"Boaster" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Your Green Meadows! Ho, ho, ho! Your Green Meadows!" The stranger laughed an unpleasant laugh. "How long since you owned the Green Meadows? I have just come down on to them from the Old Pasture, and I like the looks of them so well that I think I will stay. So run along, little boaster! There isn't room for both of us here, and the sooner you trot along the better." The stranger suddenly showed all his teeth and gritted ...
— The Adventures of Johnny Chuck • Thornton W. Burgess
... ivrybody else, an' they want to take it away fr'm him. Whin he's sober his bluff is on th' outside. Whin he's dhrunk he makes th' bluff to his own heart. Dhrink turns him inside out as well as upside down, an' while he's congratulatin' himsilf on th' fine man he is, th' neighbors know him f'r a boaster, a cow'rd, an' something iv a liar. That th' ladies see an' hate. They do not know that there is wan thing an' on'y wan thing to be said in favor iv dhrink, an' that is that it has caused manny a lady to be loved that otherwise might've ...
— Mr. Dooley Says • Finley Dunne
... found swaggering so. I am sure if you could consult the Duke of York, who is impaled on his column between the two clubs, and ask his late Royal Highness whether he thought he ought to remain there, he would say no. A brave, worthy man, not a braggart or boaster, to be put upon that heroic perch must be painful to him. Lord George Bentinck, I suppose, being in the midst of the family park in Cavendish Square, may conceive that he has a right to remain in his place. But look at William of ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... saint, and you would be a demon! You are a boaster! No; there is no man quite cunning enough, bold enough, thus to insinuate himself into the confidence and respect of men. It would be a frightful defiance cast in the face ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... crew, a garrulous Hao-man, and an inveterate boaster, declared that, about a year since, he had embarked for Angatan with a party of Chain Islanders, in a large double canoe, being tempted to incur the perils of the enterprise, by the prospect of the enormous gains that might be realised in trading with the natives, if a friendly ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... which is raised by impertinent Promisers is thus barren, their Confidence, even after Failures, is so great, that they subsist by still promising on. I have heretofore discoursed of the insignificant Liar, the Boaster, and the Castle-Builder, and treated them as no ill-designing Men, (tho' they are to be placed among the frivolously false ones) but Persons who fall into that Way purely to recommend themselves by their Vivacities; but indeed I cannot let heedless Promisers, though ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... and unwilling to yield to the wrong. Above all we wish for honesty—tongues that are not used to say what the mind does not mean, and hearts that feel a little for others, as well as for themselves. A true-hearted girl could die for such a husband! while the boaster, and the double-tongued suitor gets to be as hateful to the sight, as he is ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... he does manage to grow up and reach man's estate he's got something to brag of. Only he doesn't do it; because the first thing that people learn who have to live very intimately together is that bore and boaster are synonymous terms. So he never brags of what he has accomplished in the way of deeds and experiences until he is married. And then only in the privacy of his own lodge, when that big hickory stick which he keeps for ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... the great boaster, He the marvellous story-teller, He the friend of old Nokomis, Saw in all the eyes around him, Saw in all their looks and gestures, That the wedding guests assembled, Longed to hear his pleasant ...
— The Ontario Readers - Third Book • Ontario Ministry of Education
... is a bit of a boaster. I dare say his ancestor was a Gascon, poor fellow!—and he affects to say that you can't choose a coat, or buy a horse, without his approval and advice,—that he can turn you round his finger. Now this hurts your consequence in the world,—you don't ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book VI • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... heedless, Minded not the laws and records, Gathered freely of the evil, Wandered on in lusts and vices, Wandered on to spoil and plunder, Wandered on to want and sorrow, Misery, and pain, and anguish. Strange his dealings were and hidden; Oft would take the greatest boaster, Mighty in his own beholding, Who in pomp and riches loitered, In high seats of veneration, And would draw him downward, downward, Rob him of his pomp and splendor, Of his riches and his glory, Set him ...
— A Leaf from the Old Forest • J. D. Cossar
... among the French officers, one Vannes by name, begged to be allowed to sally forth with a couple of hundred men and rout the audacious provincials. Vergor sanctioned the enterprise, and the boaster marched proudly forth with his company. Arriving in front of the New Englanders he astounded the latter, and supplied his comrades in the fort with food for endless mirth, by facing the right about and leading his shame-faced files quietly back to Beausejour. Pierre ...
— The Raid From Beausejour; And How The Carter Boys Lifted The Mortgage • Charles G. D. Roberts
... welcomed by Victor and Helene and by the very small Victor who was now nearly a year old. Victor and Helene had heard of the threats of vengeance, but knowing Rene, they had smiled. Was not Rene a great boaster? And the very young Victor, who knew nothing of the threats, thought his big uncle a very brave figure in his blue capote, his red muffler, and his white stocking cap ...
— Connie Morgan in the Fur Country • James B. Hendryx
... griping rook and a grave citizen, a worthy lawyer and an errant pickpocket, a reverend non-conformist and a canting mountebank, all blended together to compose an oglio of impertinence." There is a delightful sketch of one named "Captain All-man-sir," as big a boaster as Falstaff, and a more delicately etched portrait of the Town Wit, who is summed up as the "jack-pudding of society" in the judgment of all wise men, but an incomparable wit in his own. The peroration of this pamphlet, devoted to a wholesale condemnation ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley
... boaster," she said, with the door open. "You always were. And you'll never lay a hand on him. You're like all ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... Indians, who seem to have understood this cowardly boaster, received his story with shouts of laughter. But Knight was very glad to make off with his gun and ammunition, and leave them to settle the affair among themselves. When he came to the prairies he hid himself in the grass ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells
... a young man who had just entered, "it is well known that Vestein and her father and mother were all fully willing. The girl could as easily have gone out of the door as the window. Snackoll is a boaster. He is as great in his talk as a fox in ...
— An Orkney Maid • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... A boaster is always to be suspected. His is a natural infirmity, which makes him forget what he is about, and run into a thousand extravagances that have no connection with the truth. With those who have a tolerable knowledge of the world, ...
— The Young Man's Guide • William A. Alcott
... bullying boaster in Buckingham's play the "Rehearsal"; he kills every one of the combatants, "sparing neither friend ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... try first. He dodged here and there with the hounds at his heels. He doubled on his tracks, he ran at top speed, he entered a dozen burrows,—but all in vain. The hounds caught him, and soon put an end to the boaster and all ...
— The AEsop for Children - With pictures by Milo Winter • AEsop
... he was willing to let me run on, nodding his head now and then while he smoked. He was an honest man and the best engineer in the state, and he kept his own counsel in all things. And he showed me the Kilgower coat of arms—and he didn't show that to many. He was no boaster. He was proud of his people, but he used to say that it made but little difference who the ancestors were unless the descendants copied the virtues and tried to improve over the faults. There was a Kilgower who went down across the border and gave himself as a hostage so that the clan might ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... describe thee? Thou compound of sense and vice; of sense which may be admired but not esteemed, of vice which may be despised, but hardly detested. Falstaff is a character loaded with faults, and with those faults which naturally produce contempt. He is a thief, and a glutton, a coward, and a boaster, always ready to cheat the weak, and prey upon the poor; to terrify the timorous and insult the defenceless. At once obsequious and malignant, he satirises in their absence those whom he lives by flattering. ...
— Preface to Shakespeare • Samuel Johnson
... place as Bunyan imagined Hell to be—was a hard fate for a miserable mortal who had failed to comprehend the true conditions of justification. We are not told that he was a vain boaster. He could not have advanced so near to the door of Heaven if he had not been really a decent man, though vain and silly. Behold, it was a dream! The dreams which come to us when sleep is deep on the ...
— Bunyan • James Anthony Froude
... genius!" and in a lower voice to himself, "What a boaster!" But Ida needed nothing more; her heart was gone. Had Dr. Hirsch, who was always so interested in pathological singularities, been then at leisure, he might have made a curious study of ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... you make such an exordium, as the Cyclic writer of old: "I will sing the fate of Priam, and the noble war." What will this boaster produce worthy of all this gaping? The mountains are in labor, a ridiculous mouse will be brought forth. How much more to the purpose he, who attempts nothing improperly? "Sing for me, my muse, the man who, after the time of the destruction of Troy, ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... from Tennessee called "Daisy Belle," because he whistled that tune so much and because he had nose-bleed so much,—couldn't even ride a broncho but his nose would bleed for hours afterwards; and the other, "N'Yawk," so called from his native State. N'Yawk was a great boaster; said he wasn't afraid of no durned outlaw,—said his father had waded in bloody gore up to his neck and that he was a chip off the old block,—rather hoped the chase would come our way so ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... Andy was not a boaster as a rule; but whenever Percy Carberry started to show what a mighty conqueror of the air he had become, something seemed to rise up within the second Bird boy that made him give ...
— The Airplane Boys among the Clouds - or, Young Aviators in a Wreck • John Luther Langworthy
... John Foster, "can never be said to belong to himself; since if he dared to assert that he did, the puny force of some cause, about as powerful as a spider, may make a seizure of the unhappy boaster the very next minute, and contemptuously exhibit the futility of the determination by which he was to have proved the independence of his understanding and will. He belongs to whatever can make capture of him; and one thing after another vindicates ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... bounteous Phoebus edge with tints of gold And lucid crimson. One might fancy it A noble bird, that laves its graceful form, And bathes its rosy bosom in the light. Look! how it swells and rears its snowy crest With haughty grandeur; while the blue expanse, In smiling patience lets the boaster pass, And swell his train with all the lazy vapours That hover in the air: an easy prey To the gigantic phantom, whose curl'd wing, Sweeps in these worthless triflers of the sky, And wraps them in his bosom. Go, vain shadow! Sick with the burthen of thy fancied greatness, A breath ...
— Elegies and Other Small Poems • Matilda Betham
... "Pray, sir, what may your business be?"—"O," replied the boaster, "I am but a cork-cutter: but then it is in a very large way!"—"Indeed!" replied the other; "then I presume you are ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... there to be afraid of?" asked another. "You are a little coward. Shut your eyes and go to sleep. See me! I am not afraid, if it is dark and gloomy. Oh, oh!" cried the boaster, for the owl had seized him and was carrying him away from home and ...
— The Book of Nature Myths • Florence Holbrook
... a discovery! all my delicate management destroyed! known all over the country! I'm off! and yet to have travelled so far, and not to have one glimpse of her! but then to be pointed at as a poor devil in love, a silly inconsistent boaster! no, that wont do—but then I may see her—yes, I'll see her once—just once—for three minutes, or three minutes and a half at most—no longer positively—Ponder, Ponder! ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold
... in the conversation, you know. She is no boaster. No sir-ee! She's the modestest, gentlest, sweetest little lady I ever saw. I just love her! Well, I answered a lot of letters for her, and she liked the way I did it, and she liked me, I guess, for she said she only hoped Miss Crowell ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells
... (penknife) Chupaflores (humming-bird) Destripaterrones (navvy) Lavamanos (wash-hand stand) Limpiabotas (boot-black) Matamoros (boaster) Mondadientes (toothpick) Papahueros (ninny) Papamoscas (ninny) Papanatas (ninny) Paracaidas (parachute) Paraguas (umbrella) Pelagatos (ragamuffin) Pintamonas (slap-dasher or bad partner) Sacacorchos (corkscrew) Salvavidas ...
— Pitman's Commercial Spanish Grammar (2nd ed.) • C. A. Toledano
... friend, you must not attach too much importance to what you have heard. Paul is a mere boy, and, of course, a boaster." ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... goal, he had realized with characteristic insight the underlying principles of the great and comprehensive problem he had started out to solve, and plodded steadily along the path that he had marked out, ignoring the almost universal scientific disbelief in his ultimate success. "Dreamer," "fool," "boaster" were among the appellations bestowed upon him by unbelieving critics. Ridicule was heaped upon him in the public prints, and mathematics were called into service by learned men to settle the point forever that he was ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... martial could be conveniently shot; though I think we discovered for ourselves the old woman curled up out of the wind in a sentry-box, and sweetly asleep there while the boys were playing marbles on the smooth ground before it. I must not omit the peanut-boaster in front of the palace; it was in the figure of an ocean steamer, nearly as large as the Lusitania, and had smoke coming out of the funnel, with rudder and screw complete and doll sailors ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... the Pickwickians, is a mild and foolish boaster, who pretends that he can do things he cannot. He pretends to be able to shoot and succeeds only in hitting one of his friends. He pretends to skate, and this ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... she struck Solepa and Sipi stood by me, and together we sprang overboard into the white surf ... Give me some more grog, dear friend of my heart. I am no boaster, nor am I a liar; but when I think of that swim to the shore through the rolling seas with those two women, my belly cleaves to my backbone and I become faint.... For the current was against us, and neither Sipi nor Solepa were good swimmers, and many ...
— By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories • Louis Becke
... on his fur coat and mittens and quitted the cabin. He would find a certain long haired Indian he had seen that day, and prove to his brother that he was not simply a boaster. ...
— The Trail of a Sourdough - Life in Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... hearty meal, the wanderers launched into the usual topics of conversation in those regions. Sakalar was not a boaster, but the young men from Nijnei-Kolimsk were possessed of the usual characteristics of hunters and fishermen. They told with considerable vigor and effect long stories of their adventures, most exaggerated—and when not impossible, most improbable—of bears killed in hand to hand combat, ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 5, July 29, 1850 • Various
... thou boaster, say "When thou hadst to thy box sneaked off, "Beneath his feet protecting lay, "And saved him from a ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... an idol if covered with gold. A dog in a gutter—a God on a throne: In slander electric—in justice a drone: A parrot in promise, and frail as a shade; A hooded immortal in life's masquerade; A sham-lacquered bauble, a bubble, a breath: A boaster in ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning
... although the wage I promised him was a royal kaross and nothing less. So enough of Umslopogaas, the Woodpecker. Almost I wish that you had not lent him the charm, for then the King's men would have made an end of him, who knows too much and like some silly boaster, may shout out the truth when his axe is aloft and he is full of the beer of battle. For in battle he will live and in battle he will die, Macumazahn, as perhaps you may ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... would be more appropriate after my death than while I am alive. That boaster moreover has a peacock's plume on his helmet, and at the very outset I made a vow to obtain three of them and afterward as many fingers of ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... branch of natural history, woman, was a favorite topic, and we accordingly discussed it a great deal; that is, to tell the exact truth, I did. Although Brandon had seen many an adventure during his life on the continent, which would not do to write down here, he was as little of a boaster as any man I ever met, and, while I am in the truth-telling business, I was as great a braggart of my inches as ever drew the long-bow—in that line, I mean. Gods! I flush up hot, even now, when I think of it. So I talked a great deal and found myself infinitely ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... smiles. He not only smiles, with amusement or sly irony; he wrote what he must have laughed at as he wrote, and meant us to laugh at. He did not describe with a grave face the terrors and misadventures of the boaster Braggadochio and his Squire, whether or not a caricature of the Duke of Alencon and his "gentleman," the "petit singe," Simier. He did not write with a grave face the Irish row about the false Florimel ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church
... "Now, thou boaster," I said, "wilt thou lead the way into yonder reeds, or shall I?" And I made as though I would ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard
... chief mightily; for the Indian is nothing if not a boaster. At once Black Cat would have broken out in loud tirade on his friendship for me and contempt for the Sioux, but I cut him short and moved towards the hill, that overlooked the enemy's territory. A great cloud of dust whirled up from the ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... have said, however, Jim was a great boaster and blusterer, glorying in the marvelous and dangerous. Had he lived in the heroic age, I have no doubt he would have regaled the ears of his listeners with blood curdling stories of his battles with giants, ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... were being kindled declared this Joan, who called herself the Maid, to be a liar, a plague, a deceiver of the people, a sorceress, superstitious, a blasphemer of God, presumptuous, a misbeliever in the faith of Christ, a boaster, idolatress, cruel, dissolute, a witch of devils, apostate, schismatic, and heretic. It was a heavy crime-sheet for a mere girl, and there was no knowing into what a monster she might grow up. So the Bishop of ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... only to raise a laugh at the expense of that boaster," said the prince, after they were gone, "or would you indeed fulfil your promise ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... and the judge who condemned you would believe you a boaster, or out of your mind did they hear you say this, for it is ...
— Pixy's Holiday Journey • George Lang
... it was their merits, and not their follies, which drew upon them that torrent of detraction and calumny, which compelled them so frequently to think and write concerning themselves, that at length it became a habit to do so. Wolff too, though not a boaster, was yet persecuted into a habit of egotism both in his prefaces and in his ordinary conversation, and the same holds good of the founder of the Brunonian system, and of his great namesake Giordano Bruno. The more decorous manners of the present age have attached a disproportionate opprobrium ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... this boaster, "whatever I do, I cannot, upon my word, chase away this cat that threatens you without some help. But let me call together all the rats hereabouts and I'll play him a sorry trick ...
— The Original Fables of La Fontaine - Rendered into English Prose by Fredk. Colin Tilney • Jean de la Fontaine
... thing done, he did not consider what trouble and annoyance it might give others, but, confiding in his strength, he made all the smaller boys do what he wanted. If they refused, he thrashed them till they promised to obey him. He was a great talker, and a never-ceasing boaster of what he had done, and of what he could do and would do. As he certainly could do many of the things he talked about, it was believed that he could do everything. Some believed in him, but others did not. Such a person was, however, sure to have a number of followers and ardent admirers, ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... everyman, like Hamlet, if only we had the wit to recognize ourselves in him. Or rather he is that element in us which we all like and despise in others, but which we will never for one moment confess to in ourselves—the coward, the boaster, the liar, but the child of nature. He, because he knows himself for all of these, can find his home in Sarostro's paradise. He does not want Sarostro's high wisdom; what he does want is a Papagena, an Eve, a child of nature like himself; and she is given ...
— Essays on Art • A. Clutton-Brock
... master Pythagoras had done; and he begged him to show himself. Then there was a slight earthquake shock, and a beautiful youth stood before him, nine feet in height, wearing a Thessalian cloak. He did not look like a boaster, as some men had thought him, and his expression, if grim, was not unpleasant. No words could describe his beauty, which surpassed anything imaginable. Meanwhile he had grown to be twenty feet high, and his beauty increased in proportion. His hair he had never ...
— Greek and Roman Ghost Stories • Lacy Collison-Morley
... but gave them different dresses." Upon this Note Colman remarks: "Though there is much good criticism in the above Note, it is certain that Plautus did not take his 'Miles Gloriosus' from the Colax of Menander, as he himself informs us it was translated from a Greek play called Alazon, 'the Boaster,' and the Parasite is but a trifling character in that play, never appearing after ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... dreamer at my side awoke, And with such helpless anguish as they feel Who know that they are weak as well as vile. I saw, through all his forward promises, Excuses, prayers, and pledges that were oaths (What he, poor boaster, thought I could not see), That he was shorn of will, and that his heart Was as defenseless as a little child's;— That underneath his fair good fellowship He was debauched, and dead in love with sin;— That love of me had made him what I loved,— That I could only hold him till the wave Of some ...
— Bitter-Sweet • J. G. Holland
... Why, then, all this ado about a bunch of empty threats cast at us by the Duke of Babbiano? If you were indeed the soldier you would have us think you, would you come here and say, 'I will not die this way, or that'? Confess yourself a boaster when you tell us that you are ready to die ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... trapper calmly retorted. "The day has been, boy, when my blood was like your own, too swift and too hot to run quietly in my veins. But what will it profit to talk of silly risks and foolish acts at this time of life! A grey head should cover a brain of reason, and not the tongue of a boaster." ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... peace, and made only a silent appeal to the justice of the gods. Not long afterwards the Horse, having become broken-winded, was sent by his owner to the farm. The Ass, seeing him drawing a dungcart, thus derided him: "Where, O boaster, are now all thy gay trappings, thou who are thyself reduced to the condition you so lately treated ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... was dumbfounded. Though no boaster, he knew he had done a magnificently heroic thing, and to get his mouth slapped for it was an exigency which he did not know what to do with. He had staggered against the boards from the force of the stroke, but it had not occurred to him to resent it, though ordinarily he was hot-blooded and ...
— Earth's Enigmas - A Volume of Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... Nature, learn the rules and study the ancients, particularly Homer. "Nature and Homer were the same." Contrariwise, Young says: "The less we copy the renowned ancients, we shall resemble them the more. . . Learning . . . is a great lover of rules and boaster of famed examples . . . and sets rigid bounds to that liberty to which genius often owes its supreme glory. . . Born originals, how comes it to pass that we die copies?. . . Let not great examples or authorities browbeat thy reason into too great a diffidence of thyself. ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... red and blue cloth. His saddle was of Houssa manufacture, and uncommonly neat; in the interior such an article is only used by the principal people, and his bridle also was of curious workmanship. The horseman had an extravagant idea of his own consequence, and seemed to be a prodigious boaster. He wore abundance of clothing, most of which was superfluous, but it made him excessively vain. He informed the travellers that he had been despatched by the king of Jenna, to meet them in the path, ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... broad-shouldered, broad-minded man before the little boaster looked down to hide ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter
... anything; expressage, laundry and all incidentals were as free as air. The question of money, nowadays impertinently thrust forth, was never hinted at in the olden time. It was considered bad form, and the luckless boaster of "how poor he was" would have been properly stared at as a boor as well ...
— Historic Papers on the Causes of the Civil War • Mrs. Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... he answered. 'Your cousin's province was never to come within a score miles of the cardinal. Being a drunkard and a boaster he was sent to Paris to ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... frenzy utter'd that he would escape The billows, even in the Gods' despight. Neptune that speech vain-glorious hearing, grasp'd 610 His trident, and the huge Gyraean rock Smiting indignant, dash'd it half away; Part stood, and part, on which the boaster sat When, first, the brainsick fury seiz'd him, fell, Bearing him with it down into the gulphs Of Ocean, where he drank the brine, and died. But thy own brother in his barks escaped That fate, by Juno saved; yet when, at length, He should have gain'd Malea's ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... other way; he is glad their conceit has been checked. The Blackfeet are great boasters, and he has reproved them many times. Mul-tal-la saw him smile when Deerfoot came home many paces in front of that tall warrior, who is the greatest boaster of them all. Taggarak was glad when he ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... language in which Almanzor threatens his enemies, and vaunts his own importance. This is not common in the heroes of romance, who are usually as remarkable for their modesty of language as for their prowess; and still more seldom does, in real life, a vain-glorious boaster vindicate by his actions the threats of his tongue. It is true, that men of a fervent and glowing character are apt to strain their speech beyond the modesty of ordinary conversation, and display, in their language, the fire which glows in their ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... him talk unmolested; but Thor, coming home just then from one of his journeys, and hearing his threat to carry away the beloved Sif, flew into a terrible rage. He furiously brandished his hammer, with intent to annihilate the boaster. This the gods would not permit, however, and they quickly threw themselves between the irate Thunderer and their guest, imploring Thor to respect the sacred rights of hospitality, and not to desecrate ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... unbridled and excessive frankness of speech to all alike; he was in desperate pursuit of a reputation for being able to comprehend and speak as no one else could, and before all wanted to be thought a valuable citizen. As a result of this and because he was the greatest boaster alive and thought no one equal to himself, but in his words and life alike looked down on all and would not live as any one else did, he was wearisome and burdensome, and was consequently both envied and hated even by those very ...
— Dio's Rome • Cassius Dio
... Crawfish, 'I ain't no boaster, but I offers a hundred to fifty, an' stands to make it up to a thousand dollars in wool or sheep, Julius Caesar is the fattest an' finest serpent in Arizona; also the ...
— Wolfville • Alfred Henry Lewis
... "but Tom Ross wuz right when he said the way them Greeks an' Trojans fought was plumb foolish. Do you think that me, Sol Hyde, is goin' to take a tin pan an' go beatin' on it down thar among the bushes, an' callin' on the biggest boaster o' all the savages to come out an' fight me? No, sir; I wouldn't go fifty yards before I'd tumble over, with a bullet ...
— The Forest Runners - A Story of the Great War Trail in Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... boaster! and what is it you know? Why, nothing at all except to go out to merry-makings and lick your lips there. We'll soon ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston
... cash in hand paid, he would pass the night alone in the haunted house. A score of other darkies contributed, and the required amount was raised. It was not, however, to be delivered to the courageous Sam until his reappearance after the vigil. With this understanding the boaster betook himself to the ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... and foaming like a waterfall. My horse, and he was a good one, couldn't make it. But I did. And when I come to it on the return trip with the doctor, he gave one look and folded his arms. 'Mark,' he said, 'I'm no boaster, but my life is not without value. I think it's my duty not to attempt this crossing.' 'Jim,' I said, 'if you don't your soul will be scotched. Don't you know it? Folks'll point at you as the doctor that didn't dare.' 'It's not the daring, ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... gave Jacob their greetings. She had much to tell about them both, but Jacob thought it was queer that she had more to say about Ole than about Peter; for while Ole was a straight-forward fellow, it could not be denied that he was a bit of a boaster. ...
— Lisbeth Longfrock • Hans Aanrud
... god of the Saracens, was another staple character in the Miracle-Plays; who is described by John Florio as "a great boaster, quarreller, killer, tamer or ruler of the universe, the child of the earthquake and of the thunder, the brother of death." That Shakespeare himself had suffered under the monstrous din of these "strutting and bellowing" stage-thumpers is shown by Hamlet's remonstrance with the players: "O, it ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... dozen or two swords of all kinds. The new-comer paused near the platform on which the boaster stood and gazed at ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... natural that Helen, with the intuitive discernment of a pure and upright mind, and the penetration of a quick-witted woman, should be the first to detect the falsehood and cowardice of the boaster Parolles, who ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... him along; the old man also, a little in the rear, followed them in silent grief. When they brought Hatim before Naufal, he asked, 'Who has seized and brought him here?' A worthless, hard-hearted [boaster] answered, 'Who could have performed such a deed except myself? This achievement belongs to my name, and I have planted the standard [of glory] in the sky.' Another vaunting fellow clamoured, 'I searched for him many days in the woods, ...
— Bagh O Bahar, Or Tales of the Four Darweshes • Mir Amman of Dihli
... come to you, you boaster!" Siebenburg shouted contemptuously after the Swiss, and then turned to Biberli and the maid with a patronising question; but the former, without even opening his lips in reply, hastened to the door and, with a significant gesture, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... know something worth his, Nick Hilliard's, while to learn; and he was not going to give up because of first impressions. He had not met Montagu Jerrold before, but had heard of him often during the last three or four months since the Englishman "blew into" Lucky Star City. He was a boaster as well as a waster, no doubt; for according to himself, he knew "everybody at home," from the King down the whole gamut of the British peerage. Also he "claimed" to be an Oxford man, and it was that which, in this emergency, had focused Nick's ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... who made such a noise in the parish, such a boaster, so quarrelsome, so litigious, no one could come near him. "The fashion changeth." He lies still as a mouse now, and can resent no injury done to ...
— The Village Pulpit, Volume II. Trinity to Advent • S. Baring-Gould
... are all very good, but he is so awkward and stupid that he constantly stumbles into trouble, thereby causing his acquaintances much unnecessary discomfiture and himself no end of embarrassment. He is, furthermore, a terrific boaster, as you will learn when you read of his many declarations of the pummeling he would give the ferocious Robber Fly, if ever he chanced to meet that devouring assassin. What Buster actually does when the unexpected encounter takes place will afford you ...
— The Tale of Tommy Fox • Arthur Scott Bailey
... Kalligeneia. Name given to Ceres, meaning, "bearer of lovely children." The Toxotes. A Syrian archer in the "Thesmophoriazusae." The Great King's Eye. Mock name given to an ambassador from Persia in the Acharnians. Kompolakuthes. Bully-boaster: with a play on the name ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... that Zeus with his thunder shall not stay him, for that the thunder is but as the sun at noon. And on his shield he hath a man bearing a torch, and these words, 'I WILL BURN THIS CITY.' Who now shall stand against this boaster ...
— Stories from the Greek Tragedians • Alfred Church
... impudent impostor, from whom the truth could be extracted only by 'a rack, or a halter.' Though otherwise a man of some learning, and a diligent guardian of the public records, he seems to have been very ignorant of physics. He thought Ralegh was an empty boaster for his statement that he could distil salt-water into fresh by means of copper furnaces. He treated his ailments, which Ralegh's somewhat hypochondriacal temperament may have a little exaggerated, as wholly feigned, 'that he might not be thought in his health to enterprise any such matter as perhaps ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... must be true, that he had great executive skill, a clear method, and a just attention to all the details of the task in hand. Plainly he was no boaster or pretender, but a man for up-hill work, a soldier to bide the brunt; a man whom disasters, which dishearten other men, only stimulated to new ...
— Cambridge Sketches • Frank Preston Stearns
... checked, he smiles inwardly, and moralizes on the weakness of human nature. But the man who never jumps is not usually of a benevolent nature, and it is almost certain that he will make up a little story against the boaster. ...
— Hunting Sketches • Anthony Trollope
... on some of them, or put them through at a cost far beyond the profit. It came that way to a boaster of his intentions sometimes, especially so when a man spoke too quickly and assumed too much. Here he was standing face to a fight that did not appear to promise much more glory in the winning than ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden
... interview with the Commander-in-Chief, or making her read all the letters of congratulation he had received, her mother's heart thawed within her as it had not done for long. Her ears told her that he was still vain and a boaster; her memory held the indelible records of his past selfishness; but as he walked beside her, his fair hair blown back from his handsome brow, and eyes that were so much younger than the rest of the face, his figure as spare and ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... it into a string to throw up to you, so that you could afterwards draw up the rope. No: my string might break. But I am as foolish as you are, and as wanting in resource. There," he continued, after a few moments' pause, "what a boaster I am! I did not even think of cutting a piece off the rope, unravelling it, and making it into ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn
... the imagination of the spectator only that could find in their works that air of grandeur and dignity generally attributed to them. Raphael himself, he said, was very unequal, and many of his productions owed their glory only to tradition. Michael Angelo was a boaster, weakly vain of his knowledge of anatomy, and without a particle of grace. Real force of outline, grace of touch, and magic of colouring we must look for, he said, in the present age. Thence the conversation easily glided to his ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... the life and hope of blessed saints and martyrs in bygone ages, and which in "their contests with mail-clad infidelity was like the pebble which the shepherd of Israel hurled against the disdainful boaster who defied the power of Israel's God." And he was thus brought into close sympathy with the realism of the Fathers, who felt that all that is valuable in theology must radiate from the recognition of Almighty power in the renovation of society, and displayed, not according to our human ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord
... householder, dragged I know not why before a court of justice, will be appreciated. To the Judge's question "What is your profession?" he replied "My profession! I keep up the supply of Mulattos!" "Je fais des mulatres!" It was in the days of the greatest prosperity of our beautiful Antilles that the old boaster spoke. When I arrived, this was already on the wane, and it really was tiresome not to be allowed to talk about anything but sugar and emancipation ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... her than Rumour gave to me odd time; and for the rest, I was well content; for as I have given hint, my books held me, and likewise my Exercises; for I was always an athlete, and never met the man so quick or so strong as I did be; save in some fiction of a tale or in the mouth of a boaster. ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson
... whose lip thou well knowest I would lay down my life—for a touch of whose hand thou well knowest I would sell me to the Evil One—thou hast blackened me, and I will be avenged—ho! chicken-hearted boaster before women, and black-hearted traitor among men, will nothing rouse thee? Hear this, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... body attributed it to long practice, they were not so much astonished as I was, who knew it was wholly owing to chance. It was a lucky hit, and I made the most of it; success made me arrogant, and boy-like, I became a boaster. ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... digested, and lies side by side with the glorious "Kaempe Viser," the "Ab Gwilym," and other learned translations, by means of which it may be hoped that the gifted Borrow will ere long vindicate his lasting claim to scholarship—a claim to which it is to be feared he is indifferent, for he is no boaster, and does himself no justice; or, if he boasts at all, prefers, as with a species of self-sarcasm, the mention of his lesser, on which he dwells with zest, to that of his greater and more enduring triumphs. The "Targum" consists of translations from the following languages: ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... ye, Callum!" cried his father more sternly. "The lad will be jist like yerself, too ready with his fists, whatever. A brave man will never be a boaster, Scotty, man." ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith
... home to your daughter," said the King, "and bid her hatch them out for me. If she succeeds she shall have a bag of money for her pains, but if she fails you shall be beaten as a vain boaster." ...
— Tales of Folk and Fairies • Katharine Pyle
... evening to see the new play, which is at present a general subject of conversation.—Now, was I a vain fellow—a boaster—would I mention four or six of the prettiest women about town, and swear I was to escort them.—Being a lover of truth, I confess I shall steal alone into an upper box, to fix my attention on the performance of the piece.—Perhaps, after all is over, I may step to the box of some sprightly, ...
— Barford Abbey • Susannah Minific Gunning
... and exults As of the pack supreme, and in his speed And strength unrivalled. Lo! cast far behind His vexed associates pant, and labouring strain To climb the steep ascent. Soon as they reach The insulting boaster, his false courage fails, Behind he lags, doomed to the fatal noose, 80 His master's hate, and scorn of all the field. What can from such be hoped, but a base brood Of coward curs, a frantic, vagrant race? When now the third revolving moon appears, With sharpened ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... stood not far from the boaster, and he determined to silence him once for all. The next time he began to speak, he had barely said "Kerrump!" when the Crane had him by the leg. He croaked and struggled in vain, and in another moment he would have gone down the ...
— Wigwam Evenings - Sioux Folk Tales Retold • Charles Alexander Eastman and Elaine Goodale Eastman
... sabre, a uniform, and has a cockade in his cap; he is as upright as a dart; well made; bold, with a generous heart, but fiery and proud. Presuming and intrusive—caring little to be invited, but ready to claim whatever he pleases; a boaster, sportive but dangerous, like a caterpillar. Marcel doating on Franconnette, flirts with all, endeavours to rouse her jealousy, and has tales to tell of ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... o' ferlies, That sits on the stane at his door, And tells about bogles, and mair lies Than tongue ever utter'd before. And there will be Bauldy, the boaster, Sae ready wi' hands and wi' tongue; Proud Paty and silly Sam Foster, Wha quarrel wi' auld ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... to challenge him in the very sport at which he excelled. You will say that it was foolish, my friends, but the decanter had passed many times, and the blood of youth ran hot in my veins. I would fight him, this boaster; I would show him that if we had not skill at least we had courage. Lord Rufton would not allow it. I insisted. The others cheered me on and slapped me on the back. "No, dash it, Baldock, he's our ...
— The Adventures of Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the hunder?' 'What d'ye ax for prime bacon?'—his questions often ending with the miserable order, accompanied with a tremendous oath, of 'Gie's a penny rrow (roll) an' a baubee herrin!' The poor woman was usually set 'all of a shake' by a visit from this fellow. He was also a great boaster, and used to crow over the robbers whom he had put to flight; mere men in buckram, as everybody knew. We boys," he continued, "believed him to be a great coward, and determined to play him a trick. Two other boys joined me in ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... self-inspired, He would prove his words by deeds, Prove himself no boaster vain But a master in ...
— Atta Troll • Heinrich Heine
... blow his own horn so frankly. The best men of her acquaintance—her father, Casey Dunne, Tom McHale, and others—seldom talked of themselves, never bragged, never mentioned their proficiency in anything. She had been brought up to regard a boaster and a bluff as synonymous. To her an egotist was also a bluff. His bad taste repelled her. And yet he did not seem to stress ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... Aetopeia.] The fyrst kind is called AEtopeia, that is an expressi of maners or mylde affeccions, and hath thre kyndes: of the whych the fyrst is a significacion or expression of maners somewhat longer, as of wittes, artes, vertues, vices. Thus we expresse Thraso a boaster, ...
— A Treatise of Schemes and Tropes • Richard Sherry
... Little boaster, vagrant king, Neither north nor south is yours, You've no kingdom that endures! Wandering every fall and spring, With your ruby crown so slender, Are you ...
— Songs Out of Doors • Henry Van Dyke
... may-be you will (hic), but if you get a cent of that money (hic) for catching that man you don't enter that door again; no, you don't lift that latch-string again as long as old Forty-nine has a fist to lift!" and he thrusts his doubled hand hard into the boaster's face. ...
— Shadows of Shasta • Joaquin Miller
... replied the other. "I don't know how it is, Frank; but it strikes me that I'd like to cut in on that boaster in this thing. If we managed to find out what makes that fearful booming in the mountain, and told about it before he got a chance to blow his horn, ...
— The Saddle Boys of the Rockies - Lost on Thunder Mountain • James Carson
... that Ignatius, in his new dress, has lost nothing of his absurdity and extravagance. The passages of the Epistles, which were formerly felt to be so objectionable, are yet to be found here in all their unmitigated folly. Ignatius is still the same anti-evangelical formalist, the same puerile boaster, the same dreaming mystic, and the same crazy fanatic. These are weighty charges, and yet they can be substantiated. But we must enter into details, that we may fairly exhibit the spirit, and expose ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... far to eastward, From the regions of the morning, From the shining land of Wabun, Homeward now returned Iagoo, The great traveller, the great boaster, Full of new and strange adventures, Marvels ...
— The Song Of Hiawatha • Henry W. Longfellow
... opportunity of conversing with the politest and most learned gentry of different nations, that I will discourse with you in two or three languages, if you please, when I have the happiness to see you. There's a learned boaster for you, my dear friend! (if the knowledge of different languages makes one learned.)—But I shall bring you an heart as entirely English as ever, ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... the great boaster, He, the marvelous story-teller, He, the traveler and the talker, Made a bow for Hiawatha; From a branch of ash he made it, From an oak-bough made the arrows, Tipped with flint, and winged with feathers, And the cord ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... shouted. "Weakling at heart. Great boaster, doer of little deeds! Even you, who would be our mistress, he has abandoned—even his own son he has forsaken. A rotten breed, ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... which Carlyle calls sham gentility. He bears on his very brow the newest flunky-stamp. The poor young fellow, after all, is no villain; he has no kind of connexion with the horrid rascal SIR EMERSOM TENNENT alludes to—with the blackguard. That he is a boaster, a talker, an idiot, a nincompoop; that he scatters "words, words, words," as Polonius did of old; that he is bombastic, wordy, prosy, nonsensical, and a fool, no one will deny. But he is no rogue, though he utters rogueries and drolleries. No one ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 209, October 29 1853 • Various
... was a wild, uncontrolled boy, who spent most of his time in the street, played truant three days out of five, was a great boaster, and sneered at anything like goodness. He was vastly amusing, however, and generally was surrounded by a crowd of admiring lads who thought him quite a hero. He had completely fascinated Louis, who was blind to his faults and attached great weight to every ...
— A Dear Little Girl • Amy E. Blanchard
... Now delegate the task to digging Gell? That mighty limner of a bird's-eye view, How like to Nature let his volumes tell; Who can with him the folio's limits swell With all the Author saw, or said he saw? Who can topographise or delve so well? No boaster he, nor impudent and raw, His pencil, pen, and shade, alike without ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... enough, the whole story. And if Mrs. East had snapped the dragoman up under the impression that he came from a man she had determined to meet, the fellow might be no more to blame than any other boaster, touting in his own interest. Still, I had an uneasy feeling that something lay hidden under Armenian plausibility. Bedr el Gemaly was perhaps a thief who had courted a chance for a big haul of jewellery. Yet if that were all, why hadn't he hopped off the tram, as it began to move, with the ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... riata, as he is with everything else!" The tone of Manuel was exceeding bitter. "Well, he will have the chance to prove what he can do. No gringo can come among us Californians and flap the wings and crow upon the tule thatch for naught. There has been overmuch crowing, Valencia. Me, I am glad that boaster must do something more than crow upon ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... been taught so much by Granny Fox that he began to feel very wise and very important. Reddy is naturally smart and he had been very quick to learn the tricks that old Granny Fox had taught him. But Reddy Fox is a boaster. Every day he swaggered about on the Green Meadows and bragged how smart he was. Blacky the Crow grew ...
— The Adventures of Reddy Fox • Thornton W. Burgess
... according to his cloth; I will try to get away as fast as I can." On this the giant said to him, "Go, little ragamuffin, and fetch me a jug of water." "Had I not better bring the well itself at once, and the spring too?" asked the boaster, and went with the pitcher to the water. "What! the well and the spring too," growled the giant in his beard, for he was rather clownish and stupid, and began to be afraid. "That knave is not a fool, he has a wizard in his body. ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... response: "Telemachos, thou boaster, if each suitor would bestow upon him such a gift as I will make, he would not come here again very soon." With that he seized a footstool and held it up where all could see it. The beggar approached him with a pitiful story of wanderings and hardships. Antinoos spurned him saying: ...
— Odysseus, the Hero of Ithaca - Adapted from the Third Book of the Primary Schools of Athens, Greece • Homer
... mediocrity I ever saw in my life; he is full of self-sufficiency and conceit, and believes himself equal to anything. He has no talent. I should like to see him opposed some day to one of our good generals; we should then see fine work. He is a boaster, and that is all. He is really one of the most silly men existing; and, besides all that, he is unlucky." Was not this opinion of Bonaparte, formed on the past, fully verified ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... Davy, being foremost in the race, sat down, followed by his companion George, who, maugre his great apprehensions, could not forbear laughing heartily at the sudden melting away of the big-mouthed valour of this cowardly boaster. ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... have talked myself deaf and dumb and blind, and never got a response. Just look at this magnificent autumn landscape! Look at it! look at it! Feast your eye on it! You have traveled; you have seen boaster landscapes elsewhere. Come, now, deliver an honest opinion. What do ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... training. Starling's quiet might mean instinctive imitation, but I feared it was something more sinister. While mine—— But I had no composure. I swaggered and shrugged and played harlequin and boaster. ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... once ludicrous and painful to witness the agony of our pilot in spite of himself. Between oaths, protestations and tremors, the perspiration of terror flowing down his face, mingled with his tears, he conned the ship with a precision that proved, at least in that matter, that he was no vain boaster. ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... soon got wind. The governor heard of it, and asked Captain Delmar about it. The consequence was, that I received another invitation from the governor, and Captain Delmar again informed me that I might tell my own story, which I did, modestly as before. I say modestly, for I never was a boaster at any time; and I really believe that I thought much less of the circumstances than those did to whom I narrated them. I had at that time but one wish, which was to find favour in the sight of Captain Delmar. ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... was soon made up; for after Ben Tinker had thrashed the little boaster he was satisfied, and Tommy did not dare to be cross. By this time they had ...
— Proud and Lazy - A Story for Little Folks • Oliver Optic
... you know, is a great boaster and likes to brag of how smart he is and how brave he is, came with the rest ...
— The Adventures of Prickly Porky • Thornton W. Burgess
... by the hearers. It struck like a dagger into the wounded and tender heart of Helen; it pierced Laura, and inflamed the high-spirited girl with scorn and anger. "And it was to this hardened libertine," she thought—"to this boaster of low intrigues, that I had given my heart away." "He breaks the most sacred laws," thought Helen. "He prefers the creature of his passion to his own mother; and when he is upbraided, he laughs, and glories in his crime. 'She gave me her all,' ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... our true end and aim in existence—of the part which our country is destined to play in the great drama of life, will beget a noble, self-relying national pride, the very opposite pole to that senseless, loud-mouthed self-laudation which has too much characterized us in the days gone by. The boaster betrays the consciousness of the very weakness he wishes to conceal; while 'still waters run deep,' and the man of true courage and strength is the man of few words and great deeds. So that arrant bragging which has hitherto been our ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... lie the cause? Shall thy Implement have blame, A Boaster, that when he is tried, fails, and is put to shame? 10 Or is it good as others are, and be their eyes in fault? Their eyes, or minds? or, ...
— Poems In Two Volumes, Vol. 2 • William Wordsworth
... Family—superhuman beings, infinitely remote—the great landlord of the neighbourhood stood as a symbol of temporal power to the whole district. The budding socialist of the taproom might sneer, and make threat that the time was coming when he, the boaster, and Challis, the landlord, would have equal rights; but in public the socialist kow-towed to his master with a submission no less obsequious than that of the humblest ...
— The Wonder • J. D. Beresford
... mocker," said Geburon, "that was not mocked, a deceiver that was not deceived, or a boaster that was ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. V. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... by what he had said, and everybody would have believed him. By declaring him the winner of the bet she has cut the matter short, and she has avoided a judgment by which she would have been dishonoured. The inconsiderate boaster was guilty of a double mistake for which he paid the penalty of his life, but his adversary was as much wanting in delicacy, for in such matters rightly-minded men do not venture upon betting. If the one who says yes is imprudent, the one who says no is ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... false, treacherous, feigned, simulated, mock. faltar fail, be missing, be lacking, give way. fallido, -a frustrated, amiss. fama f. reputation, report, rumor; es —— it is said. famoso, -a famous, renowned, notorious. fanal m. lantern, light, beacon. fanfarrn m. boaster, bully. fango m. mud, mire, slime. fantasa f. fancy, imagination, caprice, whim. fantasma m. f. phantom, ghost, specter, scarecrow. fantstico, -a fantastic, imaginary. farsa f. farce, humbug. fascinar fascinate. fatal adj. fatal, ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup
... who was renowned for his skill in all sports and pastimes. To please the company he rose from his seat and danced his merry dances to the music of flutes and drums. Then the sweet singer, Chibiabos, sang a melodious love-song, and when this was finished, Iagoo the Boaster, jealous of the praise and applause bestowed on the musician, told one of his most marvelous stories, and well pleased the wedding-guests took ...
— The Children's Longfellow - Told in Prose • Doris Hayman
... honour, he also had us served with a bird three times as large as Cleonymus,(1) and called the Boaster. ...
— The Acharnians • Aristophanes
... that he had been really experimenting when Collinson overtook him in the hollow. He evaded this by post-dating his discovery of the richness of the ore until he had reached Marysville. But he found some difficulty in recounting his good fortune: he was naturally no boaster, he had no desire to impress Collinson with his penetration, nor the undaunted energy he had displayed in getting up his company and opening the mine, so that he was actually embarrassed by his own understatement; ...
— In a Hollow of the Hills • Bret Harte
... Bluster fanfaroni. Boa boao. Boar porkviro. Board (food) nutrado—ajxo. Board (plank) tabulo. Board logxi. Boarder (house) logxanto. Boarder (school) edukato. Boarding school edukejo. Boarding-house logxantejo. Boast fanfaroni. Boast fanfarono. Boaster fanfaronulo. Boat boato. Boatman boatisto. Boat-hook hokstango. Boat-race sxipkurado. Boat (rowing) remboato. Bobbin bobeno. Body korpo. Bog marcxego. Bohemian Bohemo. Boil (blain) furunko. Boil boli. Boiler ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... thou!" I cried. "Boaster! Had you told us that age and fat living had so stunted your wits as to have extinguished memory, I had taken a guide at Montauban to show us the way. Yet, here, with the sun and the Pyrenees to guide you, even had you no other ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... of this atavistic instinct are no more elevated than those of jealousy. The sentiment of sexual power induces men, especially those of lower mental caliber, to boast of their sexual conquests and exaggerate them. It is needless to say that success does not go to the unskillful boaster, but to the one who relates his audacious exploits in a casual way. The Don Juan experienced in the art of seduction approaches women with audacity and aplomb, and usually imposes on them considerably, whatever his ignorance of other ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... their pride and make them more humble, but also when they are in fear and dejection to raise them up again and give them confidence. Thus Cyrus talked big in perils and on battle-fields, though at other times he was no boaster. And the second Antigonus, though he was on all other occasions modest and far from vanity, yet in the sea-fight off Cos, when one of his friends said to him, "See you not how many more ships the enemy have got than we ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... day wanes, the sleek cows, with considered careful walk and placid mien, wend their way homeward, bearing their heavy udders to the house-mother, who, pail in hand awaiting their approach, pauses for a moment to mark the feathered boaster at her feet, as he makes his parting vaunt of a day well spent and summons "Partlet" to her vesper perch ...
— The Romantic Settlement of Lord Selkirk's Colonists - The Pioneers of Manitoba • George Bryce
... life might find, Shaming you with his toil, his bravery, Not by a word or look, no boaster he, He was always gentle ...
— Poems • Marietta Holley
... dishonour, and the rest of our hero sires; and we consume the rents and tributes of Ulster which they by their prowess conquered to us, and which flow hither in abundance from every corner of the province. Valiant men, too, will one day come hither and slay us as I slew that boaster, and here in Emain Macha their bards will praise them. Then in the halls of the dead shall we say to our sires, 'All that you got for us by your blood and your sweat that have we lost, and the glory of the Red Branch ...
— The Coming of Cuculain • Standish O'Grady
... nothingness Turgenef, however, soon rises to at least the semblance of strength; and while Rudin is at bottom as impotent as Tchulkaturin, he at least pretends to strength. Rudin, then, is the hero of phrases, the boaster; he promises marvels, he charms, he captivates; but it all ends in words, and Rudin perishes as needlessly as he lived needlessly. In "Fathers and Sons," however, Bazarof is no longer a talker; he already rises ...
— Lectures on Russian Literature - Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenef, Tolstoy • Ivan Panin
... me, all they who come lie in the dust before me. Now, therefore, I pray you rebuke me no more till you see me beaten or a recreant, and then bid me go from you." "There shall soon meet thee a knight who shall repay thee all thy deeds, thou boaster," answered she, "for, save King Arthur, he is the man of most worship in the world." "It will be the greater honour to encounter him," said ...
— The Legends Of King Arthur And His Knights • James Knowles
... sets better men within them? Athens still lives, though her Acropolis be wrapped in flames. 'Strong-hearted men and naught else are warp and woof of a city.' Do you forget Alcaeus's word so soon, O Boaster from Corinth? Yes, by Athena Promachos, Mistress of Battles, while those nine score ships ride on the deep, I have a city fairer, braver, than yours. And will you still deny me equal voice and vote with this noble trierarch from Siphinos with his one, or with his comrade ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... the chief, who, lost to sense of shame, Late fled the field, and yet survives his fame? O hadst thou died beneath the righteous sword Of that brave man whom once I call'd my lord! The boaster Paris oft desired the day With Sparta's king to meet in single fray: Go now, once more thy rival's rage excite, Provoke Atrides, and renew the fight: Yet Helen bids thee stay, lest thou unskill'd Shouldst fall an easy conquest on ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... had horses served with champagne in pails," the old boaster, Athanase Georgevitch, protested jealously. He was an advocate, well-known for his table-feats, who claimed the hardest drinking reputation of any man in the capital, and he regretted not to have ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux
... neat, cleanly boy of twenty, or thereabouts, active, loud-voiced, a boaster, and the cowardliest of the cowardly. He will steal at every opportunity. He clings to his gun most affectionately; is always excessively anxious if a screw gets loose, or if a flint will not strike fire, yet I doubt that he would be able to fire his gun at an enemy from excessive trembling. ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... intractable. Uncle Sam, United States; the largest boaster of liberty and owner of slaves. Unrizzest, applied to dough or bread; heavy, most unrisen, or ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... held his peace, and made only a silent appeal to the justice of the gods. Not long afterward, the Horse, having become broken-winded, was sent by his owner to the farm. The Ass, seeing him drawing a dung-cart, thus derided him. "Where, O boaster, are now all thy gay trappings, thou who art thyself reduced to the condition you so ...
— Aesop's Fables - A New Revised Version From Original Sources • Aesop
... half-caste, drawing his knife from its sheath, flashed it before the assembled natives; "nay, no liar am I, neither a boaster; and by the gods of my mother's land I shall make this Parma give me more grog to drink before the night comes, else shall this knife eat into his heart. Come ...
— Rodman The Boatsteerer And Other Stories - 1898 • Louis Becke
... the young Prince. "We all know de Chargny and have fought against him. Many faults he has, a boaster and a brawler, but a braver man and one of greater heart and higher of enterprise does not ride beneath the lilies of France. Such a man would never stoop to write a letter for the sake of putting dishonor upon one of knightly rank. I, for one, ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... "Ha, Loki, you boaster," he roared, "you lie in your words. Sindri, my brother, who would scorn to serve you, is ...
— The Children of Odin - The Book of Northern Myths • Padraic Colum |
