"Conceited" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... tea; 'but really I don't know that we shall be any the better for it. Now in this office of yours, by the end of next week, there will be three or four men with broken hearts, and there will be one triumphant jackanapes, so conceited and proud, that he'll never bring himself to do another good ordinary day's work as long as he lives. Nothing will persuade me but that it is not only very bad, but very ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... dam neared completion. We had thought merely to protect our commerce from German piracy and perhaps to stop them from getting a little copper and rubber in some remote corner of the earth. But we did not realize that we were about to cut them off from an essential element without which that conceited and defiant race must have speedily run up the white flag of absolute surrender or have died to the last man, like rats in a ...
— City of Endless Night • Milo Hastings
... 1830 has again presented to us. This accomplished dandy seemed to be thirty years of age. His manners were those of good society; he wore jewels of value; the collar of his shirt came to the tops of his ears. His conceited and even impertinent air betrayed a consciousness of hidden superiority. His pallid face seemed bloodless, his thin flat nose had the sardonic expression which we see in a death's head, and his green eyes were ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... that keeps thousands from doing good. It's just as paltry and selfish and cowardly as any other fear that curses the world—it's rather more selfish than most fears, in fact—take the fear of being thought a coward, or being considered eccentric, or conceited, or affected, or too good, or too bad, for instance. The man that's always canting about the world's ingratitude has no gratitude owing to him as a rule—generally the reverse—he ought to be grateful to the world for being let live. ...
— Children of the Bush • Henry Lawson
... you had to choose between a fairly capable but humble teacher, and a very capable but conceited one, which one would be ...
— Principles of Teaching • Adam S. Bennion
... anything about it?' inquired the old lady indignantly. 'Miller's a conceited coxcomb, and you may tell him I said so.' Saying which, the old lady, quite unconscious that she had spoken above a whisper, drew herself up, and looked carving-knives at the ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... blood-tracker like you," said Lawson, hotly. He did not seem to have a deliberate intention to rouse Duane; the man was simply rancorous, jealous. "I'll call you right. You cheap bluffer! You four-flush! You damned interfering, conceited ranger!" ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey
... Geordie, with a low bow, "has been quite weel sin' I had the honour o' yer acquaintanceship, whilk is now a year, come twa o'clock o' this day. Ye micht maybe be thinking we were gaun to fa' out o' acquaintanceship; but I'm no ane o' yer conceited creatures wha despise auld freends, and rin after new anes, merely because they may think them brawer—sae ye may keep yer mind easy on that score; and I wad farther tak the liberty to assure yer leddyship ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... I am so conceited as to purchase on my own knowledge. I have taken some of the very best advice of the city. There is John Murray, to begin with—a great ship-holder, himself—and Archibald Gracie, and William Bayard—all capital judges, have ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... beastly conceited, an'—an' you swaggered into the meetin' as if we were a lot of idiots," growled Orrin ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... can't very well get conceited about what we are doing here—although, of course, I am proud of it, ...
— Mary Minds Her Business • George Weston
... English," retorted the vicar, "you are conceited enough to think that you can succeed where the greatest lawyers in Scotland have failed. They couldn't prove this man's innocence, all working together. And you are going to prove it single-handed? ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... perceived that "war is actually unavoidable" unless a spiritual miracle was wrought; that Europe was "drifting slowly but steadily toward an awful catastrophe." Why? Because Germany was strong, envious, ambitious, conceited, arrogant, unscrupulous, and dissatisfied. It was in Germany that "the pagan gods of the Nibelungen are forging their deadly weapons," for Germans believe national superiority is due to military superiority. Dr. Sarolea named as a war year this very year[2] in ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea
... Toledo war we looked upon the Ohio men unfavorably. We were interested for ourselves, and might have been somewhat selfish and conceited, and, maybe, jealous of our neighbors, and thought them wrong in the fray. We had forgotten that there were then men living in Ohio, in log houses and cabins, some of them as brave men as ever walked the footstool; that they came to Michigan and rescued the country from the invaders, the English ...
— The Bark Covered House • William Nowlin
... for, with all his faults, he was not conceited. He did not guess that Constance's very openly expressed pleasure in the company of Lord Standon was to prevent the discovery of her real and passionate longing for that ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice
... easiest person in the world to talk to, and I've known you always, it is pretty hard to lay this case before you so that you won't think me a conceited prig. That is because you are a woman and can't help looking at it from a woman's standpoint. For a good many reasons it would be easier to tell it to some man, who would know how it was himself; but you see I want a woman's conscience and a woman's judgment, ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... gave up the position on the Street with reluctance. He was sure he liked it now, he declared. It was what he was fitted for, and he meant, more than ever, to take it up permanently as soon as he was free. And his employer told Captain Elisha that the youngster was bright, clever, and apt. "A little conceited, needs taking down occasionally, but that is the only trouble. He has been spoiled, I ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... a liking for Mr. Francis Osborne's works, and asked him what he thought of that writer. He answered, 'A conceited fellow. Were a man to write so now, the boys would throw stones at him.' He, however, did not alter my opinion of a favourite authour, to whom I was first directed by his being quoted in The Spectator[566], and in whom I have found much ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... in the fellow's attitude. I don't imagine there will be until the last moment. He is just a pig-headed, insufferably conceited Englishman, full of class ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... variety. The old-fashioned sailor was brought up in an atmosphere of rough cruelty; the new-fashioned sailor will submit to no tyranny whatever. The old-fashioned skipper was very like the Hull culprit in habits and customs; the new-fashioned skipper is overbearing and often conceited, but rarely brutal. ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman
... is not difficult surely. Be not too wise nor too scatter-brained, Not too conceited nor too restrained, Be not too haughty nor yet too meek, Too tattle-tongued or too loth to speak, Neither too hard nor yet too weak. If too wise you appear, folk too much will claim of you, If too foolish, they still will be making fresh game of you, If too conceited, vexatious they'll ...
— A Celtic Psaltery • Alfred Perceval Graves
... seen or read for years; but the author and his wife are both haunted by the fact that there is a masterpiece which is lying—not fallow, but unused and sterile. They grow dissatisfied. The savour of life is lost for them. They develop persecution mania, grow very conceited, and finally come to believe that only they of all the men and women alive truly grasp the essentials of life. They say, if this were the silly muck that most authors write, it would be produced, and then we should have our car and our servants and diamonds and titles and all the paraphernalia ...
— Nonsenseorship • G. G. Putnam
... that conceited old pedant, whose "Counterblast to Tobacco" has worked the poorest of results, seems to have had a nice taste for fruits; and Sir Henry Wotton, his ambassador at Venice, writing from that city in 1622, says,—"I have sent the choicest melon-seeds of all kinds, which His Majesty doth ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... loitered about amongst the crowd, now deep in conversation with Lady Scapegrace, now laughing with my new friend, Mrs. Lumley. He looked so like a gentleman, even amongst all the high-bred men there; and though so handsome, he didn't appear the least conceited. I began to wonder whether all could be true that I had heard of him, and to think that a man who liked such early walks could not possibly be the roue and "good-for-nothing" they made him out. I was roused out of a brown study by Cousin John's voice in my ear, "Now then, Kate, ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... from whom cometh their help. Before the terrible realities of danger, death, bereavement, disappointment, shame, ruin—and most of all before deserved shame, deserved ruin—all the arguments of the conceited sophist melt away like the maxims of the comfortable worldling; and the man or woman who was but too ready a day before to say, "Tush, God will never see, and will never hear," begins to hope passionately that God does see, that God does hear. In the hour of darkness; ...
— Westminster Sermons - with a Preface • Charles Kingsley
... every reason, whether of public policy or of private feeling, why the old party leaders in the House should now bestir themselves, and combine, and put forth all their powers in debate, to check, and if possible to rout and extinguish, this self-conceited but most dangerous young man. "Many threats were uttered, and much abuse cast on me," said Patrick himself, long afterward. Logic, learning, eloquence, denunciation, derision, intimidation, were poured from all sides ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler
... tended Horizon with a touching, naive attention; she wiped his face with a handkerchief, waved upon him with a fan, adjusted his cravat every minute. And his face at these times became laughably supercilious and stupidly self-conceited. ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... man!" she laughed. "No, indeed! Did you think I was going to overlook my father or Mr. Parmalee? You men are so conceited!" ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes
... say that I enjoy the simile, but I'm conceited enough to think it is not as free from dents as it was when I began. I'm not quite sure about it, but I believe with a little more time and security ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon
... his conceited posing, but his veiled threats didn't bother Rynason. In any case, he had something else on his mind just now. He had finally remembered what it had been about the carvings over the Hirlaji building in the photo that had touched a memory within him: there ...
— Warlord of Kor • Terry Gene Carr
... his name will always be associated with the splendid successes of Hampdenshire cricket, both before and after the accident that destroyed his career as a bowler. He was not spoiled by his triumphs: those two years of celebrity never made Stott conceited, and there are undoubtedly many traits in his character which call for our admiration. He is still in his prime, an active agent in finding talent for his county, and in developing that talent when found. Hampdenshire has never come into the field with weak bowling, and ...
— The Wonder • J. D. Beresford
... real temptation, I—Edward, it is my belief that this town's honesty is as rotten as mine is; as rotten as yours. It is a mean town, a hard, stingy town, and hasn't a virtue in the world but this honesty it is so celebrated for and so conceited about; and so help me, I do believe that if ever the day comes that its honesty falls under great temptation, its grand reputation will go to ruin like a house of cards. There, now, I've made confession, ...
— The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg • Mark Twain
... season. During my metropolitan existence—although I am neither a tailor, nor any trade, nor anything exactly—I have never beheld a downright intellectual-looking blade of grass. I mean much by an intellectual blade of grass. The Londoners—poor conceited creatures!—have denominated sundry portions of their Babylon "fields." But—I ask it in all the honest pride of sheer ignorance—is there the ghost even of a bit of grass to be seen in many of them? I cannot easily forget my vexation, when, after a tedious walk to one of those ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 266, July 28, 1827 • Various
... caused his friends great anxiety recently by a prolonged absence from home. When found he was very thin but is now as fat and conceited ...
— The Golden Road • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... As a poet, your place is first, I know; but believe me, friend, when it comes to 'tone' and 'mode,' and the power to sing, I confess I have no fear—nor an equal," the conceited ass declared. "I tell you, confidentially, I have now no fear of that presumptuous fellow, Walther. With this song and my great genius, we shall no longer fear his bobbing upon the scene and doing harm." Assured of ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... accommodate fifty, my plate was set immediately opposite his. He was a young negro gentleman, with such a shining ebony skin that he was almost refreshing to eyes that had just left the dazzling whiteness of the outer world. He gave me the impression of being a rather conceited African, but this may have been because my dress compared so unfavourably with his. He was the son of a merchant at St. Louis in Senegal, and was just like a Frenchman in all but his colour. I asked him if he found the weather we were having ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... from him, he is so above himself." "That is only his play, that is only his play," the father would reply. "What else can you expect? It is too late now to start a quarrel with him, and, moreover, every one would accuse me of harshness. True, he is a little conceited; but, were I to reprove him in public, the whole thing would become common talk, and folk would begin giving him a dog's name. And if they did that, would not their opinion touch me also, seeing that I am his father? Also, I am busy with philosophy, and ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... door, Annora Goldhue: she had three daughters. No, none of them would do. Joan was idle, and Amy was conceited, and Frethesancia had a temper. Little Roese might have done, who lived with old Serena at the mill end; but old Serena could not spare her. At last, as Avice broke her thread for the fourth time, she pushed back the stool on which she was ...
— Our Little Lady - Six Hundred Years Ago • Emily Sarah Holt
... your talk of a fine girl, like my Janet, as a piece of poultry, you young rooster! You toss your head up like a cock too conceited to crow. I 'll swear the girl 's in love with you. She does you the honour to be fond of you. She 's one in a million. A handsome girl, straight-backed, honest, just a dash, and not too much, of our ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... they were witnessing had been produced before the Court at Whitehall a few days earlier. Shakespeare's publishers were not above advertising facts like these, as may be seen by a survey of the title-pages of editions published in his lifetime. "The pleasant conceited comedy called Love's Labour's Lost" was advertised with the appended words, "as it was presented before her highness this last Christmas." "A most pleasant and excellent conceited comedy of Sir John Falstaff and the Merry Wives ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee
... of kin. I just laughed at him and called out, 'Good-bye, Cousin!' Mr. Big Josh Bucknor almost claimed kin with me, too. Wouldn't it be funny, Mumsy, if all of them got to doing it? It would be kind of nice to have some kinfolks who knew they were kin. I know you think I am conceited, but somehow I believe the men would be more pleased about it than the women. Maybe the women are afraid I'd take to visiting them like poor ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... other operatives arises from the difference in the objects on which they operate. The one operates upon matter, the other upon mind. The one attains perfection in his art by a process which in the other would produce an ignoramus, a bungler, a narrow-minded, conceited charlatan. Hence the necessity on the part of those who would excel in the profession of teachers, of endeavoring continually to enlarge the bounds of their knowledge. Hence the error of those who think that to teach anything well it is necessary ...
— In the School-Room - Chapters in the Philosophy of Education • John S. Hart
... that he is light-minded," said the irritated Menes. "Two months ago I sent him a great plan for lessening the toil of laborers, and he laughed at me. He is conceited and ignorant!" ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus
... will!" she said softly and proudly. "Though it is always the same, I never do think myself worthy! But I must try to grow very conceited, and assure myself that I am very valuable! so that then I shall understand everything better, ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... contempt of revelation is generally the result of ignorance, conceited of its possessing superior knowledge. Observe how the author of Recherches Philosophiques sur les Americains, expresses himself on this very point. "Cette distance que Mr Antermony veut trouver si peu impotante, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... honest woman says—let abee to say twa o' them?" exclaimed Meg; "O the unbelieving generation!—Weel, Nelly, since my back is up, ye sall tak down the picture, or sketching, or whatever it is, (though I thought sketchers[I-12] were aye made of airn,) and shame wi' it the conceited crew that they are.—But see and bring't back wi' ye again, Nelly, for it's a thing of value; and trustna it out o' your hand, that I charge you, for I lippen no muckle to their honesty.—And, Nelly, ye may tell them he has an illustrated poem—illustrated—mind the word, Nelly—that is ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... his fooling, Coke began in earnest. He was a man a little older than Raleigh, and of a conceited and violent nature, owing not a little of his exaggerated reputation to the dread that he inspired. He was never more rude and brutal than in his treatment of Sir Walter Raleigh upon this famous occasion, and even in a court packed with enemies, in which the proud poet ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... charming people; but the air they had to live in was the devil. One of its notes was an artificial reticence of speech, which waited till it could plant the perfect epigram. Its typical products were far too conceited to lay down the law. Now when people heard that Bernard Shaw was witty, as he most certainly was, when they heard his mots repeated like those of Whistler or Wilde, when they heard things like "the Seven deadly Virtues" or "Who was Hall Caine?" they expected another of these silent sarcastic ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... reason why the pilot, although he is our saviour, is not usually conceited, any more than the engineer, who is not at all behind either the general, or the pilot, or any one else, in his saving power, for he sometimes saves whole cities. Is there any comparison between him and the pleader? And if he were to talk, Callicles, in your ...
— Gorgias • Plato
... expectation of pleasing is an infallible means of pleasing. Characters pleased with themselves please others, for they are joyous and natural in mien, and are at liberty from thinking of themselves to pay successful attention to others. Still, the self-conceited and the bragging are never attractive, self being the topic on which all are fluent and none interesting. They who dwell on self in any way—the self-deniers, the self-improvers—are hateful to the heart of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... For as it is not at all inconceivable, that a blockhead of my size may have a particular knack of doing some useful thing that might puzzle a wiser man to be master of, will not that blockhead still have something in him to be conceited of? If so, allow me but the vanity of supposing I may have had some such possible knack, and you will not wonder (though in many other points I may still be a blockhead) that I may, notwithstanding, be ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... they will be truly happy, a glorious message and such truths which when sufficiently explained, will satisfy all lovers of progression into the true happiness. But there may join with our Peace-Union some self-conceited person who would not give up what would be shown by us as necessary to be removed for the restoration of mankind to their true happiness, and what he would not be able to refute, and notwithstanding this he would remain in his bad habit. ...
— Secret Enemies of True Republicanism • Andrew B. Smolnikar
... of the day are such conceited, apish creatures; no man under forty-five is worth wasting a ...
— The Gay Lord Quex - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur W. Pinero
... me?" she asked mockingly. "You're too clever for me," he rejoined with spirit. "I'm too conceited. I must marry a girl that'd kneel to me and think me as wise as Socrates. But he's back again, as you say, and, in my view, his wife ought to ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the latter's brain, he could not refrain from indulging in a laugh at the ridiculous appearance of the actors, and from feeling amused at the humiliating termination of the vain gasconade of the pompous and conceited principal, who became a self-immolated victim to his own vanity. The only object that excited one spark of William's pity or sympathy, was the poor deluded horse. With these reflections, and an occasional outbreak of reminiscent cachinnations on the part of the junior, ...
— Fern Vale (Volume 1) - or the Queensland Squatter • Colin Munro
... tense and hot, shouted an angry word, and rushed into the semi-darkness of the side aisle. There Helen found him when she came off, his face black with anger and disgust. "It's all off," he said. "That conceited fool ...
— The Light of the Star - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... name of the theatre! And they haven't even taken up the option! Ye gods! 'Intellectual'! 'Muses'! 'The Orient Pearl.' And she's fifty—that I swear! Not a word yet of real business—not one word! He may be a poet. I daresay he is. He's a conceited ass. Why, even Bryany was better than that lot. Only Sachs turned Bryany out. I like Sachs. But he won't open his mouth.... 'Capitalist'! Well, they spoilt my appetite, and I hate champagne!... The poet hates money.... No, he 'hates the thought of money.' ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... not of the humble sort, is the most self-conceited thing alive. He can no more take in the idea that your objection to him is he than a board can draw a nail into itself. You've ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... a picture of my inward condition. There nothing was right. Many things which in theory I condemned, and in others despised, were yet a part of myself, or, at best, part of evil disease cleaving fast unto me. I found myself envious and revengeful and conceited. I discovered that I looked down on people whom I thought less clever than myself. Once I caught myself scorning a young fellow to whose disadvantage I knew nothing, except that God had made him handsome enough for a woman. All at once one day, with a sickening conviction it came ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... and have recourse to further persecution to bring about a happier frame of mind. Yes: the wrong-headed and wrong-hearted religionist is probably the very worst type of man or woman on whom the sun looks down. And, oh! how sad to think of the fashion in which stupid, conceited, malicious blockheads set up their own worst passions as the fruits of the working of the Blessed Spirit, and caricature, to the lasting injury of many a young heart, the pure and kindly religion of the Blessed Redeemer! These are the folk who inflict ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... this Subject, as he has expressed them in the Character of the Misanthrope; but those only who are endowed with a true Greatness of Soul and Genius can divest themselves of the little Images of Ridicule, and admire Nature in her Simplicity and Nakedness. As for the little conceited Wits of the Age, who can only shew their Judgment by finding Fault, they cannot be supposed to admire these Productions [which [7]] have nothing to recommend them but the Beauties of Nature, when they do not know how to relish even those Compositions that, with all the Beauties of Nature, have ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... at Boyds—he was a kinder man than the superintendent and really sharper, though much less conceited. He was half ...
— "Us" - An Old Fashioned Story • Mary Louisa S. Molesworth
... request was he permitted to proceed to the palace of the king of Ashantee. He received a hearty welcome at the court, and was entertained with the most lavish kindness. After long and painstaking consideration, a treaty was decided upon that was mutually agreeable; but the self-conceited and swaggering insolence of the British authorities on the coast put it into the waste-basket. The commander of the British squadron put himself in harmony with the local authorities, and refused to give Consul Dupuis transportation to England for the commissioners ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... the little Red Cross taxi! It must be turning in at the gate. How well I knew its gay, conceited tootle! An eighth of a mile, and the car would reach the house. Even the poor worn-out taxi couldn't be ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... one's friends are not included in the reputants, is of great service; as it saves one from a legion of impertinents, in the shape of common-place acquaintance. But thou know'st I can be a right merry and conceited fellow, and rarely larmoyant. Murray shall reinstate ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... was trying to be tender in his own conceited way. I fully expected he would propose some day, if he could once reconcile himself to a wife who was not ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... according to popular prejudice is a victim of bad luck, and I will show you one who has some unfortunate crooked twist of temperament that invites disaster. He is ill-tempered, conceited, or trifling; lacks character, enthusiasm, or some other requisite ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... suddenly pricked Charles-Norton; taking wing he slid along the veranda and seized, as he passed, from the shoulders of the girl, the scarf, from the conceited head of the young man, his derby hat, and flapped off with them in the darkness. The crash of an astonished chair and a faint little cry followed him for a moment, then dropped ...
— The Trimming of Goosie • James Hopper
... his head sadly. "I know Halle," said he. "You call it the seat of the Muses. I know it only as the seat of pedantry. You will soon know and confess this. There is nothing more narrow- minded, jealous, arrogant, and conceited than a Halle professor. He sees no merit in any thing but himself and a few old dusty Greeks and Romans, and even these are only great because the professor of Halle has shown them the honor to explain and descant upon them. But, you ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... my arrival had evidently reached the villagers; I was conceited enough to imagine that my presence was probably of interest to them; but the station-master, the girl at the post-office and the clerks in the shops treated me with an unmistakable cold reserve. There was a certain evenness ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson
... science and his art, this master often made assertions which might seem conceited, aside from those convictions which, to his mind, had the character of orthodoxy, he used forms of speech of which judges without authority would never have dreamed. I have heard ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... teach him, on the contrary, to acknowledge his dependences and avoiding forbidden things, to partake with cheerfulness of the material blessings which surround him. This is genuine confidence in the Supreme Ruler, though, to be sure, it has little or no charms for the obstinate stoic, or the conceited pharisee. But "wisdom, it is certain, will be justified of all who are under ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... nut-cracker is going to leave me to my own meditation. I hate when a young person pretends to understand whatever passes, while his betters are obliged to confess that it is all a mystery to them. Such an assumption is like that of the conceited fool, sister Ursula, who pretended to read with a single eye a manuscript which I myself could not find intelligible with the ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... Burton, whose maxims he had adopted, and whose life he had published. The biographer indeed preferred the school-logic to the new philosophy, Burgursdicius to Locke; and the hero appears, in his own writings, a stiff and conceited pedant. Yet even these men, according to the measure of their capacity, might be diligent and useful; and it is recorded of Burton, that he taught his pupils what he knew; some Latin, some Greek, some ethics and metaphysics; referring them to proper masters for the languages and sciences ...
— Memoirs of My Life and Writings • Edward Gibbon
... advanced toward 'Lena, greeting her tenderly, and whispering in her ear that "he found she was greatly improved as well as himself," while 'Lena wondered in what the improvement consisted. She had formerly known him as a great, overgrown, good-natured boy, and now she saw him a "conceited gawky." Still, her manner was friendly toward him, for he had come from her old home, had breathed the air of her native hills, and she well remembered how, years ago, he had with her planted and watered the flowers which he told her were still growing ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes
... become serious). I am your friend, Paul! Believe me! I desire nothing but your own good, simply because I care for you and because, I'll be frank with you, I should not want to lose you. You may be convinced of it, Paul, conceited as it may sound, but you will never find another woman like me! One with whom you can share everything! I don't know what you may have said to the Polish woman or what she may have said to you, but do you really suppose that she still knows about that today, even though ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... leaving me full of grief and indignation:—and as much out of humour with Mr. Lovelace as with any body; who, by his conceited contrivances, has made things worse for me than before; depriving me of the hopes I had of gaining time to receive your advice, and private assistance to get to town; and leaving me not other advice, in all appearance, than either to throw myself upon his family, or to be ...
— Clarissa, Volume 2 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... verses by many contemporary poets. A sequel, Coryate's Crambe, or Colewort twice Sodden followed. Next year (1612) C. bade farewell to his fellow-townsmen, and set out on another journey to Greece, Egypt, and India, from which he never returned. He d. at Surat. Though odd and conceited, C. was a close observer, and took real pains in collecting information as to the places ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... pray who is to understand you? You surely don't pretend to be cleverer than the Cat and the woman—I won't say anything of myself. Don't be conceited, child, and thank your Maker for all the kindness you have received. Did you not get into a warm room, and have you not fallen into company from which you may learn something? But you are a chatterer, and it is not pleasant to associate ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... Ah! the truth is a thing I get rid of as soon as possible! Bad habit, by the way. Makes one very unpopular at the club . . . with the older members. They call it being conceited. ...
— An Ideal Husband - A Play • Oscar Wilde
... every word is like a cold shower-bath; and then the hearty hand-clasps of rivals, of comrades, some very frank and cordial, others which communicate to you the inertness of their pressure; the tall, conceited zany whose absurd praise ought to delight you beyond measure, and who, in order not to spoil you utterly, accompanies it with "a few trifling reservations;" and the man who, while overwhelming you with compliments, proves to you that you do not know the first word ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... during the three nights Phelps remained in Hull in 'The Man of the World,' 'Richelieu,' and 'Macbeth.' On July 29th, 1865, I made my debut in London, at the Haymarket, as Ophelia to the Hamlet of Walter Montgomery. Poor Montgomery! He was what you would call a 'lady-killer'—very conceited, but, withal, very kind. He once wrote a letter to my father, and added a postscript, saying: 'Keep this letter. Should poverty fall upon you or yours, your great-grand-children may be able to sell it for a good sum of money!' I was ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 27, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... reading, and her rides about the country with her Uncle Jack, Kitty's education, such as it was, went on very actively and with the effect, at least, to give her a great liveliness of mind and several decided opinions. Where it might have warped her out of natural simplicity, and made her conceited, the keen and wholesome airs which breathed continually in the Ellison household came in to restore her. There was such kindness in this discipline, that she never could remember when it wounded her; it was part of the gayety of those times when she would ...
— A Chance Acquaintance • W. D. Howells
... peers to hang a Mexican. As a first flash outen the box, he puts up a strong pray'r talk to get this crim'nal by the heavenly gate. Now, whatever do you reckon a saint who knows his business is goin' to say to that? Yere stands this conceited Laredo party recommendin' for admission on high a Mexican he's he'pin' to lynch as not good enough for Texas. If them powers above ain't allowin' that prayin' party's got his nerve with him, they ain't givin' the case the study ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis
... grace. Her manner was rather elaborate, and when she spoke to the waiter, I detected a pronounced foreign accent. Taken altogether, they were a remarkable couple, and presented a distinguished appearance. I believe I am not a conceited man, but I could not help wondering whether their thoughts paid me a similar compliment, for I certainly detected both of them casting more than one curious glance toward our table; and when the man whispered once ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 6, No. 5, April, 1896 • Various
... brains to attempt to read him; he has great thoughts, and he makes them intelligible to people less stupid than me, and many writers whom I like and understand have taken their ideas from him; but I cannot understand him. And I think many of his men have his faults. At least I am so conceited as to think it ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... is, and call her 'Copy-Cat' to her face, but she does not mind. I doubt if she understands, and neither does Lily, for that matter. Lily Jennings is full of mischief, but she moves in straight lines; she is not conceited or self-conscious, and she really likes Amelia, without ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... 'I'm not conceited—only in my teacher. Mr. Henderson said I should take as good a place as Robert Fulmort did at Winchester, after four years in that ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... always thinking." "You is certainly real modest Melanctha, when you do this kind of talking, you sure is Melanctha," said Jeff Campbell laughing. "I think sometimes Melanctha I am certainly awful conceited, when I think sometimes I am all out doors, and I think I certainly am so bright, and better than most everybody I ever got anything now to do with, but when I hear you talk this way Melanctha, I certainly do think I am ...
— Three Lives - Stories of The Good Anna, Melanctha and The Gentle Lena • Gertrude Stein
... angle, their abrupt clockwork nodding in a sea-way, so unlike the soaring lift and swing of a craft under sail, have in them something caricatural, a suggestion of a low parody directed at noble predecessors by an improved generation of dull, mechanical toilers, conceited and ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad
... in the least conceited, tell how, through his clear-sighted firmness in refusing to write in the Spencerian manner prescribed in school, he succeeded in bringing the Principal and the whole Board of Education to their senses, resulting in a complete reversal ...
— Love Conquers All • Robert C. Benchley
... big plays to-day?" asked Alice. "I know Mr. Pertell said he wouldn't need Ruth and myself, so of course they didn't do anything really good. Not at all conceited; am I?" she asked, ...
— The Moving Picture Girls Snowbound - Or, The Proof on the Film • Laura Lee Hope
... our eyes as children are at a rapidly managed magic-lantern show, when the impatient exhibitor presents a View in Egypt to eyes which have hardly begun to take in Solomon's Temple. We like them far better than the majority of the more elaborate, infinitely conceited, narrow-minded, squeakingly-witty essays with which the country has been of late visited for its sins from the Country ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... my rather conceited way of looking upon matters then, and there was some ground for my assumption of manliness; but if excuse be needed let me say in my defence that I was suddenly cast into this career of dangerous adventure, and I was ...
— Bunyip Land - A Story of Adventure in New Guinea • George Manville Fenn
... stupid, insolent, factious, deformed, conceited person; a vile pretender to poetry, preferred by the Duke of Grafton ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... for a title of nobility and failed, though she gained in the end a greater title. Her works are insufferably and complacently conceited, and yet I always look at their bindings with respect. Mrs. Blashfield, who died too soon, has given us, in her first volume—unfortunately the only one—a new view of this Empress of Didacticism. It is strange indeed that Madame Roland could ...
— Confessions of a Book-Lover • Maurice Francis Egan
... read only in the Junior year. The following may do as specimens of the subjects usually assigned:—The difference between alluvial and original soils; a discussion between two persons not noted for personal cleanliness. The last term of a decreasing series; a subject for an insignificant but conceited fellow. An essay on the Humbug, by a dabbler in natural history. A conference on the three dimensions, length, breadth, and thickness, between three persons, one very tall, another very broad, and ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... average new boy, and his batting was undeniable. He knew quite well that he was regarded as a find by the cricket authorities; and the knowledge was not particularly good for him. It did not make him conceited, for his was not a nature at all addicted to conceit. The effect it had on him was to make him excessively pleased with life. And when Mike was pleased with life he always found a difficulty in obeying Authority ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... ever was at," said Sally May enthusiastically as the three said good-night after a long discussion of the evening's fun, "and I think you looked nicer than anybody else, Judy. I do hope you won't get conceited about the way you look in that new ...
— Judy of York Hill • Ethel Hume Patterson Bennett
... of Peebles, is reported to have been the last renowned exorciser, and to have lost his life in a contest with an obstinate spirit. This was owing to the conceited rashness of a young clergyman, who commenced the ceremony of laying the ghost before the arrival of Mass John. It is the nature, it seems, of spirits disembodied, as well as embodied, to increase in strength and presumption, ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott
... pertinent example or illustration, but it was generally done by a question or a suggestion which demanded the activity of the student's own mind, and disciplined while it, helped him. If a pupil, on the other hand, were captious, or conceited, he was apt to find himself, before he suspected it, inextricably entangled in a web of contradictions, where he was sometimes left till he came to a sense of his weakness, or till he was dismissed with the benign declaration ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... remarked with satisfaction. "Papa always says that boys are good for girls; they keep you from getting priggish and conceited. They take all that out of you. ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray
... a conceited girl," thought Betty. "She was always patronising people, and Rosy was only pretty and sweet. She always said herself that she had no brains. But ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... stumped off with the swaggering limp of an old campaigner, as the troop-horse's head came nuzzling into my breast, and I gave him biscuits, while Vixen, who is a most conceited little dog, told him fibs about the scores of horses ...
— The Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling
... England, and had been dismissed from employment as an exciseman for neglect of duty, emigrated to America in 1774, and came into notice through introductions given him by Franklin. He was bitterly hostile to his own country, a violent advocate of revolutionary ideas, ignorant and conceited; yet he had much shrewdness, and expressed his rude opinions with a force and vivacity which appealed strongly to readers prepared to assent to them. Common Sense taught thousands of Americans to recognise for the first time their own thoughts and wishes, and ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... too strong for its limited power to pass. But though Tom felt satisfaction at that moment, he had too good feeling to wound the self-love of the vain creature before him; so, instead of speaking what he thought, viz., "What business have you to attempt literature, you conceited fool?" he tried to wean him civilly from his folly by saying, "Then come back to the country, James; if you find jealous rivals here, you know you were always ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... Thrasybulus, the son of Thrason, was his particular enemy, and went purposely to Athens to accuse him, and to exasperate his enemies in the city against him. Addressing the people, he represented that Alcibiades had ruined their affairs and lost their ships by mere self-conceited neglect of his duties, committing the government of the army, in his absence, to men who gained his favor by drinking and scurrilous talking, whilst he wandered up and down at pleasure to raise money, giving himself up to every sort of luxury in Abydos and Ionia, at a ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... the height of fashion, with frizzled black hair, divided behind, and smelling strong of pomatum, a well-oiled mustache, and a simpering, supercilious expression—one of those nasty creatures that old Kit North says never can be washed clean. He looks conceited and silly enough to be an attache to the court of his imperial highness the emperor. When this fellow knelt before the picture and slavered it with his ugly mouth, a dizzy sensation of disgust came over me. Upon a general review of all the circumstances, Dominico, I have concluded that ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... cried Midge; "we're not conceited. Not nearly as much so as that girl across the way. You ought to see, Father, how she hopped up the ...
— Marjorie's New Friend • Carolyn Wells
... no such grievances then as we have now. There were troubles with bad roads and bad agriculture. There were quarrels about this right and that privilege. The cures didn't like the grand airs of the Church dignitaries. The squires (hobereaux) were conceited very often and ignorant and arrogant. We have not got rid of conceit and ignorance and arrogance, though, by cutting off the heads of a few squires a hundred years ago! No! as to Eu, at least, take my word for it, the happiest day we can see will be the day when we can welcome ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... You don't know what you would have done. I insist on your supposing yourself to be a weak, superstitious, conceited, fanatical fool. You understand? Now, tell me, then. Could you keep away from your wife, when you were called back to her in the name of your firstborn ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins
... all; you must have a gull, a stockholder, a Hulot.—Well, I know a retired tradesman—in fact, a hosier. He is heavy, dull, has not an idea, I am licking him into shape, but I don't know when he will do me credit. My man is a deputy, stupid and conceited; the tyranny of a turbaned wife, in the depths of the country, has preserved him in a state of utter virginity as to the luxury and pleasures of Paris life. But Beauvisage—his name is Beauvisage—is a millionaire, and, like ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... intolerant, bigoted, and presumptuous. Potts had accomplished one great aim of his mission: he had married a lady of fortune, and assumed more purity than any one else, and was a sort of self-constituted exponent of the only true doctrines of his church. Arrogant and conceited, he, though a very young man, thrust himself forward as a censor, and very soon was in controversy with Dr. Clapp. Without a tithe of his talent, or a grain of his piety, he assumed to arraign him on the ground of unfaithfulness to the ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... ago,' continued Mr. Underwood, 'I thought myself a prodigiously fine fellow—with my arms full of prizes at Harrow, and my Trinity scholarship—and could just, in the plenitude of my presumption, extend a little conceited patronage to that unlucky dunce, Tom Underwood, the lag of every form, and thankful for a high stool at old Kedge's. And now my children view a cold fowl as an unprecedented monster, while his might, I imagine, revel in 'pates de ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... realized that of all the conceited, ludicrous, contemptible ways of announcing an engagement this was the worst. He cursed his love of metaphor; had he suggested that he was a star and that Lucy was soaring ...
— A Room With A View • E. M. Forster
... intimate with her and might win her esteem. She felt that she had become much more important since the receipt of Emil's letter. Now she remarked, too, that she had been very much afraid that Emil might quite possibly have changed and become conceited, affected and spoiled—just as was the case with so many celebrated men. But there was not the slightest trace of such things in the letter; there was the same quick, heavy writing, the same warmth of tone, as in those earlier letters. What a number of experiences he might well have had ...
— Bertha Garlan • Arthur Schnitzler
... beer." If you ask in the country how far it is to some town or village, a peasant will answer, "'n Hunnblaff," "A dog's bark," if it is quite close; or "'n Pip Toback," "A pipe of tobacco," meaning about half an hour. Of a conceited fellow they say, "He hoert de Flegn hosten," "He hears the flies coughing." If a man is full of great schemes, he is told, "In Gedanken foert de Bur ok in't Kutsch." "In thought the peasant, too, drives in a coach." A man who boasts is asked, "Pracher! haest ok Lues, ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... Tims, sternly, settling her wig. "You are mad, you need not be bad as well. But it's my own fault for giving you that brandy. You know as well as I do that I hate men—nasty, selfish, guzzling, conceited, guffawing brutes! I never wanted to speak to a man in my life, except in the ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... all her written work, can possibly feel." Katherine was worried about her mathematics, in which she had been warned before Thanksgiving, but she confided to Betty that she had counted them up, and without being a bit conceited she really thought there were fifty stupider girls in the class of 19—. Roberta and the Riches, however, were utterly miserable, and Eleanor wrote to Paul West that she was busy—she had written "ill" first, and then torn up the note—and indulged in another frantic fit of industry, even ...
— Betty Wales Freshman • Edith K. Dunton
... all praise: they are unadorned, straightforward, and elegant, every ornament being stripped off as it were a garment. While he desired to give others the material out of which to create a history; he may perhaps have done a kindness to conceited writers who wish to trick them out with meretricious graces; [26] but he has deterred all men of sound taste from touching them. For in history a pure and brilliant conciseness of style is the highest attainable beauty." ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... In the mean time I had been to see Aunt Agnes twice, but had not found her at home. I was curious to hear what Miss Kingsley would say concerning me, for I felt by no means sure that her remarks would be wholly complimentary. Freely as I blamed myself for my conceited notions at the time, regarding the attentions of the two philosophers, I was not ready to absolve her from the imputation of jealousy. It was difficult to explain her conduct on any other ground, and I remembered what Mrs. Marsh had said as to tender relations between ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... GARRICK to be absurdly overrated. Space would fail me, and patience you. But let me just for a brief moment call to your mind ROLAND PRETTYMAN. Upon my soul, I think ROLAND the most empty-headed fribble, the most affected coxcomb, and the most conceited noodle in the whole world. He was decently good-looking once, and he had a pretty knack of ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, November 28, 1891 • Various
... that is given to nursing anger, he that is boastful,—these six of wicked disposition, on obtaining wealth, cannot treat others with courtesy. He that regardeth sensual gratification as the end of life, he that is self-conceited, he that boasteth having made a gift, he that never spendeth, he that is weak in mind, he that is given to self-admiration, and he that hateth his own wife,—these seven are counted as wicked men of sinful habits. Righteousness, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... Rolfe he gave scarcely a thought. If the worst were true of her, Rolfe had only to thank his own absurdity, which allowed such a conceited simpleton to do as she chose. The case looked black against her. Well, she had had her lesson, and in that quarter could come to no more harm. What sort of an appearance was she likely to make at Prince's Hall ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... first of the month. It would astonish him to learn that the firm had lost over ten thousand dollars in five months, several of them the best in the year for business. I came to the conclusion that my laudable design would be a failure, or only prove that I was a vain and conceited boy, who knew but little of the science of accounts. I did not suspect that anything was wrong, except in my own calculations. Probably Mr. Whippleton knew all about the matter, and in due time would set it right, showing that ...
— Desk and Debit - or, The Catastrophes of a Clerk • Oliver Optic
... me to say you have very little knowledge of human nature. It is only reasonable that a great man should know he is a great man. Most of our great men are conceited. I would like to see Trenton's letter to you. I could then have a good deal of amusement at his expense ...
— One Day's Courtship - The Heralds Of Fame • Robert Barr
... and laughably absurd as possible this type of the very great majority of modern infidels, who disavow religion because they fear it, and ridicule Christianity from sheer, shallow ignorance. Our own country at present abounds in 'Bletsons,' in conceited, ignorant 'infidel' scribblers of many descriptions, in of all whom we can still trace the cant and drawl of the old-fashioned fanaticism to which they are in reality nearly allied, while they appear to oppose it. For the truth ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... been all very well for the scouts to have depended wholly on themselves had they been alone at this time; but having two experienced guides along, Ned was not conceited enough to think that he knew it all, and could utterly dispense ...
— Boy Scouts on Hudson Bay - The Disappearing Fleet • G. Harvey Ralphson
... old and who loved his eight-year-old companion very much, but looked upon her as a mere child, said with a conceited air: ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... pressed upon me that afternoon, and though capital answers probably present themselves to your mind, you might not find they satisfied the Hindu who argues along lines of logic peculiar to the East, and subtle enough to mystify the practical Western brain; and then—for we are conceited as well as practical—we are apt to pity the poor Hindu for being so unlike ourselves; and if we are wholly unsympathetic, we growl that there is nothing in the argument, whereas there is a good deal in it, only we do not see ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael |
