"Brag" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that this party must be used up, except such as are too young to tell tales. We got to do it. They been acting terrible mean ever since we wouldn't sell them anything. If we let them go on now, they been making their brag that they'll raise a force in California and come back and wipe us out—and Johnston's army already marching on us from the east. Are we going to submit again to what we got in Missouri and in Illinois? No! Everybody is agreed about that. Now the Indians have failed to do it like we thought they ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... faggots on the ground, In neat stacks beleaguering the insurgents all around; And the vile conspiratresses, plotters of such mischief dire, Pile and burn them all together in one vast and righteous pyre: Fling with our own hands Lycon's wife to fry in the thickest fire. By Demeter, they'll get no brag while I've a vein to beat! Cleomenes himself was hurtled out in sore defeat. His stiff-backed Spartan pride was bent. Out, stripped of all his arms, he went: A pigmy cloak that would not stretch To hide his rump (the draggled wretch), Six sprouting years of beard, ...
— Lysistrata • Aristophanes
... down there," said an experienced orchardist to me the other day. We were talking about the recently started theory that the best bearing orchards are to be found on the low lands of the prairies. "You just wait and see if these brag orchards ever bear another crop! It will be as it was after the severe winter of 1874 and '75, when the following autumn many of our orchards bore so profusely. The succeeding year the majority of the trees were as dead as smelts, and the balance never ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 3, January 19, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... said Andrew, pulling up his pony, "is this ye? I canna tell ye hoo glad I am to see ye, for I've dune naething but thocht o' ye ever since yesterday, when I saw ye tak the brag oot o' Meikle Robin, just as easily as I would bend a willy-wand. Now, I hope, sir, although ye are a stranger, ye no think ill ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... the fog absent, and I rose and prepared to take my customary cold bath. I am much given to taking a cold bath in the morning and speaking of it afterward. People who take a cold bath every day always like to brag about it, whether ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... terms, nauseated him. The advertisements of "Psychics," "World-famous Mediums," "Palmists," "Horologists," and only the devil himself knows what else, filled him with disgust, added to his already poor opinion of sick humanity. Of these Viola now formed a part—as an actress shares the envy, the brag, the selfish, blatant struggle for success which is reflected in the advertising columns of dramatic journals. He ran down each column of "display ads" of The World of Spirit, timorously, almost expecting to see a notice of "the marvellous psychic Miss Viola Lambert, the mountain ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... polite graces of the age; she, with great facility, comprehended the scheme of whist, though cribbage was her favourite game, with which she had amused herself in her vacant hours, from her first entrance into the profession of hopping; and brag soon grew familiar to her ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... the ruffled pork-butcher. 'Our best men never got it out of books. Now, you tell me—you've got a spiflicating style of talk about you—no brag, you tell me—course, the best man wins, if you mean that: now, if I was one of 'em, and I fetches you a bit of a flick, how then? Would you be ready to step ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... this is as astonishing as if my butcher were to brag about Kirke White. My doctor might retort with Keats; and my scrivener—if I had one—might knock them both down with the name of Milton. It would be a pretty set-to; but I cannot see that it would affect the relative merits of mutton ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... evening. Must have been losing," answered Lavrushka. "I know by now, if he wins he comes back early to brag about it, but if he stays out till morning it means he's lost and will come back in a rage. ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... the day. This hero, drawing tobacco from his pocket, declares that it is all that is left of seven pounds which he had bought only "yesterday was seven-night." A consumption of seven pounds of tobacco in eight days is a pretty "tall order"! Then he goes on to brag of its quality—your right Trinidado—and to assert that he had been in the Indies, where the herb grows, and where he himself and a dozen other gentlemen had for the space of one-and-twenty weeks known ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson
... inhabitants of Gascony (Gascogne) a province in the south-west of France, are proverbial not only for their impetuosity and courage, but for their willingness to brag of the possession of these qualities. Excellent examples of the typical Gascon in literature are D'Artagnan in Dumas's Trois Mousquetaires (1844) and Cyrano in Rostand's splendid drama, ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... men in the world to brag was Lieutenant Carroway. Nothing but the great thirst of this morning, and strong necessity of quenching it, could ever have led him to speak about himself, and remember his own little exploits. But the farmer was pleased, and said, "Tell us ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... my glee was roused because I had caught Mr. Kipling napping. Here I had found a man not made from dust; one who had no narrow boasts of birthplace or country, one who, if he bragged at all, would brag of his whole round globe against the Martians and the inhabitants ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... a plain, are you anxious at being matched against a man who is on foot, and anxious in a matter in which you are practised, and he is not? Yes, but that person (to whom I am going to speak) has power to kill me. Speak the truth, then, unhappy man, and do not brag, nor claim to be a philosopher, nor refuse to acknowledge your masters, but so long as you present this handle in your body, follow every man who is stronger than yourself. Socrates used to practice speaking, he who talked as he did to the tyrants, to the dicasts (judges), ...
— A Selection from the Discourses of Epictetus With the Encheiridion • Epictetus
... generally, whittle when they are making a bargain, as it fills up the pauses, gives them time for reflection, and moreover, prevents any examination of the countenance—for in bargaining, like in the game of brag, the countenance is carefully watched, as an index to the wishes. I was once witness to a bargain made between two respectable yankees, who wished to agree about a farm, and in which whittling ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... "We don't brag about 'home brewing' any more," said another, "or 'home tailoring,' or 'home shoemaking.' Why all this talk about ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... Sink me if I am not! And, mind you, you'll be my lady. You'll to Ranelagh and the masquerades with the best. You shall have your box at the opera and the King's House; you shall have your frolic in the pit when you please, and your own money for loo and brag, and keep your own woman and have her as ugly as the bearded lady, for what I care—I want nobody's lips but yours, sweet, if you'll be kind. And, so help me, I'll stop at one bottle, my lady, and play as small as a Churchwarden's club! And, Lord, I ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... of these rollicking and reckless young fellows in the dance, was hailed by all present; for their outrageous mirth was in character with the genius of the place. The dance went on with spirit; brag dancers were called upon to exhibit in hornpipes; and for this purpose a table was bought in from Frank's kitchen on which they performed in succession, each dancer applauded by his respective party as the ...
— The Hedge School; The Midnight Mass; The Donagh • William Carleton
... mistake; they will not Amount even to that. I say myself Our army is mere trash, the Cossacks only Rob villages, the Poles but brag and drink; The Russians—what shall I say?—with you I'll not Dissemble; but, Basmanov, dost thou know Wherein our strength lies? Not in the army, no. Nor Polish aid, but in opinion—yes, In popular opinion. ...
— Boris Godunov - A Drama in Verse • Alexander Pushkin
... Nan, the goodness only knows. Her father worked in one of the mills that shut down last New Year. He was out of work a long time and then came this fortune in Scotland they claim was left Mrs. Sherwood by an old uncle, or great uncle. I guess it's nothing much to brag about." ...
— Nan Sherwood's Winter Holidays • Annie Roe Carr
... were he twenty Generalls, And send him packing to his longest home. I maruell of what mettell was the French man made. Who when he should haue stabbed Marius, They say he was astonished with his lookes. Marius, had I beene there, thou neere hadst liu'd, To brag thee of thy seauen Consulships. Achil. Brauely resolu'd, Noble Sempronius, 660 The damnedst villaine that ere I heard speake: But great men still must haue such instruments, To bring about ...
— The Tragedy Of Caesar's Revenge • Anonymous
... Timarchus, must, I presume, be no less valid when used by others against yourself. {242} His words to the jury on that occasion were these. 'Demosthenes intends to defend Timarchus, and to denounce my acts as ambassador. And then, when he has led you off the point by his speech, he will brag of it, and go about saying, "Well? what do you think?[2] Why I led the jury right away from the point, and stole the case triumphantly out of their hands."' Then you at least must not act thus, but must make your defence with reference to the real ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 1 • Demosthenes
... politely—but that's what it would amount to. Believe me, you'll never make people here swallow you and the governor as the late King and Queen of Fairyland—it's a jolly sight too thick! Besides, there's nothing particular in what we've done there to brag about—what?" ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... Fruits, Herbs, Plants, Flowers, and Roots, I know of none in England either for Pleasure or Use, but what are very common there, and thrive as well or better in that Soil and Climate than this for the generality; for though they cannot brag of Gooseberries and Currants, yet they may of Cherries, Strawberries, &c. in which they excel: Besides they have the Advantage of several from other Parts of America, there being Heat and Cold sufficient for any; except such as require a continual Heat, as Lemons and Oranges, Pine-Apples, and ...
— The Present State of Virginia • Hugh Jones
... reasons—one, that I think thy motive for thy curiosity was fear of consciousness: whereas that of the arch-thief was vanity, intolerable vanity: and he was therefore justly sent away with a blush upon his cheeks to heaven, and could not brag—the other, that I am afraid, if she dislikes thee, she dislikes me: for are we not birds of ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... yer eastern states, their stiddy growth 'nd size, 'Nd brag about yer cities, with their business enterprise; You kin blow about tall buildin's runnin' clean up to the clouds, 'Nd gas about yer graded streets 'nd chirp about yer crowds; But how about yer "twisters" 'nd ...
— The California Birthday Book • Various
... noble grace And grant him a place Endlesse to dwell, With the deuyll of hell, For and he were there We nede neuer feere, Of the fendys blake; For I vndertake He wolde so brag and crake, That he wolde then make The deuyls to quake, To shudder ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... the brown rat. "It's awful the way you people out here in the country brag about relationship. What's become of ...
— The Old Willow Tree and Other Stories • Carl Ewald
... fathomed to its very depths the power of mere existence, without any reference to those conventional aids which civilization has the folly to think necessary to the performance of that agreeable duty, was any criterion, I certainly fancied that I had a right to brag of having taken a full view of that most piquant specimen of the brute creation, the California "elephant." But it seems that I was mistaken, and that we miners have been dwelling in perfect palaces, surrounded by furniture of the most ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... which consider'd, 'tis most true None bring him in so much as you Who have prevail'd beyond their plots, 1215 Their midnight juntos, and seal'd knots That thrive more by your zealous piques, Than all their own rash politicks And you this way may claim a share In carrying (as you brag) th' affair; 1220 Else frogs and toads, that croak'd the Jews From PHARAOH and his brick-kilns loose, And flies and mange, that set them free From task-masters and slavery, Were likelier to do the feat, 1225 In any indiff'rent man's conceit For who e'er heard ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... but died an hour before this chance, I had lived a blessed time; for from this instant There's nothing serious in mortality: All is but toys: renown and grace is dead; The wine of life is drawn, and the mere lees Is left this vault to brag of. ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... trade, Fate sticks me in something bigger. I don't see the inevitable, I suppose, because I am so close to it that it is like facing the wall of a precipice all the time. We have to stop here. The woman's daughter is coming down with a fever, which will not kill her, and she will have it to brag of all her life. She will date all earthly events from ...
— 'Doc.' Gordon • Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman
... looked to: the woods beyond the blacksmith's shop that uster be; the fringe of alder and buckeye by the crossing below your house—p'ints where they kin fetch you without a show. Thar's two ways o' meetin' them thar. One way ez to pull up and trust to luck and brag. The other way is to whip up and yell, and send the whole six kiting ...
— Jeff Briggs's Love Story • Bret Harte
... therein some eighty feet above the concealed pavement of our backyard—so called, perhaps, because of its dimensions which were just about that square. It was a little improvement, though nothing to brag of. What fitful zephyrs there might be, caused no doubt by the rapid passage to and fro on the roof above and fence-tops below of vagrant felines on Cupid's contentious battles bent, to the disturbance of the still air, soughed softly through ...
— R. Holmes & Co. • John Kendrick Bangs
... General Grant's exact words, sir," said the flag-officer. "Of course it is nothing but their brag." ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... had praised my handful of flowers, my pocketful of nuts, or little string of fish they palled upon me and I began immediately to feel an uneasy sense of disappointment, of disillusion, knowing I had miserably failed. The bombastic brag to my mother and her praise were a kind of mockery and falsehood. Illusion followed illusion, defeat followed defeat, yet the morrow was ever to be their healer and compensation. How often have I been soothed by the waveless waters ...
— Confessions of Boyhood • John Albee
... or all of these subjects; and whether he ought, as a citizen, or a man of education, or a man of business, to be ignorant of them? Such ignorance as exists here must be got rid of, or our cry of "Ireland for the Irish" will be a whine or a brag, and will be despised as it deserves. We must know Ireland from its history to its minerals, from its tillage to its antiquities, before we shall be an Irish nation, able to rescue and keep the country. And if we are too idle, ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... thought myself that Ida was anything to brag of, anyway," said Mrs. White. She still had a sense of wondering injury that Harry Edgham had preferred ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... those in the Army seats were wild with enthusiasm. The band crashed out joyously, a dozen measures, while the cadets sang one of their songs of jubilant brag. Then all was suddenly still for the next ...
— Dick Prescott's Third Year at West Point - Standing Firm for Flag and Honor • H. Irving Hancock
... were dancing with delight. Only Max was a little quiet. Teddie Gowan did everything a little better than he, Max, could do; it would be insupportable if Teddie were able soon to brag that ...
— In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner
... a hidden conviction, expressed privately in clubs and by women over their knitting, that the French soldiers were poor fellows as fighting men, filled with sentimentality, full of brag, with fine words on their lips, but with no strength of courage or endurance. British soldiers coming back wounded from the first battles and a three weeks' rearguard action, spread abroad the tale ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... you've got good enough blood to have better sense," observed the father shortly. Then with a very human inconsistency he added, "I don't often brag about it, but my middle name is Standish and Miles Standish ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... here is intrinsically hostile to the Union. Not one really wishes its disruption. Some brag so, but that is for small effect. All of them are for peace, for statu quo, for the grandeur of the country (as the greatest consumer of European imports); but most of them would wish slavery to be preserved, and for this reason they would ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski
... knights own him lord." "I will encounter him," said Sir Gareth; "for if he be good knight and true as ye say, he will scarce set on me with all his following; and man to man, I fear him not." "Fie!" said the damsel, "for a dirty knave, ye brag loud. And even if ye overcome him, his might is as nothing to that of the Red Knight who besieges my lady sister. So get ye gone while ye may." "Damsel," said Sir Gareth, "ye are but ungentle so to rebuke me; for, knight ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)
... with the poor masses in the slums. Down at the bottom I would be more at home, for I know full well what it is to be bleached by the blues of adversity. In saving the masses though, by a direct appeal, I did not think I could do much to brag about down here, for they don't understand more than half you say to them in English and their suspicion sours the half they take in before they make any use of it. This would have made it extra hard for me, because advice was all I had to use in saving the country. Up in the United ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... Raven's Nest, makes Mr. Aristobulus Brag use the provincialism "I swanny;" "by which," observes the author, "I suppose he meant—I swear!" Of course, this has nothing to do with swearing by swans, more than sounding like it; argument of sound being ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 63, January 11, 1851 • Various
... and reedy grass, which furnish cover for thousands of ducks, geese, and wild swans. We reached, before night, a native village called Harchina (har'-chin-ah) and sent at once for a celebrated Russian guide by the name of Nicolai Bragan (nick-o-lai' brag'-on) whom we hoped to induce to accompany us ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... am not," answered Svidrigailov laughing. "However, I won't dispute it, let me be a braggart, why not brag, if it hurts no one? I spent seven years in the country with Marfa Petrovna, so now when I come across an intelligent person like you—intelligent and highly interesting—I am simply glad to talk and, besides, I've drunk that half-glass ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... Dicky's propensity to brag, amusing as it was to others, was continually getting him into scrapes. We had an old mate, Adam Stallman by name, who was proportionably as tall, grave, and silent, as Dicky was ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... lifted soul, Seeking her that he may lay hands on her; Thus: and waits answer from the mouth of deed. Truth is a maid, whom men woo diversely; This, as a spouse; that, as a light-o'-love, To know, and having known, to make his brag. But woe to him that takes the immortal kiss, And not estates her in his housing life, Mother of all his seed! So he betrays, Not Truth, the unbetrayable, but himself: And with his kiss's rated traitor-craft, The Haceldama of a plot of days He buys, ...
— New Poems • Francis Thompson
... quarter of an hour. They are exceedingly addicted to the vilest lusts, and have no sense of shame in gratifying their passions. Polygamy is common among them. Yet with all their vices, they like to brag of their having the true faith. The Chinese, though more industrious, are not more virtuous; and as to the so-called Christians, I will not ...
— Letters on the Nicobar islands, their natural productions, and the manners, customs, and superstitions of the natives • John Gottfried Haensel
... tell thee plain, it is a shame for thee, With such a sum to tempt necessity; No less than ten pounds, sir, will serve your turn, To carry in your purse about with ye, To crake and brag in taverns of your money: I promise ye, a man that goes abroad With an intent of truth, meeting such a booty, May be provoked to that he never meant. What makes so many pilferers and felons, But such fond baits that foolish people lay To tempt the ...
— Sir Thomas More • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... his son; and when I am a man I may be like him. Verner, do I brag, To think I some time may be like my father? If so, then is it he that teaches me; For, ever as I wonder at his skill, He calls me boy, and says I must do more Ere I become ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various
... the word. Nor is it difficult to observe in the shy philosopher a temperament which must have commended itself to Mr Arnold almost as strongly as his literary quality, and very closely indeed connected with that—the temperament of equity, of epieikeia, of freedom from swagger and brag and self-assertion. And here, once more, the things receive precisely their right treatment, the treatment proportioned and adjusted at once to their own value and nature and to the use which their critic ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... courage and power of the Free States, we do not wish to be understood as descending to the vulgar level of meeting brag with brag. We speak of them only as among the elements to be gravely considered by the fanatics who may render it necessary for those who value the continued existence of this Confederacy as it deserves to be valued to kindle a back-fire, and to use the desperate ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... you, but I do," she said, softly. "You'll both come in simply glittering, and I'll have to brag that you're my near relatives. I'm such an ostentatious beast that I'd have ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther
... and them Eastern militia, it might be," said Harvey, turning a bag upside down, that Caesar now handed him; "but these dragoons are fellows that you must brag down. A faint heart, Captain Wharton, would do but little here; but come, here is a black shroud for your good-looking countenance," taking, at the same time, a parchment mask, and fitting it to the face of Henry. "The master and the man must change ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... short pause, as if to pull off my things, I opened the door into the dining room, where I fund the dowdy blowing the fire, and my faithful shepherd walking about the room, and wistling, as cool and unconcerned as if nothing had happened. I think, however, he had not much to brag of having out-dissembled me: for I kept up, nobly, the character of our sex for art, and went up to him with the same open air of frankness as I had ever received him. He stayed but a little while, made some excuse for not being able to stay the ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... for gaming purposes. It made no difference how severe the weather was, these gaming tables were always in full blast. A man could amuse himself with any game at cards that he desired. There were "farrow bank," "chuck-a-luck," "brag," "eucher," "draw poker," "straight poker," "seven-up," "five-up," and most prominent of all, a French game, pronounced in Fort Delaware "vang-tu-aug," meaning twenty-one. All these were games for "sheepskins"—bets, five cents; limit, ten cents. All were conducted on a ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... Ross in answer to the invitation; then, after a pause, he added: "we didn't want to brag about ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... is a boy, None but cowherds regard him, His dart is a toy, Great opinion hath marred him: The fear of the wag Hath made him so brag; Chide him, he'll flie thee And not come nigh thee. Little boy, pretty knave, shoot not at random, For if you hit me, slave, I'll tell ...
— Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age • Various
... think I brag too much, Jane," said he. "For anybody else I know what I say would be ridiculous. But for me it's different. I'm going to be a great man. I know it. If I'm not going to be a great actor, I shall be a great something ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... at such flagrant nonsense, for surely he could not reasonably object to resembling Cousin Augustus. The Candy Man was a well-enough looking young fellow in his white jacket and cap, but nothing to brag of, that he need be haughty about a likeness to one so far above him in the social scale, whom in fact ...
— The Little Red Chimney - Being the Love Story of a Candy Man • Mary Finley Leonard
... in all names can tickle the town, Anacreon, Tom Little, Tom Moore, or Tom Brown,—[25] For hang me if I know of which you may most brag, Your Quarto two-pounds, or your ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron
... off now for the jolliest time out!" cried Job as he vaulted into the saddle one June day, bound for the Yosemite Valley, that wonderful spot of which Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote on the old hotel register: "The only place I ever saw that came up to the brag." ...
— The Transformation of Job - A Tale of the High Sierras • Frederick Vining Fisher
... to the group of sailors, "you were precious full of your brag about climbing, and saying I couldn't. But I did, and now let's see one of ...
— Jack at Sea - All Work and no Play made him a Dull Boy • George Manville Fenn
... London; while the service of trains and cars is so excellent and so simply arranged that it costs much less thought, effort, and worry to "get about" in Manhattan than in Middlesex. In saying this I may perhaps offend American susceptibilities. There is nothing we moderns are more apt to brag of than the nervous overstrain of our life. But sincerity comes before courtesy, and I must gently but firmly decline to allow New York a monopoly of neurasthenia, or of the conditions ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... whilst under the influence of the insidious Italian wines, had boasted of the superiority of his compatriots; and on being courteously contradicted he had worked himself up to the assertion that one Hungarian would be a match for three Italians. The officers, listening to this tale of brag, all laughed with the exception of Giuseppe Mansana, who at once inquired where the Hungarian could be found? He asked the question in a tone of perfect unconcern, without even raising his eyes or taking his cigarette from his lips. He was told that the Hungarian had just been conducted ...
— Captain Mansana and Mother's Hands • Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson
... was so friendly and affectionate that I ventured to consult him; when, on hearing whom I was seeking, he became warmly interested, and gave me just the information I wanted. He said he had little doubt that Funny Frank was a clown called Brag, with whom he had had words some years back for misusing the children. He said he did not hold with harshness to the little ones in teaching them to do the feats, which certainly were wonderful. If they were frightened, they were nervous and met with accidents; but make much ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... euchre, drole[obs3], ecarte[Fr], picquet[obs3], allfours[obs3], quadrille, omber, reverse, Pope Joan, commit; boston, boaston[obs3]; blackjack, twenty-one, vingtun[Fr]; quinze[Fr], thirty-one, put, speculation, connections, brag, cassino[obs3], lottery, commerce, snip-snap-snoren[obs3], lift smoke, blind hookey, Polish bank, Earl of Coventry, Napoleon, patience, pairs; banker; blind poker, draw poker, straight poker, stud ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... business, and don't talk so much," said Falkenberg. "I don't see what you've got to brag ...
— Wanderers • Knut Hamsun
... got made a gineral," commented Mrs. O'Callaghan. "'Tis himsilf as knows a b'y's mother is the wan. For who is it else can see how he's so full of brag he's loike to boorst and a-wantin' to do big things till he can't dust good nor wash the plates clean? Dust on the father's chair, down on the rockers where you thought it wouldn't show, and egg on the plates, ...
— The Widow O'Callaghan's Boys • Gulielma Zollinger
... Straight Tree, "hear her brag because she has a white memory! If the teacher praised me, I should be ashamed ...
— Big and Little Sisters • Theodora R. Jenness
... never seemed to me anything to brag of. Dad says the Spanish-American War grew a crop of newspaper-made heroes, manufactured by reporters who really took more risks and showed more nerve than the ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... tingling of his knuckles, and terrified by the thought that he had committed murder. But Wilson presently moved and dispelled that misgiving. Some of Cashel's fury returned as he shook his fist at his prostrate adversary, and, exclaiming, "YOU won't brag much of having seen me cry," wrenched the jacket from him with unnecessary violence, and darted away ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... to see the tailless monkeys," added Dwight, as he joined them. "We'll have a procession to brag of, for nearly everybody's going ashore. Mr. Malcolm's to lead the van with the children, he says, and Mrs. Campbell is to close up the rear of his section, while mother follows with ours. They've been laughing about it ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... Pilot discoursed to his pupil, being only too glad to have an excuse for showing off his superior knowledge; and Sammy drank it all in, having in mind the time when he should return to his far-away home and brag of his adventures to the ...
— How Sammy Went to Coral-Land • Emily Paret Atwater
... to-night. At any rate, the lineage of the Roysons has not been disputed during many centuries. Our name is part of our proof, and there has been a Richard Royson associated with Westmoreland ever since Coeur-de-Lion returned from Palestine. That is the kind of family asset a boy will brag of. Joined to a certain proficiency in games, it supplies a ready- made nickname. But the wonderful and wholly inexplicable thing is that while I have been standing here, watching our head-light dancing over the desert, the fantastic conceit has invaded my very soul that I ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... of it," interrupted Will. "I think so much of it that I want to live up to it. The old Wentworths were splendid fellows, some of 'em; and all of 'em were jolly and generous and independent. There wasn't any sneaking little brag and snobbishness in 'em. They 'd have cut a fellow dead that had come around with that sort of stuff;" and sixteen-year-old Will nodded his head with an emphatic movement that showed his approval of ...
— A Flock of Girls and Boys • Nora Perry
... a blade where lay his heart's love, And voice for thee have I left him none, To brag he still seeks thee over the hills When thou ...
— Along the Shore • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... us; And as a tyrant doubles with his words, And fearfully equivocates, so we Are forc'd to express our violent passions In riddles and in dreams, and leave the path Of simple virtue, which was never made To seem the thing it is not. Go, go brag You have left me heartless; mine is in your bosom: I hope 'twill multiply love there. You do tremble: Make not your heart so dead a piece of flesh, To fear more than to love me. Sir, be confident: What is 't distracts you? This is flesh and blood, ...
— The Duchess of Malfi • John Webster
... he isn't built that way. That same day he went to work building him a new shack; and he swears that the next man who gets near enough to set it afire won't live to get away and brag about it. Two days afterward Hallock showed up again, and the old fellow ran him off ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... and as against me, of course, against all of us, at sight of me; so that if Eliza has bragged at Eastridge about New York, she has at least bragged in New York about Eastridge. I didn't clearly, for Mrs. Chataway, come up to the brag—or perhaps rather didn't come down to it: since I dare say the poor lady's consternation meant simply that my aunt has confessed to me but as an unconsidered trifle, a gifted child at the most; or as young and handsome and dashing at the most, and not as—well, ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... mixed. Thet's 'ow I come to know about thet boy. 'Is father 'ad a barrer, thet were what 'is father did for a livelihood, an' 'is mother were up afore the beaks for poppin' shirts what she'd took in to wash. Well, I ain't one to brag, but my father were a 'air-dresser's assistant in Pimlico. Pretty well up, too, 'e was. The way 'e'd shive yer were sutthin' to see. Shivin'? Yer couldn't call it shivin'; it were gen'us, thet's what it were. Speccilation rooined 'im. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 101, September 26, 1891 • Various
... shop. Damp and doubtfully clean ration bags, towels, and shirts which were draped along the fences, were hastily gathered together and thrust into the capacious depths of pack-sacks. Members of the battalion's sporting contingent broke up their games of tuppenny brag without waiting for "just one more hand," an unprecedented thing. The makers of war ballads, who were shouting choruses to the merry music of the mouth-organ band, stopped in the midst of their latest composition, and rushed off to get their marching order together. At 4.10 every one, with ...
— Kitchener's Mob - Adventures of an American in the British Army • James Norman Hall
... the peculiar mixture of brag, cajolery, and threats, involved in the attitude of the South, as expressed by the same favorite Southern mouthpiece, toward the Border-States on the one hand, and the Middle and New England States on the other, a further extract from ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... picture at six hundred miles' distance. He added, too, the account of his buying her, and what he gave her, which, considering the rank of the purchaser, and the merits of the purchase as he set them forth, I think he had no great reason to brag of, when the first price, according to his report, was only one thousand ducats—a much greater proof of his economy than his passion."[118] Among many extraordinary relations and expressions his letters contained, "there was one in which he desired ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... by a count, or rather that they governed him. Nay, if they had any king at all in whom they could boast, it certainly was the king of England, who had hitherto been their protector, and without whose aid they had never been able to brag of their States. This retort made the Spaniards and Portuguese laugh heartily at the poor Hollander, and ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... a sewer; Well, 'e knows what it is, for I'll lay 'e's bin there. And you'd make a 'orse into cat'smeat on skewer. My eye, but just ain't you a nice-spoken pair! I ain't goin' to foller you two like a shadder, Your 'eads is a darned sight too swelled up with brag. If you don't want to bust and go pop like a bladder, Why you'd best take my tip—put 'em both ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, May 14, 1892 • Various
... cry of pain. "You brag of it. I forced myself on you, I suppose." Harry exclaimed something, made a gesture. "Oh yes, you were all cold virtue and chastity and honour, and I—what was I?" She shuddered and drew back from him. "Yes, you would turn on me. You would ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... turned away in horror, he glared steadily and calmly at the corpse, repeating, "That's Injin fun, that is. That's what they brag on, that is." ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... to talk about for a year," Madge said, as we chatted the whole thing over, "and you can no longer brag that the K. & A. has never had a robbery, even if you didn't ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... or falshood, or according to the Poets Language, which proceed from the Horny or Ivory Port, will be sentenced according to the Humour and Interest of several Parties who in spite of our Teeth will be our judges. Where I have been satyrical, 'tis without Malice or Revenge; and though I brag not of my Talent therein, I could have said much worse, of some Enemies to our Jewish Heroe. He that will lash others, ought not to be angry if the like be returned to himself: Lex talionis ...
— Anti-Achitophel (1682) - Three Verse Replies to Absalom and Achitophel by John Dryden • Elkanah Settle et al.
... of it," he urged impatiently. "I hate to brag, mother; but do you take in all he meant: that he saw no reason, if I kept on, that I should not make ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... Hitchcock was." I had to take a long second look to dig out from this bunch of rags and filth my one-time Beau Brummel acquaintance at home. His eyes were bleared, and told all too surely the cause of the transformation. His brag was that he had skipped every fight since he enlisted. "It's lots more fun," he said, "to climb a tree well in the rear and see the show. It's perfectly safe, you know, and then you don't get yourself killed and planted. What ...
— War from the Inside • Frederick L. (Frederick Lyman) Hitchcock
... knowing his parents, and without their inviting you? Don't you know what that sort of thing means out here? Chelles did it to brag about you at his club. He wants ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... O'Reilly smiled, "but ask Rosa or Jacket—the boy is bursting to tell some one. He nearly died because he couldn't brag about it to Captain Morin, and there won't be any holding him now. I'm afraid he'll tip off the news about that treasure in spite of all my warnings. Those jewels are a temptation; I won't rest easy until they're safely locked up in some good vault. Now then, I've told you everything, ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... if thou be what I wad hae thee, [would have] An' tak the counsel I shall gie thee, I'll never rue my trouble wi' thee— The cost nor shame o't— But be a loving father to thee, And brag the ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... commenced to brag before him, praising the upright conduct of Danveld, and the impression it made upon ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... is one to overcome nature? I do not brag on my heroism as others do. I do fear death, the devil and his imps. I have often dreamed of him as pursuing me. There must be something to it, as my father believed likewise. I want the good time of life here. We don't know of ...
— Cupology - How to Be Entertaining • Clara
... of valor there is no brag or bravado in a Pole, so thoroughly and seriously brave ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... four quarters of the world in arms and we shall shock them," it was, from the romantic militarist point of view, fine. What Junker-led men could do they have since done to make that thrasonical brag good. But there is no getting over the fact that, in Tommy Atkins's phrase, they had asked for it. Their Junkers, like ours, had drunk to The Day; and they should not have let us choose it after riling us for so many years. ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... of course, the lob-worm had the opportunity of opening out in a very magnificent bit of brag, and did not fail ...
— Aunt Judy's Tales • Mrs Alfred Gatty
... what was genteel," and wonders how any mortal can live up three pair of stairs. "Is there," says the enthusiastic for the first time in her life, "so delightful a sight in the world as the four honors in one's own hand, unless it be the three natural aces at brag?" Can comedy be finer than this? Has not every person some Matthews and James in their acquaintance—one all passion, and the other all indifference and vapid self-complacency? James, the good-natured fellow, ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... or mock gentry, seemed to consider it as the most indisputable privilege of a gentleman not to pay his debts. They were ever ready to meet civil law with military brag of war. Whenever a swaggering debtor of this species was pressed for payment, he began by protesting or confessing that 'he considered himself used in an ungentlemanlike manner;' and ended by offering to give, instead of the value of his bond or promise, 'the satisfaction ...
— Richard Lovell Edgeworth - A Selection From His Memoir • Richard Lovell Edgeworth
... soul? Who ever saw weakling white butterflies Chasing of gallant swans, and charging them, And spitting at them long red streaks of flame? We saw the ships of England even so As in my vaunting wish that mocked itself With 'Fool, O fool, to brag at the edge of loss.' We saw the ships of England even so Run at the Spaniards on a wind, lay to, Bespatter them with hail of battle, then Take their prerogative of nimble steerage, Fly off, and ere the enemy, heavy in hand, Delivered his reply to the wasteful wave That made its grave ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Jean Ingelow
... unframed portrait of "unser Kaiser," while Hindenburg completed the collection. Wooden hearts, on which were printed the names Liege, Maubeuge, and Antwerp, recalled the days when German hearts were light and German tongues were full of brag. ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin
... sure, almost careless, touch abashed her, and the occasional fragments of autobiography which he let fall, showed her that she was a limited and ignorant recluse compared to this boy of twenty-five. In matters of money and achievement she might brag, but in matters of love she was strangely subservient to him, because in such matters he had ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... the province of Omi. There was among the passengers a Samurai, tall and square-shouldered, apparently an experienced fencer. He behaved rudely toward the fellow-passengers, and talked so much of his own dexterity in the art that Boku-den, provoked by his brag, broke silence. 'You seem, my friend, to practise the art in order to conquer the enemy, but I do it in order not to be conquered,' said Boku-den. 'O monk,' demanded the man, as Boku-den was clad ...
— The Religion of the Samurai • Kaiten Nukariya
... admire, the apologetics died away, and the good people began to brag of their barge, and their happy condition in life, as if they had been Emperor and Empress of the Indies. It was, in the Scots phrase, a good hearing, and put me in good humour with the world. If people knew what an inspiriting thing it is to hear a man boasting, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... times I have confessed to you, talking of my talents, my utter inability to remember in any comprehensive way what I have read. I can vehemently applaud, or perversely stickle, at parts; but I cannot grasp at a whole. This infirmity (which is nothing to brag of) may be seen in my two little compositions, the tale and my play, in both which no reader, however partial, can ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... by vast odds, the most terrific of all mortal disasters have immemorially and indiscriminately befallen tens and hundreds of thousands of those who have gone upon the waters; though but a moment's consideration will teach, that however baby man may brag of his science and skill, and however much, in a flattering future, that science and skill may augment; yet for ever and for ever, to the crack of doom, the sea will insult and murder him, and pulverize the stateliest, stiffest ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... informed him; "but since I had served an apprenticeship as a chopper, the time required to discover Sandy was less than half an hour, I watched him one day when he didn't know who I was—so I figured him for a man and a half and raised him a dollar a day. He doesn't know it, however. If he did, he'd brag about it, and I'd have to pay as much to men half as good. When he's chopped for us twenty years, fire him and give him that. He's earned it. Thus endeth the first lesson, my son. Now ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... shaking hands with the drunken P., [Translator's Note: Probably Palmin, a minor poet.] listening to the raptures of a stray spectator in a picture show, being renowned in the taverns.... If they do a pennyworth they do not strut about as though they had done a hundred roubles' worth, and do not brag of having the entry where others are not admitted.... The truly talented always keep in obscurity among the crowd, as far as possible from advertisement.... Even Krylov has said that an empty barrel echoes more loudly ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... being joined together in the white heat of work like religious crowds in time of revival who have forgotten sectarianism. It is a fine thing to see people in hot earnest about anything; therefore, however extravagant and high the brag ascending from Puget Sound, in most cases it is likely to appear ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... ottomans; occupying them are clusters of men, old and young, wise and simple; in their hands are cards spotted with diamonds, spades, clubs, hearts; the favorite games are whist, cribbage, and brag. Lounging in arm-chairs or sauntering among the marble-topped tables, amused with the scene, are the comparatively few, who, instead of having hands in the games, for the most part keep their hands in their pockets. These may be the ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... a chestnut of fine size and of great power, which he had bought in Texas on his way out to Mexico, her owner having died on the march out. She was with him during the entire campaign, and was shot seven times; at least, as a little fellow I used to brag about that number of bullets being in her, and since I could point out the scars of each one, I presume it was so. My father was very much attached to and proud of her, always petting her and talking to her in a loving way, when he rode her ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... in Europe, and how the French have a masterly way of hiding their big guns under a mattress of boughs, or a painted canvas made to represent the earth, so that flying scouts above can't see where the battery is located. Well, perhaps now Harmony, in making all this brag is only trying to hide their gap. Camaflouge they call it, I believe. But we'll proceed to see what Parsons has got up his sleeve. You watch me get him to guessing. If he gets in the way of the cannonball I shoot at third, it'll feel like a hot tamale in his ...
— Jack Winters' Baseball Team - Or, The Rivals of the Diamond • Mark Overton
... the robins brag about the sweetness of their song, Nor do they stop their music gay whene'er a poor man comes along. God taught them how to sing an' when they'd learned the art He sent them here To use their talents day by day the dreary lives o' men to cheer. An' rich or poor an' sad or gay, the ...
— The Path to Home • Edgar A. Guest
... was not invested in stock of any factory but lay in the bank. Still he was not happy. All day Jim Gibson, whom Joe had never dared tell the tales of his triumph as a workman and to whom he did not brag as he had formerly done to his apprentices, talked of his ability to get the best of customers. He had, he declared, managed, in the last place he had worked before he came to Bidwell, to sell a good many sets of harness as handmade ...
— Poor White • Sherwood Anderson
... climbed the Northern fury An' they mangled up the air Till a native of Missouri Would have owned the brag was fair. Though the plunges kept him reelin' An' the wind it flapped his shirt, Loud above the hoss's squealin' We could hear our friend assert: "I'm the one to take such rockin's as a joke; Someone hand me up the makin's of a smoke. If you think my fame needs brightnin', Why, I'll rope a ...
— Songs of the Cattle Trail and Cow Camp • Various
... Fort Sumner way," he told his fellow-wolves, nor did he take the trouble to lower his voice because he saw several cow-boys from neighboring outfits among his auditors. It was a tradition among those who lived by the forty-five thus to brag and then—make good. And it was a firmly established habit in Lincoln County to mind your own business; so the project, while it became generally known, created ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt
... heard of an old saying at my home," I replied, "which ran something like this, 'Brag is a good ...
— Weapons of Mystery • Joseph Hocking
... "All right, Uncle Sam, brag away. Everything over there is ten times bigger and better than here—the apples are the size of pumpkins, and the brooks are so wide you can't see across them, and it takes you years to ride round a single farm! We know! You needn't tell ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... meet on the border, my Jessie, Whaur Kelvin links bonnily bye, Though my words may be scant to address ye, My heart will be loupin' wi' joy. If ance I were wedded to Jessie, An' that may be ere it be lang, I 'll can brag o' the bonniest lassie That ere was the theme ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... Natural selection will have its way: the shiftless and the lazy must go to the wall. If you could kill them off, now, that might do some good. The class that needs help is not like us—not that we are anything to brag of: they've not had our chance. It's very well to say, give 'em a chance; but that's no use unless they take it, which they won't. 'Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow.' If they wouldn't, you are bound to respect their right of choice. Your drunken ruffian ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol
... she'll brag of having been educated here, though Mount Morris doesn't set out to furnish teachers, but the training of young ladies. Mother likes it because there was no opportunity of making undesirable acquaintances," and Louie ...
— The Girls at Mount Morris • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... at hame and safe and sensible, the Morrison o' the Morrisons had only to reach his hand to her and say, 'Coom, lass!' But noo that she is back wi' head high and notions alaft, he'd no accept her! She's nowt but a draft signed by Sham o' Shoddy and sent through the Bank o' Brag and Blaw! No! He'd no' accept her! And now back wi' ye to yer tickety-tack! I hae my orders, and the Queen o' Sheba might yammer and be no' ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... before-hand what such a Doctor would prescribe, and hence it is they have nick-named some Physicians of no mean practice, by the Medicines they frequently use, which names in respect to the persons, I shall conceal; and of such Physicians, they brag they can prescribe as well as they. But if a Physician advise things unknown to them, or out of the common tract, then they say the Doctor intends ...
— A Short View of the Frauds and Abuses Committed by Apothecaries • Christopher Merrett
... do all I can—dictate a letter to you. I have not been out of bed longer than it was necessary to have it made, once a day, since last Thursday. The gout is in both my feet, both my knees, and in my left hand and elbow. Had I a mind to brag, I could boast of a little rheumatism too, but I scorn to set value on such a trifle; nay, I will own that I have felt but little acute pain. My chief propensity to exaggeration would be on the miserable ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... the river. The tench would bite like fun on a morning like this. There were plenty of big worms, too, in the old watering-pot, tough as worms should be after a good scouring in a heap of wet moss. Just another five minutes and he'd get up, and when he met Adela at breakfast he could brag about what a good one he was at early rising, and show her all the ...
— In the King's Name - The Cruise of the "Kestrel" • George Manville Fenn |
