"Brag" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and the next greatest to lose at cards, so apparently the dog finds even an unsuccessful chase to be the second best joy he knows. Look at him, tense and motionless with excitement, as he watches the noisy chatterer overhead! No doubt the squirrel will brag to all his acquaintances of how he openly defied and ...
— The Chief End of Man • George S. Merriam
... Partridge! He will talk all day if he can coax some one to listen to him. He is over there now visiting with Bob White. What those two can find to talk so much about is a mystery to me! It is real funny to listen to them! They both brag about the big things they have done or ...
— Exciting Adventures of Mister Robert Robin • Ben Field
... the Presidency they put the ball an' chain o' slavery on every citizen of this fair land. Bryant told 'em that sixteen to one would do the work, and what did they say? Huh, they said he was a fool and didn't know how to figure. I tell you if he was a fool, Solomon was a idiot. Who was the'r brag man up in Yankeedom?—why, Abe Lincoln—an' what did he ever do but set back in the White House and tell smutty jokes, while the rest o' the country was walkin' on its uppers, eatin' hardtack, sweatin' blood, ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... Mother! Mother! What is this Man, thy darling kissed and cuffed, Thou lustingly engender'st, To sweat, and make his brag, and rot, Crowned with all honour and all shamefulness? From nightly towers He dogs the secret footsteps of the heavens, Sifts in his hands the stars, weighs them as gold-dust, And yet is he successive unto nothing But patrimony ...
— God and Mr. Wells - A Critical Examination of 'God the Invisible King' • William Archer
... do what I brag o'!' she added, throwing her stocking on the patch of green sward about the stone, and starting to her feet with a laugh. 'Is't to be ...
— Heather and Snow • George MacDonald
... occasionally sunk in a romping round game at Christ-tide. But it is a question as to who knows such games as My Lady Coventry, All Fours, Snip Snap Snorum, Old Maid, Commerce, Put, Pope Joan, Brag, Blind Hookey, Loo, etc., etc., without reference to a ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton
... in his heart "You are about as fit to take care of yourself as a plump pigeon at a shooting match." But he said to her, "Perhaps you are right—only don't brag. It isn't lucky. I do not know what are the chances about this place. You would do well to get some of your friends to write a letter or two in your behalf, and I will see what can be done at the next ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... against all of us, at sight of me; so that if Eliza has bragged at Eastridge about New York, she has at least bragged in New York about Eastridge. I didn't clearly, for Mrs. Chataway, come up to the brag—or perhaps rather didn't come down to it: since I dare say the poor lady's consternation meant simply that my aunt has confessed to me but as an unconsidered trifle, a gifted child at the most; or as young and handsome and dashing at the most, and not as—well, as what I am. Whatever ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... father—Andre—and self-condemnation! Why seek I Andre now? Am I a man, To soothe the sorrows of a suffering friend? The weather-cock of passion! fool inebriate! Who could with ruffian hand strive to provoke Hoar wisdom to intemperance! who could lie! Aye, swagger, lie, and brag!—Liar! Damnation!! O, let me steal away and hide my head, Nor view a man, condemn'd to harshest death, Whose words and actions, when by mine compar'd, Shew white as innocence, and bright as truth. I now would shun him; but that his shorten'd Thread ...
— Andre • William Dunlap
... by vast odds, the most terrific of all mortal disasters have immemorially and indiscriminately befallen tens and hundreds of thousands of those who have gone upon the waters; though but a moment's consideration will teach, that however baby man may brag of his science and skill, and however much, in a flattering future, that science and skill may augment; yet for ever and for ever, to the crack of doom, the sea will insult and murder him, and pulverize the stateliest, stiffest frigate he can make; nevertheless, ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... about the same date to Mason the poet, he again alludes to his fondness of Tonton, but adds—"I have no occasion to brag ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... such Events, I took care, that my Ill-humour, shou'd be as useful to the Publick, as my good cou'd have been. I ever despised undeserved Grandeur, and misapplied Power, and therefore few People in high Posts, or even Kings or Queens, or Ministers, cou'd ever brag much of my Condescension, in speaking a good Word for them to Posterity, or endeavouring to blind the Eyes of the present Times, by Printing either lies or Truths in their Favour. 'Tis true, I almost as seldom gave them any Proofs of my Spite; partly out of neglect, ...
— A Dialogue Between Dean Swift and Tho. Prior, Esq. • Anonymous
... had found it extremely difficult to find out much about Merriwell, as he persistently avoided talking about himself. If he had been one of the kind of fellows who go around and brag about themselves and what they have done he would not have aroused so much interest; but the very fact that he would not talk of himself made the students curious to know something of ...
— Frank Merriwell at Yale • Burt L. Standish
... eyes,) such as I scorn to tread on, Richer than e'er he saw yet, and more tempting; Had I known he'd stoop'd at that, I'd saved mine honor— I had been happy still! But let him take it. And let him brag how poorly I'm rewarded; Let him go conquer still weak wretched ladies; Love has his angry quiver too, his deadly, And when he finds scorn, armed at the strongest— I am a fool to fret thus for a fool,— An ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... start to tell you a dog story—only now, since I've mentioned him, I must tell you a circumstance about Cees. He was a middlin' size broot, with fox ears and yaller spots over his eyes, and could out bark and out brag all creation when he was inside the yard. If another dog was goin' along he'd run up and down the palins and bark and take on like he'd give the world if that fence wasent there. So one day when he was showin' off in that way I caught him by the nap of the neck as he run ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume III. (of X.) • Various
... wonderful, and he called me 'Friar Sharley,' and he tried to take up with our manners and customs; but his head was outlandish for English grog. One night he was three sheets in the wind, at a snug little crib by the river, and he took to the brag as is born with them. 'All dis contray in one year now,' says he, nodding over his glass at me, 'shall be of the grand nashong, and I will make a great man of you, Friar Sharley. Do you know what prawns are, my good ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... sir," replied Ross in answer to the invitation; then, after a pause, he added: "we didn't want to brag about ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... youth of these our times that did behold This motion strange of this unwieldy plant Now boldly brag with us that are men old, That of our age they no advantage want, Though in our youth we ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe
... "Maybe I'll brag about this some day," he told Coburn uneasily. "But right now I'm scared to death. What do you two ...
— The Invaders • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... e're I could catch his temper, I had trash enough to have cloy'd his eyes withal, His covetous eyes; such as I scorn to tread on: Richer than e're he saw yet, and more tempting; Had I known he had stoop'd at that, I had sav'd mine honour, I had been happy still: but let him take it, And let him brag how poorly I am rewarded: Let him goe conquer still weak wretched Ladies: Love has his angry Quiver too, his deadly, And when he finds scorn, armed at the strongest: I am a fool to fret thus, for a fool: An old blind fool too: I lose my health? I will not: I will not cry: I will not honour him With ...
— The False One • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... hang it up in the parlor, and kneel down to it as a relic of the past. He says that people who have got old ruins ought to be very thankful that there is any of them left, but it's no use in them trying to fill up the missing parts with brag. ...
— Pomona's Travels - A Series of Letters to the Mistress of Rudder Grange from her Former - Handmaiden • Frank R. Stockton
... of the world, give answer! They are whimpering to and fro— And what should they know of England who only England know? The poor little street-bred people, that vapour, and fume, and brag, They are lifting their heads in the stillness, to yelp at the ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... died an hour before this chance, I had liv'd a blessed time; for, from this instant There's nothing serious in mortality: All is but toys: renown and grace is dead; The wine of life is drawn, and the mere lees Is left this vault to brag of. ...
— Macbeth • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... succeed in the North, and that the war will be indefinitely prolonged. I say "No," and that however mad and villainous the North is, the war will finish by reason of its not supplying soldiers. We shall see. The more they brag the more ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... must have a sneaking sympathy for one whose science and wood-craft often baffle his own; and, therefore, though he fights against him sturdily and conscientiously, and, as a rule, triumphs over him, he does not generally, being what I have described him, brag of these victories, nor, indeed, does he care to talk about them. "There, but for the grace of God, goes Velveteens," must be the mental exclamation of many a good keeper when he hears his enemy sentenced ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 28, 1893 • Various
... I have confessed to you, talking of my talents, my utter inability to remember in any comprehensive way what I have read. I can vehemently applaud, or perversely stickle, at parts; but I cannot grasp at a whole. This infirmity (which is nothing to brag of) may be seen in my two little compositions, the tale and my play, in both which no reader, however ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... brag, but I've known of men eating my grub and going right on living as if nothing had ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower
... plow deep and straight when he wasn't much taller than the handles. I had done talked it over with him and asked him would he, and he looked right in my eyes in his dependable way and said yes he would. That finished it and he wasn't but eleven; but I don't want to brag on him to you. If you listen to mothers' talk the world are full of heroes and none-suches." Again Miss Wingate received the smile from over Mother Mayberry's glasses and this time it was tinged ...
— The Road to Providence • Maria Thompson Daviess
... Health, whose official name is the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, and who is now the Official Pastor and Infallible and Unerring Guide of every Christian Science church in the two hemispheres, hear Simple Simon that met the pieman brag ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... to lift them again! I mean to go in for big things; that 's my notion of my art. I mean to do things that will be simple and vast and infinite. You 'll see if they won't be infinite! Excuse me if I brag a little; all those Italian fellows in the Renaissance used to brag. There was a sensation once common, I am sure, in the human breast—a kind of religious awe in the presence of a marble image newly created and expressing the human type in superhuman purity. When Phidias and ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... these Advantages, the Law was so expensive, that he was ruined in the Contest, and obliged to give up all he had to his Creditors; which effectually answered the Purpose of Sir Timothy, who erected those Nuisances in the Farmer's Orchard with that Intention only. Ah, my dear Reader, we brag of Liberty, and boast of our Laws: but the Blessings of the one, and the Protection of the other, seldom fall to the Lot of the Poor; and especially when a rich Man is their Adversary. How, in the Name of Goodness, can a poor Wretch obtain Redress, when thirty ...
— Goody Two-Shoes - A Facsimile Reproduction Of The Edition Of 1766 • Anonymous
... his hand on hers, and his touch renewed the sense of marvelling exultation which the deliberate survey of their adventure always roused in her.... It was characteristic that she merely added, in her steady laughing tone: "Or, not counting the flat—for I hate to brag—just consider the others: Violet Melrose's place at Versailles, your aunt's villa at Monte ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... mortals and creepers and considerers and arguers "Oh now just see me believe!" We are like boys taking turns jumping in the Great Vacant Lot, seeing which can believe the furthest. We need to be reminded that a man cannot simply bring a little brag to God, about His world, and make a religion out of it. I do not doubt in the least, as a matter of theory, that I have the wrong spirit—sometimes—toward the scientific man who lives around the corner of my mind. It seems ...
— The Voice of the Machines - An Introduction to the Twentieth Century • Gerald Stanley Lee
... quite good-temperedly, "only no one cares to brag about their relations unless they want to be called a snob or a bore. It wouldn't do, you see, for a man to go about declaring that he had an uncle who was miles ahead of everybody else's uncle, or an aunt who could give a start to any other aunt in ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... shuffle and crow, crook and hide, feign to confess here, only that they may brag and conquer there, and not a thought has enriched either party, and not an emotion of ...
— An English Grammar • W. M. Baskervill and J. W. Sewell
... as he vaulted into the saddle one June day, bound for the Yosemite Valley, that wonderful spot of which Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote on the old hotel register: "The only place I ever saw that came up to the brag." ...
— The Transformation of Job - A Tale of the High Sierras • Frederick Vining Fisher
... and cry—'That's Horace that's he that pens and purges humours.' When you bid all your friends to the marriage of a poor couple, that is to say, your Wits and Necessities—alias, a poet's Whitsun-ale—you shall swear that, within three days after, you shall not abroad, in bookbinders' shops, brag that your viceroys, or tributary-kings, have done homage to you, or paid quarterage. Moreover, when a knight gives you his passport to travel in and out to his company, and gives you money for God's sake—you will swear not to make scald ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... and gather swill, as Hal used to, than listen to that infernal old brag,' he was saying to himself, when he heard a wheezy sound behind him, and looking round saw the old brag in full pursuit and ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... adventures to talk about for a year," Madge said, as we chatted the whole thing over, "and you can no longer brag that the K. & A. has never had a robbery, even if you ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... all the equipment and installations the Fenris Company had abandoned, and tried to make a living out of the planet. At least, they stayed alive. There are now twenty-odd thousand of us, and while we are still very poor, we are very tough, and we brag ...
— Four-Day Planet • Henry Beam Piper
... mud ball!" assented Cleo. "But this is different. Ugh! I shall never, never brag of clean hands again after this. There, my fish is tied on the sinker; now what do I ...
— The Girl Scouts at Sea Crest - The Wig Wag Rescue • Lillian Garis
... a wonderful and delightful piece of brag, but it is much more than that. It is literature; it is a Gospel of the Wild. It made a small Massachusetts pond famous, and the Mecca ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs
... but a small present, though they made a mighty brag about it. Neither do they spare bragging of their king, as they called Prince Maurice, whom at every word in those parts they styled Raia Hollanda. Many quarrels took place between their men and ours, the Hollanders always beginning in their drink ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... same breath with the great American mart, which, as a port, has no competitor within the circle of my knowledge, Constantinople alone excepted. I wish my semi-townsmen, the Manhattanese, could be persuaded of these facts, as, when they do brag, as the wisest of mortals sometimes will, they might brag of their strong, and not of their weak points, as is now too often ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... off drinking, and didn't drink. Now I've took to drink, and I'll drink! And I fear no man! 'Cos I don't lie; but just as.... Why should one mind them—such muck as they are! "Here you are," I say; that's me. A priest told me, the devil's the biggest bragger! "As soon," says he, "as you begin to brag, you get frightened; and as soon as you fear men then the hoofed one just collars you and pushes you where he likes!" But as I don't fear men, I'm easy! I can spit in the devil's beard, and at the sow his mother! He can't do me no harm! There, ...
— Redemption and Two Other Plays • Leo Tolstoy et al
... 'ad laid one," he replied. "And it began to brag so much about it that I couldn't stand it, so I took the egg, and it looked so lonely all by itself in my 'and that I took the others to keep ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill
... think all true patriots ought to unite in redeeming the land from the imputation that such books are regarded as casting honor upon the section. God forbid we should really be brought so low as that we must perforce brag of such works; and God be merciful to that man (he is an Atlanta editor) who boasted that sixteen thousand of these books had been sold in the South! This last damning fact ought to have been concealed at the risk of life, limb, and fortune." Lanier himself saw ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims
... So I brag of bear and beaver while the batteries are roaring, And the fellows on the firing steps are blazing at the foe; And I yarn of fur and feather when the 'marmites' are a-soaring, And they listen to my ...
— Rhymes of a Red Cross Man • Robert W. Service
... man was a captain of the trained bands latterly," said the little constable. "Fellow," he cried to Mr. Garth, who rode along moodily enough in front of them, "did this Ray ever brag to you of what he did as captain in ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... lady Chia, "every one says that there's nothing you haven't gone through and nothing you haven't seen, and don't you even know what this gauze is? Will you again brag ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... of you," Rockford finished. "I know all about it, and I know that Narf took time last night to spend an hour with his favorite girl friend and brag even to her that he was going to marry Lyla today before your dead body had time ...
— —And Devious the Line of Duty • Tom Godwin
... Tree, "hear her brag because she has a white memory! If the teacher praised me, I should be ashamed ...
— Big and Little Sisters • Theodora R. Jenness
... think much of it," interrupted Will. "I think so much of it that I want to live up to it. The old Wentworths were splendid fellows, some of 'em; and all of 'em were jolly and generous and independent. There wasn't any sneaking little brag and snobbishness in 'em. They 'd have cut a fellow dead that had come around with that sort of stuff;" and sixteen-year-old Will nodded his head with an emphatic movement that showed his approval of this trait in ...
— A Flock of Girls and Boys • Nora Perry
... "Goin' to brag, are ye?" was his wife's remorseless comment. "Much good it'll do ye, talkin' to that hatchet-face. He ain't so pious as he looks, if all ...
— The Calico Cat • Charles Miner Thompson
... sternly. "I'm going to let you stay ten minutes, so you can brag to our grandchildren that you were the first Earth-girl ever to be kissed in the Fifth Dimension. But I want you down in the laboratory so you won't be in my way if ...
— The Fifth-Dimension Tube • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... Aristides, nor Epaminondas, nor Manius Curius, nor Caius Fabricius wanted necessaries, who took no pains to get those things whose use they approved not. For it was not worth the while of a man who esteemed turnips a most delicate food, and who boiled them himself, whilst his wife made bread, to brag so often of a halfpenny, and write a book to show how a man may soonest grow rich; the very good of being contented with little is because it cuts off at once the desire and the anxiety for superfluities. ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... after secondary ideals. The artist is either a poet or a scallawag: as poet, he cannot see, as the prosaic man does, that chivalry is at bottom only romantic suicide: as scallawag, he cannot see that it does not pay to spunge and beg and lie and brag and neglect his person. Therefore do not misunderstand my plain statement of the fundamental constitution of London society as an Irishman's reproach to your nation. From the day I first set foot on this foreign soil I knew the value of the prosaic qualities of which Irishmen ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... in Taine's Graindorge. His real name was Vries. He was a negro from the Dutch West Indies, a veritable bull, with a huge body and a black, bald physiognomy, made to stand outside a tent at a fair, and be his own crier to the public. His conversation was one incessant brag, in atrocious French. Although he had lived seventeen years in France, he spoke ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... black list that has been growing through life; things I wish never to have again: tapioca pudding, fresh eggs if I have to hear the hen brag about it at 5 A.M., tripe, and home-grown milk, and to this list I have lately added cheese. Every one is familiar with the maxim that rest is a change of occupation. J——, being tired of Latin verbs, Greek roots, and dull scholars generally, took up some interesting ...
— The Smiling Hill-Top - And Other California Sketches • Julia M. Sloane
... It was an awful blow to my pride—considering that heretofore I've certainly had my fair share of attention, and even a little more than that—to have to do all the love-making, and I'm certainly not going to go brag about it—' This time the conversation really did get interrupted, for Austin would not for one instant submit to such a "garbling of statistics" and took the quickest means in his power to put an ...
— The Old Gray Homestead • Frances Parkinson Keyes
... in mere human operations—but I hardly understand myself, so let it pass for nothing. I pity you for over-work, but I assure you no-work is worse. The mind preys on itself, the most unwholesome food. I brag'd formerly that I could not have too much time. I have a surfeit. With few years to come, the days are wearisome. But weariness is not eternal. Something will shine out to take the load off, that flags me, which is at present intolerable. I have killed an hour ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... often a visitor at our home. He was a great brag and not noted for truth telling. He was very fond of telling how he shot the renegade Inkpadutah. This was all imagination. He had an old flint lock musket with the flint gone and would illustrate his story by crawling and skulking, generally, to the ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various
... fit, an' a muckle stoup fu' o' posset i' the middle, an' aw kinds o' sweeties doon the sides; an' as sune as ilk ane had eatin their fill they aw flew till the sweeties, an' fought, an' strave, an' wrastled for them, leddies an' gentlemen an' aw; for the brag was wha could pocket maist; an' whiles they wad hae the claith aff the table, an' aw thing i' the middle i' the floor, an' the chyres upside doon. Oo! muckle gude diversion, I'se warran,' was at the cummerfealls. Than whan they had drank the stoup dry, that ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... want to brag, just take that flag an' boast of its field o' blue, An' praise the dead an' the blood they shed for the peace o' the likes o' you. Enough you've raved," and once more he waved his wrench in a forceful way, "O' the cunning creed ...
— When Day is Done • Edgar A. Guest
... so so', answered Gudbrand; 'not much to brag of. When I got to the town there was no one who would buy the cow, so you must know I swopped it ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent
... shall not fade, Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest; Nor shall death brag thou wanderest in his shade, When in eternal lines to ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... the annoyance of Vavasor. Doubtless it was in part to keep the other from her that he himself sought her: the major did not take to Vavasor. There was a natural repulsion between them. Vavasor thought the major a most objectionable, indeed low fellow, full of brag and vulgarity, and the major thought Vavasor a supercilious idiot. It is curious how differently a man's character will be read by two people in the same company, but it is not hard to explain, seeing his carriage to the individual affects only the man who ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... else. When Cellini goes out and kills a man before breakfast, he absolves himself by showing that the man richly deserved his fate. The braggart and bully are really cowards at the last. A man who is wholly brave would not think to brag of it. He would be as brave in his calm moments as in moments of frenzy—take old John Brown, for instance. But when Cellini had a job on hand he first worked himself into a torrent of righteous wrath. He poses as the injured one, the victim of ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... torture begins, before you brag!" this to Miriam. Then turning to some of the soldiers, he cried: "Strip her, don't leave a rag upon her, and treat her from top to toe with ...
— The Mark of the Beast • Sidney Watson
... rather wild. They are older than our fellows, but they like Prince, he's such a jolly boy; sings so well, dances jigs and breakdowns, you know, and plays any game that's going. He beat Morse at billiards, and that's something to brag of, for Morse thinks he knows everything. I saw the match, ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott
... the room at a pretty little girl with short curly hair, slender body, and small feet, and added, significantly, "Sarah Wambush is our brag dancer." ...
— Westerfelt • Will N. Harben
... Down-Easters, as the yankees are termed generally, whittle when they are making a bargain, as it fills up the pauses, gives them time for reflection, and moreover, prevents any examination of the countenance—for in bargaining, like in the game of brag, the countenance is carefully watched, as an index to the wishes. I was once witness to a bargain made between two respectable yankees, who wished to agree about a farm, and in which ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... remember'd it at leisure. I don't want to brag, but I hope I've been found faithful. It's rather hard to tell poor John Bur, the workhouse boy, after clothing, feeding, and making him your man of trust, for two and twenty years, that you wonder he don't run away from you, ...
— John Bull - The Englishman's Fireside: A Comedy, in Five Acts • George Colman
... Holland, being only governed by a count, or rather that they governed him. Nay, if they had any king at all in whom they could boast, it certainly was the king of England, who had hitherto been their protector, and without whose aid they had never been able to brag of their States. This retort made the Spaniards and Portuguese laugh heartily at the poor Hollander, and made him shut ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... a man as that of attachment to his own soil and people, a sub-sentiment always remaining, whatever new and unbreakable attachments he may form. One can be very proud of his adopted country, and brag for it, and fight for it; but lying deep in a man's nature is something, no doubt, that no oath nor material interest can change, and that is never naturalized. We see this experiment in America more than anywhere else, because here meet more different ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... to brag on, but I could see she understood, though she only shook her head and wouldn't speak. But great Moses, she ...
— The Red One • Jack London
... one—how balk the tide? how fritter the capital just at the turn of doubling? Soon it grew irksome even to think of you; yet still when I did, I said, 'Life is long, I shall win riches; he shall share them some day or other!'—Basta, basta!—what idle twaddle or hollow brag all ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... "but since I had served an apprenticeship as a chopper, the time required to discover Sandy was less than half an hour, I watched him one day when he didn't know who I was—so I figured him for a man and a half and raised him a dollar a day. He doesn't know it, however. If he did, he'd brag about it, and I'd have to pay as much to men half as good. When he's chopped for us twenty years, fire him and give him that. He's earned it. Thus endeth the first lesson, my son. ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... day, when the last sod was dropped into place on the roof, and Garth carried Natalie inside. Strictly considered, the house was not very much to brag about, perhaps; for it slanted this way and that like the first pothooks in a child's copybook; but Garth, fired by Natalie's enthusiastic praises, could not have been prouder if he had ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... object, the word to should be used before the first verb and omitted before the others; as, "He taught me to read, write, and cipher." "The most accomplished way of using books at present is to serve them as some do lords— learn their titles and then brag ...
— Slips of Speech • John H. Bechtel
... style, it bein' my opinion that where a man's a born gentleman he's got a heap of reason fo' to be grateful but none to brag," said Cavendish. ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... aught that dares to tug the other way, Quite void of fears With all that noise of ruin round his ears! Yonder the people cast their caps o'erhead, And swear the threaten'd doom is ne'er to dread That's come, though not yet past. All front the horror and are none aghast; Brag of their full-blown rights and liberties, Nor once surmise When each man gets his due the Nation dies; Nay, still shout 'Progress!' as if seven plagues Should take the laggard who would stretch his legs. Forward! glad rush of Gergesenian swine; You've ...
— The Unknown Eros • Coventry Patmore
... World, give answer! They are whimpering to and fro— And what should they know of England who only England know?— The poor little street-bred people that vapour and fume and brag, They are lifting their heads in the stillness to yelp ...
— Departmental Ditties and Barrack Room Ballads • Rudyard Kipling
... know much 'bout painters, either, youngster. Brag's a good dog, but Holdfast's a better one," ...
— The Young Trail Hunters • Samuel Woodworth Cozzens
... sucke us so nye That men shall scantly Haue penny or halpennye God saue hys noble grace And graunt him a place Endlesse to dwel With the deuill of hel For and he were there We nead neuer feare Of the feendes blacke For I undertake He wold so brag and crake That he wold than make The deuils to quake To shudder and to shake Lyke a fier drake And with a cole rake Bruse them on a brake And binde them to a stake And set hel on fyre At his own desire He is ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... one that never tells her age; 'tain't come quite up to where she'll begin to brag of it, you see," explained Betsey reluctantly; "but I know her to be nigh to seventy-six, one way or t'other. Her an' Mrs. Mary Ann Chick was same year's child'n, and Peggy knows I know it, an' two or three times when ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... seem to brag, Carrie, but you saw the coat that just walked out on Mrs. Gronauer? My little mother she was a humpback, Carrie, not a real one, but all stooped from the heavy years when she was helping my father to get his start. Well, ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... "I don't want to brag of my father," suggested Christy, laughing; "I only wanted to show that he is posted. Coming to the point at once, putting this and that together of what I learned on shore, and of what I have discovered ...
— On The Blockade - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray Afloat • Oliver Optic
... men, short and stumpy, but with shoulders like an ape, was standing on a table boasting about his strength. He was stripped to the waist and Tom could see the powerful arms and chest beneath the black hair that covered his body. As he continued to brag, the prisoners laughed and jeered, calling him Monkey. The man's face reddened and he offered to fight anyone in the room. A short, thin man with a hawk nose sitting next to Tom yelled, "Monkey," and ...
— On the Trail of the Space Pirates • Carey Rockwell
... those who wished to sell, and employing all those who desired to work. If he was impatient for the verification of these promises by Northwick, he was too polite to urge it; and did nothing worse than brag to him as he bragged about him. He probably had his own opinion of Northwick's reasons for the silence he maintained concerning himself in all respects; he knew from the tag fastened to the bag Northwick had bought in Quebec that ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... not a movement of brag, bluster, or bluff. It is a test of our sincerity. It requires solid and silent self-sacrifice. It challenges our honesty and our capacity for national work. It is a movement that aims at translating ideas into action. And the more we do, the more we find that much more must be done than we have ...
— Freedom's Battle - Being a Comprehensive Collection of Writings and Speeches on the Present Situation • Mahatma Gandhi
... Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimm'd; And every fair from fair sometime declines, By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd: But thy eternal Summer shall not fade Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest; Nor shall Death brag thou wanderest in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou growest: So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... imagined to be a little sordid, pilfering rogue, who would purloin from every body, and beg every body's bread and butter from him; while, as I have heard a reptile brag, he would in a winter-morning spit upon his thumbs, and spread his own with it, that he might keep it ...
— Clarissa, Volume 2 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... the time and he wood be if he gnew what i was saying. then father began to laff and to tell what he and Gim Melcher and Bill Yung and Beanys father and Pewts father done when they was boys and he asted if all of them fellers wasent pretty good men and Aunt Sarah sed none of them is mutch to brag of and father laffed and sed that shows you aint a good judge ...
— Brite and Fair • Henry A. Shute
... was one of the leading pastimes of the day, rooms were set aside at these dancing assemblies for those who preferred "brag" and other fashionable games with cards. But far the greater number preferred to dance, and to those who did, the various figures and steps were seemingly a rather serious matter, not to be looked upon as a source of mere amusement. The Marquis de Chastellux has left us a description of one of these ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... enjoyed the whole thing amazingly, and none the less because, as they had expressed it to each other as they came along, "Young Huntingdon would be none the worse fellow for getting a little of the shine and brag taken out of him"—were on the spot in good time, with several like-minded companions. These all gathered round Walter as he came on to the ground, and wished him good success, assuring him that no doubt he would keep his ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson
... and those who brag of being good Spaniards ought to imitate him. You can see very well now, since the Suez Canal was opened, corruption has come here. Before, when we had to double the Cape, there were not so many worthless people coming out here, nor did Filipinos go abroad to ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal
... The gods pledged themselves to perform remarkable deeds of courage and valor as they tossed off horn after horn of mead and ale. Each time their mighty valor grew until there was no limit set to their attainments. It is possible that their boastful pledges may have given rise to the term, to brag. ...
— Yule-Tide in Many Lands • Mary P. Pringle and Clara A. Urann
... tell you," said Wildeve. "But I—well, I will speak frankly—I did not like to mention it when I saw, Eustacia, that your star was not high. The sight of a man lying wearied out with hard work, as your husband lay, made me feel that to brag of my own fortune to you would be greatly out of place. Yet, as you stood there beside him, I could not help feeling too that in many respects he was ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... who in all names can tickle the town, Anacreon, Tom Little, Tom Moore, or Tom Brown,—[25] For hang me if I know of which you may most brag, Your Quarto two-pounds, or your ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron
... picks out cosey-corners in his hot-house for the men that brag about being such devils among ...
— The Silly Syclopedia • Noah Lott
... poor—the very donkey-boys scorn him. You can do nothing without money," the girl said with almost fierce derision, "and you tell me you will give it away!" She laughed again angrily, as if such a brag was offensive and insulting to her own poverty. The boy who had never in his life known what it was to want anything that money could procure for him, treated the whole question lightly, and undervalued its importance altogether. But the girl who knew by experience ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... that signify nothing, yet that so overcry the suggestion of our deeper life as by the sad and weary to be mistaken for the discourse of life itself,—these obtrude themselves upon us, and multiply and brag and brawl about us, until we have neither room for better guests, nor spirits for their entertainment. We are like schoolboys with eyes out at the windows, drawn by some rattle of drum and squeak of fife, who would study, were they but ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... who were searching for them. Anthony had seen with his own eyes some of the papers connected with their presence—that containing a statement of their objects in coming, namely, that they were spiritual not political agents, seeking recruits for Christ and for none else; Campion's "Challenge and Brag," offering to meet any English Divine on equal terms in a public disputation; besides one or two of the controversial pamphlets, purporting to be printed at Douai, but really emanating from a private printing-press in England, as the Government experts had discovered from an ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... to thy dressing-room, and I'll to mine— Attire thee for the altar—so will I. Whoe'er may claim me, thou'rt the man shall have me. Away! Despatch! But hark you, ere you go, Ne'er brag of reading Ovid's ...
— The Hunchback • James Sheridan Knowles
... needn't brag about your old tub. She don't belong to you; and I'm going to have a boat that will beat that one ...
— The Yacht Club - or The Young Boat-Builder • Oliver Optic
... Brag is a good dog, but Holdfast is a better. Bear that in mind, will you?" repeated Mr. Jaggers, shutting his eyes and nodding his head at Joe, as if he were forgiving him something. "Now, I return to this young fellow. And the ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... a wise man to the true louer. As true loue is constant with his enioy, And asketh no witnesse nor no record, And as faint loue is euermore most coy, To boast and brag his troth at euery word: Euen so the wise without enother meede: Contents him with the ...
— The Arte of English Poesie • George Puttenham
... the mills that shut down last New Year. He was out of work a long time and then came this fortune in Scotland they claim was left Mrs. Sherwood by an old uncle, or great uncle. I guess it's nothing much to brag about." ...
— Nan Sherwood's Winter Holidays • Annie Roe Carr
... he wasn't? He brag his land was ten miles square and he had a thousand slaves. Them poor white folks looked up to him lak God Almighty; they sho' did. They would have stuck their hands in de fire if he had of asked them to do it. He had a fish pond on ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 1 • Various
... what a fellow of Link's stamp might do. He is just fool enough to brag about what he hoped to do rather than go and do it. It's an outrage that he should call ...
— Dave Porter At Bear Camp - The Wild Man of Mirror Lake • Edward Stratemeyer
... borrow the Squire's old stuffed owl for a target; there would be some chance of your hitting him, he is so big," said his sister, who always made fun of the boy when he began to brag. ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... a hoss trough on a mild day. Johnny gittin' his hair cut with a slug sure shook Rennie up some, almost as much as it shook Johnny. As for th' kid ridin' north—well, I'd say that was some more of his tryin' to make a real big brag. Maybe he thought he could run down Kitchell all by hisself. Which is jus' about as straight thinkin' as kickin' a loaded polecat on th' tail end. But Johnny's always been like that. Do it now, think 'bout it later. Got ...
— Rebel Spurs • Andre Norton
... of the diplomats here is intrinsically hostile to the Union. Not one really wishes its disruption. Some brag so, but that is for small effect. All of them are for peace, for statu quo, for the grandeur of the country (as the greatest consumer of European imports); but most of them would wish slavery to be preserved, and for this reason they would have been ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski
... one who has not lived in the midst of it. Desire of gain is only one of the motives that stimulates them;—the eclat of having made the largest crop with a given number of hands, is also a powerful stimulant; the southern newspapers, at the crop season, chronicle carefully the "cotton brag," and the "crack cotton picking," and "unparalleled driving," &c. Even the editors of professedly religious papers, cheer on the melee and sing the triumphs of the victor. Among these we recollect the celebrated Rev. J.N. Maffit, recently editor of a religious paper at Natchez, Miss. in which he ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... Cornhill Magazine owners strive to provide thee with facts as well as fiction; and though it does not become them to brag of their Ordinary, at least they invite thee to a table where thou shalt sit in good company. That story of the "Fox"* was written by one of the gallant seamen who sought for poor Franklin under the awful Arctic Night: that account ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the other men. "The kid is bound to be a regular, all right. He doesn't brag, and I don't believe he's looking for ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys in the Ranks - or, Two Recruits in the United States Army • H. Irving Hancock
... you say; "it is all very well for a writer to affect to be indifferent to a critique from the Times. You bear it as a boy bears a flogging at school, without crying out; but don't swagger and brag as ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... great in villainy! Thou ever strong upon the stronger side! Thou fortune's champion, thou dost never fight But when her humorous ladyship is by To teach thee safety! Thou art perjured too, And sooth'st up greatness. What a fool art thou, A ramping fool; to brag, and stamp, and sweat, Upon my ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... possible those fellows down yonder can be in earnest. They are only playing the game of "brag." In their hearts they are really devoted to the Union. They have not the least idea of ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... hear the robins brag about the sweetness of their song, Nor do they stop their music gay whene'er a poor man comes along. God taught them how to sing an' when they'd learned the art He sent them here To use their talents day by day the dreary lives o' men to cheer. An' rich or poor an' sad or ...
— The Path to Home • Edgar A. Guest
... white gravelled turnpike trails the sunken, copse-grown route, Where the troops of Ross and Cockburn marched to victory, and about, Halting twice at Upper Marlb'ro', where 'tis still tradition's brag, That 'twas Barney got the victory though ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... on the famous trotting-ground, The betting men were gathered round From far and near; the "cracks" were there Whose deeds the sporting prints declare The swift g. m., Old Hiram's nag, The fleet s. h., Dan Pfeiffer's brag, With these a third—and who is he That stands beside his fast b. g.? Budd Doble, whose catarrhal name So fills the nasal trump of fame. There too stood many a noted steed Of Messenger and Morgan breed; Green horses also, not a few; Unknown as yet what they could do; And all the hacks that ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... "Phew!" And a long, low whistle blew. "Come, now, really that's the oddest Talk for one so very modest. You brag of your East! YOU do? Why, I bring the East to YOU! All the Orient, all Cathay, Find through me the shortest way; And the sun you follow here Rises in my hemisphere. Really,—if one must be rude,— Length, ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... the right kind. You know the books you find in cattle- camps an' fo'c's'ls ain't the same you've got in this house, for instance. Well, that's the sort of readin' matter I've ben accustomed to. And yet—an' I ain't just makin' a brag of it—I've ben different from the people I've herded with. Not that I'm any better than the sailors an' cow-punchers I travelled with,—I was cow-punchin' for a short time, you know,—but I always liked books, read everything I could lay hands on, an'—well, I guess ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... to Victoria's Court, when he made his brag speech to the great agricultural dinner at Gloucester last year, didn't intend that for the British, but for us. So in Congress no man in either house can speak or read an oration more than an hour long, but he can send the whole lockrum, includin' what he didn't say, to ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... them; tho' there it is likewise very conspicuous. I only desire you to compare the Things he is indulg'd in, and which, if he pleases, he may brag of, with what he is taught to be ashamed of, the grand Offence, which, if once committed, is never to be pardon'd. If he has but Courage, and knows how to please his Officers, he may get drunk Two or Three Times a Week, have a fresh Whore ...
— An Enquiry into the Origin of Honour, and the Usefulness of Christianity in War • Bernard Mandeville
... have what is his own! And that is as close as he ever comes to saying anything. About this one thing, I mean. He'll chatter like a magpie about anything else, even his own youthful evil deeds. He seems to know somehow that no longer has the law any interest in his old carcass, and begins to brag a bit of the wild days up and down the forks of the American and of his own share in it all; half lies and the other half blood-dripping truth, I'd swear. It makes a man shiver to listen ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... from the fight," said she; "would that you had fallen rather by the hand of that brave man who was my husband. You used to brag that you were a better man with hands and spear than Menelaus. Go, then, and challenge him again—but I should advise you not to do so, for if you are foolish enough to meet him in single combat, you will soon fall by ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... still more heroic, is come to town on purpose: she says, all her friends are in London, and she will not survive them. But what will you think of Lady Catherine Pelham, Lady Frances Arundel, and Lord and Lady Galway, who go this evening to an inn ten miles out of town, where they are to play at brag till five in the morning, and then come back—I suppose, to look for the bones of their husbands and families under the rubbish. The prophet of all this (next to the Bishop of London) is a trooper of Lord Delawar's, ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... "t'penny-ha'penny" position in his eyes evidently; his anticipation of the "master extra" and the pass in steam, which might lead to anything—the whole tale was told her in terse, straightforward fashion, but with an art new to the modest sailor-man, who hated brag as much as cowardice. He bragged in self-defence, in challenge of the formidable equipment of his rival. And how interested she was! How well she understood his case—that it was better than the swellest training-ship to make your own way by ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... subject men are less inclined to be fussy, and by the same token more inclined, on having accomplished a cure, to take a justifiable pride in it and to brag publicly about it. As I stated a moment ago, I claim Mr. Blythe viewed the matter in a proper and commendable light when he took pen in hand to describe more or less at length his reduction processes. So, too, did that other notable of the literary world, ...
— One Third Off • Irvin S. Cobb
... that fighting is no longer in fashion. The mountain tribe will have learned to love the fatness of the valley, while thinking of those mother ribs of its mountain fastness which are ever waiting to prop up its life. Just so put a wooden sword into the hand of the Hohenstieler, and let him brag of war, learning meanwhile ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr |
