"Self-confidence" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... energy, do not know how to assert their rights, are credulous and confiding. Children of that character if reared by timid and over-fond parents, are deprived of the rough contact with society that is necessary to their development. There are many whom the lack of self-confidence, the lack of ambition, and lack of business energy condemn to an obscure life, when their intellectual capacities would fit them for an influential position. A kind but mistaken system of training confirms the defect, and dooms them to ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, August 1887 - Volume 1, Number 7 • Various
... and a couple of boys from the city besides Keith, and three or four sons of neighbouring farmers. They ranged in ages from eight to eleven or twelve. Keith was the baby, but this was never held up against him. He was commonly treated as an equal, which raised his self-confidence tremendously, but it had also a somewhat embarrassing effect when the others seemed to take for granted that he knew as much as they concerning the matters that most occupied their minds—to judge by their ...
— The Soul of a Child • Edwin Bjorkman
... was not much of an oarsman. Big and strong, and heretofore so successful that his large self-confidence had never been badly jolted, he was quite at a disadvantage, this June afternoon, as he attempted to row pretty Annette Neil across the head of the lake to where she said the fishing was good. Twice already he had splashed her dainty, starched ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll
... one Englishman could beat any six foreigners. This is crude in his eyes. He knows all about Gladstone and the Land Bill; he is abreast of his age in knowledge of the Eastern Question; and he claims kindred with a Party. His self-confidence is phenomenal, but not often offensive. In short, he is a sort of nautical bagman, with all the faults and all the ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman
... it ought not to be permitted to lie in obscurity for want of a sympathetic pen. The present venture, therefore, is an attempt, though belated, to recount some of the achievements of this statesman whose public career looms up as a monument to the American Negro's self-confidence, resolution, ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various
... range through science's ample space, Each man learns only that which learn he can; Who knows the moment to embrace, He is your proper man. In person you are tolerably made, Nor in assurance will you be deficient: Self-confidence acquire, be not afraid, Others will then esteem you a proficient. Learn chiefly with the sex to deal! Their thousand ahs and ohs, These the sage doctor knows, He only from one point can heal. Assume a decent tone of courteous ease, You have them then to humor as you please. First ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... of writing which, judging from the full abstracts given in translation in the Times, appear to have been interspersed, and except the undoubting self-confidence and aplomb with which a historical survey, reversing the common ideas of mankind, was delivered, there was little new to be learned from M. Renan's treatment of his subject. Perhaps it may be described as the Roman Catholic theory ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... had him taught Latin and Greek of an evening; he had taken kindly to these languages and had rapidly and easily mastered what many boys take years in acquiring. I suppose his knowledge gave him a self-confidence which made itself felt whether he intended it or not; at any rate, he soon began to pose as a judge of literature, and from this to being a judge of art, architecture, music and everything else, the path was easy. Like his father, he knew the ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... that he saw it, he hardly believed it. His first glimpse of it left him cowering, terrified. The noise, the rush, the glitter, the grimness, the vastness, were like blows upon his defenceless head. They beat the braggadocio and the self-confidence temporarily out of ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... withdrawn His servant from the stage of public life. There were results more precious than these to be secured. In the solitude and obscurity of his mountain retreat, Luther was removed from earthly supports, and shut out from human praise. He was thus saved from the pride and self-confidence that are so often caused by success. By suffering and humiliation he was prepared again to walk safely upon the dizzy heights to which he ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... thousand dollars a year could not clear one hundred dollars a year. Commerce was absolutely stagnant. Canada was a federation, but a federation of what? Poverty-stricken, isolated provinces. Not in bravado, not in flamboyant self-confidence, rebuffed of all chance to trade with the United States, the new Dominion humbly set herself to build the foundations of a nation. She did not know whether she could do what she had set herself to do; but she began with that ...
— The Canadian Commonwealth • Agnes C. Laut
... this Tuesday Evening, has not wanted its abundant meed of blame,—rendered so emphatic by what befell on Saturday morning next. His somewhat too authoritative fixity; a certain radiancy of self-confidence, dangerous to a man; his sovereign contempt of Daun, as an inert dark mass, who durst undertake nothing: all this is undeniable, and worth our recognition in estimating Friedrich. One considerably extenuating circumstance ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle
... earnestness, which they exercised while under conviction, before they found "joy and peace in believing." They see such a heavenly sweetness in divine things, that they think it impossible they should "lose the relish all their days." This begets self-confidence, and they trust in their own strength to keep where they are, instead of eagerly pressing forward, in the strength of Christ, after higher attainments. The consequence is, they soon lose their lively sense of divine things, backslide ...
— A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females - Being a Series of Letters from a Brother to a Younger Sister • Harvey Newcomb
... very self, as dwarfed in actual appearance, or developed after the divine ideal. Her sincerity was terrible. In her frank exposure no foible was spared, though by her very reproof she roused dormant courage and self-confidence. And so unerring seemed her insight, that her companion felt as if standing bare before a disembodied spirit, and communicated without reserve thoughts and emotions, which, even to himself, he had ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... There was a superb self-confidence in the man, an arrogance, a courage, which more than anything else persuaded his hearers that he was in earnest, that he was ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman
... carnal man still is in Peter. Christ speaks of His cross; He could understand about the glory, "Thou art the Son of God;" but about the cross and the death he could not understand, and he ventured in his self-confidence to say, "Lord, that shall never be; Thou canst not be crucified and die." And Christ had to rebuke him: "Get thee behind me, Satan. Thou savorest not the things that be of God." You are talking like ...
— The Master's Indwelling • Andrew Murray
... reading public is always ready to submit itself to the influence of sincerity. It does not seem much to matter what inner characteristics the sincerity may have. In the case now under analysis the quality seems to resolve itself into pure self-confidence. Miss Corelli's method of capturing the public mind is not a trick which anybody else might copy. It is the result of a real, though perilous, gift of nature—a gift which she possesses in something of a superlative degree. Nobody could pretend to such a gift and succeed by virtue of the pretence. ...
— My Contemporaries In Fiction • David Christie Murray
... The party consisted of five Indian chiefs, two squaws, a little girl, and a half-breed, accompanied by Mr. Catlin as interpreter. The Queen received the strangers in the Waterloo Gallery. The elder chief made a speech with all the dignity and self-confidence of his race. It was to the effect that he was much pleased the Great Spirit had permitted him to cross the large lake (the Atlantic) in safety. They had wished to see their great mother, the Queen. England was ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... at her quizzically, bowed to her with his head, and retired among the rest of the company. He possessed a brazen self-confidence and decided, at all ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... room I realised the full extent of my folly the previous afternoon. Hitherto her manner had been respectful and demure enough on the surface, though always with a suggestion of veiled insolent self-confidence. Now the veil was thrown off, she was assured of ...
— Five Nights • Victoria Cross
... life into which the Divine nature has been received. The revelation that Satan is going about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour, presents a truth that should disarm the believer of all self-confidence and cause him to dread, above all things else, the subtle devices of this foe. In this connection Eph. 6:10-12 may well be restated: "Finally, be strong in the Lord, and in the strength of His might. Put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. ...
— Satan • Lewis Sperry Chafer
... without cowardice, providing that he was self-satisfied of the justice of his own cause. What he could not endure was, that he should be accused by others, and not acquitted by himself. Doubting, as he had begun to doubt, the justice of his own position in the hospital, he knew that his own self-confidence would not be restored because Mr Bold had been in error as to some legal form; nor could he be satisfied to escape, because, through some legal fiction, he who received the greatest benefit from the hospital might be considered only ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... young man to her, and addressing him by name told him to fetch his knife, as she intended to carry out her husband's wishes and supply the Refuges with the necessary medicine without delay. Abashed, and half-ashamed by her self-confidence and dignity, he muttered excuses and left ...
— The Fulfilment of a Dream of Pastor Hsi's - The Story of the Work in Hwochow • A. Mildred Cable
... fashionable method of consulting Mr. Simeon Belknap and abiding by his selection on his own terms; and since the market was limited and Mr. Belknap's facilities in these delicate and complicated matters were unique, his services naturally were not cheaply held. Smith, with youthful self-confidence, decided that he himself would make a preliminary canvass of the reinsurance market; and so, when the first rush of new duties had abated, and his legal affairs were safely in the hands of counsel, and the interrupted agency ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... rock with the rapidity and self-confidence of a gray squirrel running up the trunk of a hickory tree, squirrel-like, taking advantage of every crack, cranny and projection that could be grasped ...
— The Black Wolf Pack • Dan Beard
... same time that individuals are spared the painful experiences which have moulded and hardened the individual units of other races, the Filipinos have, as a race, received an artificial impetus which tends to deceive them as to their own capacity, and to increase their aggregate self-confidence, while the results of personal ineptitude are continually ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... and yet the most common of all, and, alas! little regarded. Every one wants to be of importance and not to be the least, however small he may be; so deeply is nature sunk in the evil of its own conceit and in its self-confidence contrary ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... year or two ago, a waiter at Brissago on the Lago Maggiore, only he is better-tempered-looking, and has a more intellectual expression. He gave me his ideas upon beauty: "Tutto ch' e vero e bello," he exclaimed, with all his old self-confidence. I am not afraid of Dante. I know people by their friends, and he went about with Virgil, so I said with some severity, "No, Dante, il naso della Signora Robinson e vero, ma non e bello"; and he admitted I was right. Beatrice's ...
— Essays on Life, Art and Science • Samuel Butler
... before, I think a lot of my doctor—when I am ill. He is a young man, with an air of breezy self-confidence and good humor. He looked directly past the bottle, which is a very valuable accomplishment, and shook hands with McKnight until I could put the cigarettes under the bedclothes. He had interdicted tobacco. Then he sat down beside the bed and felt around the ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... doing wrong, I would come to my closet, shut myself in, and pray there for strength to cure my faults. I then counted them all over as far as I knew them, and resolved to get rid of them all. I was too happy to think of the difficulty in the way of doing this, but my self-confidence was soon rebuked. After looking over all the books, and putting my fingers upon every thing in my little kingdom, and dancing up and down with delight, I followed my father and mother down stairs to see the presents for the other children. Such ...
— Two Festivals • Eliza Lee Follen
... felt quite the strangest emotion he had ever experienced in his life. His usual serene self-confidence and easy flow of words deserted him, and Verisschenzko, watching him, began to link ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn
... confused, eyes wide, lips parted. For the taller of the two had taken off his cap, and stood towering and smiling in her path. A young man, of about six foot three, magnificently made, thin with the leanness of an athlete in training,—health, power, self-confidence, breathing from his joyous looks and movements—was surveying her. His lifted cap showed a fine head covered with thick brown curls. The face was long, yet not narrow; the cheek-bones rather high, the chin conspicuous. ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... inmost soul, understood, pitied and then despised him, he conceived the most intense bitterness against him, which at last deepened into hatred—hatred that stopped at no means to secure revenge. Gathering all his strength, nerving all his powers to their highest pitch, his self-confidence increased; the various modes of interpretation, which isolated passages of the Holy Scriptures admit, made it possible for him to maintain, with a tolerable appearance of truth and certainty, dogmas at variance with those of Zwingli. The support, which he found from those of ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger
... or less indifferent, if not insensible, to danger. It may not necessarily be bravery that refuses to recognize perils; it may be an instinctive quality of dominance, and self-confidence which is convinced of its power ...
— Princess Zara • Ross Beeckman
... of other marriage projects, Henry had gone about this as if he were in earnest, and it was thought throughout the court that Mary's coaxings would be all in vain—a fear which she herself had begun to share, notwithstanding her usual self-confidence. ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... piano-forte, when the weather was pleasant enough to sit on the piazza or to walk on the prairie. To Albert the parlor was full of associations of the days in which he had studied botany with Helen Minorkey. And the bitter memory of the mistakes of the year before, was a perpetual check to his self-confidence now. So that he prepared himself to listen with ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston
... with the evident consciousness that the gallery above him was filled with many of his political school, and thrusting both hands well into the bottom of his breeches pockets, he commenced his oration with an air of great self-confidence, occasionally drawing one hand from its concealment to aid his oratory by significant gesture. He made an excellent clap-trap—or, as they term it in America, Buncombe—speech, aiding and emphasizing, by energetic shakings of the forefinger, such passages as he thought would tell in ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... with longing, and she clasped her hands nervously together. It was a great moment, and her wonted self-confidence failed her on this threshold of another life. The downcast fame grew so anxious and troubled that Mrs Asplin became distressed at the sight, and, as usual, took the ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey
... Lexman. I did as I liked. If I crooked my little finger, people ran after me and that one experience with her has broken me. Oh, don't think,' he went on quickly, 'that I am broken in love. I never loved her very much, it was just a passing passion, but she killed my self-confidence. After then, whenever I came to a crucial moment in my affairs, when the big manner, the big certainty was absolutely necessary for me to carry my way, whenever I was most confident of myself and my ...
— The Clue of the Twisted Candle • Edgar Wallace
... a tender spot. No boy of fourteen likes to be considered very young. By that time he generally begins to feel a degree of self-confidence and self-reliance, and fancies he is almost on the threshold of manhood. I know boys of fourteen who look in the glass daily for signs of a coming mustache, and fancy they can see plainly what is not yet visible. Harry had not got as far as that, but he no longer looked upon himself as ...
— Bound to Rise • Horatio Alger
... on which Evaleen and her friends took passage, carried a cargo for the Southern market. The crew numbered eight picked men, commanded by Eli Winslow, a talkative Vermonter, with none too much experience on the Mississippi, but overstocked with self-confidence. ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... that man," Lois replied with considerable emphasis. "I never had any one to affect me as he does. I cannot understand it. I am not superstitious, and I have always prided myself upon my self-confidence, but I cannot account for the feeling that has come over ...
— Under Sealed Orders • H. A. Cody
... The self-confidence of the chief was absolute. Wearied of listening to the taunts of the dusky Apollo, he strode toward him, raising his right hand as he did so, feinted once and then brought down the weapon with a vicious vigor that was meant to bury the point in the ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... fellow, and he began to believe in himself. A new, firmer, manlier light woke in his eye, and he held himself erect. He presently began to move about among the woodsmen as their equal, and their enduring gratitude gave his new self-confidence time to ripen. From that day Simon Gillsey stood on a higher plane. In that one act of heroism he had ...
— Earth's Enigmas - A Volume of Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... into the gloom of its chilly passages. Powell wandered up and down there like an early Christian refugee in the catacombs; but what little faith he had in the success of his enterprise was oozing out at his finger-tips. At a dark turn under a gas bracket whose flame was half turned down his self-confidence abandoned him altogether. ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... confession, even when it described a doubleness that was conscious and deliberate, really implied no more than that wavering of belief concerning his own impressions and motives which most human beings who have not a stupid inflexibility of self-confidence must be liable to under a marked change of external conditions. In a life where the experience was so tumultuously mixed as it must have been in the Prate's, what a possibility was opened for a change of self-judgment, when, instead of ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... somebody else's banquet, came last. The rest of us just jostled along together. But Davie Paine, I noticed, held his head higher than I ever had seen it before; for Roger's appreciation of his sound common sense had pleased him beyond measure and had done wonders to restore his self-confidence. ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... smiled in self-confidence. Who ever knew Marjorie West to miss in spelling? And had not her father looked over her examples last night and pronounced them correct? But on her way to school the paper on which the examples were solved had dropped out of ...
— Miss Prudence - A Story of Two Girls' Lives. • Jennie Maria (Drinkwater) Conklin
... choler; you could not speak of wealth, but his cheek paled with gnawing envy. The astonishing natural advantages of this poor boy—his beauty, his readiness, the daring spirit that breathed around him like a fiery atmosphere—had raised his constitutional self-confidence into an arrogance that turned his very claims to admiration into prejudices against him. Irascible, envious—bad enough, but not the worst, for these salient angles were all varnished over with a cold repellant cynicism, his ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... knowledge of her powerful moral and military superiority, and of her incomparable war machine, perfect and ready in every detail, could have, and should have dominated the confusion and danger of the situation with the sang-froid and self-confidence born of strength, instead of allowing herself to be swept along by the sinister currents leading to an ocean ...
— Right Above Race • Otto Hermann Kahn
... church government, a form of church worship, stripped, as they held, of the last remnant of the superstitions of the past. Calvin himself with his austere and frugal life, his enormous industry, his power of government, his quick decision, his undoubting self-confidence, his unswerving will, remained for three-and-twenty years till his death in 1564 supreme over Protestant opinion. His influence told heavily on England. From the hour of Cromwell's fall the sympathies of the English reformers ...
— History of the English People - Volume 4 (of 8) • John Richard Green
... You could get a job now. Not much of a position, perhaps, but something self-respecting and fairly well-paying. It would teach you many things. You might get a knowledge of human nature that no college could give you. But there's something—poise—self-confidence—assurance—that nothing but college can give you. You will find yourself in those three years. After you finish college you'll have difficulty in fitting into your proper niche, perhaps, and you'll want to curse the day on which you heeded my advice. It'll look as though you had simply ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber
... were losing all," says Molly, in a despairing tone. "First John, and now—you. Oh, how difficult a thing is life! how hard, how cruel!" Yet only a month before she was singing its praises with all the self-confidence ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... speedily came to a steadier mind, pouring honest contempt upon his momentary lapse from self-confidence. He was ashamed of it. It amounted to being silly, simply silly. He couldn't understand, couldn't account for it. What possessed him to get a regular scare like this? It was too absurd for words. Sentiment?—Yes, by all ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... moreover, that to be left to such womanly training as ladies were bound to bestow on young squires and pages was the best treatment for the youth, who was really thriving and growing happier every day, as he lost his awkwardness and acquired a freedom and self-confidence such as he could never have imagined possible in his original brow-beaten state, though without losing the gentle modesty and refinement that gave him ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... fortune, that Minna had different tastes. He protested that that made no difference; that he would be rich, famous; that he would win honors, money, all that Minna could desire. Frau von Kerich looked skeptical; she was amused by his self-confidence, and only shook her head by way of saying no. But ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... convincing. Her ambition was shown in her work on our tests as well as in her social behavior. (We have wondered if it was not her desire to shine which prevented the typical performance of the pathological liar on the "Aussage'' test.) Her self-confidence as expressed on numerous occasions is no less striking. "I tell you, doctor, that I have told lies, but you will see that I ...
— Pathology of Lying, Etc. • William and Mary Healy
... have Abby Clayton for the Queen," rejoined Marion. "Abby is passably good-looking and rather graceful; besides, she has a clear, strong voice, and plenty of self-confidence. She would not be apt to get flustered. Annie Conwell, now, is a dear child; but perhaps she would be timid, and it would spoil the whole play if the ...
— Apples, Ripe and Rosy, Sir • Mary Catherine Crowley
... bearing, by her movements, by her words. Pomponia disturbed his understanding of women to such a degree that that man, corrupted to the marrow of his bones, and self-confident as no one in Rome, not only felt for her a kind of esteem, but even lost his previous self-confidence. And now, thanking her for her care of Vinicius, he thrust in, as it were involuntarily, "domina," which never occurred to him when speaking, for example, to Calvia Crispinilla, Scribonia, Veleria, Solina, and other women of high society. After he had greeted her and ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... a public scandal, focussing Anglo-Indian attention on Granthistan to a highly undesirable extent. The newly arrived Governor-General, Lord Blairgowrie, who possessed two supreme qualifications for his high office in a total ignorance of things Indian and a splendid self-confidence, wrote several of his well-known incisive letters to the Antony brothers, reflecting upon the discipline of their subordinates. Unkindest cut of all, old Sir Henry Lennox grasped joyfully at the chance of avenging a few of the wrongs he and his Khemistan administration ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... (and then her voice is all harmony when she touches a subject she is pleased with) that I could have listened to her for half a day together. But yet I am afraid, if she falls, as they call it, she will lose a good deal of that pathos, of that noble self-confidence, which gives a good person, as I now see, a visible superiority over one not ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... her at all. Anatole was not quick-witted, nor ready or eloquent in conversation, but he had the faculty, so invaluable in society, of composure and imperturbable self-possession. If a man lacking in self-confidence remains dumb on a first introduction and betrays a consciousness of the impropriety of such silence and an anxiety to find something to say, the effect is bad. But Anatole was dumb, swung his foot, and smilingly examined the princess' hair. It was evident that he could be silent in this ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... poor man. "Ah! Constance, thy affection is all that remains to me. Yes, I have lost even my old self-confidence; I have no strength left; my only desire is that I may live to die discharged of debt on earth. Thou, dear wife, thou who art my wisdom and my prudence, thou whose eyes saw clear, thou who art irreproachable, thou ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... had seemed to many to establish that supremacy in no uncertain terms, it can not be doubted that only as a result of the war and reconstruction did the theory receive a degree of popular assent that approached unanimity. Temporarily, at least, reconstruction added greatly to the prestige and self-confidence of Congress. During the war the powers of the President had necessarily expanded. The reaction, although hastened by the character and disposition of President Johnson, was inevitable. The depression ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... have been an organiser of the machine type, but he was a born ruler of men. Robust, alert, florid, with square forehead, heavy brows, and keen blue eyes, he looked determined and fearless. His courage, however, was not the rashness of an impetuous nature. It was rather the proud self-confidence of a rugged character which obstacles roused to a higher combative energy. He was not eloquent; not even ornate in diction. But his voice, his words, and his delivery were all adequate. Besides, he possessed the incomparable ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... Her self-confidence and satisfaction measurably dashed, she climbed down, so fearful of betraying herself to the person on the roof that she went to the absurd extreme of gathering her skirts up tightly to still their ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... the demon-sphere is never without danger. If, with a little too much self-confidence, I let myself be induced to assume a less haughty and reserved manner, if I associated a little more familiarly with the bold tribe, I soon repented, for I was carried along by their wantonness and folly, I could no longer subdue the laughter and ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... Their swagger, their self-confidence, their talk about the "rocky walls of Mur," evaporated in an hour. Now it was only of the disciplined and terrible regiments of the Fung, among whom every man was trained to war, and of what would happen to them, the civilized ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... Our happiness was the happiness which comes of intense toil, with no fatigue to dog it, and from a consciousness of the vital issues which we were pursuing. But my companions had still intellectual faults and preferences, self-confidence, critical intolerance, boisterousness, wilfulness. Stranger still, I found coldness, anger, jealousy, still at work. Of course in the latter case reconciliation was easier, both in the light of common enthusiasm and, still more, because mental communication ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson
... his office in the lower part of Birmingham, is not without symbolism. Birmingham is all business. If I were to personify the place, it would be in the likeness of a man I know—a big, powerful fellow with an honest blue eye and an expression in which self-confidence, ambition, and power are blended. Like Birmingham, this man is a little more than forty years of age. Like Birmingham, he has built up a large business of his own. And, like Birmingham, he is a little bit naive in his pride of ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... had wept with rage and hurled curses and reproaches at him if he mentioned marriage! "It shows that she no longer fears, as she did then, that she would make me unhappy by marrying me," he thought. And he felt sure that so sudden a change could not be a natural one. This rapid growth of self-confidence could not be due only to her hatred for Aglaya. To suppose that would be to suspect the depth of her feelings. Nor could it arise from dread of the fate that awaited her if she married Rogojin. These causes, ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... true answer had not yet been given to him. He was sad as he turned and rode towards the giant's home on New Year's Day, for he feared to lose his liberty and lands, and the lonely journey seemed much more dreary than it had before, when he rode out from Carlisle so full of hope and courage and self-confidence. ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt
... by one couple: "For two years we passed through a dark time in our family, trying to find resources to deal with a seemingly insurmountable problem. At our first retreat, with the loving support of the group, we were able as a couple to recover our self-confidence, sense of worth, and well-being, and reaffirm our ...
— Marriage Enrichment Retreats - Story of a Quaker Project • David Mace
... that they might pierce her disguise. She had trained herself to a long stride and a swaggering demeanor, and by constant practice she had been able to lower the pitch of her voice and roughen its quality. Yet, in spite of the constant practice, she never had been able to gain absolute self-confidence. Tonight, however, there was no ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... to be looked at, to be the centre, to feel things yielding before her; and without thinking it out, she knew perfectly well what it was she gained by this "fair seeming show" of eye and lip and form. Somehow it made nothing seem impossible to her; it gave her a dazzling self-confidence. ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... and any amount of water-power. Then for inhabitants, you've got the Scotchman, cautious and far-seeing; the Irishman, a little hot and heady, perhaps, but earnest; you've got the Englishman, who'll never fail of his aim for want of self-confidence, anyhow; you've got Frenchmen, Germans, and a sprinkling of the dark element out west; and you've got what we didn't have to begin with, you've got the Yankee element, and that is considerable more than you seem ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... named his son and daughter Faustus and Fausta, boasted that the gods held converse with him in dreams, and sent a golden crown and axe to the goddess whom he believed to be his patroness. Like Wallenstein, he mingled indifference to bloodshed with extreme superstition and boundless self-confidence. But, as the historian remarks, 'a man who is superstitious is capable of any crime, for he believes that his gods can be conciliated by prayers and presents. The greatest crimes have not been committed by men who have no religious belief.' ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley
... with long fingers, widened at the tips. Florry had said that he was a "Sheeny," but there was nothing of the Jew about him apart from his colouring, his brilliant dark eyes; unless it were a sort of inner glow, an ardour, curbed by his almost childlike shyness, lack of self-confidence in everything apart from his music: that something, at once finer and more cruelly persistent, vital, than is to be found in the purely ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Various
... could be heard small, light waves that were no more than ripples. Behind us the busy clamour of the monastery had died down, and even Kalinin's cheery voice seemed subdued by the influence of the night—it seemed to have in it less of the note of self-confidence. ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... him to go to his scrutoire, open a drawer, and he would find some guineas, and to take out twenty to pay himself. "Twenty guineas!" said Collins, "I should not have thought of receiving more than three!" This kindness and liberality set up poor Collins with a better stock of self-confidence, and he made his way to celebrity in ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... something imperious about this great man. He brooked no interference. His excessive dignity compelled respect. He never allowed familiarities; you could not safely presume on his good nature. He never permitted you to get too near. This abnormal self-confidence conveyed the idea that this giant in physique and in intellectual power was ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel
... intrusted with the command of the Potomac army, that it should be strongly reinforced, and that by constant pressure upon its commander his indecision of character might be overcome. Those who were near to McClellan believed that he was learning greater self-confidence, for the Antietam campaign seemed a decided improvement on that of the Chickahominy. The event, in great measure, justified this opinion, for it was not till Grant took command a year later that any leadership superior to McClellan's was developed. Yet it must be confessed that we did ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... could, and did actually write down the names of three distinguished men. Now I knew for certain, that not one of those noblemen would have put his name to a bill on any account whatever for his dearest friend; but, in her unabashed self-confidence, she thought of passing another forgery on me. I closed the conference by saying "I cannot assist you;" and she retired with the air of an injured person. In the course of a few days, I heard from Mr. Axminster, ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... self-confidence, this officer did not seem to me to be more than my own age, so I asked him whether he had seen any service. His moustache bristled with indignation at my question, and he looked me up and ...
— Uncle Bernac - A Memory of the Empire • Arthur Conan Doyle
... of the blessings of life, I cannot expect great reward," must expect to be taken at her word. In this age a man (or woman) is valued, in a large measure, by the estimate he sets upon himself. Honors are not thrust upon a man unless he shows the self-confidence which commands confidence. Bacon said, "Some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them." But those of the last class are very few. Our enemies are willing to thrust upon us scandal and humiliation whenever there is a possible chance, but our ...
— Herself - Talks with Women Concerning Themselves • E. B. Lowry
... himself saw. That unquenchable instinct in a man's heart that if he had only tried a little harder he would certainly have attained to righteousness gave the lie to his sense of agonising struggle, with its desperate, rallies of courage and sinkings of discouragement, gleams of self-confidence, and foul suspicion of self, suspicion even as to the reality of his own effort. All this was in the region of unseen spirit, almost as much unseen to those about him as are the spirits of the dead men and angels, often a mere matter of faith ...
— The Zeit-Geist • Lily Dougall
... a director of an academy of drawing instituted in London, under the presidency of Kneller. On the resignation of Kneller, there was a probability of Laguerre being elected in his place; but he was again defeated by his rival, Thornhill, probably as much from his own want of management and self-confidence, as ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... equally unpromising. In no walk of life is success the meed of merit or victory the unfailing guerdon of heroism.[105] Such wisdom as is within man's reach is often a positive disadvantage in life, owing to the modesty it inspires as pitted against the self-confidence of noisy fools. Besides, should it contrive to build up a stately structure, a small dose of folly, with which all human wisdom is largely alloyed, is capable, in an instant, of undoing the work of years.[106] In a word, the ...
— The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur • Emile Joseph Dillon
... moment the destinies of Rome. But Vergil saw in the character of Dido herself a danger to Rome's future far greater than the sword of Hannibal. His very sense of the grandeur of Rome's destinies frees him from the vulgar self-confidence of meaner men. Throughout his poem he is haunted by the memories of civil war, by the sense of instability which clings to men who have grown up in the midst of revolutions. The grandest picture in the AEneid reflects the terror of that hour of suspense when the galleys of ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... me so often and if he had not displayed such complete self-confidence I should have told him what the A.S.P.L. really was and warned him to be very careful about enlisting Lalage's aid. But I was nettled by his manner and felt that it would be very good for him to find out his mistake for ...
— Lalage's Lovers - 1911 • George A. Birmingham
... began to remember the little flush that always crept into Christine's face when she saw him, the expression of her beautiful eyes; and the memory gave him back some of his lost self-confidence. Christine liked him, at all events; Christine would never have behaved as Cynthia had done . . . Christine. . . . Jimmy Challoner hailed a passing taxi, and gave the address of the hotel where Christine and her ...
— The Second Honeymoon • Ruby M. Ayres
... from these older bonds brought a consciousness of power such as had never been felt before; and the restless energy, the universal activity of the Renaissance were but outer expressions of the pride, the joy, the amazing self-confidence, with which man welcomed this revelation of the energies which had lain ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... slink of the derelict and the pompous strut of the pharisee, or the swagger of the bully or the dandy, there is the golden mean in posture, which stands for self-respect and self-confidence, combined with courtesy and consideration ...
— How to Live - Rules for Healthful Living Based on Modern Science • Irving Fisher and Eugene Fisk
... little to the taste of wise men as treacle. They cannot escape condiments of the kind, but the smaller and less frequent the doses the more they are content. Shakespeare no doubt had the great man's self-confidence which renders him to a large extent independent of the opinion of his fellows. At the same time, the knowledge that he had succeeded in stirring the reader or hearer of his plays, the knowledge that his words had gripped their hearts and ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee
... and Edward clenched his hands in rage at the easy self-confidence of him. The bolt was drawn back, and Reddin stood in the doorway, ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb
... Colgius, "that the skill and judgment Palus displayed counted for more than the breed of his team and his luck. Do not forget the perfect form he showed: not an awkward pose, not a sign of effort, not a hint of anxiety; self-possession, courage, self-confidence all through and the most perfect grace of movement, ease, and suggestion of reserve strength. He ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... of the world and of society, and flattered himself that neither man nor woman had art deeper than his penetration; but as he rapidly scanned the broad brow, clear, level-glancing eyes, firm, sweet mouth, queenly head, and mien of innocent self-confidence, he ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin
... had afterward sought a free field for his adventurous genius in a new country, and in rounding off into security the frontiers of the 'Empire on the side where danger was most threatening. The proudest self-confidence could not have allowed him at his time of life to calculate on returning to Rome to take up again the work ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... boy became pathetic to him; behind his dapper morning clothes, his intricate studs and fobs and rings, his reedy self-confidence, the physician saw the faint, grisly shadow of a sickly middle-age, a warped ...
— The Strange Cases of Dr. Stanchon • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... young journeyman his name for the first time) was a tall, muscular, well-built fellow, with blonde curly locks, ardent blue eyes, and a bold, manly face. There was nothing slovenly or commonplace in his bearing, nor, on the other hand, did he affect gentility; but there was that quiet self-confidence about him which belongs to the man whose mind and body are equally developed. The girl was a slender, ideal creature, with languishing black eyes and a rosy, chubby face so full of colour that even round her eyes one could not detect a spot of pallor—just such a beauty, in fact, as ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... girl is a new sensation. Society consists of a series of surprises. Expectation is continually piqued. A and B and C do not help you to induce D; when you reach Z you may imagine you find a slight trace of reincarnation. Not that the surprises are invariably pleasant. The very force and self-confidence of the American girl doubly and trebly underline the undesirable. Vulgarity that would be stolid and stodgy in Middlesex becomes blatant and aggressive ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... bank his self-confidence returned, and he remembered all the things he had said he would do if he ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... Fouchette's self-confidence had been oozing away in the same ratio as she was nearing her journey's end. When she had finally arrived she was almost frightened at the notion of meeting Inspector Loup. He had threatened her with prison. He might ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... As for himself, all he wished was a chance to fight, for he had the fighting temperament, and he knew that, in the long run, an enemy can only be beaten by being out-fought, as well as out-manoeuvered. He possessed a splendid self-confidence, and scornfully threw aside any idea that he would be defeated, while he utterly refused to be daunted by the rumors of the formidable nature of the defenses against which he was to act. "I mean to be whipped or to whip my ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt
... prepared in which that idea could be born. This progressive period, which is conveniently called the Renaissance, lasted from the fourteenth into the seventeenth century. The great results, significant for our present purpose, which the human mind achieved at this stage of its development were two. Self-confidence was restored to human reason, and life on this planet was recognised as possessing a value independent of any hopes or fears connected with a life ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... can be shown how to cross them with diagonals, and make circles inside of the squares, and outside of them, and encouraged to draw on the other side of the slate, from their own fancy, or from objects. Entire sympathy and no destructive criticism should meet every effort. Self-confidence is the first requisite for success. If they think they have had success, it is indispensable that it should be echoed from without. Of course there will be poor perspective; and even Schmidt's method of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... assorted trio we were: "Doc" Lynch, who had graduated from the medical school to Bohemia, following a natural bent, I suppose; Crafts, a Maine boy of angular frame and prodigious self-confidence; and myself. Lynch I have lost sight of long ago. Crafts, I am told, is rich and prosperous, the owner of a Western newspaper. That was bound to happen to him. I remember him in the darkest days of that winter, when to small pay, hard work, and long hours had ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... junctures he knew how to take the lead, for, though not deriving from the highest circles of society, he had always mixed with them, and knew how to win their respect. He possessed in the highest degree that measure of pride and self-confidence which, without giving offence, maintains a man in the opinion of the world. He had much originality, as well as the ability to use it in such a way that it benefited him as much as actual worldly position or fortune could have done. Nothing in the universe ...
— Childhood • Leo Tolstoy
... swim while resting on the hands of his father, who was holding him in the waters of the Mulde River. In a few moments, to the amazement of the spectators, he was paddling around in the water like a duck. This is an example of his courage and self-confidence. In the same way he rapidly developed into a skilled, fearless mountain climber under the tuition of his father, when, as a seventeen-year-old boy, he was first taken on such trips. In the Tux district trips were taken from Lauersbach, and the more difficult ...
— An Aviator's Field Book - Being the field reports of Oswald Boelcke, from August 1, - 1914 to October 28, 1916 • Oswald Boelcke
... try to love you," she was saying, in a trembling voice quite unlike her usual self-confidence. "And if I can believe in any way that I shall make you a good wife I shall indeed be willing to marry you. But, Mr. Boldwood, hesitation on so high a matter is honourable in any woman, and I don't want to give a solemn promise to-night. I would ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy |
