"Self-important" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that boy at all," said Frank. "I beg you'll not ask him again while I'm at home: he is so selfish and self-important; and yet he's a bit snobbish now and then. Mother! I know what you mean by that look. Well! if I am self-important sometimes, I'm not ...
— The Moorland Cottage • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... proportions, of finer materials, nay, even of nobler moral shape, than the vast majority of men superior to him in all these points. Let us look at him in those last decaying years, at those studies which have seemed to us absurd: self-important, pedantic, almost monomaniac; or brooding over those feelings which were, doubtless, selfish, morbid; let us look at him, for, despite all his faults, he is fine. Fine in indomitable energy, in irrepressible passion. Alfieri was fifty; he was tormented by gout; his health ...
— The Countess of Albany • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... deal at the sententious gravity with which the leader delivered his orders, and the self-important strides with which he passed over the land. He would have grinned still more, perhaps have laughed outright if he had understood that the occasional off-hand kicks which Disco bestowed on a thick bush here and there, were ...
— Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne
... she is not much older than you. A man finds a girl like that worth talking to," said the young clergyman, holding himself erect. Certainly Reginald had not improved; he had grown ever so much more self-important since he got a living of ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... under the present circumstances of the union, is in my opinion desirable." And of the opponents of the proposed Constitution he said, "The major part of them will, it is to be feared, be governed by sinister and self-important motives." ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... Company of which I am the representative here. I shall also take him back with me to the city where he will be dealt with according to his desserts by the proper authorities." Then turning to the members of his own party the self-important young secretary added: "In the meantime I order you two men to guard this fellow and see that he does not escape, as you value your ...
— Cab and Caboose - The Story of a Railroad Boy • Kirk Munroe
... along the winding strand 10 Employed the solitary hour, In projects to regain his power; The waves in spreading circles ran, Proteus arose, and thus began: 'Came you from Court? For in your mien A self-important air is seen. He frankly owned his friends had tricked him And how he fell his party's victim. 'Know,' says the god, 'by matchless skill I change to every shape at will; 20 But yet I'm told, at Court you see ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... Loquacious, self-important, full of his pet project, and apparently unable to talk on any other subject, Mr. Dwerrihouse then went on to tell of the opposition he had encountered and the obstacles he had overcome in the cause of the Stockbridge branch. I was entertained ...
— Little Classics, Volume 8 (of 18) - Mystery • Various
... the Indians started to unload, Watusk came down to the beach, followed by several of his councilors. It was impossible to tell from his inscrutable, self-important air what ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... Norway prior to the dissolution of the Union with Sweden. Ny Jord gives an unflattering picture of the academic, literary, and artistic youth of the capital, idlers for the most part, arrogant, unscrupulous, self-important, and full of disdain for the mere citizens and merchants whose simple honesty and kindliness are laughed at or exploited by the newly ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun
... will then have half her own way!" he said to himself bitterly. But, instead of reproaching himself that he had not drawn the poor girl's heart to his own, and saved her by letting her know that he loved her, he tried to congratulate himself on the pride and self-important delay which had preserved him from yielding his love to one who counted herself of so little value. He did not reflect that, if the value a woman places upon herself be the true estimate of her worth, the world is tolerably provided with utterly inestimable treasures of womankind; ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... from the fire, and talking animatedly. The uncomfortable thing was that though he talked in the direction of his interlocutor, he did not speak to him: merely said his words towards him. James, however, was such an airy feather himself he did not remark this, but only felt a little self-important at sustaining such a subtle conversation with a man from Oxford. Alvina, who never expected to be interested in clever conversations, after a long experience of her father, found her expectation justified again. She was ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... more. Susy saw that she could have her own way, and as soon as dinner was over, without even waiting to help her mother to put the place in order, she started on her walk. She felt pleased and self-important. The day was a frosty one, and the sunset promised to be glorious. The road to Mrs. Church's house was flat and long and pleasant to walk on. Susy had no particular eye for pretty views, or she might have pleased herself with the wonderful tints of the sky, and the autumnal shades which ...
— The Rebel of the School • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... liked it for its excitement, and some liked it for its cause; there were those who were for pushing on, and those who were for holding back; there were men of combat, and men of peace; there were those whom it made conceited and self-important, and those whom it drove into seriousness, anxiety, and retirement. But, whatever faults it had, a pure and high spirit ruled in it; there were no disloyal members, and there were none who sought their own in it, or thought of high things for themselves ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... rendered it difficult for him to refrain from shedding tears; and a bevy of bride's-maids, so beautiful and sweet that it seemed quite preposterous to suppose that they could remain another day in the estate of spinsterhood. Mr Joseph Dowler was also there, self-important as ever, and ready for action at a moment's notice; besides a number of friends of the bride and bridegroom, among whom was a pert young gentleman, friend of Mr Dowler, and a Mr Crashington, friend of Mr ...
— Saved by the Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne
... go, George," he said, raising his voice. The trawler fussed ahead like a self-important hen that has laid an egg. There was a violent upheaval in the water astern, and a column of foam and wreckage leaped into the ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... much leisure, too much jollity, and too much colour for the work-a-day crowd of the West or of China. People came and went, stopped to talk, stopped to stare. No one seemed in a hurry except one or two self-important officials and their white-jacketed retinue. Only in the horse-market was there any real business going on. There the crowd seemed really intent on something, but buying and selling horses is a serious matter the world over, in Kentucky or in Mongolia. Indeed, the whole scene reminded me ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall |
