"Vaunt" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... looks back to the "hole of the pit whence he was digged," and remembers that he now stands by virtue of the same grace that took his feet out of the "horrible pit and miry clay," will be the last person to vaunt over the fallen condition of his fellow-creatures. He will look upon them with an eye of tender compassion; and his rebukes will be administered in a meek, subdued, and humble spirit, remembering the injunction of Paul, "Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall." But ...
— A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females - Being a Series of Letters from a Brother to a Younger Sister • Harvey Newcomb
... Ursula left Wiggiston. Miss Inger went to Nottingham. There was an engagement between her and Tom Brangwen, which the uncle seemed to vaunt as if it were an assurance ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... otherwise? It may be observed, however, that here, as everywhere else in this right little tight little isle, where habit is the very antithesis of the airy license of "Abroad," it is not, as it is in the artistic haunts of the Continent, en regle to vaunt one's self on the paucity of one's shekels or to acknowledge acquaintance with the Medici's pills in their modern form of the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... tidings of his approach came to the ears of Sankharib, the King rode forth to meet his Minister, rejoicing in him with joy exceeding and received him lovingly and kissed him, and cried, "Well come and welcome and fair welcome to my sire and the glory of my realm and the vaunt of my kingdom: do thou require of me whatso thou wantest and choosest, even didst thou covet one-half of my good and of my government." The Minister replied, "Live, O King, for ever; and if thou would gift me bestow thy boons upon Abu Sumayk, the Sworder, whose wise ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... this morning received his Diploma as Doctor of Laws from the University of Oxford. He did not vaunt of his new dignity, but I understood he was highly pleased with it. I shall here insert the progress and completion of that high academical honour, in the same manner as I have traced his obtaining that of ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... is likely to appear to us even more viciousthan that of other men. To be sure, we remember Sir Philip Sidney's contention, supported by his anecdote of the loquacious horseman, that men of all callings are equally disposed to vaunt themselves. If the poet seems especially voluble about his merits, this may be owing to the fact that, words being the tools of his trade, he is more apt than other men in giving expression to his self-importance. But our ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... it out? and walk off with it for a hundred yards?" demanded Matthewson, a Bonanza King, he of the seven hundred vaunt. ...
— The Call of the Wild • Jack London
... his steady assertion that he would remain had perhaps appeared to vaunt a heroism that was not true. He supposed that she had seen his selfishness of motive, and that it was her time now to let him see that she had not much admiration for him, so that he might make his choice ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... crack your cheeks! rage! blow! You cat[)a]r[)a]cts and hurricanoes, spout, Till you have drench'd our steeples, drown'd the cocks! You sulphurous and thought-executing fires, Vaunt couriers of oak-cleaving thunderbolts, Singe my white head! and thou, all-shaking thunder, Strike flat the thick rotundity o' ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... this disease of electricity has been for some time past almost universally conceded. While some vaunt the faradic, others prefer the galvanic current in its treatment. It appears that thus far the best results have been obtained on the one hand by galvanization of the spine, on the other by general faradization. It occurred to me, when I began to devote myself to electro-balneological ...
— The Electric Bath • George M. Schweig
... other nations are wont to vaunt the glory of their achievements, and reap joy from the remembrance of their forefathers: Absalon, Chief Pontiff of the Danes, whose zeal ever burned high for the glorification of our land, and who would not suffer it to be defrauded of like renown and record, cast upon me, the least of ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... vaunt, For now I see Thou only hast the power To find And bind A heart that's free, And slave ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... boasting too frequently of myself in company, he said to me, 'Boswell, you often vaunt so much, as to provoke ridicule. You put me in mind of a man who was standing in the kitchen of an inn with his back to the fire, and thus accosted the person next him, "Do you know, Sir, who I am?" "No, Sir, (said the other,) I have not that ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... of beggar'd men had done the venturous deed: 115 The glory was to France alone, the danger was their meed. And what cared they for idle thanks from foreign prince and peer? What virtue had such honey'd words the exiled heart to cheer? What matter'd it that men should vaunt ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... ascend high mountains and offer sacrifices on their summits. The literary class had ancient rule and precedent for every step in this ceremony, and so sharply criticised the emperor's disregard of these observances that they roused his anger. "You vaunt the simplicity of the ancients," he impatiently said; "you should then be satisfied with me, for I act in a simpler fashion than they did." Finally he closed the controversy with the stern remark, "When I have need of you I will let you know ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 12 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... ourselves. This might be very brief or at considerable length; it might suggest inquiries of any of the company or merely pledge an attentive and courteous hearing to whatever the guest might utter; it might refer to the past glory of the castle and its lord, or vaunt its present greatness and ...
— Toasts - and Forms of Public Address for Those Who Wish to Say - the Right Thing in the Right Way • William Pittenger
... remonstrances from Mistress Pennyquick. But I refused to let her coddle me, and as my appetite never failed, and I throve amazingly, the good woman at last ceased to lament, and, as I discovered, was wont behind my back to vaunt my growing manliness. ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... might possibly be the harbinger of him, he was busied in carefully looking over marriage articles, fixing the place of residence with his destined bride, or making love to her in formal process. Yet, Agnes, vaunt!—he sometimes thought on thee—he could not witness the folly, the weakness, the vanity, the selfishness of his future wife, without frequently comparing her with thee. When equivocal words and prevaricating sentences fell from her lips, he remembered ...
— Nature and Art • Mrs. Inchbald
... should Isis only see thee shine? Is not thy Forth, as well as Isis, thine? Though Isis vaunt she hath more wealth in store, Let it suffice thy Forth doth love thee more: Though she for beauty may compare with Seine, For swans, and sea-nymphs with imperial Rhine, Yet for the title may be claim'd in thee, Nor she nor all the world ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... Or triumphant chant, Match'd with thine, would be all But an empty vaunt— A thing wherein we feel there is ...
— Graded Memory Selections • Various
... attractions. The pope sought a spouse worthy of this princess, who was the descendant of a long line of emperors. Mohammed II., having overrun all Greece, flushed with victory, was collecting his forces for the invasion of the Italian peninsula, and his vaunt, that he would feed his horse from the altar of St. Peters, had thrilled the ear of Catholic Europe. The pope, Paul II., anxious to rouse all the Christian powers against the Turks, wished to make the marriage ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... Charleston, Natchez, or St. Louis, he would be torn in pieces by the citizens with one accord, and that if any one should attempt to bring his murderers to punishment, he would be torn in pieces also. The editors of southern newspapers openly vaunt, that every abolitionist who sets foot in their soil, shall, if he be discovered, be hung at once, without judge or jury. What mockery to quote the letter of the law in those states, to show that abolitionists would have secured to them the legal ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... folk,—what shall I clepe them? what? That vaunt themselves of women, and by name, That yet to them ne'er promised this or that, Nor knew them more, in ...
— Chaucer • Adolphus William Ward
... form opinion that my prospects in this abstruse and perplexing chase were not at that time much to vaunt. My theories and my acts had led me into a mental cul-de-sac, a blind alley, where, in lack of exit, I took hold of every straw that the wind of thought set flying. Here was the problem at this stage as it then appeared to me:—Item (1): A ship built of some metal I ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton
... Let him not vaunt that gains my loss, For when that he and time hath proved her, She may him bring to Weeping-Cross: I say no more, because I ...
— Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age • Various
... the maids of the Lowlands Vaunt their silks and their Hollands, In the garb of the Highlands Oh give me my dear! Such a figure for grace! For the Loves such a face! And for lightness the pace That the grass shall not stir. ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume III - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... last but not least illustrious of the honored group, it is only necessary to say, that as he shared the hospitality, so he has not left unsung the praises of Penshurst. Where is the circle which shall again combine so many claims to our admiration and respect? What age shall presume to vaunt itself for genius or for virtue above the age ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... eyes again! Thou friend of Gods, of all mankind elect; Thou the pure heart, by thoughts of ill unflecked! I care not for thy boasts. I am not mad, To deem that Gods love best the base and bad. Now is thy day! Now vaunt thee; thou so pure, No flesh of life may pass thy lips! Now lure Fools after thee; call Orpheus King and Lord; Make ecstasies and wonders! Thumb thine hoard Of ancient scrolls and ghostly mysteries— Now thou art caught and known! Shun men like these, I charge ye all! ...
— Hippolytus/The Bacchae • Euripides
... modern mood steals back— Weary and wayworn from the desert-road Of barren thought; from Hope's Dead Sea, which glowed With Love's fair mirage; from the poet's haunt, The scholar's lamp, the statesman's scheme, the vaunt, The failure, of all fond philosophies,— Back unto Thee, back to thy olive-trees, Thy people, and thy story, and thy Son, Mary of Nazareth! So long agone Bearing us Him who made our christendom, And came to save the earth, from ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow—Book 3 - Christmas Poems from 'round the World • Various
... Refugees, or persons who, for the sake of expressing their opinions and feelings against the government, without fear of imprisonment, had removed to Canada where they could vent their spleen and malice against all things connected with the United States, and vaunt their pernicious principles under the protection of the outstretched paw of the British lion. 4th. Bounty jumpers and criminals who could not be pursued and brought back to this country for punishment under the existing extradition treaty between the United States and Canada. This last ...
— The Great North-Western Conspiracy In All Its Startling Details • I. Windslow Ayer
... less the while? To grant one spark Myself may deal with—make it thaw my blood And prompt my steps, were truer to the mark Of mind's requirement than a half-surmise That somehow secretly is operant A power all matter feels, mind only tries To comprehend! Once more—no idle vaunt 'Man comprehends the Sun's self!' Mysteries At source why probe into? Enough: display, Make demonstrable, how, by night as day, Earth's centre and sky's outspan, all's informed Equally by Sun's efflux!—source from whence If just one spark I drew, full ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... the barbarous vaunt; "I will force the people to eat hay;" and without any order from the constituted authorities, some peasants, neighbours of the old minister, arrest him, take him to Paris, his son-in-law experiences ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... "all the earth and air with thy voice is loud"; "a rain of melody"; surpassing the "sound of vernal showers" and of "rain-awakened flowers" and "all that ever was joyous, clear and fresh"; "a flood of rapture so divine"; beside it a "hymenaeal chorus" or a "triumphal chaunt" is "but an empty vaunt"; "clear, keen joyance," "notes flow in such a ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... forty-five years of age; Hohenfels, quite erroneously, gives me forty-eight; Josephine, with that raw alacrity in leaping at computations peculiar to the illiterate, oppressed me with fifty. Which of us three knew best? I should like to ask. But it is of little consequence. The Easterns generally vaunt themselves on not knowing the day of their birth. And wisdom comes to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... to the extent of being burdened with the cub half a dozen times a week. Gourlay was merely boasting—as young blades are apt to do of acquaintance with older roisterers. They think it makes them seem men of the world. And in his desire to vaunt his comradeship with Allan, John failed to see that Allardyce was scooping him out ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... you must expose yourself to contempt by failing to make your vaunt good," said Brithric; "but you shall not escape ...
— The Children's Portion • Various
... or some slave may want Your counsel. Let her but appear, This mighty Pallas whom you vaunt!" The goddess answer'd, ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
... fly When fresh breezes clear the sky, Passed away each swelling boast Of the misbelieving host. From the Hebrus rolling far Came the murky cloud of war, And in shower and tempest dread Burst on Austria's fenceless head. But not for vaunt or threat Didst Thou, O Lord, forget The flock so dearly bought, ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... doubtingly. "Will you have another coffee-cake?" says some one, and we remember that we are at Spillman's also. And, indeed, we might be more sensible to stay with our party always; eat cakes, drink wine, laugh at the old world, vaunt the new, read Baedeker and the Bible, say our orthodox Protestant prayers, with a special "Lead us not into Romanism" codicil, and go to bed, and dream of our own golden houses, Paris dresses, and ...
— Mae Madden • Mary Murdoch Mason
... longing are dead. Even while I write I feel dragged to her; a thousand voices cry to me that there is but one Ann, and when a few weeks ago the young Sieur de Blonay made so bold as to vaunt of his lady and her rose-red as above all other ladies and colors, my sword compelled him to yield the place of honor to blue—for whose ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Furthermore, victuals and other matters are dearer, seeing rich men buy up all, and with their monopoly keep the market as it please them. Unless you find a remedy for these enormities, you shall in vain vaunt yourselves of executing justice ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... perforce be critics of these tear-away wits; which are, moreover, so threadbare to conceal the character! Caroline led him to vaunt his riding and his shooting, and a certain time passed before she perceived that though he responded naturally to her first sly attacks, his gross exaggerations upon them had not been the triumph of absurdity she supposed herself to ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... That deceitful mediator then, by whom in Thy secret judgments pride deserved to be deluded, hath one thing in common with man, that is sin; another he would seem to have in common with God; and not being clothed with the mortality of flesh, would vaunt himself to be immortal. But since the wages of sin is death, this hath he in common with men, that with them he should be ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... a joy, love? Bind it on thy brow! Vaunt it, flaunt it, All the world to know. Where the shade lies dim and gray, Turn its glad and heartsome ray. Does thy sad-browed neighbor smile? So thy life ...
— The Silver Crown - Another Book of Fables • Laura E. Richards
... intelligence than his, only he happens to be the hired labourer chosen to carry out the conception; a sort of mechanic in whom boastfulness looks absurd; as absurd as if one of the stonemasons working at the cornice of a cathedral were to vaunt himself as the designer of the whole edifice. And when a work, any work, is completed, it passes out of the labourer's hands; it belongs to the age and the people for whom it was accomplished, and, if deserving, goes on belonging to future ages and ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli
... of alarming uncertainty; some are driven by fiery terrors, others by a still small voice. Reader, our anxious inquiry should be, Have we entered in by Christ the gate? Are our fruits meet for repentance? Let no one vaunt of his experience, because he go well bedaubed with the dirt of the slough. Every soul that enters the gate is ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... man—banker, merchant, manufacturer, and what not. A big, loud man, with a stare and a metallic laugh. A man who could never sufficiently vaunt himself—a self-made man. A man who was always proclaiming, through that brassy speaking-trumpet of a voice of his, his early ignorance and poverty. A man who was the ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... Newspapers were somewhat given to vaunt themselves as to their circulation, but they had no need to call in the aid of the chartered accountant, as they could get their facts from the number of stamps supplied—the stamp then being of the value ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton
... the vaunt with a sneer. "You ought to be a detective—in a novel." He buttered his toast and ate a little of it, like a man of small appetite and ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... fine-drawn to sweat, too pressed to vaunt the drugs in his little brass-bound box, ascending Shamlegh slope, a just man made perfect. Watch him, all Babudom laid aside, smoking at noon on a cot, while a woman with turquoise-studded headgear points south-easterly across the bare grass. Litters, she says, do not travel as fast ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... to forget the lie Which hope too long has whispered. So I sought The sleep which would not come, and night was fraught With old emotions weeping silently. I heard your voice again, and knew the things Which you had promised proved an empty vaunt. I felt your clinging hands while night's broad wings Cherished our love in darkness. From the lawn A sudden, quivering birdnote, like a taunt. My arms held ...
— A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass • Amy Lowell
... was just like Dr. Johnson. Seeing that Dr. Johnson was heavily seamed with small-pox, had a waistcoat all over gravy, snorted and rolled as he walked, and was probably the ugliest man in London, I mention this identification as a fact and not as a vaunt. I had nothing to do with the arrangement; and such fleeting suggestions as I made were not taken so seriously as they might have been. I requested that a row of posts be erected across the lawn, so that I might touch all of ...
— Tremendous Trifles • G. K. Chesterton
... country and these lords, Sylla, proceed from forth a traitor's heart; Whose head I trust to see advanced up On highest top of all this capitol, As erst was many of thy progeny, Before thou vaunt thy victories in Rome. ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... to the journal a note to the effect that Americans are not only quite as prone to vaunt and brag and tell big stories as other explorers had asserted, but that in the ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... he cannot lie Nor vaunt nor laugh at impious drollery, And pleasure's charms are things to ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... moment of passion made big boasts of what they would do "some day." Few ever made so tremendous a vaunt; fewer still ever so completely fulfilled their threats; and, perhaps, no one ever struggled so patiently, so nobly, nor against such tremendous obstacles before the goal was reached, as did this angry little Swede, ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... such labors look thou for no termination, until some god shall appear as a substitute in thy pangs, and shall be willing to go both to gloomy Hades, and to the murky depths around Tartarus. Wherefore advise thee, since this is no fictitious vaunt, but uttered in great earnestness; for the divine mouth knows not how to utter falsehood, but will bring every word to pass. But do thou look around and reflect, and never for a moment deem ...
— Prometheus Bound and Seven Against Thebes • Aeschylus
... settled down to its altered conditions; and in a week everybody looked and acted much as usual, so soon does novelty wear off and do mortals readjust themselves. Jack and Harriet seemed happy; but the former, at least, was too fastidious to vaunt his affections in even the little public of his lifelong friends. He spent hours swinging in a hammock, reading philosophy and smoking; occasionally he read aloud to his aunt and Harriet, and in the afternoon he usually took his wife for ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... (French, pro. bon ve-van'), one who lives well. Gour-mand (French, pro. goor'man), a glutton. Gas-tro-nom'ic, relating to the science of good eating. 8. Cor'pu-lent, fleshy, fat. Ep'i-cure, one who indulges in the luxuries of the table. Vaunt'ed, boasted. 9. Ex'pi-ates, atones for. Lard'er, a pantry. ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... the three Lombard builders, while each man was a master of his own especial art, had done most of their work in cities, and when it came to matters of the fields and woods they were not to be trusted. But when David found Roger a little inclined to vaunt his superior woodcraft he set him a ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... Orlando! O King Sacripant! That fame of yours, say, what avails it ye? That lofty honour, those great deeds ye vaunt,— Say, what's their value with the lovely she Shew me—recall to memory (for I can't)— Shew me, I beg, one single courtesy That ever she vouchsafed ye, far or near, For all you've done and ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... All gods are subject to the like mishap. Stars daily fall ('tis use is all in all), And men account the fall but nature's course. Vaunting my jewels hasting to the west, Or rising early from the grey-ey'd morn, What do I vaunt but your large bountyhood, And show how liberal a lord I serve? Music and poetry, my two last crimes, Are those two exercises of delight, Wherewith long labours I do weary out. The dying swan is not forbid to sing: The waves of Hebrus[46] play'd on Orpheus' strings, When he ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... King Henry's son that Margaret's love Hangs in th'uncertain balance of proud time? That death shall make a discord of our thoughts? No, stab the earl, and, 'fore the morning sun Shall vaunt him thrice over the lofty east, Margaret will meet her Lacy ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... the fire, Erst filmed in dark. Enough said now of this: For the other helps of man hid underground, The iron and the brass, silver and gold, Can any dare affirm he found them out Before me? None, I know, unless he choose To lie in his vaunt. In one word learn the whole: That all arts come to mortals from Prometheus. Aeschylus: Prometheus. ...
— Story of Orestes - A Condensation of the Trilogy • Richard G. Moulton
... Gospel. Thus did their pious labors prove them the true soldiers of the Cross, and showed that the object so ostentatiously avowed of carrying its banner among the heathen nations was not an empty vaunt. ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... (quoth another of the jury) upon a time to be at Huntington, where I heard tell of a simple shoemaker there dwelling, who having two little boys whom he made a vaunt to bring up to learning, the better to maintain themselves when they were men; and having kept them a year or two at school, he examined them saying, "My good boy," quoth he to one of them, "what dost thou learn and where is thy lesson?" "O father," said the boy, "I am past grace." "And ...
— The Book of Noodles - Stories Of Simpletons; Or, Fools And Their Follies • W. A. Clouston
... than one man's lifetime after, the reign of Mistress Clorinda Wildairs was a memory recalled over the bottle at the dining-table among men, some of whom had but heard their fathers vaunt her beauties. It seemed as if in her person there was not a single flaw, or indeed a charm, which had not reached the highest point of beauty. For shape she might have vied with young Diana, mounted side by side with her upon a pedestal; her raven locks were ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... my countrymen; I would not vaunt the prowess of an enemy; but, sir, I tell those gentlemen who, in this debate, have found it so easy to drive British troops out of Oregon, that, between England and the United States, if hostilities occur in ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... and waited his opportunity; he kept his eye settled upon them, to profit by the first opening which their folly should offer to the dreadful artillery of law. At last, said the minister, we will put to proof this vaunt of yours. We dare not bring you to trial, is your boast. Now, we will see that settled; and, at the same time, we will try whether we cannot put you down for ever. That trial was made, and with what perfection of success the reader knows; for let us remind him, that the perfection ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... if the lad felt his blood run cold as he listened to the Indian's vaunt, and it is little wonder that his head swam until he was near in reality to the very faintness that he ...
— The Fiery Totem - A Tale of Adventure in the Canadian North-West • Argyll Saxby
... upon the roof of a lofty shed, and seeing a Wolf below, loaded him with all manner of reproaches. Upon which, the Wolf, looking up, replied, "Do not vaunt yourself, vain creature, and think you mortify me; for I look upon this ill language as not coming from you, but from the place ...
— Favourite Fables in Prose and Verse • Various
... remorse, and worse a thousand-fold, Than pangs of hunger. 'Tis the thirst of love, The rage and rapture of the ravening dove We name Desire. Ah, pardon! I offend; My fervor blinds me to the withering end Of all good council, and, accurst thereby, I vaunt anew the faults I ...
— A Lover's Litanies • Eric Mackay
... boasting &c. v.; boast, vaunt, crake|; pretense, pretensions; puff, puffery; flourish, fanfaronade[obs3]; gasconade; blague[obs3], bluff, gas*; highfalutin, highfaluting[obs3]; hot air, spread-eagleism [obs3][U. S.]; brag, braggardism[obs3]; bravado, bunkum, buncombe; jactitation[obs3], ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... under whose name and cognisance they shall goe abroad and seeke their fortunes. How the world will entertaine them I know not, or what acceptance your credit may adde to their basenes I am yet uncertaine; but this I dare vaunt without sparke of vaine-glory that I have given you a taste of the best Italian fruites, the Thuscane Garden could affoorde; but if the pallate of some ale or beere mouths be out of taste that they cannot taste them, ...
— Shakespeare's Lost Years in London, 1586-1592 • Arthur Acheson
... traders; But soi-disant Crusaders Caught paltering with the Infidels, like traitors, And hot enthusiast Emancipators Who the grim Slavery-demon gently tackle, Wink at the scourge, and dally with the shackle, Such, though they vaunt their zeal and orthodoxy, Seem—for ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, Sept. 27, 1890 • Various
... "he would not strive with a prince at shuffle-board." Henry observed, "Yet you gownsmen should be best at such exercises, which are not meet for men who are more stirring." The tutor, a little irritated, said, "I am meet for whipping of boys." "You vaunt, then," retorted the prince, "that which a ploughman or cart-driver can do better than you." "I can do more," said the tutor, "for I can govern foolish children." On which the prince, who, in his respect for his tutor, did not care to carry the jest farther, rose ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... and furthermore, what originated in a necessity has been mounted into a vaunt. In towns there is large rivalry in building tall houses. If one gentleman builds his house four stories high, and another gentleman comes next door and builds five stories high, then the former, not to be looked down upon that way, immediately sends for his architect and ...
— I and My Chimney • Herman Melville
... midst of it, you need not be offended or overwhelmed. Such is ever the naivety of great souls among those whose culture is primitive. It is like the boasted bravery of the eldest among little children, wholly an act of kindness and consideration, not a selfish vaunt. That they should be admired and trusted is for them a foregone conclusion; and when they call on that admiration and trust, they do it merely for the sake of those whom they would encourage and console, for whose sakes they will even hide ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... "Wallie" Hine began to boast. Sylvia tried to check him, but he was not now to be stopped. His very timidity pricked him on to extravagance, and his boasting was that worst form of boasting—the vaunt of the innocent weakling anxious to figure as a conqueror of women. With a flushed face he dropped his foolish hints of Mrs. This and Lady That, with an eye upon Sylvia to watch the impression which he made, and a wise air which said "If only I were ...
— Running Water • A. E. W. Mason
... by force of screaming, to assure him that he had been, simple as he sat there, engaged in seven plots in Cromwell's time; and, as he proudly added, with some of the tallest men of England. The matchless look and air with which Sir Geoffrey made this vaunt, set all a-laughing, and increased the ridicule with which the whole trial began to be received; so that it was amidst shaking sides and watery eyes that a general verdict of Not Guilty was pronounced, and the prisoners dismissed ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... "A vaunt of war, father. Call they not him the Good Duke? When we lay before Paris, the English put about a like lying tale concerning us, as if we should sack and ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... their vade mecums. Do not here produce ancient examples of the paragons of paillardice, and offer to match with my testiculatory ability the Priapaean prowess of the fabulous fornicators, Hercules, Proculus Caesar, and Mahomet, who in his Alkoran doth vaunt that in his cods he had the vigour of three score bully ruffians; but let no zealous Christian trust the rogue,—the filthy ribald rascal is a liar. Nor shalt thou need to urge authorities, or ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... admit—but it is a fixed fact, invulnerable, backed up by wealth, talent, pride and political influence, and all opposition is vain. You Abolitionists are mere sentimentalists, visionaries, doctrinaires." This had great influence with the indifferent, the timid, and especially with those who vaunt themselves as "practical men," who boast that they care nothing for abstractions, but take business views of things. This plea and these men were largely influential in carrying forward some of the most ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 10, October, 1889 • Various
... can not believe that a lie on the belief of which has depended our highest development. You may say you have a higher to bring in. But that higher you have become capable of by the precedent lie. Yet you vaunt truth! You would sink us low indeed, making out falsehood our best nourishment—at some period of our history at least. If, however, what I call true and high, you call false and low—my assertion that you have never seen that of which I so speak will not help—then is there nothing left ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... vengeance now implants it selfe, Upon the hauty mountains of my brest: Plaies with her goary coulours of revenge, Whom I respect as leaves of boasting greene, That change their coulour when the winter comes, When I shall vaunt as victor ...
— Massacre at Paris • Christopher Marlowe
... he muttered. "To think that in the London of today we should live in abject terror of a band of Mongolian ruffians! Why do you remain here, man? You vaunt the prowess of your department— why are you not scouring every haunt of Chinamen in the East End? Spread your net widely enough, and you will surely get hold of some minor scoundrel who will talk for fear or money. Bribe him to the point where he cannot refuse to speak. Wong Li Fu is the only ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy
... the old he-goat, the one-eyed, what shall be My saying of a knave, his fashion and degree? I rede thee vaunt thee not of praise from us, for lo! Even as a docktailed cur thou art esteemed of me. By Allah, without fail, to-morrow thou shalt see Me with ox-leather dress and drub the nape ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... understanding; for in the empyreal heaven he had been chosen for father of revered Rome and of her empire; both which (to say truth indeed) were ordained for the holy place where the successor of the greater Peter hath his seat. Through this going, whereof thou givest him vaunt, he learned things which were the cause of his victory and of the papal mantle. Afterward the Chosen Vessel went thither to bring thence comfort to that faith which is the beginning of the way of salvation. But I, why go I thither? or who concedes it? I am not ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri
... hero: an uncommon want, When every year and month sends forth a new one, Till, after cloying the gazettes with cant, The age discovers he is not the true one; Of such as these I should not care to vaunt, I'll therefore take our ancient friend Don Juan— We all have seen him, in the pantomime,[15] Sent to the Devil ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... am, there I am Love, No less in shepherds' than in heroes' hearts, The unequal lot grows equal at my will, My chiefest vaunt, ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... who use these words, myself and my own, thoughtlessly and at random. How false is this belief that they profess! If there were no system of government by superiors, but an anarchy, these people, who vaunt themselves and their own powers, would not stand for a day. In the old days, at the time of the war at Ichi-no-tani, Minamoto no Yoshitsune[89] left Mikusa, in the province of Tamba, and attacked Settsu. Overtaken by the night among the ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... this is often the case, and this expedient, among those which make man distinguishable by anything favourable in his nature, is the farthest removed from Pelagianism. But I would not venture, notwithstanding, to make of it a universal rule. Moreover, that we may not have cause to vaunt ourselves, it is necessary that we be ignorant of the reasons for God's choice. Those reasons are too diverse to become known to us; and it may be that God at times shows the power of his grace by overcoming the most obstinate ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... voice of the meek Nazarene, which we have deafened down as ill-timed, unfit to teach the watchword of the hour, renews the quiet promise of its coming in simple, humble things. Let us go down and look for it. There is no need that we should feebly vaunt and madden ourselves over our self-seen lights, whatever they may be, forgetting what broken shadows they are of eternal truths in that calm where He sits and with His ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various
... scann'd by long descent From ancestors illustrious, I could vaunt A lineage of the greatest; and recount, Among my fathers, names of ancient story, Heroes and god-like patriots, who subdu'd The world by arms and virtue. But that be their own praise; Nor will I borrow merit from the dead, ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... your cheeks! rage! blow! You cataracts, and hurricanes, spout Till you have drenched our steeples, drowned the cocks! You sulphurous and thought-executing fires, Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts, Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder, Strike flat the thick rotundity of the world! Crack nature's molds, all germens spill at once, That make ingrateful ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... much as I do, I also perceive how much more there is that I do not know. Which makes me wary of committing myself too confidently, and has taught me that to vaunt one's ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... safe, vaunt not delight; * Never despair, nor wone o'erjoyed in sprite! Forbear, rejoice not, mourn not o'er thy plight * And in ill day 'Have ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... this, Edmund de Cailon, a knight of Gascony, and Governor of Berwick, who had been heard to vaunt that he had sought the famous Black Knight, but could not find him, was returning to England, loaded with plunder, the fruit of an inroad on Teviotdale. Sir James thought it a pity that a Gascon's vaunt should be heard unpunished in Scotland, and made long ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous
... back!" shouted the Earl of Hereford; "I tell thee, proud earl, he is my prisoner, and mine alone. Thou mayest vaunt thy loyalty, thy representation of majesty, as thou listeth, mine hath been proved at the good sword's point, and Edward will deem me no traitor because I protect a captive, who hath surrendered himself ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... squatter accompanied his vaunt with corresponding gestures, and directed his eyes to the circle of his equally confident sons while speaking, he drew their gaze from Ellen to himself; but now, when they turned together to note the succeeding movements of their female sentinel, the place which had ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... disposed to have peace, but I find he is disposed to have a personal warfare with me. He says that my oath would not be taken against the bare word of Charles H. Lanphier or Thomas L. Harris. Well, that is altogether a matter of opinion. It is certainly not for me to vaunt my word against oaths of these gentlemen, but I will tell Judge Douglas again the facts upon which I "dared" to say they proved a forgery. I pointed out at Galesburgh that the publication of these resolutions in the Illinois State Register could not have been the ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... From the one will spring Solomon, the builder of the Temple, from the other Vespasian, the destroyer thereof. These two are what are needed to raise the number of nations to seventy. They will never be in the same estate. Esau will vaunt lords, while Jacob will bring forth prophets, and if Esau has princes, Jacob will have kings.[18] They, Israel and Rome, are the two nations destined to be hated by all the world.[19] One will exceed the other in strength. First Esau will subjugate ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... or castle vaunt Its children loftier born?— Who heeds the silken tassel's flaunt Beside the golden corn? They ask not for the dainty toil Of ribboned knights and earls, The daughters of the virgin soil, ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... pine after knowledge irretrievably buried in oblivion. Otherwise we might fairly have wished to have stood beside King Nebuchadnezzar when he so unadvisedly uttered that proud vaunt which ended in his being condemned to a long course of vegetable diet. For doubtless he gazed upon at least four main roads which entered the walls of Babylon from four ...
— Old Roads and New Roads • William Bodham Donne
... scoffers, that attributes to mere sexual vanity that superstitious horror of encroaching age, from which the wisest are not always free. It may be, that they shrink from the reflection of their wrinkles, not as from the despoilers of beauty, but as from the vaunt-couriers of dissolution. In rosy youth, while yet the brow is alabaster-veined with Heaven's own tint, and the dark tresses turn golden in the sun, the lapse of time is imperceptible as the throbbing of a heart at ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 17, No. 483., Saturday, April 2, 1831 • Various
... thou take my goods and her into thy charge and do with them and her that which thou deemest may be for the solacement of my soul. And thou, dearest lady, I prithee forget me not after my death, so I may vaunt me, in the other world, of being beloved here below of the fairest lady ever nature formed; of which two things an you will give me entire assurance, I shall ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... below the belt. I shall deliberately destroy your credit as an essayist, as a journalist, as a critic, as a Liberal, as everything that offers your laziness a refuge, until starvation and shame drive you to serious dramatic parturition. I shall repeat my public challenge to you; vaunt my superiority; insult your corpulence; torture Belloc; if necessary, call on you and steal your wife's affections by intellectual and athletic displays, until you contribute something to the British drama. You are played out as an essayist: your ardor ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... still notorious for their partiality to them, and continue to pay higher prices for them than any other people. As the rich Englishman boasts of his fine race-horses or his old pictures, so does the wealthy Dutchman vaunt him of ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... I say. The Master-Weaver understands what we are here for and what we are doing, and that is enough. He has uses for every sound thread and doubtless one is as important as another. Vaunt not yourself O thread of purple, over ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... manner many of us have for some years past boasted of our appreciation of the inferior beauty, the substitute, the waiting gentlewoman of corrupt or corruptible heart; Keats confessed, but did not boast. It is a vaunt now, an emulation, who shall discover her beauty, ...
— Hearts of Controversy • Alice Meynell
... be confiscated, doubtless; yet the assertion was an evident implied query to me, to which I could give no positive answer. As is known, few of the seamen, as of private soldiers in the army, sympathized sufficiently with the Confederacy to join it. Indeed, the vaunt I have heard attributed to Southern officers of the old navy, which, though never uttered in my ears, was very consonant to the Southern spirit as I then knew it, that Southern officers with Yankee seamen could beat the world, testified at least to the probable attitude ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... — N. boasting &c v.; boast, vaunt, crake^; pretense, pretensions; puff, puffery; flourish, fanfaronade^; gasconade; blague^, bluff, gas [Slang]; highfalutin, highfaluting^; hot air, spread-eagleism [U.S.]; brag, braggardism^; bravado, bunkum, buncombe; jactitation^, jactancy^; bounce; venditation^, vaporing, rodomontade, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... were taught to flatter kings. Royal pride and luxury could not be moderated even on this theatre of death, and the bearers of the sceptre who had brought such ills on France and on humanity seemed even in the grave to vaunt a vanished splendor. The strong hand of the Republic should pitilessly efface these haughty epitaphs, and demolish these mausoleums which might recall the frightful memory ...
— The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Charles X • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... God is no more idle now than He was at the beginning, but that He is still and forever shaping the human chaos into the instruments and means of beauty. It may also suggest to that scholar- pride, that vanity of technique, which is so apt to vaunt itself in the teacher, that the best he can do, after all, is to let the pupil teach himself. If he comes with divine authority to the thing he attempts, he will know how to use the appliances, of which the ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... judgment-seat in Rome since, by Sulla's enactment, it had been occupied only by the Senators. One passage I will give now, in order that the reader may see by the juxtaposition of the words that he could denounce the Senate as loudly as he would vaunt its privileges. In the column on the left hand in the note I quote the words with which, in the first pleading against Verres, he declared "that every base and iniquitous thing done on the judgment-seat during ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope
... men applaud; Then were the chiefs of Iran shamed through me." And then he turn'd, and sternly spake aloud:— "Rise! wherefore dost thou vainly question thus Of Rustum? I am here, whom thou hast call'd By challenge forth; make good thy vaunt, or yield! Is it with Rustum only thou wouldst fight? Rash boy, men look on Rustum's face and flee! For well I know, that did great Rustum stand Before thy face this day, and were reveal'd, There would be then no talk of fighting more. But being what I am, I tell thee this— Do thou record ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... Phil. Vaunt on, thou monstrous Instrument of Hell! For I'm so pleas'd to have thee in my Power, That I can hear thee number up thy Sins, And yet be calm, whilst thou art ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... peace, O Spectres, who haunt My labouring mind, I have fought and failed. I have not quailed, I was all unmailed And naked I strove, 'tis my only vaunt. ...
— Sword Blades and Poppy Seed • Amy Lowell
... false conclusion that all men are good. The Preacher was nearer the truth when he said, "All is vanity," than was David when he said in his heart, "All men are liars;" for if the bad man is foolish enough to boast of his error, the good man is generally inclined to vaunt his virtue after the most mature reflection, and the secret of success, whether in good or in evil, is not to allow the right hand to know the doings of the left. There are men who give lavishly with the one ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... felled and wounded, Young at the battle. No boast dared he make 45 Of strife and of sword-play, the silver-haired leader, Full of age and of evil, nor had Anlaf the more. With their vanquished survivors no vaunt could they make That in works of war their worth was unequalled, In the fearful field, in the flashing of standards, 50 In the meeting of men, and the mingling of spears, And the war-play of weapons, when they had waged their battle Against the heirs ...
— Old English Poems - Translated into the Original Meter Together with Short Selections from Old English Prose • Various
... him to decide their differences by personal combat. Alfonso accepted the latter alternative; but, a dispute arising respecting the guaranty for the performance of the engagements on either side, the whole affair evaporated, as usual, in an empty vaunt of chivalry. ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... art to add, by taking thought, One cubit to thy stature? and hast thou, Or such as thou, Nature's whole fabric wrought? Not thine such vaunt—not thine to disavow The lustre of thy genuine origin. To the Most Highest, as thine author, bow With rapture of exulting faith, wherein Devotion's cravings their desire achieve, The bright ideal that they imaged, win. Rejoice ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton
... have quarrelled. Or rather, since it does not take two to do that wretched deed, she has quarrelled. It was some little thing that he said—neither sneer nor vaunt, nor ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... mere empty vaunt, but a deliberate avowal of his real sentiments; for Mr Quilp, who loved nobody, had by little and little come to hate everybody nearly or remotely connected with his ruined client:—the old man himself, because he had been able to deceive him and elude his vigilance—the ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... heroics. To flout the Pharisees was not reserved for Jesus. "Behold, ye fast for strife and contention," said Isaiah, "and to smite with the fist of wickedness." While some German writers, not content with the great men Germany has so abundantly produced, vaunt that all others, from Jesus to Dante, from Montaigne to Michael Angelo, are of Teuton blood, Jewish literature unflinchingly exposes the flaws even of a Moses and a David. It is this passion for veracity unknown among other peoples—is even Washington's story told without gloss?—that gives ...
— Chosen Peoples • Israel Zangwill
... vaunt and Death may boast, But we laugh his pow'r to scorn; He is but a slave at most,— Night ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar |
