"Self-satisfied" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... train to Carpledon in a self-satisfied mind. He was tired, certainly, and had felt ever since the shock of three days back a certain "warning" sensation that hovered over him rather like hot air, suggesting that sudden agonizing pain...but so long as the pain did not come...He had thought, half derisively, of ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... execution; so with Stevenson. Hence his fondness for tramps, for scamps (he even bestowed special attention and pains on Villon, the poet-scamp); he was rather impatient with poor Thoreau, because he was a purist solitary, and had too little of vice, and, as Stevenson held, narrow in sympathy, and too self-satisfied, and bent only on self-improvement. He held a brief for the honest villain, and leaned to him brotherly. Even the anecdotes he most prizes have a fine look this way—a hunger for completion in achievement, even ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson - a Record, an Estimate, and a Memorial • Alexander H. Japp
... to be self-satisfied and self-protecting. A religious institution especially is in danger of becoming content and resentful of criticism because, by its nature, it deals with matters that seem beyond the investigation that man prescribes for ordinary things, and therefore secure ...
— Rural Problems of Today • Ernest R. Groves
... but this morning Jake's countenance wore a peculiar expression, which indicated that he possessed some knowledge not shared by the rest of the party. He spoke never a word, and was as serene as a Methodist minister behind four aces. My interpretation of this self-satisfied serenity is that his guard duty did not deprive him of much sleep. When it comes to considering the question of danger in this Indian country, Jake thinks that he knows more than the veteran Jim Stuart, whom we expected to ...
— The Discovery of Yellowstone Park • Nathaniel Pitt Langford
... idea leads on to another. And genuine poetry and romance touch the heart so much more than dry treatises. In a word, Madame de Grantmesnil's book set me thinking; and then I read other books, and talked with clever men, and educated myself. And so I became the man I am." Here, with a self-satisfied air, Monnier bowed to the Englishman, and joined a group at the other end of ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... found, well; but she could love, tenderly and truly, where they were not. But for a worldly character, however gifted, she felt and expressed something very like contempt. At this period, she had no patience with self-satisfied mediocrity. She afterwards learned patience and unlearned contempt; but at the time of which I write, she seemed, and was to the multitude, a haughty and supercilious person,—while to those whom she loved, she was all the more gentle, tender ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... particular importance to the details of his creed, that, in addition to the temptation, never easily resisted by him, of displaying his wit at the expense of his character, he was here addressing a person who, though, no doubt, well meaning, was evidently one of those officious, self-satisfied advisers, whom it was the delight of Lord Byron at all times to astonish and mystify. The tricks which, when a boy, he played upon the Nottingham quack, Lavender, were but the first of a long series with which, through life, he amused himself, at the expense of all the numerous quacks ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... attachment to party. The charge is sometimes made by persons who consider that I desire to do right, but think that my understanding and intellectual faculties are guided and blinded by that emotion. Others are not so charitable. One very self-satisfied critic, Mr. William Lloyd Garrison, ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... which, in the hurry of some recent service it had been made to perform, had missed its sheath, and was thrust naked into the belt that encircled his loins. His countenance wore an expression of malignant triumph; and as his eye fell on the assembled throng, its self-satisfied and exulting glance seemed to give them to understand he came not without credentials to recommend him to their notice. Captain de Haldimar was particularly struck by the air of bold daring and almost insolent recklessness ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... not savage; between the beginning and the end of his speech he softened to a sort of self-satisfied pathos. ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... expect to see you," he replied in his self-satisfied little way. "I'm here to represent Mr. Morland for ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... round, rosy, jolly fellow, shining from top to toe, "philandering" down Regent-street, with a self-satisfied grin, that seems to say, "Match me that, demme!" and casting looks of pity—mellowed through his eye-glass—on all passers, you may fairly conclude that that happy dog ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... movement, they were far from united in their beliefs or consistent in their political practices. There was always something of the inquisitor at Boston and of the monk at Plymouth, and in all the Puritan colonies there prevailed a self-satisfied sense of importance as the chosen of God. The controversies that arose over jurisdictions and boundaries and the niceties of doctrine are not edifying, however honest may have been those who entered into them. Massachusetts and Connecticut always showed a disposition to stretch their demands for ...
— The Fathers of New England - A Chronicle of the Puritan Commonwealths • Charles M. Andrews
... there to see, he might have been observed to shake the contents of a little paper, a fine white powder, into the water carafe which stood filled upon the wash-stand in Seabrooke's alcove. Then, with the self-satisfied air of one who has accomplished a great feat, he stole from the room and ...
— Bessie Bradford's Prize • Joanna H. Mathews
... Jim came up just then from the engine-room of the ship which they had been inspecting, the subject, of course, was dropped, and after a while Braxton strode away with a self-satisfied smile on ...
— Baseball Joe Around the World - Pitching on a Grand Tour • Lester Chadwick
... dirty papers which he carries under his left arm, and which are generally supposed to be the miscellaneous estimates for 1804, or some equally important documents. He is very punctual in his attendance at the House, and his self-satisfied 'He-ar-He-ar,' is not unfrequently the signal for a ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... rascal of all, who, when escape is impossible, turns traitor, and after deserving the cart and pillory a dozen times for his last and most utter baseness, is rewarded by full pardon, and the honour of addressing the audience at the play's end in the most smug and self-satisfied tone, and of 'putting himself on you that are my country,' not doubting, it seems, that there were among them a fair majority who would think him a very smart fellow, worthy of ...
— Plays and Puritans - from "Plays and Puritans and Other Historical Essays" • Charles Kingsley
... but then turn to your right, if you don't want to break your necks. There's a bit of a stream there; and when you are over that, the left-hand road will take you straight to Cox's ferry. You can't miss it," concluded he, in a self-satisfied tone, striking his horse a blow with his riding-whip. The animal broke into a smart trot, and in ten seconds our obliging friend had ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... the morning in looking over the small bundle of "show sermons" he had brought with him in case of emergency, and had about decided to accede to Mrs. Tanner's request and preach in Ashland before he left. This decision had put him in so self-satisfied a mood that he was eager to announce it before his fellow-boarder. Moreover, he was hungry, and he could not understand why that impudent boy and that coquettish young woman should remain away at ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... if that self-satisfied puppy knew what a tempest of rage he had aroused in my soul he would have squealed for fright and would have hidden himself on the bed. I—a coward! The world has crumbled upon my head, but has not crushed me, and out of its terrible fragments I have created a new world, ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev
... of his laugh, with his self-satisfied look, told of his being aught but angry with ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... not wish to annoy him by the contrast between her song and Miss Wildmere's performance, feeling that he would naturally take sides in his thoughts with the woman outvied; nor had she any desire to inflict upon her rival the disparagement that must follow; but something in Miss Wildmere's self-satisfied and patronizing tone had touched her quick spirit, and the arrogant girl should receive the lesson she had invited. But, as Madge sang, the noble art soon lifted her above all lower thoughts, and she forgot everything but Graydon and ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... well-meaning, though, perhaps, a little too much self-satisfied lady concluded her remark, she glanced her eye at the perfectly unconscious subject of the close of her speech. Gertrude had, as usual, when her aunt chose to favour her governess with any of her family reminiscences, turned her head aside, and was now offering her cheek, burning with health, and ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... better than I supposed. She knew that behind your apparent kindness there lurked a cold and self-satisfied nature. She understood that she would be accounted a stranger and a sinner in your house the moment you discovered that she had a thought or a sentiment that was not subordinated ...
— The Dangerous Age • Karin Michaelis
... a wedded pair, who suit each other, who have passed the youthful period of commotion, and have not reached that which so often comes when the children in their turn tempt the angry billows. But there is something in that self-satisfied and self-concentrated happiness which jars upon those who in the turmoil of existence have not much prospect of anything so peaceful. And then domestic comfort is often so sure that nothing but its own virtue ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... finger with an air of most self-satisfied mystery; and then drew cautiously from under her feather cloak an object at which Amyas had hard ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... of our own Reformation in England, that, for his part, he could not conceive how we had managed to come by such a thing. We seemed to him to be an obdurate, impenetrable, stupid people, hide-bound by tradition and precedent, and too self-satisfied to be either willing or able to take in new ideas upon any theoretic subject whatever, especially German ideas. That is to say, he could not get inside the English mind. He did not know that some people go furthest ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... pride with which the wife turns to her husband from any more brilliant personal presence or display of wit than his, in the perfect confidence that if the world knew what she knows, there would be one more popular idol. How she magnifies his small wit, and dotes upon the self-satisfied look in his face as if it were a sign of wisdom! What a councilor that man would make! What a warrior he would be! There are a great many corporals in their retired homes who did more for the safety and success of our armies in critical moments, in the late war, than ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... inferior schools and in the university itself. But all obstacles, physical, social, and intellectual, melted away before the ardor of an extraordinarily active mind. Rising steadily above the contracted views, the blind respect for authority, and the self-satisfied ignorance of the instructors of his youth and the colleagues of his manhood and old age, he greeted with delight the advent of those liberal ideas which had wrought so wonderful a change in Germany and ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... vanity &c n.; inflate, puff up, turn up, turn one's head. Adj. vain, vain as a peacock, proud as a peacock; conceited, overweening, pert, forward; vainglorious, high-flown; ostentatious &c 882; puffed up, inflated, flushed. self-satisfied, self-confident, self-sufficient, self-flattering, self-admiring, self-applauding, self-glorious, self-opinionated; entente &c (wrongheaded) 481; wise in one's own conceit, pragmatical^, overwise^, pretentious, priggish; egotistic, egotistical; soi-disant ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... her sharply. Sometimes his own reputation, far from being a happiness, gave him cause for misgiving. A man with an unclean record cannot well be sure that all the details he would wish suppressed have been suppressed. There was a little pause, during which they both watched the self-satisfied throng moving in and out, here and there, full of a restless desire ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... Their chief pleasure on the continent was measuring ruins in the way described so amusingly by Goldsmith in The Citizen of the World. Though no century was more thoroughly pleased with itself, I might almost say smugly self-satisfied, the men of that century were always lamenting the decline of the age. The observations of Johnson and Goldsmith I need scarcely repeat. But here is one which may have escaped your notice. It is not a suggestion of decline, but an assertion of non-existence. ...
— Masques & Phases • Robert Ross
... with "Spanish" snuff, while his left rested on a cane with a silver handle which had been worn quite smooth with long use. Alexyei Sergyeitch had a shrill, nasal voice, and was incessantly smiling, amiably, but somewhat patronisingly, not without a certain self-satisfied pompousness. He also laughed in an amiable manner, with a fine, thin laugh like a string of wax pearls. He was courteous and affable, in the ancient manner of Katherine's day, and moved his hands slowly and with a circular motion, also in ancient style. On account ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... been one or two people in, in the last few days, asking questions which I don't understand," she told him. "One of them, I am pretty sure, was a detective. He didn't get much change out of me," she added, in a self-satisfied tone, "but there's someone got their knife into us. You remember the trouble down in the Marylebone Road, ...
— The Moving Finger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... mysterious to us though white sails be not for ever flitting over its surface; and neither tempest nor day that is radiant and calm is able to bring enfeeblement unto the life of our soul. Enfeeblement comes through our dwelling, by night and by day, in the airless room of our cold, self-satisfied, trivial, ungenerous thoughts, at a time when the sky all around our abode is reflecting ...
— Wisdom and Destiny • Maurice Maeterlinck
... talk about a man's reputation in that superior, self-satisfied fashion. What is it to you anyhow? My friendship can't possibly be any concern ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... polished up and varnished on the walls, and adapted, as it were, to the situation. You may know an R. A. on the private view-day by the broad, expanding jollity of his visage, if he be a man of that stamp, or by a certain quiet, self-satisfied smile of self-complacence, if he ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 444 - Volume 18, New Series, July 3, 1852 • Various
... down there, as flat as a flannel-cake, and called Summit, of course. It contained inhabitants of as undeleterious an self-satisfied a class of peasantry as ever clustered around ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... complete confidence in him, and to look to him for consolation, advice, and help in every need of life? Do they profess to have delighted us by telling us that they hold our soul to be only a little wind and smoke, especially by telling us this in a haughty and self-satisfied tone of voice? Is this a thing to say gaily? Is it not, on the contrary, a thing to say sadly, as the saddest thing ...
— Pascal's Pensees • Blaise Pascal
... a tremendous heap almost to the roof, where it vanished dimly in the dusky shadows. Opposite were the cow-stables, five of them in a row, each occupant munching her cud contentedly and now and then giving vent to a soft, self-satisfied low. From one of the stalls could be heard the rhythmical squirt of milk against the milking-pail, for David was engaged upon his evening work. On a rickety chair near the hay-loft sat Janet, holding a timid little barn ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park
... he took down a partridge from its gallows, fumbled a pointed stick out of his pocket, ran it through the bird's neck, and stowed the creature that had died miserably, without a chance for its life, away in one of his big pockets, a self-satisfied grin on his face as he glanced down the hedge and saw another bird swinging. So he followed his hangman's hedge, treating each bird to his pointed stick, carefully resetting the snares after him and clearing ...
— Secret of the Woods • William J. Long
... (Fig. 10) of the suit signs of Southern Europe, we take a card from a Portuguese pack of 1610, the "Cavalier de Batons" (Clubs); the other suit signs are Swords, Coins, and Cups. The anatomy of the charger and the self-satisfied aspect of the Cavalier are striking; and as to the former, we are reminded of the bizarre examples of hippic adornment which, on a summer Bank Holiday, may be seen on ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 25, January 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... Tracy was put on. He stood up in his usual self-satisfied way, looking admiringly at his boots, and running his delicate white hand through his scented hair. Mr Paton watched him with a somewhat contemptuous expression, as though he were thinking what a pity it was that any boy should be such a little puppy. Henderson, ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... of it now. Do you not? When papa gave his consent at last, I was pleased and set up, and proud of my plans. I never recollected what a silly, foolish girl I am, and how unfit. I thought Mr. Wilmot would think great things of it—it was all wrong and self-satisfied. I never prayed at all that it might turn out well, and so ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... at it all, are you?" said Roberts now. "It's very funny, isn't it! An abominable, pragmatical, self-satisfied ass, that's what he is; and are we almost grown-up men to be handed over to be treated just as he pleases? No; I'll resign the service first. Yes, laugh away, my fine fellow! You see if I don't pay you out for this! Oh, go it! But you see if I take ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... impiously, and fraudulently attempt, to drown yourself, or hang yourself, I'll have no pity for you, for I have made up my mind to Put all suicide Down! If there is one thing,' said the Alderman, with his self-satisfied smile, 'on which I can be said to have made up my mind more than on another, it is to Put suicide Down. So don't try it on. That's the phrase, isn't it? Ha, ha! ...
— The Chimes • Charles Dickens
... one.' The oxen were both there, Duke with his broad face, and Bright so much sharper and more intelligent looking. Duke was drinking at the trough there, and uncle said: 'Just look at him. Isn't he a great, fat, self-satisfied creature, and doesn't he look as if he thought the world owed him a living, and he ought to get it?' Then he got the card and went up to Bright, and began scratching him. Duke lifted his head from the trough, and stared at uncle, who paid no attention ...
— Beautiful Joe • Marshall Saunders
... nevertheless limited. The Beacon had reached a large circulation, but its slave was worn out. Two years without a holiday—two years of hurried, hard brain-work had left their mark. It is often so when a man finds his avocation too early. He is too hurried, works too hard, and collapses; or he becomes self-satisfied, over-confident, and unbearable. Fortunately for Christian Vellacott he was devoid of conceit, which is like the scaffolding round a church-spire, reaching higher and ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman
... Of all their ancient greatness nothing remained to them but the contempt of pain and death whenever an extravagant enjoyment of life must finally be exchanged for them. This seal, therefore, of their former grandeur they accordingly impressed on their tragic heroes with a self-satisfied ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... the women, said that she was very lucky, probably a great deal luckier than she deserved; and all the gossip about her which had been a favourite tea-time topic, before her losses at the Casino began to make her a bore, was revived again. The self-satisfied mother and bird-like girl who had travelled with her in the Paris train had a great deal to say. They wondered "if the poor Prince knew; but of course he couldn't know. He was simply infatuated. Very ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... young man, and lifted his eyebrows as if to express astonished admiration, then made a wry face. Norris smiled his understanding and glanced back at the self-satisfied prosperity beneath her filmy hat. Then, suddenly, at the far end of the room, another face caught him—a profile of a girl's head, outlined against a high bench-back, her dreamy eyes fixed on the speaker. It was a cameo-like face, not animated, ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... self-satisfied expression right off your face, young man," said Jerry's father. "Taking things in your own hands and deciding what I should do with my money was wrong and you know it. You ...
— Jerry's Charge Account • Hazel Hutchins Wilson
... had grown up into an unwholesome, spotty, indeterminate young man, with a speckled necktie, and cuffs of which he was inordinately proud, and which he insisted on "flashing" every second minute. He was also evidently self-satisfied; which was odd, for I have seldom seen anyone who afforded less cause for rational satisfaction. "Hullo," he said, when I told him my name. "So it's you, is it, Cumberledge?" He glanced at my card. "St. Nathaniel's Hospital! ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... self-satisfied manner, that my cousin was a little too apt to assume when property became the subject of conversation. I had occasion several times that day, even, to remark that he attached a high value to money; though, at the same time, it struck ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... and camp in the shabby old guest-room. We knew it would please mother, for she hadn't had so pretty a place to entertain Mrs. Hunt in for many years. It did please her, too, so much that she almost cried, and she hugged us and thanked us till we felt very happy and self-satisfied. Jack was standing by, and he said "Huh!" again, in that same queer tone. Then mother turned and hugged him, and Rose and I said to each other how strange it was that Jack should be jealous of his ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... end of the earth to the other that I am a most cunning man," Muchini went on, stroking his muscular arm, a trick of self-satisfied men in their moments of complacence; "and whilst even the old men slept, I, Koosoogolaba-Muchini, the son of the terrible and crafty G'sombo, the brother of Eleni-N'gombi, I went abroad with my wise men and my spies and sought out devils and ghosts in places where even the bravest have ...
— The Keepers of the King's Peace • Edgar Wallace
... that I have," returned Dick, with a mighty self-satisfied air, as he looked around his parlour, already quite gay with the Robinson Crusoe pattern. "I've done more, too, than you can see," he added, striking his hand on the ladder of Spelling, which he ...
— The Crown of Success • Charlotte Maria Tucker
... odious common sense in it, that he neither knew how to assent or to differ. If it were necessary for him to suffer, he felt that he could endure without complaint and without cowardice, providing that he was self-satisfied of the justice of his own cause. What he could not endure was, that he should be accused by others, and not acquitted by himself. Doubting, as he had begun to doubt, the justice of his own position in the hospital, he knew that his own self-confidence would ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... pines; Beppo was sleeping in the sun, his hat over his face, and the donkeys, securely tethered (Tony had attended to that), were innocently nibbling mountain herbs. There was no obvious reason why, as he lighted a cigarette and stretched himself on the parapet, Tony should not have been the most self-satisfied guide in the world. He had not only completed the expedition in safety, but had saved the heroine's life by the way; and even if the heroine did not appear as thankful as she might, still, her father had shown due gratitude, and, what was to the point, had promised a reward. ...
— Jerry • Jean Webster
... that in the chase for the gilded shekel the education of experience is better than the coddling of Alma Mater. In the satisfaction—the personal satisfaction—one derives from a liberal education, I admit that the sons of Alma Mater are the better off. I never could hope to be so self-satisfied, ...
— Coffee and Repartee • John Kendrick Bangs
... condition that made it quickly sensitive to any large truth. Perhaps nothing had astonished the people more than the great change that had come over the minister, since he had proposed to them the imitation of Jesus in conduct. The dramatic delivery of his sermons no longer impressed them. The self-satisfied, contented, easy attitude of the fine figure and refined face in the pulpit had been displaced by a manner that could not be compared with the old style of his delivery. The sermon had become a message. It was no ...
— In His Steps • Charles M. Sheldon
... art,—they would love a style that pleased but did not arouse them, that spoke to the senses rather than to the imagination—a school of art placid, precise, full of repose, and thoroughly material like their life—an art, in a word, realistic and self-satisfied, in which they could see themselves reflected as they were and as they were content ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis
... most luxurious city in the world. If the splendour and luxury were hollow, they were not more so than elsewhere in Europe. The eighteenth century had the strength which comes from great self-confidence and profound satisfaction with one's surroundings. It was so self-satisfied that it could not dream of striving to be much better than it was. Everything was just right; there seemed to be no great issues, no problems arising that human intelligence untrammelled by superstition could not instantly solve. Everybody was therefore ...
— The Venetian Painters of the Renaissance - Third Edition • Bernhard Berenson
... to a connoisseur in compliments! He tasted it with the same self-satisfied smile that he had her first prophecy. To her who had then voiced a secret he had shared with no one, as his chest swelled with a full breath, he bared another in the delight of the impression ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... husband died broken-hearted. The wife, my mother, struggled in poverty, under the shadow of a proud name, to give me an education, and died while I was still a girl. To-day this cousin,—this more than murderer of my parents,—old, rich, self-satisfied, REFORMED, invites me, by virtue of that kinship he violated and despised, to his home, his wealth, his—his family roof-tree! The man you saw was ...
— Two Men of Sandy Bar - A Drama • Bret Harte
... the youngest in the ship, and least inured to the climate, should have escaped. I had always been very healthy; had never done anything to hurt my constitution, and had followed the captain's advice in keeping out of the sun, and was inclined to feel somewhat self-satisfied on that account—not considering that it was owing to God's mercy and loving-kindness that I ...
— The African Trader - The Adventures of Harry Bayford • W. H. G. Kingston
... gathered together—a bevy of dowagers, stout or scraggy; a faint sprinkling of misses; six moody-looking lords, perfectly meek and solemn; wonderful foreign Counts, with bushy whiskers and yellow faces, and a great deal of dubious jewellery; young dandies with slim waists and open necks, and self-satisfied simpers, and flowers in their buttons; the old, stiff, stout, bald-headed CONVERSAZIONE ROUES, whom You meet everywhere—who never miss a night of this delicious enjoyment; the three last-caught lions of the season—Higgs, the traveller, Biggs, the novelist, and Toffey, who has come out ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray
... beyond criticism, before him a great Christian opportunity. We made the mistake, however, of ignoring the great influence upon our civic prosperity of the business impulse of the West. We in New York and Brooklyn were a self-satisfied community, unmindful of our dependence upon the rest of the American continent. My Western trips were my recreation. An occasional lecture tour accomplished for me what yachting or baseball does for others. My congregation understood this, and never complained ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... of the highest good conceivable by him. We may smile now in our days of so-called enlightenment at some of the measures he directs in pursuance of his great aim. His "Pyramid of Vanities" may be to our self-satisfied complacency itself a vanity. To him it represents a stern reality of reformation in character and life; and to the Florentine of his age it symbolises one form of vain self-pleasing offered up in solemn willing ...
— The Ethics of George Eliot's Works • John Crombie Brown
... as a plant droops in a close, confined place, the people were self-satisfied—though not with a joyous or noisy self-satisfaction; for there was much sadness in their minds after the great disasters [the Sleswick-Holstein War].... They rested on their laurels and fell into ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... he came along, and she up and asked him if he wouldn't read 'The Raven' the next Wednesday afternoon when, you know, we all have compositions, and then she winked at us. He took it all right, and you ought to have heard the self-satisfied way in which he said: 'Certainly, Miss Barnes. I shall be very happy to read it for you.' The way he strutted across the schoolroom after that! Lida Stanton said he reminded her of a ...
— Pocket Island - A Story of Country Life in New England • Charles Clark Munn
... her to him quickly again, and this time he kissed her lips. "Let's forget it," he said softly. "I have only got to-day and to-morrow, I don't want to remember what a self-satisfied prig I was." ...
— To Love • Margaret Peterson
... point in all this is that this old system, so self-sufficient and self-satisfied, should have groped its way toward a divine sympathizer in human form, a living and helpful god among men. Hinduism had not been wanting in anthropomorphisms: it had imagined the presence of God in a thousand visible ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood
... voice and self-satisfied demeanour, who had started them upon this adventure, was still ahead; but even she quailed when, upon laying her hand upon the panel of the door she was the first to reach, she felt it to be cold and ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... stout, self-satisfied Swiss, whose fawning manner was possibly accounted for by his statement that he journeyed to New York to engage in the trade of restaurateur in partnership with his brother; Crane, long and awkward and homely, of saturnine cast, slow of gesture and negligent as to dress, ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... person can be BOUND or OBLIGED, without some power preceding to bind and oblige. If I observe a man bound hand and foot, I know that some one bound him. But if I observe him returning self-satisfied from the performance of some action, by which he has been the willing author of extensive benefit, I do not infer that the anticipation of hellish agonies, or the hope of heavenly reward, has constrained him ...
— A Defence of Poetry and Other Essays • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... do look very style," she decided, after another self-satisfied nod. "Now I'd just like to know who that boy is, older'n I am, not half so pretty. I don't believe but somebody's been sitting down on his hat. What has he got in his lap? Is it a kitten? White as snow. I wish ...
— Dotty Dimple Out West • Sophie May
... his hack, and in triumph at his trick on the postmaster, rattled along the road homeward as fast as the beast could carry him. He came into the squire's presence, his face beaming with delight, and an air of self-satisfied superiority in his manner, quite unaccountable to his master, until he pulled forth his hand, which had been grubbing up his prizes from the bottom of his pocket; and holding three letters over his head, while he said, "Look at that!" he next slapped them down under his broad fist on the ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... look like an English jockey or postilion, was long the object of fashionable ambition with Parisian dandies. "Vous me crottez, Monsieur," said poor patient Louis XVI. to one of these exquisite centaurs, as he rode beside the royal carriage near Versailles. "Oui, Sire, a l'Anglaise," rejoined the self-satisfied dandy, understanding his majesty to have complimented his trotting (trottez), and taking it as a tribute to the skill of ...
— Old Roads and New Roads • William Bodham Donne
... stopped short, like a private suddenly summoned to attention. Marigold, unconscious of the blackest curses that had ever fallen upon him during his long and blundering life, made a perfect and self-satisfied exit. Betty sprang to her feet, held her tall figure very erect, and faced the untimely visitor, her cheeks flushing deep red. For an appreciable time, say, thirty seconds, Boyce stood stock still, looking at her from under heavy contracted brows. Then he recovered ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... passed out. As he descended the stairs his ears twitched, and his whole attention seemed to be fixed upon the library door, but he could hear no sound, and, taking his hat and gloves from the table, he passed out of the great hall, erect, handsome, and with a self-satisfied smile, before the butler could reach it in answer to the drawing ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn
... and self-satisfied. Lovin Child kicked his heels against the rough table frame and gurgled unintelligible conversation whenever he was able to articulate sounds. Bud replied with a rambling monologue that implied a perfect understanding of Lovin Child's ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower
... some one else who gave himself up to sad thoughts, and found fault with himself, with no defendant to plead his cause at the bar of conscience. It was an altogether lonely hour. He had dreamed all his life, in a sentimental, self-satisfied fashion, of this return to Winby. It had always appeared to be a grand affair, but so far he was himself the only interested spectator at his poor occasion. There was even a dismal consciousness that he had been undignified, perhaps even a little consequential and silly, in the old school-house. ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... sleeves rolled up to a pair of brown elbows. Evidently she was the boy of the family and to her fell the duty of performing the innumerable chores of the ranch, for her hands were thick with work and the tips of the fingers blunted. Also she had that calm, self-satisfied eye which belongs to the workingman who knows that ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... of Brard and Saint-Omer," caligraphist[TN-110] and sworn expert in the courts of law. Joseph Prudhomme is the synthesis of bourgeois imbecility; radiant, serene, and self-satisfied; letting fall from his fat lips "one weak, washy, everlasting flood" of puerile aphorisms and inane circumlocutions. He says, "The car of the state floats on a precipice." "This sword is the proudest day of my life."—Henri Monnier, Grandeur et ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... basketful of kindlings last, and set it down with a cheerful grunt, having worked himself into good humor again; and as he opened the kitchen door, and went to hang his great blue mittens behind the stove, he wore a self-satisfied and ...
— The Life of Nancy • Sarah Orne Jewett
... knew no more about music than she knew about the North Pole, and cared no more. But she was Mr Millwain's cousin, and Mr Millwain had naturally to stay at her house. And she came in her carriage to fetch him from the band rehearsals; and, in short, anyone might have thought from her self-satisfied demeanour (though she was a decent sort of woman at heart) that she had at least composed "Judas Maccabeus." It was at a band rehearsal that she had graciously commanded Gilbert Swann to come and dine with her and Mr Millwain between the final ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... piece of it inside a coil which is carrying a steady current it becomes a magnet but about as soon as you interrupt the current the atomic loops of the iron stop pulling together. Almost immediately they turn into all sorts of positions and form little self-satisfied groups which don't take any interest in the outside world. (That isn't true of steel, where the atomic loops are harder to turn and to line up, but are much more likely to ...
— Letters of a Radio-Engineer to His Son • John Mills
... very well. But do not deny that you might have saved her. Why did you not?" Ram Lal smiled a strange smile, which I should have described as self-satisfied, had it not been ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford
... in his own proper place at my feet. He was intensely self-satisfied, and expressed his high idea of his own exploit by self-gratulatory "grumphs," as after describing many mystic circles, and scraping up the fair Marseilles quilt on some plan of his own, he brought his nose and tail together in a satisfactory position ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... her, for she leaned on his piano and improvised flatteries across the strings to him and turned full on him the luminous midnight of her ox-eyed beauty. A punster would say that he was oxidised, at once. The two lovers were strangely unlike—of course. She was masculine, self-poised, and self-satisfied; she had taken excellent care of herself at a time when the independent woman had less encouragement than now. So more than masculinely coarse she was in some ways, indeed, that Henry James once insinuated that, while she may have been to all intents and purposes ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... doubted her stepmother's judgment; like all of the new Mrs. Breckenridge's friends, she was deeply, dumbly impressed with that lady's amazing efficiency. She had been a spoiled and discontented little rowdy. She became an entirely self-satisfied little gentlewoman. Clarence, jealously watching her progress, knew that Rachael was doing for his daughter far more than he could ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... self-satisfied smile Britz slowly ascended the steps, intent on obtaining the documents which he had ...
— The Substitute Prisoner • Max Marcin
... self-satisfied Fraser. "There ain't a chance. Why? Because I'm on the level, I am. That's why. But say, getting money from these Reubs is a joke. It's like kicking a lamb in the face." He clinked some gold coins in his pocket and began to whistle ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... herself, the graduate of three lessons; Theodore, all his life accustomed to ride anything calling itself a horse, but making no pretenses to mastery of the equestrian science; the lawyer, understood, on his own authority, to be well informed in everything; the society young lady, erect, precise, self-satisfied; the Texan, riding with apparent laziness, his hands rather high and seldom quiet, but not to be shaken from his seat; the beauty, languid and secretly discontented because her horse was "intended for a brunette, and a ridiculous mount for a blonde"; Versatilia, who had "taken ...
— In the Riding-School; Chats With Esmeralda • Theo. Stephenson Browne
... "operation," by which a clear gain of two thousand dollars was secured. He was alone in his office: or, so much alone as not to feel restrained by the presence of another. And yet, a pair of dark, sad eyes were fixed intently upon his self-satisfied countenance, with an expression, had he observed it, that would, at least, have excited a moment's wonder. The owner of this pair of eyes was a slender, rather poorly dressed lad, in his thirteenth year, whom Mr. Everett had engaged, a short time previously, ...
— Finger Posts on the Way of Life • T. S. Arthur
... primary necessity for Socialism. The attempt to realize the Marxist idea of a democratic Socialism without that, might easily fail into the abortive birth of an acephalous monster, the secular development of administrative Socialism give the world over to a bureaucratic mandarinate, self-satisfied, interfering and unteachable, with whom wisdom would die. And yet we Socialists can produce in our plans no absolute bar to these possibilities. Here I can suggest only in the most general terms methods and certain principles. ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... quaint personality seemed once more to haunt the dank and dreary streets of the once dazzling Ville Lumiere. I seemed to see the shabby bottle-green coat, the nankeen pantaloons, the down-at-heel shoes of this "confidant of Kings"; I could hear his unctuous, self-satisfied laugh, and sensed his furtive footstep whene'er a gendarme came into view. I saw his ruddy, shiny face beaming at me through the sleet and the rain as, like a veritable squire of dames, he minced his steps upon the boulevard, or, like a reckless smuggler, affronted the grave dangers ...
— Castles in the Air • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... have been Teddy's evil genius that caused Bunk, the house cat, to come strolling past the door at just that moment. He was so sleek and lazy and self-satisfied that Teddy was strongly tempted to shake him ...
— The Rushton Boys at Rally Hall - Or, Great Days in School and Out • Spencer Davenport
... Vivian, Fanny was rather a favorite at Haddo Court. She was certainly not the least bit original. She was prim and smug and self-satisfied to the last degree, but she always did the right thing in the right way. She always looked pretty, and no one ever detected any fault in her. Her mistresses trusted her, and some of the girls thought it worth their while to become ...
— Betty Vivian - A Story of Haddo Court School • L. T. Meade
... nauseous smell of tobacco, escaped nibbling as it had apparently escaped insect ravages. This, owing to its sharp angles, which persisted in catching in the soft decaying wood in his whirlwind of house-cleaning, he allowed to remain. Having thus, in a general way, prepared for the coming winter, the self-satisfied little rodent dismissed the ...
— A Millionaire of Rough-and-Ready • Bret Harte
... such men as these. Possibly the smug and self-satisfied do not care to; but men in distress—those who are worn, or old, or misunderstood—children, outcasts, those far from home and who long to get back, silently slip weak hands in theirs and ask, "May we go ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 4 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters • Elbert Hubbard
... in this congratulatory vein while the old man ate and drank; but though he occasionally muttered a word or two which would seem to endorse her statements, his countenance was far from wearing the joyful self-satisfied expression which ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell) |
