"Self-confidence" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... figure and deportment, his sense of justice and emotional tenderness, but none of his vitality, impulse or hope. Jack has his ambition and push, keenness and self-confidence; but he is not so good-humoured in a losing game. Frank has more of his straight tongue and appreciation of beautiful things, but ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith
... to any one. He had the tenacity of a bulldog. His capacity for incessant work and his unswerving pursuit of a purpose once formed, were a constant marvel to those who surrounded him. While he was without conceit or vanity he had almost unlimited self-confidence. While it cannot be said that he overrated his own abilities, neither can it be said that he underrated them. His sympathies were easily aroused and he was abnormally sensitive, but he never allowed ...
— Booker T. Washington - Builder of a Civilization • Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe
... Sovereignty, "the great Bulwark of American Independence," escorted to the Court House steps, past houses of his stanch supporters; which were illuminated in his honor. Stephen, wedged. among the people, remarked that the Judge had lost none of his self-confidence since that day at Freeport. Who, seeing the Democratic candidate smiling and bowing to the audience that blocked the wide square, would guess that the Question troubled him at all, or that he missed the votes of the solid South? How gravely ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Esperance, when your mother was taken from us, and your tears fell with mine, but you said to yourself: 'My father remains!' But, my beloved son, something in that father died at that time, or rather, I should say that something was born—his self-confidence vanished forever, and doubt took its place. For many long years, my son, your father deemed himself master of his own destiny, and with a certain simplicity at which I smile to-day, he fancied that he could make all wills bend to his. From that moment wrinkles came to my brow ...
— The Son of Monte Cristo • Jules Lermina
... further confuted by the portraits of the Chief Justice, which, with all their diversity, are in accord on that stubborn chin, that firm placid mouth, that steady, benignant gaze, so capable of putting attorneys out of countenance when they had to face it overlong. Here are the lineaments of self-confidence unmarred by vanity, of dignity without condescension, of tenacity untouched by fanaticism, and above all, of an easy conscience and unruffled serenity. It required the lodestone of a great and thoroughly congenial responsibility to bring to ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin
... mantle over her shoulders when she entered the house, and the touch of boyish self-confidence which had been hers on the ride was gone. In its place there was something even more difficult for Randall Byrne to face. If there had been a garish brightness about her when he had first seen her, the brilliancy of a mirror playing in the ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... his accurate knowledge of Neapolitan women, hitherto considered by him as amply sufficient to conduct him without a false step through all the intricacies of the world feminine, might not serve him perfectly with the ladies of the island. His fever had, it seemed, struck a little blow on his self-confidence, and rendered him so feeble ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... too—no matter! Strength, strength is what one wants, you can get nothing without it, and strength must be won by strength—that's what they don't know," he added proudly and self-confidently and he walked with flagging footsteps from the bridge. Pride and self-confidence grew continually stronger in him; he was becoming a different man every moment. What was it had happened to work this revolution in him? He did not know himself; like a man catching at a straw, he suddenly ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... him. He is not aggressive, but he is prosperous and has self-confidence. Against ALICE and VICKEY he is consciously on ...
— Hobson's Choice • Harold Brighouse
... following the ruts of our predecessors, start on the road of life where they left off, and not continue to repeat their failures? I cannot say why, unless it proceeds from the natural buoyancy of youth, self-confidence in its ability to overcome all obstacles, and to carve out futures more dazzling than any successes of the past. In this there is a problem for you to solve. Yet I may do well by acknowledging to you, to-day, that after an active ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper
... General for the meditated invasion of England, and made immense preparations, which, however, were carefully concealed from the spies and agents of James. They did not escape, however, the scrutinizing and jealous eye of Louis XIV., who remonstrated with James on his blindness and self-confidence, and offered to lend him assistance. But the infatuated monarch would not believe his danger, and rejected the proffered aid of Louis with a spirit which ill accorded with his former servility and dependence. Nor was he aroused to a sense of his danger until the Declaration of William appeared, ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... for themselves, so that, when they became men, they defended their opinions against imposing opposition. True, a youth must not be too forward in advancing his ideas, especially if they do not harmonize with those of older persons. Self-esteem and self-confidence should be guarded against. Still, in avoiding these evils, he is not obliged to believe anything just because he is told so. It is better for him to understand the reason of things, and believe them ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... Success, as it is called, even worldly success, is impossible, without some exercise of what is called moral virtue, without some portion of it, infinitesimally small, perhaps, but still some. Courage, for instance, steady self-confidence, self-trust, self-reliance— that only basis and foundation-stone on which a strong character can rear itself—do we not see this in Reineke. While he lives he lives for himself; but if it comes to dying, he can die like his betters; and his wit ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... my answer, and was evidently reassured by it; yet I could not, for the life of me, understand her manner—at one moment nervous and apprehensive, and at the next full of an almost imperious self-confidence. At times the expression in her eyes was such as justified her mother in the fears she had expressed to me. I tried to diagnose her symptoms, but they were ...
— The Seven Secrets • William Le Queux
... Muller before, he had no reason to think she cared a doit whether he was married or single. Now—McCall's color changed, alone as he was, with shame and annoyance. With all his experience of life and of women, he had as little self-confidence as an awkward girl. But Maria had left him no ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various
... of the old traditional European order, the invokers of reason against custom, the representatives of the modern spirit in every sphere where it is applicable, regarded themselves, with the robust self-confidence natural to reformers as a chosen people, as children of the light. They regarded their adversaries as humdrum people, slaves to routine, enemies to light; stupid and oppressive, but at the same time very strong. This explains the ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... strife and earnestness, which they exercised while under conviction, before they found "joy and peace in believing." They see such a heavenly sweetness in divine things, that they think it impossible they should "lose the relish all their days." This begets self-confidence, and they trust in their own strength to keep where they are, instead of eagerly pressing forward, in the strength of Christ, after higher attainments. The consequence is, they soon lose their lively sense of divine things, ...
— A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females - Being a Series of Letters from a Brother to a Younger Sister • Harvey Newcomb
... chained in icy fetters on untrodden mountain-peaks, where the vulture ever devours his fair heart, which sympathises continually with the follies and the sorrows of mankind? Of what punishment, then, must not those be worthy, who by their own wilfulness and self-confidence bind again to Caucasus the fair Titan, the ...
— Phaethon • Charles Kingsley
... gave a look of staring self-confidence to the sallow face, confronted Ossipon like sleepless, unwinking orbs ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... persons who may now be spoken of as entering into the vineyard of Christ at a somewhat later hour; at the age, we will suppose, of twenty-five or thirty. These have lost an hour indeed; they have idled away one precious season of life. Alas, it is also to be feared, that during the heat and self-confidence of youth, they have done much evil, as well as neglected to do good. Perhaps it has also happened that they have already formed some rash connection, and established themselves on some irreligious plan; ...
— Stories for the Young - Or, Cheap Repository Tracts: Entertaining, Moral, and Religious. Vol. VI. • Hannah More
... seems to be most appreciated in teachers is the giving of purpose, arousing of ideals, kindling of ambition to be something or do something and so giving an object in life, encouragement to overcome circumstances, and, in general, inspiring self-confidence and giving direction. Next came personal sympathy and interest, kindness, confidence, a little praise, being understood; and next, special help in lessons, or timely and kindly advice, while stability and poise of character, purity, ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... his nervous entry thirty-six hours ago into the Hotel Railleux and the boldness of his step now. The difference between secret night and candid morning lay in the two proceedings—the difference between self-distrust and self-confidence. Then he had been a creature newly created, looking upon himself and all the world with a sensitive distrust; now he was an individual accepted of others, assured of himself, already beginning to move and have his being ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... the afternoon of the 24th, yet since, according to the calculations of most astronomers, the conjunction should take place sooner—by some even on the 23rd—I was unwilling to depend entirely on my own opinion, which was not sufficiently confirmed, lest by too much self-confidence I might endanger the observation. Anxiously intent, therefore, on the undertaking through the greater part of the 23rd, and on the whole of the 24th, I omitted no available opportunity of observing her ingress. I ...
— The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' • Thomas Orchard
... turned, and Lily, shy and trembling, went out in obedience to Mr. Danforth's call. Perhaps her hesitation and timidity became her better than self-confidence; anyhow, Francis thought that he had never seen her look so pretty as she did at this moment, when she came bashfully towards him under the old cedar with a pensive look on her ...
— A Vanished Hand • Sarah Doudney
... sure, my child. Self-confidence is a good thing in its place, but self-assurance is a quality not nearly so attractive. I think, Patty, girl," and here Mr. Fairfield put his arm around his daughter and looked very kindly into her eyes; ...
— Patty at Home • Carolyn Wells
... had been ruined by the tender devotion of the whole family. The admiration which the world is at first ready to bestow on a young girl, but for which, sooner or later, it takes its revenge, had added to Emilie's pride, and increased her self-confidence. Universal subservience had developed in her the selfishness natural to spoilt children, who, like kings, make a plaything of everything that comes to hand. As yet the graces of youth and the charms of talent hid these faults from every ...
— The Ball at Sceaux • Honore de Balzac
... and a fair proportion of good soil, and any amount of water-power. Then for inhabitants, you've got the Scotchman, cautious and far-seeing; the Irishman, a little hot and heady, perhaps, but earnest; you've got the Englishman, who'll never fail of his aim for want of self-confidence, anyhow; you've got Frenchmen, Germans, and a sprinkling of the dark element out west; and you've got what we didn't have to begin with, you've got the Yankee element, and that is considerable more than you seem to think it ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... still had his old misgivings about Estra. There was something about the effeminate Venusian which irritated the big geologist; it always does make a strong man suspicious to see a weaker one show such self-confidence. Van Emmon drew the doctor and Billie aside, while Smith and Estra went on with the test. ...
— The Lord of Death and the Queen of Life • Homer Eon Flint
... even of his virtues. His positiveness, fascinating and effective as it is for an uncritical reader, carries with it extreme self-confidence and dogmatism, which render him violently intolerant of any interpretations of characters and events except those that he has formed, and formed sometimes hastily and with prejudice. The very clearness and brilliancy of his style ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... scholarships are boarded, is a school within a school. The Collegers wear gowns and surplices in public, they have their own customs and traditions and games. It is a small, close, clever society, and produces a tough kind of self-confidence, together with a devotion to a particular tradition which is almost like a religious initiation. Perhaps if the typical Etonian is conscious of a certain absolute rightness in the eyes of the world, the ...
— Hugh - Memoirs of a Brother • Arthur Christopher Benson
... heavy arm chair, drinking good red wine with a fierce armor-clad warrior who wore sandals, sword and a war cloak such as might have graced the limbs of Alexander of Macedon. But with the food and rich warm wine, he felt blood, strength and self-confidence pouring back into his weary body. "Jarmuth?" he inquired. ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various
... Days back self-confidence had come to him in Hannah's kitchen and Adam Craig, in the course of time, had crushed it out with a keen and understanding leer. Later it had returned with Adam's death, and the weary voice of Doctor ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... once the part of a man, it would seem hardly possible for her to go through the undertaking without more of self-confidence than were becoming in a woman: and the student may find plenty of matter for thought in the Poet's so managing as to prevent such an impression. For there is nothing like ostentation or conceit of intellect in Portia. ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... quoth the irrepressible youth, swaggering toward the door with an affected nonchalant self-confidence that aroused Butch to wrath, and vastly amused his companions. "I'll admit a human juggernaut like Coach Corridan dreams of will be hard to round up, but, I'll have an inspiration soon. Don't worry about your old eleven, your problem will be solved, and you will ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... fill the places of both. Seeing this, I retained my small hold upon the concern with fresh tenacity; for who knew but some day, when the directors also had gone on a picnic, the senior depositor might take his turn at the helm? It may savor of self-confidence, but it has always seemed to me, that, with one day's control of a bank, even in these degenerate times, something might be done which ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... was large, and of a dark cast, which glowed (I say literally glowed) when he spoke with feeling or interest. I never saw such another eye in a human head, though I have seen the most distinguished men of my time. His conversation expressed perfect self-confidence, without the slightest presumption. He was like a farmer dressed in his best to dine with the laird. I do not speak in malam partem when I say I never saw a man in company with his superiors in station ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... not served to increase the King's self-confidence. After a glance into the impassive faces of the waiting servants, he gathered sufficient grace to proceed and look about him, with eyes more accustomed to the light. With an assumption of ease foreign to his turbulent heart, he took his way ...
— Trusia - A Princess of Krovitch • Davis Brinton
... felt quite the strangest emotion he had ever experienced in his life. His usual serene self-confidence and easy flow of words deserted him, and Verisschenzko, watching him, began to link certain things ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn
... of the otherwise monotonous life. Four times a year came muster with its drill, its competitive shooting, its feasting, its sports, and its exercise of self-government in the election of officers. This visible expression of the power of the community generated a self-confidence and a spirit of generous comradery in the mind of the young soldier; the courage which it gave, the habit of standing upright in any presence, the belief that back of the voice lay the strong arm, were parts of the education of ...
— Noah Webster - American Men of Letters • Horace E. Scudder
... him to take the step of seizing Gordon, and holding him as hostage for his father. Had Gordon delayed even a few hours, there is no doubt that the slave-hunters would have executed their original design; but his extraordinary promptitude and self-confidence disconcerted them, and probably saved his own life. Gordon rode down the brigand lines; Suleiman, described as "a nice-looking lad of twenty-two," received him with marks of respect, and the Governor-General, without ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume II • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... the true answer had not yet been given to him. He was sad as he turned and rode towards the giant's home on New Year's Day, for he feared to lose his liberty and lands, and the lonely journey seemed much more dreary than it had before, when he rode out from Carlisle so full of hope and courage and self-confidence. ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt
... voice, but usually no confidence, she spoiled everything. This evening she felt conceited and untrammelled. Birkin was well in the background, she shone almost in reaction, the Germans made her feel fine and infallible, she was liberated into overweening self-confidence. She felt like a bird flying in the air, as her voice soared out, enjoying herself extremely in the balance and flight of the song, like the motion of a bird's wings that is up in the wind, sliding ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... besetting the way of the enthusiast; and behold, he had stumbled into the first sentimental trap in his path, and tricked his eyes with a Christmas-chromo vision of lovely woman dispensing coals and blankets! Luckily, though such wounds to his self-confidence cut deep, he could apply to them the antiseptic of an unfailing humour; and before he had finished dressing, the picture of his wide schemes of social reform contracting to a blue-eyed philanthropy of ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... be sorry, though myself given to meditative if not active innovation, that my father was a Tory who had not exactly a dislike to innovators and dissenters, but a slight opinion of them as persons of ill-founded self-confidence; whence my young ears gathered many details concerning those who might perhaps have called themselves the more advanced thinkers in our nearest market-town, tending to convince me that their characters were ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... this; and Harcourt had more than an inkling. His path in life was chosen, and he had much self-confidence that he had chosen it well. He had never doubted much, and since he had once determined had never doubted at all. He had worked hard, and was prepared to work hard; not trusting over much in his own talents, ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... woman passionately and devoutly, Adrian loved Doria. For what it may be worth, put that to his credit: he sinned for love of a woman. And the rest? The tragic rest? His undertaking to write another novel? Indomitable self-confidence was the keynote of the man. Careless, casual lover of ease that he was, everything he had definitely set himself to ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... these mysterious influences come, which change our happiness into discouragement, and our self-confidence into diffidence? One might almost say that the air, the invisible air is full of unknowable Forces, whose mysterious presence we have to endure. I wake up in the best spirits, with an inclination to sing in my throat. Why? I go down by the side ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... were more gracious to him, but certainly they appeared to take him more for granted. In a hundred little ways, he seemed to perceive that he was no longer held mentally at arm's length as a stranger to their caste. Of course, his own restored self-confidence could account for much of this, but he clung to the whimsical conceit that much was also due to the fact that he was the man ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... placed near the handsome, gaudily-dressed countess with her air of assurance and self-confidence, and pointed to it ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... had to admit also that she was an extremely difficult young person "to get to know". A gilt-edged, bumptious young subalternknut, who commenced the voyage apoplectically full of self-admiration, self-confidence, and admiring wonder at his enormous attractiveness, importance, and value, finished the same in a ludicrously deflated condition—and a quiet civilian, to whom the cub had been shamefully insolent, was moved to present him with a little poem of his composition commencing ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... self-confident American will make a great civilization yet, because he believes with all his heart and soul in the future of his country and in the powers of the American people. What Whitman called their "barbaric yawp" may yet turn into the lordliest speech and thought, but without self-confidence a race will go no whither. If Irish people do not believe they can equal or surpass the stature of any humanity which has been upon the globe, then they had better all emigrate and become servants to ...
— Imaginations and Reveries • (A.E.) George William Russell
... pretty little books, then after long hesitation added a doll for Polly. She felt that she should not have done this, and said so, to herself; but knew if she had it to do over, she would do the same thing again. She shook her shoulders and took the first step toward regaining her old self-confidence. ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter
... his death. True to his Gaulish nature, he would not allow his age to exempt him from commanding and mounting on horseback, although he was hardly able to keep his seat. His death and this feeble advantage raised the self-confidence of the barbarians still more, but it rendered the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various
... the responsibilities of life, and tend not only to incompetence but also to sensuality and even crime. Added to the various physical causes are such psychical influences as contact with degraded minds or with base literature or art, loss of religious faith, and loss of self-confidence as to one's ability ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
... them to practice, be shattered to pieces by hard facts? That cannot possibly, even on Hume's recommendation, be accepted as metaphysical truth, which flatly contradicts common sense, nor can there be any unbecoming self-confidence in seeking, even though Hume pronounce the search hopeless, for metaphysical truth, with which common sense may ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton
... had won enough self-confidence to make cracks about the future. Gimp Hines, once the saddest case in the Whole Bunch, had been, for a long time, perhaps the best adjusted to ...
— The Planet Strappers • Raymond Zinke Gallun
... virile and brutal in him seemed to harden and stiffen in the moment after he had seen the beach-comber collapse limply on the sand under the last strong knife-blow; and a sense of triumph, of boundless self-confidence, leaped within him, so that he shouted aloud in a very excess of exhilaration; and snatching up a heavy cutting-in spade, that had been dropped in the fight near the burning cabin, tossed it high into the air, catching it again as it descended, ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris
... to bestow upon beings so sensitive of their virtue. With him, it is a ware of very little value, inasmuch as the moral standard fixed by a better class of people is quite loose. He rises from his chair with an air of self-confidence, seizes her by the hand, and attempts to drag her upon his knee, saying, "you know I can and will make you a lady. Upon the honor of a gentleman, I love you-always have loved you; but what stands in the way, and ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... as Berlin expected, in answer both to the Austrian and the German preparations, had mobilized her entire forces. Even on the 31st these discussions seemed to have some chance of attaining their object. Austria was now more accurately gauging the peril into which her own blind self-confidence and the counsels of her ally were leading her, and was pausing on the brink of the abyss. The Vienna Cabinet even consented to talk over the gist of its Note to Serbia, and M. Sazonoff at once ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various
... he had seen that the doctor liked Elspeth, and that she liked him for liking her. Elspeth never spoke to him of such things, but he was aware that an extra pleasure in life came to her when she was admired; it gave her a little of the self-confidence she so wofully lacked; the woman in her was stirred. Take such presents as these to Elspeth, and Tommy would let you cast stones at himself for the rest of the day, and shake your hand warmly on parting. In London Elspeth had always known quickly, almost at the ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... justification for the least negligence upon the march; but the officers and men of each particular city should always be prepared for the advent of danger in their own quarters. The course of war cannot be foreseen, and its attacks are generally dictated by the impulse of the moment; and where overweening self-confidence has despised preparation, a wise apprehension often been able to make head against superior numbers. Not that confidence is out of place in an army of invasion, but in an enemy's country it should also be accompanied by the precautions of apprehension: troops will by this combination be best inspired ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... to attempt fixing his attention on critical distinctions of philology, upon the difference of idiom, the beauty of felicitous expression, or the artificial combinations of syntax. 'I can read and understand a Latin author,' said young Edward, with the self-confidence and rash reasoning of fifteen, 'and Scaliger or Bentley could not do much more.' Alas! while he was thus permitted to read only for the gratification of his amusement, he foresaw not that he was losing for ever the opportunity of acquiring habits of firm and assiduous application, of gaining ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... said Madelene, when they were in the dim daylight on the creeper-screened back porch. For such was her generous interpretation of his expression of self-confidence and self-satisfaction. ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... the best to pursue in regard to the future. Sir Graham's nervous system has broken down so completely that, as often happens in nervous cases, his very nature seems to have changed. The energy, the remarkable self-confidence, the hopefulness and power of looking forward, and of working for the future, which have placed him where he is—these have vanished. He is possessed by a fixed idea, and imagines that it is this fixed idea which has preyed ...
— Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens
... having passed through it and forgotten it, not well knowing the degree of harm they had sustained. This sense appeared, among our youths,—increased,—matured into resolute action. Necessarily, to exist at all, it needed the support both of strong instincts and of considerable self-confidence, otherwise it must at once have been borne down by the weight of general authority and received canon law. Strong instincts are apt to make men strange and rude; self-confidence, however well founded, to give much of what they do or say the ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... a flippant self-confidence that annoyed his cousin. But she knew very well that she was poorly off in the gifts that were required to scourge him. And there already was the light form of Nelly, on the footbridge over the river. Farrell looked up ...
— Missing • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... He had always enjoyed her capriciousness, her whimsical humor, but there was certainly nothing for him to smile at in this interview. She had so plied the lash that it cut to the quick. His pride and self-confidence were deeply wounded;—his wife's elderly aunt did not believe in his omnipotence! This was a shock in itself; but what fantastic nonsense was she ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... before the other has time to assert and the will to rouse itself. But those who doubt themselves and try to do right may hope for warning. Such will not, I think, be allowed to go far out of the way for want of that. Self-confidence is ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... a little. But his self-confidence wilted under the false start. "How about arm-chairs?" he remarked tentatively, very much engaged with ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... girl one remembers. The oval of her face was perfect; and within that fascinating frame the most happy disposition of line and feature, with an admirable complexion, gave an impression of health, strength, and what I might call unconscious self-confidence—a most pleasant and, as it were, whimsical determination. I will not compare her eyes to violets, because the real shade of their colour was peculiar, not so dark and more lustrous. They were of the wide-open kind, and looked at one frankly in every ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... periphery of his thought—nowhere near the bull's-eye, so to speak—as a vague automaton that worked when he pulled a bell-rope. Infinitely more important things were troubling him; the visit of Peter had somehow put a keener edge on his blunted self-confidence; he had started a grand opera, and worked at it furiously in all the intervals left him by his engrossing pursuit after a publisher. Sometimes he would look up from his hieroglyphics and see Mary Ann at his side surveying ...
— Merely Mary Ann • Israel Zangwill
... began to feel that I should be very wretched after the parting with my beloved brother at the end of so brief a renewal of love and intimacy; to be aware of what I had scarcely felt before in the self-confidence of the position I had won—that it is a sad and lonely thing to be a sojourner in a foreign land, with no natural friends, no kind kindred on whom to rely in case of sickness or misfortune;—and, to consider, how dark and grave a thing must be ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat
... news that this house or that bank had "suspended payment." "Busted," the panting messengers said to white-faced merchants; and in the slang of the street was conveyed the message of doom. The great panic of 1873 was upon the town—the outcome of long years of unwarranted self-confidence, of selfish extravagance, of conscienceless speculation—and, as hour after hour passed by, fortunes were lost in the twinkling of an eye, and the bread was taken out of the mouths ...
— The Story of a New York House • Henry Cuyler Bunner
... keys firmly. His fingers began to play a rapid, skillful, silent concerto. His face had a look of intense concentration and of complete self-confidence. ...
— Breaking Point • James E. Gunn
... strange! There seemed, somehow, to-night more about her to admire than on any former occasion. Was it due to his return to his proper social plane? Was the other life sheer delusion? What exquisite poise! What easy, erect grace! Her whole being was stamped with luxurious self-confidence. How soft was the feel of her delicate fingers as they touched his! Why had he clasped them so warmly? How charming the gentle and seductive glance of her eyes! He caught himself staring at her in a sort of reluctant pride of personal ownership. He thought of ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... to come into life early. I have seen a little tot, whom I could with no inconvenience have tucked under my arm, walking down the road, head up in the air, breathing out an aggressive self-confidence, and defiance of all around, worthy of one of the old-time kings. And I recognized that he had simply absorbed the atmosphere in which his four brief ...
— Quiet Talks on Following the Christ • S. D. Gordon
... for the young. Difference between intellectual and spiritual life. Pride of intellect and self-confidence humbled, and true happiness gained at last along with ...
— Hunter's Marjory - A Story for Girls • Margaret Bruce Clarke
... lauding himself as the idea passed through his mind, and struggled to quench his own pride. "And yet," said he in his thoughts, "is it not fit that I should know myself to be better than he is? If I have no self-confidence, how can I be bold to persevere? The man that works is to him that is idle, ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope
... therefore, that Augustus was at length compelled to allow himself disappointed. That it was the fault of his self-confidence made the thing no whit better. He was too much of a man not to cherish a certain tenderness for her, but he soon found to his dismay that it had begun to be mingled with a shadow of contempt. Against this he struggled, but with fluctuating success. He stopped later and later at business, and ...
— Stephen Archer and Other Tales • George MacDonald
... hands together, and looked across at his companion with a smile wherein the youthful self-confidence was less discernible than of yore. The smile faded as he looked at Oscard. He was thinking that he looked older and graver—more of a middle-aged man who has left something behind him in life—and the sight ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... and all. Taking Wych Hazel's hands then, he softly transferred her from her own chair to this, and placed a cushion under her feet. Then considered her with a grave face and eyes from which no one of average self-confidence would have ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner
... rendered indispensable in the most, fastidious circles. With the usual womanly reserves, she was natural and unembarrassed in her intercourse with the world, and she had been allowed to see so many different nations, that she had obtained a self-confidence that did her no injury, under the influence of an exemplary education, and great natural dignity of mind. Still, Mademoiselle Viefville, notwithstanding she had lost some of her own peculiar notions on the subject, by having ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... With its self-confidence thus increased, the Hun council of nobles declared that in future the Huns should no longer fight now for one and now for another Chinese general or prince. They had promised loyalty to the Chinese emperor, but not to any prince. ...
— A history of China., [3d ed. rev. and enl.] • Wolfram Eberhard
... Burke, regaining his self-confidence, saw that she was not an enemy, but an appreciative spectator, and his face broke up in a smile, queer, crooked, ...
— The Happiest Time of Their Lives • Alice Duer Miller
... by when the captain issued his orders in an apologetic voice and a diffident manner. He had learned enough during this term to discover the value of a little self-confidence, and had profited by the discovery. Willoughby was far more docile to an order than to a request, and on the present occasion neither Gilks nor Silk seemed disposed to ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed
... who had observed him long. He passed for a mere official drudge; and he had all the industry, the minute accuracy, the formality, the tediousness, which belong to the character. But he had other qualities which had not yet shown themselves, devouring ambition, dauntless courage, self-confidence amounting to presumption, and a temper which could not endure opposition. He was not disposed to be anybody's tool; and he had no attachment, political or personal, to Bute. The two men had, indeed, nothing in common, except a strong ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... pride of conscience in all this, strongly contrasting with Sarah's want of self-confidence when travelling the same path. If Angelina suffered for her religion, no one suspected it, and for this very reason she was enabled to exert a stronger influence upon those about her than Sarah ever could have done. She herself saw the great ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney
... the only place they had to stay in and expect anything of on this earth! And as he looked out over the big yard, where the dinner-bell was just sounding and calling servants and day-laborers out of all the doors, all his self-confidence vanished. A despairing feeling of helplessness overwhelmed him, and made his face tremble with impotent concern ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... have been an important force even in the most absolute of monarchies; in representative democracies Public Opinion is even more important. Under a democratic form of government the attitude of the masses tends to be one of inquiry, self-confidence, and self- expression upon public questions. Lord Bryce has pointed out that because democracy permits and encourages freedom of discussion, Public Opinion in a country like the United States becomes much more powerful ...
— Problems in American Democracy • Thames Ross Williamson
... centre, to feel things yielding before her; and without thinking it out, she knew perfectly well what it was she gained by this "fair seeming show" of eye and lip and form. Somehow it made nothing seem impossible to her; it gave her a dazzling self-confidence. ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... history. All the encouragement of his mother and Hugh Knox, the admiration and confidence of such men as Mr. Cruger, the spoiling of his relatives, and his easy conquest or equally flattering antagonism of the youth of the Island, had fostered his self-confidence without persuading him that he was necessarily a genius. Strong as his youthful ambitions had been, burning as his desire for more knowledge, much in his brain had been dormant, and a humorous philosophy, added to the sanguineness ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... music?—with that self-confidence—that air as though the world belonged to her! The young man was greatly mystified. But he reminded himself that he was in a democratic country where all men—and especially all women—are equal. Not that the young women now streaming to the steamboat were Miss Floyd's equals. ...
— Marriage a la mode • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... my fatal powerlessness was that the Jew did not trust me, which meant that I lost my self-confidence. Living together with the Jews as my co-citizens, being in constant personal and business relations with them, in the field of consorted social work, I came face to face with the Jewish "problem" every single day,—and every single day of my life I felt with intolerable ...
— The Shield • Various
... into it alert, receptive, optimistic. But it nettled her that everybody should be so congratulatory, and nobody surprised. It wasn't what she would call ideal for two impoverished young aristocrats to start life on nothing but affection and self-confidence. ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden
... nothing to indicate that his action took place simultaneously with some movement on the part of other peoples, or with a serious insurrection in any of the Assyrian provinces. For my part, I prefer to set it down to one of those sudden impulses, those irresistible outbursts of self-confidence, which from time to time actuated the princes tributary to Nineveh or the kings on its frontier. The period of inactivity to which some previous defeat inflicted on them or on their predecessors had condemned them, allowed them ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 8 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... particularly adapted to Baruch's condition at that moment, but an antidote may be none the less efficacious because it is not direct. It removed him to another region. It was like the sight and sound of the sea to the man who has been in trouble in an inland city. His self-confidence was restored, for he to whom an idea is revealed becomes the idea, and is no longer personal ...
— Clara Hopgood • Mark Rutherford
... when she rang the bell, for all her distaste of the task had returned with redoubled force, but her self-confidence was soon restored under the genial ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt
... insisting upon the comparison. Both works set forth the same conflict between humanity and its gods and governments, issuing in the redemption of man from their tyranny by the growth of his will into perfect strength and self-confidence; and both finish by a lapse into panacea-mongering didacticism by the holding up of Love as the remedy for all evils and the ...
— The Perfect Wagnerite - A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring • George Bernard Shaw
... well-conceived, but intolerably ill-executed, attempt of Dumouriez to make himself a French Duke of Albemarle. It was quite as unprincipled as his political operations were at Paris in 1792, and in both cases he came to grief through his overweening self-confidence and consequent lack of the most ordinary ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... was to receive. His voice was still like the rollings of Abana and Pharpar, when he came on this next evening to discourse up-to-date wisdom in his father's ears; not a hair of his well-groomed head showed the ruffling of perturbed thoughts within, nor were his self-confidence and easy satisfaction in the moral and mental liberties wherein he ranged at large in ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... affairs with thee, before they come into the view of the world. Let thy wisdom and thy Spirit, in connection with thy providences, be our counsellors. O keep us in a dependent frame of mind, humble and watchful. Strip us of all self-confidence. May we at the same time be strong in the Lord and in the power of thy might; rejoicing in thee, the God of our salvation, the strength of our heart, and our portion for ever. Glory, glory, glory, to Father, Son, and ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham
... Then I thought to clinch the matter by a telepagram, but for some reason or other I failed to consult the forces I control as to the wisdom of doing so. Had I, I should have known better. But I went ahead in self-confidence and enthusiasm. I told him of a long banished daughter with whom, in his heart, he was really wishing to become reconciled but was too proud to say the word. He resented it. He started to stamp out of this room, but not before I had another telepagram which told of - a misfortune ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve
... greatly astonished, and it seemed to him as though a tower had given way under his feet. And, in fact, he had fallen, for his self-confidence had gone. For some time he was incapable of thought and when he did recover himself, his meditations only increased ...
— Thais • Anatole France
... would justify his self-confidence. How he succeeded she could not define. Why should he succeed where another was failing? He could not go out and drag boarders by physical force into his private hotel! Yet he would succeed. In every gesture he was the successful man. She looked timidly up at his eyes under ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... presented to her mother, a round-shouldered, middle-sized woman, who had once had the transient pink-and-white beauty of a blonde, with ill-defined features and early embonpoint. Miss Assher was tall, and gracefully though substantially formed, carrying herself with an air of mingled graciousness and self-confidence; her dark-brown hair, untouched by powder, hanging in bushy curls round her face, and falling in long thick ringlets nearly to her waist. The brilliant carmine tint of her well-rounded cheeks, and the finely-cut outline of her straight nose, produced an impression of splendid beauty, in spite of ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot |
