Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Boasting   Listen
noun
Boasting  n.  The act of glorying or vaunting; vainglorious speaking; ostentatious display. "When boasting ends, then dignity begins."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Boasting" Quotes from Famous Books



... of the family depends on an extension of a conscience for character through all our thinking on the family. We are really half-ashamed to talk of character. We blush for ideals but we have no shame in boasting of commerce and factories; we are ashamed of the things of beauty and we love only the useful. So we have become ashamed of the ideals of the home. Not only do we passively acquiesce in the popular attitude of indifference or derision, ...
— Religious Education in the Family • Henry F. Cope

... her good-night under the porch. She forgot her cue for a moment, and became natural. "I feel so very, very tired," she said. I remember how drearily she said it, and how the tears glittered in her weary eyes. I remember, too, how, ten minutes later, I heard that amiable youth boasting of what had happened, and giving a hideous travestie of her attempts to captivate him, till at last my wrath was kindled, and, to his great confusion (for he was of a timid disposition), I spoke, and sharply, ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence

... strew,— My daily bread? and dare I to implore Thy pillar and thy cloud to guide me, Lord? Yes, he may hope for all who trusts thy word. O then thy miracles in me renew; Thine be the glory, and my boasting o'er." ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie

... nought for the good of humanity as bound up in the well being of this land. I have called these men few, for it cannot be that the great and time-honored organization of which I hope these men are but the calumniators, boasting the grand old names of Jefferson and Jackson as founders, and enrolling in its ranks so many thousands of the substantial yeomanry and solid men of the country, will really prove false to its name and trust, and be willing to descend into history in the robe of horror and infamy which, like the ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... yesterday into an expressive and enduring parable to-day! He approaches a luxuriant Fig-tree, boasting great things among its fellows, and thus through it He addresses a doomed city and devoted land,—"O House of Israel," He seems to say, "I have come up for the last time to your highest and most ancient festival. You ...
— Memories of Bethany • John Ross Macduff

... observed Hans, "the Gospel, of these Wittemburg doctors is a wonderful thing. It has changed a fierce, boasting, hard, grasping Baron into a mild and liberal man. It has procured us our liberty, who were doomed, I feared, to a long captivity. I must ask leave to remain with you at Wittemburg that I may learn more ...
— Count Ulrich of Lindburg - A Tale of the Reformation in Germany • W.H.G. Kingston

... was a very politic one. He already knew that Mr. Hardy was willing to grant terms, but he wished to show the other chiefs that he supported the honor of the tribe by boasting of their power and resources, and by making the peace as upon ...
— On the Pampas • G. A. Henty

... with his hand to his head; "some such thought was in my mind this afternoon when I heard of your riding. Stay! I have it! I was at Ampthill, Ossory's place, just before I left. Some insupportable coxcomb was boasting a marvellous run with the hounds nigh across Hertfordshire, and Miss Manners brought him up with a round turn and a half hitch by relating one of your exploits, Richard Carvel. And take my word on't she got no small applause. She told how you had followed ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... say a word, not only about the opportunities offered to us individually, but about those offered to England for this great enterprise. The prophet of old represented the proud Assyrian conqueror as boasting, 'My hand hath gathered as a nest the riches of the peoples . . . and there was none that moved the wing, or opened the mouth, or peeped.' It might be the motto of England to-day. It is not for nothing that we and our brethren across ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... are no news here to interest much. A German spy (boasting himself such) was stabbed last week, but not mortally. The moment I heard that he went about bullying and boasting, it was easy for me, or any one else, to foretell what would occur to him, which I did, and it came to pass in two days after. He has got off, however, ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron

... sweets the blossoms yield, And a low murmur runs along the field. Millions of suppliant crowds the shrine attend, And all degrees before the Goddess bend; The poor, the rich, the valiant, and the sage, And boasting youth, and narrative old age. Their pleas were diff'rent, their request the same: For good and bad alike are fond of Fame. Some she disgraced, and some with honours crowned; Unlike successes equal merits found. Thus her blind sister, fickle Fortune, reigns, ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous

... commiseration. "I don't believe that was because he wasn't suffering, though. I'm sure it was only because he felt his business was so important. Mary told me he seemed wrapped up in his son's succeeding; and that was what he bragged about most. He isn't vulgar in his boasting, I understand; he doesn't talk a great deal about his—his actual money—though there was something about blades of grass that I didn't comprehend. I think he meant something about his energy—but perhaps not. No, his bragging usually seemed to be not ...
— The Turmoil - A Novel • Booth Tarkington

... boasting of unanimity, or calling for it. But before this unanimity can be matter either of wish or congratulation, we ought to be pretty sure that we are engaged in a rational pursuit. Frenzy does not become a slighter ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... boasting, sinful America indulge in the flattering, delusive hope, that the heavy judgments which fell upon those ancient cities will be averted from her, whose guilt is equal, if not even greater than theirs? Does she think ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, May 1887 - Volume 1, Number 4 • Various

... safe in Egypt?" he rapped. "We are dealing, remember, with the Si-Fan, which, if I am not mistaken, is a sort of Eleusinian Mystery holding some kind of dominion over the eastern mind, and boasting initiates throughout the Orient. It is almost certain that there is an Egyptian branch, or group—call it what you will—of ...
— The Hand Of Fu-Manchu - Being a New Phase in the Activities of Fu-Manchu, the Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer

... falling inflection. "Then I must say I feel sorry for you. . . . Now, why have you that little amused twinkle in your eyes? I used to see it sometimes at the table on the Tampico when Reggie was boasting, and—and sometimes when I was trying to be very brilliant. Do you know, sometimes I felt like boxing your ...
— Dan Merrithew • Lawrence Perry

... excuse," said Dick. "I speak not now in any boasting humour, but rather as one inquiring after help or counsel; for if I get not forth of this house through these sentinels, I can do less than naught. Take me, I pray ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... dames are pleasant enough," Pao-y smiled, "and they know how to speak decently; but it's they who get quite worn out every day, and they contrariwise say that you've got ample to do daily. Now, doesn't this amount to bragging and boasting?" ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... Eastern servants before acknowledged superiors; his salutation was expressive of most abject homage; yet when he raised himself, and met the glance of the Princess, his eyes lingered, and brightened, and directly he cast off or forgot his humility, and looked lordlier than an Emir boasting of his thousand tents, with ten spears to each, and a score of camels to the spear. She endured the gaze awhile; for it seemed she had seen the face before—where, she could not tell; and when, as presently happened, she began to feel the brightness of the eyes intenser growing, the sensation reminded ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace

... Mr. Lovelace's boasting behaviour to his servants: perhaps he may be so mean. But as to my brother, he always took a pride in making himself appear to be a man of parts and learning to our own servants. Pride and meanness, I have ...
— Clarissa, Volume 2 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson

... and rebound brought about by such strain. Moreover, exaggeration has always to outdo itself progressively. There should have been a Durdles to tell this Swinburne that the habit of exaggerating, like that of boasting, ...
— Hearts of Controversy • Alice Meynell

... you will pull through," she continued, "only we must take great care of you. Be easy, you have a good friend beside you, and without boasting, a woman as will nurse you like a mother nurses her first child. I nursed Cibot round once when Dr. Poulain had given him over; he had the shroud up to his eyes, as the saying is, and they gave him up for dead. Well, well, you have not come to that yet, God be thanked, ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac

... wretches had their vanity, and would contend for superior merit, of which the argument was the money their keepers had gained in exhibiting them. To put an end to this contention, the ladies made them understand that what they thought a subject for boasting, was only a proof of their being so much farther from the usual standard of the human form, and therefore a more extraordinary spectacle. But it was long before one of them could be persuaded to lay aside her pretensions to superiority, which she claimed on account of an extraordinary ...
— A Description of Millenium Hall • Sarah Scott

... indeed, so far from appearing to my eye in the light of a Miles Gloriosus, that, in the best of my taste and judgment, he does not discover, except in consequence of the robbery, the least trait of such a character. All his boasting speeches are humour, mere humour, and carefully spoken to persons who cannot misapprehend them, who cannot be imposed on: They contain indeed, for the most part, an unreasonable and imprudent ridicule of himself, the usual subject of his good humoured merriment; but in the company of ignorant ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith

... the Cardinal was to be exiled to York, he had ventured on a sorry jest about old friends and old wine being better than new; but the King, who had once been open to plain speaking, was now incensed, threatened and swore at him! Moreover, one of the other fools had told him, in the way of boasting, that he had heard Master Cromwell, formerly the Cardinal's secretary, informing the King that this rogue was no true "natural" at all, but was blessed (or cursed) with as good an understanding as other folks, as was well known in the Cardinal's ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... terrible, that any one coming from amongst them was likely to experience a very disagreeable reception. Indeed it may be suspected, that the sultan must have been a good deal embarrassed by the simplicity with which his guest listened to his pompous boasting as to the extent of his empire, and by the earnestness with which he entreated him to name one of his seaports, where the English might land, when it was certain that he had not a town which was not some hundred miles distant from the coast. ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish

... me to understand the power of nature, that I may be willing to obey her laws. I pray that I may so live that my life will proclaim itself without need of boasting or deception. Forbid that I should spend my life in perfecting trifles, and have no leisure to enjoy ...
— Leaves of Life - For Daily Inspiration • Margaret Bird Steinmetz

... indeed! Well, it seems that it was you who wanted the help, after all. What do you mean to pay the Heer Allan Quatermain for saving your life, for I am sure he has done so? You have got no goods left, although you were always boasting about your riches; they are now at the bottom of a river, so it will have to be in love ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard

... have been whirling away in cabs to the city." Helen had a smile of triumph as she told the story. If the seniors had been robbed of their opportunity to outwit the juniors, they at least would not miss the chance of boasting of it. ...
— Hester's Counterpart - A Story of Boarding School Life • Jean K. Baird

... impaired: but I think I may reasonably despise the understanding of one who conducts himself in such a manner as naturally produces such lamentable consequences, and continues in the same destructive paths to the end of a long life, ostentatiously boasting of morals and philosophy in print, and with equal ostentation bragging of the scenes of low debauchery in public conversation, though deplorably weak both in mind and body, and his virtue and his vigour in a state of non-existence. His confederacy with Swift ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville

... threescore years and ten, but at three score years and twenty Nature has shown most of those who live to that age that she is earnest, and means to dismantle and have done with them in a very little while. As for boasting of our past, the laudator temporis acti makes but a poor figure in our time. Old people used to talk of their youth as if there were giants in those days. We knew some tall men when we were young, but we can see a man taller than any one among them at the nearest dime museum. ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... sent forth a wanderer and an exile, now poor and unimportant, to eat the bread of strangers and climb other people's stairs; and so obnoxious was he to the dominant party in his native city for his bitter spirit, that he was destined never to return to his home and friends. His ancestors, boasting of Roman descent, belonged to the patriotic party,—the Guelphs, who had the ascendency in his early years,—that party which defended the claims of the Popes against the Emperors of Germany. But this party had its divisions and rival families,—those that sided with the old feudal nobles who had ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord

... features. These, diverting themselves, as children do, chanced to look into a mirror, as it lay upon their mother's chair.[23] He praises his own good looks; she is vexed, and cannot endure the raillery of her boasting brother, construing everything (and how could she do otherwise?) as a reproach {against herself}. Accordingly, off she runs to her Father, to be avenged {on him} in her turn, and with great rancour, makes a charge against the Son, how that he, though a male, ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus

... that we loved God, but that he loved us, and gave his Son a ransom for sinners.' There seemed such a contrast between my conduct to God, and His to me; and then it has made me, I hope, a little more, (a very little, you know,) I am not boasting, Emilie, am I? it has made me a little more willing to look over things which used to vex me so. What are Fred's worst doings to me, compared with my best ...
— Emilie the Peacemaker • Mrs. Thomas Geldart

... acknowledged his talents, actually shuddered when he mentioned his name. Burr declared, in so many words, that he meant to kill Hamilton, because he had threatened to do so long before. He told Mr. Bentham, while boasting of his great success with our finest women, that Mrs. Madison herself was his mistress before marriage; and seriously proposed—in accordance with what may be found in his Life by Matthew L. Davis, about educating daughters ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various

... don't believe I have mastered the idea well enough to do any really sincere bragging as yet. However, if you ever beat us at anything except brag, then I'm going to try to copy your form in the boasting line." ...
— The High School Boys' Canoe Club • H. Irving Hancock

... selection which we hear at this time, is one which I have re-named 'The Carol of the Ferns.' Pardon me, Mr. Flagg, if in my enthusiasm over the beauties of what you have so poetically termed my 'magical temple of ferns,' some of my statements should sound like boasting; I assure you they are not so intended. I trust that now I have cleared up the mystery to your ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson

... August, 1853.—The more intimately I become acquainted with barbarians, the more disgusting does heathenism become. It is inconceivably vile. They are always boasting of their fierceness, yet dare not visit another tribe for fear of being killed. They never visit anywhere but for the purpose of plunder and oppression. They never go anywhere but with a club or spear in hand. It is lamentable to see those who might be children of God, ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie

... the race of your life for it," said Peter, entering into the same light spirited boasting. "I hear Mair and Todd and Semple are also entered, but with a decent handicap I won't mind these, even with ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh

... boasting that he knew many and various tricks. Another among the bystanders said: "I know how to play a trick which will make whomsoever I like pull off his breeches." The first man— the boaster—said: "You won't make ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci

... replied the inn-keeper, "but what do we know about the American money and its value? I've been told many stories of American girls boasting they have money enough to buy their husband, but heaven knows. It's a country too far away and a language too complicated for us to understand. We like to have our stuff on the table before ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy

... Without boasting, for much more might have been done, the Boston Association has no cause to be ashamed of its history. Beginning with all ready to criticize, and many disapproving, the Association has worked itself into the confidence of ...
— The Bay State Monthly - Volume 1, Issue 4 - April, 1884 • Various

... preditum; But for my soul I cannot credit 'em. And must in spite of them maintain, That man and all his ways are vain: And that this boasted lord of nature Is both a weak and erring creature. That instinct is a surer guide Than reason, boasting mortals' pride; And that brute beasts are far before 'em, Deus est anima brutorum. Who ever knew an honest brute At law his neighbour prosecute. Bring action for assault and battery, Or friend beguile ...
— English Satires • Various

... edification as well as a calendar full of saints' days, if they were observed in a better spirit. But, Thanksgiving is devoted to good dinners; Christmas and New-Years' days to making presents and compliments; Fast-day to playing at cricket and other games, and the Fourth of July to boasting of the past, rather than to plans how to deserve its benefits and ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... Against these boasting, false apostles, Paul boldly defends his apostolic authority and ministry. Humble man that he was, he will not now take a back seat. He reminds them of the time when he opposed Peter to his face and reproved ...
— Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians • Martin Luther

... In spite of his boasting, the tea was the worst I ever tasted. I should have thrown it out of the window, if they had offered us such nasty stuff at Trimley Deen. When I set down my cup, he asked facetiously if I wished him to brew any more. My negative answer was a masterpiece ...
— The Guilty River • Wilkie Collins

... been studying Manchu for seven weeks when, feeling that his glowing report of the progress he was making might be regarded as "a piece of exaggeration and vain boasting," he enclosed a specimen translation from Manchu into English. This he accompanied with an assurance that, if required, he could at that moment edit any book printed in the Manchu dialect. About this period Mr Jowett and his colleagues passed from one sensation to another. The calm confidence ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins

... she'd say to him with a sneer, 'it ill becomes you to drink and sing, and be making a man of yourself. If you were like O'Shaughnessy there, six foot three in his stockings—'Well, well, it looks like boasting; but no matter. Here's ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever

... the weekly local column was exceedingly reserved, as if some prescience of the future had rendered every man and woman cautious of performing a single act worthy of interest. Nothing was said of the last meeting of the Ladies' Civic League and Cemetery Association. There was no flamboyant boasting concerning the ...
— The Co-Citizens • Corra Harris

... person in the court of the Palazzo, before I came away, that it would be to the everlasting discredit of Fra Girolamo if he allowed a government which is almost entirely made up of his party, to deny the Appeal, without entering his protest, when he has been boasting in his books and sermons that it was he who got the law passed. [Note 1.] But between ourselves, with all respect for your Frate's ability, my Romola, he has got into the practice of preaching that ...
— Romola • George Eliot

... the physical union, before the astonishing glass shade had fallen that interposes between married couples and the world. She was to keep her independence more than do most women as yet. Marriage was to alter her fortunes rather than her character, and she was not far wrong in boasting that she understood her future husband. Yet he did alter her character—a little. There was an unforeseen surprise, a cessation of the winds and odours of life, a social pressure that would have her ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster

... its religion, Arabian in its morals, a cesspool of wickedness, it is a fit capital to the Dark Continent." And it is the great emporium—not an obscure settlement, but the consummate flower of East African civilization and boasting in the late Sultan Bargash, an unusually enlightened Moslem ruler. Of the interior and the ivory-slave trade pursued under the auspices of Arab dominion the same author says: "Arab encampments for carrying on a wholesale trade in this terrible commodity are now established all over the heart ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood

... talking together one day, and boasting of their fathers' crops. Ananzi said his father had never had such a crop in his life before; and Mosquito said, he was sure his father's was bigger, for one yam they dug was as big as his leg. This tickled Jack-Spaniard so much, that he laughed till he broke his waist in two. ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent

... the dot the great railroad warehouses near the city wharf had burst into flames. Herman had watched without comment, while Rudolph talked incessantly, boasting of his ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... in England. If my uncle had wanted a few thousands or tens of thousands to play ducks and drakes with, he'd only to ring me up on the telephone, and he'd have had whatever he asked for in a few hours. That's not boasting, Mr. Chestermarke—that's just plain truth. My uncle a thief! Mr. Chestermarke!—there's only one word for your suggestion. Don't think me rude if I tell you what ...
— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher

... condition in life, as if they had been Emperor and Empress of the Indies. It was, in the Scots phrase, a good hearing, and put me in good humour with the world. If people knew what an inspiriting thing it is to hear a man boasting, so long as he boasts of what he really has, I believe they would do it more freely ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... up the hill and rang the bell at the Tour de l'Horloge, which is the only part of the buildings still boasting a roof, and here the concierge and his family tuck themselves away somewhere within its high, narrow walls. The bell that we rang is on the outer side of the tower, and in the course of time a girl, about as big as the old key she carried, unlocked a door in the archway through which we entered. ...
— In Chteau Land • Anne Hollingsworth Wharton

... he drove on, related the story of Jack's miserable boasting and poltroonery. Much as she pitied the wretch, Mrs. Manly could not help remembering his treachery towards her son, and feeling that Frank was now ...
— The Drummer Boy • John Trowbridge

... attend the five-cent theaters in groups, with something of the "gang" instinct, boasting of the films and stunts in "our theater." They find a certain advantage in attending one theater regularly, for the habitues are often invited to come upon the stage on "amateur nights," which occur at least once a week in all the theaters. This ...
— The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets • Jane Addams

... at which travellers from Barcelona re-enter French territory, we follow the coast, traversing a region long lost to fame and the world, but boasting of a brilliant history before the real history of ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards

... some conquests to-night, that cream-white satin with her diamonds and these old fashioned gold bands, suit her to perfection. She enjoys wielding the sceptre and she does it with such seeming unconsciousness, and absence of vanity that is very charming, never boasting of her conquests even to me." But where can she be all this time, I wonder, and with whom? so breaking in upon Lionel's reverie, she repeated her question of, "Where and with whom is Vaura? she has ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny

... village dances, he had heard young fellows boasting about girls whom they had seduced, and praising such and such a young fellow, and often, also, after a dance, he saw the couples go away together, with their arms round each other's waists. They had no suspicions of him, and he listened and watched, until, at last, he ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant

... the truth. Mercier said nothing of the amount of wine he had drunk, nothing of his boasting. He described the men at the Lion d'Or as truculent, easily ready to ...
— The Light That Lures • Percy Brebner

... in Canada, than those who have commanded large bodies of the militia. Put the query to any officer in the army who has had such a charge, and the universal answer will be: "The militia of Canada are loyal to Britain, without vapouring or boasting of that loyalty; for they are not by natural constitution a very speaking race, or given at every moment to magnify; but they will fight, should need be, for Victoria, her crown, ...
— Canada and the Canadians, Vol. 2 • Richard Henry Bonnycastle

... for his life from a charge of complicity in a Nihilist conspiracy: he wisely came to the conclusion, therefore, that he would not be the first to divulge the story of his own ignominious defeat, unless he found that damned radical chap was going boasting around the countryside how he had balked Sir Lionel. And as nothing was further than boasting from Bertram Ingledew's gentle nature, and as Philip and Frida both held their peace for good reasons of their own, the baronet ...
— The British Barbarians • Grant Allen

... don't scare worth a cent," declared Bandy-legs, given to boasting a little more than any of ...
— In Camp on the Big Sunflower • Lawrence J. Leslie

... spirit in a dying breast, Then be it so: Heauens keepe old Bedford safe. And now no more adoe, braue Burgonie, But gather we our Forces out of hand, And set vpon our boasting ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... evening, in the event of their accepting the box in question. The ladies received the offer with too much pleasure to dream of a refusal. To no class of persons is the presentation of a gratuitous opera-box more acceptable than to the wealthy millionaire, who still hugs economy while boasting of carrying a king's ransom in his ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... kindly made free, and told them they must follow them (the officers). Margret was boasting the other day of her answer, "I don't want to be any free-er than I is now—I'll stay with my mistress," when Tiche shrewdly remarked, "Pshaw! Don't you know that if I had gone, you'd have followed me?" The conduct ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson

... he could plead his own merits; but we are taught that we can only plead the mercy of God. The apostle says that salvation is "not of works, lest any man should boast." Eph. 2:9. If it were by works man would have some cause for boasting; but because it is wholly by grace, he has nothing of self in which to boast. Again he says, "Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost." ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr

... under many disadvantages on the side of the allied army, was almost as unsuccessful as their enemies could have desired. The battle of Fontenoy was obstinate and bloody, and many thousands were left on the field on the side of the vanquished. The victorious army had little reason for boasting, having likewise bought their victory very dear. Though bad success attended the British arms on the continent at this time, yet that evil being considered as remote, the people seemed only to feel it as affecting the honour of the nation, which by some ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 2 • Alexander Hewatt

... half a century earlier, dripping with the blood of a thousand martyrs, seemed hardly a more loathsome object to all Netherlanders than the Advocate now appeared to his political enemies, thus daring to preach religious toleration, and boasting of, humble ignorance as the safest creed. Alas! we must always have something to persecute, and individual man is never so convinced of his own wisdom as when dealing ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... love, 'twill chafe my ghost in Hades' realm, where heroes shine, Should I hear the shepherd boasting To his Argive concubine? Let him boast, the girlish victor, Let him brag; not thus, I trow, Were the laurels torn from Hector, Not ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon

... one small check in my career," he continued eagerly, "but the game is not finished. Believe me, I have still great cards up my sleeve. I know that you have been used to wealth and luxury. Miss Abbeway," he went on, his voice dropping to a hoarse whisper, "I was not boasting the other night. I have saved money, I ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... think I was boasting of what I could do in the way of getting food for us—and all that. You see, I have been in the South Seas ever since I was a kid—and by nature I'm half a Kanaka. I've lived among natives ...
— Yorke The Adventurer - 1901 • Louis Becke

... the good old lord Lafeu, make very interesting parts of the picture. The wilful stubbornness and youthful petulance of Bertram are also very admirably described. The comic part of the play turns on the folly, boasting, and cowardice of Parolles, a parasite and hanger-on of Bertram's, the detection of whose false pretensions to bravery and honour forms a very amusing episode. He is first found out by the old lord Lafeu, who says, 'The soul of this man is in his clothes'; and it ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt

... "Without boasting," she answered with a wide smile, "there are few enterprises, however difficult, in which I do not succeed. What is it ...
— Eastern Shame Girl • Charles Georges Souli

... Desarmoises came and told me that all the company, not seeing me at supper, had been puzzling itself to find out what had become of me. Madame Zeroli had spoken enthusiastically about me, and had taken the jests of the two other ladies in good part, boasting that she could keep me at Aix as long as she remained there herself. The fact was that I was not amorous but curious where she was concerned, and I should have been sorry to have left the place without obtaining complete possession ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... the prince's confident air with displeasure. Concealing his feelings, however, he chirped, "Well, Prince, have your wits proven as bright as of yore? Or do you but come to return the shields and to ask forgiveness for your rash boasting?" ...
— Bright-Wits, Prince of Mogadore • Burren Laughlin and L. L. Flood

... too—and delighted," he had returned. "The little boy came to me in the field, boasting of his braces." Then they had both laughed, and she had asked him to come in ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead

... come a great convulsion Or a rushing tidal wave, Or a sound of mighty thunders From a subterranean cave, And a boasting world's possessions Shall be buried in ...
— Poems of Progress • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... what I am fit for. I am more than all perplexed by this fact: that the prime inclination — that is, natural bent (which I have checked, though) of my nature is to music, and for that I have the greatest talent; indeed, not boasting, for God gave it me, I have an extraordinary musical talent, and feel it within me plainly that I could rise as high as any composer. But I cannot bring myself to believe that I was intended for a musician, because it seems so small a business in comparison with other things which, it ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims

... years old Torrigiano came to Florence to engage artists to go to England to aid him in some works he was to execute. He wished to have Cellini in the number; but Torrigiano so disgusted Benvenuto by his boasting of the blow that he had given Michael Angelo, that though he had the natural youthful desire to travel, he refused to be employed by such a man as Torrigiano. We can safely assume that this predisposed Michael ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students - Painting, Sculpture, Architecture • Clara Erskine Clement

... his qualifications with tact, if not with modesty, and rated very highly his ability to serve me as a listener; but he did so in a manner intended to convince me that he was not boasting, but stating facts which it was necessary I should know. His experience had been varied: he had acted as a tutor, a traveling companion, a confidential clerk, a collector of information for technical writers, and ...
— The House of Martha • Frank R. Stockton

... were familiar had their bearing upon the outcome. In New York State, where occurred the worst tug of war, Governor Hill and his friends, while boasting their democracy, were widely believed to connive at the trading of Democratic votes for Harrison in return for Republican votes for Hill. At any rate, New York State was carried ...
— History of the United States, Volume 5 • E. Benjamin Andrews

... and unity may be preserved?' When, therefore, Erasmus sought to obtain unity of faith by mutual concession and compromise, Luther answered by declaring such unity to be impossible, for the simple reason that the Catholics, by their very boasting of the authority of the Church, absolutely refused on their part to make any concession at all. But so far as 'unity of charity' was concerned, he held that on that point the Evangelicals needed no admonishment, for they were ready to do and suffer all things, provided nothing was imposed upon ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin

... beef about, and seeing them sidle and back on their aimless, Cousin Feenix-like legs: it is a sight to bring a freckle-nosed cousin almost into hysterics. But one day a vivacious girl had committed the offence of boasting too much of her skill in crab-catching, besides being quite unnecessarily gracious to Mr. Jefferson Jones. Then Mr. Madison Addison, who must have been reading Plutarch, did a sly thing indeed. The boat having been drawn unnoted ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various

... it becomes thee, Britain, to avow JOHNSON's high claims!—yet boasting that his fires Were of unclouded lustre, TRUTH retires Blushing, and JUSTICE knits her solemn brow; The eyes of GRATITUDE withdraw the glow His moral strain inspir'd.—Their zeal requires That thou should'st better ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward

... drawing-room; kept a pack of harriers; and assumed the title of Squire Hobnell. When he died, and his son reigned in his stead, the family might be fairly considered to be established as county gentry. And Sam Huxter, at London, did no great wrong in boasting about his brother-in-law's place, his hounds, horses, and hospitality, to his admiring comrades at Bartholomew's. Every year, at a time commonly when Mrs. Hobnell could not leave the increasing duties of her nursery, Hobnell came up to London ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray

... favorite studies, those in which he most excelled, and which appeared almost intuitive to him, were those connected with figures. The old Squire, who idolised his handsome sullen boy, was never weary of boasting of his abilities, and his great knowledge in mathematics ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie

... king was boasting of his conjurer before some other kings, they said to him, "We too have some diviners. Let us compare their wits with the wisdom of your man." The kings then buried three pots,—one filled with milk, another with honey, and the third with pitch. The conjurers ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler

... "My boy's forever boasting of your Butterfly Man," said the judge, falling into step with me one morning on the street. "He tells me Flint's been made a member of several learned societies; and that he's gotten out a book of sorts, telling all there is to tell about some crawling plague or other. ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler

... at which tyrants pale, And their proud legions quail, Their boasting done; While Freedom lifts her head, No longer filled with dread, Her sons to victory ...
— Washington's Birthday • Various

... drily, "when a girl goes about boasting that her father is more powerful than the Czar or Kaiser! Suppose she had stopped there, any hearer would have concluded that he was an anarchist, and therefore to be watched. But she went further: she asserted that he can blow up forts and destroy armies! That he can wreck battleships! Why, M. ...
— The Destroyer - A Tale of International Intrigue • Burton Egbert Stevenson

... all cheerful, however, for as they applied themselves to the supper, the boy, with glowing face, would tell just how his company "A" was getting on, and what they were going to do to companies "B" and "C." It was not boasting so much as the expression of a confidence, founded upon the hard work he was doing, and Hannah and the "little sister" shared that ...
— The heart of happy hollow - A collection of stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar

... that gentleman was the main cause of that sentence, as those who had a hand in passing it did confess; for he had solemnly sworn, that if he lived there, that minister should not be in that place. Returning to his house a few days after, and boasting how he had kept his word, and got his minister cast out of his parish, he was suddenly struck by the Lord with a high fever, which plucked him away in the very strength of his years." Fulfilling of the scriptures, ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie

... next thing to be done was to find out some inn, or house of public entertainment, where we might pass the night, a measure which the increasing darkness rendered necessary. In this, however, we were disappointed, the town of Villa Franca boasting of no such convenience on any scale. But we were not on that account obliged to bivouac; for the Alcalde, or mayor of the place, politely insisted upon our accompanying him home, and entertained us with great hospitality; nor, in truth, had we any ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig

... science for replenishment, we must be filled. And the ironic power which presides over our feasts compels the most inveterate egoist amongst us to share his treasures. Mind is for ever craving to give to mind. If we want nothing better than to boast of our superiority, the boasting imparts a lesson to others and is therefore a gift. But the reforming spirit spares few who think. It is generally believed that the purely literary mind scorns the idea of reforming: that art is above moral purpose. I have yet to discover the purely literary mind. Homer and Shakespeare, ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby

... referred to; but that such could have been the meaning intended is very unlikely, considering the contempt of the ancient philosophers for vulgar opinion. In any other sense they are clear cases of Petitio Principii, since the word laudable, and the idea of boasting, imply principles of conduct; and practical maxims can only be proved from speculative truths, namely, from the properties of the subject-matter, and can not, therefore, be employed to prove those properties. As well might it be argued that a government is good because we ought to support ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill

... advertising department. The Pittsburg Gazette was the only daily paper on the Clipper's exchange list—this fact compels the admission that Pittsburg was a little ahead of Brownsville in the newspaper field, boasting two papers at the time, the Gazette and Post. Both papers carried display advertisements of Hostetter's Stomach Bitters and Dr. Jayne's Liver Pills for grown people and vermifuge for children. Those were the only patent medicines that advertised ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field

... dandy who flirts with nurses and cooks, spends his time boasting about South Africa and the U. S. A., posing for motion pictures, and exhibiting royalty. Authorities differ as to his marksmanship, although it is now conceded he can often hit a man-sized target at the distance of 4 feet 3 inches. Weather, however, must be clear. Is ...
— Who Was Who: 5000 B. C. to Date - Biographical Dictionary of the Famous and Those Who Wanted to Be • Anonymous

... to a sudden stand still; there was something so strange in hearing a laugh at that moment, especially as Chillingworth was, at that moment, boasting of his knowledge of the ground and the certainty ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest

... heaven's behalf than heaven would have 'em. That is my kind of man, that is true living, That is the pattern we should set ourselves. Your fellow was not fashioned on this model; You're quite sincere in boasting of his zeal; But you're deceived, ...
— Tartuffe • Jean-Baptiste Poquelin Moliere

... In spite of his great services, his popularity began to decline. He was hated by the Spartans for the part he took in the fortification of the city, who brought all their influence against him. He gave umbrage to the citizens by his personal vanity, continually boasting of his services. He erected a private chapel in honor of Artemis. He prostituted his great influence for arbitrary and corrupt purposes. He accepted bribes without scruple, to the detriment of the State, and ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord

... life, when old enough to work in the harvest field, we had a neighbor who was very "close," and we never had any fancy for him. He was always boasting of his ability to work with bees. One year he had a large harvest, and many hands employed, and we were helping him. One day we told him we had found a fine bee tree which could be cut down in a few minutes, ...
— Autobiography of Frank G. Allen, Minister of the Gospel - and Selections from his Writings • Frank G. Allen

... never doubted that the plans of the President were wise and sufficient. Their failure we all impute, 1. To the insubordinate temper of Armstrong: and, 2. To the indecision of Winder. However, it ends well. It mortifies ourselves, and so may check, perhaps, the silly boasting spirit of our newspapers, and it enlists the feelings of the world on our side: and the advantage of public opinion is like that of the weather-gage in a naval action. In Europe, the transient possession of our Capital ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... revolted. A cad from the Potterrow once struck him in the mouth; he struck back, the pair fought it out in the back stable lane towards the Meadows, and Archie returned with a considerable decline in the number of his front teeth, and unregenerately boasting of the losses of the foe. It was a sore day for Mrs. Weir; she wept and prayed over the infant backslider until my lord was due from Court, and she must resume that air of tremulous composure with which she always greeted him. The judge ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson

... of this degraded panderer to crime and folly. He is beneath notice, so far as he himself concerned; I devote the space to him, because it is well worth while to understand how base an imposture can draw a steady revenue from a nation boasting so much culture and intelligence as ours. It is also worth considering whether the authorities must not be remiss, who permit such odious deceptions to be ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum

... at table. But it was not long before he discovered his mistake. One day, after dining with the Abb, de Radonvillers at Versailles, in company with several courtiers and marshals of France, he was boasting of the rare acquaintance with etiquette and custom which he had exhibited at dinner. The Abb, Delille, who heard this eulogy upon his own conduct, interrupted his harangue, by offering to wager that he had committed at least a hundred improprieties at the table. ...
— The Laws of Etiquette • A Gentleman

... buy some of those plums, whose acid was of the hair-lifting aqua-fortis variety, and all the rest of the day he stewed them, adding sugar, trying to make them palatable, tasting them now and then, boasting meanwhile of their nectar-like deliciousness. He gave the others a taste by and by—a withering, corroding sup—and they derided him and rode him down. But Jim never weakened. He ate that fearful brew, and though for days his mouth was like fire he still referred to the luscious health-giving ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... been too much complimenting of that sort; and whenever a speaker, whether he is one of ourselves or not, wastes our time in boasting or flattery, I say, let us hiss him. If we have the beginning of wisdom, which is, to know a little truth about ourselves, we know that as a body we are neither very wise nor very virtuous. And to prove this, I will not point specially to our own habits and doings, but to the general state ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot

... nevertheless made a truce. The cause lay in the fear that, if Philip were out of the way, the Greeks might recover their ancient spirit and no longer pay them court, that the AEtolians, already filled with great boasting because they had contributed the largest share to the victory, might become more vexatious to them, and that Antiochus might, as was reported, come to Europe and form an alliance with Philip. (Ursinus, ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol VI. • Cassius Dio

... the market, the streets, Everywhere he was boasting his feats; Till one said, with a sneer, "Let us see it done here! What's so oft done with ...
— The Baby's Own Aesop • Aesop and Walter Crane

... special treatises by Dana, Gould, Pickering, Gray, Cassin, and Brackenbridge, we are obliged to refrain from dwelling on the work done in countries already known. The success of these publications beyond the Atlantic was, as might be expected in a country boasting of so ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne

... as I have reason to know. They love their lives just as much as we do, and they long to go back and spend their days amongst their loved ones. It is only rare that cowardice is seen, and it is rarer still for them to make any boast; the average Englishman is not given to boasting; he has his duty to do, and he just does it, saying very little ...
— Tommy • Joseph Hocking

... standstill in London on account of this wretched war, at which it appears to me the English are getting the worst, notwithstanding their boasting. They thought to settle it in an autumn's day; they little knew the Russians, and they did not reflect that just after autumn comes winter, which has ever been the ...
— Letters to his wife Mary Borrow • George Borrow

... Danforth was given to boasting a bit as to the part his ancestors had played as neighbors to Oliver Cromwell at the time, and the only time, when England was ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard

... was fond of boasting. Situated on the brink of the Great Briney, its other three sides were flanked by thick, swampy jungle, in which the isuan grew and was gathered by Tantril's Venusian workers. Ranch? More a fort than a ranch, with its electrified, steel-spiked fence; its three watch-towers, lookouts always ...
— The Bluff of the Hawk • Anthony Gilmore

... the papers may cause the starvation of my passion for politics, and that scab may drop off. God has shown me what the scabs are:—Evil-speaking, lying, slandering, back-biting, scoffing, self-conceit, boasting, silly talking, and some ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill

... true that Lord Mortimer has lately wed his only child, a daughter, to a knight who calls himself Sir Edward Chadwell, and makes claim to be descended from my lord's house. Men say that he makes great boasting that the Chadwells are an older branch than the Chadgroves, and that by right of ...
— The Secret Chamber at Chad • Evelyn Everett-Green

... boasting that he had passed an Act granting entire liberty of conscience to all sects, a persecution as cruel as that of Languedoc was raging through all the provinces which owned his authority. It was said by those who wished to find an excuse for him that ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... psychological mystery not to be solved by the cold empirical methods which could be employed in the solution of other problems. I must ask you to bear this in mind when judging Lady Auriol. She had once fancied herself in love with an Italian poet, an Antinous-like young man of impeccable manners, boasting an authentic pedigree which lost itself in the wolf that suckled Romulus and Remus. None of your vagabond ballad-mongers. A guest when she first met him of the Italian Ambassador. To him, Prince Charming, knight and troubadour, she surrendered. He told her ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke

... "Midnight murder, thou boasting fool; I love thee not well enough to cheat the hangman of his prey," replied a harsh and grating voice, which, even without the removal of the cloak, would have revealed to Nigel's astonished ears the Earl of Buchan. "Ha! I have startled thee—thou ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar

... talk about the imperial cities is mere boasting. I am famous, admired and loved here, it is true, but the people are worse than ...
— Mozart: The Man and the Artist, as Revealed in his own Words • Friedrich Kerst and Henry Edward Krehbiel

... reply to my inquiries is conclusive. Before giving it, however, I may mention that my fellow-tramp, Mr. Kitton, suggested, more particularly with reference to another illustration in Edwin Drood, viz., "Durdles cautions Mr. Sapsea against boasting," that, for the purposes of the story, the Prior's Gate is placed where the ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes

... know, sir, I'm sure, but I was took aback. An' in a small place like this it's certain to make talk. That old Miss Gallup, now, she'll be boasting everywhere that our Miss Mary went to dine with her nephew, just as she did when he went to a dinner party up at the house, and for us as belongs to the house—well, we don't relish it. I hope, sir," Willets went on in quite a different tone, "that you'll make it convenient ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker

... twenty were French, and the rest mission Indians.[77] They declared that they would lay waste all the settlements on the Connecticut,—meaning, it seems, to begin with Hatfield. "This army," says Williams, "went away in such a boasting, triumphant manner that I had great hopes God would discover and disappoint their designs." In fact, their plans came to nought, owing, according to French accounts, to the fright of the Indians; for a soldier having deserted within a day's march of the English settlements, most of them turned ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman

... Lady, and you are not the first to so object, but the others were men, and I may say, without boasting, that I bent not the knee to them when I reached their level, but I have been told that custom will enable a maid to look more forgivingly on such escapades if her feeling is friendly toward the invader, and I am ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr

... cheek had often felt the blush of shame, At his proud boasting; and her heart had sunk At the cold arrogance that scorn'd the poor; But she was fain to turn aside, and weep, To wring her hands in secret, and to raise The eye of silent anguish up to heaven; For though he dearly lov'd her, he would ne'er Submit to ...
— Poems • Matilda Betham

... meant to legitimate the child, and to give the mother a title. "All that," said Madame de Mirepoix, "is in the style of Louis XIV.—such dignified proceedings are very unlike those of our master." Mademoiselle Romans lost all her influence over the King by her indiscreet boasting. She was even treated with harshness and violence, which were in no degree instigated by Madame. Her house was searched, and her papers seized; but the most important, those which substantiated the fact of the King's paternity, had been withdrawn. At length she gave birth to a son, who was ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various

... chastier of the foe, To the freed kingdoms of my native land! Then shall our song with loftier cadence flow, Boasting the deeds of thy heroic hand! Scorn not, meanwhile, the feeble lines which thus Thy future glory and success foretell. Live, prince beloved! be brave, be prosperous; Conquer, howe'er opposed,—and fare ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold

... to know?—This must, no doubt, Content me, that we are as wine, and men By us have senses drunk against his toil Of knowing himself, for all his boasting mind, Caught by the quiet purpose of the world, Burnt up by it at last, like something fallen In molten iron streaming. But I know Not drunken may man's soul master his world; And I now make for woman a new mood, Wherein she will not bear to know herself A heady drug for man.—I ...
— Emblems Of Love • Lascelles Abercrombie

... sister Spring Crushes and tears the rare enjewelling, And boasting 'I have fairer thing's than these' Plashes amidst the billowy apple-trees His lusty hands, in gusts of scented wind Swirling out bloom till all the air is blind With rosy foam and pelting blossom and mists Of driving vermeil-rain; ...
— Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins - Now First Published • Gerard Manley Hopkins

... who resided for some time in England at the commencement of the eighteenth century, says, in his amusing letters on the English and French nations, that he continually met with Englishmen who were not less vain in boasting of the success of their highwaymen than of the bravery of their troops. Tales of their address, their cunning, or their generosity, were in the mouths of everybody, and a noted thief was a kind of hero in high ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay

... to some persons but folly, and to others but mere boasting, to point to this young man, as any fruit of, or recompense for, the costly and calamitous Arctic expeditions. But others may not think it all in vain, if thereby one soul has been saved, and an example left to a few young ...
— Kalli, the Esquimaux Christian - A Memoir • Thomas Boyles Murray

... "Without boasting, I wish to say that I knew I could touch this man's heart. I saw a play once in which the most blood-thirsty and brutal ruffian that ever existed was melted to tears at the mention of his mother's name, and childhood's ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 26, September 24, 1870 • Various

... their character, no doubt, originates in their mode of life; accustomed as a hunter to depend greatly on chance for his subsistence, the Cree takes little thought of to-morrow; and the most offensive part of his behaviour—the habit of boasting—has been probably assumed as a necessary part of his armour, which operates upon the fears of his enemies. They are countenanced, however, in this failing, by the practice of the ancient Greeks, and perhaps by that of every other ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the Years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 1 • John Franklin

... on the poor man's brain. He could have broken that pale man in halves with one hand; yet the pale man mastered him. He knew some of the burly seamen as old ruffians; yet here they were—talking gently, and boasting about their happiness and prosperity. When the last crashing chorus had been sung, the two swells went round and chatted ...
— The Chequers - Being the Natural History of a Public-House, Set Forth in - a Loafer's Diary • James Runciman

... have hitherto given, but we are not excluded from other apostolic labors as the wants of the Church may demand or develop. . . . We begin early this fall our campaign of missions, and we never had before us so fine a list. One thing I may say, and I trust without boasting, we are of one mind and heart, resolved to labor and die for Jesus Christ, for the good of His holy Church, for the advancement of the Catholic faith. We have the encouragement of a number of bishops, ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott

... "if I doubt this. Whatever stories you may have picked up concerning me, not unexaggerated probably—since the Greeks do not keep the privilege of boasting so entirely to themselves but the Varangians have learned a little of it—you can have heard nothing of me which can authorise your using your present ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott

... they went to their guns. Several of them, as they cast their eyes on me, vowed that they would shoot me through the head should the day go against them. Having no fancy to be so treated, I thought it prudent to go below, knowing very well that, in spite of their boasting, they would soon get the worst of it, and that you, at all events, would fight on until you had compelled them to strike their flag or sent them to the bottom. I felt the awful position in which I was placed. I might be ...
— From Powder Monkey to Admiral - A Story of Naval Adventure • W.H.G. Kingston

... these statements regarding the lunar inhabitants; and we may realize more than we have imagined or dreamed. We may obtain observations as satisfactory as those of a son of the Emerald Isle, who was one day boasting to a friend of his excellent telescope. "Do you see yonder church?" said he. "Although it is scarcely discernible with the naked eye, when I look at it through my telescope, it brings it so close that I can hear the organ playing." Two hundred years ago, a ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley

... adventure at the top of the Haymarket, where the former dismissed the coach he had hired in Cheapside, and they proceeded towards Piccadilly on foot. Up to this time the major had been in very high spirits, boasting what he would do, in case they encountered Disbrowe, and offering to keep guard outside the door while the knight remained in the house. But he now began to alter his tone, and to frame excuses to get away. He ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth

... tormented by their sisters, and enchanted by those they love; and which cause the coquetries of other women to appear insipid or coarse in their eyes; inducing them to exclaim, with an appearance of boasting, yet in which they are entirely justified by the truth: NIEMA IAK POLKI! "Nothing equals the Polish women!" [Footnote: The custom formerly in use of drinking, in her own shoe, the health of the woman they loved, is one of the ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt

... people are proud of being all head and no heart. There is no flummery about them. It is stern, severe sense and principle. Well, my friends, say I to such, you are (in a moral sense) deficient of a member. Fancy a mortal hopping through creation, and boasting that he was born with only one leg! Or even if you have a little of the kindly element, but very little when compared with the logical, you have not much to boast of. Your case is analogous to that of the man who has two legs indeed, but one of them ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd

... King's Speech, or a Parliamentary Speech, has been uttered, in which this glove has not been thrown, till the world has been insulted with their challenges. But it now appears that all this was vapour and vain boasting, or that it was intended to conceal abuses and defects, and hush the people into taxes. I have taken the challenge up, and in behalf of the public have shewn, in a fair, open, and candid manner, both the radical and practical defects of the ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine

... new teachers continually boasting of their spirit of toleration. That those persons should tolerate all opinions, who think none to be of estimation, is a matter of small merit. Equal neglect is not impartial kindness. The species of benevolence which arises from contempt ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... the road, boldly looking down at the blinded windows, thinking how common these houses were; in many parts of England he had seen them, grinning, sulking, boasting, counterfeiting, smirking at a world that ...
— Ambrotox and Limping Dick • Oliver Fleming

... in all his demeanor toward the king, instead of triumphing over him, and boasting of the victory which he had achieved, he did every thing in his power to soothe and assuage the fallen monarch's sorrow, and ...
— Richard II - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... Robinson, afterwards Viscount Goderich and earl of Ripon, chancellor of the exchequer in 1823. So called by Cobbett, from his boasting about the prosperity of the country just a little before the great commercial ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer

... was displayed in his reception, for the unfriendly nature of his errand was already known. Don Sabiniano Manrrique de Lara received the letter which he brought; it was full of arrogance, ostentatiously boasting of Cot-sen's power, and declaring that his champans were many thousands in number and his perfect soldiers hundreds of thousands; (it is a fact that those champans, counting large and small, amount to 15,000, as is known by eyewitnesses); and, in virtue of this pompous and noisy declaration, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXXVI, 1649-1666 • Various

... exceedingly fierce and awful and fraught with a loud din. Beholding, O king, those two mighty car-warriors close with each other, I became very curious to observe the course of the battle. Then Bhima, boasting of his prowess in battle, covered Karna in that encounter, O king, with showers of winged shafts in the very sight of thy sons. Then Karna, that warrior acquainted with the highest of weapons, filled with wrath, pierced Bhima with nine broad-headed and straight arrows made entirely of iron. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... far out on a spiral arm, well away from the main stream of traffic that flowed through the galaxy. It was a fair planet boasting an equable climate, at least in the tropic zone. But as yet the population was small, consisting mostly of administrative officials who served their alloted time and thankfully returned to their home planets closer to the center ...
— Faithfully Yours • Lou Tabakow

... only three of us at this time—my little self; Bobbie, a boy of four years old, boasting of the fattest, rosiest cheeks in the world; and wee Willie, the white-faced, fretful baby of six months. Oh, how well I remember the old house, with its great lamp hanging out over the lonely road, and shining among the trees, to show the villagers the way up to their ...
— My Young Days • Anonymous

... and said she, 'By the virtue of my magic gifts, let a pair of horns spring out of your head, and sing to the lodge.' Just as she wished, so it was. They sprung from the front of each ear, and met at the back. Oh, the poor wretch! And how he bawled and roared! and the servants that he used to be boasting to were soon flocking from the castle, and grinning and huzzaing, and beating tunes on tongs and shovels and pans; and he cursing and swearing, and the eyes ready to start out of his head, and he so black in the face, and kicking out his legs behind ...
— The Lilac Fairy Book • Andrew Lang

... serve out the tuak, a spirit prepared from rice and spiced with various ingredients, tobacco being one. The men must drink at these feasts; they are very temperate generally, but on this occasion they are rather proud of being drunk and boasting the next day of a bad headache! The women urge them to drink, but do not join in the orgies, and disappear when the intoxicating stage begins. I trust that this description belongs only to the past; at any rate, we know that in those places where the missionaries have long taught, their ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall

... may say it without boasting—I had Mlle. Goldberg senior in the hollow of my hand. On the boulevards, as soon as she caught sight of me, her dour face would be wreathed in smiles, a row of large yellow teeth would appear between her thin lips, and her cold, grey eyes would soften with a glance of welcome which more ...
— Castles in the Air • Baroness Emmuska Orczy



Words linked to "Boasting" :   line-shooting, brag, boast, braggadocio, rhodomontade, gasconade, self-assertion, jactitation, rodomontade, bluster, vaunt, self-praise, crowing, speech act



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com