Bishop of Beauvais could not well hesitate in pronouncing the final sentence whereby, to ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... one, for a smile of whose lip thou well knowest I would lay down my life—for a touch of whose hand thou well knowest I would sell me to the Evil One—thou hast blackened me, and I will be avenged—ho! chicken-hearted boaster before women, and black-hearted traitor among men, will nothing rouse thee? ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... man of the stoicks; such is the divinity of the epicureans; and such is the flatterer of himself. Every other enjoyment malice may destroy; every other panegyrick envy may withhold; but no human power can deprive the boaster of his own encomiums. Infamy may hiss, or contempt may growl, the hirelings of the great may follow fortune, and the votaries of truth may attend on virtue; but his pleasures still remain the same; he can always listen with rapture to himself, and leave those who dare not repose ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... stolidity was largely training. Starling's quiet might mean instinctive imitation, but I feared it was something more sinister. While mine—— But I had no composure. I swaggered and shrugged and played harlequin and boaster. ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... says John Foster, "can never be said to belong to himself; since if he dared to assert that he did, the puny force of some cause, about as powerful as a spider, may make a seizure of the unhappy boaster the very next minute, and contemptuously exhibit the futility of the determination by which he was to have proved the independence of his understanding and will. He belongs to whatever can make capture of him; and one thing after another vindicates its right to him by arresting ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... gold And lucid crimson. One might fancy it A noble bird, that laves its graceful form, And bathes its rosy bosom in the light. Look! how it swells and rears its snowy crest With haughty grandeur; while the blue expanse, In smiling patience lets the boaster pass, And swell his train with all the lazy vapours That hover in the air: an easy prey To the gigantic phantom, whose curl'd wing, Sweeps in these worthless triflers of the sky, And wraps them in his bosom. Go, vain shadow! Sick with the burthen ...
— Elegies and Other Small Poems • Matilda Betham
... it were, to all his future tragedies. From this depth of nothingness Turgenef, however, soon rises to at least the semblance of strength; and while Rudin is at bottom as impotent as Tchulkaturin, he at least pretends to strength. Rudin, then, is the hero of phrases, the boaster; he promises marvels, he charms, he captivates; but it all ends in words, and Rudin perishes as needlessly as he lived needlessly. In "Fathers and Sons," however, Bazarof is no longer a talker; he already rises to indignation and rebellion; he lives out his spirit, ...
— Lectures on Russian Literature - Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenef, Tolstoy • Ivan Panin
... there to be afraid of?" asked another. "You are a little coward. Shut your eyes and go to sleep. See me! I am not afraid, if it is dark and gloomy. Oh, oh!" cried the boaster, for the owl had seized him and was carrying him away from home and his ...
— The Book of Nature Myths • Florence Holbrook
... situation much better than the promoters in England; and we can quite excuse him in his rage over the foolishness and greed of most of his companions. There was little nonsense about Smith in action, though he need not turn his hand on any man of that age as a boaster. ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... Cortaplumas (penknife) Chupaflores (humming-bird) Destripaterrones (navvy) Lavamanos (wash-hand stand) Limpiabotas (boot-black) Matamoros (boaster) Mondadientes (toothpick) Papahueros (ninny) Papamoscas (ninny) Papanatas (ninny) Paracaidas (parachute) Paraguas (umbrella) Pelagatos (ragamuffin) Pintamonas (slap-dasher or bad partner) Sacacorchos (corkscrew) Salvavidas ...
— Pitman's Commercial Spanish Grammar (2nd ed.) • C. A. Toledano
... where is the elk or the cabri?[80] Come!—where is the hunter will dare match his feet with the feet of Tamdoka? Let him think of Tate[AC] and beware, ere he stake his last robe on the trial." "Oho! Ho! Ho-heca!"[AD] they jeered, for they liked not the boast of the boaster; But to match him no warrior appeared, for his feet wore ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... Ambassador to the Court of Berlin; and in 1803 removed him in the same character to the Court of Madrid. In Prussia, his talents did not cause him to be dreaded, nor his personal qualities make him esteemed. In France, he is laughed at as a boaster, but not trusted as a warrior. In Spain, he is neither dreaded nor esteemed, neither laughed at nor courted; he is there universally despised. He studies to be thought a gentleman; but the native porter breaks through the veil of a ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... gold. A dog in a gutter—a God on a throne: In slander electric—in justice a drone: A parrot in promise, and frail as a shade; A hooded immortal in life's masquerade; A sham-lacquered bauble, a bubble, a breath: A boaster ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning
... exclusively." "Insufferable puppy!" I said to myself. Then he told me of how his father thought he was dead, and asked if I had heard of his rallying twenty men at Manassas, and charging a Federal regiment, which instantly broke? I honestly told him, "No." "Iagoo, the great boaster," I decided. Abruptly he said there were very few nice young ladies in Baton Rouge. "Probably so, in his circle," I thought, while I dryly remarked, "Indeed?" "Oh, yes!" and still more abruptly he said, "Ain't you the youngest?—Yes! ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... is a bit of a boaster. I dare say his ancestor was a Gascon, poor fellow!—and he affects to say that you can't choose a coat, or buy a horse, without his approval and advice,—that he can turn you round his finger. Now this hurts ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book VI • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... boaster in Buckingham's play the "Rehearsal"; he kills every one of the combatants, "sparing ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... had said, and everybody would have believed him. By declaring him the winner of the bet she has cut the matter short, and she has avoided a judgment by which she would have been dishonoured. The inconsiderate boaster was guilty of a double mistake for which he paid the penalty of his life, but his adversary was as much wanting in delicacy, for in such matters rightly-minded men do not venture upon betting. If the one who says ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... be a great man, flattery and envy are killing you; if you be poor, every one is trampling upon and despising you; after having become an inventor, if you exalt your head and seek for praise, you will be called a boaster and a coxcomb; if you lead a godly life and resort to the church and the altar, you will be called a hypocrite; if you do not, then you are an infidel or a heretic; if you be merry, you will be called a buffoon; if you are silent, you will be called a morose wretch; if you ...
— The Sleeping Bard - or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell • Ellis Wynne
... good criticism in the above Note, it is certain that Plautus did not take his 'Miles Gloriosus' from the Colax of Menander, as he himself informs us it was translated from a Greek play called Alazon, 'the Boaster,' and the Parasite is but a trifling character in that play, never appearing ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... daughter," said the King, "and bid her hatch them out for me. If she succeeds she shall have a bag of money for her pains, but if she fails you shall be beaten as a vain boaster." ...
— Tales of Folk and Fairies • Katharine Pyle
... destroy this city whether the Gods will or no, and that Zeus with his thunder shall not stay him, for that the thunder is but as the sun at noon. And on his shield he hath a man bearing a torch, and these words, 'I WILL BURN THIS CITY.' Who now shall stand against this boaster and ...
— Stories from the Greek Tragedians • Alfred Church
... him where he was. There was in him a vein of madness which often burst forth in a blind fury. It had come upon him in battle, and he had awakened many a time to learn that he had been the hero of an exploit. He was not a boaster; he was not a broken soldier. He was a man whose violent temper had strewn his path with failures. . . . In love! Silently he mocked himself. In love, he, the tried veteran, of a hundred inconstancies! He smiled grimly beneath his mask. He passed ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... your words are the words of a boaster, who is bold only when he sees his enemy before him disarmed. Beware of what you do; you are walking in the dark! Do you believe the paltry handful of English whom you drove out of Calcutta count for anything in the strength ...
— Athelstane Ford • Allen Upward
... herself to be called the maid, a liar, pernicious, deceiver of the people, soothsayer, superstitious, a blasphemer against God, presumptuous, miscreant, boaster, idolatress, cruel, dissolute, an invoker of devils, ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards
... tenderfeet: one from Tennessee called "Daisy Belle," because he whistled that tune so much and because he had nose-bleed so much,—couldn't even ride a broncho but his nose would bleed for hours afterwards; and the other, "N'Yawk," so called from his native State. N'Yawk was a great boaster; said he wasn't afraid of no durned outlaw,—said his father had waded in bloody gore up to his neck and that he was a chip off the old block,—rather hoped the chase would come our way so he could try ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... hair, beard and whiskers. He lacks use of three fingers of left hand, walks with his legs rather wide apart, speaks somewhat peculiarly as though his tongue were too large for his mouth, and is a great boaster. He is a picture-frame maker. He occasionally cleans and repairs clocks and watches and sometimes deals in oleographs, engravings and pictures. He has been in penal servitude for burglary in Manchester. He has lived in Manchester, ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... A boaster is always to be suspected. His is a natural infirmity, which makes him forget what he is about, and run into a thousand extravagances that have no connection with the truth. With those who have a tolerable knowledge of the world, all his assertions, professions of friendship, ...
— The Young Man's Guide • William A. Alcott
... sneering tone of voice, saying that he preferred men for his part with spunk enough to do such work themselves, and there was an argument, they protesting and he mocking them, until at last this man, whose neck the glass cut, demanded of him whether he, Yussuf Dakmar, was not in truth an empty boaster ...
— Affair in Araby • Talbot Mundy
... history, woman, was a favorite topic, and we accordingly discussed it a great deal; that is, to tell the exact truth, I 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 ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... light of the eastern sky, and the men at last discovered whither their general was leading them. With the knowledge, which spread quickly through the ranks, that they were making for the communications of the boaster Pope, the regiments stepped out with renewed energy. "There was no need for speech, no breath to spare if there had been—only the shuffling tramp of marching feet, the rumbling of wheels, the creak and clank of harness and accoutrements, with an occasional order, uttered ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... my honour, he also had us served with a bird three times as large as Cleonymus,[165] and called the Boaster. ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... madam,' he answered. 'Your cousin's province was never to come within a score miles of the cardinal. Being a drunkard and a boaster he was sent to Paris to get drunk and ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... mind of neither, you see, was there any doubt of what must be the issue. The calm confidence in which La Tour d'Azyr had spoken compelled itself to be shared. He was no vainglorious boaster, and they knew of what a force as a ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... play demands. He is a dwarf, even among puppets, and his dress invariably consists of black knee-breeches and white stockings, a very long, full-skirted black coat, and a three-cornered hat. His individual traits are displayed in all his characters, and he is ever a coward, a boaster, and a liar; a glutton and avaricious, but withal of an agreeable bonhomie that wins the heart. To tell the truth, I care little for the plays in which he has no part and I have learned to think a certain trick of his—lifting his leg rigidly to a horizontal line, by way of emphasis, ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... It was my first field, sir, and I am wont to speak of it too boastingly. I shall become more modest, I hope, when I shall have a better right to be a boaster." ...
— Fort Lafayette or, Love and Secession • Benjamin Wood
... ear—while we lean our left shoulder on thine—our right on the Crutch. The time will come when thou wilt be, O Son of the Morning! even like unto the shadow by thy side! Was he not once a mountaineer? If he be a vainglorious boaster, give him the lie, Ben-y-glo and thy brotherhood—ye who so often heard our shouts mixed with the red-deer's belling—tossed back in exultation by Echo, Omnipresent ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... lawyer and an errant pickpocket, a reverend non-conformist and a canting mountebank, all blended together to compose an oglio of impertinence." There is a delightful sketch of one named "Captain All-man-sir," as big a boaster as Falstaff, and a more delicately etched portrait of the Town Wit, who is summed up as the "jack-pudding of society" in the judgment of all wise men, but an incomparable wit in his own. The peroration of this pamphlet, devoted to a wholesale ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley
... the language and customs of this interesting people:* "Look here, O Nicholas-god! Perhaps my neighbour, little Michael, has been slandering me to you, or perhaps he will do so. If he does, don't believe him. I have done him no ill, and wish him none. He is a worthless boaster and a babbler. He does not really honour you, and merely plays the hypocrite. But I honour you from my heart; and, behold, I place a taper before you!" Sometimes incidents occur which display a ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... established that reign here which now totters to its base? How, therefore, dares yon treacherous fiend to cast a stain on Satan's bravery? he who preys only on the defenceless—who sucks the blood of infants, and delights only in acts of ignoble cruelty and unequal contention. Away with the boaster who never joins in action, but, like a cormorant, hovers over the field, to feed upon the wounded, and overwhelm the dying. True bravery is as remote from rashness as from hesitation; let us counsel coolly, but let us execute our counselled purposes ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White
... Sylvia would assign to these pretensions their true value had given him courage to keep silence. So strong was his belief in her gratitude, that he scorned to beg for the pardon he had taught himself to believe that she would ask for him. So utter was his contempt for the coward and boaster who, dressed in brief authority, bore insidious false witness against him, that, when he heard his sentence of life banishment, he disdained to make known the true part he had played in the matter, preferring to wait for the more exquisite revenge, ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... pleased the old chief mightily; for the Indian is nothing if not a boaster. At once Black Cat would have broken out in loud tirade on his friendship for me and contempt for the Sioux, but I cut him short and moved towards the hill, that overlooked the enemy's territory. A great cloud of dust whirled up from ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... BALDER, then raises himself to his full height, discards at once his assumed figure, and appears as LOKE). My weakness, mighty Balder? Do not scorn it! To dust and ashes, boaster, it shall crush thee. Not Loke's messenger, but Loke, stung thee. Already bellows the young god with torment: Hear, Odin! hear thy lov'd one, hear him howling! Delay thee not! enjoy his voice and feel it! Harmonious is it to the ears of ...
— The Death of Balder • Johannes Ewald
... boaster," he roared, "you lie in your words. Sindri, my brother, who would scorn to serve you, is the best ...
— The Children of Odin - The Book of Northern Myths • Padraic Colum
... Lovelace, what hast thou to do (the lady all consistent with herself, and no hopes left for thee) but to hang, drown, or shoot thyself, for an outwitted boaster? ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... although the wage I promised him was a royal kaross and nothing less. So enough of Umslopogaas, the Woodpecker. Almost I wish that you had not lent him the charm, for then the King's men would have made an end of him, who knows too much and like some silly boaster, may shout out the truth when his axe is aloft and he is full of the beer of battle. For in battle he will live and in battle he will die, Macumazahn, as perhaps you ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... on his fur coat and mittens and quitted the cabin. He would find a certain long haired Indian he had seen that day, and prove to his brother that he was not simply a boaster. ...
— The Trail of a Sourdough - Life in Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... in Tom's project that interested me, and I turned to him with eagerness. Adventure—something to prove that I had been no boaster, something to divert the current of my thoughts; it was the very thing, but I ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn
... and vulgar statements, culminating in the deplorable mental and moral expressions contained in the speeches, messages and telegrams of William II. He was a perfect type of the miles gloriosus, not a harmless but an irritating and dangerous boaster, who succeeded in piling up more loathing and hatred against his country than the most active and intelligently managed enemy propaganda could possibly ...
— Peaceless Europe • Francesco Saverio Nitti
... became a man, he sailed on the ship Argo, with Jason and the great heroes of that day, in search of the Golden Fleece. Many brave deeds were his in foreign lands; and when he came home again to Calydon, he brought with him a fair young wife, gentle Cleopatra, daughter of Idas the boaster. ...
— Hero Tales • James Baldwin
... Christian character of him who makes it. Easy to compose a sermon!—easy to compose what, when written, cannot be read; and what, when preached, cannot be listened to. We believe it; for in cases of this kind the ease is all on the part of the author. We believe further, we would fain say to the boaster, that you and such as you could scuttle and sink the Free Church with amazingly little trouble to yourselves. But is it easy, think you, to mature such thoughts as Butler matured? And yet these were embodied in sermons. Is it easy, think you, to ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... warm, nor asked whence or why we wandered. It was their thought that Old Kinoos had lost the sight of his eyes from age; nor did Old Kinoos say otherwise, nor did I, his daughter. Old Kinoos is a brave man, but Old Kinoos was never a boaster. And now, when I tell thee of how his blindness came to be, thou wilt know, beyond question, that the daughter of Kinoos cannot mother the children of a coward such ...
— Love of Life - and Other Stories • Jack London
... to yield to the wrong. Above all we wish for honesty—tongues that are not used to say what the mind does not mean, and hearts that feel a little for others, as well as for themselves. A true-hearted girl could die for such a husband! while the boaster, and the double-tongued suitor gets to be as hateful to the sight, as he is to ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... for a saint, and you would be a demon! You are a boaster! No; there is no man quite cunning enough, bold enough, thus to insinuate himself into the confidence and respect of men. It would be a frightful defiance cast ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... every body attributed it to long practice, they were not so much astonished as I was, who knew it was wholly owing to chance. It was a lucky hit, and I made the most of it; success made me arrogant, and boy-like, I became a boaster. ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... my dear tutor's lessons, together with the opportunity of conversing with the politest and most learned gentry of different nations, that I will discourse with you in two or three languages, if you please, when I have the happiness to see you. There's a learned boaster for you, my dear friend! (if the knowledge of different languages makes one learned.)—But I shall bring you an heart as entirely English as ever, for ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... Expectation which is raised by impertinent Promisers is thus barren, their Confidence, even after Failures, is so great, that they subsist by still promising on. I have heretofore discoursed of the insignificant Liar, the Boaster, and the Castle-Builder, and treated them as no ill-designing Men, (tho' they are to be placed among the frivolously false ones) but Persons who fall into that Way purely to recommend themselves by their Vivacities; but indeed I cannot let heedless Promisers, though in the most minute Circumstances, ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... services, I'm happy to obey. Of late your Brother Delights in hind'ring my advancement, And ev'ry boaster's rais'd above my merit, Barzaphernes alone commands his ear, His oracle ...
— The Prince of Parthia - A Tragedy • Thomas Godfrey
... NYM, PISTOL, Mrs. QUICKLY, and BOY.] These followers of Falstaff figured conspicuously through the two parts of Shakespeare's Henry IV. Pistol is a swaggering, pompous braggadocio; Nym a boaster and a coward; and Bardolph a liar, thief, and coward, who has no ...
— King Henry the Fifth - Arranged for Representation at the Princess's Theatre • William Shakespeare
... with rapture self-inspired, He would prove his words by deeds, Prove himself no boaster vain But a ...
— Atta Troll • Heinrich Heine
... house. A score of other darkies contributed, and the required amount was raised. It was not, however, to be delivered to the courageous Sam until his reappearance after the vigil. With this understanding the boaster betook himself to the ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... the American Colonies, went to the block, and his enemy, Danton, a little later, did the same; Mirabeau, the boaster, had died peacefully in his bed; Robespierre, who signed the death-warrant of Paine, "to save his own head," died the death he had reserved for Paine; Marat, "the terrible dwarf," horribly honest, fearfully ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... harbour'd in the conscious breast, Intimidates the brave, degrades the great; See Cali, dread of kings, and pride of armies, By treason levell'd with the dregs of men! Ere guilty fear depress'd the hoary chief, An angry murmur, a rebellious frown, Had stretch'd the fiery boaster in ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... only to raise a laugh at the expense of that boaster," said the prince, after they were gone, "or would you indeed fulfil ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... scream of laughter. "You hear that, Clopin? You hear that, my good servitors? This silly French noodle is going to get the things in spite of us. Oho, but you have a fine opinion of yourself, monsieur. You need work fast, too, pretty boaster, I can tell you. For the royal jewellers will require the Rainbow Pearl very soon to fix it in its place in the crown for the coronation ceremony, and if that thing his Majesty holds is offered to them, how long, think you, will it be ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... the Saracens, was another staple character in the Miracle-Plays; who is described by John Florio as "a great boaster, quarreller, killer, tamer or ruler of the universe, the child of the earthquake and of the thunder, the brother of death." That Shakespeare himself had suffered under the monstrous din of these "strutting and bellowing" stage-thumpers is shown by Hamlet's remonstrance with ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... be of yesterday, Annie, but our land bears no marks of recent origin. The most arrogant boaster of the Old World may feel himself humbled as he stands within the shadow of our forests, and looks up to trees which we might almost fancy to have waved over the heads of 'the patriarchs of an ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh
... soon discovered that the Moor was a conceited coxcomb and a barefaced boaster, and ere long began to suspect that he was an arrant coward. He was, however, good-humoured and chatty, and Ted, being in these respects like-minded, rather took a fancy to him, and ...
— The Pirate City - An Algerine Tale • R.M. Ballantyne
... The consequence was, that I received another invitation from the governor, and Captain Delmar again informed me that I might tell my own story, which I did, modestly as before. I say modestly, for I never was a boaster at any time; and I really believe that I thought much less of the circumstances than those did to whom I narrated them. I had at that time but one wish, which was to find favour in the sight of Captain Delmar. I felt that all my prospects in life depended upon that; and aware of his disposition, ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... England then. He dined in high places and afterwards supped at the Savoy with the coryphees; and both in the high places and among the coryphees his jewels had made him welcome. This is truth I am telling you. He was a boaster. Well, after supper that night he threw a girl down the stairs. Never mind what she was—she was of the white ruling race, she was of the race that rules in India, he comes back to India and insolently boasts. Do you approve? Do you think ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason |
