"Brag" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... not thee profane with impious shag, Nor poison thee with nigger-head and twist, Nor with Kentucky, though the planters brag That it hath virtues all the ...
— Pipe and Pouch - The Smoker's Own Book of Poetry • Various
... affectionate that I ventured to consult him; when, on hearing whom I was seeking, he became warmly interested, and gave me just the information I wanted. He said he had little doubt that Funny Frank was a clown called Brag, with whom he had had words some years back for misusing the children. He said he did not hold with harshness to the little ones in teaching them to do the feats, which certainly were wonderful. If ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... divans, ottomans; occupying them are clusters of men, old and young, wise and simple; in their hands are cards spotted with diamonds, spades, clubs, hearts; the favorite games are whist, cribbage, and brag. Lounging in arm-chairs or sauntering among the marble-topped tables, amused with the scene, are the comparatively few, who, instead of having hands in the games, for the most part keep their hands in their pockets. These may be the philosophes. But here and there, with a ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... Straight Tree, "hear her brag because she has a white memory! If the teacher praised me, I should be ashamed to ...
— Big and Little Sisters • Theodora R. Jenness
... full-fed heroes, their pacific mayors, Their annual trophies and their monthly wars; Though long my party built on me their hopes, For writing pamphlets, and for roasting popes; Yet lo! in me what authors have to brag on! Reduced at last to hiss in my own dragon. Avert it, heaven! that thou, or Cibber, e'er Should wag a serpent-tail in Smithfield fair! Like the vile straw that's blown about the streets, The needy poet sticks to all he meets; Coached, carted, trod upon, now loose, now fast, ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... "I didn't brag of it, my dear," I said, meekly enough. "I'm sorry for him, but I can't help him. He must provide for ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells
... believe it is a thing never done before, to make a hammer of that weight make 300 blows per minute; and, in fact, it is more a matter to brag of than for any other use, as the rate wanted is from 90 to 100 blows, being as quick as the workmen can manage ...
— James Watt • Andrew Carnegie
... Soon it grew irksome even to think of you; yet still when I did, I said, 'Life is long, I shall win riches; he shall share them some day or other!'—Basta, basta!—what idle twaddle or hollow brag all ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... "I cal'late you did hear. If you didn't you're the only one in town that ain't. Becky Mullet—yes, and Chris, too—ain't done anything but brag about their Irene's goin' off to what they call 'finishin' school.' Judas! I see HER finish. She ain't got—I swan that girl ain't got anything in her head but gas, and every time she opens her mouth she loses enough of that to keep a lighthouse ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... it up in the parlor, and kneel down to it as a relic of the past. He says that people who have got old ruins ought to be very thankful that there is any of them left, but it's no use in them trying to fill up the missing parts with brag. ...
— Pomona's Travels - A Series of Letters to the Mistress of Rudder Grange from her Former - Handmaiden • Frank R. Stockton
... bad luck for poor Schneider. He went to enlist and was told to register! Of course he's got a streak of the Persian in him on his mother's side, and used to brag about it, as we all know; but now it's done him in the eye, and he's fairly mad. Carl is in the commissariat and tells me we've got three million tins of sardines; so that's all right as far as it goes; but, if there's any weakness in the victualling department, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 30, 1914 • Various
... this HOtel," Mr. Wackernagel began to brag, while he industriously ate of his fried sausage and fried potatoes, "from as fur away as Illinois yet! And from as fur south as down in Maine! Yes, indeed! Ain't, mom?" ...
— Tillie: A Mennonite Maid - A Story of the Pennsylvania Dutch • Helen Reimensnyder Martin
... brought from their cells and spent an hour or so with them at lunch or dinner. Crowley evidently needed an audience beyond that of his henchmen. The release of his basic character, formerly repressed, was progressing geometrically and there seemed to be an urgency to crow, to brag, to boast. ...
— The Common Man • Guy McCord (AKA Dallas McCord Reynolds)
... eternal summer shall not fade, Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest; Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade, When in ETERNAL LINES to time thou grow'st: So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this ...
— Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories • Oscar Wilde
... Mother! Mother! What is this Man, thy darling kissed and cuffed, Thou lustingly engender'st, To sweat, and make his brag, and rot, Crowned with all honour and all shamefulness? From nightly towers He dogs the secret footsteps of the heavens, Sifts in his hands the stars, weighs them as gold-dust, And yet is he successive unto nothing But patrimony ...
— God and Mr. Wells - A Critical Examination of 'God the Invisible King' • William Archer
... you'd get if you didn't stop hootin' at people who was passin'," remarked Mrs. Nitschkan, knocking the ashes from her pipe out on the hearth and then carefully refilling it. "But you're none so good now that you need brag. I don't know that playin' monkey tricks to frighten folks ain't just as good a way to put in the time as sittin' 'round holdin' hands with ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... one another, as it embodies itself in many shapes, so it finds vent in the words which they borrow from one another, and the use to which they put them. Thus the French, borrowing 'hablar' from the Spaniards, with whom it means simply to speak, give it in 'habler' the sense of to brag; the Spaniards paying them off in exactly their own coin, for of 'parler' which in like manner is but to speak in French, they make 'parlar,' which means to prate, to chat. [Footnote: See Darmesteter, The Life of Words, Eng. ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench
... shall have your beer because you like it. The whisky was only brag. And if you and me are to remain friends, Mr Gilbey, youll get up to-morrow morning ...
— Fanny's First Play • George Bernard Shaw
... one; though, by vast odds, the most terrific of all mortal disasters have immemorially and indiscriminately befallen tens and hundreds of thousands of those who have gone upon the waters; though but a moment's consideration will teach, that however baby man may brag of his science and skill, and however much, in a flattering future, that science and skill may augment; yet for ever and for ever, to the crack of doom, the sea will insult and murder him, and ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... abridged recital of it, loaded with comments and reflections. He was more his own master than on the preceding day, having had time to recover himself, we cherishing hopes that the Marechal would be sent to the right about. It was here that I heard of the brag of the Marechal de Villeroy concerning the struggle he had had with Dubois, and of the challenges and insults he had uttered with a confidence which rendered his arrest more ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... course, the lob-worm had the opportunity of opening out in a very magnificent bit of brag, and did not ...
— Aunt Judy's Tales • Mrs Alfred Gatty
... foreign land, Of which, though there he settle young, A man will ne'er quite understand The customs, politics, and tongue. The foolish hie them post-haste through, See fashions odd, and prospects fair, Learn of the language, 'How d'ye do,' And go and brag they have been there. The most for leave to trade apply, For once, at Empire's seat, her heart, Then get what knowledge ear and eye Glean chancewise in the life-long mart. And certain others, few and fit, Attach them to the Court, and see ...
— The Angel in the House • Coventry Patmore
... Canada, the land beloved of God; We are the pulse of Canada, its marrow and its blood: And we, the men of Canada, can face the world and brag That we were born in ...
— Flint and Feather • E. Pauline Johnson
... cochineal, sarsaparilla, log-wood, annatto, hemp, and all other dye-woods and pure food adulteration concessions cornered. He had five-sixths of the Boca de Thingama-jiggers working for him on shares. It was a beautiful graft. We used to brag about Morgan and E. H. and others of our wisest when I was in the provinces—but now no more. That peninsula has got our little country turned into a submarine without ...
— Options • O. Henry
... of them ever had before," he continued. "Uncle isn't at all strong—that's why he came back from his mission—but he works hard all the time, always doing good—" he stopped abruptly. "I didn't mean to brag, but when I get started on Uncle Bayard, I never know ...
— Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party • C. E. Jacobs
... swashbuckler but it does satisfy those who worship at the altar of the god of peace. It does satisfy the mothers of the land at whose hearth and fireside no jingoistic war has placed an empty chair. It does satisfy the daughters of the land from whom bluster and brag have sent no loving brother to the dissolution of the grave. It does satisfy the fathers of this land and the sons of this land who will fight for our flag, and die for our flag when Reason primes the rifle, when Honor draws the sword, when Justice ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... themselves to perform remarkable deeds of courage and valor as they tossed off horn after horn of mead and ale. Each time their mighty valor grew until there was no limit set to their attainments. It is possible that their boastful pledges may have given rise to the term, to brag. ...
— Yule-Tide in Many Lands • Mary P. Pringle and Clara A. Urann
... had begun earlier, and which conferred no great honour, though some profit, and a little snatching up of a few loose trifles such as the Society Islands, which we had, according to our custom, carelessly or benevolently left to gleaners), French arms, despite a great deal of brag and swagger, obtained little glory, while French diplomacy let itself wallow in one of the foulest sloughs in history, the matter of ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... he laughed, "but let me get something of which to brag first. Hum. Dieu m'en garde—we will leave God out of the reckoning, I think. Designando—I will do more than point out, by the Rood! Jesus, Amor, Ma Dame—I know none of these. Entra per me—Oh brave, brave! ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... like enough, though thou hast to brag for't," said the first speaker tauntingly—an old customer of the house, and a compiler of leathern extremities for the good burghers ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... true. When alone with his brother, Charles dropped his egotistic brag and dramatic bluster, and touched craftily upon the dare-devil, boyish life they had led together. He was shrewd enough to see and understand that this was his most ingratiating role, and he played it "to the limit," ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... talk about for a year," Madge said, as we chatted the whole thing over, "and you can no longer brag that the K. & A. has never had a robbery, even ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... there are foolish people who assume that gushing women are shallow, but this is jumping at conclusions. A recent novel gives us a picture of "a tall soldier," who, in camp, was very full of brag and bluster. We are quite sure that when the fight comes on this man with the lubricated tongue will prove an arrant coward; we assume that he will run at the first smell of smoke. But we are wrong—he stuck; and when ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard
... derived from a Tertiary flora which closely resembles it. There is, however, no such correspondence, for impressions of ferns are almost completely wanting at Mogi, and even of pines there is only a single leaf-bearing variety which closely resembles the Spitzbergen form of Sequoia Langsdorfii, Brag. On the other hand, there are met with, in great abundance, the leaves of a species of beech nearly allied to the red beech of America, Fagus ferruginea, Ait., but not resembling the recent Japanese varieties of the same family. There were ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... Roysons has not been disputed during many centuries. Our name is part of our proof, and there has been a Richard Royson associated with Westmoreland ever since Coeur-de-Lion returned from Palestine. That is the kind of family asset a boy will brag of. Joined to a certain proficiency in games, it supplies a ready- made nickname. But the wonderful and wholly inexplicable thing is that while I have been standing here, watching our head-light dancing over ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... and commenced to brag before him, praising the upright conduct of Danveld, and the impression it made upon the members ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... seen him, I find that I am not disturbed by any brag or egoism in his book. He may turn out the least of a braggart of all, having a better right to be confident. Walt is a ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... come to town on purpose: she says, all her friends are in London, and she will not survive them. But what will you think of Lady Catherine Pelham, Lady Frances Arundel, and Lord and Lady Galway, who go this evening to an inn ten miles out of town, where they are to play at brag till five in the morning, and then come back—I suppose, to look for the bones of their husbands and families under the rubbish. The prophet of all this (next to the Bishop of London) is a trooper of Lord Delawar's, who was yesterday sent to Bedlam. His colonel sent to the man's wife, and asked ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... went on, 'is one of the types. He's lived twenty years on one street without learning as much as you would in getting a once-over shave from a lockjawed barber in a Kansas crossroads town. But he's a New Yorker, and he'll brag about that all the time when he isn't picking up live wires or getting in front of street cars or paying out money to wire-tappers or standing under a safe that's being hoisted into a skyscraper. When a New Yorker does loosen up,' says I, 'it's like the spring decomposition of the ice jam ...
— The Gentle Grafter • O. Henry
... money—two for the show—three to make ready—and four for to GO!" Another silence. "By jingo, Bill Hammersley, you've beat me! Ha, ha! That WAS a jump! What say?" Silence once more. "You say you can do even better than that? Now, Bill, don't brag. Oh! you say you've often jumped farther? Oh! you say that was up in Scotland, where you had a spring-board? Oho! All right; let's see how far you can jump when you really try. There! Heels on the walk again. That's right; swing your arms. One—two—three! THERE ...
— Beasley's Christmas Party • Booth Tarkington
... the stupid lowly, for they were coppered to lose from the start; but the more he saw of the others, the apparent winners, the less it seemed to him that they had anything to brag about. They, too, were a long time dead, and their living did not amount to much. It was a wild animal fight; the strong trampled the weak, and the strong, he had already discovered,—men like Dowsett, and Letton, and Guggenhammer,—were not necessarily the best. He remembered his miner ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... thou be what I wad hae thee, [would have] An' tak the counsel I shall gie thee, I'll never rue my trouble wi' thee— The cost nor shame o't— But be a loving father to thee, And brag ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... down there," said an experienced orchardist to me the other day. We were talking about the recently started theory that the best bearing orchards are to be found on the low lands of the prairies. "You just wait and see if these brag orchards ever bear another crop! It will be as it was after the severe winter of 1874 and '75, when the following autumn many of our orchards bore so profusely. The succeeding year the majority of the trees were as dead as smelts, and the balance never had vigor enough ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 3, January 19, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... Probably no other sentiment is, so strong in a man as that of attachment to his own soil and people, a sub-sentiment always remaining, whatever new and unbreakable attachments he may form. One can be very proud of his adopted country, and brag for it, and fight for it; but lying deep in a man's nature is something, no doubt, that no oath nor material interest can change, and that is never naturalized. We see this experiment in America ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... of an old saying at my home," I replied, "which ran something like this, 'Brag is a good dog, but Holdfast ...
— Weapons of Mystery • Joseph Hocking
... The hot winds sough through the branches, and my men murmer away to each other under a neighbouring tree, possibly about the Sahib, who is such a poor shot, and, as our language is limited, I can't brag about swagger shots in other days. One needs a friend to shoot with, alone you lose half the charm. If you get hipped with a miss you can then growl out loud to a sympathetic ear, and blow smoke over the day together. There's only the pariah ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... knows what it is, for I'll lay 'e's bin there. And you'd make a 'orse into cat'smeat on skewer. My eye, but just ain't you a nice-spoken pair! I ain't goin' to foller you two like a shadder, Your 'eads is a darned sight too swelled up with brag. If you don't want to bust and go pop like a bladder, Why you'd best take my tip—put 'em ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, May 14, 1892 • Various
... travelled to the city Coventry. There Master Doctor Holland[9] caused me stay The day of Saturn and the Sabbath day. Most friendly welcome, he me did afford, I was so entertained at bed and board, Which as I dare not brag how much it was, I dare not be ingrate and let it pass, But with thanks many I remember it, (Instead of his good deeds) in words and writ, He used me like his son, more than a friend, And he on Monday his commends did send To Newhall, where a gentleman did dwell, Who ...
— The Pennyles Pilgrimage - Or The Money-lesse Perambulation of John Taylor • John Taylor
... the proudest and happiest time I ever had in my life. Indeed I almost had an adventure on my own account—une bonne fortune, as it was called at Brossard's by boys hardly older than myself. I did not brag of it, however, when I got ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... Ross in answer to the invitation; then, after a pause, he added: "we didn't want to brag about it, but ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... Dicky's propensity to brag, amusing as it was to others, was continually getting him into scrapes. We had an old mate, Adam Stallman by name, who was proportionably as tall, grave, and silent, as Dicky ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... Pilot discoursed to his pupil, being only too glad to have an excuse for showing off his superior knowledge; and Sammy drank it all in, having in mind the time when he should return to his far-away home and brag of his adventures to ...
— How Sammy Went to Coral-Land • Emily Paret Atwater
... hoped it would have. Lucy, Nancy, are perpetually calling upon me to tell them something of Sir Charles Grandison; and when I begin, I know not how to leave off. My uncle rallies me, laughs at me, sometimes reminds me of what he calls my former brags. I did not brag, my dear: I only hoped, that respecting as I did every man according to his merit, I should never be greatly taken with any one, before duty added force to the inclination. Methinks the company of the friends I am with, does not satisfy me; yet they never were dearer to me ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson
... and installations the Fenris Company had abandoned, and tried to make a living out of the planet. At least, they stayed alive. There are now twenty-odd thousand of us, and while we are still very poor, we are very tough, and we brag about it. ...
— Four-Day Planet • Henry Beam Piper
... friends, But too faint-hearted to betray, Are, after all their twists and bends, But souls in Limbo, damned half way. No, no, we nobler vermin are A genus useful as we're rare; Midst all the things miraculous Of which your natural histories brag, The rarest must be Rats like us, Who let the cat out of the bag. Yet still these Tyros in the cause Deserve, I own, no small applause; And they're by us received and treated With all due honors—only seated In the inverse scale of their reward, The merely ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... sake of breaking silence, Mabel Ticknor asked a question. She was a little, plucky, pale-faced thing whom you called instinctively by her first name at the end of half an hour—a sort of little mother of loose-ended men, who can make silk purses out of sows' ears, and wouldn't know how to brag if she were tempted. ...
— Affair in Araby • Talbot Mundy
... ordinary talk and fallings out, the most opprobrious and scurrile name we can fasten upon a man, or first give, is to call him base rogue, beggarly rascal, and the like: Whereas in my judgment, this ought of all other grievances to trouble men least. Of all vanities and fopperies, to brag of gentility is the greatest; for what is it they crack so much of, and challenge such superiority, as if they were demigods? Birth? Tantane vos generis tenuit fiducia vestri? [3630]It is non ens, a mere flash, a ceremony, a toy, a thing ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... Institution than any other Club whatever, not excepting even that of ugly Faces. We have one manifest Advantage over that renowned Society, with respect to Mr. Spectator's Company. For though they may brag, that you sometimes make your personal Appearance amongst them, it is impossible they should ever get a Word from you. Whereas you are with us the Reverse of what Phaedria would have his Mistress be in his Rival's Company, Present in your ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... half-dazed leader in their midst. Good Mr. Burke (who had succeeded Mr. Clarke as school-master) guessed as they came in and took their seats that there had been an altercation of some kind, and that his two brag scholars had been prominent in it; but he was wise in his generation and allowed the boys to settle their own differences without asking any questions unless he were appealed to, when his sympathy and interest were found to be theirs to ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... of society. Its effects are visible in the hatred of the poor toward the rich, which, if things continue as they are, will ultimately produce a war of classes. The work-houses and other alms-houses are always filled. There may be brief intervals when trade is brisk, and statesmen brag of the prosperity of the country, but these are only as the sane moments of a delirious patient. The general health of the community must not be judged from these. When in a year that it confesses is a favorable ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... Fortune's wheel had placed upon a pirate ship held our lives in our hands, and walked so close with Death that at length that very intimacy did breed contempt. It was not a time to think; it was a time to act, to laugh and make others laugh, to bluster and brag, to estrange sword and scabbard, to play one's hand with a fine unconcern, but all the time to watch, watch, watch, day in and day out, every minute of every hour. That ship became a stage, and we, the actors, should have been applauded to the echo. How ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... think all true patriots ought to unite in redeeming the land from the imputation that such books are regarded as casting honor upon the section. God forbid we should really be brought so low as that we must perforce brag of such works; and God be merciful to that man (he is an Atlanta editor) who boasted that sixteen thousand of these books had been sold in the South! This last damning fact ought to have been concealed ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims
... The angry man is disliked, he arouses unpleasant feelings, he is unpopular and a nuisance and a danger in the view of his fellows. The underlying idea underneath courtesy and social regulations is to avoid anger and humiliation. Controversial subjects are avoided, and one must not brag or display concern because these things cause anger and disgust. Politeness and tact are essential to turn away wrath, to avoid that ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... an hour before this chance, I had lived a blessed time; for from this instant There's nothing serious in mortality: All is but toys: renown and grace is dead; The wine of life is drawn, and the mere lees Is left this vault to brag of. ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... quick of sight, Shall then no way espy How to escape this doleful plight, For death will make thee die. 22. Those legs that now can nimbly run, Shall then with faintness fail To take one step, death's dart to shun, When he doth thee assail. 23. That tongue that now can boast and brag Shall then by death be tied So fast, as not to speak or wag, Though death lies by thy side. 24. Thou that didst once incline thine ear Unto the song and tale, Shall only now death's message hear, While he, with ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... of boys could get Tip to go off with them, in swimming, or hunting, or simply running races. He was known through the whole town, and beloved for his many endearing qualities of heart. As to his mind, it was perhaps not much to brag of, and he certainly had some defects of character. He was incurably lazy, and his laziness grew upon him as he grew older, till hardly anything but the sight of a gun or a bone would move him. He lost his interest in politics, and, though there is no reason to suppose that he ever became indifferent ...
— Boy Life - Stories and Readings Selected From The Works of William Dean Howells • William Dean Howells
... I've had to give up here, but a little windfall come to us t'other day from an old uncle in Vermont. It ain't nothin' to brag of, but it'll give us a start an' we thought that while we had the money we'd do somethin' that we've been wantin' to do for years an' years—give a Chris'mas—an' we've done it. The money'll go some way an' we may never have another chance. Bart is a good ...
— The Light in the Clearing • Irving Bacheller
... must all remember that our Caius not only never boasts but is absurdly reticent about anything he has done of such a kind that most men would brag of it. Towards his chums and cronies he is open-hearted and as unreserved as a friend could be about everything else, but especially close with them about such matters. So I know nothing of his powers concerning which ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... them—from those same commandments, that men "must not steal," in the same breath referring to the white man's crime (when it finds them out) as "getting into trouble over some shooting affair with blacks." Truly we British-born have reason to brag of our ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... anything. About this one thing, I mean. He'll chatter like a magpie about anything else, even his own youthful evil deeds. He seems to know somehow that no longer has the law any interest in his old carcass, and begins to brag a bit of the wild days up and down the forks of the American and of his own share in it all; half lies and the other half blood-dripping truth, I'd swear. It makes a man shiver to listen ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... the top of the volcano of Conchagua, five thousand feet above the sea, wearily attained at no small expenditure of effort and perspiration. Was it love of adventure merely? ambition to do something whereof to brag about to admiring aunts or country cousins? Hardly. The beauty of the wonderful panorama which spreads before the group of strangers is too much neglected, their instruments are too carefully adjusted and noted, and their consultations are far too earnest and protracted, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... good thereof 740 Consists in mutual and partak'n bliss, Unsavoury in th'injoyment of it self If you let slip time, like a neglected rose It withers on the stalk with languish't head. Beauty is natures brag, and must be shown In courts, at feasts, and high solemnities Where most may wonder at the workmanship; It is for homely features to keep home, They had their name thence; course complexions And cheeks of sorry grain will serve to ply 750 The sampler, and to teize the huswifes ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... thirty miles, I should say, Elmer, and it takes that boy Johnny a day and a night to get to our place with his load, all down-grade, too. You remember that Hen Condit never was anything to brag of in the line of ...
— Afloat - or, Adventures on Watery Trails • Alan Douglas
... a campaign manager to go down and whoop things up for him—to get the boys in line and the new two-dollar bills afloat and the babies kissed and the machine in running order. Sully, I don't want to brag, but you remember how I brought Coughlin under the wire for leader of the nineteenth? Ours was the banner district. Don't you suppose I know how to manage a little monkey-cage of a country like that? Why, with the dough the General's willing to turn loose I could put two more coats ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... the idea of that highest achievement of human genius and intelligence, the telegraph, prating away about the practical concerns of the world's daily life in the heart and home of ancient indolence, ignorance, and savagery, or the idea of that happiest expression of the brag, vanity, and mock-heroics of our ancestors, the "tournament," coming out of its grave to flaunt its tinsel trumpery and perform its "chivalrous" absurdities in the high noon of the nineteenth century, and under the patronage ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Bassett continued, "and that he felt it his duty to join the club, because most of them were so anxious to have him, and he is sure he would have a good influence over them. He really did speak of it in quite a touching way, Mrs. Williams. Of course, we mothers mustn't brag of our sons too much, but Georgie REALLY isn't like other boys. He is so sensitive, you can't think how this little affair has hurt him, and I felt that it might even make him ill. You see, I HAD to respect his reason for wanting to join the club. And if I AM his mother"—she gave a ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... fragmentary glimpses of Jean, Paul's youngest son. When Jean was three weeks old he jumped from his cradle one night and seizing an axe, chopped the four posts out from under his father's bed. The incident greatly tickled Paul, who used to brag about it to any one who would listen to him. "The boy is going to be a great logger some day," he would declare ...
— The Marvelous Exploits of Paul Bunyan • W.B. Laughead
... replies, "The Danes have nothing to brag of over us Northmen; for many a place have we laid in ashes ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... There was nothing in the least unusual in it, said Margaret, in her home letters,—for this had she married a soldier. The boys, of course, gloried in the opportunity and bragged about it, or would brag about it when they next got away from their kind in the army to their kind in civil life,—boys who could only vainly long for such opportunities and vaguely loathe those who had enjoyed them. As for Agatha, she accepted the change of station ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... Samurai, tall and square-shouldered, apparently an experienced fencer. He behaved rudely toward the fellow-passengers, and talked so much of his own dexterity in the art that Boku-den, provoked by his brag, broke silence. 'You seem, my friend, to practise the art in order to conquer the enemy, but I do it in order not to be conquered,' said Boku-den. 'O monk,' demanded the man, as Boku-den was clad like a Zen monk, 'what school of swordsmanship do you belong to?' Well, mine is ...
— The Religion of the Samurai • Kaiten Nukariya
... always follow, That semel'n anno ridet Apollo. I have assur'd them twenty times, That Phoebus help'd me in my rhymes; Phoebus inspired me from above, And he and I were hand and glove. But, finding me so dull and dry since, They'll call it all poetic license; And when I brag of aid divine, Think Eusden's[1] right as good as mine. Nor do I ask for Stella's sake; 'Tis my own credit lies at stake: And Stella will be sung, while I Can only be a stander by. Apollo, having thought a little, Return'd this answer to a tittle. Though you should live like old Methusalem, ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... bitter mutual reproaches. In his unrestrained anger, Erasmus avails himself of the most unworthy weapons. He eggs his German friends on to write against Lee and to ridicule him in all his folly and brag, and then he assures all his English friends: 'All Germany is literally furious with Lee; I have the greatest trouble in ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga
... Brag. How canst thou part sadnesse and melancholy my tender Iuuenall? Boy. By a familiar demonstration of the working, ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... set my teeth, and took my courage in both hands, and tried and tried with that rejected manuscript till the divinely appointed editor owned that I was right. But these are the commonplaces of literary biography. I don't brag of them; and I have always tried to keep my head in such shape that even defeat has not swelled it beyond the No. 7 I began with. Why should I be so wicked as to help another and a younger man over the bad places? If I ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... low within his breast. 'Wherever the money came from, whose property it may have been or be, it has been used; and now your only safety is in making the best use of it. A little daring, a little audacity—it is that which ruins men. When you sit down to play brag, you must brag it ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... much of it," interrupted Will. "I think so much of it that I want to live up to it. The old Wentworths were splendid fellows, some of 'em; and all of 'em were jolly and generous and independent. There wasn't any sneaking little brag and snobbishness in 'em. They 'd have cut a fellow dead that had come around with that sort of stuff;" and sixteen-year-old Will nodded his head with an emphatic movement that showed his approval of ...
— A Flock of Girls and Boys • Nora Perry
... of the World, give answer! They are whimpering to and fro — And what should they know of England who only England know? — The poor little street-bred people that vapour and fume and brag, They are lifting their heads in the stillness to yelp at the ...
— Verses 1889-1896 • Rudyard Kipling
... "We don't brag about 'home brewing' any more," said another, "or 'home tailoring,' or 'home shoemaking.' Why all this talk about ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... (n. and v.), used affectedly, like "humour," in many senses, often very vaguely and freely ridiculed by Jonson; humour, disposition, whims, brag(ging), hector(ing), etc. ...
— Epicoene - Or, The Silent Woman • Ben Jonson
... business-like principles, will not be sent to Westminster to hold the balance between English parties. They cannot leave their every-day work; were they willing to forsake their own business, they are not the men to conduct with success the parliamentary game of brag, obstruction, and finesse. Keep, in short, the Irish members at Westminster, and you ensure the supremacy in Ireland of professional politicians. By a curious fatality the Gladstonian policy which weakens ...
— A Leap in the Dark - A Criticism of the Principles of Home Rule as Illustrated by the - Bill of 1893 • A.V. Dicey
... delightful piece of brag, but it is much more than that. It is literature; it is a Gospel of the Wild. It made a small Massachusetts pond famous, and the Mecca of many ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs
... a milord who is poor—the very donkey-boys scorn him. You can do nothing without money," the girl said with almost fierce derision, "and you tell me you will give it away!" She laughed again angrily, as if such a brag was offensive and insulting to her own poverty. The boy who had never in his life known what it was to want anything that money could procure for him, treated the whole question lightly, and undervalued its importance altogether. But the girl who knew ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... They always throw out a few feelers; they never cast themselves adrift till they have sounded every individual and know that he has not traveled. Then they open their throttle valves, and how they do brag, and sneer, and swell, and soar, and blaspheme the sacred name of Truth! Their central idea, their grand aim, is to subjugate you, keep you down, make you feel insignificant and humble in the blaze of their cosmopolitan glory! They will not let you know anything. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... flowers, my pocketful of nuts, or little string of fish they palled upon me and I began immediately to feel an uneasy sense of disappointment, of disillusion, knowing I had miserably failed. The bombastic brag to my mother and her praise were a kind of mockery and falsehood. Illusion followed illusion, defeat followed defeat, yet the morrow was ever to be their healer and compensation. How often have I been soothed by the waveless waters ...
— Confessions of Boyhood • John Albee
... habitual contact with natives whom he did not appreciate. Rightly or wrongly, he took a strong dislike for Brother Jonathan as Brother Jonathan existed, in the rough, five and forty years ago. He was angered by that young gentleman's brag, offended by the rough familiarity of his manners, indignant at his determination by all means to acquire dollars, incensed by his utter want of care for literature and art, sickened by his tobacco-chewing and expectorations. ...
— Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials
... the space of a quarter of an hour. They are exceedingly addicted to the vilest lusts, and have no sense of shame in gratifying their passions. Polygamy is common among them. Yet with all their vices, they like to brag of their having the true faith. The Chinese, though more industrious, are not more virtuous; and as to the so-called Christians, I ...
— Letters on the Nicobar islands, their natural productions, and the manners, customs, and superstitions of the natives • John Gottfried Haensel
... too weirdly improbable," O'Reilly smiled, "but ask Rosa or Jacket—the boy is bursting to tell some one. He nearly died because he couldn't brag about it to Captain Morin, and there won't be any holding him now. I'm afraid he'll tip off the news about that treasure in spite of all my warnings. Those jewels are a temptation; I won't rest easy until they're safely ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... wood be if he gnew what i was saying. then father began to laff and to tell what he and Gim Melcher and Bill Yung and Beanys father and Pewts father done when they was boys and he asted if all of them fellers wasent pretty good men and Aunt Sarah sed none of them is mutch to brag of and father laffed and sed that shows you aint ...
— Brite and Fair • Henry A. Shute
... what do you think he'll think of yer figger? Have you got so much to brag on, that you kin go to pickin' him to pieces? Do you suppose I'd 'a' dared to judge Mr. Wiggs that away? Why, Mr. Wiggs's nose was as long as a clothespin; but I would no more 'a' thought of his nose without him than I would 'a' thought ...
— Lovey Mary • Alice Hegan Rice
... but now that it is over, I'm glad we had it. I will have something to brag about when I'm at college, ...
— Polly and Eleanor • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... wild. They are older than our fellows, but they like Prince, he's such a jolly boy; sings so well, dances jigs and breakdowns, you know, and plays any game that's going. He beat Morse at billiards, and that's something to brag of, for Morse thinks he knows everything. I saw the match, and ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott
... show the peculiar mixture of brag, cajolery, and threats, involved in the attitude of the South, as expressed by the same favorite Southern mouthpiece, toward the Border-States on the one hand, and the Middle and New England States on the other, a further extract from this (February 7th) speech of the Texan Senator ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... informed him; "but since I had served an apprenticeship as a chopper, the time required to discover Sandy was less than half an hour, I watched him one day when he didn't know who I was—so I figured him for a man and a half and raised him a dollar a day. He doesn't know it, however. If he did, he'd brag about it, and I'd have to pay as much to men half as good. When he's chopped for us twenty years, fire him and give him that. He's earned it. Thus endeth the first lesson, my son. ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... thy eternal summer shall not fade, Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest; Nor shall death brag thou wanderest in his shade, When in eternal lines to time ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... telling what a fellow of Link's stamp might do. He is just fool enough to brag about what he hoped to do rather than go and do it. It's an outrage that he should ...
— Dave Porter At Bear Camp - The Wild Man of Mirror Lake • Edward Stratemeyer
... heart and honesty in a man like a good hoss. Don't go back to your city. You'll turn into a snake there. Stay out here and practice being a man, will you? Get the feel of a Colt. Fight your way. Keep your mouth shut and work with your hands. And don't brag about what you know or what you've done. That's the way to get on. You got the markings in you, son. You got grit. I seen it when you was under the whip, and I wish I had the doing of that over again. I made a mistake with you, kid. But do what I've told you to ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... going to die, boy, I may let you off the birching which your impertinence merits. You have all the old brag of your father." ...
— Jack Harkaway and his son's Escape From the Brigand's of Greece • Bracebridge Hemyng
... cry of pain. "You brag of it. I forced myself on you, I suppose." Harry exclaimed something, made a gesture. "Oh yes, you were all cold virtue and chastity and honour, and I—what was I?" She shuddered and drew back from him. "Yes, you would turn on me. You would ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... must go down to the Moonbeam. He had four horses there, and must sell at least three of them. One hunter he intended to allow himself. There were Brag, Banker, Buff, and Brewer; and he thought that he would keep Brag. Brag was only six years old, and might last him for the next seven years. In the meantime he could see a little cub-hunting, and live at the Moonbeam for a week at ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... of the Commissioner as it would if we, on the other hand, had said, as is the fact, that we have a large amount of evidence that might yet be presented in behalf of Mr. Davis. This is not a game of brag! It is not upon evidence that is not here, but upon evidence that is here, that this case is to be decided. Here has been mortified pride, here has been fear, here has been the dread spectre of Executive power, stalking across the scene, appalling ...
— Report of the Proceedings at the Examination of Charles G. Davis, Esq., on the Charge of Aiding and Abetting in the Rescue of a Fugitive Slave • Various
... a word with you, Mr. St. Clair," said Donald Ward, as he hammered the thole pins into their holes. "You're angry with Captain Hercules Getty, and I don't altogether blame you. The captain's too fond of brag, and that's a fact. He can't hold himself in when he meets a Britisher. He's so almighty proud of the whipping his people gave the scum. But there's no need for you to be angry with me. I'm an Irishman myself, and not a Yankee. I fought in North Carolina, under General Nathaniel ...
— The Northern Iron - 1907 • George A. Birmingham
... be ashamed to brag of it," cried the Little Colonel, angry that her mother's opinion had been so flatly contradicted. But there was no time for a quarrel. The boys had come up with them, and Lloyd had to make the necessary introductions. Eugenia ...
— The Little Colonel's House Party • Annie Fellows Johnston
... some one admit that Chicago is in the East," he laughed. "No, I don't brag about the West. It's a good country, and it will be better when we have approximated more to Eastern conditions. We are undeveloped as yet. ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... temperament which must have commended itself to Mr Arnold almost as strongly as his literary quality, and very closely indeed connected with that—the temperament of equity, of epieikeia, of freedom from swagger and brag and self-assertion. And here, once more, the things receive precisely their right treatment, the treatment proportioned and adjusted at once to their own value and nature and to the use which their critic is intending to make of them. For it is one of ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... voice—without fully comprehending herself; for, however ingeniously and indefatigably women may mask their hearts from public gaze and comment, they do not mock their own reason by such flimsy shams, and Salome could find no prospect of gain in playing a game of brag with her ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... my "Purdey Extractor" made play, though it ain't me to brag, But somehow her arrers went straighter, and 'ers wos the heaviest bag. "Let me 'ave a try, Miss," sez I, "with that trifle from Lowther Arcade!" I tried, and hit one of her dogs, as she didn't think ...
— Punch Among the Planets • Various
... is Nature's coin; must not be hoarded, But must be current; and the good thereof Consists in mutual and partaken bliss, Unsavoury in the enjoyment of itself. If you let slip time, like a neglected rose It withers on the stalk with languished head. Beauty is Nature's brag, and must be shown In courts, at feasts, and high solemnities, Where most may wonder at the workmanship. It is for homely features to keep home; They had their name thence: coarse complexions And cheeks of sorry grain will serve to ply The sampler, and to tease the huswife's ...
— L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, Comus, and Lycidas • John Milton
... in England a hidden conviction, expressed privately in clubs and by women over their knitting, that the French soldiers were poor fellows as fighting men, filled with sentimentality, full of brag, with fine words on their lips, but with no strength of courage or endurance. British soldiers coming back wounded from the first battles and a three weeks' rearguard action, spread abroad the tale that "those French fellows were utterly useless and had run like rabbits before the German ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... spire, which has the attractiveness and symmetry of an exaggerated marlin-spike, for a vanishing point,—are of themselves enough to show that the people here have no taste, and no feeling for this department of the Fine Arts, however much they may brag and bluster. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... replied quite good-temperedly, "only no one cares to brag about their relations unless they want to be called a snob or a bore. It wouldn't do, you see, for a man to go about declaring that he had an uncle who was miles ahead of everybody else's uncle, or an aunt who could give a start to any other ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... was most deficient in; and that if the General would preserve more dignity and less bluster his administration had been marked with results more in keeping with the true character of the nation. Old Uncle John could brag stoutly; but Jonathan was a magnificent player at the same game. I realised this as Littlejohn took a long look over our wonderful West, and asked by what singular process of diplomacy we got to many ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... that maxim of the sage, which tells us they are friends alone that can serve us in a jail, for all our enemies may pretend friendship at our own table.—'Esteem him not a friend who during thy prosperity will brag of his love and brotherly affection.' I account him a friend who will take his friend by the hand when struggling with despair, and ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 2, Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... own reward, let me without brag or boasting be allowed to state, that, in my own case, it did not disappoint my exertions. I had sat down a tenant, and I was now not only the landlord of my own house and shop, but of all the back tenements to the head of the garden, as also of the row of one-story houses behind, facing to ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... to tell each other all they knew. Eliphalet, he got to know a good deal about the girls she went to school with, and Kitty, she learned all about his family. He didn't tell her about the title for a long time, as he wasn't one to brag. But he described to her the little old house at Salem. And one evening toward the end of the summer, the wedding-day having been appointed for early in September, she told him that she didn't want to bridal tour at all; she just wanted to go down to the little old house at Salem to spend ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... starry sky has spanned the space above thee—but thou hast never yet heard such conceited and, at bottom, mischievous chatter as the talk of the present day! So you are proud of your poets and artists, my good Teutons? You point to them and brag about them to foreign countries, do you? And because it has given you no trouble to have them amongst you, you have formed the pleasant theory that you need not concern yourselves further with them? Isn't ...
— On the Future of our Educational Institutions • Friedrich Nietzsche
... seem to brag, Carrie, but you saw the coat that just walked out on Mrs. Gronauer? My little mother she was a humpback, Carrie, not a real one, but all stooped from the heavy years when she was helping my father to get his start. Well, anyway, that little stooped back was one ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... me from Pharamond! When Thunder speaks, which is the voice of Jove, Though I do reverence, yet I hide me not; And shall a stranger Prince have leave to brag Unto a forreign Nation, that ...
— Philaster - Love Lies a Bleeding • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... heard it? You Karamazovs brag of being an ancient, noble family, though your father used to run about playing the buffoon at other men's tables, and was only admitted to the kitchen as a favor. I may be only a priest's son, and dirt in the eyes of noblemen like you, but don't insult me so lightly and wantonly. ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... of the world, give answer! They are whimpering to and fro— And what should they know of England who only England know? The poor little street-bred people, that vapour, and fume, and brag, They are lifting their heads in the stillness, to yelp at ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... members not on hand, started in to go on about the revivals and how much good they was doin'. 'Most everybody had some relation, if 'twa'n't nothin' more'n a husband, that had stopped smokin' and chewin'. Everybody had some brand from the burnin' to brag about—everybody but Hannah; she could only set there and say she'd done her best, but that Kenelm still ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln
... case could not tell from Harry's story exactly how much encouragement Laura had given him, nor what hopes he might justly have of winning her. He had never seen him desponding before. The "brag" appeared to be all taken out of him, and his airy manner only asserted itself now and then in a comical imitation ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 5. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... the Rector with eyes half closed and a vertical line knit between his eyebrows. "Be d—— d, be d—— d! Of course! Not a bad idea at all, not at all!" That's the way he liked people—with some gumption! And he seized the occasion to brag of his own biography as a fool successful in getting rich, telling how he had left the navy without a cent in his pocket, and, to get out of the rut his father and grandfather had been in as fishermen, ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... useful to the Publick, as my good cou'd have been. I ever despised undeserved Grandeur, and misapplied Power, and therefore few People in high Posts, or even Kings or Queens, or Ministers, cou'd ever brag much of my Condescension, in speaking a good Word for them to Posterity, or endeavouring to blind the Eyes of the present Times, by Printing either lies or Truths in their Favour. 'Tis true, I almost as seldom gave them any Proofs of my Spite; partly out of neglect, and a despair of doing ...
— A Dialogue Between Dean Swift and Tho. Prior, Esq. • Anonymous
... I don't like to brag, but there is no man on earth that can turn a thing as well as I can whittle it, Mr. Jones. Jest name the article that I can't whittle, that you can turn, and I'll give you a dollar if I don't do it to the ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various |
