"Conceited" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... again? Then thou seest all true peace and joy comes through the blood of the Son of Mary, and his righteousness, as in Romans 7:25 and 1 Corinthians 15:57, there are many poor souls that are taken with raptures of joy, and false conceited consolation (John 16:20) which doth come from the devil, and their own deceitful hearts; but their joy shall be turned into mourning and sorrow of heart (Luke 6:24,25), but thou that art a Christian in deed, and not ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... neglect and scorns to ask for patronage. His egotism is a touchy and wayward feeling which takes the mask of misanthropy. He is always meditating upon his own qualities, but not in the spirit of the conceited man who plumes himself upon his virtues, nor of the ascetic who broods over his vices. He prefers the apparently self-contradictory attitude (but human nature is illogical) of meditating with remorse upon his own virtues. What in others is complacency, ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... many things," Sir Robin answered. He felt vaguely annoyed that Ilbert should have had anything to do with Mary or her book. Ilbert was one of the younger school of Tories, a free-lance he called himself, handsome, conceited, immensely clever, a golden youth with an air of Oxford and the Schools added to him. He was one of the youngest members of Parliament, and was gifted with a dazzling and impertinent wit. Sir Robin had occasionally smarted under Ilbert's ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan
... about it?'inquired the old lady indignantly. 'Miller's a conceited coxcomb, and you may tell him I said so.' Saying which, the old lady, quite unconscious that she had spoken above a whisper, drew herself up, and looked carving-knives at the ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... the Person to a superfluous expence of wit for the contrivance; and though there should be occasion for it, few are so unfortunate in their Relations and Acquaintance not to have some Friend capable of giving them advice, if they are not too ignorantly conceited to ask it. Aurelian was so pleased with the easiness and smartness of her Expostulation, that he forgot to make a reply, when she seem'd to expect it; but being a Woman of a quick Apprehension, and justly sensible of her own perfections, she ...
— Incognita - or, Love & Duty Reconcil'd. A Novel • William Congreve
... prepared a paper entitled, "An Hour with the Poets," into which he had introduced all his favourite recitations, and which he longed to fire off at something in the shape of an audience—"of course we could; it's all that conceited beast Heningson. He thinks he's ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery
... ceased his fooling, Coke began in earnest. He was a man a little older than Raleigh, and of a conceited and violent nature, owing not a little of his exaggerated reputation to the dread that he inspired. He was never more rude and brutal than in his treatment of Sir Walter Raleigh upon this famous occasion, and even in a court packed with enemies, ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... forgive anything that had shocked or disgusted us at the dinner table. But matters grew worse in his old age, when his habits of intemperance kept him out of the sight of the ladies, and he got round him a set of ignorant and conceited young men, who thought they could set the world right by their destructive tendencies. One of his chief favourites was George Borrow. ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... too—by which I don't mean either to imply that the M.A.'s were dead M.A.'s, dead and buried with Latin over them in the old brassed and effigied church, which was so old and large that it was hardly less conceited than a cathedral. Spiritual and intellectual death in Coalchester, as elsewhere, was officially represented by the Literary and Philosophical Society, which still unblushingly went on retaining its adjectives, even in the face of its "Transactions," which seemed mainly ...
— The Romance of Zion Chapel [3d ed.] • Richard Le Gallienne
... which he had acquired; for subordination; for reverence; for admiration of great and able men. And what was his reward? Not merely that his favourite servant was healed at his request: but that he learnt to know the Lord Jesus Christ, whom truly to know is everlasting life; whom the selfish, the conceited, the envious, the slanderous, the insolent, the mutinous, know not, and never will know; for they are not of His Spirit, ...
— True Words for Brave Men • Charles Kingsley
... Procter, to meet Milnes, whose poetry you know I read to you here one evening, and you liked it, as I do, some of it, very much.... As for L——, I think one should be a great deal cleverer than he is to be so amazingly conceited, and of course, if one was, one wouldn't be; and if that sentence is not lovely, neither is "Beaver hats." ("Beaver hats is the best that is, for a shower don't hurt 'em, the least that are," quoth an old countrywoman ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... character is not always fully developed at three-and-twenty; at that age I was a conceited cub. I am seven-and-thirty now, and I feel my opinions are as settled as ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... Sommerton, allow me to say you have very little knowledge of human nature. It is only reasonable that a great man should know he is a great man. Most of our great men are conceited. I would like to see Trenton's letter to you. I could then have a good deal of amusement at his expense ...
— One Day's Courtship - The Heralds Of Fame • Robert Barr
... In normal individuals, these estimates of triumph and frustration are, of course, colored and qualified by signs of approval and disapproval from other people. There are very few—and these insanely conceited—in whom the opinions of others are not largely influential in determining their own ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... was kinder to him than ever she had previously been. Denis Quirk, although he appreciated the fact, never attributed it to any absurd reason, such as a younger and more conceited man might have done. In the matter of women he was absolutely humble and wanting in vanity, for he regarded himself as hopelessly ugly and deficient in the qualities that charm the ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin
... and out fond of Opal just at present. It would have been a dirty shame to play the trick behind his back. Still, if Opal wanted to run away with him it was up to him to run of course. Opal was rare sport and he couldn't stand the idea of Smart-Aleck McMarter, or that conceited Percy Emerson getting there first. He wondered which had won. It made his fury rise to think of either, and he had promised the lady neither of them should. What was she thinking of him by now that he had sent her no word of his delay? ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... patience, and love towards enemies, chastity, kindness, etc., and what such virtues imply. But such works are not of value and make no display in the eyes of the world; for they are not peculiar and conceited works and restricted to particular times, places, rites, and customs, but are common, every-day domestic works which one neighbor can practice toward another; therefore they are not of ...
— The Large Catechism by Dr. Martin Luther
... do it always would as soon think of being conceited of eating their dinner as of doing their duty. What honest boy would pride himself on not picking a pocket? A thief who was trying to ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... too true. God has given us a most excellent physic for the soul in all its diseases, but bad and interested physicians, or ignorant and conceited quacks, administer it so ill to the rest of mankind that much of the benefit ...
— Dialogues of the Dead • Lord Lyttelton
... let Linda Riggs hear you say anything like that, Laura Polk," admonished Bess. "She's so conceited that she wouldn't know it was sarcasm. She'd think it was a tribute drawn ...
— Nan Sherwood at Palm Beach - Or Strange Adventures Among The Orange Groves • Annie Roe Carr
... a bit conceited," admitted Kelley. "But then, he is a real, sure-enough miner. We ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... as she elected. There were bars absolutely impossible to follow, note for note, but she got around this difficulty by taking the key and holding it strongly and evenly. In ordinary times Nora never refused to sing for her guests, if she happened to be in voice. There was none of that conceited arrogance behind which most of the vocal celebrities hide themselves. At the beginning she had intended to sing badly; but as the music proceeded, she sang as she had not sung in weeks. To fill this man's soul with a hunger for the sound of her voice, to pour ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... only if they lasted long enough to receive a name. There was Unanimism. The name is remembered; perhaps the books are read. But it will not be found in the books. They are childish, just as the English novels which endeavoured to portray the soul of the generation were coarse and conceited. Behind all the conscious manifestations of cleverness and complexity lay a fundamental candour of which only a flickering gleam can now be recaptured. It glints on a page of M. Romains's Europe; the memory of it haunts ...
— Aspects of Literature • J. Middleton Murry
... I interrupted earnestly. "The man is not so cold-blooded as you imagine. Arrogant he is, and conceited, deeming himself admired, and envied by all, especially my sex. He has even dared boast to me of his victims. But therein lies his very weakness; I would make ...
— Beyond the Frontier • Randall Parrish
... came from. One specially amusing piece of Eighteenth-Century satirical verse I have never been able to trace. Perhaps if I put it forth here I shall find out whence it comes—very likely from some perfectly obvious source. The lines which were used to calm us in our more grandiose and self-conceited moods ran ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... of those immortal geniuses who are to be met with in almost every circle. They have, usually, very deep, monotonous voices. They always persuade themselves that they are wonderful persons, and that they ought to be very miserable, though they don't precisely know why. They are very conceited, and usually possess half an idea; but, with enthusiastic young ladies, and silly young gentlemen, they are very wonderful persons. The individual in question, Mr. Theodosius, had written a pamphlet containing ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... made the college very popular and taught the boys and girls of Oz their lessons in the easiest possible way. In spite of this, Professor Wogglebug was not a favorite outside his college, for he was very conceited and admired himself so much and displayed his cleverness and learning so constantly, that no one cared to associate with him. Ozma found him of ...
— Glinda of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... when he had witnessed to the full the ingratitude of the Austrian court, felt that there could be no peace between the houses of Austria and Brandenburg, and he intrusted to me the holy mission of punishing and humiliating this proud, conceited court; he pointed me out to his ministers, and said: 'There stands one who will revenge me!' You see that my ancestors call me, my grandfather and father chose me for their champion and revenger; they call upon me to perform that which they, prevented by circumstances, could not accomplish; ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... will you tell me why brains, even amateur ones, can't solve such problems as we have to face? You lawyers tackle hard cases and win them, even while you're green—if you possess certain qualities to begin with. We may be conceited, but we have an idea we possess the qualities necessary to successful strawberry culture. As a game, it's certainly a mighty ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond
... you're quite right. It's bad for a fellow in every way. First of all, it keeps him in an unnatural sort of dependence; then ten to one it makes him conceited, and prevents his character from really coming out well. And besides, the young chap generally gets paid out in kicks and abuse from the jealousy and contempt of the rest; and if his protector happens to leave, or anything of that kind, ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... eyes met mine for a moment, and it was exactly as if he had said to me "I know what you think, but I don't care a rap." What I really thought was that he was selfish beyond the limits: that was the substance of my little revelation. Youth is almost always selfish, just as it is almost always conceited, and, after all, when it's combined with health and good parts, good looks and good spirits, it has a right to be, and I easily forgive it if it be really youth. Still it's a question of degree, and what stuck out of ...
— The Patagonia • Henry James
... himself all the essential elements of the grandeur of the old prophets, glorified by the faith which the Son of Man did not find in the earth, but left behind him to grow in it, and which had grown to a noble growth of beauty and strength in this peasant, simple and patriarchal in the midst of a self-conceited age. And, oh! how good he had been to him! He had built a house that he might take him in from the cold, and make life pleasant to him, as in the presence of God. He had given him his heart every time he gave him his great manly hand. And this man, this friend, this presence of Christ, ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... himself might review it, and gives me an extract from Jeffrey's answer, refusing him. 'I have, as well as you, a great respect for Southey,' he says, 'but he is a most provoking fellow, and at least as conceited as his neighbour Wordsworth.' But he shall be happy to talk to Hogg upon this and other kindred subjects, and he should be very glad to give me a lavish allowance of praise, if I would afford him occasion, &c.; but he must do what he thinks his duty, &c.! I laugh to think ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... anything that the ordinary person cared to see, or in the way in which it would appear to such person. But he was greatly pleased with his work; and one day, as he threw himself down on a bank at noon and got out his bread and cheese, he was so carried away, being by nature a conceited man, ...
— Father Stafford • Anthony Hope
... duets, conceited vocal solos, sonorous, brass-lunged choruses—my attention gave but one eye and one ear to the stage, the other being permanently retained in the service of Dr. Bretton: I could not forget him, nor cease to question how he was feeling, what he was thinking, whether he was amused ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... disgrace upon my Lord. But I hope all that will not do, for the King loves him. Hence by water to the Wardrobe, and dined with my Lady, my Lady Wright being there too, whom I find to be a witty but very conceited woman and proud. And after dinner Mr. Moore and I to the Temple, and there he read my bill and likes it well enough, and so we came back again, he with me as far as the lower end of Cheapside, and there I ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... 'intellectual,' which is what I suspect Miss Vinrace of doing. It's all the fashion now. If you're clever it's always taken for granted that you're completely without sympathy, understanding, affection—all the things that really matter. Oh, you Christians! You're the most conceited, patronising, hypocritical set of old humbugs in the kingdom! Of course," he continued, "I'm the first to allow your country gentlemen great merits. For one thing, they're probably quite frank about their passions, which we are not. My father, who is a clergyman ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... reception of the salute of the righteous man, that is, the man in gray; his inferior, apparently, not more in the social scale than in stature. Like the benign elm again, the good man seemed to wave the canopy of his goodness over that suitor, not in conceited condescension, but with that even amenity of true majesty, which can be kind to any ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... a sublime fellow; but you're a prig, a conceited noodle with it all, Joe! You need not to think that because you've picked up a little knowledge of practical mathematics, and because you have found some scantling of the elements of chemistry at the bottom of a dyeing vat, that ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... accustomed to distrust each other that, when Virginia grew excited about French designs on the Ohio, Pennsylvania or North Carolina was as likely as not to say that it was the French who were in the right and a stupid, or excitable, or conceited, colonial governor who was in the wrong. In Paris and London, on the other hand, there were no illusions about affairs in America. In both capitals it was realized that a grim fight was on. During the winter of 1754-55 extensive preparations were being made ...
— The Conquest of New France - A Chronicle of the Colonial Wars, Volume 10 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • George M. Wrong
... says. But there, damn the fellow, he can put in a tinge if he likes, I don't care. He can't bear Ivan, he hates him. He's not fond of you, either. But I don't turn him out, for he is a clever fellow. Awfully conceited, though. I said to him just now, 'The Karamazovs are not blackguards, but philosophers; for all true Russians are philosophers, and though you've studied, you are not a philosopher—you are a low fellow.' ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... before the old Clay homestead, which had been the birthplace of a General, a Governor and an Ambassador, Rosamond, reading near an upper window, saw Mose, the stable man, take his horse. She thought: "Here comes that conceited boor, Caleb Saylor, to see me again; I shall send word I am not at home; * * * but it is dreadfully dull this afternoon, no one else seems to be coming, this book is the worst ever, he might prove entertaining; ...
— Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The Searchlight • Mathew Joseph Holt
... and feasible," said Victoria, musingly, "and yet I do not like it altogether. To be frank with you, my friend, if you really believe that I ought to marry again, why will not YOU marry me? What shall I do with the childish, conceited, and proud Count Colloredo, who is already seventy years of age? Why cannot I have my god of darkness? Thugut, I ask you, why do not you ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... Elegies with a masterly hand, often with a deliberately rugged effect, as in his broader Marstonic satire addressed to William Browne; while the line of greater smoothness but equal strength is to be seen in the letters to Sandys and Jeffreys. He is fantastic and conceited in most of the threnodies; but, as is natural, that on his old friend, Sir Henry Rainsford, is least artificial and fullest of true feeling. The epistle to Henery Reynolds. Of Poets and Poesie shows Drayton as a sane ...
— Minor Poems of Michael Drayton • Michael Drayton
... "You conceited spalpeen, do ye think there's no difference between us but what the clothes make? Get into them. I intend certain other people to take you for me in the dark, and I can warrant you these clothes, grand as you think them, will be very soundly beaten before ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... just succeeded in stirring up a little Nevadian literary puddle myself, whose spume-flakes were beginning to blow thinly California-ward. I started an inspection tramp through the southern mines of California. I was callow and conceited, and I resolved to try the virtue of my 'nom de guerre'. I very soon had an opportunity. I knocked at a miner's lonely log cabin in the foothills of the Sierras just at nightfall. It was snowing at the ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... dissatisfaction of a man like Charles Reade that an actress learns—that is, if she is not conceited. Conceit is an insuperable obstacle to all progress. On the other hand, it is of little use to take criticism in a slavish spirit and to act on it without understanding it. Charles Reade constantly wrote and said things to ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... you come here like a Pharisee, and wish to rebuke your superiors for trifles; and the ordinances of men are more to you than God's command. Fie! Martin! Remember your own words: 'We should obey God rather than men!' You conceited slave of the letter, you ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg
... them. In the Association arena, too, a similar condition of things prevailed in the case of the St. Louis and Brooklyn clubs, the costly investment of the Brooklyn club for new players, only enabling them to reach second place in the pennant race, while the "weakened"(?) St Louis team, by better conceited work together were enabled to break the record by capturing the Association pennant for the fourth successive season, something only equaled by the Boston club under the reign of the old National Association in 1872, ...
— Spalding's Baseball Guide and Official League Book for 1889 • edited by Henry Chadwick
... connection with that hideous crime which she ought to recollect, something which—if she could only remember what it was—would give her the clue to the tragic mystery, and for once ensure her triumph over this self-conceited and sarcastic scarecrow ...
— The Old Man in the Corner • Baroness Orczy
... conceited and patronizing and superior—and spoiled. I can just imagine this Mr. Ellery of yours strutting about in sewing circle or sociables, with Annabel and Georgianna Lothrop and the rest simpering and gushing and ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... the colour of, to pay me for my house they pulled down. All right! It may turn out that what Freiberg won't pay for, the Swedes will. I have to look after the prisoners, so I shall stand a first-rate chance to kill two birds with one stone,—do the business of the conceited Defensioner, and help myself to my money at the same time. What, you ...
— The Young Carpenters of Freiberg - A Tale of the Thirty Years' War • Anonymous
... forest. He puts the book away. If Sir Thomas Browne is mentioned, he will say, "Yes, very fine!" with a feeling of pride that he has at any rate bought and inspected Sir Thomas Browne. Deep in his heart is a suspicion that people who get enthusiastic about Sir Thomas Browne are vain and conceited poseurs. After a year or so, when he has recovered from the discouragement caused by Sir Thomas Browne, he may, if he is young and hopeful, repeat the experiment with Congreve or Addison. Same sequel! And so on for perhaps a decade, until his commerce with the classics finally expires! ...
— Literary Taste: How to Form It • Arnold Bennett
... Lilias is just that weak sort of girl with all her grace and prettiness, to be taken in by that sort of thing. Lilias fancies that she has taken quite a liking for Maggie—as if she could make a friend of her! Why, Maggie's a baby, and a very conceited, troublesome one too." ...
— The Children of Wilton Chase • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... need of this lesson of aptitude. The Anglo-Saxon is notoriously conceited and given to thinking that he has nothing to learn from other people, especially those who are politically subject to him. He looks with contempt upon the "mild Hindu," and maintains that it is the ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones
... began Geordie, with a low bow, "has been quite weel sin' I had the honour o' yer acquaintanceship, whilk is now a year, come twa o'clock o' this day. Ye micht maybe be thinking we were gaun to fa' out o' acquaintanceship; but I'm no ane o' yer conceited creatures wha despise auld freends, and rin after new anes, merely because they may think them brawer—sae ye may keep yer mind easy on that score; and I wad farther tak the liberty to assure yer leddyship that, if ye hae ony siller by ye at present, I winna hesitate ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... blaze, and the fire gradually eats into the solid mass, sinking down with increasing fervor; coals drop below, and delicate tongues of flame sport along the beautiful grain of the forestick. There are people who kindle a fire underneath. But these are conceited people, who are wedded to their own way. I suppose an accomplished incendiary always starts a fire in the attic, if he can. I am not an incendiary, but I hate bigotry. I don't call those incendiaries very good Christians who, when they set fire to the martyrs, touched off the fagots ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... being of an Arrogant and Conceited Nature, took counsel of Nobody, but declared that he would build his House ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) • Various
... experience, and he had an instinctive liking for a gentleman. He hung fondly by his godfather's side, and it was his delight to walk in the parks and hear Dobbin talk. William told George about his father, about India and Waterloo, about everything but himself. When George was more than usually pert and conceited, the Major made jokes at him, which Mrs. Osborne thought very cruel. One day, taking him to the play, and the boy declining to go into the pit because it was vulgar, the Major took him to the boxes, ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... defending the town. It's merely——I'm a confirmed doubter of myself. (Probably I'm conceited about my lack of conceit!) Anyway, Gopher Prairie isn't particularly bad. It's like all villages in all countries. Most places that have lost the smell of earth but not yet acquired the smell of patchouli—or of factory-smoke—are ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... of you seen the greenhouses?" demanded Tempest presently. "No? Oh, you must. We're rather conceited over our show of ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... preside year after year or to attempt it upon so high and brilliant and bold a key as you have assumed here to-night, if you don't kill the Alumni dinners, the Alumni dinners will kill you. [Great laughter.] Yale College, as represented by its graduates, is not self-conceited nor obtrusive. It is true they have always felt the magnificent compliment paid to the College by that greatest of English thinkers and philosophers Lord Bacon, who said in a famous passage, as you will recall: "Eating makes a full man, drinking a ready man, but to be an Alumnus of Yale, ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... was settled without serious difference of opinion. If Sir Robert Perry really could not go on—and Lady Eynesford was by no means prepared to concede even that—then Mr. Puttock, bourgeois as he was, or Mr. Coxon, conceited and priggish though he might be, must come in. At any rate, the one indisputable fact was the impossibility of Mr. Medland: this was, to Lady Eynesford's mind, axiomatic, and, in the safe privacy of her family circle (for Miss Scaife counted as one of the family, and Captain ...
— Half a Hero - A Novel • Anthony Hope
... third comforter, opens his lips for coarse vituperation rather than sharp rebuke, and regrets that God Himself does not feel moved to give a practical lesson of wisdom to the conceited "prattler," who persists in believing in his own innocence in spite of the unmistakable judgment of his just Creator and the unanimous testimony of his candid friends. Job's reply to this vigorous advocate of God is even more powerful and indignant than any of the foregoing. He repeats ...
— The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur • Emile Joseph Dillon
... and more words. Where he learns 'em all is a mystery, for he'd much rather talk than study. He's infatuated young Jefferson, who's yeoman on his father's side, but who's as smart as he is conceited. What do you suppose that young scamp is trying to accomplish? Nothing less than the ruin of the old families of this Dominion, sir. He would so change our laws that, instead of our estates descending to the eldest son ...
— Rodney, the Ranger - With Daniel Morgan on Trail and Battlefield • John V. Lane
... seller gain alike, and all who participate become rich. It is so in all honest relations between these half-creatures we call men and women. In agreement, association, cooperation, lies strongest significant life for both. In separation, competition and antagonism lie arid, poor, mean lives, conceited and egotistic, vapid ...
— Woman in Modern Society • Earl Barnes
... been imposed upon by a silly young man. You meant to do him a kindness—in your heart you had nothing but kindness—and I think the more of you for what you have done, and the less of Simon for what he has done. Did he think I would recommend him, when I know nothing about him? He is a conceited puppy, and, in my opinion, a worthless fellow. One of these days he will be 'an honor and an ornament' to the workhouse, if he does ...
— Poor and Proud - or The Fortunes of Katy Redburn • Oliver Optic
... understanding of the feebleness of our nature and our capacities. We do not overload an animal, merely because it evinces a willingness to make an effort. We therefore must not overweight our soul with sorrow. We must not nurse our woe. We must not have that grand, conceited idea of our nobility which demands of us a great long future of melancholy; but rather must we nurse our bodies, suspecting our liver if our soul be heavy, and blaming our chamber if our brow be clouded. Then, if a high intelligence wait at the couch of ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern
... was in her heart, wrote a letter to prince Asaad, complaining of the excess of her love and longing for him, as follows: 'From her who perisheth for passion and love-longing to the goodliest of mankind in form and nature, him who is conceited of his own loveliness and glories in his amorous grace, who turneth away from those that seek to enjoy him and refuseth to show favour unto the lowly and the self-abasing, him who is cruel and disdainful; from the despairing lover to prince Asaad, lord of surpassing beauty ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume III • Anonymous
... Tom felt satisfaction at that moment, he had too good feeling to wound the self-love of the vain creature before him; so, instead of speaking what he thought, viz., "What business have you to attempt literature, you conceited fool?" he tried to wean him civilly from his folly by saying, "Then come back to the country, James; if you find jealous rivals here, you know you were ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... don't care to accept. There is Bob Stickney, for instance, who is always inviting me to his room; but you know what he is—a lazy fellow, who cares more to have a good time than to study. Then there is James Cameron, a conceited, empty-headed fellow, who is very ...
— Making His Way - Frank Courtney's Struggle Upward • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... haggis; meet a conceited schoolmaster. This night, or rather in the early morning, I saw in the dream of my sleep my dear departed mother—she appeared to be coming out of her little sleeping-room at Oulton Hall—overjoyed I gave a cry and fell down at her knee, but my agitation was ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... book that had been put in with his old complacent waggle of the head. "Oh, am I not a wonder!" he used to cry, when he did anything big; but that was no reason why she should suspect him of being conceited still. Very probably he really and truly felt what he wrote—felt it not only at the time, but also next morning. In his boyhood Mr. Cathro had christened him Sentimental Tommy; but he was a man now, and surely the sentimentalities in which ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... Hebe said, she doubted not but she should be able to withstand any of Brunetta's temptations. Her mother interrupting her, cried out, 'Oh, my dear child, though you are endowed with wisdom enough to direct you in the way to virtue, yet if you grow conceited and proud of that wisdom, and fancy yourself above temptation, it will lead you into the worst of all evils.' Here the fairy interposed, and told the Princess Hebe, that if she would always carefully observe and ...
— The Governess - The Little Female Academy • Sarah Fielding
... who were staying with Sir David this year, he told Gilbert. He knew all Major Foljambe's tiger stories by heart, and had convicted him of glaring discrepancies in his description of the havoc he and his brother officers had made among the big game. Windus Carr was a conceited presuming cad, who was always boring them with impossible accounts of his conquests among the fair sex; and that poor Harker was an unmitigated fool, whose brains had run into his billiard-cue. This was the report which John Saltram gave of his fellow-guests; ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... be so ignorant of the nature of government as to suppose that a capable statesman cannot be fat, yellow, and conceited. Many Englishmen are slim, red-nosed, and modest. Put them in my place, and within a year you will be back in the anarchy and chaos of the ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... Zandt—that he had really made love to her, and possibly did honorably love her still, and might yet give her an opportunity to reject him. And now he was dead, and she was held up to the world as the conceited plaything of a fine gentleman's masquerading sport. That her father's cupidity and ambition made him sanction the imposture, in her bitterness she never doubted. No! Lover, friend, father—all had been false to her, and the only kindness she had received was from the men ...
— Thankful Blossom • Bret Harte
... letters at present in use. The high-class style employed by persons of education is plain and often eccentric, but without much ornamentation. The other may be called the middle-class, for it is used by servants and tradespeople, having a fair amount of education, mingled with a good deal of conceited ...
— Disputed Handwriting • Jerome B. Lavay
... which shocked him with the English, was the manner in which they went about distributing tracts upon the Continent. I said no one could deplore the practice more profoundly than myself, but that there were stupid and conceited people in every country, who would insist upon thrusting their opinions upon people who did not want them. He replied that the Italians travelled not a little in England, but that he was sure not one of them would dream of offering Catholic ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... Die: But they, unwilling to die, chuse not to hear him, talk loud, and perhaps not much to his Advantage. At his second Air the Noise encreases, and still encreasing, he looks upon it as a manifest Injury done him; and, instead of correcting his conceited Pride by Study, he curses the deprav'd Taste of that Nation that does not esteem him, menacing never to return again; and thus the ...
— Observations on the Florid Song - or Sentiments on the Ancient and Modern Singers • Pier Francesco Tosi
... that is not all; you must have a gull, a stockholder, a Hulot.—Well, I know a retired tradesman—in fact, a hosier. He is heavy, dull, has not an idea, I am licking him into shape, but I don't know when he will do me credit. My man is a deputy, stupid and conceited; the tyranny of a turbaned wife, in the depths of the country, has preserved him in a state of utter virginity as to the luxury and pleasures of Paris life. But Beauvisage—his name is Beauvisage—is a millionaire, and, like me, my dear, three years ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... me?" she asked mockingly. "You're too clever for me," he rejoined with spirit. "I'm too conceited. I must marry a girl that'd kneel to me and think me as wise as Socrates. But he's back again, as you say, and, in my view, his wife ought ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... bankruptcy. Few governors have favoured, few senators voted for more unwisely lavish expenditures than he. Above the suspicion of voting money into his own pocket, he has a rooted dislike to opposing a project or bill whereby any of his attached friends are to profit. And, conceited as we all are, I think most men exceed him in the art of concealing from others their overweening faith in their own sagacity and discernment."—Horace Greeley, Recollections of a Busy ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... these two texts how can man be so daring and proud and self-conceited as to teach the impossibility of Christians living a pure and sinless life in this world? Surely, there is no fear of God before their eyes. Verse eighteen declares that to become servants of righteousness necessitates freedom from sin; and verse twenty declares that to be a "servant ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr
... replied; 'he is the man, and his charge is five minae.' Happy is Evenus, I said to myself, if he really has this wisdom, and teaches at such a moderate charge. Had I the same, I should have been very proud and conceited; but the truth is that I have no knowledge ...
— Apology - Also known as "The Death of Socrates" • Plato
... experience should be had only after the attainment of physical and mental maturity. A young boy or girl, though ever so much of a prodigy, if taken on an extensive concert tour, not only becomes unduly self-conscious, conceited, vain and easily satisfied with his or her work, but—and this is the all-important point—runs the risk of undermining his or her health. The precious days of youth should be devoted primarily to the storing up of health, without which lasting success is impossible. Nothing is more ...
— Great Pianists on Piano Playing • James Francis Cooke
... my rather conceited way of looking upon matters then, and there was some ground for my assumption of manliness; but if excuse be needed let me say in my defence that I was suddenly cast into this career of dangerous adventure, and I was ...
— Bunyip Land - A Story of Adventure in New Guinea • George Manville Fenn
... I blush to flatter them, or to be flattered by them, and should dread letters being published some time or other, in which they would relate our interviews, and we should appear like those puny conceited witlings in Shenstone's and Hughes's Correspondence, who give themselves airs from being in possession of the soil of Parnassus for the time being; as peers are proud, because they enjoy the estates of great men who went before them. Mr. Gough is very welcome to ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... she was a very beautiful woman, he appeared, notwithstanding his absence of any knowledge of her sex and his lack of social status, unmoved, wholly undisturbed. He sat there in perfect naturalness. It did not seem to him even unaccountable that she should be interested in his concerns. He was not conceited or aggressive in any way. His complete self-confidence lacked any militant impulse. He was—himself, ...
— The Tempting of Tavernake • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... begun was not happily continued. There was a blight upon us all. I did my best, but I was in considerable pain and very tired. Moreover, I was not favourably impressed with my first sight of young Bohun. He seemed to me foolish and conceited. Uncle Ivan was afraid of him. ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... from our sensitiveness on this head, causes shyness and blushing much more readily than does approbation; though the latter with some persons is highly efficient. The conceited are rarely shy; for they value themselves much too highly to expect depreciation. Why a proud man is often shy, as appears to be the case, is not so obvious, unless it be that, with all his self-reliance, he really thinks much ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin
... portion of the year remained, yet the affairs of Lee Sing were in no more prosperous a condition than before, nor had he found an opportunity to set aside any store of taels. Each day the unsupportable Pe-tsing became more and more obtrusive and self-conceited, even to the extent of throwing far into the air coins of insignificant value whenever he chanced to pass Lee in the street, at the same time urging him to leap after them and thereby secure at least one or two pieces of money against the day of calculating. ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah
... do wonder what is the reason, That good men are all like Joe Price, So poky, and stiff, and conceited, And fast ones are always ...
— Point Lace and Diamonds • George A. Baker, Jr.
... might have in plenty, but she was above meannesses and mercenary calculation. The men who had sought her society had been incited to manly action, and beneath all the light talk and badinage earnest and heroic purposes had been formed; he meanwhile, poor fool! had been too blinded by conceited arrogance to understand what was taking place. He had so misunderstood her as to imagine that after she had spent a summer in giving heroic impulses she would be ready to form an alliance that would stultify all her action, and lose her the esteem of men who were proving their ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... I lead an easy life, though, and I don't care a cent whether school keeps or not. Everybody knows me, and I fare like a prince wherever I go, be it on this side of the mountain or the other. And I am proud to say I am the most conceited ass in the Territory. ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... same. She may be one of these young conceited democrats. Do you know what I think? I think she is very much like you in character. There is a smouldering fire of scorn in you. You are darkly self-sufficient, but I ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... proud. Her eyes sparkle with disdain and scorn. She is too conceited to love. I should not like to see her making game of poor Benedick's love. I would rather see Benedick waste ...
— Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare • E. Nesbit
... had not a little offended Davenport. A pompous and conceited man, any slight to himself, any failure to accord a deference he considered his due, he felt sensibly as an injury; much more, then, an open defiance and direct attack. That Holden or any one should have the hardihood, before an assemblage of his friends and acquaintances, to interrupt him ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... you throw much needed light on the mysteries of God himself. There is a good deal of incoherent drivel these days about the freedom of science. Well, you'll have to show me where it is. Scientists? They are a lot of conceited pin-heads, each working for himself, and incurably jealous of what his colleagues are doing. Up and at 'em, Doctor, that's my ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... to teach or defend truth, hath passed so much for a virtue: a virtue, indeed, which, consisting for the most part in nothing but the fallacious and illusory use of obscure or deceitful terms, is only fit to make men more conceited in their ignorance, and ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume II. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books III. and IV. (of 4) • John Locke
... volume of the "Select Comedies of M. de Molire," this comedy is called "The Conceited Ladies." It is dedicated to Miss Le ...
— The Pretentious Young Ladies • Moliere
... devote a large part of his time to smoothing out these quarrels between men who had come together with the principles of unity and fellowship as the foundation of their association. He saw with disgust that he was gathering a crowd of cranks, conceited and stupid, vain and ambitious for fame and leadership. It was all he could do to prevent ...
— The One Woman • Thomas Dixon
... the right stuff; you have made good use of your time, and have as much knowledge in that curly pate of yours as many officers of twice your length of service possess. Now, I am not telling you this because I want to make you conceited—far from it; it is simply because I want you to understand that I have formed a very high opinion of you, and that I expect you to live up to ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... position with a moving-picture company—as a jobber—I began very humbly at first, you see, and I underwent great hardships." (She was quoting now from one of her favorite interviews.) "My talent attracted the attention of the director, Mr. Ferriday. He stands very high in the p'fession, but he's very conceited—very! He thought he owned me because he was the first one I let direct me. He wanted ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... motives and enjoyments, into the present moment. Captain Truck, therefore, was soon forgotten, and the literati, as that worthy seaman had termed the associates of Mrs. Legend, remained just as vapid, as conceited, as ignorant, as imitative, as dependent, and as provincial ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... Dick promptly. "I don't believe in patting the plebe on the shoulder and increasing his conceit. When a candidate first comes to West Point, and is admitted as a cadet, he is one of the most conceited simpletons on earth. He has to have that all taken out of him, I admit. He must be taught to respect and defer to upper classmen, just as he will have to do with his superior officers after he goes from here out into the service. The plebe must be kept ...
— Dick Prescott's Second Year at West Point - Finding the Glory of the Soldier's Life • H. Irving Hancock |
