"Conceited" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... every master, and tyrant, and of every other having authority in relation to his inferiors. Slaves ought to be punished as they deserve, and not admonished as if they were freemen, which will only make them conceited. The language used to a servant ought always to be that of a command (compare Arist. Pol.), and we ought not to jest with them, whether they are males or females—this is a foolish way which many people have of setting up their slaves, and making the life ...
— Laws • Plato
... tavern in Friday Street, makes a conspicuous figure in the "Merry Conceited Jests of George Peele," the poet ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... had dubbed "The Political Chameleon;" but at least they admitted the importance of the man, who is no longer sneeringly alluded to as "Benjamin Sidonia," no more represented as an ill-bred schoolboy made up of impudence and malice—unprincipled, vicious, and conceited. ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... drove back home. No, there was no deal; Eleseus had made a ridiculous offer, that Aronsen regarded as an insult. "I don't think much of you, young man," said Aronsen; ay, calling him young man, considering him but a slip of a lad that had grown conceited in the town, and thought to teach him, Aronsen, the ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun
... although I am perhaps running the risk of offending you. Will you come to church next Sunday? I don't mean in the morning, but in the evening. Please don't think for a moment that I have any faith in my power to influence your mind in any way. I am not such a conceited ass as to imagine anything of the sort. My motive for making the request was quite independent of any such considerations. My experience is that those who lose faith in Christianity do not recover it. I speak, of course, of people who ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... for prejudices which the arguer despises, or an incapacity which the arguer implies—this merely personal consideration did not ruffle for a moment the gentle spirit of De Vayne. But that a young man—conceited, shallow, and ignorant—should profess to settle with a word the controversies which had agitated the profoundest reasons, and to settle with a sneer, the mysteries before which the mightiest thinkers had veiled their eyes in reverence and ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... not so bad and so dark that a slip in diplomacy, a careless word, or an impolite gesture, can instantaneously, as if by magic, involve twenty million men in a struggle to the death. It is only clever, conceited men, proud of their neat little minds, who think that because they cannot fathom the causes of the war, it might easily have been prevented. I confess I find it difficult to conceive of the war in terms of simple ...
— England and the War • Walter Raleigh
... admiring this work of art, a fat wheezy steamtug, with the word AJAX in staring black letters on the paddlebox, came puffing up alongside the Typhoon. It was ridiculously small and conceited, compared with our stately ship. I speculated as to what it was going to do. In a few minutes we were lashed to the little monster, which gave a snort and a shriek, and commenced backing us out from the levee (wharf) with the ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... gave no answer. With feverish thirst and longing, he was drinking in the beauty of the Fairy Queen; and had not Simon Perkins been the dullest of observers, and the least conceited of painters, he must have felt intensely flattered by the effect of ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... had ceased his fooling, Coke began in earnest. He was a man a little older than Raleigh, and of a conceited and violent nature, owing not a little of his exaggerated reputation to the dread that he inspired. He was never more rude and brutal than in his treatment of Sir Walter Raleigh upon this famous occasion, and even in ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... Washington" as he called himself. He was a newspaper correspondent and the biographer of Aaron Burr. He was a great admirer of Burr. Davis wore very thin clothing, scouted overcoats, and boasted that he slept always in a room with open windows, and under very light bed clothing. He was old and conceited, and as a permanent companion, he could not have ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 1 • George Boutwell
... with the affair," Mrs. Ess Kay answered for me quickly. "She is very sorry she commenced it, and has lost the small interest she felt in the beginning. I do hope that tramp, or beggar, or whatever he is, hasn't gotten it in his conceited head that Lady Betty Bulkeley has bothered herself about his insignificant affairs, or he'll be thrusting himself upon her notice in some way which will be very disagreeable for ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... moment, watching the play of expression on Martha's mobile face. "If you like it as much as all that," she said at last, "I wish you'd take it and keep it. It seems conceited—priggish—to suppose you'd care to own it, but if you ...
— Martha By-the-Day • Julie M. Lippmann
... "She is a little conceited about it after all," said that unmarried lady. "If poor Mr. O'Brien had not shown so much premature anxiety with reference to that little journey to Naples, things might have ...
— Mrs. General Talboys • Anthony Trollope
... art a Teacher'—contrast that, with its ring of complacency, and, if not superior, at least co-ordinate, authority, with 'Jesus! Master! have mercy on me,' or with 'Lord! save or I perish,' and you get the difference between the way in which a formalist, conceited of his knowledge, and a poor, perishing sinner, conscious of his ignorance and need, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... couleur de rose account of his future brother-in-law's family, in a letter written at the time of the engagement to Laure, who was already married. He does not seem so charmed with the bridegroom, il troubadouro, as with his surroundings, and remarks that he has lost his top teeth, and is very conceited, but will do well enough—as a husband. Every one is delighted at the marriage; but Laure can imagine maman's state of nervous excitement from her recollection of the last few days before her own ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... Fork, a thousand feet below, and was found sitting on the riverbank "without a scratch, 'cept that he was lazily givin' himself with his off hind paw." He had been forgotten in a snowdrift on a Sierran shelf, and had come home in the early spring with the conceited complacency of an Alpine traveler and a plumpness alleged to have been the result of an exclusive diet of buried mail bags and their contents. He was generally believed to read the advance election posters, and disappear a day or two before the candidates and the brass band—which ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... tolerably well. But a man deserves no praise at all for work which he has done tolerably or done rather badly, because he chose to do it under disadvantageous circumstances, under which there was no earthly call upon him to do it. In this case he probably is a self-conceited man, or a man of wrong-headed independence of disposition; and in this case, if his work be bad absolutely, don't tell him that it is good, considering. Refuse to consider. He has no right to expect that you should. There was a man who ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... this paralyzing bourgeoisie with astonishing life. One turns back from much more exciting literature to these ignorant, conceited, restricted ...
— One Hundred Best Books • John Cowper Powys
... IF THE WORLD HATE YOU." ("I am, perhaps, personally unattractive to her; and yet I wonder why?") He was not a conceited man; but, like all his sex, he really did "marvel" a little at the lack of feminine appreciation. He marveled so much that a week later he took Mary and walked out to Mr. Roberts's house. This time Mary, to her disgust, ...
— The Voice • Margaret Deland
... was an unimaginative, rather matter-of-fact little person, and was apt to take all Maud's sayings literally. For instance, when her cousin said, as she often did, "Don't I look sweet in this dress?" or "this hat?" as the case might be, Blanche would think her vain and conceited, and feel ashamed of her, whereas Marjory would know at once that it was only Maud's fun, and would laugh at these ...
— Hunter's Marjory - A Story for Girls • Margaret Bruce Clarke
... of the type, dear boy!' he said—'But don't worry! The crooked pigstye is always a most popular kind of building in the world you will live in!' With that he bade me good-night, and went. I was very angry with him, for I was a conceited youth and thought myself and my particular associates the very cream of Oxford,—but he took all the highest honours that year, and when he finally left the University he vanished, so to speak, in a blaze of intellectual ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... play, that 'Enemy of the People,' with the chief figure of which the dramatist has seemed willing for once to be identified. We may even incline to the belief that Moliere would have dismist Dr. Stockman as lacking in common-sense, and in the sense of humor, and also as a creature both conceited and self-righteous, pitiably impractical and painfully intolerant. And we are quite at a loss even to guess what the French playwright-psychologist, who has left us the unforgetable figure of Celimene would have thought of ...
— Inquiries and Opinions • Brander Matthews
... that they know everything, and that as God's knowledge can not be any greater than theirs, every Scripture which their science can not comprehend must be erroneous. The grandest truths, imperfectly perceived in the twilight of incipient science, serve as stumbling-blocks for conceited speculators, as well as landmarks on the boundaries of knowledge to true philosophers, who will ever imbibe the spirit of Newton's celebrated saying: "I seem to myself like a child gathering pebbles ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... I enjoy the simile, but I'm conceited enough to think it is not as free from dents as it was when I began. I'm not quite sure about it, but I believe with a little more time and security against ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon
... much admired wherever I go," said the little Swiss man, with a smile, which was none the less conceited because ...
— Harper's Young People, April 6, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... who, as Robert saw, had become a fine forest soldier, alert, understanding and not conceited because of his knowledge. Robert noted the keen, wary look of this young man of Quaker blood, and he felt sure that in the event of an attack he would be among the ...
— The Rulers of the Lakes - A Story of George and Champlain • Joseph A. Altsheler
... reacheth not (so directly) the poor Publican in the text, therefore our Lord begins again, and adds to that other parable, this parable which I have chosen for my text; by which he designeth two things: First, The conviction of the proud and self-conceited Pharisee: Secondly, The raising up and healing of the cast down and dejected Publican. And observe it, as by the first parable he chiefly designeth the relief of those that are under the hands of cruel tyrants, ...
— The Pharisee And The Publican • John Bunyan
... published several poems, chiefly in Latin; and, in 1682, printed a book of Heraldry, with the arms of each of the gentry as he had waited upon with presentation copies. He was a man of talents, but vain, unsteady, and conceited, and a ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... home as he had come. But now it was deep in the night and his depression had deepened. He was a self-reliant man, and not easily felt himself small, though he was not conceited. To-night he felt diminished. The worm-sensation overcame him. That such a man as Chichester should have been able to convey to him such a sensation was strange, yet it was from Chichester that this mental chastisement had come. ...
— The Dweller on the Threshold • Robert Smythe Hichens
... conceited to say so," Wrayson continued, "I believe—no! I'm sure that she's fond of me. ...
— The Avenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... destroyed him had coarsened his morale and destroyed his intellect. During the war it was a great distinction to know anything of German literature, and in Mr. Taylor's case it proved a ruinous distinction. He was completely spoiled by the flatteries of shallow men, pedantic women, and conceited lads.' Yet this man was the friend of Southey and opened up a new world to the English intellect, and perhaps in days to come will have a more enduring reputation than Harriet Martineau herself. The lady does not err on the side ...
— East Anglia - Personal Recollections and Historical Associations • J. Ewing Ritchie
... into a peal of merry laughter. "Oh Mags!" they cried, "we never did think before that you were conceited. You certainly overrate even your powers when you imagine that you will get Mr. Cardew ...
— The School Queens • L. T. Meade
... course, they are. Of course, you're coming home without a scratch, and likely a general, and conceited beyond words. ...
— Joy in the Morning • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... all very well for the scouts to have depended wholly on themselves had they been alone at this time; but having two experienced guides along, Ned was not conceited enough to think that he knew it all, and could ...
— Boy Scouts on Hudson Bay - The Disappearing Fleet • G. Harvey Ralphson
... sound very conceited, I suppose," said Felix, "if I were to say that it would be a good little chance for you to learn something. You would ask me why you should learn; and I should have no answer to that. I suppose a minister has ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... a bricklayer's labourer and a navvy both in England and France. Latterly he had been earning a scanty livelihood by doing chance jobs. There was this to distinguish him from the other dastardly assailants of the Queen: he was not a half-crazed, morbidly conceited boy, though he also had no conceivable motive for what he did. He appears to have taken his measures, in providing himself with pistol and powder, from a mere impulse of stolid brutality. His pistol contained no ball, so that he was tried under the Felon's Act, which had been provided ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler
... him?" Livingstone called out from the inner room, where he was donning the "mufti." "He's not so conceited as he might be, considering how the women spoil him; and, lazy as he looks, he is a very fair officer, and goes across country like a bird. Did I ever tell you what first ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... (Mrs Grantly had never assumed a more familiar term than this in addressing her husband), "I don't agree with you. Not that I like Mr Bold;—he is a great deal too conceited for me; but then Eleanor does, and it would be the best thing in the world for papa if they were to marry. Bold would never trouble himself about Hiram's Hospital if he were papa's son-in-law." And the lady turned herself round under the ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... that one of the first wonders of the world is that it contains a great many very good people, who are quite different from oneself and one's near relations. For I really was not conceited enough to disapprove of my new friend because he astonished me, though he certainly did do so. From the moment when Barney (whoever Barney might be) came into his head, everything else apparently went out of it. I am sure he ...
— We and the World, Part II. (of II.) - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... myself, but Bill, well he was the whole show. What he didn't know wasn't worth knowing, so we all thought, and even to this day I sometimes wonder how he managed to contrive and execute so many remarkable plans. At the same time he was not a conceited sort of a chap and didn't seem to realize that he was head and shoulders above the rest of us in ingenuity. But, of course, we didn't all have an uncle like Bill did. Bill's Uncle Ed was one of those rare men who take a great interest in boys and their affairs, a man who took ...
— The Scientific American Boy - The Camp at Willow Clump Island • A. Russell Bond
... her young conscience told her that this was not the proper thing to do, and she made up her mind not to do it again. Then she laughed at the notion of being ever even asked, and told herself that she was too conceited; and to cut the matter short, went ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... stuff. In this way you have at once a cheerful blaze, and the fire gradually eats into the solid mass, sinking down with increasing fervor; coals drop below, and delicate tongues of flame sport along the beautiful grain of the forestick. There are people who kindle a fire underneath. But these are conceited people, who are wedded to their own way. I suppose an accomplished incendiary always starts a fire in the attic, if he can. I am not an incendiary, but I hate bigotry. I don't call those incendiaries very ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... good the old saying, "Out of sight, out of mind." But already the conviction was growing strong that it would be long before she would be out of his mind. Though he had plenty of pride, as we have seen, he was not conceited, and from long familiarity with society could readily detect the difference between the regard she would feel for a man personally attractive and the interest of aroused sympathies which she might have in any one, and which her faith and nature led her to have ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... his words most bitterly as soon as he had spoken them, for there was a hard light going on in the boy's mind. Naturally very conceited, he had had the misfortune to be made the head of a little set at his school—a little set, for they were rather small boys, who looked up to him,—and dressed at him as far as they could, the effect being to make him more conceited still, ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn
... last letter you wrote, "I am afraid that you are on the way to become conceited." I am afraid myself I am, still I cannot resist telling you, this once, that my audience was very enthusiastic and Mr. Costa said —well, I won't tell you what he said; it might sound conceited. The last thing I sang was "Beware!" ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... hats very much on one side. Believe me, there is on the face of this world no scamp like an English one, no blackguard like one of these half-gentlemen, so mean, so low, so vulgar,—so ludicrously ignorant and conceited, so desperately heartless ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... man Govert, to get a bow of crape and put it on the front door. 'It is moral, and proper, and respectable, Arenta,' she said, 'and I advise you to do the same.' But then she laughed and added, 'Shall I tell you, niece, what I think of the great men I have met? They are disagreeable, conceited creatures; and ought, all of them, to have died before they were born; and for my part, I am satisfied not to have had the fate to marry one of them. As for Benjamin Franklin,' she continued, 'he was a particularly ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... peculiar position did not produce something of an independent manner which some called hauteur, and others exclusiveness. Part of this was owing to her education, part to the necessity of repelling sometimes the advances of conceited coxcombs. But she was really a most interesting girl, with much of her father's spirit, resolution, and ability. Her affection for him was only exceeded by his for her. True, their lives were centred in each other too much. But it was very beautiful ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... instance. He admired Miss Minorkey. He liked her. With an enthusiastic young man, admiring and liking are, to say the least, steps that lead easily to something else. But you must remember how complex a thing love is. Charlton—I have to confess it—was a little conceited, as every young man is at twenty. He flattered himself that the most intelligent woman he could find would be a good match for him. He loved ideas, and a woman of ideas pleased his fancy. Add to this that he had come to a time of life when he was very liable to fall ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston
... man open to the attacks which his style certainly invites—as was the case with the egotist who dared to talk much of himself in the presence of Dr. Johnson, whom he had greatly irritated by his conceited talk. The Doctor availed himself of ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost
... eminence of learning merely by the force of her own genius, and continual application. She was not only happy in a fine imagination, a great memory, an excellent understanding, and an exact judgment, but had all these crowned by virtue and piety: she was too learned to be vain, too wise to be conceited, too knowing and too ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... "I am not what you call conceited enough for that, but I would like to believe that I might have a kind word or two on ...
— Jeanne of the Marshes • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... proud of its little daughter, that's what it is," said Miss Luscombe, sitting on the arm of her mother's chair. "It's a silly, vain, conceited mother, that it is. It can't see any fault in ...
— The Limit • Ada Leverson
... slightest idea that it was the name of him who was sitting with us; he, however, thought that I was aware of his name. Belle! Belle! for a long time I doubted in the truth of Scripture, owing to certain conceited discourses which I had heard from certain conceited individuals, but now I begin to believe firmly; what wonderful texts there are in Scripture, ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... not at all the pompous, conceited man that the girls at Lakeview Hall had come to think him, looked after Cora for a moment in surprise, then turned smilingly back to the two girls and asked Linda to introduce him to ...
— Nan Sherwood at Palm Beach - Or Strange Adventures Among The Orange Groves • Annie Roe Carr
... this that he is conceited. He is merely conscious of the fact that intellectually he is somewhat superior to his colleagues, most of whom, strangely enough, quite agree with him. They consult him and accept his counsel with almost childlike faith. To the mediocre ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous
... turned to the astrolabe again, and was idly tracing out the incisions in one of its hoops with her supple forefinger, when she next spoke. "Of course I know it must have been hard for you, Girofle," she said, "still, I hoped—it was very foolish and conceited of me, I know—but I hoped that perhaps my being ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... and little narrow streaks of specialized knowledge, are things men are very apt to be conceited about. Nature is very wise; but for this encouraging principle how many small talents and little accomplishments would be neglected! Talk about conceit as much as you like, it is to human character what salt is to the ocean; it keeps it sweet, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... of revelation is generally the result of ignorance, conceited of its possessing superior knowledge. Observe how the author of Recherches Philosophiques sur les Americains, expresses himself on this very point. "Cette distance que Mr Antermony veut trouver si peu impotante, est a-peu-pres de huit cent lieus Gauleises au travers d'un ocean perilleux, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... impossible. But such experience should be had only after the attainment of physical and mental maturity. A young boy or girl, though ever so much of a prodigy, if taken on an extensive concert tour, not only becomes unduly self-conscious, conceited, vain and easily satisfied with his or her work, but—and this is the all-important point—runs the risk of undermining his or her health. The precious days of youth should be devoted primarily to the storing up of health, without which ...
— Great Pianists on Piano Playing • James Francis Cooke
... influence? I see you are by your pretty attitude and by the engaging face you are making at me. Well, don't get it wrong. A gospel gone wrong in a mind is dangerous, and worse than no gospel at all. If you get this gospel wrong you may become conceited, and fancy yourself possessed of a power which you haven't a notion of. To use will in any really affective way, you must train your body, and take care of it, not ruin it, and let it run to seed, or grow disfigured, or a ghastly ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... O'Brien, who talked wildly about the establishment of an Irish Republic, were arrested, convicted, and transported. O'Connell himself declared that Smith O'Brien was an exceedingly weak man, proud and self-conceited and 'impenetrable to advice.' 'You cannot be sure of him for half an hour.' The force of the movement was broken by cliques and quarrels, until the spirit of disaffection was no longer formidable. In August, her Majesty displayed in a marked way her personal ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... must be disappointed if I build upon schemes or exertions of my own,' said Anne; 'but I should be very conceited—very presumptuous, I mean—to do so, and I hope ...
— Abbeychurch - or, Self-Control and Self-Conceit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... tell you some other time; she's a conceited little piece. We had the care of her coming up the river, that's how I come to know about her. Ma said it was the last child she would be bothered ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... after beginning to reward him as he deserved, led him on and made him liable to censure by the measures that they voted. He neither dared to thrust them all aside, for fear of being thought contemptuous, nor could he be safe when he accepted them. Excess in honors and praises renders conceited even the most modest, especially if such rewards appear to have been given with sincerity. [-4-] The privileges that were granted him (in addition to all those mentioned) were of the following number and kinds. They will be stated all together, ...
— Dio's Rome • Cassius Dio
... way, and, without perhaps intending to be exactly untruthful, say a great deal that they really do not mean. And I should be sorry, indeed, to see my little girl so spoiled by all this silly flattery as to grow up conceited and vain." ...
— Elsie Dinsmore • Martha Finley
... me still; that is enough for me. Into what a mood have we fallen! an unpleasant, melancholy, infectious mood! I assume my own again. Now, my dear unfortunate, you love me still, and have your Minna still, and are unhappy? Hear what a conceited, foolish thing your Minna was—is. She allowed—allows herself, to imagine that she makes your whole happiness. Declare all your misery at once. She would like to try how far she can ...
— Minna von Barnhelm • Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
... utterly unbusiness-like interview, and secretly tore up his wife's letter. "I don't know what to make of that chap," said the husband to his wife; "he's about as civilized as an Injun." "And as conceited," added ...
— Jeff Briggs's Love Story • Bret Harte
... spur us on to do better work than we have ever done before. A failure may teach us a great deal if we will learn from it. Do not be cast down because of failure. Find out what its lesson is. Do not be too much uplifted over a success. It may turn out a hindrance if we grow conceited over it. Both success and failure are temporary phases of ...
— The Canadian Girl at Work - A Book of Vocational Guidance • Marjory MacMurchy
... because We use the gifts that God has given? The robins never ask applause, Nor count themselves remarkable, nor strut in a superior way, Because their music sweeter is than that God gave unto the jay. Only a man conceited grows as he makes use of talents fine, Forgetting that he merely does the working of the ...
— The Path to Home • Edgar A. Guest
... It is wonderful how little one cares about it. So many jolly evenings we spent together; and now I seem to get on quite as well without him. I wonder what has become of him; and my last children, too, what has become of them? What are we here for? I would ask the men, only they are so conceited and stupid they can't understand what we say. I hear them droning away, teaching their little ones every day; telling them to be good, and to do what they are bid, and all that. Nobody ever tells me to do anything; if they do I don't do it, and I am very ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... set o' dull, conceited hashes Confuse their brains in college classes! They gang in sticks and come out asses, Plain truth to speak, And syne they think to climb Parnassus By dint of Greek.[Footnote: ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... last appearance in print—for his own sake no less than for yours. He is conceited enough as it is, but if once he got to know that people are always writing about him in the papers his swagger would be unbearable. However, I have said good-bye to him now; I have no longer any rights in him. Yesterday I saw him ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 21, 1914 • Various
... have to try to like her. And I was a little prejudiced, too, at first. She was so wealthy, and an only child; I feared she might be conceited and spoiled. ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... which the lazy, conceited, and impracticable character of the Spaniards, the want of civil organization in Portugal, and the ignorance and incapacity of his own government could interpose, Lord Wellington, in a series of campaigns, and of great and sanguinary battles, drove the French ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... unexceptionable in its subjects and tone. I do not believe he is a dangerous companion, though the habit of writing verse does not always improve the character. I think I have seen it make more than one of my acquaintances idle, conceited, sentimental, and frivolous,—perhaps it found them so already. Don't make too much of his talent, and particularly don't let him think that because he can write verses he has nothing else to do ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... he should dispense with the services of a prime minister, and that they would be responsible to him alone. The young king was then twenty-two years of age. He was very poorly educated, had hitherto developed no force of character, and appeared to all to be simply a frivolous, pompous, self-conceited young man ...
— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... what you would have done. I insist on your supposing yourself to be a weak, superstitious, conceited, fanatical fool. You understand? Now, tell me, then. Could you keep away from your wife, when you were called back to her in the name of your firstborn child? Could you ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins
... those flint- paved streets, we could forgive anything that had shocked or disgusted us at the dinner table. But matters grew worse in his old age, when his habits of intemperance kept him out of the sight of the ladies, and he got round him a set of ignorant and conceited young men, who thought they could set the world right by their destructive tendencies. One of his chief favourites was ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... to listen and to take into account what we have to say. They are not to be blamed for having difficulties in accepting what we put before them; on the contrary we must welcome their independent thought even if it seems aggressive and conceited; their positive assurance that they see to the end of things is characteristic of their age, but it is better that they should show themselves thus, than through want of thought or courage fall in with everything ...
— The Education of Catholic Girls • Janet Erskine Stuart
... accustomed, from my youth, to having people obey my every word; it's time you knew that! And it's very strange to me, my dear, that you should presume to oppose me. I see that I have spoiled you; and you at once get conceited. [NADYA weeps. ...
— Plays • Alexander Ostrovsky
... rich red tints he sends out upon the rocks before he sets, are beyond measure beautiful and attractive. Especially, I believe, the Fairies enjoy this time of day, for they are odd little creatures, rather conceited, and fond of everything pretty; consequently they like to be floating about the rocks in their white dresses when the crimson and golden hues of sunset shine on them, knowing very well they look like so many bright flowers ...
— The Fairy Godmothers and Other Tales • Mrs. Alfred Gatty
... she wants," Rupert muttered to himself. "To stop my fencing lessons; just as if a gentleman could fence too well. She wants me to be a stiff, cold, finnikin fop, like that conceited ...
— The Cornet of Horse - A Tale of Marlborough's Wars • G. A. Henty
... were fain to come for the suppressing of them: and with great difficulty he was at last carried to Whitechapel churchyard, having (as it is said) a branch of rosemary at each end of the coffin, on the top thereof, with a rope crosse from one end to the other, a merry conceited cook, living at the sign of the Crown, having a black fan (worth the value of 30s.), took a resolution to rent the same in pieces: and to every feather tied a piece of packthread, dyed in black ink, and gave them to divers ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 20, Issue 558, July 21, 1832 • Various
... his intelligent face and hoped he would come. Selfish, conceited, and self-sufficient as I may be, there is a strand of weakness made up in my composition that forces me to find the companionship of ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross
... Townsend, a resident of Palmyra, in a letter written in 1833, describes him as a visionary fanatic, unhappily married, who "is considered here to this day a brute in his domestic relations, a fool and a dupe to Smith in religion, and an unlearned, conceited hypocrite generally. "His wife, in an affidavit printed in Howe's book (p. 255), says: "He has whipped, kicked, and turned me out of the house." Harris, like Joe's mother, was a constant reader of and a literal believer in the Bible. Tucker says that he "could probably repeat from memory every ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... with these sayings, sermons, and books, for that by them they are concluded to be persons that are without repentance, and the hope of eternal life. Here again, the carnal world judges that these people are proud, self-willed, pragmatical, contentious, self-conceited, and so unsufferable people. The Christian yet goes on and stands to what he has asserted. Then the poor world at their last shift begins to turn, and overturn the gospel-man's sayings; perverting, forcing, stretching, and dismembering of them; and so making of them speak what ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... colored Congressman who sent him there, and from him at least good treatment was reasonably expected. There have been only two such appointments to my knowledge, and it is a singular fact that they were both overbearing, conceited, and by no means popular with their comrades. The status of one was but little better than my own, and only in that his comrades would speak and associate. He was not "cut," but avoided as much as possible without making the offence ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper
... and his voice rang with a rare assurance, and every line of his face held a wondrous nobility. "Yes, I believe it all. If I had not been a blind, conceited fool of a sinner, a week ago, I should have known that all this, and much more was true, and I should have found my way in penitence and faith to the feet of the Nazarene, of Jesus Christ the World's Redeemer, and, finding pardon for ...
— The Mark of the Beast • Sidney Watson
... a stiletto in his hand is a much more desirable creature, let me tell you, than a cold-blooded Englishman with the devil in his heart. That fiery little count, conceited and poverty-stricken, did at any rate pay me the compliment of thinking for at least a fortnight that I was a patch of heaven fallen in his way, whereas to your cold-livered English lord I am no more ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... spreading in France, and with its extension goes a deeply seated interest in the abolition of slavery. France—unlike England—feels shame at the idea of being chronicled in history as aiding oppression. The Frenchman is not so enormously conceited, so pitiably vain as to believe, like the Briton, that a crime is a virtue when for his own peculiar interest. Vain as the French may be, they have ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... related a number of capital war-anecdotes, I contrived, as is my wont, to turn the conversation upon agricultural topics, with the view of imparting to him a modicum of that consummate farming wisdom which appertains to every thoroughly conceited scribbler. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various
... other guest at the festive board. This was Wimp's wife's mother's mother, a lady of sweet seventy. Only a minority of mankind can obtain a grandmother-in-law by marrying, but Wimp was not unduly conceited. The old lady suffered from delusions. One of them was that she was a centenarian. She dressed for the part. It is extraordinary what pains ladies will take to conceal their age. Another of Wimp's grandmother-in-law's delusions was that Wimp had married to get her into the family. Not to frustrate ...
— The Big Bow Mystery • I. Zangwill
... laugh at in this conceited manner, Mr. Bunter?" he snarled. "Supernatural visitations have terrified better men than you. Don't you allow me enough soul to make a ...
— Tales Of Hearsay • Joseph Conrad
... cast a glance at Paul which seemed to say, "Be silent;" but the conceited young man ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... Amadine the Kings daughter of Aragon. With the merry conceites of Mouse. Amplified with new additions, as it was acted before the Kings Maiestie at White-hall on Shroue-Sunday night. By his Highnes Seruants vsually playing at the Globe. Very delectable, and full of conceited Mirth. Imprinted at London for William Iones, dwelling neare Holborne Conduit, at the signe ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... which made every one wish him to succeed, expect him to succeed, and apt to tell him so when he had done well. And yet he was, to a singular degree, free from any promptings of personal vanity. He had pride but was not proud; least of all was he conceited. He never did poorly; he almost always did brilliantly; there was not an indolent fibre in his being. He did well because he exerted himself to do his best. He was happy in the power God gave him, and accepted ...
— The American Missionary, Volume 42, No. 12, December, 1888 • Various
... could put through more work in an hour than most men could in a day, and saw only the meetings recorded which took so much of his time. And he said to himself that that was not the way to become great. Some day he intended to be one of the leading advocates of Canada. He was not conceited. His was only the boundless hopefulness of youth coupled with the assurance which experience had already given him, that whenever he set his mind to anything, he accomplished it, no matter how many ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... them he enumerated target-companies, sewing-machines, patent baby-jumpers, nitro-glycerine, shoo-fly chewing-tobacco, wooden hams, stuffed ballot-boxes, and a hundred other things which we are prone to brag of as being purely Yankee and original. We are too conceited about ourselves, by a great deal, and it is good for us that even Chinese shoemakers should come here once in a while, to "take ...
— Punchinello Vol. II., No. 30, October 22, 1870 • Various
... tone, please. I think we really are quite nice girls—I mean we never quarrel, and we are always chummy and affectionate, and we try to do our best. We are not a bit self-righteous or conceited, or anything of that sort; for, you see, when our dear mother was alive she taught us so beautifully. Her rule was such a very simple one. She never punished us; all she ever said was, 'Do it because it is right. You cannot quite understand why it is right ...
— A Modern Tomboy - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... discriminating since that in the Revue des deux Mondes. It offers a curious contrast to Lewes's in the Edinburgh, where forced praise, given by jerks, and obviously without real and cordial liking, and censure, crude, conceited, and ignorant, were mixed in random lumps—forming a very ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... letter! Hogg requested that he himself might review it, and gives me an extract from Jeffrey's answer, refusing him. 'I have, as well as you, a great respect for Southey,' he says, 'but he is a most provoking fellow, and at least as conceited as his neighbour Wordsworth.' But he shall be happy to talk to Hogg upon this and other kindred subjects, and he should be very glad to give me a lavish allowance of praise, if I would afford him occasion, &c.; but he must do what he thinks his duty, &c.! I laugh to think ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... when I was changed; such a loss, you know. In fact, there were several lady fairies, who—but no matter." And he gave a slight cough, and began to arrange his necktie with a disgracefully consequential air, though he was trying very hard not to look conceited; and while he was endeavouring to appear easy and gracefully careless, he began accidentally to hum, "See the Conquering Hero Comes," which was not the right tune ...
— Little Saint Elizabeth and Other Stories • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... getting on. I suppose you'll try and land somewhere where it's morning, so that we can have a good day before us. Really, it's very convenient to be able to make your own morning or night as you like, isn't it? I hope it won't make us too conceited when we get back, being able to choose our mornings and our evenings; in fact, our sunrises and sunsets on any world we like to visit in ...
— A Honeymoon in Space • George Griffith
... that plastering," said a conceited-looking chaffinch, joining in the conversation. "I wonder your children don't die ...
— Featherland - How the Birds lived at Greenlawn • George Manville Fenn
... am very sorry I have not an amiable worldling for my sister, instead of an unamiable and devilish conceited Christian." And with these bitter words, Alfred snatched a candle and bounced to bed in a fury. So apt is one passion to ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... it been my lot to mark A proud, conceited, talking spark, With eyes that hardly served at most To guard their master 'gainst a post; Yet round the world the blade has been, To see whatever could be seen. Returning from his finished tour, Grown ten times perter than before; Whatever word you chance to drop, The travelled fool ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... established in the governement.—11. exalted him to be Governour, out of what danger he had delivered him, he being in the bloody scroll, as wee saw before; and what expectation all men of honesty had of him, because they saw him a soft man, they conceited goodnesse of him. ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox
... our sensitiveness on this head, causes shyness and blushing much more readily than does approbation; though the latter with some persons is highly efficient. The conceited are rarely shy; for they value themselves much too highly to expect depreciation. Why a proud man is often shy, as appears to be the case, is not so obvious, unless it be that, with all his self-reliance, ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin
... dresses, ye might think is presents. Pr'aps Flip lets on they are. Pr'aps she don't know any better. But they ain't presents. They're only samples o' dressmaking and jewelry that a vain, conceited shrimp of a feller up in Sacramento sends down here to get customers for. In course I'm to pay for 'em. In course he reckons I'm to do it. In course I calkilate to do it; but he needn't try to play 'em off as presents. He talks suthin' o' coming down here, sportin' hisself ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... a tangible reproach gave me courage at once. "Keep to common sense, St. John: you are verging on nonsense. You pretend to be shocked by what I have said. You are not really shocked: for, with your superior mind, you cannot be either so dull or so conceited as to misunderstand my meaning. I say again, I will be your curate, if you like, ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... a song and dance) was showered with roses, violets and other beautiful flowers. I could not understand this great difference as her voice did not sound any better than mine, I thought, although it may sound conceited in me ...
— The Nomad of the Nine Lives • A. Frances Friebe
... narrow, frugal but appreciative of things good to eat, kind-hearted but not remarkable for generosity, except to the poor of their own denomination, law-abiding but not progressive, modest and unassuming but conscious and conceited, as most self-educated people are. It is a wonder that a self-educated man like Franklin was so broad and liberal in all his views,—an impersonation of good nature and catholicity, ever open to new convictions, and respectful of opinions he did not share, provoking mirth and jollity, yet ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XI • John Lord
... or sticky babies. She would monopolize the conversation, so far as she could, and direct it all the time. At the risk of utterly losing the good opinion of one of Cousin Julia's most valued friends, of appearing forward, conceited, tiresome, she would rattle on like the empty-headed society girl in certain modern plays. She would introduce utterly impersonal subjects, such as—at the moment she couldn't think of anything but prohibition, ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray
... thought that she was not unloved, not forgotten. The will of others, not his own, kept her lover from her side. His weaknesses were of a nature that awakened her pity rather than contempt. If he had been a Hercules physically and a Bacon intellectually, but conceited, domineering, untruthful, and of the male flirt genus—from such weaknesses she would have shrunk with intense repugnance. Her friends thought her peculiarly gentle in disposition. They did not know—and she herself might rarely recognize the truth—that she was also very ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... those who understand them not, the less they know the more they may admire; whereas it has been always a custom to those of our side to contemn and undervalue whatever is strange and unusual, while those that are better conceited of themselves will nod and smile, and prick up their ears, that they may be thought easily to apprehend that, of which perhaps they do not understand one word. And so much for this; pardon the digression, ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus
... he'd be all the better for a few more lessons of the sort, eh? go through a regular 'educational course,' as they call it. Governors nowadays get so dreadfully conceited and dictatorial—they know best—and they will have this—and they won't have that. It's no joke to be a son, I can tell you.—'Latchkey, sir! only let me hear of your daring to introduce that profligate modern invention ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... not of the humble sort, is the most self-conceited thing alive. He can no more take in the idea that your objection to him is he than a board can draw a nail into itself. You've got to ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... love; a man must be pretty conceited to imagine that he could make up to a girl for the sacrifice of bringing her to live in a place like Durford. That sounds horribly rude to Durford, ...
— Hepsey Burke • Frank Noyes Westcott
... families were ancient and numerous; and the most determined spirits which ever subverted a government were Catholic.[B] Yet what could the King expect from the party of the Puritans, and their "conceited parity," as he called it, should he once throw himself into their hands, but the fate his son received ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... again and again, and though I could not see, I felt certain that the fire had attracted some deer-like creature, which had gone bounding off, till all was silent again, when I crept back, letting the canvas fall behind me, feeling horribly conceited, and thinking what a brave ...
— Through Forest and Stream - The Quest of the Quetzal • George Manville Fenn
... want to seem conceited, but I see there's something about me that set would probably like. Mrs. Shiffney's showed me that. I have never called upon her. She has sent me several invitations. And to-day she called. She wants me to go with her on The ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... uproariousness—without touching a glass. He was intoxicated, not by the fermentation of grapes, but by the magnitude and magnificence of his own gesture. He was the monarch of the company, and getting a bit conceited ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... little good we do,—to pride ourselves on the petty kindnesses we shew,—to be puffed up with easy self-satisfaction, just as charity is NOT puffed up?— Another Lenten thought. "Charity does not behave herself unseemly;" is never proud, noisy, conceited; gives every man's opinion a fair, kindly hearing; making allowances for all mistakes. Have we done so?—Then there is another thought for Lent. "Charity seeks not her own;" does not stand fiercely and stiffly on her own rights, on the gratitude due to her. While we—are we not too apt, ...
— Twenty-Five Village Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... my sister to-day, and one to E——. I am going to dine with Mrs. Procter, to meet Milnes, whose poetry you know I read to you here one evening, and you liked it, as I do, some of it, very much.... As for L——, I think one should be a great deal cleverer than he is to be so amazingly conceited, and of course, if one was, one wouldn't be; and if that sentence is not lovely, neither is "Beaver hats." ("Beaver hats is the best that is, for a shower don't hurt 'em, the least that are," quoth an old countrywoman ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... sacrifice, mortification, self-denial have a meaning as they have always had. God gives more to some, less to others; He demands corresponding returns. These are things Horatio ignores. Yet they are real, real as his own empty and conceited wisdom. ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... in our naval service to feel conceited about it," Darry smiled, "and you are considerably older than I. Any difference there may be in comfort is your due. Will you ...
— Dave Darrin After The Mine Layers • H. Irving Hancock
... a peculiar joy in snubbing irrelevant would-be country visitors. It is the sweetest exercise of the will. Especially, too, if they are conceited persons who made sure of invitation. It adds a yet deeper thrill to the pleasure if you are able to invite some other friends near at hand, of humbler mind and greater interest, whose (maybe) shy charms are not flauntingly revealed. 'Fancy So-and-So ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... know you didn't! You never do! You always walk with your chin up—you're so dreadfully conceited. Well, let's see how many legs are broken this time. Why, none of them, I declare! And what's the good of having six legs, my dear, if you can only kick them all about in the air when you tumble? Legs are meant to walk with, you know. Now ...
— Sylvie and Bruno • Lewis Carroll
... along Rock Terrace, except when some tradesman's cart rattled past—and just now there was nothing of the kind in view—that even common talking could have been heard. 'Don't speak or seem to see him. They are awfully conceited birds, and the way to make them notice you and begin talking and screeching is to pretend you ...
— Peterkin • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... power to pass. But though Tom felt satisfaction at that moment, he had too good feeling to wound the self-love of the vain creature before him; so, instead of speaking what he thought, viz., "What business have you to attempt literature, you conceited fool?" he tried to wean him civilly from his folly by saying, "Then come back to the country, James; if you find jealous rivals here, you know you were ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... If, before the War, Frances had been asked whether she loved England, she would, after careful consideration, have replied truthfully, "I like England. But I dislike the English people. They are narrow and hypocritical and conceited. They are snobbish; and I hate snobs." At the time of the Boer War, beyond thinking that the British ought to win, and that they would win, and feeling a little spurt as of personal satisfaction when they did win, she had had no consciousness of her country whatsoever. As for loving it, she loved ...
— The Tree of Heaven • May Sinclair
... the world of vain phantoms, Chamilly! We are above the chatter of a wretched spot, a narrow life. Down there, nothing is not ridiculed that is not some phase of a provinciality. The dances in certain houses, the faces of some conceited club, long-spun names, business or gossip, or to drive a double carriage, are the gaslight boundaries of existence! Pah! it is a courtyard, bounded by four square walls, a path or two to walk in, and the eyes of busybodies to order our doings and sneer us out of our souls. How they deny ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair
... revoir, Mademoiselle," and they fluttered off. "Did you see her blush, Moth, when I said that about the day not being so charming?" said the Butterfly. "That's what they like. Halloa! there goes that simpleton of a Humming-Bird. He thinks he's got the gayest coat in the Garden. What a conceited fellow!" ...
— Seven Little People and their Friends • Horace Elisha Scudder
... that we are never bored, but yet we are so conceited that we do not perceive how ...
— Reflections - Or, Sentences and Moral Maxims • Francois Duc De La Rochefoucauld
... worldly admiration, inspired by kindly feeling, by an earnest desire to please, but whose every word is like a cold shower-bath; and then the hearty hand-clasps of rivals, of comrades, some very frank and cordial, others which communicate to you the inertness of their pressure; the tall, conceited zany whose absurd praise ought to delight you beyond measure, and who, in order not to spoil you utterly, accompanies it with "a few trifling reservations;" and the man who, while overwhelming you with compliments, proves to you that you ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... she said. "Different, I mean, from any one I ever met. And at first I thought him conceited. But he isn't really, he is just—well, different. I think I shall ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln |
