"Priggish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... efforts of an earnest young man to frustrate the profligacies of high-placed paladins like Lancelot and Tristram, and ultimately discovering, with deep regret but unshaken moral courage, that there was no way to frustrate them, except by overthrowing the cold and priggish and incapable egotist who ruled the country, and the whole artificial and bombastic schemes which bred these moral evils. It might be that in spite of this new view of the case, it would ultimately appear that Ulysses was really right and Arthur ...
— Robert Browning • G. K. Chesterton
... producing prigs. Stupid boys are generally rendered more stupid by teaching, for reasons that will be analyzed later on. But boys whose brains are amenable to academic training are liable, unless the environment of the school is peculiarly unfavourable to the development of the species, to become priggish. ...
— The Curse of Education • Harold E. Gorst
... novel. It was a flippant, vulgar book, the outcome of a flippant, vulgar mind. Boltt had a wider public than Lensley. Boltt, a tall, thin, stooping man, with peering eyes, had discovered "the human note" of which Gilbert's editor prated continually. He was a precise, priggish man, extraordinarily vain though no vainer than Lensley, who, however, had an easy manner that Boltt would never acquire. He spoke in the way in which one might expect a "reduced gentlewoman, poor ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... "every time I see you, you are more and more like your father. You're going off—just as he did. That baffled, MULISH look—priggish—solemn! Oh! it's strange the stuff a poor woman has to bring into the world. But you'll do nothing. I know you'll do nothing. You'll stand everything. You—you Cuckold! And she'll drive by me, she'll pass me in theatres with the money that ought ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... ostentatiously to absolute trust. Only by showing confidence in him can we hope to do away with the dangers of the whole incident. To inculcate good habits and encourage good behaviour we must let the child build up his own reputation for these virtues. It need not make him priggish or self-satisfied if parents let him understand that they take pride in seeing him practise and develop the virtue they aim at. For example, it is desired above all that he should always speak the truth. Then they must ostentatiously attach to him the reputation of truthfulness and show their ...
— The Nervous Child • Hector Charles Cameron
... he will! But if he did—No, I think he will be a staff to guide a silly, priggish ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... a steady, sensible lad, with very rigid ideas of right and wrong. Not that there was anything "priggish" about him. On the contrary, he was always the foremost in any undertaking that ...
— Canoe Boys and Campfires - Adventures on Winding Waters • William Murray Graydon
... reinforced by vows of poverty and chastity in the matter of knowledge. Except for half a dozen in each town the citizens are proud of that achievement of ignorance which it is so easy to come by. To be "intellectual" or "artistic" or, in their own word, to be "highbrow," is to be priggish ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... for his superior officer on the Supervisor's part encouraged Brent to deliver from time to time rather priggish little homilies on the way to run a Forest. California John listened, but with a sardonic smile concealed beneath his sun-bleached moustache. After a little, however, Brent became more inclined to bring home the personal application. ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... ones who are developing a moral fiber and strength of will which will stand in the day of stress. Better a thousand times such training as this in the thick of life's real conflicts than any volitional calisthenics or priggish self-denials entered into solely for the training of ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts
... there was really nothing questionable in that, but he was just slightly prejudiced against a man who made such a quotation; it sounded a little priggish. ...
— Orientations • William Somerset Maugham
... wonderful country," he said aloud, "where you get people studying Spanish in their off-hours." Ellen thought it rather wonderful too, and looked at her toes with a priggish blankness. "You've got a marvellous educational system...." He paused, conscious that he was too manifestly talking at random. "In two continents you've enjoyed the reputation of being able to talk the hind-leg off a donkey," he reminded himself. "It's the language to learn," he ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West |
