"Boaster" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... griping rook and a grave citizen, a worthy lawyer and an errant pickpocket, a reverend non-conformist and a canting mountebank, all blended together to compose an oglio of impertinence." There is a delightful sketch of one named "Captain All-man-sir," as big a boaster as Falstaff, and a more delicately etched portrait of the Town Wit, who is summed up as the "jack-pudding of society" in the judgment of all wise men, but an incomparable wit in his own. The peroration of this pamphlet, devoted to a wholesale condemnation of the coffee-house, ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley
... union is requisite to constitute a gentleman. We know of but one quality which is demanded for a man of fashion,—impudence. An impudence (self-confidence "the wise it call") as impenetrable as the gates of Pandemonium—a coolness and imperturbability of self- admiration, which the boaster in Spencer might envy—a contempt of every decency, as such, and an utter imperviousness to ridicule,—these are the amiable and dignified qualities which serve to rear an empire over the weakness ...
— The Laws of Etiquette • A Gentleman
... describe thee? Thou compound of sense and vice; of sense which may be admired but not esteemed, of vice which may be despised, but hardly detested. Falstaff is a character loaded with faults, and with those faults which naturally produce contempt. He is a thief, and a glutton, a coward, and a boaster, always ready to cheat the weak, and prey upon the poor; to terrify the timorous and insult the defenceless. At once obsequious and malignant, he satirises in their absence those whom he lives by flattering. He is familiar with the prince ...
— Preface to Shakespeare • Samuel Johnson
... "You're a boaster," she said, with the door open. "You always were. And you'll never lay a hand on him. You're like ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... their little hut, and the door fastened against the fearful intruder. Davy, being foremost in the race, sat down, followed by his companion George, who, maugre his great apprehensions, could not forbear laughing heartily at the sudden melting away of the big-mouthed valour of this cowardly boaster. ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... am no boaster of my love, Nor of my attributes; I have shared your splendour, And will partake your fortunes. You may live To find one slave more true than subject myriads: But this the Gods avert! I am content To be beloved on trust for what I feel, Rather than prove it to you in ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... which is raised by impertinent Promisers is thus barren, their Confidence, even after Failures, is so great, that they subsist by still promising on. I have heretofore discoursed of the insignificant Liar, the Boaster, and the Castle-Builder, and treated them as no ill-designing Men, (tho' they are to be placed among the frivolously false ones) but Persons who fall into that Way purely to recommend themselves ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... Hamlet, if only we had the wit to recognize ourselves in him. Or rather he is that element in us which we all like and despise in others, but which we will never for one moment confess to in ourselves—the coward, the boaster, the liar, but the child of nature. He, because he knows himself for all of these, can find his home in Sarostro's paradise. He does not want Sarostro's high wisdom; what he does want is a Papagena, an Eve, a child of nature like himself; and she is given to him. He has the ...
— Essays on Art • A. Clutton-Brock
... thine ear—while we lean our left shoulder on thine—our right on the Crutch. The time will come when thou wilt be, O Son of the Morning! even like unto the shadow by thy side! Was he not once a mountaineer? If he be a vainglorious boaster, give him the lie, Ben-y-glo and thy brotherhood—ye who so often heard our shouts mixed with the red-deer's belling—tossed back in exultation by Echo, Omnipresent Auditress ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... that Helen, with the intuitive discernment of a pure and upright mind, and the penetration of a quick-witted woman, should be the first to detect the falsehood and cowardice of the boaster Parolles, who imposes on ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... is a boaster and self-assertor, by nature; but it is so far true. For instance, we used to have a fair in our neighborhood—a very fine fair we thought it. You never saw such an one; but if you look at the engraving of Turner's ...
— The Ethics of the Dust • John Ruskin
... to the bottom Sank the pike in great confusion, And the mighty sturgeon, Nahma, Said to Ugudwash, the sun-fish, To the bream, with scales of crimson, "Take the bait of this great boaster, Break the line ...
— Required Poems for Reading and Memorizing - Third and Fourth Grades, Prescribed by State Courses of Study • Anonymous
... Vain boaster, said the youthful knight, I scorn thy threats and thee: I trust to force thy brazen gates, And set ...
— The Book of Brave Old Ballads • Unknown
... who has specially studied the language and customs of this interesting people:* "Look here, O Nicholas-god! Perhaps my neighbour, little Michael, has been slandering me to you, or perhaps he will do so. If he does, don't believe him. I have done him no ill, and wish him none. He is a worthless boaster and a babbler. He does not really honour you, and merely plays the hypocrite. But I honour you from my heart; and, behold, I place a taper before you!" Sometimes incidents occur which display a still more curious ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... surprised, but as every body attributed it to long practice, they were not so much astonished as I was, who knew it was wholly owing to chance. It was a lucky hit, and I made the most of it; success made me arrogant, and boy-like, I became a boaster. ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... Gryphon, brother of Aquilant; but the faithless fair one took up with Mart[a]no, a most impudent boaster and a coward. Being at Damascus during a tournament in which Gryphon was the victor, Martano stole the armor of Gryphon, arrayed himself in it, took the prizes, and then decamped with the lady. Aquilant happened to see them, bound them, and took them back to Damascus, where Martano was hanged, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... life that others life might find, Shaming you with his toil, his bravery, Not by a word or look, no boaster he, He was always gentle to you, ...
— Poems • Marietta Holley
... since to-day either a glorious death awaits us or the achievement of a deed of noblest emprise in the rescue of so many Hellene lives. Maybe it is God who leads us thus, God who chooses to humble the proud boaster, boasting as though he were exceedingly wise, but for us, the beginning of whose every act is by heaven's grace, that same God reserves a higher grade of honour. One duty I would recall to you, to apply your minds to the execution ...
— Anabasis • Xenophon
... were over at the village of Two Lance, a long mile away, rounding up their pony herd to prevent the warriors making an assault on Red Dog's more distant township. A shot rang out from somewhere among the agency buildings, and the days of the boaster were numbered. Back, bearing the body, scurried the trio of friends, and in less than an hour, in fury and transport and grief and rage, the women were tearing their hair and prodding themselves with knives, while the warriors, singing the death-song, were painting ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... god of the Saracens, was another staple character in the Miracle-Plays; who is described by John Florio as "a great boaster, quarreller, killer, tamer or ruler of the universe, the child of the earthquake and of the thunder, the brother of death." That Shakespeare himself had suffered under the monstrous din of these "strutting and bellowing" stage-thumpers is shown by ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... had himself bound to the mast; and there were already sounds of unearthly sweetness in his ears. His conferences with his lovely hostess easily consoled him for his losses. In addition, he was triumphing over the boaster, for Mr. Pedlow, with a very ill grace and swearing (not under his breath), was losing too. The Countess, reiterating for the hundredth time that Cooley was a "wicked one," sweetly constituted herself his cup-bearer; kept his glass full and ...
— His Own People • Booth Tarkington
... not attach too much importance to what you have heard. Paul is a mere boy, and, of course, a boaster." ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... seem to have understood this cowardly boaster, received his story with shouts of laughter. But Knight was very glad to make off with his gun and ammunition, and leave them to settle the affair among themselves. When he came to the prairies he hid ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells
... Whig, who says in the Upper House, that whatever may be the distresses of the people, they shall not be gratified at the cost of one of the despotic privileges of the aristocracy. Go to!—I will have none of him. As to Lesborough, he is a fool and a boaster—who is always puffing his own vanity with the windiest pair of oratorical bellows that ever were made by air and brass, for the purpose of sound and smoke, 'signifying nothing.' Go to!—I will have ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... o' ferlies, That sits on the stane at his door, And tells about bogles, and mair lies Than tongue ever utter'd before. And there will be Bauldy, the boaster, Sae ready wi' hands and wi' tongue; Proud Paty and silly Sam Foster, Wha quarrel wi' auld and ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... dreamer at my side awoke, And with such helpless anguish as they feel Who know that they are weak as well as vile. I saw, through all his forward promises, Excuses, prayers, and pledges that were oaths (What he, poor boaster, thought I could not see), That he was shorn of will, and that his heart Was as defenseless as a little child's;— That underneath his fair good fellowship He was debauched, and dead in love with sin;— That love of me had made him what I loved,— ...
— Bitter-Sweet • J. G. Holland
... boasting stinks; it would be more appropriate after my death than while I am alive. That boaster moreover has a peacock's plume on his helmet, and at the very outset I made a vow to obtain three of them and afterward as many fingers of the hand. ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... Lion sneered. "If you think you can take us with you that far then why not to Jerusalem? The words of a boaster are a mask of doubt. Hah! Take us to Jerusalem! ...
— The Lion of Petra • Talbot Mundy
... have paid the bet, but he would have stood by what he had said, and everybody would have believed him. By declaring him the winner of the bet she has cut the matter short, and she has avoided a judgment by which she would have been dishonoured. The inconsiderate boaster was guilty of a double mistake for which he paid the penalty of his life, but his adversary was as much wanting in delicacy, for in such matters rightly-minded men do not venture upon betting. If the one who says yes is imprudent, the one who says no is a dupe. I like ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... gave Jacob their greetings. She had much to tell about them both, but Jacob thought it was queer that she had more to say about Ole than about Peter; for while Ole was a straight-forward fellow, it could not be denied that he was a bit of a boaster. ...
— Lisbeth Longfrock • Hans Aanrud
... shall destroy me, all they who come lie in the dust before me. Now, therefore, I pray you rebuke me no more till you see me beaten or a recreant, and then bid me go from you." "There shall soon meet thee a knight who shall repay thee all thy deeds, thou boaster," answered she, "for, save King Arthur, he is the man of most worship in the world." "It will be the greater honour to encounter him," said ...
— The Legends Of King Arthur And His Knights • James Knowles
... without decision," says John Foster, "can never be said to belong to himself; since if he dared to assert that he did, the puny force of some cause, about as powerful as a spider, may make a seizure of the unhappy boaster the very next minute, and contemptuously exhibit the futility of the determination by which he was to have proved the independence of his understanding and will. He belongs to whatever can make capture ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... came in the conversation, you know. She is no boaster. No sir-ee! She's the modestest, gentlest, sweetest little lady I ever saw. I just love her! Well, I answered a lot of letters for her, and she liked the way I did it, and she liked me, I guess, for she said she only hoped Miss Crowell ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells
... "Aha, boaster! and what is it you know? Why, nothing at all except to go out to merry-makings and lick your lips there. We'll soon see which he'll ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston
... roaring and foaming like a waterfall. My horse, and he was a good one, couldn't make it. But I did. And when I come to it on the return trip with the doctor, he gave one look and folded his arms. 'Mark,' he said, 'I'm no boaster, but my life is not without value. I think it's my duty not to attempt this crossing.' 'Jim,' I said, 'if you don't your soul will be scotched. Don't you know it? Folks'll point at you as the doctor that didn't dare.' 'It's not the daring, ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... according to his cloth; I will try to get away as fast as I can." On this the giant said to him, "Go, little ragamuffin, and fetch me a jug of water." "Had I not better bring the well itself at once, and the spring too?" asked the boaster, and went with the pitcher to the water. "What! the well and the spring too," growled the giant in his beard, for he was rather clownish and stupid, and began to be afraid. "That knave is not a fool, he has ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... DRAWCANSIR, a blustering, bullying boaster in Buckingham's play the "Rehearsal"; he kills every one of the combatants, "sparing neither friend ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... ran; but where is the elk or the cabri?[80] Come!—where is the hunter will dare match his feet with the feet of Tamdoka? Let him think of Tate[AC] and beware, ere he stake his last robe on the trial." "Oho! Ho! Ho-heca!"[AD] they jeered, for they liked not the boast of the boaster; But to match him no warrior appeared, for his feet wore the wings of ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... abhorred the deification of the reason, and clung to that exalted supernaturalism which was the life and hope of blessed saints and martyrs in bygone ages, and which in "their contests with mail-clad infidelity was like the pebble which the shepherd of Israel hurled against the disdainful boaster who defied the power of Israel's God." And he was thus brought into close sympathy with the realism of the Fathers, who felt that all that is valuable in theology must radiate from the recognition of Almighty power ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord
... great boaster, He the marvelous story-teller, He the traveler and the talker, He the friend of old Nokomis, Made a bow for Hiawatha; From a branch of ash he made it, From an oak bough made the arrows, Tipped with flint, and winged with feathers, And the cord ...
— The New McGuffey Fourth Reader • William H. McGuffey
... on some of them, or put them through at a cost far beyond the profit. It came that way to a boaster of his intentions sometimes, especially so when a man spoke too quickly and assumed too much. Here he was standing face to a fight that did not appear to promise much more glory in the winning than in ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden
... him an Ambassador to the Court of Berlin; and in 1803 removed him in the same character to the Court of Madrid. In Prussia, his talents did not cause him to be dreaded, nor his personal qualities make him esteemed. In France, he is laughed at as a boaster, but not trusted as a warrior. In Spain, he is neither dreaded nor esteemed, neither laughed at nor courted; he is there universally despised. He studies to be thought a gentleman; but the native porter breaks through the veil of a ridiculously affected and outre politeness. Notwithstanding ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... and making them all prisoners without the loss of a man, that, although your report may be sanctioned by Sir George Prevost, it seems to me that the people of England will be incredulous until they see the exterminating boaster a prisoner in London. We find in a cover by General Sheaffe, that the first report of the cannon taken was one-third short of the real number. I shall hardly sleep until I have the satisfaction of hearing particulars of the wonderful excursion, ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper
... honour, he also had us served with a bird three times as large as Cleonymus,(1) and called the Boaster. ...
— The Acharnians • Aristophanes
... willing to own that my people have many ways, of which, as an honest man, I can't approve. It is one of their customs to write in books what they have done and seen, instead of telling them in their villages, where the lie can be given to the face of a cowardly boaster, and the brave soldier can call on his comrades to witness for the truth of his words. In consequence of this bad fashion, a man, who is too conscientious to misspend his days among the women, in learning the names of black marks, may never hear of ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... better them, for they should bind The feeble only; able men enlarge And shape them to their needs. Much must be done That lies in your discretion. At Detroit Hull vaunts his strength, and meditates invasion, And loyalty, unarmed, defenceless, bare, May let this boaster light upon our shores Without one manly motion of resistance. So whilst I open Parliament at York, Close it again, and knit our volunteers, Be yours the task to head invasion off. Act boldly, but discreetly, and so draw Our interest to the balance, ...
— Tecumseh: A Drama • Charles Mair
... is Gascon. The Gascons are the natives of Gascony, a province in the south of France. It is proverbial among other Frenchmen that the Gascons are always boasting, and even in English we sometimes use the word Gascon to describe a great boaster, while gasconade is now a common term ...
— Stories That Words Tell Us • Elizabeth O'Neill
... he whistled that tune so much and because he had nose-bleed so much,—couldn't even ride a broncho but his nose would bleed for hours afterwards; and the other, "N'Yawk," so called from his native State. N'Yawk was a great boaster; said he wasn't afraid of no durned outlaw,—said his father had waded in bloody gore up to his neck and that he was a chip off the old block,—rather hoped the chase would come our way so he could ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... Andy was not a boaster as a rule; but whenever Percy Carberry started to show what a mighty conqueror of the air he had become, something seemed to rise up within the second Bird boy that made him ...
— The Airplane Boys among the Clouds - or, Young Aviators in a Wreck • John Luther Langworthy
... he who is harmoniously constituted, who is not covetous or mean, or a boaster, or a coward—can he, I say, ever be unjust or hard in ...
— The Republic • Plato
... two last-named were very old men. It would be absurd to call either of them a great commander, but it is indisputable that they all had great parts in great wars. Benningsen can scarcely be called a good general of the second class, and he is mostly spoken of as a foolish braggart and boaster; but it is a fact that he did some things at an important time which indicated his possession of qualities that were highly desirable in a general who was bound to act against Napoleon. Having, in 1807, obtained ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... and Helene and by the very small Victor who was now nearly a year old. Victor and Helene had heard of the threats of vengeance, but knowing Rene, they had smiled. Was not Rene a great boaster? And the very young Victor, who knew nothing of the threats, thought his big uncle a very brave figure in his blue capote, his red muffler, and his ...
— Connie Morgan in the Fur Country • James B. Hendryx
... flames were being kindled declared this Joan, who called herself the Maid, to be a liar, a plague, a deceiver of the people, a sorceress, superstitious, a blasphemer of God, presumptuous, a misbeliever in the faith of Christ, a boaster, idolatress, cruel, dissolute, a witch of devils, apostate, schismatic, and heretic. It was a heavy crime-sheet for a mere girl, and there was no knowing into what a monster she might grow up. So the Bishop of Beauvais could not well hesitate ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... speech to all alike; he was in desperate pursuit of a reputation for being able to comprehend and speak as no one else could, and before all wanted to be thought a valuable citizen. As a result of this and because he was the greatest boaster alive and thought no one equal to himself, but in his words and life alike looked down on all and would not live as any one else did, he was wearisome and burdensome, and was consequently both envied and hated even by those very persons ...
— Dio's Rome • Cassius Dio
... The fact that the bishop was going away made the matter worse, for just as she had found out that he was willing to help her, and that he might be able to keep Raybold away from them without actual violence—for she saw that the young boaster was afraid of him—he had told her he must leave, and in her heart she did not blame him. With great fear and anxiety she looked forward ...
— The Associate Hermits • Frank R. Stockton
... boaster," he roared, "you lie in your words. Sindri, my brother, who would scorn to serve you, is the best smith ...
— The Children of Odin - The Book of Northern Myths • Padraic Colum
... up; for after Ben Tinker had thrashed the little boaster he was satisfied, and Tommy did not dare to be cross. By this time they had ...
— Proud and Lazy - A Story for Little Folks • Oliver Optic
... at last he became a man, he sailed on the ship Argo, with Jason and the great heroes of that day, in search of the Golden Fleece. Many brave deeds were his in foreign lands; and when he came home again to Calydon, he brought with him a fair young wife, gentle Cleopatra, daughter of Idas the boaster. ...
— Hero Tales • James Baldwin
... spectator only that could find in their works that air of grandeur and dignity generally attributed to them. Raphael himself, he said, was very unequal, and many of his productions owed their glory only to tradition. Michael Angelo was a boaster, weakly vain of his knowledge of anatomy, and without a particle of grace. Real force of outline, grace of touch, and magic of colouring we must look for, he said, in the present age. Thence the conversation easily ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... A boaster is always to be suspected. His is a natural infirmity, which makes him forget what he is about, and run into a thousand extravagances that have no connection with the truth. With those who have a tolerable knowledge of the world, all his assertions, professions ...
— The Young Man's Guide • William A. Alcott
... Aetopeia.] The fyrst kind is called AEtopeia, that is an expressi of maners or mylde affeccions, and hath thre kyndes: of the whych the fyrst is a significacion or expression of maners somewhat longer, as of wittes, artes, vertues, vices. Thus we expresse Thraso a boaster, and Demea ...
— A Treatise of Schemes and Tropes • Richard Sherry
... the right, and unwilling to yield to the wrong. Above all we wish for honesty—tongues that are not used to say what the mind does not mean, and hearts that feel a little for others, as well as for themselves. A true-hearted girl could die for such a husband! while the boaster, and the double-tongued suitor gets to be as hateful to the sight, as he ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... his mother, in distress. "Geoffrey Cliffe is not a man to be trusted. You and I know that of old. He is a boaster, and—" ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward |
