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More "Self-important" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... took place in the wide Place du Marche, and immediately afterwards the firing-off of a small self-important cannon signalised the commencement of the battle. Carriages and cars passed and repassed, flowers were tossed from one to the other, whilst showers of confetti and coloured paper serpentins ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... Clara's intonation of this frequent phrase always jarred on Edwin. It implied that Albert was the supreme fount of wisdom and authority in Bursley. Whereas to Edwin, Albert was in fact a mere tedious, self-important manufacturer in a small way, with whom he had no ideas in common. "A decent fellow at bottom," the fastidious Edwin was bound to admit to himself by reason of slight glimpses which he had had of Albert's uncouth good-nature; ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... a man more severely tried! And yet, in view of fatal errors on the part of generals, the disobedience of orders, and the unfriendly detractions of Chase,—his able, but self-important Secretary of the Treasury,—not a word of reproach had fallen from him; he was still gentle, conciliatory, patient, forgiving on all occasions, and marvellously reticent and self-sustained. His transcendent moral qualities stood out before the world unquestioned, whatever ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XII • John Lord
... that's pretty good! Ha! Ha!" laughed the self-important man. "Why, I was thinking of making a complaint against you for crossing my course that way. If I find my boat is damaged I shall certainly do so anyhow. Have we suffered any damage, Snuffin?" and he looked back at a grimy-faced mechinician who was oiling the big, throbbing motor, ...
— Tom Swift and his Photo Telephone • Victor Appleton
... first to speak. He was a grey-haired, broad-shouldered man, of the type which, in Tuscan phrase, is moulded with the fist and polished with the pickaxe; but the self-important gravity which had written itself out in the deep lines about his brow and mouth seemed intended to correct any contemptuous inferences from the hasty workmanship which Nature had bestowed on his exterior. He had deposited a large well-filled bag, made of skins, on the pavement, and before ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... little attention to the arguments and persuasions they used. Neither, when she found herself wrapped in the dark folds of the wise woman's cloak, did she behave in the least like the princess, for she was not afraid. "She'll soon set me down," she said, too self-important to suppose that any one would dare ...
— A Double Story • George MacDonald
... what he evidently intended to be dignified strides. For the first time he honoured her with a searching scrutiny. Poor Dorothy felt as if the black eyes of this self-important dwarf were reading her inmost thoughts. She became sick with apprehension, and her eyes fell before his, In another minute ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie
... apparently without surprise, and any how, without comment. His self-important loquacity ceased, and his condescending smile passed into a sharp, reticent, business look. He knitted his shaggy brows, contracted that coarsely-hung, but resolute mouth, in which lay the secret of his success in life, buttoned up his coat, and stuck ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... before the Lord. Prayer is our spiritual aliment. It teaches us humility. For who can carry self-important and haughty feelings to the throne of Infinite Purity? Prayer will teach you to see the hand of Providence in all that befalls you. While you present all issues before Him, second causes will not disturb and distress you. Submission is the fruit of devoutness. "Thy will be done," be this ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey
... of Chanticleer's two wives, ever since Phoebe's arrival, had been in a state of heavy despondency, caused, as it afterwards appeared, by her inability to lay an egg. One day, however, by her self-important gait, the sideways turn of her head, and the cock of her eye, as she pried into one and another nook of the garden,—croaking to herself, all the while, with inexpressible complacency,—it was made evident that this identical hen, much as mankind undervalued her, carried something about her person ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... visitors, "guard mount," the social feature of the day, was viewed from the pavilion in the little plaza where the exercise takes place. Its dignity was sadly marred that evening when a Moro datto, self-important in an absurd, overwhelming hat, accompanied by an obedient old wife on a moth-eaten Filipino pony, and a dog, ignoring everybody, jogged along the street and through ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert
... been surprised that M. de Cymier should have asked for the part of the husband, a local magistrate, stiff and self-important, whom everybody laughed at. Jacqueline alone knew why he had chosen it: it would give him the opportunity of giving her two kisses. Of course those kisses were to be reserved for the representation, but whether intentionally or otherwise, the ...
— Jacqueline, v2 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... examination of his patient, remarking that it was a lovely case of stopupagus oesophagi, took a tool and set to work, producing with no difficulty a cold sausage of the size, figure, and general bearing of a somewhat self-important banana. The operation had been performed amid breathless silence, but the moment it was concluded the patient, whose neck and head had visibly collapsed, sprang to his ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... up to a stranger that way in the bad lands! One of these days he's a-goin' to run up again' an abrupt foreshortin' of his reckless young career." The rider was close now and the Texan recognized a self-important young jackass who had found work with one of the ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... excitement, and some liked it for its cause; there were those who were for pushing on, and those who were for holding back; there were men of combat, and men of peace; there were those whom it made conceited and self-important, and those whom it drove into seriousness, anxiety, and retirement. But, whatever faults it had, a pure and high spirit ruled in it; there were no disloyal members, and there were none who sought their own in it, or ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... sobering of the ruddy countenance and self-important manner. For a few seconds, from his mind and Elizabeth's there vanished all consciousness of the English woodland scene, and they were looking over a flayed and ravaged country where millions of men stood ranged ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... yellow, seemed at first sight extinct; but a spark of courage and of anger lurked there, and at the slightest touch it could burst into flames and cast fire about him. The doctor was a stout burgher, with a florid face, dressed in black, peremptory, greedy of gain, and self-important. These two personages were framed, as it were, in that panelled chamber, hung with high-warped tapestries of Flanders, the ceiling of which, made of carved beams, was blackened by smoke. The furniture, the bed, all inlaid with ...
— Maitre Cornelius • Honore de Balzac
... a year ago I read an anecdote in Dana's Two Years Before the Mast. A frivolous little self-important captain of a coasting-sloop in the dried-apple and kitchen-furniture trade was always hailing every vessel that came in sight, just to hear himself talk and air his small grandeurs. One day a majestic Indiaman came ploughing by, with course ...
— Mark Twain • Archibald Henderson
... 'tis the devil and all. It besets a man in every one of his senses. I lose my appetite at the sight of successful knavery, and sicken to loathing at the noise and nonsense of self-important folly. When the hollow-hearted wretch takes me by the hand, the feeling spoils my dinner: the proud man's wine so offends my palate that it chokes me in the gullet; and the pulvilised, feathered, pert coxcomb is so disgustful in my nostril that my ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... with a self-important air, "are you all ready? This is the driest thing I know. Silence all round, if ...
— Alice's Adventures Under Ground • Lewis Carroll
... partly aside, inquired "on which side he voted?" Rip stared in vacant stupidity. Another short but busy little fellow pulled him by the arm, and, rising on tiptoe, inquired in his ear "whether he was Federal or Democrat?" Rip was equally at a loss to comprehend the question; when a knowing, self-important old gentleman, in a sharp cocked hat, made his way through the crowd, putting them to right and left with his elbows as he passed, and planting himself before Van Winkle, with arms akimbo, the other resting on his cane, his keen eyes and sharp hat penetrating, as ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... about 1748; a perfumer on rue Saint-Honore, between Saint-Roche and rue des Frondeurs, Paris, towards the close of the eighteenth century; small man, hardly five feet tall, with a face like a nut-cracker, self-important and known for his gallantry. He was succeeded in his business, the "Reine des Roses," by his chief clerk, Cesar Birotteau, after the eighteenth Brumaire. As a former perfumer to Her Majesty Queen Marie-Antoinette, ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... surprised that M. de Cymier should have asked for the part of the husband, a local magistrate, stiff and self-important, whom everybody laughed at. Jacqueline alone knew why he had chosen it: it would give him the opportunity of giving her two kisses. Of course those kisses were to be reserved for the representation, but whether intentionally or otherwise, the young husband ventured upon ...
— Jacqueline, Complete • (Mme. Blanc) Th. Bentzon
... was passing over their heads and out of their control. Paynter felt as if his head had been blown off like a hat. But none of this gale of unreason seemed to stir a hair on the white head of the Squire, whose bearing, though self-important and bordering on a swagger, seemed if anything more comfortable than in the old days. His red face was, however, burnt like a sailor's, and his light clothes ...
— The Trees of Pride • G.K. Chesterton
... much he would have lost!" said Cousin Clare. "This testing-time of character has been Everard's salvation. He is very different now from the thoughtless, self-important boy who looked at everything from his own point of view. He has learnt some of life's stern lessons, and will make a far better owner of the Chase than would have been possible without passing through these experiences. ...
— The Princess of the School • Angela Brazil
... what to say. She thought it would be wrong to "own" Gustus. Slave days were a thing of the past. However, his devotion made her feel self-important. ...
— A Little Florida Lady • Dorothy C. Paine
... ashore there to announce her arrival, the Turks were greatly astonished, for they had never heard of a nation called the United States, and did not know that there was a great continent on the other side of the world. It makes us feel less self-important, sometimes, when we stop to consider that about one half the human race, even at the present day, have no idea of ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson
... style of architecture is unparalleled. There is an individuality about the buildings. In some obscure way they remind one of human faces. There are houses sly-looking, houses wicked-looking, houses pompous-looking. Heaven bless us! what a rakish pump! what a self-important town-hall! what a hard-hearted prison! The dead walls are covered with advertisements of Mr. Sleary's circus. Newman Noggs comes shambling along. Mr. and the Misses Pecksniff come sailing down the sunny side of the street. Miss Mercy's parasol is gay; papa's neck-cloth is white, and terribly ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... that the people are not to be elevated by escaping labor, or by pressing into a different rank. Once more, I do not mean by the elevation of the people, that they should become self-important politicians; that, as individuals or a class, they should seize on political power; that by uniting their votes they should triumph over the more prosperous; or that they should succeed in bending the administration ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... custom prevailed in several New England churches. Through it the deacons were assigned a strange and serious duty which appeared to make them all-important and possibly self-important, and which must have weighed heavily upon them, were they truly godly, and conscientious in the performance of it. In the rocky little town of Pelham in the heart of Massachusetts, toward the close of the eighteenth century and during the pastorate of the notorious thief, counterfeiter, and forger, ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... was exceedingly interesting in his affection for her. Troubled as he was, he never exposed his difficulties to her. He carried himself with the same self-important air, took his new state with easy familiarity, and rejoiced in Carrie's proclivities and successes. Each evening he arrived promptly to dinner, and found the little dining-room a most inviting spectacle. ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... complete that they soon forgot him, because he forgot himself in his case; nothing personally demonstrative or antagonistic induced obstinacy or opposition, and every door was soon wide open to sympathy and conviction. If an advocate is conceited, or vain, or self-important, or if he thinks of producing effects as well for himself as for his client, or if his nature is hard and unadaptive,—great abilities display these qualities, instead of hiding them, and they make a refracting medium between a case and the minds of a ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... trades-unions of the world file past, one with the odd word 'Russia' on its banner; another boasting itself 'Germany'—this with a particularly bumptious and self-important young man walking backward in front of it, in the manner of a Salvation Army captain, and imperiously waving an iron wand; still another 'nation' calling itself 'France'; and yet another boasting the biggest brass ...
— Prose Fancies (Second Series) • Richard Le Gallienne
... our adoption of it, under the present circumstances of the union, is in my opinion desirable." And of the opponents of the proposed Constitution he said, "The major part of them will, it is to be feared, be governed by sinister and self-important motives." ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... crossed to the bar, and reading the question in the Texan's eyes, shook her head: "He won't do it," she said, "he's just as mean, and stubborn, and self-important and as rude as he can be. He says he's going to arrest you, and he's going to hold you for a few days in jail to see if there isn't a reward offered for you somewhere. He thinks, or pretends to think, that ...
— Prairie Flowers • James B. Hendryx
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