"Brag" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... promise. It is a prosperity that shall bless Kansas into a Virginia or a North Carolina by virtue of the same means which has crowned the Slave-country with the wealth, the civilization, and the intelligence it has to brag of. It is such a prosperity as ever follows after the footsteps of Slavery,—a prosperity which is to blight the soil, degrade the minds, debauch the morals, impoverish the substance, and subvert the independence of a loathing ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... came, and the Fusiliers, whose colonel would have led them willingly enough, had their bayonets fixed, when some one hoisted the white flag, and by this act the remnants of two gallant regiments became prisoners of war. "Flags of truce!" said an "old brag" who recounted the story, with tears in his voice; "I wish they would leave the damned rags at home, or dye them all khaki colour, so that neither Dutchmen nor ...
— Four Months Besieged - The Story of Ladysmith • H. H. S. Pearse
... the stove, saying something about that fire not being much to brag of. She worked with it a minute, and when she ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... be impossible for his successors ever to take a backward course. Our nation is of a genius so vivacious,—we are unhappy, but not stupid, we Italians,—we can learn as much in two months as other nations in twenty years." This seemed to me no brag when I returned to Tuscany and saw the great development and diffusion of thought that had taken place during my brief absence. The Grand Duke, a well-intentioned, though dull man, had dared, to declare ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... plucky, pale-faced thing whom you called instinctively by her first name at the end of half an hour—a sort of little mother of loose-ended men, who can make silk purses out of sows' ears, and wouldn't know how to brag if she were tempted. ...
— Affair in Araby • Talbot Mundy
... of them," said another, "snurling up her neb at a man for lack of gear. Why didna he brag of some ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... was signed "Henry Thomas, James & Sons," the District Contract Agent's vague reply on the file before me commences: "Sir (or Madam);" and I feel now, as I did then, that it is not in the best of taste for him to brag as he does about his telephone and his "Private Branch Exchange" on the very paper on which he writes to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, February 25th, 1920 • Various
... mother has got any more like him?" mused Mr. Clodd. "Could do with a few about this neighbourhood. What is it you want to say about him, then? Merely to brag ...
— Tommy and Co. • Jerome K. Jerome
... the ball an' chain o' slavery on every citizen of this fair land. Bryant told 'em that sixteen to one would do the work, and what did they say? Huh, they said he was a fool and didn't know how to figure. I tell you if he was a fool, Solomon was a idiot. Who was the'r brag man up in Yankeedom?—why, Abe Lincoln—an' what did he ever do but set back in the White House and tell smutty jokes, while the rest o' the country was walkin' on its uppers, eatin' hardtack, sweatin' blood, an' ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... hope," he replied dryly. "I've been riding around this eternal grass for nigh a week. God knows where I haven't been during that time. Nobody ever did brag about the ideas I've got in my head, not even my mother, and any I have got have just been chewed right up to death till there isn't a blamed thing left to chew. For the past ten miles I've been reviewing ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... no hand to brag; But the fact is I've won a First Prize! 'Twas not that I have any drag, Nor excel in the officers' eyes. It was close, but I won, never fear; My home training helped me, I guess; I beat every man about here; At being the ...
— The Greater Love • George T. McCarthy
... "What of?" he asked bluntly. "Half your trouble, Jack, comes from looking for it. Manuel's a fine old fellow. I stayed a few days with him here when I first left town, and rode around with him. He's straight as the road to heaven, and I never heard him brag about anything, except the goodness of his 'patron,' and the things some of his friends can do. I'll have to ask you to saddle up for me, Jack; this arm of mine's pretty stiff and sore this morning. Watch how Surry's trained! You wouldn't ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... cumberer of the earth; he may even be known to be a consummate scoundrel. No matter. While he can steer clear of the penitentiary his vote is as weighty as the vote of a president, a bishop, a college professor, a merchant prince. We brag of our universal, unrestricted suffrage; but we are shams after all, for we restrict when we come to ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... seas. The Indian, according to the Castilian accounts, listened with awe to this strain of glorification from the Spanish commander. Yet it is possible that the envoy was a better diplomatist than they imagined; and that he understood it was only the game of brag at which he was playing with his ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... Well, you see, I've been away from Boston so long, and am back so short a time, that I can't realize your luxuries and conveniences. In Florence we ALWAYS walk up. They have ascenseurs in a few great hotels, and they brag of it in immense signs on the sides of ...
— The Elevator • William D. Howells
... front at Chicago, and, on the whole, I remember those at Washington as better. There are not so many English kings standing or riding about as one would expect; the English kings have, indeed, not been much to brag of in bronze or marble, though in that I do not say they are worse than other kings. I think, but I am not sure, that there are rather more public men of inferior grade than kings, though this may be that they were more impressive. Most noticeable was the statue of ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... Scotch, and Germans being joined together in the white heat of work like religious crowds in time of revival who have forgotten sectarianism. It is a fine thing to see people in hot earnest about anything; therefore, however extravagant and high the brag ascending from Puget Sound, in most cases it is likely ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... don't say that he will go straight to the city. I would send this by him if he did. I am afraid he will loiter about and be taken—do make them go on fast—he has left. I could not hear much he said—some who did don't like him at all—think him an impostor—a great brag—said he was a dentist ten years. He was asked where he came from, but would not tell till he looked at the letter that lay on the table and that he had just brought back. I don't feel much confidence in him—don't believe he is the one thee alluded ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... you shall have your beer because you like it. The whisky was only brag. And if you and me are to remain friends, Mr Gilbey, youll get up ...
— Fanny's First Play • George Bernard Shaw
... there is no spot in the world where the Germans govern another race and are not hated. They know this, and are disquieted; they meet with coldness on all hands, and their remedy for the coldness is self-assertion and brag. The Russian statesman was right who remarked that modern Germany has been too early admitted into the comity of European nations. Her behaviour, in her new international relations, is like the behaviour of an uneasy, ...
— England and the War • Walter Raleigh
... weirdly improbable," O'Reilly smiled, "but ask Rosa or Jacket—the boy is bursting to tell some one. He nearly died because he couldn't brag about it to Captain Morin, and there won't be any holding him now. I'm afraid he'll tip off the news about that treasure in spite of all my warnings. Those jewels are a temptation; I won't rest easy until they're safely locked up in some good vault. Now then, I've told you everything, ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... pony did stumble, and you didn't get him; nor I, either," remarked Ned. "And I don't think you and I had better brag any more about lassoing until you can catch your pony down there in the chaparral;" and Hal ...
— The Young Trail Hunters • Samuel Woodworth Cozzens
... and v.), used affectedly, like "humour," in many senses, often very vaguely and freely ridiculed by Jonson; humour, disposition, whims, brag(ging), hector(ing), etc. ...
— Cynthia's Revels • Ben Jonson
... misfortune, "and it's a long lane that has no turning. Anyhow, we didn't make any big brag about what we were goin' to do when we set out; so you see nobody's going to be disappointed even if we get left. I'm enjoyin' every minute of the time; and that's more'n some fellers could say," with a meaning look in the direction ...
— Motor Boat Boys Mississippi Cruise - or, The Dash for Dixie • Louis Arundel
... story in your life, but you always want the truth to start with, don't you? I'm to give you the truth, and let you do what you want with it, is that the idea? No dice, Mr. Shandor. And you even have the gall to brag about it!" ...
— Bear Trap • Alan Edward Nourse
... bit when I heard people talking about England in the way that awful stockbroker in the hotel talks about it," Gilbert was saying, "and I loathe the Kipling flag-flapper, all bounce and brag and bloodies ... but I feel fond of England to-day, Quinny, and nothing else seems to matter much. And anyhow fighting's such a filthy job that it ought to be shared by everybody that can take a hand in it at all. It doesn't seem right somehow to do your fighting by proxy. I ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... other men. "The kid is bound to be a regular, all right. He doesn't brag, and I don't believe he's looking for any ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys in the Ranks - or, Two Recruits in the United States Army • H. Irving Hancock
... by the officers of the ship most courteously, and without distinction, and the officers conversed freely and unreservedly of their exploits. There was nothing like brag in their manner of answering questions put to them. They are as fine and gentlemanly a set of fellows as ever we saw; most of them young men. The ship has been so frequently described, that most people know what she is like, as we do who ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes
... Jack returned, proudly. "And while we are on the subject, and not to brag, of course, I might say that some of the other girls are in the same class. First few years they came out to the woods I used to be rather doubtful, but now we often find that the maids can take care of the masters; don't we, Wallie? More ...
— The Motor Girls on Crystal Bay - The Secret of the Red Oar • Margaret Penrose
... the side of the scale which contained the goods; but some people accused him of these things, and from what I knew of the man I could not believe that he was above such deeds. Ham was an apt scholar, and improved upon the precept and example of his father. I had heard him brag of cheating the customers, of mean tricks put upon the inexperience of women and children. If he had been a young man of high moral purposes, I might have hoped that we had seen ...
— Down The River - Buck Bradford and His Tyrants • Oliver Optic
... selfish Tommy. "You forgets about repenting, and if I let yer bite him, you would brag about ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... the leading pastimes of the day, rooms were set aside at these dancing assemblies for those who preferred "brag" and other fashionable games with cards. But far the greater number preferred to dance, and to those who did, the various figures and steps were seemingly a rather serious matter, not to be looked upon as a source of mere amusement. ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... want to brag," said Mr. Frump, "but it is well enough to have it understood that I made ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... long course of acquaintanceship with stage heroes has been, so far as we are concerned, to create a yearning for a new kind of stage hero. What we would like for a change would be a man who wouldn't cackle and brag quite so much, but who was capable of taking care of himself for a day without ...
— Stage-Land • Jerome K. Jerome
... the proudest and happiest time I ever had in my life. Indeed I almost had an adventure on my own account—une bonne fortune, as it was called at Brossard's by boys hardly older than myself. I did not brag of it, however, when ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... Canada, the land beloved of God; We are the pulse of Canada, its marrow and its blood: And we, the men of Canada, can face the world and brag That we were born in Canada beneath the ...
— Flint and Feather • E. Pauline Johnson
... our camp. He stuck his head into my tent and wanted to know how "Fred Hitchcock was." I had to take a long second look to dig out from this bunch of rags and filth my one-time Beau Brummel acquaintance at home. His eyes were bleared, and told all too surely the cause of the transformation. His brag was that he had skipped every fight since he enlisted. "It's lots more fun," he said, "to climb a tree well in the rear and see the show. It's perfectly safe, you know, and then you don't get yourself killed and planted. What is the use," he argued, "of getting ...
— War from the Inside • Frederick L. (Frederick Lyman) Hitchcock
... to me anything to brag of. Dad says the Spanish-American War grew a crop of newspaper-made heroes, manufactured by reporters who really took more risks and showed more nerve than the ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... her the very first week she was here. Gilbert is my sister Julia's son, and a fine young fellow he is. It ain't good manners to brag of your own relations, but I'm always forgetting and doing it. Gil was a great pet of mine. He was so bright and nice-mannered everybody liked him. Him and Anne were a fine-looking couple, Nora May. Not but what they had their shortcomings. Anne's nose was ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... a pretty bit of cheek, sir: him, a reg'lar heathen, going and getting himself called by a Christian name! I should like to give him Solomon—you'll fight with the best of them, sir. I often think about it. You'll fight with the best of them, sir. And 'tain't brag, Mr Archie Maine, sir—you let me see one of them beggars coming at you with his pisoned kris or his chuck-spear, do you mean to tell me I wouldn't let him have the bayonet? And bad soldier or no, I can do the bayonet practice with the best of ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... the excitement you're looking for," Nelson cried, wrathfully. "You've cost me a lot of money, but you could have cost me a lot more if you hadn't been fool enough to brag about it and give me warning. Now—I'll send you ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... pretence of dignity, the craven brag of a schoolboy who says, "I could lick you if I wanted to, but I don't happen to want to." I watched him as he walked back towards the avenue with a deliberation that was so artificial, I could swear that when he reached the turn he would ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford
... pity for him!—He sailed away From a leaking ship, in Chaleur Bay,— Sailed away from a sinking wreck, With his own town's-people on her deck! "Lay by! lay by!" they called to him. Back he answered, "Sink or swim! Brag of your catch of fish again!" And off he sailed through the fog and rain! Old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart, Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... work with the idea of getting a cross or a ribbon or a promotion or a pension or his name in the paper or to make the crowd cheer him when he got back home, or to brag to the homefolks about how he was a hero. He just went ahead and WAS a hero. That's because he was only a dog, with no soul—and not ...
— Bruce • Albert Payson Terhune
... It is a literary work I want, not a brag about the road or a description of its enterprise. You just take the line as your scene. Let the story run on that. The company, don't you see, must not in any way be suspected with having anything to do with it, no mention of its name as a company, no ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... land, Of which, though there he settle young, A man will ne'er quite understand The customs, politics, and tongue. The foolish hie them post-haste through, See fashions odd, and prospects fair, Learn of the language, 'How d'ye do,' And go and brag they have been there. The most for leave to trade apply, For once, at Empire's seat, her heart, Then get what knowledge ear and eye Glean chancewise in the life-long mart. And certain others, few and fit, Attach them to the Court, and see The Country's best, its accent hit, And partly ...
— The Angel in the House • Coventry Patmore
... "I don't know how to tell you about it. It had me scared to death. That's so. Even McDowell shirked it. He told me Steve had to get the whole yarn before he got into Reindeer. That's the sort of folk we are. And it's not a thing to brag about." ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... down, it struck me that, whatever his qualities might be, his personal appearance was against him. One of his fore legs was shaped like the handle of our punch-ladle, and the remaining three legs, about the fetlock, were slightly bunchy. Besides, he had no tail to brag of; and his back had a very hollow sweep from his high haunches to his low shoulder-blades. I was much pleased, however, with the fondness and pride manifested by his owner, as he held up, by both sides of the bridle, ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... longer in fashion. The mountain tribe will have learned to love the fatness of the valley, while thinking of those mother ribs of its mountain fastness which are ever waiting to prop up its life. Just so put a wooden sword into the hand of the Hohenstieler, and let him brag of war, learning meanwhile ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... man; "I aint no brag Bible scholar." He put on a look of droll modesty. "I used to could say the ten commandments of the decalogue, oncet, and I still tries to keep 'em, in ginerally. There's another burnt house. That's the third one we done passed inside ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... talking of my talents, my utter inability to remember in any comprehensive way what I have read. I can vehemently applaud, or perversely stickle, at parts; but I cannot grasp at a whole. This infirmity (which is nothing to brag of) may be seen in my two little compositions, the tale and my play, in both which no reader, however partial, can find ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... you know thar's plenty er the new-issue quality ready an' a-waitin' to pull an' haul at 'im,' says I. Not that I begrudge the vittles—not by no means; I hope I hain't got to that yit. But somehow er 'nother folks what hain't got no great shakes to brag 'bout gener'ly feels sorter skittish when strange folks draps in on 'em. Goodness knows I hain't come to that pass wher' I begrudges the vittles that folks eats, bekaze anybody betweenst this an' Clinton, ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... still shunn'd By those of choicer nostrils. What do you call this house? Is this your palace? did not the judge style it A house of penitent whores? who sent me to it? To this incontinent college? is 't not you? Is 't not your high preferment? go, go, brag How many ladies you have undone, like me. Fare you well, sir; let me hear no more of you! I had a limb corrupted to an ulcer, But I have cut it off; and now I 'll go Weeping to heaven on crutches. For your gifts, I will return them all, and I do wish That I could make you full executor ...
— The White Devil • John Webster
... in their patronizing way to get us to give up our home and go into apartments, selling up and letting apartments themselves! Them! They hadn't a tenth of the fight in them my little colonial mother had, for all their big bosoms and tall brag about their independence and the fine offers they had when they were single. Some of the men too were in misfortune after a while. Some disaster sent up a big wave which washed them off their little rafts. I used to wonder ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... without knowing his parents, and without their inviting you? Don't you know what that sort of thing means out here? Chelles did it to brag about you at his club. He wants to ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... our Night's Improvement. This we conceive to be a more useful Institution than any other Club whatever, not excepting even that of ugly Faces. We have one manifest Advantage over that renowned Society, with respect to Mr. Spectator's Company. For though they may brag, that you sometimes make your personal Appearance amongst them, it is impossible they should ever get a Word from you. Whereas you are with us the Reverse of what Phaedria would have his Mistress be in his Rival's Company, Present in your Absence. We make you talk as much and as long as we ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... "I can understand their feeling a bit sore about it. I'm not exactly given to brag when I'm away from my own country—one hears too much of that all the time—but between you and me, I shouldn't say that it was possible for two crimes like that to be committed in New York City and for the murderer to get off scot free ...
— The Illustrious Prince • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... dependent in any case. He was gentle and good-humored, genial and agreeable, when pleased; but he had that personal pride which is as stubborn as any haughtiness of descent, and infinitely more inflammable. It was no idle brag when he told the Crompton chaplain that he would put up with injustice from no man (if he could help it), and would repay his wrong-doer sevenfold (if he got the chance). His sense of right was very acute and sensitive, especially ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... half-wise, twaddle; when you talk to the ignorant, brag; when you talk to the sagacious, look very humble, and ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... "We don't brag about 'home brewing' any more," said another, "or 'home tailoring,' or 'home shoemaking.' Why all this talk ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... them Eastern militia, it might be," said Harvey, turning a bag upside down, that Caesar now handed him; "but these dragoons are fellows that you must brag down. A faint heart, Captain Wharton, would do but little here; but come, here is a black shroud for your good-looking countenance," taking, at the same time, a parchment mask, and fitting it to the face of Henry. "The master and the man must change ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... purchase as handsome a dressing-bureau as I would ask. So you see. Mr. Jones, that our cheap furniture is not going to turn out so cheap after all. And as for looks, why no one can say there is much to brag of." ...
— Trials and Confessions of a Housekeeper • T. S. Arthur
... over buying the boat," he said, "but that's hopeless. The more we paid for it the louder the owner would brag. The Germans would be 'on' in a minute. We've simply got to steal it. It's up to you to find out the man's proper name and address, and we'll send him the money from the first ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... My explosive mud ball!" assented Cleo. "But this is different. Ugh! I shall never, never brag of clean hands again after this. There, my fish is tied on the sinker; now what do ...
— The Girl Scouts at Sea Crest - The Wig Wag Rescue • Lillian Garis
... of great storms is seldom heralded by any striking or unusual phenomenon. The real weather gods are free from brag and bluster; but the sham gods fill the sky with portentous signs and omens. I recall one 5th of March as a day that would have filled the ancient observers with dreadful forebodings. At ten o'clock ...
— A Year in the Fields • John Burroughs
... to admire, the apologetics died away, and the good people began to brag of their barge, and their happy 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 ...
— An Inland Voyage • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the chief of his diet. He took her, kindly enough, but imperturbably, irreclaimably, for granted, and it wouldn't in the least help that she herself knew him, as quickly, for having been in her country and threshed it out. There would be nothing for her to explain or attenuate or brag about; she could neither escape nor prevail by her strangeness; he would have, for that matter, on such a subject, more to tell her than to learn from her. She might learn from him why she was so different from the handsome girl—which ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James
... put that in," he said wearily. "It ain't so, and I'm something of a churchman, even if it was only to please the wife. I'm no hypocrite, and I don't want to have anything in that sounds like a brag. Just sign it and let ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore
... that NEARLY everybody can. And the London market is so glutted with new Americans that, to succeed there now, they must be either very clever or awfully queer. The Brys are neither. HE would get on well enough if she'd let him alone; they like his slang and his brag and his blunders. But Louisa spoils it all by trying to repress him and put herself forward. If she'd be natural herself—fat and vulgar and bouncing—it would be all right; but as soon as she meets ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... quite a good one, Mr. Horsley," he said as he returned the livery man's brag team, "but it has two drawbacks." "Oh, indeed; and may I inquire ...
— The New Pun Book • Thomas A. Brown and Thomas Joseph Carey
... the capital just at the turn of doubling? Soon it grew irksome even to think of you; yet still when I did, I said, 'Life is long, I shall win riches; he shall share them some day or other!'—Basta, basta!—what idle twaddle or hollow brag all this must ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... life is drawn, and the mere lees Is left this vault to brag of. Macbeth, Act ii. Sc. ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various
... in my nineteenth year," said Simeon. "I'm no' big for my age, I ken; but I can throw ony man that I get grups on, and haud ony beast whatsomever. I can ploo wi' the best an' maw—Weel, I'm no' gaun to brag, but ye can ask Maister Golder—that is an elder o' your ain, an' comes at least twa Sabbaths afore every ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... symmetry of an exaggerated marlin-spike, for a vanishing point,—are of themselves enough to show that the people here have no taste, and no feeling for this department of the Fine Arts, however much they may brag ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... is come to town on purpose: she says, all her friends are in London, and she will not survive them. But what will you think of Lady Catherine Pelham, Lady Frances Arundel, and Lord and Lady Galway, who go this evening to an inn ten miles out of town, where they are to play at brag till five in the morning, and then come back—I suppose, to look for the bones of their husbands and families under the rubbish. The prophet of all this (next to the Bishop of London) is a trooper of Lord Delawar's, who was yesterday sent to ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... follow, That semel'n anno ridet Apollo. I have assur'd them twenty times, That Phoebus help'd me in my rhymes; Phoebus inspired me from above, And he and I were hand and glove. But, finding me so dull and dry since, They'll call it all poetic license; And when I brag of aid divine, Think Eusden's[1] right as good as mine. Nor do I ask for Stella's sake; 'Tis my own credit lies at stake: And Stella will be sung, while I Can only be a stander by. Apollo, having thought a little, ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... was standing on a table boasting about his strength. He was stripped to the waist and Tom could see the powerful arms and chest beneath the black hair that covered his body. As he continued to brag, the prisoners laughed and jeered, calling him Monkey. The man's face reddened and he offered to fight anyone in the room. A short, thin man with a hawk nose sitting next to Tom yelled, "Monkey," and then darted behind a bunk. The man turned and looked angrily ...
— On the Trail of the Space Pirates • Carey Rockwell
... remember, boy," he said, with his shrewd smile, "never brag of catching a fish until he is on dry ground. I've seen older folks doing that in more ways than one, and so making fools of themselves. It's no use to boast of anything until it's done, nor then, either, for it ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... said Dunghill; "You talk about your heart and wrung-ill: Where would you be, I'd like to know, Had I not fed and made you grow? You of October brew brag—pshaw! You would have been a husk of straw. And now, instead of gratitude, You rail ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay
... day fourscore and five years old. As yet, I am as strong this day as I was in the day that Moses sent me; as my strength was then, even so is my strength now, for war, both to go out and to come in." It is not likely that anybody believed his brag about his being as good a man for active service at eighty-five as he was at forty, when Moses sent him out to spy the land of Canaan. But he was, no doubt, lusty and vigorous for his years, and ready to smite the Canaanites hip and thigh, and ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... We have flowers on the tables. People don't just eat in them, they dine. They take their guests there. Our cafeterias have galleries with rocking chairs and stationery. They have distinctive architecture. We take visitors to see them. We brag about them, and when we wish to be especially smart ...
— Vignettes of San Francisco • Almira Bailey
... must all remember that our Caius not only never boasts but is absurdly reticent about anything he has done of such a kind that most men would brag of it. Towards his chums and cronies he is open-hearted and as unreserved as a friend could be about everything else, but especially close with them about such matters. So I know nothing of his powers concerning which ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... popular ballot. The General can't go there just now. It hurts to be shot against a wall. He needs a campaign manager to go down and whoop things up for him—to get the boys in line and the new two-dollar bills afloat and the babies kissed and the machine in running order. Sully, I don't want to brag, but you remember how I brought Coughlin under the wire for leader of the nineteenth? Ours was the banner district. Don't you suppose I know how to manage a little monkey-cage of a country like that? ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... due to his recommendation that Governor Lincoln appointed the Chief Justice—a suggestion which Governor Lincoln used to repel with great indignation. The Governor was also a good farmer, especially proud of his cattle. Each of them liked to brag of their crops and especially of the produce of their respective dairies. Governor Lincoln was once discoursing to Devens and me, in our office, of a wonderful cow of his which, beside raising an enormous calf, ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... this country that the Chinese were not familiar with several thousand years ago. Among them he enumerated target-companies, sewing-machines, patent baby-jumpers, nitro-glycerine, shoo-fly chewing-tobacco, wooden hams, stuffed ballot-boxes, and a hundred other things which we are prone to brag of as being purely Yankee and original. We are too conceited about ourselves, by a great deal, and it is good for us that even Chinese shoemakers should come here once in a while, to "take us out of ...
— Punchinello Vol. II., No. 30, October 22, 1870 • Various
... drole^, ecarte [Fr.], picquet^, allfours^, quadrille, omber, reverse, Pope Joan, commit; boston, boaston^; blackjack, twenty- one, vingtun [Fr.]; quinze [Fr.], thirty-one, put, speculation, connections, brag, cassino^, lottery, commerce, snip-snap-snoren^, lift smoke, blind hookey, Polish bank, Earl of Coventry, Napoleon, patience, pairs; banker; blind poker, draw poker, straight poker, stud poker; bluff, bridge, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... the brave Spanish soldier brag the sun never sets in the Spanish dominions, but ever shineth on one part or other we have conquered for our king?—CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH: Advertisements for the Unexperienced, &c. (Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., Third Series, vol. iii. ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... hither from Spantekow, and then refuse to take his advice. As to Sidonia, her Grace had already brought disgrace upon her princely house, by first turning her out, and then praying her to come back before three days had elapsed. All Pomerania talked of it, and old Otto Bork did not scruple to brag and boast everywhere, that her Grace had no peace or rest from her conscience until she had asked forgiveness from the Lady Sidonia (as the vain old knave called her) and entreated her to return. Now if she took the ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... on your side of the border and not on ours. Would you ask one Boer to fight against another Boer simply because he lived on one side of a river and his blood relation lived on the other? You Britishers brag of your pride of blood, and draw your fighting stock from all parts of the world in war time, but you have no generosity; you won't allow other people to be ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... Irishman ever talks like that in Ireland, or ever did, or ever will. But when a thoroughly worthless Irishman comes to England, and finds the whole place full of romantic duffers like you, who will let him loaf and drink and sponge and brag as long as he flatters your sense of moral superiority by playing the fool and degrading himself and his country, he soon learns the antics that take you in. He picks them up at the theatre or the music hall. Haffigan learnt ...
— John Bull's Other Island • George Bernard Shaw
... father—Andre—and self-condemnation! Why seek I Andre now? Am I a man, To soothe the sorrows of a suffering friend? The weather-cock of passion! fool inebriate! Who could with ruffian hand strive to provoke Hoar wisdom to intemperance! who could lie! Aye, swagger, lie, and brag!—Liar! Damnation!! O, let me steal away and hide my head, Nor view a man, condemn'd to harshest death, Whose words and actions, when by mine compar'd, Shew white as innocence, and bright as truth. I now would shun him; but that his shorten'd Thread of life, gives me no line to play with. He comes, ...
— Andre • William Dunlap
... the captain, who roused himself with the occasion. "God bless them all! say I, in echo; and if this gracious queen of ours ends as famously as she has begun, 'twill be such a family of princes as no other army of Europe can brag of around a mess-table." ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... tho' there it is likewise very conspicuous. I only desire you to compare the Things he is indulg'd in, and which, if he pleases, he may brag of, with what he is taught to be ashamed of, the grand Offence, which, if once committed, is never to be pardon'd. If he has but Courage, and knows how to please his Officers, he may get drunk Two or Three Times a Week, have a fresh Whore ...
— An Enquiry into the Origin of Honour, and the Usefulness of Christianity in War • Bernard Mandeville
... is all very well for a writer to affect to be indifferent to a critique from the Times. You bear it as a boy bears a flogging at school, without crying out; but don't swagger and brag ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... may be the reason for it, my experience in life is that it is never wise to brag about anything. At any rate, on a hunting trip, to come to a particular instance, wait until you are safe at home till you begin to do so. Of the truth of this ancient adage I was now destined to experience a particularly ...
— Child of Storm • H. Rider Haggard
... I had served an apprenticeship as a chopper, the time required to discover Sandy was less than half an hour, I watched him one day when he didn't know who I was—so I figured him for a man and a half and raised him a dollar a day. He doesn't know it, however. If he did, he'd brag about it, and I'd have to pay as much to men half as good. When he's chopped for us twenty years, fire him and give him that. He's earned it. Thus endeth the first lesson, my son. ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... lots of other great sailors were born in Devonshire," Johnson said. He certainly did brag; but he spoke so slowly and quietly, that it did not sound as like bragging as it would have done if he ...
— A Great Emergency and Other Tales - A Great Emergency; A Very Ill-Tempered Family; Our Field; Madam Liberality • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... his neighbours' nerves; he has no mercy or pity or consideration for anyone serving him, and yet he's the kindest heart towards children and animals, and the good he does to them is about the only thing he don't brag about." ...
— Elizabeth Visits America • Elinor Glyn
... receipt of glorious news from Bragg, but there are so many rumors without foundation that we hardly know what he has done. I hope he will not rest until he has driven the foe across the Ohio. You have our brag fighting general with you now, and I know you will ...
— History of the Eighty-sixth Regiment, Illinois Volunteer Infantry, during its term of service • John R. Kinnear
... says himself in his picturesque language—the first signs of turbulent youth, like another toga praetexta. Patricius, as a good pagan, welcomed with jubilation this promise of grand-children, and rushed off joyously to brag of his discovery to Monnica. She took the news in quite another way. Frightened at the idea of the dangers to which her son's virtue was exposed, she lectured him in private. But Augustin, from the height of his sixteen years, laughed at her. "A lot of old-women's ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... Chia, "every one says that there's nothing you haven't gone through and nothing you haven't seen, and don't you even know what this gauze is? Will you again brag by ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... days as charity among men, good will, and all that nonsense. Now, you've got a splendid start in the right direction, Prince. You've got American blood in your veins and that means a good deal. Take my advice and increase the proportion. In a couple of generations you'll have something to brag about. Take Tullis as your example. Beget sons that will think and act as he is capable of doing. Weed out the thin blood and give the crown of Grasstick something that is thick and red. It will be the ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... millin' around like a lot of burros—and gettin' nowhere. But Jim Waring's out after that bunch that got Pat. If I wasn't so hefty, I'd 'a' gone with him. I tell you the man that got Pat ain't goin' to live long to brag on it." ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert
... easily enough, but you'll never live to brag about it. If the officers don't hang you, Hank Hazletine will make daylight shine through your hide! He is only ...
— Two Boys in Wyoming - A Tale of Adventure (Northwest Series, No. 3) • Edward S. Ellis
... don't want to brag, but I never spent a cent foolishly. Do you know how much money I spent the first three months I was ...
— Chester Rand - or The New Path to Fortune • Horatio Alger, Jr
... visiting; you never was fond of either: so that's a grievance put into the scale to make weight.—As to disgrace, that's as bad to us as to you: so fine a young creature! So much as we used to brag of you too!—And besides, this is all in your ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... the Germans, taking a line from the poet they call "unser Shakespeare," said: "Come the four quarters of the world in arms and we shall shock them," it was, from the romantic militarist point of view, fine. What Junker-led men could do they have since done to make that thrasonical brag good. But there is no getting over the fact that, in Tommy Atkins's phrase, they had asked for it. Their Junkers, like ours, had drunk to The Day; and they should not have let us choose it after riling us for so many years. And ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... hay—cold, fog, tempests, disease, exile, and death,—death skulking in the air, in the water, in the bush. They must have been dying like flies here. Oh yes—he did it. Did it very well, too, no doubt, and without thinking much about it either, except afterwards to brag of what he had gone through in his time, perhaps. They were men enough to face the darkness. And perhaps he was cheered by keeping his eye on a chance of promotion to the fleet at Ravenna by-and-by, if he had good friends in Rome and ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... be always distinguished by modesty. Never boast or brag, when you are likely to be disbelieved; and do not contradict your superiors—that is to say, when you are in the presence of people who are richer than yourselves, never express an ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 18, 1841 • Various
... at all," he said. "There has never been so zealous a priest. I have ridden with him again and again before I was a priest. He was always quiet; but I took him to be one of those stout-hearted souls that need never brag. Why, it was here that we heard him ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson
... "And yet you brag that you have stopped him from making a fool of himself," purred the Squire. "Tut! Tut! He's worse than ever. I heard him tell you that you're discharged ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... to have him out and on his feet before long. You are not to worry about other people this evening, for I am particularly happy. Philip is really remarkable, and I believe that Angelica is going to turn out a musical genius. What a delight it is to have one person in the world to whom one can brag about ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... brag of being good Spaniards ought to imitate him. You can see very well now, since the Suez Canal was opened, corruption has come here. Before, when we had to double the Cape, there were not so many worthless people coming out here, nor did Filipinos go abroad ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal
... that Ida was anything to brag of, anyway," said Mrs. White. She still had a sense of wondering injury that Harry Edgham had preferred Ida to ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... poachers, who fish in others' ponds, are proud of their achievements. They will talk. They brag in their cups and strut and ogle ...
— The Scarlet Stigma - A Drama in Four Acts • James Edgar Smith
... to see the tailless monkeys," added Dwight, as he joined them. "We'll have a procession to brag of, for nearly everybody's going ashore. Mr. Malcolm's to lead the van with the children, he says, and Mrs. Campbell is to close up the rear of his section, while mother follows with ours. They've been laughing about it over there. Ah, there's Bess ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... you hear human people swell and brag and strut round about how they are different from the animals and have something they call a soul that the animals haven't got, but that's just the natural conceit of this electricity or something before it has ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... custom, there was no firing across the stream. That was considered the boundary. It mattered not how large or small the stream, pickets rarely fired at each other. We would stand on each bank, and laugh and talk and brag ...
— "Co. Aytch" - Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment - or, A Side Show of the Big Show • Sam R. Watkins
... might tell you all about my Clyde, but have not because of two things. One is I could not even begin without telling you what a good man he is, and I didn't want you to think I could do nothing but brag. The other reason is the haste I married in. I am ashamed of that. I am afraid you will think me a Becky Sharp of a person. But although I married in haste, I have no cause to repent. That is very fortunate because I have never had one bit of leisure ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... is straight and handsome, her eyebrows lifted up; Her chin is very neat and pert, and smooth like a china cup; Her hair's the brag of Ireland, so weighty and so fine, It's rolling down upon her neck ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... apartments, pinching the bed-curtains, poking into the feathers, shampooing the mattresses, and clapping the wardrobe drawers to and fro. Enterprising young housekeepers are measuring the looking-glasses and hangings to see if they will suit the new menage (Snob will brag for years that he has purchased this or that at Dives's sale), and Mr. Hammerdown is sitting on the great mahogany dining-tables, in the dining-room below, waving the ivory hammer, and employing all the artifices of eloquence, enthusiasm, entreaty, reason, despair; shouting ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... brag, which was perhaps pardonable tinder the circumstances, Douglas reminded the Senate of his efforts to secure the admission of California and of his prediction that the people of that country would form a ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... I oversway'd, Leading him prisoner in a red-rose chain: Strong-temper'd steel his stronger strength obey'd, Yet was he servile to my coy disdain. 112 O! be not proud, nor brag not of thy might, For mastering her that foil'd ...
— Venus and Adonis • William Shakespeare
... art in itself, and although there are many who undertake to do this work, there are but few who can pivot a staff in such a manner that it will bear close inspection under the glass. We often hear watchmakers brag of the secrets they possess for hardening pivot drills, but I fancy they would be somewhat surprised if they traveled around a little, to find how many watchmakers harden their drills in exactly the same way that they do. The great secret, so-called, of making good drills, ...
— A Treatise on Staff Making and Pivoting • Eugene E. Hall
... [Footnote: Deschartres: the tutor of George Sand's father.] had taught me And indeed I found the lucky shoe, where it had fallen in a dark corner and not been seen. Whisky alone was accused. My knees hurt me very much for a few days but, I did not brag of them; and ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... she told him, "I'm going to brag that I was the very first girl in all the world ever to be kissed in a ...
— Space Platform • Murray Leinster
... to brag and talk in his impetuous way to Warrington. "I was in love so fiercely in my youth, that I have burned out that flame for ever, I think, and if ever I marry, it will be a marriage of reason that I will make, with a well-bred, ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... amended; but he forgot to say that mine, at the same time, might be made worse. Gallus Vibius so much bent his mind to find out the essence and motions of madness, that, in the end, he himself went out of his wits, and to such a degree, that he could never after recover his judgment, and might brag that he was become a fool by too much wisdom. Some there are who through fear anticipate the hangman; and there was the man, whose eyes being unbound to have his pardon read to him, was found stark dead upon the scaffold, by ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... had commanded. He was the idol, not because he was good and gracious, not because he spared his soldiers or treated them as fellow-citizens, but because he had led them to victory and made them famous. If a man will win battles and give his brigade a right to brag loudly of its doings, he may have its admiration and even its enthusiastic devotion, though he be as pitiless and as ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... deal of good in the parish." "O Mr Adams," says Slipslop, "people that don't see all, often know nothing. Many things have been given away in our family, I do assure you, without her knowledge. I have heard you say in the pulpit we ought not to brag; but indeed I can't avoid saying, if she had kept the keys herself, the poor would have wanted many a cordial which I have let them have. As for my late master, he was as worthy a man as ever lived, and would have done infinite good if he had not been controlled; ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... talkin' hours about the Deef Woman's music. It only lasts a week; even if Wolfville does brag of ...
— Wolfville • Alfred Henry Lewis
... Through plashes, puddles, thick, thin, wet and dry, I travelled to the city Coventry. There Master Doctor Holland[9] caused me stay The day of Saturn and the Sabbath day. Most friendly welcome, he me did afford, I was so entertained at bed and board, Which as I dare not brag how much it was, I dare not be ingrate and let it pass, But with thanks many I remember it, (Instead of his good deeds) in words and writ, He used me like his son, more than a friend, And he on Monday his commends did send To Newhall, where a gentleman did dwell, ...
— The Pennyles Pilgrimage - Or The Money-lesse Perambulation of John Taylor • John Taylor
... merely smiled, and played with his watch chain. "I should hate to brag," he said, but anyone could see from the absence of a diamond ring on his little finger that he was a person of weight in ...
— A Voyage of Consolation - (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An - American girl in London') • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... complimentary address, a very gruff hoarse voice bade Mr Groves 'hold his noise and light a candle.' And the same voice remarked that the same gentleman 'needn't waste his breath in brag, for most people knew pretty well what sort of stuff ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... that their daughters by this means can command the young men to help and assist them in any work or business that they may have occasion to use them in. And they look upon it so far distant from a disgrace, that they will among their consorts brag of it, that they have the young men thus ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox
... "O, you can brag; but when a fellow can go and set a man's barn afire, without wincing, he's worse than I am; that's ...
— In School and Out - or, The Conquest of Richard Grant. • Oliver Optic
... the imagination when the treatment is above your merits; but in actual experience it is often quite the reverse. When I was a very small boy, my romantic imagination, stimulated by early doses of fiction, led me to brag to a still smaller boy so outrageously that he, being a simple soul, really believed me to be an invincible hero. I cannot remember whether this pleased me much; but I do remember very distinctly that ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw
... never fleer and jest at me: I speak not like a dotard, nor a fool; As, under privilege of age, to brag What I have done being young, or what would do, Were I not old: Know, Claudio, to thy head, Thou hast so wrong'd mine innocent child and me, That I am forc'd to lay my reverence by; And, with grey hairs, and bruise ...
— Much Ado About Nothing • William Shakespeare [Knight edition] |
