"Conceit" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... imagination to be its author? It is not a conglomerate idea, but a single one. Now, if there is no God, we have a clear, definite idea of nothing. How will you account for this? Are you not now unable to give a reason for your premises? Is it not the truth that fools are wiser in their own conceit than men who can give ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume I, No. 8, August, 1880 • Various
... days we had a youth of talent in the family,—a sort of sophomorical boil, that the soap and sugar of indiscriminate adulation had drawn to a head of conceit. This youth bestowed a great deal of attention on a certain young woman of a classical turn of mind, who once had a longing to attend a fancy-ball as a sibyl. About the same time Sophomore missed the first volume of his Potter's "Antiquities of Greece"; and, having ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various
... contains each and all of the others, but that whatever is in the universe is in every individual part of it; that even the meanest holds the elements of the noblest; that the highest life is even in what in short-sighted conceit we call death."—W. N. Hailmann, Law of Childhood, ...
— Froebel's Gifts • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... apt to be sincere; but I doubt whether we are to be saved by any amount of vicarious salt water, and, though the philosophers should weep us into another Noah's flood, yet commonly men have lumber enough of self-conceit to build a raft of, and can subsist a good while on that beautiful charity for their own weaknesses in which the nerves of conscience are embedded and cushioned, as in similar physical straits they can ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... all, but a most serious panegyrist, who never laughs, but does sometimes make his readers laugh, when they see his very unbecoming, mocking grimaces against the "old masters"—not that it can be fairly asserted that it is a laughable book. It has much conceit, and but little merriment; there is nothing really funny after you have got over, (vide page 6,) that he "looks with contempt on Claude, Salvator, and Gaspar Poussin." This contempt, however, being too limited for the "graduate of Oxford," ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... "Your conceit is superb, Adherbal," Thyra laughed. "You get worse and worse. Had I ever dreamed of it I should never have consented so submissively when my father ordered me to regard you as my ...
— The Young Carthaginian - A Story of The Times of Hannibal • G.A. Henty
... The antique fabric needed the sparkle of those costumes on her deck to make her aspect fit in with the imaginations she bred. But, as I had anticipated, the cold proved too powerful for their conceit, and they were presently glad to ship their more modern trousers, though they clung obstinately to their waistcoats, and could not be persuaded to remove their hats on ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... at the chapar-khana half an hour later. In this visit he is preceded by his farrash, and he walks with a magnificent peacock strut that causes the skirts of his faultless roundabout to flop up and down, up and down, in rhythmic accompaniment to his steps. Apart from his insufferable conceit, however, he tries to make himself as agreeable as possible, and after tea and cigarettes, I give him and the people a tomasha, at the conclusion of which he asks permission ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... triumph for Vesalius; of triumph deserved, because earned by patient and accurate toil in a good cause: but Vesalius, being but a mortal man, may have contracted in those same days a temper of imperiousness and self-conceit, such as he showed afterwards when his pupil Fallopius dared to add fresh discoveries to those of his master. And yet, in spite of all Vesalius knew, how little he knew! How humbling to his pride it would have been had he known then—perhaps he does know now—that he had actually again ...
— Historical Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... lovers. He pictured the Judge riding down the dust-white road as the sunset shadows grew long. He knew the exact spot—the last bit of woodland—from where Martin, across level-lying fields, could obtain his first glimpse of the old farmhouse and porch. His moving-picture conceit next placed M'ri, dressed in white, with touches of blue, on the west porch. He had decided that in the Long Ago Days she had been wont to wear blue, which he imagined to be the Judge's favorite color. Then he caused the unimpressionable Judge to tie his horse to the hitching post at the side ...
— David Dunne - A Romance of the Middle West • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... I believe; but Thurio thinks not so. Proteus, the good conceit I hold of thee— For thou hast shown some sign of good desert— Makes me the better ...
— Two Gentlemen of Verona - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... overwhelmed by the first full view of the extent of the injuries he had inflicted, the first perception that pride and malevolence had been the true source of his prejudice and misconceptions, and for the first time conscious of the long-fostered conceit that had been his bane from boyhood. All had flashed on him with the discovery of the true purpose of the demand which he thought had justified his persecution. He saw the glory of Guy's character and the part he had acted,—the scales of self-admiration fell from ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... seldom that a person's fault or folly injures himself alone, and, alas for me! I was the victim of Craven's conceit and obstinacy. At his next fire I felt a pang that I never can forget. His ill-directed shot had entered my shoulder, and I sank down howling with agony. My companions instantly surrounded me, uttering exclamations of alarm, regret, and pity, Craven ...
— Cat and Dog - Memoirs of Puss and the Captain • Julia Charlotte Maitland
... over a fool, if the fool's ancestors had happened to hold the same office over those of the man of wisdom. The fancy seemed to be held that folly and wisdom are handed down from father to son, a conceit which is often the very reverse of ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... to ride, and he's picked up some of her tricks. Course he ain't got her way with 'em. But he might make a tidy little 'orseman one o' these days, as I tells him, if so be he was to tumble on his head a nice few times and get the conceit knocked out ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant
... when he had occasion to be absent on a Lord's Day from his Flock, employ'd an honest Neighbour of some small Talents for a Mechanick, to read a Sermon out of some good Book unto 'em. This Honest, whom they ever counted also a Pious Man, had so much conceit of his Talents, that instead of Reading a Sermon appointed, he to the Surprize of the People, fell to preaching one of his own. For his Text he took these Words, 'Despise not Prophecyings'; and in his Preachment he betook himself to bewail ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... fully occupied with the new scenes around her, but her Scottish cousin took up every moment open to conversation. He was older than Norman, and had just taken his degree, and he talked with that superior aplomb, which a few years bestow at their time of life, without conceit, but more hopeful and ambitious, and with ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... lined in frocks suspended from hangers, and just wide enough for two very perfect thirty-sixes to stand abreast, August fell heavily. So heavily that occasionally a cloak-model, her lot to show next December's conceit in theater wraps, fainted on the show-dais; or a cloth-of-gold evening gown, donned for the twentieth time that sweltering day, would suddenly, with its model, crumple, a glittering ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst
... us one after another, and when her eye rested on me, I began to suspect that insolent as she was she was even duller; in fact, that she was so sodden in her conceit of wealth that she was plain stupid. So when she said to me, "You are an American by birth, I believe. Can you tell me the meaning of ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells
... quickly ended, and without desperate need. They served, however, to pierce certain gold-laced bubbles which had been strutting about the stage pretending to be great and impressing many people with their greatness; but which were, in reality, great only in self-conceit, and in that colossal! So did the Revolution and the Civil War, at first, and costly work it was until the last of them had vanished, to be replaced by men who knew how to fight; for it seems one of the axioms of history that the fiercer your soldier is in peace, the more useless he is ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson
... smiled. "My confounded conceit may help me on in the world, but it doesn't make me a grateful friend or ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope
... grating metal had set my teeth on edge. My diseased consciousness was more intensely and continually occupied with his thoughts and emotions, than with those of any other person who came in my way. I was perpetually exasperated with the petty promptings of his conceit and his love of patronage, with his self-complacent belief in Bertha Grant's passion for him, with his half- pitying contempt for me—seen not in the ordinary indications of intonation and phrase and slight action, which ...
— The Lifted Veil • George Eliot
... Thomasine, her sons, and her gallant. Farther reflections on keeping. A state not calculated for a sick bed. Gives a short journal of what had passed relating to the lady since his last. Mr. Brand inquires after her character and behaviour of Mrs. Smith. His starchedness, conceit, and pedantry. ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... say, "I am satisfied of the fact from my own disposition." He might as well give a child's reason at once, and say, "CAUSE!" Such persons have seldom heard a lecture, or read a syllable, and yet are always prating with a great show of wisdom, but rather, in fact, of blind conceit. Their silence would be of far more service to the cause of virtue than their opinions. In many cases, it will be found that such persons are ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green
... good share of conceit, and knowing Nellie to be quite friendly to himself, he imagined that his advantage over Fred would be so great that he could readily monopolize the attention of the young lady in question, and therefore ...
— Under Fire - A Tale of New England Village Life • Frank A. Munsey
... case of woman. It was the subterfuge and defiance of negro slavery. It has been raised in all ages by tyrants and usurpers against the toiling, over-burdened millions, seeking redress for their wrongs, and protection for their rights. It always indicates intense self-conceit, and supreme selfishness. It is at war with reason and common-sense, and is a bold denial of the oneness ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... streets, and ordered them never to come into our quarter again." Abou Hassan's mother little thought her son had any share in this adventure, and therefore had turned the discourse on purpose to put him out of the conceit of being the commander of the faithful; but instead of effacing that idea, she recalled it, and impressed the more deeply in his mind, that it was not imaginary ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... they are less acquainted with the works of man's hands than with those of God; their occupations, too, which are simple, and requiring less of ingenuity and skill than those which engage the attention of the other portion of their fellow-creatures, are less favourable to the engendering of self-conceit and sufficiency so utterly at variance with that lowliness of spirit which constitutes the best foundation of piety. The sneerers and scoffers at religion do not spring from amongst the simple children of nature, but are ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... contracting her pretty brows, "I can't imagine him any different." And then she laughed. "It's not a bit of use trying to put me out of conceit with him, Court Godmother—so you may ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... his hope had lied to him, that the judgment he prided himself upon, and which had prompted him to this great deed, was at fault. The more than common tact and delicacy of feeling he had sometimes suspected he possessed in rare, exalted moments, were now shown vain ideas born from his own conceit; and the event had proved him no more subtle, clever, or far-seeing than other men. Indeed, he rated himself as an abject blunderer and thought he saw how a great overwhelming fear, at the bottom of his worship of Chris, ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... King Shehriyar, "thou puttest me out of conceit with my kingdom and makest me repent of having slain so many women and maidens. Hast thou any stories of birds?" "Yes," answered ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume III • Anonymous
... purely literary and artistic, and that she devoted herself to his society simply because he offered an interesting problem and an inspiring theme. An ingenious charity may find in that attitude evidence of modesty; to my thinking it argues a more subtle and magnificent conceit than if he had fathomed the truth, as many humbler men in his place ...
— Comedies of Courtship • Anthony Hope
... known each the other from childhood. And she perhaps came nearer to liking him for himself than did any one else of his acquaintance. She was used to his conceit, his selfishness, his meanness and smallness in suspicion, his arrogance, his narrow-mindedness. She knew his good qualities—his kindness of heart, his shamed-face generosity, his honesty, the strong if limited sense of justice which made ...
— The Great God Success • John Graham (David Graham Phillips)
... could go back to what I then was! Why can we not revive past times as we can revisit old places? If I had the quaint Muse of Sir Philip Sidney to assist me, I would write a Sonnet to the Road between Wem and Shrewsbury, and immortalize every step of it by some fond enigmatical conceit. I would swear that the very milestones had ears, and that Harmer-hill stooped with all its pines, to listen to a poet, as he passed! I remember but one other topic of discourse in this walk. He mentioned Paley, praised the naturalness and clearness of his style, but condemned his sentiments, ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... the humility of courtly adulation merged in the ecstasies of Platonic love. She was charming by indefeasible right;—a jure divino beauty. Her fascinations multiplied with her wrinkles, and her admirers might have anticipated the conceit of Cowley, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 17, No. 483., Saturday, April 2, 1831 • Various
... terms of symmetry. With a most amazing conceit they have decided upon the contours of their bodies as the standards of beauty. Therefore I am pleased to look at trees or at anything that grows, unhandicapped by the mediocritizing force of reason, and note ...
— Fantazius Mallare - A Mysterious Oath • Ben Hecht
... those who consider—and I agree with them—that the education of boys under the age of twelve years ought to be entrusted as much as possible to women. Let me ask—of what period of youth and manhood does not the same hold true? I pity the ignorance and conceit of the man who fancies that he has nothing left to learn from cultivated women. I should have thought that the very mission of woman was to be, in the highest sense, the educator of man from infancy to old age; that that was the work towards which all the God-given ...
— Sanitary and Social Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... from any tinge of conceit or egotism by its absolute simplicity and truth. The imitation referred to is of the moral "Tales" for popular reading of the lower classes, which my cabman had studied. The pity of it is, when so many ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... went this morning to my Lord of Warwick; but he was gone to the king's, and hearing of the merry-makings here, I came hither for kill-time. A chance word of my Lord of Montagu—whom Saint Dunstan confound!—made me conceit that a feat of skill with the cloth-yard might not ill preface my letter to the great earl. But, pardie! it seems I reckoned without my host, and in seeking to make my fortunes too rashly, I have helped to mar them." Wherewith he related the particulars of his ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Iblis, who was the noblest of all that Allah (magnified be His name!) created of angels[FN126] and men and Jinn, and the love of the Truth was inherent in him, for he knew naught but this; but whenas he saw himself unique in such dignity, there entered into him pride and conceit, vainglory and arrogance which revolted from loyalty and obedience to the commandment of His Creator; wherefore Allah made him inferior to all creatures and cast him out from love, making his abiding- place to be in disobedience. So when he knew that Allah (glorified be His ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... conceit, and then rode on quickly. In a few minutes he stopped and listened again, but heard no noise save the loud ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... some state were given in the larger towns, the table was not set or served like the formal dinner of to-day, for all the sweets, pastry, vegetables, and meats were placed on the table together, with a grand "conceit" for the ornament in the centre. At one period, when pudding was part of the dinner, it was served first. Thus an old-time saying is explained, which always seemed rather meaningless, "I came early—in pudding-time." There was considerable ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle
... already? I've just been telling the dress-maker that she can go. What you were saying to me has quite put me out of conceit of my new frock; I can quite well get on without one—" said good-natured Mrs. Abel; but her lips trembled ...
— Tales of Two Countries • Alexander Kielland
... from conceit has often been remarked. At a luncheon given in his honor by the well-known deputy, Captain Lasies, he would not say a word about himself, but extolled his comrades until somebody said: "You ...
— Georges Guynemer - Knight of the Air • Henry Bordeaux
... laugh. The doctor had one annoying habit—imagined he had the right to poke fun at everybody simply because he was a doctor. "The man's riddled with conceit, like all these professionals," ...
— In a German Pension • Katherine Mansfield
... discouragement fell on me. A spiritual drowsiness. Giles' voice was going on complacently; the very voice of the universal hollow conceit. And I was no longer angry with it. There was nothing original, nothing new, startling, informing, to expect from the world; no opportunities to find out something about oneself, no wisdom to acquire, no fun to enjoy. Everything was stupid and overrated, ...
— The Shadow-Line - A Confession • Joseph Conrad
... to an astounding degree the quality of incorrectly diagnosing other peoples, due partly to the unbounded conceit engendered by their three wars of unification and their rapid increase of prosperity. Their mental food in recent years has been war, conquest, disparagement of others and glorification of self. They entered the struggle thinking only in army corps and siege artillery. Certain undefinable ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin
... Cerizet, "if I were once installed near Thuillier, I shouldn't despair of soon putting him and la Peyrade at loggerheads. In the management of a newspaper there are lots of inevitable disagreements, and by always taking the side of the fool against the clever man, I can increase the conceit of one and wound the conceit of the other until life together becomes impossible. Besides, you spoke just now of political danger; now the manager of a newspaper, as you ought to know, when he has the intellect to be something better than a man of ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... answerest me, either compelled by Fate or entrapped by my cunning into so doing, or thereby gratifying thy vanity and conceit, I leave thee and return to my favourite place and position in the siras-tree, but when thou shalt remain silent, confused, and at a loss to reply, either through humility or thereby confessing thine ignorance, and impotence, and want ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton
... dashed the hansom; and from the curb-line Hickey watched it with a humorous light in his dull eyes. Indeed, the detective seemed in extraordinary conceit with himself. He chewed with unaccustomed emotion upon his cold cigar, scratched his cheek, and chuckled; and, chuckling, pulled his hat well down over his brows, thrust both hands into his trousers pockets, and shambled back to the St. Luke ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... and that is the belief that we can lay down the burden of our wretched little makeshift individualities for ever at each lift towards the goal of evolution, which can only be a being that cannot be improved upon. After all, what man is capable of the insane self-conceit of believing that an eternity of himself would be tolerable even to himself? Those who try to believe it postulate that they shall be made perfect first. But if you make me perfect I shall no longer be myself, nor will it be possible for ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw
... a sort of stones should be brought thither, and of what matter theyr cement that ioyned and held them together, was made the heygth of the Obelisk and statelinesse of the Pyramides, exceeding the imagined conceit of Dimocrates proposed to Alexander the great, about a worke to be performed vpon the hill Athos. For the strangenes of the Egiptian building might giue place to this. The famous laborinths were far inferior, Lemnos is not ...
— Hypnerotomachia - The Strife of Loue in a Dreame • Francesco Colonna
... ambition to play against a "champion" of the first water, When we appeared on the ground I noticed that the Countess had a small ivory mallet. "This," I said to myself, "is a foregone conclusion; any one who plays with a fancy mallet, and that of ivory, is sure to be beaten." And in my conceit I thought I need not give myself much trouble about the game. Alas! I never appreciated the saying that "pride has a fall" until that day. At first I played with utter indifference, I was so sure of winning, and even when the Countess de Paris walked triumphantly over ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... must not be supposed that his quaint manners proceeded from affectation or conceit; for all testimony declares that a more simple and natural child never lived, or a more lively and merry one. He had at his command the resources of the Common; to this day the most unchanged spot within ten ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... there ought to be a moral in it somewhere for the benefit of struggling fellow-scribblers. But the best I can find is this: That if you are blessed with some talent, a great deal of industry, and an amount of conceit mighty enough to enable you to disregard superiors, equals and critics, as well as the fancied demands of the public, it is possible, without friends, or introductions, or bothering celebrities to read your manuscripts, or cultivating ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III., July 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... these accomplishments, carried to the highest degree in one and the same man, have given him great presumption; that is the trouble with him up to a certain point, and that certain point, I am very much afraid, is the highest degree in the thermometer of self-conceit." ...
— Honor de Balzac • Albert Keim and Louis Lumet
... the most conspicuous features in his character seems to have been a remarkable, and, as some think, a culpable degree of flexibility. That such a disposition is preferable to its opposite extreme, will be admitted by all who think that modesty, even in excess, is more nearly allied to wisdom than conceit and self-sufficiency. He who has attentively considered the political, or, indeed, the general concerns of life, may possibly go still further, and rank a willingness to be convinced, or in some cases even without conviction, ...
— A History of the Early Part of the Reign of James the Second • Charles James Fox
... what they looked." Aristarchi laughed at his own conceit. "The girl was doing some kind of work. The young man stood beside her, resting one hand against the tree. I could not see his face all the time, but I saw hers. She is in love with him. They were talking earnestly ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford
... terror of this conceit, everything tended to confirm and strengthen it. His double crime, the circumstances under which it had been committed, the length of time that had elapsed, and its discovery in spite of all, made him as it were the visible object ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... dislike when alone, from the fear of being frightened by something which may appear from behind a tree. I saw a beautiful white fox, several skunks, some chipmunks and gray squirrels, owls, crows, and crested blue-jays. As the sun was getting low I reached Bergens Park, which was to put me out of conceit with Estes Park. Never! It is long and featureless, and its immediate surroundings are mean. It reminded me in itself of some dismal Highland strath—Glenshee, possibly. I looked at it with special interest, as it was the ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... letra may be a short gloss. The name letrilla is applied sometimes to a little poem in short lines which may be set to music (p. 9), and sometimes to a strophic poem with a refrain (p. 16). A madrigal is a short silva upon a light topic, an expanded conceit. The term cantilena is given to any short piece of verse intended to be set to music (p. 17). Serranillas, in which is described the meeting of a gentleman with a rustic maiden, are famous for the examples written by Juan Ruiz and the Marquis of Santillana. ...
— Modern Spanish Lyrics • Various
... the fact that he was caring for her victim was not lost on his shrewd understanding. He was gathering up and helping patch the wreckage she was making. It was a curious conceit, and Elijah Rasba, while he smiled at the humour of it, was at the same time conscious ...
— The River Prophet • Raymond S. Spears
... left him to his own conceit and devices. He let go in less than five fathoms, paid out too much cable, and went stern first on to a coral patch, where he stuck for a couple of days, much to ...
— "Pig-Headed" Sailor Men - From "The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton and Other - Stories" - 1902 • Louis Becke
... ambition, and perhaps at the last it is called heroic sacrifice. Vanity is an unsatisfied desire, hollow in itself, but capable of holding both bad and good. It is not identical with self-complacency, nor yet with conceit. ...
— An American Politician • F. Marion Crawford
... back at the post, that he might pursue his wooing. Satisfied of the wealth and social standing of the lady, he felt no doubt whatever that if given a fair field he could win her, and win her he would. If unlimited conceit has not yet been mentioned or indicated as one of Mr. Gleason's prominent traits, the omission is indeed important. He felt that up to the time of Truscott's coming his progress had been satisfactory. Officers and ladies were already making sly ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... woman, is really an exaggerated form of self-consciousness. It is far removed from conceit or self-esteem, yet it causes one's personality to overshadow everything else. A sensitive person feels that, whatever he does, wherever he goes, or whatever he says, he is the center of observation. He imagines that people are ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... divan again and permitted his sister to feed him and tell him that his disaster was only an accident. He tried to think so, too, but serious doubts persisted in his mind. There had been a clean-cut finish to that swing and jab which disturbed his boy's conceit. ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... the smallest conceit or smugness, but he had a little child-like vanity. You could not spoil him nor improve him; he remained egotistical, sound, sunny and unreasonable; violently impatient, not at all self-indulgent—despising the very idea of a valet or ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith
... impatient of control. He has no idea of that implicit obedience to orders that is at the foundation of success in civil life as well as in the army; and, above all, he is possessed of such an inordinate self-conceit that if it is not speedily curbed by one or more severe lessons, it may ...
— Raftmates - A Story of the Great River • Kirk Munroe
... the character I had assumed in fulfilling them, the city itself and all my surroundings, the environment of the moment and all that went with it, faded from my mental view, and left us two there, utterly alone in a world of our own, self created by my own conceit ...
— Princess Zara • Ross Beeckman
... looked for, your Majesty. It is an army of bourgeois and craftsmen, stout fellows who could doubtless defend their walls against an attack, or might fight stoutly shoulder to shoulder, but they have an over-weening conceit in themselves, and deem that all that is necessary in war is to carry a pike or a pole-axe and use it stoutly. A party of children would do as well, or better, were they set to besiege a town. Leadership there is none. Parties go out to skirmish with the garrison; a few lives are lost, and ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... legend of the "Lurleiberg" or the charming "Bridal of Belmont" of the author of "Lillian," or who have gazed at it for hours when presented upon the stage in the shape of "Ondine" or the "Naiad Queen,"—have fully realized its significance. To most it has been merely a pretty conceit or an effective spectacle; to the close student it is an absorbing picture of the enthralment of human energies. Sir Huldebrand of Kingstettin is a true as well as a valiant knight, and he has a golden-haired and white-handed ladie-love in the neighboring castle of the Baron of Steinbrunnen. ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... at a window and saw some one reading," thought Amy; and she smiled so sweetly at the conceit that Webb asked, "How many pennies will ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... unspeakable man! Your conceit is just extraordinary! If you wanted any other good thing in life, from a big ship to a gold ring, would you not expect to buy it? Would your loving it, and wanting it, be sufficient? Jamie Logan knew well what he was ...
— A Knight of the Nets • Amelia E. Barr
... down his paper when I was announced, and said he was glad to see me; and I honestly believe that the phrase of welcome was no empty one, even before he knew what I had come about. He seemed—I say it without conceit—to have taken a fancy to me at our ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne
... thus, as in the case of Byron, be burnt out of the young man by the egotism of passion; but it may also be frozen up in his breast by the egotism of opinion. Woe to the young shoulders afflicted with the conceit that they support old heads! When this mental disease assumes the form of flippancy, it renders a young person happily unconscious that Nature has any stores of wisdom which she has not thought fit to deposit in his cranium, or ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... with those of God; their occupations are simple, and requiring less of ingenuity and skill than those which engage the intention of the other portion of their fellow-creatures, are less favourable to the engendering of self-conceit and sufficiency, so utterly at variance with that lowliness of spirit which constitutes the best test of piety. The sneerers and scoffers at religion do not spring from amongst the simple children of nature, but are the excrescences of overwrought refinement, ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow
... the animals I've met The Puppy is the worst one yet. Clumsy and crude, he hasn't brains Enough to come in when it rains. But with insufferable conceit He thinks that he ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume III. (of X.) • Various
... the minister's niece. At that moment Anderson himself came in, and some ceremony of introduction took place. Anderson was a fair-haired, good-looking young man, with that thorough look of self-satisfaction and conceit which attaches are much more wont to exhibit than to deserve. For the work of an attache at Brussels is not of a nature to bring forth the highest order of intellect; but the occupations are of a nature to make a young man feel that he is not like ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... value of his goods?" "Oh!" rejoined the Bashaw, "that is not a man, he is only a dog. Let me call him back and you shall see what he is." Immediately the Bashaw called the man back and asked him, "Who was the better, God or Mahomet?" The Arab bluntly answered, smiling with conceit, "Why do you ask me such a thing? What harm do I receive from Mahomet or what harm do others receive from our prophet? But God kills one man with a sword, hangs another, drowns another. All the evil ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... The conceit amused him, and he advanced further into the musty porch hoping to find a bell. But as he did so his ear caught the distant sound of shuffling feet. The shuffle of feet drew nearer and presently a beam of light shone out from under the door. A ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... riding-habit of my own, and need not hire one at Hastings; but I shall be glad to hire a horse while I am with you, as, you know, I do not mind riding alone.... I feel intensely stupid, which makes me think I must be ill (admire, I beg, the conceit of that inference), as I have no other symptoms of indisposition. Farewell. ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... and yet perhaps a little of each," Darrell answered, lightly, not wishing to alarm her or lead her to attach undue importance to the occurrence. "I think Mr. Walcott has an abnormal amount of conceit, and that most of those little mannerisms of his are mainly to attract attention to himself. He was probably trying to produce some sort of an impression on your mind, and to that extent he certainly succeeded, ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour
... man, with a good conceit of himself, and had much that was interesting to say of the new countries he had visited. Gudrid was rapt in attention, for every word he said seemed to make Einar visible to her, with his bright eyes, his ear-rings, his soft ...
— Gudrid the Fair - A Tale of the Discovery of America • Maurice Hewlett
... For in self-conceit babbles the fool,[294] X.14a. The silly man multiplieth his words; 15. The fussiness of the fool jadeth him. Who knows ...
— The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur • Emile Joseph Dillon
... thousand a year. Miss Darnel, however, had penetration enough to discover and despise him, as a strange composition of rapacity and profusion, absurdity and good sense, bashfulness and impudence, self-conceit and diffidence, awkwardness and ostentation, insolence and good-nature, rashness and timidity. He was continually surrounded and preyed upon by certain vermin called Led Captains and Buffoons, who showed him in leading-strings like a sucking giant, rifled his pockets without ceremony, ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... falls more properly into other hands than mine. Only I would put in a caution—do not let us mingle self-conceit with our congratulations; and, above all, do not let us 'rest and be thankful.' There is much to be done yet. Listening ears can catch on every side vague sounds that tell of unrest and of the stirrings into wakefulness of 'The spirit ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... is impossible for an officer to make the best use of his men unless he is armed with all available research data and can talk the language of the philosopher and modern social scientist is little more than a twentieth century conceit. To seek and use all pertinent information is commendable, but truth comes of seeing all things in their natural proportion. To know more than is necessary blunts one's own weapons. The application of common sense to the problem is more vital than ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... Meanness and conceit are frequently combined in the same character: for he who to obtain transient applause can be indifferent to truth and his own dignity, will be as little scrupulous about them if, by subserviency, he can improve his condition in ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 540, Saturday, March 31, 1832 • Various
... that my opinion goes for nothing. Well, the conceit of the rising generation is only equalled by—by that o' the one that went before it. But, now, isn't it strange that you are the very man ...
— The Young Trawler • R.M. Ballantyne
... from equalling their predecessors. M. de Lefebvre de la Barre was a clever sailor but a deplorable administrator; as for the commissioner, M. de Meulles, his incapacity did not lessen his extreme conceit. ...
— The Makers of Canada: Bishop Laval • A. Leblond de Brumath
... being entwined in and out through all the incidents of the story, like an outward token of the inward similitude of their souls. With this, again, is connected, like a second reflection of that inward similitude, the conceit of two marvellously beautiful cups, also exactly like each other—children's cups, of wood, but adorned with gold and precious stones. These two cups, which by their resemblance help to bring the friends together at critical moments, were given ...
— The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Horatio Pater
... said Rosalind Merton, sidling up to Maggie and casting some disdainful glances at poor Priscilla, "the conceit of some people! Of all forms of conceit, preserve me from the ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... acquired an assured position of security and importance as the chosen companion of man, so dreaded by all its kith and kin. The tail went up at once and stayed there; when it could go no higher, it curled over. But promotion breeds conceit only in base natures. The greyhound is a gentleman, respectful and self-respecting, and it shows that by the very carriage of its tail. Only a snob at heart, petted and pampered for many generations, could have produced that perfect incarnation ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... rest, Be calm, as being not. Ye oceans of intolerable delight, The blazing photosphere of central Night, Be ye forgot. Terror, thou swarthy Groom of Bride-bliss coy, Let me not see thee toy. O, Death, too tardy with thy hope intense Of kisses close beyond conceit of sense; O, Life, too liberal, while to take her hand Is more of hope than heart can understand; Perturb my golden patience not with joy, Nor, through a wish, profane The peace that should pertain To him who does by her attraction ...
— The Unknown Eros • Coventry Patmore
... one's ability to heal mentally. Conceit cannot avert the effects of deceit. Taking advantage of the present ignorance in relation to Christian Science Mind-healing, many are flooding our land with conflicting theories and practice. We should not spread abroad patchwork ideas that ...
— No and Yes • Mary Baker Eddy
... it, Though it worketh first by seeing; Nor conceit that can unfold it, Though in thoughts be ...
— Pastoral Poems by Nicholas Breton, - Selected Poetry by George Wither, and - Pastoral Poetry by William Browne (of Tavistock) • Nicholas Breton, George Wither, William Browne (of Tavistock)
... position made up for any want in his love? Had she been conventionally a lady, instead of an angel in peasant form, would he have been so ready to return her kindness with an offer of marriage? There was little conceit in supposing that some, even of higher position than his own, would have accepted the offer on lower terms; but knowing Aggie as he did, he ought not to have made it to her: she was too large and too fine for such an experiment. This he now fully understood; and had he not been brought up ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... She covered her face with her hands. At one time she made a movement as if to leave. She looked earnest and troubled. I could vow she was about to burst into tears. Her face was very expressive. No one who shows such sudden changes can help being a person of rare sensibility. I am almost out of conceit of making her the heroine of my story, though, to be sure, I am not likely to interfere with her personal rights, so long as I do not know either her name or ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... conceit and vanity and vainglory. Go away! My head is fit to split. Natalina, why haven't you given me my smelling salts? And why ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... the right thing; destined alas! never to pass from mind to speech, for if ever tongue essayed the telling it faltered some fatuous abortion as little like love's dream as Caliban resembled Ariel. Fresh from the brave world of day-dreams, still smiling happily from some whimsical conceit as well as with anticipation of Aileen's gladness at sight of me, I passed through the courtyard ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... They are like children undimmed by sin. They are emblems of purity and truth, a source of fresh delight to the pure and innocent. The heart that does not love flowers, or the voice of a playful child, cannot be genial. It was a beautiful conceit that invented a language of flowers, by which lovers were enabled to express the feelings that they dared not openly speak. But flowers have a voice for all,—old and young, rich and poor. "To ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... rich in what I had given her, although she still rode to grand dinners in the elevated trains, carrying her slippers in a bag. It was her patient industry, her cheerful acceptance of endless household drudgery which kept me clear of self-conceit. I began to suspect that I would never be able to furnish her with a better home than that which we already owned, and this suspicion ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... afraid of my fierce-looking visitor, I could scarcely keep my gravity; there was such an air of pompous self-approbation about the Indian, such a sublime look of conceit in ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... bodies. Yet by an odd anomaly this ogre benefactor, this Brocklehurst, must have been a zealous and self-sacrificing enthusiast, with all his goodness spoiled by an imperious love of authority, an extravagant conceit. ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... were you I would put the matter shortly and simply, for it is the business of one describing a pilgrimage or any other matter not to puff himself up with vain conceit, nor to be always picking about for picturesque situations, but to set down plainly and shortly what he has seen and heard, describing ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... was always setting his mind to think about itself, and felt that he worked both hard and well if he had gained a clearer glimpse into that dark cavern. "Yet I have not been altogether idle," he writes in December, 180O, "having in my own conceit gained great light into several parts of the human mind which have hitherto remained either wholly unexplained or most falsely explained." In March, 1801, he declares that he has "completely extricated the notions of time ...
— Poems of Coleridge • Coleridge, ed Arthur Symons
... moment you start two ideas which are the bane of sport, jealousy of what others are doing, and conceit of what you are doing yourself; keep your eyes on the pack, on your horse's ears, and the next fence, instead of burning to beat Thompson, or hoping that Brown saw how cleverly you got over ...
— A New Illustrated Edition of J. S. Rarey's Art of Taming Horses • J. S. Rarey
... last concert of Max Bohrer. Such profound knowledge of the power of the instrument, such utter ignorance of its intention. It seemed to groan in despair, that he, who knew its changes so well, could not awaken it to melody, but, with solemn conceit, show that he did know them, and gain approbation for that knowledge. Knoop, with the same exact science, showed a hearty reverence for art, and reverently withdrew himself and his violoncello. Castellan's voice was so full that her person was necessarily forgotten. One would ...
— Early Letters of George Wm. Curtis • G. W. Curtis, ed. George Willis Cooke
... one was eager to give something to the hero of the hour. Offers of pipes, clasp-knives, tobacco, etc., rained upon him from the very men who had cuffed and kicked him like a dog but a few days before; and even his refusal of these gifts, which would formerly have been set down to conceit and "uppishness," was now taken in perfectly good part. In fact, that one deed of promptitude and courage had raised him from the last to one of the first among the whole crew. So true is it that they who succeed best ...
— Harper's Young People, March 30, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... who, apart from the morbid excess of vanity which has evidently led him into this scrape, may be, for aught we know, worthy and amiable. His exposure, however, is on his own head: he has ostentatiously and pertinaciously forced his ignorance, conceit, and effrontery on public notice." We quite agree ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. I, No. 6 - Of Literature, Art, And Science, New York, August 5, 1850 • Various
... with a new gaud or a pretty toy; but behind the self-sufficiency of her demeanor, and the frivolity of her tastes, there was something new—something more real and living than mere self-indulgence and conceit. The faculty of giving and spending herself for others had sprung into being with the first love she had known. For the man with whom she had gone away from Lettice's house she was willing to lay down her life if he would ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... troubled and perplexed about his affair and said to the Persian, 'O sage, look how thou mayst make him descend.' But he answered, 'O my lord, I can do nothing, and thou wilt never see him again till the Day of Resurrection, for that he, of his ignorance and conceit, asked me not of the peg of descent and I forgot to acquaint him therewith.' When the King heard this, he was sore enraged and bade beat the sorcerer and clap him in prison, whilst he himself cast the crown from his head and buffeted his ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume IV • Anonymous
... seriously expected him to yield, your knowledge of human nature lacks depth. Something far stronger than argument, something far stronger than desire for his own happiness, prevented him from yielding. Pride, a silly self-conceit, the greatest enemy of the human race, forbade him to yield. For, on the previous night, Helen had snubbed him—and not for the first time. He could not accept the snub with meekness, though it would have paid him handsomely to do so, ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett
... said Mark, and he gave his cousin a meaning look, which was returned, the latter saying to himself, "It takes some of the conceit ...
— Dead Man's Land - Being the Voyage to Zimbambangwe of certain and uncertain • George Manville Fenn
... with a sly smile at Jason. "The world will always have simpletons enough, just like them, fighting and dying for they know not what, and fancying that posterity will take the trouble to put laurel wreaths on their rusty and battered helmets. Could you help smiling, Prince Jason, to see the self-conceit of that last fellow, just as ...
— Tanglewood Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... said that Marten could not have been aware of this foolish weakness of Mary Roscoe, but Marten was not free of blame in the affair, for he had started wrongly as regarded Reuben, and in his self conceit he had placed himself in circumstances where the temptations that surrounded him were more than his nature unaided could resist. Marten would not listen to those who would have taught him that our blessed Saviour verily took ...
— Brotherly Love - Shewing That As Merely Human It May Not Always Be Depended Upon • Mrs. Sherwood
... when in his grave. The failure of the expedition was attributed both in England and America to his obstinacy, his technical pedantry, and his military conceit. He had been continually warned to be on his guard against ambush and surprise, but without avail. Had he taken the advice urged on him by Washington and others to employ scouting parties of Indians and rangers, he would never have been ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... changeful of mood, could not suffer him to live long in such repose, but, filling him with self-conceit and hope, led him to make known his love, in the expectation that she would then hold him still ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. IV. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre |
