"Presumptuous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... acting on such an idea in his own case, unless guided by supernatural light, beyond the usual spiritual illumination given to all Christians. This supernatural light is rarely vouchsafed, and it is accordingly in the highest degree presumptuous in any person to overstep the ordinary routine of distinctly ordered duty, under the idea that he is called by God to break the rules given for the guidance of mankind in general. In all such supposed cases, the Catholic Church has the proper tests to apply, by which the soul can learn whether ...
— The Life of St. Frances of Rome, and Others • Georgiana Fullerton
... it is to worship money and show, as my parents did; how much suffering it has caused me! and how equally unwise and presumptuous it was for a young man, stung by the pride of others, to make that the rule of his life, and go forth in his own strength to build up a fortune, so that he might demand me of my parents as an equal, and thus gratify his own pride! I see it now, ...
— The Cabin on the Prairie • C. H. (Charles Henry) Pearson
... to man, for whose well being So amply, and with hands so liberal Thou hast provided all things: but with mee I see not who partakes. In solitude What happiness, who can enjoy alone, Or all enjoying, what contentment find? Thus I presumptuous; and the vision bright, As with a smile more bright'nd, thus repli'd. What call'st thou solitude, is not the Earth With various living creatures, and the Aire 370 Replenisht, and all these at thy command To come and play before thee, know'st thou not Thir language and thir wayes, ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... that is to saye [Sidenote: Don't play Jack Malapert, that is,] Beware of presumpcion / beware of pryde[1] [Sidenote: don't be presumptuous.] Take not [th]^e first place my child by the waye 493 Tyl other be sette / right manerly abyde [Sidenote: Wait till others are seated.] Presumptuous ben often set a syde. Ande alleday aualyde / as men may see And he is sette vp / ...
— Caxton's Book of Curtesye • Frederick J. Furnivall
... problems involved in the government of two hundred and fifty millions of the most ignorant races known, and all founded upon a few weeks' hurried travel among them. There is, however, a much more extensive class who are even more presumptuous, for they have just as complete a policy upon this subject, although they have never seen India ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... malapert. precocious, assuming, would-be, bumptious. bluff; brazen, shameless, aweless, unblushlng^, unabashed; brazen, boldfaced-, barefaced-, brazen-faced; dead to shame, lost to shame. impudent, audacious, presumptuous, free and easy, devil-may-care, rollicking; jaunty, janty^; roistering, blustering, hectoring, swaggering, vaporing; thrasonic, fire eating, full of sound and fury [Macbeth]. Adv. with a high hand; ex cathedra [Lat.]. Phr. one's bark being worse than his bite; beggars mounted run their horse ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... solidity of the planet, and our security is complete. And then some undreamed-of antagonism assaults our life. We speak of it as a bolt from the blue! Perhaps it is some stunning disaster in business. Or perhaps death has leaped into our quiet meadows. Or perhaps some presumptuous sin has suddenly revealed its foul face in the life of one of our children. And we are "all at sea!" Our little, neat hypotheses crumple like withered leaves. Our accustomed roads are all broken up, our conventional ways of thinking and ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... reacting upon him. I knew him first in 1826, and was in the closest and most affectionate friendship with him from about 1829 till his death in 1836. He was a man of the highest gifts—so truly many-sided, that it would be presumptuous in me to attempt to describe him, except under those aspects, in which he came before me. Nor have I here to speak of the gentleness and tenderness of nature, the playfulness, the free elastic force and graceful versatility of mind, and the patient winning considerateness ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... foolish, how presumptuous it is in adults to suppose that they can read the thoughts and the feelings of those of a tender age! How often has this presumption on their part been the ruin of a young mind, which, if truly estimated and duly fostered, would have blossomed and produced good fruit! The blush of honest indignation ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... be scolding anybody?" she said to herself. "I am sure I am far from perfect and it would look rather presumptuous to criticize Nancy who hasn't done ...
— The Motor Maids in Fair Japan • Katherine Stokes
... accepting a bouquet of violets marked with his initials and left by a female friend. "I've not brought you up with such devoted care," she declared to her daughter at their first interview, "to marry a presumptuous and penniless Frenchman. I shall take you straight home and you'll please forget M. ...
— Madame de Mauves • Henry James
... at the School for Infant Rogues, the Academy for Young Scamps, and the College for Complete Criminal Education, would it be reasonable to expect a Francois Xavier or a Henry Martyn to be the result of such a training? The traditionists, in whose presumptuous hands the science of anthropology has been trusted from time immemorial, have insisted on eliminating cause and effect from the domain of morals. When they have come across a moral monster they have ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... "It is almost presumptuous in me to differ from the sentence of a Court, but, before God, I do believe Mr. Smith to be innocent; nay, I will go further, and defy any minister, of any sect whatever, to have shewn a more faithful attention to his sacred duties, than he has been proved, ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... I have on many occasions been able, successfully, to present some of the works of the greatest dramatic genius the world has known, to more of my countrymen than have ever witnessed them within the same space of time; and let me hope it will not be deemed presumptuous to record the pride I feel at having been so fortunate a medium between our national poet and the ...
— The Merchant of Venice [liberally edited by Charles Kean] • William Shakespeare
... be none. If people would but look each other more in the face, we should have less cause to complain of the deception of the world; nothing so easy as physiognomy nor so useful.' Somewhat in this latter strain I thought at the time of which I am speaking. I am now older, and, let us hope, less presumptuous. It is true that in the course of my life I have scarcely ever had occasion to repent placing confidence in individuals whose countenances have prepossessed me in their favour; though to how many I may have been unjust, from whose countenances I may have drawn unfavourable ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... of the reasoning by which it is supported. To assert that it is not in the power of God adequately to punish sin in this world, is to profess a knowledge of the resources of Omnipotence, and an acquaintance with the deserts of man, which it seems to us presumptuous to claim. On this point it is not necessary to enlarge. An a priori argument to prove that God cannot punish sin in this life as much as it deserves to be punished, can carry conviction to no mind which ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... to have just smitten the earth, from which a horse has leaped forth. Minerva depicted herself with helmed head, her AEgis covering her breast. Such was the central circle; and in the four corners were represented incidents illustrating the displeasure of the gods at such presumptuous mortals as had dared to contend with them. These were meant as warnings to her rival to give up the contest before it ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... think me a presumptuous idiot," said Austen. "Politicians are not idealists anywhere—the very word has become a term of reproach. Undoubtedly your father desires to set things right as much as any one else—probably more than ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... I shall never cease to lament it, as an injury to that cause in which we had so long drawn together. But, as is generally the case in such differences between friends, there may be faults on both sides; and I am not so presumptuous as to believe that I am exempt from error. It is a lamentable truth, however, that the strongest mind is not always proof against the insinuations of false friends, of go-betweens, and the eternal workings, and worryings, and sly malignant hints, of the low pride ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt
... put the matter even more resolutely aside because, once or twice, the count had said things that might be construed as hints that he should not regard such an act as presumptuous. He had spoken not unapprovingly of the marriages of ladies of high rank to men who had rendered great services to the countries for which they had fought, and said that, with such ample means as Thirza would possess, ...
— With Frederick the Great - A Story of the Seven Years' War • G. A. Henty
... ever be shown untrue, and forasmuch as the demonstrated truths on which the present examination rests are the most fundamental which it is possible for the human mind to reach, I do not think it presumptuous to assert what appears to me a necessary deduction from these facts—namely, that, possible errors in reasoning apart, the rational position of Theism as here defined must remain without material modification as long as our intelligence ...
— A Candid Examination of Theism • George John Romanes
... to finding fault with religion itself. One Sunday, Mr. Hackit's nephew, Master Tom Stokes, a flippant town youth, greatly scandalized his excellent relatives by declaring that he could write as good a sermon as Mr. Gilfil's; whereupon Mr. Hackit sought to reduce the presumptuous youth to utter confusion, by offering him a sovereign if he would fulfil his vaunt. The sermon was written, however; and though it was not admitted to be anywhere within reach of Mr. Gilfil's. It was yet so ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... resulting from it, most forcibly strike the observation. Democratic communities not only contain a large number of independent citizens, but they are constantly filled with men who, having entered but yesterday upon their independent condition, are intoxicated with their new power. They entertain a presumptuous confidence in their strength, and as they do not suppose that they can henceforward ever have occasion to claim the assistance of their fellow-creatures, they do not scruple to show that they ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... members against the competition of irregular intruders. The established price, for blacking a pair of boots or shoes, is ten cents. When it is known to a member that an outsider is blacking for a less sum, the fact is reported to the society, which appoints a delegation to look after the presumptuous individual. He is promptly warned that he must work for the regular price, or "quit work." If he declines to do either, his head, in the elegant language of the society, is "punched," and he is driven from the street. ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... strange hesitation, she took her book and went to the old place. Longer than usual she sat there, idly and abstractedly turning over the leaves of her Shakspeare, starting and flushing with every chance sound that broke on the still, sweet air; yet no presumptuous intruder disturbed her maiden meditations, and she rose wearily at last, and walked slowly homeward, saying to herself, "It is well. I have conquered," but feeling that nothing was well in life, or her own heart, and that she was miserably defeated. Ah, little did she suspect that her clouded, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... a compromise had been made by which two different orders of truth, religious and scientific, had been recognized, in order that a schoolman might say that two and two make four without being burnt for heresy. But the nineteenth century, steeped in a meddling, presumptuous, reading-and-writing, socially and politically powerful ignorance inconceivable by Thomas Aquinas or even Roger Bacon, was incapable of so convenient an arrangement; and science was strangled by bigoted ignoramuses claiming infallibility for their ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... competitor for the hand of the gentle Jolande was none other than his sovereign, he was dumb with despair, and the last, the miserable hope which it imparts, and which maketh wretched, began to leave him. He now accused himself for having been made the sacrifice of a wild and presumptuous dream, and again he thought of the kindly smile and the look of sorrow which met together on her countenance, when, in a rash, impassioned moment, he fell on his knee before her, and made known ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... tomb; and am I the sister of Torquato? Kiss me, my brother, and let my tears run only from my pride and joy! Princes have bestowed knighthood on the worthy and unworthy; thou hast called forth those princes from their ranks, pushing back the arrogant and presumptuous of them like intrusive varlets, and conferring on the bettermost crowns and robes, imperishable ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... glance of speechless indignation at her sister. Sympathy between them was immediately restored. Prompt action was necessary on the part of the family, or this presumptuous physician would be walking round the house to show John Crewys the portraits of his ...
— Peter's Mother • Mrs. Henry De La Pasture
... brother's presumptuous demand that he should take him to her! That he should take him to her now! Did Apollonius already know of her state and want to take advantage of it? The question was superfluous; if they saw each other now they could not fail to understand ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... counsels sway The choice of Athens; some would have the prince, Your child, for master; others, disregarding The laws, dare to support the stranger's son. 'Tis even said that a presumptuous faction Would crown Aricia and the house of Pallas. I deem'd it right to warn you of this danger. Hippolytus already is prepared To start, and should he show himself at Athens, 'Tis to be fear'd the fickle crowd ...
— Phaedra • Jean Baptiste Racine
... that struck the ship, did cruelly curse Cimon's love and censure his rashness, averring that this tempest was come upon them for no other cause than that the gods had decreed, that, as 'twas in despite of their will that he purposed to espouse her, he should be frustrate of his presumptuous intent, and having lived to see her expire, should then ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... when they rebelled openly against their Hapsburg overlords.[5] The Hapsburg duke of the moment was one of two rival claimants for the title of emperor, and was much too busy to attend personally to the chastisement of these presumptuous boors. The army which he sent to do the work for him was met by the Swiss at Morgarten, among their mountain passes, overwhelmed with rocks, and then put to flight by one fierce charge of the unarmored peasants. It took ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... its after sustenance and means of growth and in conflict with danger the source of new strength; like piles, which the blows of the rammer serve to fix into the ground. Wherefore Numa, judging it no slight undertaking to mollify and bend to peace the presumptuous and stubborn spirits of this people, began to operate upon them with the sanctions of religion. He sacrificed often, and used processions and religious dances, in which most commonly he officiated in person; ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... man heaved a worried sigh. "See what a mis'rable presumptuous piece of work!" he muttered, addressing the logs overhead. "But that Clauson—he wa'n't no more fit to guide ye than to go to heaven! Couldn't 'a' done ...
— The Desert and The Sown • Mary Hallock Foote
... thing to pronounce on," she said. "I can tell you for certain that Hermann and I are both very fond of him, but it is presumptuous for us to say that he is ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... it, I have left it upon the Lord of the house, and it hath been and still is my desire that he may dwell in this society, and that the youth may he fed with sound knowledge."—After this he said, "Dear brethren, it may seem presumptuous in me a particular man, to send a commission to a presbytery;—and Mr. M'Gill replying, It was no presumption, he continued,—Dear brethren, take a commission from me a dying man, to them to appear for God and his cause, and adhere to the doctrine ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... the legions, and with a Co-Augustus to share the empire with him,— ruling (it was to be hoped in perfect harmony with himself) the west and leaving the east to Constantius. However, all will not do: Constantius writes severe and haughtily, Send the men, and let's hear no more of that presumptuous fooling about the second Augustus!—So Julian marches east; whither, accompanying him, the lately rebellious Celts and Petulants are ready enough to go now; and Constantius might after all have fallen in battle, and so missed his saving baptism; but his plans had gone agley, and the whole situation ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... into the Parke till 9 or 10 at night, it being fine moonshine, discoursing of the unhappinesse of our fleete, what it would have been if the Prince had not come in, how much the Duke hath failed of what he was so presumptuous of, how little we deserve of God Almighty to give us better fortune, how much this excuses all that was imputed to my Lord Sandwich, and how much more he is a man fit to be trusted with all those matters than those that now command, who act by nor ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... broached the subject with Madame Wang, and the rest of the company. "I've never before ventured to give utterance to the remarks that just fell from my lips," she said, "as first of all I was in fear and trembling lest I should have made that girl Feng more presumptuous than ever, and next, lest I should have incurred the displeasure of one and all of you. But since you're all here to-day, and every one of you knows what brothers' wives and husbands' sisters mean, is there (I ask) any one besides ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... the writer of the book and to bear his message to the professional book-reviewers. On the other hand, only truly devoted readers will track the author to his lair in a distant postscript. While it might be presumptuous for him to talk about himself before the unknown and anonymous book-reviewers, he cannot but be rejoiced at the chance of a gossip with his old ...
— Tales of Fantasy and Fact • Brander Matthews
... mistaken," said the young man coldly. "I came to you for human aid, and thank you for what you have granted me: I have not been presumptuous enough to ask more, nor to believe myself a fitting subject for conversion. I am weak, but not weak enough to take advantage of the mistaken kindness of either the temporal Council of Todos Santos or its spiritual head." He opened ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... and combined with the magnificent present brought over by Soto, the affairs of Cortes at the court of Spain took a favourable turn. The golden Phoenix with its motto, gave great offence to many, who thought it presumptuous in Cortes to insinuate that he had no equal in his services: But his friends justly defended him, observing that no one had so far extended the fame and power of his majesty, or had brought so many thousand souls ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... was quick to answer, with some heat. "I did not dream—I did not dare to dream—that it was my help you sought. My sympathy, I believed, was all that you invited, and so, lest I should seem presumptuous, it was all I offered. But if my help you need; if you seek a means to evade this alliance that you rightly describe as odious, such help as it lies in a man's power to render shall you ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... make a due allowance for difference of time and circumstances, the graves of these exiles will be visited with sentiments of veneration. It would have been grand to spare the presumptuous monarch; but we cannot feel surprised that he was sacrificed to the indignation of an outraged people. In these days, happily, kings and nations have learned that to take away the life of tyrannical rulers, or of resisting subjects, is but to sow the ...
— American Scenes, and Christian Slavery - A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United States • Ebenezer Davies
... me to hope," he said. "I remember that one night in the conservatory I was presumptuous enough—to take your hand. History repeats itself, you see, and I claim the prize, for I have ...
— A Prince of Sinners • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... be presumptuous, after the foregoing sketch, to say, with entire consideration for the sovereignty and national pride of the Spanish American Republics, that the United States, by the priority of their independence, by the stability of their institutions, by the regard of their people for the ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Ulysses S. Grant • James D. Richardson
... in the spirit of the hope above mentioned that I wish to speak of the future of our educational institutions: and this is the second point in regard to which I must tender an apology from the outset. The "prophet" pose is such a presumptuous one that it seems almost ridiculous to deny that I have the intention of adopting it. No one should attempt to describe the future of our education, and the means and methods of instruction relating ...
— On the Future of our Educational Institutions • Friedrich Nietzsche
... river had come down in flood rising to a height of eighteen cubits, higher than ever before that time, and had gone over the fields, a wind fell upon it and the river became agitated by waves: and this king (they say) moved by presumptuous folly took a spear and cast it into the midst of the eddies of the stream; and immediately upon this he had a disease of the eyes and was by it made blind. For ten years then he was blind, and in the eleventh year there came to him an oracle from the city of Buto saying that the time of his punishment ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 1(of 2) • Herodotus
... thought what he was doing—it is but charity to suppose so; that he spoke only after his usual careless and somewhat presumptuous style of speaking about all women, but he must have been struck by the horrified expression of ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... Christianity has to be commended? Can we diagnose it in any general yet recognisable fashion, so as to find guidance in seeking access to it for the gospel of the Atonement? There may seem to be something presumptuous in the very idea, as though any one making the attempt assumed a superiority to the mind of his time, an exemption from its limitations and prejudices, a power to see over it and round about it. All such presumption is of course disclaimed here; but even while we disclaim it, the ...
— The Atonement and the Modern Mind • James Denney
... to remark, that while the extreme danger to property which might ensue from the further exasperation of certain classes, prevented their taking those active steps on the side of tranquillity to which their feelings inclined them, the known piety and wisdom of their esteemed patriarch made it presumptuous in them to offer any opinion on his present conduct, beyond the expression of their firm belief that he had been unfortunately misinformed as to those sentiments of affection and respect which his excellency the Prefect was well known to entertain towards him. They ventured, therefore, ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... presumptuous to enter into anything like a discussion with you, sire. If your majesty will be gracious enough to impart your criticism on ...
— The International Spy - Being the Secret History of the Russo-Japanese War • Allen Upward
... anecdotes, that Thomas Day published in 1783, is superb. No matter how familiar it may be, it is simply impossible to avoid laughing anew at the smug little Harry, the sanctimonious tutor, or the naughty Tommy, as Mr. Sambourne has realised them. The "Anecdotes of the Crocodile" and "The Presumptuous Dentist" are no less good. The way he has turned a prosaic hat-rack into an instrument of torture would alone mark Mr. Sambourne as a comic draughtsman of the highest type. Nothing he has done in political cartoons seems ...
— Children's Books and Their Illustrators • Gleeson White
... and base life comes not into their mind to correct them, and bring them to repentance; but presumptuous thoughts, and an hope and faith of the Spiders (the Devils) making, possesseth their soul, to their own ...
— The Life and Death of Mr. Badman • John Bunyan
... their specifications, was rock lying just above the coal in mines, and this rock was pulverized and heated in a furnace to extract all the precious healing oil.[8] This Betton patent aroused one of their rivals, Edmund Darby & Co. of Coalbrook-Dale in Shropshire. Darby asserted that it was presumptuous of the Bettons to call their British oyl a new invention.[9] For over a century Darby and his predecessors had been marketing this self-same product, and it had proved to be "the one and only unrivall'd ...
— Old English Patent Medicines in America • George B. Griffenhagen
... The treatise was thus occasioned:— 'It was one day, as I was Walking in Your Majesty's Palace at White-Hall (where I have sometimes the honour to refresh myself with the Sight of Your Illustrious Presence, which is the Joy of Your Peoples hearts) that a presumptuous Smoak issuing from one or two tunnels near Northumberland House, and not far from Scotland-yard did so invade the Court; that all the Rooms, Galleries, and Places about it were fill'd and infested with it; and that to ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... from his success in gallantry. Richelieu was in truth the most eminent of that race of seducers by profession, who furnished Crebillon the younger and La Clos with models for their heroes. In his earlier days the royal house itself had not been secure from his presumptuous love. He was believed to have carried his conquests into the family of Orleans; and some suspected that he was not unconcerned in the mysterious remorse which embittered the last hours of the charming mother of Lewis the Fifteenth. But the Duke was now sixty years old. With ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the reach of human capacity, it is certain it must lie very deep and abstruse: and to hope we shall arrive at it without pains, while the greatest geniuses have failed with the utmost pains, must certainly be esteemed sufficiently vain and presumptuous. I pretend to no such advantage in the philosophy I am going to unfold, and would esteem it a strong presumption against it, were it so ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... publicly—of so very great consequence is it that man should be comprehended and recognized by man. The self-taught man therefore remains embarrassed, and does not free himself from the apprehension that he may expose some weak point to a professional, or he falls into the other extreme—he becomes presumptuous, steps forth as a reformer, and, if he accomplishes nothing, or earns only ridicule, he sets himself down as an unrecognized martyr by an ...
— Pedagogics as a System • Karl Rosenkranz
... of the immortal Declaration of Independence, and this they proposed to have made a part of the-great day's proceedings.[88] Their efforts to this end, their repulse and their subsequent action are so delightfully described in the History of Woman Suffrage that it would be presumptuous to attempt to improve upon it. Their utmost efforts could obtain but four seats on the platform. Miss Anthony had a ticket as reporter for her brother's paper. The earnest request of Mrs. Stanton, president ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... unless the wind changes.' 'Well, madam,' replied the doctor, 'I will pray that your son may be converted on this voyage; but to pray that God would alter the laws of His universe on his account, I fear is presumptuous.' 'Doctor,' she replied, 'my heart tells me differently. God's Spirit is here. Souls are being converted here. You have a meeting this evening, and, if the wind would change, John would stay and go to it; and, I believe, if he went he would be converted. Now, if you ...
— The Wonders of Prayer - A Record of Well Authenticated and Wonderful Answers to Prayer • Various
... have been expected from so enlightened an institution) received this statement with the contempt it deserved, expelled the presumptuous and ill-conditioned Blotton from the society, and voted Mr. Pickwick a pair of gold spectacles, in token of their confidence and approbation: in return for which, Mr. Pickwick caused a portrait of himself to be painted, and hung up in the ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... coolly sat himself down upon the sofa, beside the Prince. The courtiers and wise men were indignant; and the Sultan, who did not know the intruder, was at first inclined to follow their example. He turned to one of his officers, and ordered him to eject the presumptuous stranger from the room; but Alfarabi, without moving, dared them to lay hands upon him; and, turning himself calmly to the prince, remarked, that he did not know who was his guest, or he would ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... try anything in the manner of Michael Angelo or of Dante, we catch a fall, even in literature, as Milton in the battle of the angels, spoiled from Hesiod:[174] while in art, every attempt in this style has hitherto been the sign either of the presumptuous egotism of persons who had never really learned to be workmen, or it has been connected with very tragic forms of the contemplation of death,—it has always been partly insane, and ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... things could have been done without anyone finding it out, when they were all so alert and quick-witted, amazed them. Then it was to them such a breach of the rules or usages of such occasions. Who, they said in their excitement, could have been so presumptuous as to break the long-established custom, and take in food and fire ...
— Oowikapun - How the Gospel Reached the Nelson River Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young
... With a good natural intellect, Sir William had received a very scanty education; and was therefore much impressed by the prodigious attainments of such men as the two Mathers. To differ with them on a theological matter seemed to him rather presumptuous. If they did not know what was sound in theology, and right in practise; why was there any use in having ministers at all, or who could be expected to be certain ...
— Dulcibel - A Tale of Old Salem • Henry Peterson
... with the presumptuous youth—and no wonder; for the gospel the minister preached was a gospel but to the ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... Adoniram, Joabert, and Stolkin, are types of the True Mason, who seeks for knowledge from pure motives, and that he may be the better enabled to serve and benefit his fellow-men; while the discontented and presumptuous Masters who were buried in the ruins of the arches represent those who strive to acquire it for unholy purposes, to gain power over their fellows, to gratify their pride, their ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... horror-spreading course, The barrier-fort opposed unequal force; That fort whose walls, extending wide, contained The stay of Persia, men to battle trained. Soon as Hujir the dusky crowd descried, He on his own presumptuous arm relied, And left the fort; in mail with shield and spear, Vaunting he spoke—"What hostile force is here? What Chieftain dares our war-like realms invade?" "And who art thou?" Sohrab indignant said, Rushing towards him with undaunted look— "Hast thou, audacious! nerve and soul ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... justified self-respect. He appreciates the distinction between mere stubbornness, which would alienate his followers, and the necessary firmness which binds the bonds between the leader and the led. He realizes that comradeship, without presumptuous familiarity, is the firmest foundation for mutual loyalty (page 14). He knows that kindness and consideration, without suggestion of pampering, will not be mistaken for weakness by any subordinate ...
— Sound Military Decision • U.s. Naval War College
... unexcited, dispassionate, indifferent, nonchalant, unconcerned, composed; chilling, apathetic, repellent, distant, unfriendly, ceremonious; audacious, impudent, shameless, presumptuous, flippant, presuming. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... and courage from Pallas, rushed madly over the field, falling upon the affrighted Trojans like a lion in the sheepfold; then, made more presumptuous by his success, and forgetful of the few years promised the man who dares to meet the gods in battle, the arrogant warrior struck at Venus and wounded her in the wrist, so that, shrieking with pain, she yielded AEneas to ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... Nebuchadnezzar rapidly recovered the lost territory, received the submission of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, restored the old frontier line, and probably pressed on into Egypt itself, hoping to cripple or even to crush his presumptuous adversary. But at this point he was compelled to pause. News arrived from Babylon that Nabopolassar was dead; and the Babylonian prince, who feared a disputed succession, having first concluded a hasty arrangement with Neco, returned at his ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 4. (of 7): Babylon • George Rawlinson
... would not end in analysis and disquisition, that might be no great improvement even upon political history. Mr. Gladstone said of reconstruction of the income-tax that he only did not call the task herculean, because Hercules could not have done it. Assuredly, I am not presumptuous enough to suppose that this difficulty of fixing the precise scale between history and biography has been successfully overcome by me. It may be that Hercules himself ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... relative had sent him a message to the effect that having had neither word nor wittens of him for a considerable period, and having feared the worst, he was thankful to learn of his safe arrival in Halifax, Nova Scotia; and trusted that the step he had taken, if a thought presumptuous at his years, yet betokened a spirit of self-reliance, and might prove not otherwise than conducive to his ...
— We and the World, Part II. (of II.) - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... he, "that the world can lay at the feet of its lord?" And the committee of taste prostrated themselves when they beheld his indignation. "And this," exclaimed he, pointing to the supposed portrait of the daughter of Whanghang; "who is this presumptuous one who hath dared to disgrace with her features the ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... wish, Cesare! Signor Ferrari is certainly rash and hot-tempered, he might be presumptuous enough to—But you do not think of yourself in the matter! Surely YOU also are in danger of being insulted by him when ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... was thrown out this year, is the subject of several of Robert's satires, bearing the titles of John Bull versus Pope Bull; Defenders of the Faith; The Hare Presumptuous, or a Catholic Game Trap; A Political Shaver, or the Crown in Danger. The Catholic Association, or Paddy Coming it too Strong, has reference to Mr. Goulburn's motion to suppress the Catholic Association ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... gentlemen of the London Mission, whose acquaintance I had the satisfaction of making in Samoa, I will venture, at the risk of being considered presumptuous, to express my opinion, that in acquirements, general ability, and active energy, they would hold no undistinguished place among their Christian brethren at home. The impossibility of accumulating private property, both from the regulations of the Society and the circumstances surrounding ...
— The Cruise of the Mary Rose - Here and There in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston
... He signed himself "Philip." She knew that was his name. She thought it a musical name to utter, but to write it! No! some instinct she could not account for seemed to whisper that it was improper—presumptuous, to call him "Dear Philip." Had Burns's songs—the songs that unthinkingly he had put into her hand, and told her to read—songs that comprise the most beautiful love-poems in the world—had they helped to teach her some of the secrets of her own heart? And had ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... French. Robin says of the discipline insisted on at Newport, "The officers employed politeness and amenity, the common soldiers became mild, circumspect and moderate." The French at Newport were no longer the frivolous race, presumptuous, noisy, full of fatuity, they were reputed to be. They lived quietly and retired, limiting their society to their hosts, to whom every day they became dearer. These young nobles of birth and fortune, to whom a sojourn at court must have given ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... observation I have to make on this wordy jumble is, that it seems highly presumptuous on the part of weak men to defend the character of "Almighty God." Surely they might leave him to protect himself. Omnipotence is able to punish those who offend it, and Omniscience knows when to punish. Man's interference is grossly impertinent. When ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote
... known an occasion on which the duty of a government was performed on a larger scale,—on which a more adequate provision was made for all contingencies that could occur, and for all the various events which could, and which did, in fact, occur during this campaign. My lords, it would be presumptuous in me to say more on this subject, having, I repeat, been made acquainted, only by accident, with the arrangements made preparatory to the campaign now brought under your lordships' attention. With respect to the military services performed, I can say nothing beyond, nor more deserving the ...
— Maxims And Opinions Of Field-Marshal His Grace The Duke Of Wellington, Selected From His Writings And Speeches During A Public Life Of More Than Half A Century • Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington
... The latter was already on the way when Jotham was laid with his fathers (736 B.C.), and it was Ahaz, the son of Jotham, who had to bear the brant of the assault. He was barely twenty years old, a volatile, presumptuous, and daring youth, who was not much dismayed by his position.** Jotham had repaired the fortifications of Jerusalem, which had been left in a lamentable state ever since the damage done to them in the reign of Amaziah;*** ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 7 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... are, to whose presumptuous thoughts Those freer beauties, even in them, seem faults Some figures monstrous and misshaped appear, Considered singly, or beheld too near, Which, but proportioned to their light, or place, Due distance reconciles ...
— An Essay on Criticism • Alexander Pope
... moment the girls looked at the presumptuous young stranger in silence. Then the bride, flushing prettily, stepped forward and handed him her camera, saying as ...
— Under the Great Bear • Kirk Munroe
... "No," he said. "It seems to me that argument has quite frequently accounted for a good deal of meanness. It is tolerably presumptuous for any man to ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... Wimpffen, 'your positions are not so strong as you would have us believe them to be.' 'You do not know the topography of the country about Sedan,' was Von Moltke's true and crushing answer. 'Here is a bizarre detail which illustrates the presumptuous and inconsequent character of your people,' he went on, now thoroughly aroused. 'When the war began you supplied your officers with maps of Germany at a time when they could not study the geography of their own country for want of French maps. I tell you that our positions are ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... answered, gravely. "Don't think me over-presumptuous. The matter has been very carefully thought out. You could not serve under Rushleigh, nor could he serve under you. But you could both be invaluable members of a Cabinet of which I was the nominal head. I do not wish to entrap you ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... people, but with Indians it is different. When we love it is terrible—our passion becomes our life, our whole existence! Such a confession sounds absurd perhaps, but you assumed an air of superiority—racial superiority, I mean—a thing which I know to be as false as it is presumptuous. I might assume the airs and attitude of one of your race if I chose, but you laughed, and the race-pride in me cries out that I should be to you what I really am—an Indian, not that which I have learned and borrowed from ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... railways and telegraphs were denounced from a few noted pulpits as heralds of Antichrist; and how in Protestant England the curate of Rotherhithe, at the breaking in of the Thames Tunnel, so destructive to life and property, declared it from his pulpit a just judgment upon the presumptuous aspirations ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... writers, but no poet, and this at a time when Tennyson was already famous. The same spirit of exclusion, in a minor degree, will deny the existence of all poets except three, or perhaps four, in a generation. It would be presumptuous to hope to be one of the three; but I do not think it was presumptuous in me to hope for some readers for my verse. As this autobiography approached that early publication, I read the volume over again, with a fresh eye, after an interval of many years, exactly as if it had been written ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... nose, though it spoke him no Roman, Was mounted that day on a Horse that feared no man, No Wounds, for all o're his Trappings so sumptuous He had ty'd Squibs and Crackers; 'twas mighty presumptuous. ...
— Quaint Gleanings from Ancient Poetry • Edmund Goldsmid
... possible," he says, "to avoid comparing the eye with the telescope. We know that this instrument has been perfected by the long continued efforts of the highest of human intellects; and we naturally infer that the eye has been formed by a somewhat analogous process. But may not this inference be presumptuous? Have we any right to assume that the Creator works by intellectual powers like those of man? If we must compare the eye to an optical instrument, we ought in imagination to take a thick layer of transparent tissue, with spaces filled with fluid, and with a nerve sensitive to light beneath, ...
— What is Darwinism? • Charles Hodge
... for pardon for Christ's sake. Friends, too, were remembered; for it is one of the peculiar consequences of the renewal of the human heart that the subjects of this renewal begin to think of the souls of others as well as of their own. Unbelievers deem this presumptuous and hypocritical, forgetting that if they were called upon to act in similar circumstances, they would be necessarily and inevitably quite as presumptuous, and that the insulting manner in which the efforts of believers are often received ...
— Shifting Winds - A Tough Yarn • R.M. Ballantyne
... grudge such a trifle to you." "Sir, (said he, with a stern look) I have known David Garrick longer than you have done; and I know no right you have to talk to me on the subject." Perhaps I deserved this check; for it was rather presumptuous in me, an entire stranger, to express any doubt of the justice of his animadversion upon his old acquaintance and pupil. I now felt myself much mortified, and began to think that the hope which I had long indulged of obtaining ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock
... Upon this presumptuous interference, Mohi looked highly offended; and nervously twitching his beard, uttered something invidious about frippery young poetasters being too full of silly imaginings to ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... and prejudiced, but magnanimous; impatient with the presumptuous, tender to modest ignorance, proudly independent of the patronage of the great, and was often doing deeds of noble ...
— The Glory of English Prose - Letters to My Grandson • Stephen Coleridge
... correct: the Quarterly critique, having appeared in September, 1818, preceded the death of Keats by two years and five months].... The fact is, the Quarterly, finding before it a work at once silly and presumptuous, full of the servile slang that Cockaigne dictates to its servitors, and the vulgar indecorums which that Grub Street Empire rejoiceth to applaud, told the truth of the volume, and recommended a ...
— Adonais • Shelley
... which he lies to the Rev. JOHN LAING, Librarian in the New College, Edinburgh, for the valuable assistance which he afforded to him in the translation of this work. Any observation on the work itself or its Author would be superfluous, if not presumptuous, considering the high position which Dr HENGSTENBERG holds as a Biblical Scholar. High, however, as this position is, the Translator feels confident that it will be raised by the present work, the Author's latest and first; and not only revering Dr ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... suspicions of the proud chieftain were aroused. It had never entered into his mind that Cameron might, by any possibility, raise his presumptuous hopes so high as to dream of loving the sister of Ewan Macpherson; and no sooner did he suspect the truth, than he dashed from his mind every friendly and grateful feeling towards the man who had ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... been a member of this association for only a few hours, it may seem a little presumptuous to even suggest a national program for the promotion of nut culture, to say nothing of what should constitute such a program. But, running the risk of someone hurling a chestnut burr at me, I will venture a few suggestions, ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Sixth Annual Meeting. Rochester, New York, September 1 and 2, 1915 • Various
... Imperial Government some pretended friends of General Kellerman have presumed to claim for him the merit of originating the charge of cavalry. That general, whose share of glory is sufficiently brilliant to gratify his most sanguine wishes, can have no knowledge of so presumptuous a pretension. I the more readily acquit him from the circumstance that, as we were conversing one day respecting that battle, I called to his mind my having brought, to him the First Consul's orders, and he appeared not to have forgotten that fact. I am far from suspecting his friends ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... been too kind to the lad, lassie, and he's got presumptuous. He must be taught his place. I mistrust we have all made more ...
— Kilmeny of the Orchard • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Paris is so complex and unstable that one feels it is presumptuous to try to define it. It is a city so highly-strung, so ingrained with fickleness, and so changeable in its tastes, that a book that truly describes it at the moment it is written is no longer accurate by the time it is published. And then, there is not only ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland |
