"Self-confident" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... complacency will a young parson deduce false conclusions from misunderstood texts, and then threaten us with all the penalties of Hades if we neglect to comply with the injunctions he has given us! Yes, my too self-confident juvenile friend, I do believe in those mysteries which are so common in your mouth; I do believe in the unadulterated word which you hold there in your hand; but you must pardon me if, in some things, ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... amorous possibilities, Chavernay came daintily across the bridge, very young, very self-confident, very impudent, very much enjoying himself. As he neared the Inn he looked about him nonchalantly, and, seeing that no one was in sight, he stooped and caught up a pebble from the roadway and flung it dexterously enough against the window above the Inn porch. Then he slipped, smiling ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... the sudden lapse on the part of this extraordinary and self-confident young person into the terminology of the ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... for one so self-confident as the young Irishman—a pause like that of a man grown suddenly doubtful, timid, distrustful. His hand was actually on the latch when, to Thor's surprise, he wheeled away, returning to his "team" with head bent and stride slackened thoughtfully. By the time he had mounted ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... Self-confident to presumption, he took for his inspirations the merest impulses, and considerably marred the effect of his unquestionably grand genius by gross haste and carelessness. He was a successful man in his day, as so energetic and unscrupulous ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler
... the townsmen towards the legitimate sons of the man who had saved them from Midian. "Jotham's fable'' of the trees who desired a king may be foreign to the context; it is a piece of popular lore, and cannot be pressed too far: the nobler trees have no wish to rule over others, only the bramble is self-confident. The "fable'' appears to be antagonistic to ideas of monarchy. The origin of the conflicts which subsequently arose is not clear. Gaal, a new-comer, took the opportunity at the time of the vintage, when there was a festival in tho temple, to head a revolt and seized Shechem. ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... before breakfast would count for a hundred times more than a feeble dawdling prolonged throughout the whole day. Abner rose betimes and did his hour's work; sweaty, panting, begrimed, hopeful, indignant, sincere, self-confident, he set his product full ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... pour out such unintelligible stuff over his own aching head. So he had learnt to be silent. Even now it was difficult to begin. He stammered and was shy and distrustful and eager, sometimes crudely self-confident, like a child who has played ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... serious eye, that scans his spiritual mood, and looks all around his shrewd, self-confident position, there is a great moral in the skeptic's life. It teaches us, more than ever, the value of faith, and the glory of religion. That flat negation only makes the rejected truth more positive. The ...
— The Crown of Thorns - A Token for the Sorrowing • E. H. Chapin
... at the part which I then and there permitted myself to undertake. The scene has lost the colours which gave it a false and superficial lustre, and I gaze on the melancholy reality chidden, and, let me say, instructed by the sight. I can now better appreciate and understand the self-confident tone which pronounced upon my state in the eye of heaven—the canting expressions of brotherly love—the irreverent familiarity with which Scripture was quoted, garbled, and tortured to justify dissent, and render disobedience holy—the daring assumption of inquisitorial privileges, and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... 16, 25). The life of the Spirit within us must be maintained by the study of the Word and prayer. One of the saddest things ever witnessed is the way in which some people who have entered by the Spirit's power into a life of victory become self-confident and fancy that the victory is in themselves, and that they can safely neglect the study of the Word and prayer. The depths to which such sometimes fall is appalling. Each of us needs to lay to heart the inspired words of the Apostle, "Wherefore, ...
— The Person and Work of The Holy Spirit • R. A. Torrey
... the faith that blood cruelly or unjustly spilt cries from the ground, and that the human soul, wrought to an ecstasy, has power, as the blood has power, to draw God's hand upon the guilty. But Shakespeare's mind was also occupied with the knowledge that self-confident intellect is terrible and tragical. One of the truths of the play is the very sad one that being certain is in itself a kind of sin, sure to be avenged by life. The obsession of self-confidence betrays person after person, to misery ...
— William Shakespeare • John Masefield
... despotic and soul-degrading Church of Rome, he arrived at Boston in February, 1630, about half a year after the landing of the Massachusetts Colony of Governor Winthrop. He was an eloquent preacher, stiff and self-confident in his opinions; ingenious, powerful, and commanding, in impressing them upon others; inflexible in his adherence to them; and, by an inconsistency peculiar to religious enthusiasts, combining the most amiable and affectionate ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy
... largely left to the haphazard, unrestrained, but whole-souled, big-hearted, self-confident individualism, such as has been potent in Pittsburgh. The restrictions were mainly those of the prohibitory Mosaic commandments. And so this city, increasing its population by a half-million in each ...
— The French in the Heart of America • John Finley
... here?" And she had remembered her shrewd mother's hints, and her own later fears, concerning the insecurity of his position: and had studied his tired and worn face for an equivocal sign. But this smile, self-confident and firm, was not the smile of a ruined man; and his flashing glance seemed to be an omen of ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... reception at Anna Pavlovna's was the first he had attended in Russia. He knew that all the intellectual lights of Petersburg were gathered there and, like a child in a toyshop, did not know which way to look, afraid of missing any clever conversation that was to be heard. Seeing the self-confident and refined expression on the faces of those present he was always expecting to hear something very profound. At last he came up to Morio. Here the conversation seemed interesting and he stood ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... There was nothing particularly delicate in Lady Hilda's features; they were well-modelled, but neither regular nor cold, nor with that peculiar stamp of artificial breeding which is so often found in the faces of English ladies. On the contrary, she looked like a perfectly self-confident handsome actress, too self-confident to be self-conscious, and accustomed to admiration wherever she turned. As Ernest jumped down from the dog-cart she advanced quickly to shake hands with him, and look him over critically from ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... Christians are not thus self-confident and boastful when they are attacked. In severe conflicts and anxieties they labor that the devil may not deprive them of the sword. I know that I am learned and have seen something of what the devil can do; but I must bear him witness, from my daily experience, that ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther
... present," she assured him, and the stimulus of the champagne made her look—and feel—much more self-confident than she really was. "More than I've ever had before. So I'm not worried. When anyone has been through what I have they aren't ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... throwing off the effects of opium and recovering her normal self-confident personality, glanced at her ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... Audrey's conscience, making her feel like a thief. But her moods were capricious. At one moment she was a thief, a clumsy fraud, an ignorant ninny, and a suitable prey for the secret police; and at the next she was very clever, self-confident, equal to the situation, and enjoying the situation more than she had ever enjoyed anything, and determined to prolong the ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... least of his purposes. He wanted to show you that he wasn't afraid of you; and he wanted to show me that he wasn't afraid of you. Mr. Transley is a very self-confident individual. There is such a thing as being too self-confident, Mr. Linder, just as there is such a thing as being too shy. Do you get me? Good night!" And with a little rush she was ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead
... be German are the same thing—a curious foretaste of the German arrogance of to-day. Yet these speeches, which, issued in England at such a crisis, would have found no readers, reverberated through Germany and helped to create the self-confident spirit which freed her from the invader. Then, as now, under the inspiration of ideas which they had accepted from professors and philosophers, Germans fought for the German language and for German culture. But ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... are one of those clever criminals one reads about," she said, "prepared for all emergencies, perfectly self-confident, capable and satisfied that there is nobody ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace
... India at the time of Alexander the Great's death. He was a sovereign of dignity and strength of character and had a high respect for his minister Chanakya, the Indian Macchiavelli, who was a crafty, clearheaded, self-confident, intriguing and hard politician, with the ultimate end of his ambition thoroughly well-determined and directing all his clearheadedness and intrigue to the accomplishment of that end. This minister, also called Vishnugupta, is famous as ...
— Tales from the Hindu Dramatists • R. N. Dutta
... gifted with song they were prepared, but they did not expect one who could meet them in conversation with the fence and foil of a skilled logician. We may see also his burning desire for distinction in that scene in school when he led the self-confident schoolmaster into debate and left him humiliated in the eyes of the pupils. Even in his contests with John Niven there was the same eagerness to excel. When he could not beat him in wrestling or putting the stone, he was fain to content ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun
... girl there was something splendid, something heroical in that majestic, menacing landscape to the west. In one of its folds she had begun her life. In another she had grown to womanhood and self-confident power. The rough men, the coarse, ungainly women of that land seemed less hateful now that she was leaving them, perhaps forever, and a confused memory of the many splendid dawns and purple sunsets she had loved filled ...
— The Forester's Daughter - A Romance of the Bear-Tooth Range • Hamlin Garland
... possible to have these virtues so unhappily proportioned and inauspiciously mixed with other turns and casts of mind, as to end in work with little grace or harmony or fine tracery about it, but only overweening purpose and vehement will. And it is overweeningness and self-confident will that are the chief notes of Macaulay's style. It has no benignity. Energy is doubtless a delightful quality, but then Macaulay's energy is perhaps energy without momentum, and he impresses us more by a strong volubility than by volume. ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Volume I (of 3) - Essay 4: Macaulay • John Morley
... votes; they received, in reply, a public scolding. Long before the Senate voted on its committee's report, many of the notorious "new" polygamists of the Church returned from their exile in foreign missions and began to walk the streets of Salt Lake with their old swagger of self-confident ...
— Under the Prophet in Utah - The National Menace of a Political Priestcraft • Frank J. Cannon and Harvey J. O'Higgins
... achieved "Guy Mannering" in six weeks, and published it. Moliere tells us that he wrote "Les Facheux" in a fortnight; and a French critic adds that it reads indeed as if it had been written in, a fortnight. Perhaps a self-confident censor might venture a similar opinion about "Guy Mannering." It assuredly shows traces of haste; the plot wanders at its own will; and we may believe that the Author often—did not see his own way out of the wood. But there is little harm in that. "If I do not know what ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... and commenced travelling up its steep acclivities. But the flood followed him, roaring, and boiling, and heaving, in its onward rush. Day by day, night by night, it crept up, and up, higher and higher, until the self-confident leader, who scoffed at the supernatural warning, had but a mighty small place above the surge, whereon to shelter himself from the destruction that surrounded him. About that time the Ark, with Noah and his people, all safe and snug, ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond
... the following day at twelve o'clock. Litvinov was at the station to meet them—a different Litvinov from the one who a few days before had been so self-confident, so spiritual, so calm and content. His whole appearance, his movements, the expression of his face, had been transformed. Some sensation, unknown before, had come, strong, sweet—and evil; the mysterious guest had made its way to the innermost ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... forehead seemed to rest on the rim of the spectacles; the flat cheeks, of a greasy, unhealthy complexion, were merely smudged by the miserable poverty of a thin dark whisker. The lamentable inferiority of the whole physique was made ludicrous by the supremely self-confident bearing of the individual. His speech was curt, and he had a particularly impressive manner of ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... fails to solve, crying out upon maladies and sores for which it quite omits to offer a remedy. But that is Kingsley all over. He was a mass of over-excited nerves and ill-ordered ideas, much more poet than philosopher, more sympathetic than lucid, full of passionate indignation, recklessly self-confident, cynically disdainful of consistency, patience, good sense. He had the Rousseau temperament, with its furious eloquence, its blind sympathies and antipathies, its splendid sophistries. Yeast was plainly the Christian reverse of the Carlyle ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... although, when the necessity came, decisively. While he had consideration for those who did not agree with him, and while he acted always with a regard to proportion, he was nevertheless a strong and self-confident executive. Now Cleveland did not comprehend popular opinion as did Lincoln. In him the desire to lead was paramount, to the exclusion at times of a proper consideration for Congress and the people. It has been said by one of his political friends that he ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes
... is with a head of wheat. When it is empty, it stands perfectly erect, and looks self-confident; but as soon as it is filled with the precious grain, it modestly bends its head, and waives most gracefully, as if to welcome every ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... right. I'll fix things for you," Peter reassured us when we stopped at last, out of breath. I suddenly wanted to hide him so they wouldn't get him as well as ourselves. He was so self-confident. What did he know of how things happened over here? He was talking and acting like a rational human being, which was sure proof he was in no position to cope with the Russian Secret Service. I felt a frantic desire to get him ...
— Trapped in 'Black Russia' - Letters June-November 1915 • Ruth Pierce
... hour. It was not until the coffee and liqueurs arrived that they returned to the subject of Miss Grex. Then it was Hunterleys himself who introduced it. He was beginning to rather like this big, self-confident young man, so full of his simple love affair, so absolutely honest in his purpose, in ...
— Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... enterprise and versatility which we observe in few Orientals. His selection of Tarsus for the site of a great city indicates a keen appreciation of the merits of a locality, if he was proud, haughty, and self-confident, beyond all former Assyrian kings, it would seem to have been because he felt that he had resources within himself—that he possessed a firm will, a bold heart, and a fertile invention. Most men would have laid aside the sword and given themselves wholly to ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... trumpery imitations of their neighbours. And I wonder De Tocqueville and De Beaumont, and THE TIMES' Commissioner, did not explain the Snobbishness of Ireland as contrasted with our own. Ours is that of Richard's Norman Knights,—haughty, brutal stupid, and perfectly self-confident;—theirs, of the poor, wondering, kneeling, simple chieftains. They are on their knees still before English fashion—these simple, wild people; and indeed it is hard not to grin at ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray
... to presentiments, and his self-confident nature abhorred the prospect of trouble. He had arrived at his conclusion by a logical process, and there seemed no escape from it. As he had told Lucia, he knew the character of the chiseller better than the women of ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... himself, was massive and impressive; his bearing and manner inspired me with wistful admiration: what must life be to a man so self-confident, and ...
— Cecilia de Noel • Lanoe Falconer
... He came upon the people who had spoken. There was a girl riding on a donkey. She was American. Trim. Neat. Uneasy, but reasonably self-confident. And there was a man standing by the trail, with a slide of earth behind him and mud on his boots as if he'd slid down somewhere very fast to intercept this girl. He wore the distinctive costume a British correspondent is apt ...
— The Invaders • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... like a magpie, that amiable young man, and all because his wretched painting was to be preserved for some time. O impetuous, O happy youth! Here I could not restrain myself from a little jest for the purpose of teaching a lesson to the self-confident youngster, so I asked ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev
... hands again, and raised them to his lips and kissed them. It astonished him to feel them so cold, and see her again so excited and pale. Was she really afraid of the villain she had escaped from? The dear, foolish woman! The man in his self-confident strength loved her the more for the vague terrors he felt himself so well ...
— Harvest • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... deep with mortification when the self-possessed young man walked in with his kit-bag, and put his cap on the sewing machine. He was little and self-confident, with a curious neatness about him that still suggested the Charity Institution. His face was brown, he had a small moustache, he was vigorous enough in ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence
... the same man again. Do any of us? God forbid. It would be a poor result of all our anguish and our wrestling if we won nothing but our old selves at the end of it—if we could return to the same blind loves, the same self-confident blame, the same light thoughts of human suffering, the same frivolous gossip over blighted human lives, the same feeble sense of that Unknown towards which we have sent forth irrepressible cries in our loneliness. Let us rather be thankful that our sorrow ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... that raised him above his class (his father and grandfathers before him for more than a hundred years had been sextons to the church of St. Mary Redcliffe) he is described as a dissipated, 'rather brutal fellow'. Lastly, he appears to have been 'very proud', self-confident, and self-reliant. ...
— The Rowley Poems • Thomas Chatterton
... walking the head is carried low, and the neck is short. The hind legs appear to be longer, compared with the front legs, than is usual. The exposed incisor teeth, the short head and upturned nostrils, give these cattle the most ludicrous, self-confident air of defiance. The skull which I presented to the College of Surgeons has been thus described by Professor Owen (3/66. 'Descriptive Cat. of Ost. Collect. of College of Surgeons' 1853 page 624. Vasey in his 'Delineations of the Ox-tribe' has given a figure ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin
... a very long time before the maid returned. When she did, the usually self-confident Babette seemed dazed. She did not speak until ...
— The Further Adventures of Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks • Charles Felton Pidgin
... these temporal advantages, as they are considered, have a strong tendency to render us self-confident. When a man has been advanced in the world by means of his own industry and skill, when he began poor and ends rich, how apt will he be to pride himself, and confide, in his own contrivances and his own resources! Or when a man feels himself possessed of good abilities; of ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VII (of 8) • John Henry Newman
... with the consciousness that she had been more than usually interested. The Count was certainly developing. She liked his new air of self-confident domination. It would be rather thrilling, she thought, to be wooed in this masterful way. But he had taken some pains to let her see that he was not sure yet whether she was worth the trouble of wooing! That was insulting, of course, but he might ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... how much such a quotation as this would fall in with my notions, averse as I am to loud and noisy tones, and self-confident, overwhelming, and yet perhaps very unsound arguments. And you will remember how anxiously I dwelt upon this point while you were at home. I have been in hopes that this half-year would witness a great ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... his place; a man of ready invention, unscrupulous, witty, and brilliant. Self-confident and full of promises, he succeeded in imparting a gleam of sunshine, and pursued a plan directly the opposite to that adopted by Necker. He encouraged the extravagance of the court, derided the future, and warded off pressing debts by contracting ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... grouse, or go with him again on a poaching expedition. Stephen was more humble and vigilant than he had been before falling into temptation. He set a close watch upon himself, lest he should be betrayed into a self-confident spirit again; and Tim's loud praises sounded less pleasantly in his ears, so that one evening he told him, with much shame, into what sin he had been led by his desire to avenge Snip's murder. Unfortunately, this disclosure so much heightened ...
— Fern's Hollow • Hesba Stretton
... by the morning's rain, a slip of the original path having crumbled down the precipice below. The animals were wonderfully careful, and although a nervous person might have shuddered at some awkward points, both mule and ponies were thoroughly self-confident and safely carried us to the bottom. But the carts? These were making a circuit of some miles across country in the endeavour to discover a ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... previous notice, is called upon to speak, generally acquits himself creditably. He is nearly always witty, appreciative, and frank. This is due, I believe, to the thorough-going nature of his education: he is taught to be self-confident, to believe in his own ability to create, to express his opinions without fear. A diffident and retiring man, whose chief characteristic is extreme modesty, is not likely to be a good speaker; but Americans are free from this weakness. Far be it from ...
— America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat • Wu Tingfang
... should he require one. Peschiera (as you may suppose by his audacious wager) is not one of those secret villains who would cut off their right hand if it could betray the knowledge of what was done by the left,—rather one of those self-confident vaunting knaves of high animal spirits, and conscience so obtuse that it clouds their intellect, who must have some one to whom they can boast of their abilities and confide their projects. And Peschiera has done all he can to render this ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... institution had passed before the chief Essayists became members, and indeed I cannot recollect that the founders themselves ever imagined that it lay within their own power to reconstruct Society; none of them was really so sanguine or so self-confident as to anticipate so great a result from their efforts, and it will be remembered that the original phrase was altered by the insertion of the words "to help on" when the constitution was actually formulated. Society has not yet been reconstructed, but the Fabians ...
— The History of the Fabian Society • Edward R. Pease
... tall and white,—something white and shadowy, standing erect, and shrinking aside, behind the counter. My heart stood still; a sepulchral chill came over me. My old self, trembling, angry, foreboding, stepped suddenly within the niche whence the self-confident, full-grown, sensible woman had vanished utterly. For an instant, I felt like a ghost myself. It seemed natural that ghosts, if such there were, should spy me out, and appall my heart with their presence. For there, in that old, haunted spot, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... is not much to be hoped from the critics. Over-sensitive writers are too rare, and the productive impulse of the others is too self-confident for prudence to smother. Obviously, they care no more for the critics than Tom and Sal a century ago cared for Malthus. They disregard them. The most savage criticism only confirms their belief in the beauty and necessity ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... down!" said Billy, with the authority of an emperor, and with a look that spoke volumes intelligible to every by-stander. "Reckon I don't know what I'm about?" Then wheeling off, and muttering in an under, self-confident tone, "Dang old Roper," continued he, "if he don't knock that cross to the north corner of creation and back again before a ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... deal scared by his adventure, and feeling much less self-confident, Sammy swam away, resolved to avoid all suspicious insects in the future. He had several other narrow escapes at this stage of his journey, but they are not important enough to ...
— How Sammy Went to Coral-Land • Emily Paret Atwater
... erect the dumping-pier, and to strip the five mountains of their forests and underbrush. It was not a task for a holiday, but a stern, difficult, and perplexing problem, and Van Antwerp was not quite the man to solve it. He was stubborn, self-confident, and indifferent by turns. He did not depend upon his lieutenants, but jealously guarded his own opinions from the least question or discussion, and at every step he antagonized the easy-going people among whom he had come to work. He had no patience ...
— Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... second act John rests from his labour in his garden, while Dot, who finds her husband, who is considerably older than herself, somewhat too self-confident and phlegmatic, tries to make him appreciate her more by arousing his jealousy. While they thus talk and jest May enters, followed by her old suitor, who has already chosen the wedding-ring for her. Eduard listens to his wooing with ill concealed anxiety, ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... isn't shying off all the time as if I were a sort of bandit. What a relief to think that you'll not be accompanied by a chaperon! I shall get back my self-respect once I'm home again with you nice, self-confident young American women." ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... and the Chief-Justice was called before the Council. There a decree, based on Bacon's advice and probably drawn up by him, peremptorily overruled the legal doctrine maintained by the greatest and most self-confident judge whom the English courts had seen. The Chief-Justice had to acquiesce in this reading of the law; and then, as if such an affront were not enough, Coke was suspended from his office, and, further, enjoined to review and amend his published reports, where ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church
... nuisance of your legacy," interrupted the girl, excitedly, and, thrusting a sealed letter into the other's hand, drew back in her own chair and covered her face with her hands. Under all her self-confident manner her heart was throbbing painfully, and she felt as if she must get up and run away. Somewhere in the great forest through which Reuben had driven his coach lay an apparently deserted little cabin, which had attracted her by its overgrowth of woodbine—that hereabout seemed to envelop everything ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond
... honours. Peter was by no means a 'Peter' then. The name no doubt mainly implies official function, but that official function was prepared for by personal character; and in so far as the name refers to character, it means firmness. At that epoch Peter was rash, impulsive, headstrong, self-confident, vain, and therefore, necessarily changeable. Like the granite, all fluid and hot, and fluid because it was hot, he needed to cool in order to solidify into rock. And not until his self-confidence had been knocked out of him, and he had learned ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... and obstinacy, he having, as it has been proved, acted in entire opposition to 'his owners.' On the pressing recommendation, however, of the owners, and at the representation that E. has been long in the service, and is, although too self-confident, a very respectable man, his certificate has ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... women, who are too self-confident and obtrusive. These, if they discover some slight inconsistency in men, fiercely betray their indignation and behave with arrogance. A man may show a little inconsistency occasionally, but yet his affection may remain; ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... the stoppage of the motor, and the aviator becoming rattled so that he loses control of his machine. Modern ingenuity is fast developing motors that almost daily become more and more reliable, and experience is making aviators more and more self-confident in their ability to act wisely and promptly in cases of emergency. Besides this a satisfactory system of automatic control is in a fair way ...
— Flying Machines - Construction and Operation • W.J. Jackman and Thos. H. Russell
... true. Be not indignant. I have admitted that you may be right. Our detective will soon find out. He has the calm, self-confident, penetrating look of a man who could, if possible, screw ...
— The Garret and the Garden • R.M. Ballantyne
... high and Roman half-way down, but just there was a little dent, and the rest of the nose was straight. His complexion, excepting the freckles and charcoal, was chiefly sunburn, down to the neckband of his blue checked shirt. He was a tough, wiry-looking boy, and there was a kind of smiling, self-confident expression in his blue-gray eyes and around ...
— Crowded Out o' Crofield - or, The Boy who made his Way • William O. Stoddard
... noble intentions and hundred franc notes of my own. I may mention in passing that it takes very little money to fill me up. I had just cashed a cheque of my own at the rate of a hundred-and-five francs to the five pounds, and I felt robust and self-confident and ready to do it again. There, on the top of my "Suspense" basket, lay just the very cheque for the purpose. Charles, I fell again. Explaining to myself that Mr. Abrahams had clearly intimated that his gift to the Government was alternatively a note for a hundred francs or a cheque ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, March 12, 1919 • Various
... in the Far East. Japan, willing under certain conditions to forget her grievances, had first sought alliance with Russia and had sent Prince Ito on a visit to St. Petersburg for that purpose. But Russia was too proud and self-confident to contemplate any such step, and so Japan turned to Britain, and obtained a readier hearing. Under the Alliance, both Britain and Japan disclaimed any aggressive tendencies in China or Korea, but the special interests of Japan in Korea ...
— Korea's Fight for Freedom • F.A. McKenzie
... us with masterpieces of correct and studied diction, with carefully elaborated machinery, and with a style maintained at a uniform level of dignified correctness. The weakness of the English proceeds from inequality and extravagance; it is the weakness of self-confident vigour, intolerant of rule, rejoicing in its own exuberant resources. The weakness of the Italian is due to timidity and moderation; it is the weakness that springs not so much from a lack of native strength as ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... ways—or was there any secret? She held her little head very high and chattered very fast—but it was not the same chatter that she gave to Marcella, nor, so far as Marcella could judge, to Aldous Raeburn. New elements of character came out in it. It was self-confident, wilful, imperious. Frank was never allowed to have an opinion; was laughed at before his words were out of his mouth; was generally heckled, played with, and shaken in a way which seemed alternately to enrage and enchant him. In the case of most girls, such a ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... to passive waiting. But the taste of the salt and the smell of it brought back the picture of Desire as he had seen her first—strong, self-confident. He had thought these qualities ungirlish at the time; now he thanked God ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... We may properly leave to American history the details of the process by which, as the colonies became more acutely conscious of the inherent conflict between their economic interests and the colonial and commercial policy of Great Britain, they grew at the same time into a self-confident and defiant independence. Nevertheless, as an epochal event in the history of British imperialism, the American War of Independence deserves a ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... of the bush, and they clung to the more open strip with a caution and a profound respect for Native prowess which epithets can hardly exaggerate, and which tended to intensify the self-esteem of the Maori, never the least self-confident of warriors. A war carried on in such a theatre and in such a temper was likely to drag. There was plenty of fighting, mostly desultory. The Maoris started out of the bush or the bracken to plunder, to cut off stragglers, or to fight, and disappeared again ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... relieve him of his own tediousness; but there was little luxury and no refinement where there was almost no culture. Of course there were a few homes and families of another order, where the women were refined and the men educated; but these were the exceptions. Society generally, with its bluff, loud, self-confident but ignorant planters, its numerous poor whites destitute of lands and of slaves, and its mass of slaves whose aim in life was to avoid work and escape the whip, was necessarily only one remove ...
— James Madison • Sydney Howard Gay
... from the one she had known. The very tone of his voice, which when he left had the uncertain cracked notes which indicate the unformed man, were now mellowed and settled. Mara regarded him shyly as he talked, blushed uneasily, and drew away from his arm around her, as if this handsome, self-confident young man were being too familiar. In fact, she made apology to go out into the other room to ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... minority; and their relative importance will necessarily diminish with the development into its natural consequences of the root idea of legalism. For legalism, just so far as it is strong, sincere, and self-confident, will try to cover the whole of human life. The religion that is content to do less than this, the religion that acquiesces in the distinction between what is religious and what is secular, is, as we shall ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes
... are a very self-confident lady-killer," said she; "for you make yourself expected. But I was determined to meet you. When a woman has once so far forgotten herself as to make the first advance, she has long ago left behind her all ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... would do their best; they promised they would report what they saw and be very discreet, both feeling the comedy of Mrs. Thornburgh as the advocate of discretion; and then they departed to their early dinner, leaving the vicars wife decidedly less self-confident ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... remarkable vihara of the so-called Buddhist temples, and never met with one statue of Buddha which could not have been added in a later epoch than the construction of the temple; it does not matter whether it was a year or a thousand years later. Not being perfectly self-confident in this matter, we always took the opinion of Mr. Y——, who, as I said before, was an experienced architect; and he invariably came to the conclusion that the Brahmanical idols formed a harmonic and genuine part of the whole, pillars, decorations, and the general style of the temple; ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... bathed away the stains of their adventure, and after a hearty meal cooked by an over solicitous "Miz Cummins" and served by a frankly envious and inquisitive Lizzie, they felt considerably more like their old self-confident selves. ...
— The Outdoor Girls in the Saddle - Or, The Girl Miner of Gold Run • Laura Lee Hope
... what an adept I was in the art of baby tossing, I shot him upward with self-confident impetus. To be sure, my hands never really left him; they followed him as he ascended and as he came down. Still, pride, the traditional precursor of falls, stood me in bad stead, as it has stood others before me. Just as my precious grandson was descending ...
— The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant
... to be quite the same self-confident bully of the day previous who responded, "Eh? ...
— Glyn Severn's Schooldays • George Manville Fenn
... In the evening he would tell him everything he had done that day; the things he had said, how many lectures he had cut, what brilliant recitations he had made, and even what food he had eaten at Memorial. He was pushing, self-confident, very shrewd and clever, devoured with an inordinate ambition and particularly pleased when he could get the better of anybody, even of Vandover or of young Haight. He delighted to assume the management of things. Vandover, he made his protege, taking over the charge of such ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... from that hour forth he resolved, that he would no longer veer with every shifting wind of circumstance; no longer be a child's plaything in the hands of Fate, which we ourselves do make or mar. He resolved henceforward not to lean on others; but to walk self-confident and self-possessed; no longer to waste his years in vain regrets, nor wait the fulfilment of boundless hopes and indiscreet desires; but to live in the Present wisely, alike forgetful of the Past, and careless of what the mysterious Future might bring. ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... speaker, except that he had lived long and gathered much experience, "Bluff, my boy, is what carries a man through the world. Act as if you're sure you are and can and you'll generally make the other fellow think so." I sat down at a desk and filled out the application in my most self-confident flourish. ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck
... or rather his hero (for Nash does not himself make use of this language which he in no way admired, but only puts it into the mouth of his self-confident good-for-nothing as the finishing touch to his portrait), adopts Lyly's style entirely, alliteration and all: "The sparrow for his lecherie liveth but a yeere, he for his trecherie ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... was apt to overrate the mere verbal facility of others and to underestimate himself in the comparison—indeed, a certain humility was strongly marked in him, even as regards his art, though he was self-confident also. When he was unconstrained his great powers of observation, his shrewdness of judgment, his bubbling humor, and a picturesque vivacity of phrase not uncommon among artists made him one of the most entrancing ...
— Artist and Public - And Other Essays On Art Subjects • Kenyon Cox
... jesting, and I see that my jests were out of place. Of course what you saw was real—there are no pretences here. Men and women do indeed suffer a kind of death—the second death—in these places, and have to begin again; but that is only for a certain sort of self-confident and sin-soaked person, whose will needs to be roughly broken. There are certain perverse sins of the spirit which need a spiritual death, as the sins of the body need a bodily death. Only thus can one ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson
... this oneness in aim which had averted any final collision even in the strife with Elizabeth. But this trust in the unity of the nation and the Crown was now roughly shaken. The squires and merchants who thronged the benches at Westminster listened with coldness and suspicion to the self-confident assurances of the king. "I bring you," said James, "two gifts, one peace with foreign nations, the other union with Scotland"; and a project was laid before them for a union of the two kingdoms under the name of Great Britain. "By what laws," asked Bacon, "shall this Britain ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green
... He was self-confident and slightly insolent; the hands with which he lighted a fresh cigarette no longer trembled, and the glance he threw at Dick was triumphant ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... yourself, next time any one in your house is ill, whether the actual fact in any way corresponds to the picturesque belief. The angel who is to alleviate our sufferings comes in such a questionable shape, that to the unimaginative she appears merely as an extremely self-confident young woman, wisely concerned first of all in securing her personal comfort, much given to complaints about her food and to helplessness where she should be helpful, possessing an extraordinary capacity for fancying herself slighted, or not ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp
... ideas, new to him, coming self-suggested in their train, he began immediately to imagine himself a thinker, able to generate notions to which the people around him were unequal. He began to grow self-confident, and so to despise. Taking courage then to deny things he had never believed, had only not thought about, and finding he thereby gave offence, he chose to imagine himself a martyr for the truth. He did not see that ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... present and her potential beauty. Till this night he had thought of her only casually, as merely a young girl; he was not now consciously in love with her—her young woman-hood had burst upon him too suddenly for such a consciousness—but a warm tingling went through him as he gazed at her imperious, self-confident youth. Part of his mind was thinking much the same thought that Hunt had considered a few hours earlier: here were the ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott
... had deepened the contrast between the two brothers; and Frank smiled with affectionate pride as he looked up in Amyas's face, and saw that he was no longer merely the rollicking handy sailor-lad, but the self-confident and stately warrior, showing in every ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... calm and self-possessed; his antagonist impulsive and self-confident: the Englishman was the product of a volunteer army of professional soldiers; his antagonist was the product of a drafted army of ...
— Punctuation - A Primer of Information about the Marks of Punctuation and - their Use Both Grammatically and Typographically • Frederick W. Hamilton
... bequeath my gossamer and his own disfiguring duster to the coachman in whose hack we were then riding, I laughed gleefully and helped him fold them up and place them under the cushions, though I did wonder why he cut a piece out of the neck of the former, and pouted with the happy freedom of a self-confident woman when he said: ...
— That Affair Next Door • Anna Katharine Green
... this who saunters across the playground, talking in loud, self-confident tones with two or three fellows round him, his hands in his pockets, his air haughty and nonchalant, and his cap a little on one side? He is still pleasant looking, his face still shows the capabilities for good and great things, but we are obliged ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... him to be self-confident; let him take responsibilities. He understands everything well enough; all he needs is to get a grip on himself." That is what Mr. Burton had told Margaret Ellison, and Margaret Ellison, being a girl, understood better than all the army surgeons ...
— Tom Slade at Black Lake • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... fait with the ways of the school, effervesced occasionally into excited squeals, and were instantly suppressed by a prefect. The Third and Fourth, which comprised the bulk of the girls from twelve to fifteen, occupied the middle of the hall, a lively, self-confident and rather obstreperous set, all at that awkward age which is anxious to claim privileges, but not particularly ready to submit to the authorized code. Every one of them was talking at the extreme pitch of her voice, and the noise was considerable. Patricia Marshall and Clarice Nixon looked at each ...
— The Luckiest Girl in the School • Angela Brazil
... the agony of jealousy overcome him at this thought. He hopes one moment, despairs the next, till his moods become so mixed that he hardly knows whether he is happy or miserable. He, who is usually so bold and self-confident, is humbled; feels utterly unworthy of her. In his fancy she soars so far above all other women that calling her an angel seems not a hyperbole, but a compliment to the angel. Toward such a superior being the only proper attitude is adoration. She is spotless as an angel, ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... she rose from her chair. She turned and faced him with the light of the hall-lamp full upon her. She was smiling and self-confident. ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... a reply will come, reading, say, "Rush three hundred banker's death." This means that the correspondent must keep his story within three hundred words,—an injunction which he must observe strictly. Woe to the self-confident writer who sends five hundred words when three hundred have been ordered. He will receive a prompt reprimand for his first offense and probable discharge for the second. If, however, he has used his time ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... Reformation became for the first time a prominent, and, to many minds, an absorbing subject of inquiry. For the first time it was no longer disguised from sight by the incidental interest of its side issues. The assertors of the supremacy of reason were at first arrogantly, or even insolently, self-confident, as those who were secure of carrying all before them. Gradually, the wiser of them began to feel that their ambition must be largely moderated, and that they must be content with far more negative results than they had at first imagined. The question came to be, what ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... was still more painful, an exhibition of like perversions in her only son, now on the verge of manhood,—that deeply responsible and dangerous period, when parental authority and control subside in a degree, and the individual, inexperienced yet self-confident, assumes the task of ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur
... now, did not show beautiful symmetry, but they bore the stamp of a strong, energetic mind. The majestic dignity which he knew how to bestow upon it, made his figure, though it did not exceed middle height, appear taller; and the self-confident smile which rested on his full lips, as he was sure of a speedy triumph, well beseemed a general whose sword and brain had ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... of similar wording to Napoleon, complaining that Beauharnais, the French ambassador, had been the center of the intrigue. The charge was strictly true, for this brother of the Empress's first husband, though a bluff, honest man, was blindly self-confident, and had fallen into the trap set for him in Paris. He was not unwilling to gratify Josephine, he despised Godoy, and his evident friendship for the crown prince had been largely instrumental in creating the popular confidence that France would regenerate ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... of this self-confident spirit was, that at this period, he made but little progress in composition, and was more ambitious to become a brilliant performer. Hence by the periodicals of that day, he is not allowed to possess the ability ...
— Sketch of Handel and Beethoven • Thomas Hanly Ball
... of time," said he. "I confess you are different from what I anticipated. You do not know. You can not understand. You are too rash and self-confident. I can not tell you what my plans are; I can only ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... with Musa, she looked at me with a somewhat changed glance, and observed in a voice which was also changed, and with no smile: 'I don't know, Piotr Petrovitch, what you think of me now, but I dare say you remember what I used to be.... I was self-confident, light-hearted ... and not good; I wanted to live for my own pleasure. But I want to tell you this: when I was abandoned, and was like one lost, and was only waiting for God to take me, or to pluck up spirit to make an end ...
— A Desperate Character and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... was that which lay so thickly upon the floor? There were no signs of a struggle, nor had the victim any weapon with which he might have wounded an antagonist. As long as all these questions were unsolved, I felt that sleep would be no easy matter, either for Holmes or myself. His quiet self-confident manner convinced me that he had already formed a theory which explained all the facts, though what it was I could not ...
— A Study In Scarlet • Arthur Conan Doyle
... from being apt to get us in a position of false dependence, it is calculated to make us self-confident—for we are calling upon a part of ourselves, not upon some outside intelligence. If those people who never feel satisfied unless they are getting "advice" from others would only cultivate the acquaintance of this little "home adviser" ...
— A Series of Lessons in Raja Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... that all the noblemen were present. As he arrived somewhat late, he excused himself by saying that he was newly married, and that he could not leave his wife any sooner. Among the nobles was a proud, self-confident man named Abdala, who, when Almanzor had finished speaking, remarked that he (Abdala) did not mean to marry, as he could very easily seduce any woman, be she unmarried or a wife. Almanzor was angered ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... of apprehension and at her wits' end what to do, looked with a sort of superstitions respect at the self-confident little creature who proposed to go down to the ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... want to hit the nail on the head ask such questions as these.[35] No occasional address can succeed unless it fits the occasion to a T. Many prominent men have lost prestige because they were too careless or too busy or too self-confident to respect the occasion and the audience by learning the exact conditions under which they were to speak. Leaving too much to the moment is taking a long chance and generally means a less effective speech, if ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... until they disappeared into the woods with a sinister, self-confident smile like a spider watching a fly take the path into his web; a smile that gave him an expression strangely like that of the image itself. Before he turned into the hut again he gave several orders. Three of the brown men melted into the shadows ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... much as the Middlemarch doctor and immortal discoverer, and there were both virtues and faults capable of shrinking or expanding. The faults will not, I hope, be a reason for the withdrawal of your interest in him. Among our valued friends is there not some one or other who is a little too self-confident and disdainful; whose distinguished mind is a little spotted with commonness; who is a little pinched here and protuberant there with native prejudices; or whose better energies are liable to lapse down the wrong channel under the influence of transient solicitations? All these things might ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... her. He found something stimulating in the sight of her broad back and shoulders, her large presence had invigorated him—somehow he felt self-confident, as he had not felt for years, and he began to talk, first about the harmonium, and then about himself—he was a widower with three pale little children, whom he dragged up somehow on an income ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith |
