"Vainglory" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... “found sermons” in all this greatness (if I had I should surely have slept), but such was not then my way. If this cherished self of mine had built the universe, I should have dwelt with delight on “the wonders of creation.” As it was, I felt rather the vainglory of my promotion from out of mere rooms and houses into the midst of that grand, dark, ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... cape-merchant, directed in his will, 1628, that he be buried "without any pomp or vainglory," he probably was protesting the tendency towards elaborate funerals, even in the early days of the Colony. It is not known whether or not his wishes in this respect were carried out; however, he was, no doubt, buried in his garden near his new ...
— Domestic Life in Virginia in the Seventeenth Century - Jamestown 350th Anniversary Historical Booklet Number 17 • Annie Lash Jester
... of faith that has ever existed under the Christian dispensation. The rigid discipline, contempt for form, and sustained humility of the old Covenanters are written deeply in the modest stones which mark the green graves of their faithful dead during a period of fully two hundred years. The vainglory of a graven stone to exalt the virtues of imperfect men and women was to them a forbidden thing; the ostentation even of a name carved on a slab was at variance with doctrine; the cravings of a poor humanity to be remembered after death had to be satisfied with bare initials, ...
— In Search Of Gravestones Old And Curious • W.T. (William Thomas) Vincent
... — N. dignity, self-respect, mens sibi conscia recti [Lat.] [Vergil]. pride; haughtiness &c adj.; high notions, hauteur; vainglory, crest; arrogance &c (assumption) 885. proud man, highflier^; fine gentleman, fine lady. V. be proud &c adj.; put a good face on; look one in the face; stalk abroad, perk oneself up; think no small beer of oneself; presume, swagger, strut; rear one's head, lift up one's head, hold up one's ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... Camden's former occupation, virulently accusing him of the manners of a pedagogue:—"A man may perceive an immoderate and eager desire of vainglory growing in hand, ever since he used to teach and correct children for these things, according to the opinion of some, in mores et naturam abeunt." He complains of "the school-hyperboles" which Camden exhausts ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... deemed the soil meet for his plough, and fell forthwith inordinately in love with her, though he deferred his blandishments to a more convenient season, and by way of supporting his character for holiness began instead to chide her, telling her (among other novelties) that this was vainglory: whereto the lady retorted that he was a blockhead, and could not distinguish one degree of beauty from another. Wherefore Fra Alberto, lest he should occasion her too much chagrin, cut short the confession, and ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... hack past the office window came Bill Harrison, once extra brakeman on the Dry Creek Branch, just promoted to be conductor on the main line, and so full of vainglory in his exalted position that he wears his brass buttons on freight trains. Bill's wife signs his pay-check and doles out his cigar money, a quarter at a time, and when he asks for a dollar, she looks at him as if she suspected him ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White
... he thought to himself, "Surely in all the world God has no more beautiful house than this which I have built with such long labour and at so princely an outlay of my treasure." And thus the Prince Bishop fell into the sin of vainglory, and, though he was a holy man, he did not perceive that he had fallen, so filled with gladness was he at the sight of his ...
— A Child's Book of Saints • William Canton
... are but weak and wayward men, Distraught alike with hatred and vainglory; Prone to despise the Soul that breathes within— High visioned hordes that lie and steal and kill, Sinning the sin each separate heart disclaims, Clambering upon our riven, writhing selves, Besieging Heaven by trampling men to Hell! We be blood-guilty! Lo, ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... course of these memoirs I have more than once remarked that a ridiculous spirit of vainglory is often the source of those prodigious mischiefs which are committed by those abandoned persons, who addict themselves to open robberies, and the carrying on, as it were, a declared war against mankind. ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... in pleasures and absences from duty; but he employed himself in gaining a knowledge of the country, making himself known to the army, learning from the experienced, and imitating the best; neither pressing to be employed through vainglory, nor declining it through timidity; and performing his duty with equal solicitude and spirit. At no other time in truth was Britain more agitated or in a state of greater uncertainty. Our veterans slaughtered, our colonies burnt, [17] our armies cut off, [18]—we ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus
... until he is led to God and may sit with heavenly citizens in everlasting seats. Therefore he stands clear in conscience and is steadfast in all good ways the which is never noyed with worldly heaviness nor gladdened with vainglory." ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry
... the traditions of the family, under the ruins of the pile that he reared with such pride and vainglory—never lived to enjoy his riches. Twice he built the house, and twice it was destroyed; the first time partially, and by fire, the second time utterly. "For," so the story goes, "a wind rose in the night, ...
— Only an Irish Girl • Mrs. Hungerford
... many Officers, because He sees that such success would be their ruin. The spirit of Nebuchadnezzar is in them. He cannot build Babylon, or London, or New York, or anything else by their instrumentality, because He sees it would create the spirit of vainglory and boasting, or of ambition; make them dissatisfied with their position; or otherwise curse them and those about them. Look at Saul. What a lesson his history has in it for us all. 'When thou wast little in thine ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton
... gifted me with an exigent conscience and a turn for oratory, I would, I like to think, have publicly confessed, at that first public performance, to all those tributary clarifying rills to the play's progress: but, as it was, vainglory combined with an aversion to "speech-making" to compel a taciturn if smirking acceptance of the curtain-call with which an indulgent audience flustered the nominal author of The Jewel Merchants.... Now, in any case, it ...
— The Jewel Merchants - A Comedy In One Act • James Branch Cabell
... their crimes and devotion, their weakness and genius, their religion and their irreligion. Though he had seen Rome to familiarity, he was gratified. The sight filled a measure of pride which would have made him drunk with vainglory but for the thought, princely as the property was, it did not any longer belong to his countrymen; the worship in the Temple was by permission of strangers; the hill where David dwelt was a marbled cheat—an office in which ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... his usance, he asked him if he had ever sinned by way of lust with any woman. 'Father,' replied Master Ciappelletto, sighing, 'on this point I am ashamed to tell you the truth, fearing to sin by way of vainglory.' Quoth the friar, 'Speak in all security, for never did one sin by telling the truth, whether in confession or otherwise.' 'Then,' said Master Ciappelletto, 'since you certify me of this, I will tell you; I am yet a virgin, even as I came forth of my mother's ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... infidel boors, for we are assured that all this rout and destruction was effected by five hundred foot and fifty horse, and those mere mountaineers without science or discipline.* "It was intended," observes one historiographer, "as a lesson to their confidence and vainglory, overrating their own prowess and thinking that so chosen a band of chivalry had but to appear in the land of the enemy and conquer. It was to teach them that the race is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong, but that God alone ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... apologetische Gesichtspunkte massgebend gewesen sind, mag dahingestellt bleiben. Der Historiker darf sich jedoch nie durch apologetische Zwecke leiten lassen; sein einziges Ziel soll die Ergrundung der Wahrheit sein.—PASTOR, Geschichte der Pabste, ii. 545. Church history falsely written is a school of vainglory, hatred, and uncharitableness; truly written, it is a discipline of humility, of charity, of mutual love.—SIR W. HAMILTON, Discussions, 506. The more trophies and crowns of honour the Church of former ages ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... been denied him. His sphere is not the ideal like Milton's. His irony, splendid as it is, falls a little short of that diabolical magnificence which exalts Swift to the point whence, in his own way, he surveys all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory or vainglory of them. All Fielding's critics have noted the manner, in a certain sense modest, in another ostentatious, in which he seems to confine himself to the presentation of things English. They might have added to the presentation ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... is inconsistent if he persuades the contrary to what he intends. But when the devil set Christ on a pinnacle of the Temple, he purposed to tempt Him to pride or vainglory. Therefore it was inconsistent to urge Him to cast Himself thence: for this would be contrary to pride or vainglory, which ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... practised painting were for long ignorant as to how to explain its theory, it lacked advocates for a considerable time; because it does not speak itself, but reveals itself and ends in action, and poetry ends in words, which in its vainglory it employs ...
— Thoughts on Art and Life • Leonardo da Vinci
... others would think of advertising his own virtues or bragging of his own deeds. Nor would any Nation wishing to stand well in its own eyes and in the eyes of the world boast of its own conquests over weaker foes or shout itself hoarse in the exuberance of vainglory. ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... efficacy. In a connection, the most inconsiderable man, by adding to the weight of the whole, has his value, and his use; out of it, the greatest talents are wholly unserviceable to the public. No man, who is not inflamed by vainglory into enthusiasm, can flatter himself that his single, unsupported, desultory, unsystematic endeavours, are of power to defeat, the subtle designs and united cabals of ambitious citizens. When bad men combine, the good must ...
— Thoughts on the Present Discontents - and Speeches • Edmund Burke
... any vainglory, but in the utmost confidence. She glanced covertly at him. He seemed to her strong and full of resource. But she would not show ...
— The Young Trailers - A Story of Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Decii so forward to offer themselves up as a sacrifice for an atonement to the angry gods, to rescue and stipulate for their indebted country? What made Curtius, on a like occasion, so desperately to throw away his life, but only vainglory, that is condemned, and unanimously voted for a main branch of Folly by all wise men? What is more unreasonable and foppish (say they) than for any man, out of ambition to some office, to bow, to scrape and cringe to the gaping rabble, to purchase their favour by bribes ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus
... up interested. Incongruously enough a vein of romance ran through the massive strata of conceit, and intolerance, and vainglory, and pertinacity, and pugnacity that made up the very definite structure of his nature. He dearly loved a lover. He was as sentimental as a girl of eighteen, and he melted instantly into suavest amenities at the first intimation ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... conceit and vanity and vainglory. Go away! My head is fit to split. Natalina, why haven't you given me my smelling salts? And why will you always ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... dizziness and did not fall. He knew that no guilt was attached to him, he had done his duty where thousands would have failed, he had saved the town which he loved with all his soul, from a terrible danger. But there was no vainglory in his heart, only a prayer of thanksgiving. His thoughts were not of the people who would praise him, but of those who would breathe freely again, of the misery that had been prevented, of the happiness that would be preserved. For the first ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... to rebuke vainglory, to offset boastful emptiness, to crown patient toil, and rejoice in the spirit and power of Christian Science, we must ourselves be true. There is but one way of doing good, and that is to do it! There is but one way of being good, and ...
— Retrospection and Introspection • Mary Baker Eddy
... good action may happen to be ordained to an evil end, as when a man gives an alms from vainglory; and conversely, an evil action may happen to be ordained to a good end, as a theft committed in order to give something to the poor. Therefore an action is not good ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... and effort without which the manlier and hardier virtues wither away. Under such conditions it would be our own fault if we failed; and the success which we have had in the past, the success which we confidently believe the future will bring, should cause in us no feeling of vainglory, but rather a deep and abiding realization of all which life has offered us; a full acknowledgment of the responsibility which is ours; and a fixed determination to show that under a free government a mighty people can thrive ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... him the hunting desire to run her to earth, or to the dead wall against which she would sturdily plant that fine back of hers, and to vanquish her vainglory; but it made him softer, more protective of her than he had felt before; it made him wish that always she would keep this spirit and courage which burned like a brave candle in the mists of life. As they said good-bye upon the imposing pillar-guarded steps of her boarding-house—called ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton
... (magnified be His name!) created of angels[FN126] and men and Jinn, and the love of the Truth was inherent in him, for he knew naught but this; but whenas he saw himself unique in such dignity, there entered into him pride and conceit, vainglory and arrogance which revolted from loyalty and obedience to the commandment of His Creator; wherefore Allah made him inferior to all creatures and cast him out from love, making his abiding- place to be in disobedience. So ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... the greatest impression on the playwrights of its time—may be described as a magniloquent account of the career of a world-conqueror whose resistless triumph over kingdoms and potentates, signalized by acts of monstrous insolence, provides excuse for outbursts of extravagant vainglory. Such a description is intended to indicate the traditional Marlowesque qualities: it is a very inadequate criticism of the play as a whole. This kind of loud, richly coloured drama leapt into instant popularity, and it was in direct imitation of it that Greene wrote the first ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... indicates a belief in divine beings corresponding to our PRESENT conception of ourselves—that is as separate personalities having each a separate and limited character and function, and animated by the separatist motives of ambition, possession, power, vainglory, superiority, patronage, self-greed, self-satisfaction, etc.—in so far as anthropomorphism is the expression of that kind of belief it is of course destined, with the illusion from which it springs, to pass away. When man arrives at the final consciousness in which the idea of such a self, superior ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... our community may ever arrogate to himself extraordinary gifts or supernatural perfection, or through vainglory give himself out to be a holy man; such, for instance, as to withdraw into solitary places on pretence of enjoying ecstasies like the Ariahs, and afterwards to presume to teach others the way to uncommon spiritual attainments. Sooner may the lofty palm-tree that has been cut down become green ...
— The Soul of a People • H. Fielding
... convictions and the energy of his utterance. On had gone the stream of rhetoric, the denunciations, the satire, the tremendous assertions of God's mind and purposes. The lash that was wielded was far-reaching; all the vices of the age—irreligion, blasphemy, drunkenness, extravagance, vainglory, loose living—fell under its sting. The condemnation was general, and each man looked to see his neighbor wince. The occurrence at the ball last night,—he was on that for final theme, was he? There was a slight movement ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... solemn one. My audience is astounded and so am I, but more at my own success than at the relighted candle. A puff of vainglory rises to my brow; I feel the fire of enthusiasm run through my veins. But I say nothing of these inner sensations. Before the boys' eyes, the master must appear an old hand at the things he teaches. What would the young rascals think of me if I allowed them to suspect my surprise, if they ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... served without stint of anything. I have no taste for tattle, nor do I allow tattling in my presence; I pry not into my neighbours' lives, nor have I lynx-eyes for what others do. I hear mass every day; I share my substance with the poor, making no display of good works, lest I let hypocrisy and vainglory, those enemies that subtly take possession of the most watchful heart, find an entrance into mine. I strive to make peace between those whom I know to be at variance; I am the devoted servant of Our Lady, and my trust is ever in the infinite mercy ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... cover his face, but with two ashamed hands. Not since his father's death had any one talked to him like this—never with so much tenderness and truth and with every word meant for his good. All his selfrighteousness, his silly conceit and vainglory stood out before him. What an ass he had been. What a coxcomb. What a ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... had not been free from any taint of imposture and vainglory, and if his reputation had not been of that kind which can be submitted to the austerest tests without being materially lessened, he would have suffered much in having so frank and truthful a biographer ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... the peasant out of his house when a monk enters. He then lays the matter before the new-comer, who promises to talk the peasant over with soft words; for, says he, there is nothing accomplished with vainglory. He thereupon takes him aside and explains it to him by the illustration of a merchant whose gain on the wares he sells is not called usury, and argues that therefore other forms of gain in business should not be described ...
— German Culture Past and Present • Ernest Belfort Bax
... or which may, again, be repaired or enhanced by the meritorious achievements of the same compatriots; of whose existence he will commonly have no other or more substantial evidence, and in whose traffic he has no share other than this vicarious suffering of vague and remote indignity or vainglory by force of the wholly fortuitous circumstance that they are (inscrutably) his compatriots. These immaterial goods of vicarious prestige are, of course, not to be undervalued, nor is the fact to be overlooked or minimised that they enter into the sum total of the ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... always been a common poison in the world. There is no village too small to contain someone who wants to be considered wiser or better than the rest. Those who have been bitten by pride usually stand upon the reputation for learning and wisdom. Vainglory is not nearly so bad in a private person or even in an official as it is in ...
— Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians • Martin Luther
... Boston, having little active work to do, were endeavoring to forget the irksomeness and the humiliation of their situation. Through no fault of their own the position was a hard one; they had boasted, and were not allowed to make good their vainglory; they had despised their adversaries, and were cooped up in a provincial town. In letters home they uneasily endeavored to explain their inaction; by return mail they learned what the wits of London had to say of both them and the country. "Mrs. Brittania," ...
— The Siege of Boston • Allen French
... that they might gain the kingdom of earth. A method not very remarkable for its success, Joseph interposed. The Romans do otherwise, never thinking about the Kingdom of Heaven, but only of riches and vainglory, whereas Jesus, he said, says it is as hard for the rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven as it would be for a sword to pass through the eye of a needle. A sword through the eye of a needle, Nicodemus ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... proclamation in those terms, those good set terms, which time and custom approve, forbids shooting on this and two neighbouring groups of islands. Is there not excuse in this flattery for just a little vainglory? ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... in the afternoon there was a turn-out of upwards of fifty. How much denominational competition had to do with this, none can say; but the general opinion was that this muster to afternoon service was a piece of vainglory. Next Sunday all the kirks were on their mettle, and, though the snow was drifting the whole day, services were general. It was felt that after the action of the Free Kirk the Establisheds and the U. P.'s must show what they too ...
— Auld Licht Idylls • J. M. Barrie
... those that have injured them that they may be terrified from doing the like for the time to come. By these ends they measure all their designs, and manage them so, that it is visible that the appetite of fame or vainglory does not work so much on there as a just care ...
— Utopia • Thomas More
... detached with two thousand men to take post at Loyal Hanna, fifty miles in advance. Here intelligence was received that the French garrison consisted of but eight hundred men, of whom three hundred were Indians. The vainglory of Boquet, without the consent or knowledge of his superior officer urged him to send forward a party of four hundred Highlanders and a company of Virginians, under Major James Grant to reconnoitre. Major Grant divided his troops, and when near ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... Nicolas. For instance, the Abbot seldom mentioned him to the other monks, without designing him our beloved Brother Eustace, poor man!—and now and then he used to warn the younger brethren against the snares of vainglory and spiritual pride, which Satan sets for the more rigidly righteous, with such looks and demonstrations as did all but expressly designate the Sub-Prior as one who had fallen at one time under such delusions. ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... nothing higher than to be as virtuous as, or a very little more so than, their neighbors; and are often more than contented when they think they have reached the low mark at which they aim. To compare ourselves with our fellow-beings is always dangerous, and leads to envyings, rivalries, pride, and vainglory. In all our aims, the absolute should be our only mark. If in intellectual pursuits we strive only to know as much as our neighbors for the sake of decency, or to know more than they for the gratification of pride, or for the pursuit of wealth or honor, we shall never ...
— The Elements of Character • Mary G. Chandler
... of the father shall be visited upon the children, and the unthinking and worldly have sought refuge from this law by declaring it harsh and cruel. Miserable and blind! For do we not see that the wicked man, who in the pride of his power and vainglory is willing to risk punishment to HIMSELF—and believes it to be courage—must pause before the awful mandate that condemns an equal suffering to those he loves, which he cannot withhold or suffer ...
— A Waif of the Plains • Bret Harte
... consolation of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any tender mercies and compassions, 2. Fulfil ye my joy, that ye be of the same mind, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind; 3. Doing nothing through faction or through vainglory, but in lowliness of mind each counting other better than himself; 4. Not looking each of you to his own things, but each of you also to the things of ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... of the Four Masters, under the year 1537, we read: "A heresy and a new error broke out in England, the effect of pride, vainglory, avarice, sensual desire, and the prevalence of a variety of scientific and philosophical speculations, so that the people of England went into opposition to ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... was sad news for the Goose Green, a sorrow justly qualified by honorable pride in his gallantry and devotion. Only the Cobbler dissented, but that was his way. He said he saw nothing in it but foolhardiness and vainglory. They might both have been killed, as easy as not, and then where would ye have been? A man's life was a man's life, and one life was as good as another. No one would catch him throwing his away. And, for that matter, Mrs. Johnson could spare a ...
— Jackanapes, Daddy Darwin's Dovecot and Other Stories • Juliana Horatio Ewing
... these wild rushes the incident occurred that laid the foundation of my fortunes, though the building took many years to complete. I tell it here, not out of pride or vainglory—though I was proud, too—but because it is necessary to the better ...
— For The Admiral • W.J. Marx
... Haue I liu'd thus long (let me speake my selfe, Since Vertue findes no friends) a Wife, a true one? A Woman (I dare say without Vainglory) Neuer yet branded with Suspition? Haue I, with all my full Affections Still met the King? Lou'd him next Heau'n? Obey'd him? Bin (out of fondnesse) superstitious to him? Almost forgot my Prayres to content him? And am I thus rewarded? 'Tis not well Lords. Bring me a constant woman to her ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... taunt them for their inferiority or helplessness, is like putting out the eyes and clipping the wings of the eagle, and then reproaching him because he can neither see nor fly. To boast of our superior refinement, intelligence and virtue, is the extreme of vainglory, and adding ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... veil, and clears away obscuring mists, and by his word and Spirit leads to deeper peace and a holier walk. Ah! there is nothing like a calm look into the eternal world to teach us the emptiness of human praise, the sinfulness of self-seeking and vainglory, to teach us the preciousness of Christ, who is called 'The Tried Stone.' I have been able to be twice at college to hear a lecture from Dr. Chalmers. I have also been privileged to smooth down the dying pillow ...
— The Biography of Robert Murray M'Cheyne • Andrew A. Bonar
... it would not have been unpardonable had he desired to enjoy, after his labors, something of the consideration to which their success entitled him. And, certainly, no man could ever have approached his rulers with a better claim upon their notice than could the unpretending voyageur. But vainglory was no more a part of his nature, than was fear. The unaspiring priest remained at Green Bay, to continue, or rather to resume, as a task laid aside only for a time, his ministrations to the savages. Joliet hastened on to Quebec ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... standard, my master, later, fashioned the chosen blazon of the Maid—a dove argent, on a field azure. But the blazon of the sword supporting the crown, between two lilies, that was later given to her and her house, she did not use, as her enemies said she did, out of pride and vainglory, mixing her arms with holy things, even at Rheims at the sacring. For when she was at Rheims, no armorial bearings had yet been given to her. Herein, then, as always, they lied in their cruel throats; for, as the ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... Limbs of Men whom he has slain. If any who promised themselves Success in any Uncommon Undertaking miscarry in the Attempt, or he that aimed at what would have been Useful and Laudable, meets with Contempt and Derision, the Envious Man, under the Colour of hating Vainglory, can smile with an inward Wantonness of Heart at the ill Effect it may have upon an ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... sailors made the success of the expedition very uncertain. Porter, therefore, determined to try to adjust the difficulty amicably, and with this purpose sent an ambassador to the Typees, proposing a peaceful alliance. The reply of the natives is an amusing example of the ignorant vainglory of savage tribes, unacquainted with the power of civilized peoples. The Typees saw no reason to desire the friendship of the Americans. They had always got along very well without it. They had no intention of sending ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... Cabot had not been so much wrapped up in his own vainglory, we might have had a full record of the eventful voyage which revealed to Europe the shores of our Canadian dominion first of all the lands on the continents of the western hemisphere. Fortunately, however, there resided in London at that time a most intelligent Italian, Raimondo di Soncino, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... drinking. Thou hast disentangled me from the delights of the ear and from the lusts of the eye. Into many snares of the senses my mind wanders miserably, but Thou pluckest me out mercifully. By pride, vainglory, and love of praise I am tempted, but I seek Thy mercy till what is lacking in me by Thee be renewed and perfected. Thou knowest my unskillfulness; teach me the wondrous things out of Thy law ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... but more, it has no desire to have it known; and, the truer it is, the greater the desire to have it unknown save to God and its own true self. In other words, it is not sicklied o'er with a semi-insane desire for notoriety or vainglory, and hence never weakens itself nor harasses any one else by lengthy recitals of its good deeds. It is not the professional good-doing. It is simply living its natural life, open-minded, open-hearted, doing each day what its ...
— What All The World's A-Seeking • Ralph Waldo Trine
... the morrow, and Vignon and his friends would at once lay siege to the posts they coveted. And he, Monferrand, could picture himself driven out of that ministerial sanctum where, for eight months past, he had been taking his ease, not with any foolish vainglory, but with the pleasure of feeling that he was in his proper place as a born ruler, who believed he could ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... History of the Duke, which shows her to be a mad, conceited, rediculous woman, and he an asse to suffer her to write what she does to and of him". Her own memoir is charmingly and unaffectedly egotistical. She tells us: "I fear my ambition inclines to vainglory, for I am very ambitious, yet 'tis neither for beauty, wit, title, wealth, or power, but as they are Steps to raise me to Fancies Tower, which is to live by remembrance in all ages.... My Disposition is more inclined to Melancholy than ...
— The Dukeries • R. Murray Gilchrist
... quickly. His twinkling eyes sent out the keenest glance of suspicion, but the gay, affectionate, vaunting laugh, as Tyler Sudley turned around and clapped the boy a ringing blow on his slender shoulder, expressed only the plenitude of his simple vainglory. ...
— The Moonshiners At Hoho-Hebee Falls - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... good families in Poitou. In other times I should have said it were better that the boy should grow up to till the land, which is assuredly an honourable profession, rather than to become a military adventurer, fighting only for vainglory. But in our days the sword is not drawn for glory, but for the right to worship ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty
... but a neophyte where Madame is an expert. I know the superficial nature of cats. Now and then without vainglory I can say I know their hearts; but Madame penetrates to and holds commune with their souls. And a cat's soul, monsieur, is a wonderful thing. Once it was divine—in ancient Egypt. Doubtless monsieur has heard of Pasht? Holy ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... be large sums given for these is within common knowledge. 1 d., 2 d., nay even 4 d., is not too great a price, if a man will have of the finest leaf, reckless of expense. In this sort of smoking, however, I find more of vainglory and ostentation than solid satisfaction; and its votaries would seem to display less a calm, healthy affection for tobacco than (as Sir T. Browne hath it) a "passionate prodigality.'' And, besides grievous wasting of the pocket, atmospheric changes, varyings in ...
— Pagan Papers • Kenneth Grahame
... apostle was prevented from making his appearance at an earlier date in the Asiatic metropolis. Men had thus an opportunity of comparing the wonders of the greatest of magicians with the miracles of the gospel; and of marking the contrast between the vainglory of an impostor, and the humility of a servant of Jesus. The attentive reader of Scripture may observe that some of the most extraordinary of the mighty works recorded in the New Testament were performed at this period; and it is not unreasonable ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... readily suppose I have presumed to dedicate to your Serenity this trivial offering because of my esteeming it to be not undeserving of your acceptance. The truth is otherwise: your postulant approaches not spurred toward you by vainglory, but rather by equity, and equity's plain need to acknowledge that he who seeks to write of noble ladies must necessarily implore at outset the patronage of her who is the light and mainstay of our age. I humbly bring my book to you as Phidyle approached another ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell
... Penrod had exhausted himself repeating to nausea accounts of the prowess of himself and his great friend, he would turn to two other subjects for vainglory. These were his ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... Arrian's interests were mainly military, and that the other authorities, if inferior in trustworthiness, are completer in range of vision. Of those, again, who maintain the traditional view, some, like Niebuhr and Grote, regard it as convicting Alexander of mad ambition and vainglory, whilst to Kaerst Alexander only incorporates ideas which were the timely fruit of a long historical development. The policy of fusing Greeks and Orientals again is diversely judged. To Droysen and Kaerst it accords with the historical conditions; to Grote and to Beloch ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... along. They walked slowly, their arms twined about each other's waists. They wore white muslin dresses, and straw hats with wide and jaunty brims, and the loose ends of gay ribbons fluttered about them. These young ladies, fresh from school, and no doubt full of vainglory, greeted the bridal procession with a little explosion of giggles, and when Puss Pringle pushed back her gingham sun-bonnet and innocently gazed upon them, they turned up their noses, sniffed the air scornfully, and made such demonstrations as no feminine mind, however ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... to many such as men are subject to: among the rest, they disturb the neighbourhood in the discussion of their private causes; they quarrel and fight on small motives, such as a little bad food, or a little vainglory, or the sex. But it must be something present or near that excites them; and they calculate not the extent of evil they ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... s'entend: so the peace is no doubt made. She could not have addressed her compliment worse than to Mr. Fawkener, sent by Mr. Pitt, and therefore so addressed; and who of all men does not love Mr. Fox, and Mr. Fox who has no vainglory, will not care a straw for the flattery, and will understand it ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... perfectly valid argument, which his critic, not having so keen an insight into the Things, will mistake for a fallacy turning on the double meaning of a term. And the greater the genius of him who thus safely leaps over the chasm, the greater will probably be the crowing and vainglory of the mere logician, who, hobbling after him, evinces his own superior wisdom by pausing on its brink, and giving up as desperate his proper ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... therefore any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels and mercies, fulfil ye my joy, that ye be like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things ...
— Concerning Christian Liberty - With Letter Of Martin Luther To Pope Leo X. • Martin Luther
... aside, theology having no part in this colloquy. She smiles, not reproachfully, at Dante's vainglory. ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 3, Paradise [Paradiso] • Dante Alighieri
... aloud; "but he is right: his wife was greater than either of us. If he'd listened to her and not his own vainglory, both could be ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts
... think I can see that an easy defeat of the Southern armies will not bring about a wholesome reunion. For the people of the two sections to live in harmony, there must be mutual respect, and there must be self-respect. An easy triumph over the South would cause the North great vainglory and the South great humiliation. Granting war, it should be such as to effect as much good and as little harm as possible. The South, if she ever comes back into the Union respecting herself, must be exhausted by war; she must be able to know that ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson
... begged Mr. Blick to tell her man to come home, as without him the children would all starve. The crowd groaned at her; but Mr. Blick stopped them, calling the husband, who was in a sad state of drunken vainglory, to leave the ranks in which he tried to march. "We don't want fathers of families," he cried. "We want these tight young bachelors. They're the boys." Indeed, the tight young bachelors felt that this was the case, ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield
... from the commission of all sin; and furthermore he suppliantly besought that the church over which he presided might not be called by his name, as was in many places the custom among the Irish people. And this did he to preserve his lowliness, and to avoid vainglory, which is the fretting moth of all virtues. Then Saint Patrick, understanding the worthiness of Sennachus and the simplicity of his heart, promised unto him all his desire; and blessing him and his ...
— The Most Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick - Including the Life by Jocelin, Hitherto Unpublished in America, and His Extant Writings • Various
... need be said that when Lufki-Humma was born, the mother arose at once from her couch of skins, herself bore the infant to the neighboring bayou and bathed it—not for singularity, nor for independence, nor for vainglory, but only as one of the heart-curdling conventionalities which made up the experience of that most pitiful of holy ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... the highways and byways and treated them to champagne which cost thirty dollars and fifty dollars a bottle. When the rabble could drink no more champagne, he ordered every glass filled and placed on the bar. With one magnificent drunken gesture of vainglory he swept the glasses in a clattering crash to the {95} floor. There was still a basket of champagne left. He danced the hurdy-gurdy on that basket till he cut his feet. The champagne was all gone, but he still had some gold nuggets. ...
— The Cariboo Trail - A Chronicle of the Gold-fields of British Columbia • Agnes C. Laut
... Hawkins of Poker Flat related with touching effect the story of your prodigal to an assemblage of over two hundred miners. Owing to unusual expenses, we regret to be compelled to draw upon you for five hundred dollars more." So! (Putting down letter.) If we were given to pride and vainglory, we might well be puffed up with the fame of our works and the contagion of our example: yet I fear that, with the worldly-minded, this praise of charity to others is only the prayerful expectation of some personal application to the praiser. ...
— Two Men of Sandy Bar - A Drama • Bret Harte
... to exhibit his vainglory, proclaims throughout Babylon, that all the great ones should assemble on a set day, at the Sultan's feast.] The{n}ne is bolde Balta[gh]ar bienkkes hy{m} ones, To vouche on a vayment of his vayne g[l]orie; ...
— Early English Alliterative Poems - in the West-Midland Dialect of the Fourteenth Century • Various
... with the universe that his voice took on the sway of elemental integrity and candor. Absolutely honest, this man was unafraid and unashamed, for Nature has neither apprehension, shame nor vainglory. In "Leaves of Grass" Whitman speaks as all men have ever spoken who believe in God and in themselves—oracular, without apology or abasement—fearlessly. He tells of the powers and mysteries that pervade and ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... thou that Beowulf who strove with Breca, contested with him on the open sea, in a swimming contest, when ye two for vainglory tried the floods, and ventured your lives in deep water for idle boasting? Nor could any man, friend or foe, dissuade you from your sorry enterprise when ye swam on the sea; when ye compassed the flowing stream with your arms, meted out the sea-paths, battled with your hands, and glided ...
— The Translations of Beowulf - A Critical Biography • Chauncey Brewster Tinker
... carriage, and elbow out less independent aspirants, whom some capricious fortune has brought within their contact? Does one little star in the vault above shine less brightly or twinkle less gladly because myriads of others do likewise? After all, what vainglory need there be in accidents of birth or fortune. They are not virtually ours, they have been given to us, and rest upon a changing wind that, to-morrow, may waft them far out of our ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... conjecture of one of those noble international marriages which fill our women with vainglory for such of their ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... he had solaced himself by going about to all his neighbours with this surprising paper in hand, for about the space of a fortnight, he thought to put the climax to his policy and his vainglory, by taking it and himself up to the banker's in town, where he always got the full amount of his bills for my board and education paid without either examination or hesitation. The worthy money-changer looked grimly polite at the ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... Polish vainglory, wanted to appear familiar with this drawing-room fairy. After defying Stidmann, Vignon, and Crevel with a look, he took Valerie's hand and forced her to sit down by him ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... during the Apostles time, there were other Pastors that observed it not; As Diotrephes (3 John 9. &c.) who cast out of the Church, such as S. John himself thought fit to be received into it, out of a pride he took in Praeeminence; so early it was, that Vainglory, and Ambition had found entrance ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes
... down. He saw that if he had gifts and wanted grace he was but as a "tinkling cymbal." "What, thought I, shall I be proud because I am a sounding brass? Is it so much to be a fiddle?" This thought was, "as it were, a maul on the head of the pride and vainglory" which he found "easily blown up at the applause and commendation of every unadvised christian." His experiences, like those of every public speaker, especially the most eloquent, were very varied, ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables
... whereas thou shouldest have stayed till thy Prince had taken it off; thou didst sinfully sleep and lose thy choice thing; thou wast also almost perswaded to go back, at the sight of the Lions; and when thou talkest of thy Journey, and of what thou hast heard and seen, thou art inwardly desirous of vainglory in all that thou ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... the original performer, and doubtless had his instructions from the author, gave full force to the sentiments of avowed and barbarous vainglory, which mark the character. When he is determined to spare Aureng-Zebe, and ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... Colors and forms are brought together into harmony and balance that by their juxtaposition they may be made expressive and beautiful. Tones are woven into a pattern according to principles of harmony, melody, and rhythm, and they become music. When technique is turned to such uses, not for the vainglory of a virtuoso, but for the service of the artist in his earnest work of expression, then it ...
— The Gate of Appreciation - Studies in the Relation of Art to Life • Carleton Noyes
... of his dress and gleamed intensely on the jewelled pommel of his sword. This was the Lord de Vere, who, when at home, was said to spend much of his time in the burial vault of his dead progenitors, rummaging their mouldy coffins in search of all the earthly pride and vainglory that was hidden among bones and dust; so that, besides his own share, he had the collected haughtiness of his whole line ...
— The Great Stone Face - And Other Tales Of The White Mountains • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... was one of the sights of the town and, decorously hidden behind a muslin curtain, a stranger might feast his eyes upon greatness unrebuked. It was said at one time that every silk hat in Coombe attended Knox Church, but this was vainglory, for it was afterwards proved that several repaired to St. Michael's and at least one to the Baptist tabernacle. With this explanation you will at once understand why the sidewalk was a few feet broader upon the church side of Oliver's Hill, and if this circumstance ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... and drew off the saddle, propping it against one hip while he surveyed his mount. In spite of all his vainglory he was human enough to show some concern, it appeared. He called for a bucket of water and offered it to the dripping pony. Marianne repressed a cry of warning: a drink might ruin a horse as hot as that. But the gay rider permitted ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand
... that "there shall be joy before the angels of God upon one sinner doing penance." (Luke XV, 10.) These splendors in Mercury are the souls of those in whose virtue there was the alloy of ambition and vainglory—a combination, according to Dante, which makes "the rays of true love less vividly mount upwards." The poet is addressed by a spirit who bids him ask any question he will and Beatrice confirms the invitation. "Speak, speak with ...
— Dante: "The Central Man of All the World" • John T. Slattery
... hour of passionate grief, after hearing my mother's woeful story from the lips of my aunt, I fell upon that mother's grave and vowed to make her name—the only thing she had to leave me, poor mother!—illustrious. It was a piece of boyish vainglory, no doubt, but it was a vow, and I must try to keep it," said Ishmael, ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... and plants of every kind, and also prove that by influx from within itself nature causes men to live, to think analytically and to understand wisely? Self-love excels in ability to prove whatever it desires because a certain glamour of varicolored light overlays it. This glamour is the vainglory of that love in being wise and thus also of being eminent ...
— Angelic Wisdom about Divine Providence • Emanuel Swedenborg
... little tin from my hand. I suppose he imagined me in my abandoned way wheedling the necessary cash out of the King for the purchase of that snuff. You can't imagine how simple he is. Nothing was easier than to deceive him; but don't imagine I deceived him from the vainglory of a mere sinner. I lied to the dear man, simply because I couldn't bear the idea of him being deprived of the only gratification his big, ascetic, gaunt body ever knew on earth. As I mounted my mule to ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... Pleasant View, Concord, N. H., Before 2,500 Members Of The Mother Church, 1897 Well Doinge Is The Fruite Of Doinge Well Little Gods Advantage Of Mind-Healing A Card Spirit And Law Truth-Healing Heart To Heart Things To Be Thought Of Unchristian Rumor Vainglory Compounds Close Of The Massachusetts Metaphysical College Malicious Reports Loyal Christian Scientists The March Primary Class Obtrusive Mental Healing Wedlock Judge Not New Commandment A Cruce Salus Comparison to English Barmaids A Christian Science Statute Advice To Students Notice ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... make the whole city worship and obey us, by casting ourselves off this cathedral unhurt, would not that make us proud enough? So proud, I fear, that we should end in committing some great folly, or great crime in our conceit and vainglory. ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... secret of their souls. In the abstract they admit that slavery is an evil, they disclaim all participation in the introduction of it, and cast it all upon the shoulders of our old granddam Britain. But when probed to the quick upon it, they show at the bottom of their souls pride and vainglory in their condition of masterdom. They fancy themselves more generous and noble-hearted than the plain freemen who labor for subsistence. They look down upon the simplicity of a Yankee's manners, because ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... as I trust she will be of yours some day; who wanted but one step to greatness, and that was this, that in his hurry to rule all the world, he forgot to rule himself. At first, he wasted his estate in show and luxury, always intending to be famous, and destroying his own fame all the while by his vainglory and haste. Then, to retrieve his losses, he hit upon the peopling of Florida, which thou and I will see done some day, by God's blessing; for I and some good friends of mine have an errand there as well as he. But he did not go about it as a loyal man, to advance the honor of his queen, ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... Jacobite libels. In this tract the Prince of Orange is gravely accused of having ordered fifty of his wounded English soldiers to be burned alive. The governing principle of his whole conduct, it is said, is not vainglory, or ambition, or avarice, but a deadly hatred of Englishmen and a desire to make them miserable. The nation is vehemently adjured, on peril of incurring the severest judgments, to rise up and free itself from this plague, this curse, this tyrant, whose depravity makes it difficult ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... reached again on 18th February 1864, and within a week came news that Gelele, puffed up with confidence and vainglory, had set out for Abeokuta, and was harrying that district. He and his Amazons, however, being thoroughly defeated before the walls of the town, had to return home in what to any other power would have been utter disgrace. They manage things differently, however, in Dahomey, for Gelele during his ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... of God; it was she who appeared to preside there, or rather to rule by terror. And Honora, as she glanced at her during the lessons, often wondered if she realized the appalling extent of her cruelty. Was this woman, who begged so audibly to be delivered from pride, vainglory, and hypocrisy, in reality a Christian? Honora hated her, and yet she prayed that God would soften her heart. Was there no way in which she could be propitiated, appeased? For the sake of the thing desired, and which it was given this ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill |
