"Brag" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that he will go straight to the city. I would send this by him if he did. I am afraid he will loiter about and be taken—do make them go on fast—he has left. I could not hear much he said—some who did don't like him at all—think him an impostor—a great brag—said he was a dentist ten years. He was asked where he came from, but would not tell till he looked at the letter that lay on the table and that he had just brought back. I don't feel much confidence in him—don't believe he is ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... I want to brag about myself," he went on. "I don't fancy myself—in that way. I'm not specially proud of doing things—it's the things themselves that I care for. If some men had made a great fortune, they would be conceited about it. ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... of my chicken at a gulp, and its tail never moves, poor beast. The hot winds sough through the branches, and my men murmer away to each other under a neighbouring tree, possibly about the Sahib, who is such a poor shot, and, as our language is limited, I can't brag about swagger shots in other days. One needs a friend to shoot with, alone you lose half the charm. If you get hipped with a miss you can then growl out loud to a sympathetic ear, and blow smoke over the day together. There's only the pariah dog to talk to here, so I eat lunch and smoke "my ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... 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
... doctor; such a terrible amount of brag and big talk, always about himself; always dread his calls; can never get so far as to return; a regular thorn in ...
— Woman's Endurance • A.D.L.
... dancing. Different people took turns in playing. I danced—once— with each of the three girls, and twice with my hostess; then I let Ryder and the two young business-men do the rest. Randolph danced once with Mrs. Phillips, and that ended it for him. My own dancing, as you know, is nothing to brag of: I think the young ladies were quite satisfied with the little I did. I'm sure I was. You also know my views on round dances. Why dancing should be done exclusively by couples arranged strictly on the basis of contrasted sexes...! I ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... in months after, and brag that I had meant to thrash the man, and then didn't. And why? Because my father had made a bigger ass of himself than I supposed. My ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson
... these our times that did behold This motion strange of this unwieldy plant Now boldly brag with us that are men old, That of our age they no advantage want, Though in our youth ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe
... vulgarer ambition's not just to play well and win; His eye is ever on the stakes, his interest on the "tin." Whist! Whist! Whist! That blatant Bogey, Man! Whist! Whist! Whist! He'll flout us when he can. "Indirect means" though, after all, are portions of his plan; For all his brag he loves ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 31, 1891 • Various
... 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 ...
— In the King's Name - The Cruise of the "Kestrel" • George Manville Fenn
... "We don't brag about 'home brewing' any more," said another, "or 'home tailoring,' or 'home shoemaking.' Why all ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... long as you like," he said, with a laugh. "I'm not much to look at. And, Jane, neither you nor Lassiter, can brag. You're paler than I ever saw you. Lassiter, here, he wears a bloody bandage under his hat. That reminds me. Some one took a flying shot at me down in the sage. It made Wrangle run some.... Well, perhaps you've more to tell me than I've got ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey
... making enemies as well as friends. But as for such creatures as we have just quitted, why, they are not worth a thought! I heed them no more than the wasp that buzzes round my head. They are the scum and off scouring of the earth—all brag and boast, but ready to run at the first ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green
... tobacco seller is the only man that finds good in it which others brag of, but doe not, for it is meate, drinke, and clothes to him. No man opens his ware with greater seriousness, or challenges your judgment more in the operation. His Shop is the Randenvous of spitting, where men dialogue with their noses, ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... this cold-water scare, we believe, is to be found in the boasting of the veterans. When, with protruding chest and chin in air, they brag to the newcomers or to their friends about their heroism and the coolness with which they allow the cold-water hose to be turned on them, the listener shudders and exclaims: "This cold water may be all right for you, but it would ...
— Nature Cure • Henry Lindlahr
... they went home, the dog couldn't hold his tongue. He would brag to the other dogs, and tell them what a great hunter he was, and how at such and such a place he had caught the biggest rabbits that ever were seen. Then the other dogs would lead their masters to those places and clear them of game. Whenever Man-e-do ...
— The Magic Speech Flower - or Little Luke and His Animal Friends • Melvin Hix
... evacuation, took over all the equipment and installations the Fenris Company had abandoned, and tried to make a living out of the planet. At least, they stayed alive. There are now twenty-odd thousand of us, and while we are still very poor, we are very tough, and we brag about it. ...
— Four-Day Planet • Henry Beam Piper
... have trailed her rose-spattered flounce over the marble floors just as unconcernedly, and she would have proceeded just as calmly to disabuse the mind of the princess of any idea that the possession of a mere man, be he prince or peasant, was anything to brag of. ...
— Anne's House of Dreams • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... until I threw myself into your arms? It was an awful blow to my pride—considering that heretofore I've certainly had my fair share of attention, and even a little more than that—to have to do all the love-making, and I'm certainly not going to go brag about it—' This time the conversation really did get interrupted, for Austin would not for one instant submit to such a "garbling of statistics" and took the quickest means in his power to put an end ...
— The Old Gray Homestead • Frances Parkinson Keyes
... the poet they call "unser Shakespeare," said: "Come the 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. And that is why Sir Edward had a great ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... tracker," he muttered. "I'm as good as Walter Butler or Tim Murphy, and my friend, the Weasel, now with Morgan's riflemen, is no keener forest-runner than am I. Oh, I do not mean to brag, or say I can match my cunning against such a human ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... noticed them, at sight of this dim mass of a Berline, and its dull slobbering and arguing; then prick off faster, into the Village? It is Drouet, he and Clerk Guillaume! Still ahead, they two, of the whole riding hurlyburly; unshot, though some brag of having chased them. Perilous is Drouet's errand also; but he is an Old-Dragoon, with his ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... negro Grandfather used to have to oversee his hands on the lower place? Jim, you know, in consideration of his elevation, was granted several privileges not allowed the others. Among them was the privilege of getting drunk every Saturday night. Then it was he would stalk and brag among those he ruled while they looked at him in awe and reverence. But he had the touch of the philosopher in him and would finally say: 'Come, touch me, boys; come, look at me; come, feel me—I'm nothin' but a common man, ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... sorry for it," said Marmaduke, emphatically. "It was a mean thing for Douglas to do, with all his brag ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... the belted spwortsmen brag When they've a-won a neaeme, so's, That they do vind, or they do bag, Zoo many head o' geaeme, so's; Vor when our cwein is woonce a-won, By heads o' sundry sizes, Why, who can slight what we've a-done? ...
— Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes
... enough, to be a traytor. But I am beholding to him for a life And he may brag he gave your grace a wife. A [O?] good old man, he could not choose but feele For shame some small remorse to see you kneele. Pray God he gave me not into your hand That he might be the ruine of ...
— A Collection Of Old English Plays, Vol. IV. • Editor: A.H. Bullen
... a black list that has been growing through life; things I wish never to have again: tapioca pudding, fresh eggs if I have to hear the hen brag about it at 5 A.M., tripe, and home-grown milk, and to this list I have lately added cheese. Every one is familiar with the maxim that rest is a change of occupation. J——, being tired of Latin verbs, Greek roots, and dull scholars generally, took up some interesting laboratory work ...
— The Smiling Hill-Top - And Other California Sketches • Julia M. Sloane
... runs and kills his quarry with a club. Here we have the essence of the matter. The hunter is proudest of his achievement in which he has not had the help of deadly weapons. Unconsciously he will brag and glow over that conquest wherein lay greatest peril to him—when he had nothing but his naked hands. What a hot gush of blood bursts over him! He goes back to his barbarian state when a man only felt. The savage lived in his sensations. He saw, heard, smelled, tasted, touched, ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... cultured people do not employ such a literary style. Or when you say that the Belgians were so ignorant as to think they were being butchered when they weren't, we only wonder whether you are so ignorant as to think you are being believed when you aren't. Thus, for instance, when you brag about burning Venice to express your contempt for "tourists," we cannot think much of the culture, as culture, which supposes St. Mark's to be a thing for tourists instead of historians. This, however, would be the least part of our unfavourable judgment. That judgment is complete when we have ...
— The Crimes of England • G.K. Chesterton
... possible was swiftly done. Seymour and the Thames squadron were to stay in the Straits and watch Parma. From every attainable source food and powder were collected for the rest—far short in both ways of what ought to have been, but, as Drake said, 'we were resolved to put on a brag and go on as if we needed nothing.' Before dawn the admiral and he were again ...
— English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century - Lectures Delivered at Oxford Easter Terms 1893-4 • James Anthony Froude
... brag of the rebel cavalry—they say that we have none. I should like to try them, if not more than ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... and happiest time I ever had in my life. Indeed I almost had an adventure on my own account—une bonne fortune, as it was called at Brossard's by boys hardly older than myself. I did not brag of it, however, when I got back ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... start at the beginnin', don't you reckon? I never did have any people to brag about. Father and mother died while I was a li'l' grasshopper. I was kinda farmed around, as you might say. Then I come West an' got to punchin' cows. Seems like, I got into a bad crowd. They was wild, an' ...
— The Fighting Edge • William MacLeod Raine
... the chief of his diet. He took her, kindly enough, but imperturbably, irreclaimably, for granted, and it wouldn't in the least help that she herself knew him, as quickly, for having been in her country and threshed it out. There would be nothing for her to explain or attenuate or brag about; she could neither escape nor prevail by her strangeness; he would have, for that matter, on such a subject, more to tell her than to learn from her. She might learn from him why she was so different from the handsome girl—which she didn't know, being merely ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James
... of Sir Augustus Foster, the British Minister in 1805 he notes the balls in Georgetown "Cards for everybody, loo for the girls—brag for the men." ...
— A Portrait of Old George Town • Grace Dunlop Ecker
... 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, too ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... the Countess of Walpole, who lies there to-night on her way to England. But I concluded she had no curiosity about me-and I could not brag of more about her-and so we had no intercourse. I am wobegone to find my Lord F -* * * in the same hotel. He is as starched as an old-fashioned plaited neckcloth, and come to suck wisdom from this curious school of philosophy. He ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... toward Almaville, queen city of the South, measured by the results that developed from that night's journey, is fully entitled to all its fretting and fuming, brag and bluster of steam and smoke, and to its wearisome jangle of clanging bell and ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs
... time abaat it, but in a bit he coom back. "Well Jack," said his fayther, "ha long is it? spaik up, that's a fine lad." "Why," he says, "it's th' length o' yo'r rule, an' my pocket comb, an' this piece o' band." "That's reight," said his fayther, "tha con goa hoam," put aw nooaticed 'at be did'nt brag abaat him quite so ...
— Yorkshire Ditties, First Series - To Which Is Added The Cream Of Wit And Humour From His Popular Writings • John Hartley
... 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 in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, May 14, 1892 • Various
... suits them—from those same commandments, that men "must not steal," in the same breath referring to the white man's crime (when it finds them out) as "getting into trouble over some shooting affair with blacks." Truly we British-born have reason to brag of our "inborn sense ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... inherits the earth, sees his name and fame heralded in every periodical; while the other, the real man—God, it's unbelievable, neither more nor less; and still it's true to the last detail. Again, it's all civilization, the civilization we brag of; magnificent twentieth ...
— The Dominant Dollar • Will Lillibridge
... boast became the man. It was perfectly in character with his appearance, with his bearing. It did not impress Ruth as a brag; it seemed a natural and ordinary thing for ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... till it shine Bright as the jewels in a monarch's crown, That not the midnight of Earth's blackest sin Can dim. All beauty emanates from soul, And all deformity. The piteous straw Where sickness writhes in suffering and want— The cold, bleak dwelling where the winds have will To brag o'er man's debasement, if possess'd In fortitude and patience, with the heart Clear in its honour, stedfast in its faith, Is to the eye of angels, beautiful as day; And this fair spot with all its waken'd charms Is purgatorial torture to the ...
— Eidolon - The Course of a Soul and Other Poems • Walter R. Cassels
... no telling what a fellow of Link's stamp might do. He is just fool enough to brag about what he hoped to do rather than go and do it. It's an outrage that he should call you ...
— Dave Porter At Bear Camp - The Wild Man of Mirror Lake • Edward Stratemeyer
... With grammar, and nonsense, and learning; Good liquor, I stoutly maintain, Gives 'genus' a better discerning. Let them brag of their heathenish gods, 5 Their Lethes, their Styxes, and Stygians: Their Quis, and their Quaes, and their Quods, They're all but a parcel of Pigeons. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... died an hour before this chance, I had liv'd 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 lees Is left this vault to brag of. ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... on the famous trotting-ground, The betting men were gathered round From far and near; the "cracks" were there Whose deeds the sporting prints declare The swift g. m., Old Hiram's nag, The fleet s. h., Dan Pfeiffer's brag, With these a third—and who is he That stands beside his fast b. g.? Budd Doble, whose catarrhal name So fills the nasal trump of fame. There too stood many a noted steed Of Messenger and Morgan breed; ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... that ever ye have looked upon, and five hundred 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 or knave, I have done you good service, nor ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)
... been debating the thing for some time now, and your talk of making that fine young fellow your candidate settles it. If you can get your committee to accept young Murchison, you can count on my vote, and I don't want to brag, but I think you can count on Moneida too, though it's never sent in a Grit ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... and shot was well nigh spent," said the Lord-Admiral, "we put on a brag countenance and gave them chase, as though we had wanted nothing." And the brag countenance was successful, for that "one day's service had much appalled the enemy" as Drake observed; and still the Spaniards ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... man that finds good in it which others brag of but do not; for it is meat, drink, and clothes to him. No man opens his ware with greater seriousness, or challenges your judgment more in the approbation. His shop is the rendezvous of spitting, where men dialogue with their noses, and their communication ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... again and commenced to brag before him, praising the upright conduct of Danveld, and the impression it made upon the ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... of the room which Betty and I share, after putting away my things, nurse opened the nursery door and beckoned me in: "Miss Nannie," she said impressively, "I'm kinder worried 'bout your pa. He's never had no appetite to brag of; but for a week past he's been eatin' like a bird. Mornin' after mornin' he ain't touched nothin' but his tea, an' I'm afraid something's wrong. I don't want to frighten you, my dear, but I thought by tellin' you, maybe you could find out if anything ails him, and get him ...
— We Ten - Or, The Story of the Roses • Lyda Farrington Kraus
... replied quite good-temperedly, "only no one cares to brag about their relations unless they want to be called a snob or a bore. It wouldn't do, you see, for a man to go about declaring that he had an uncle who was miles ahead of everybody else's uncle, or an aunt who could give a start to any other ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... gentry, 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 of ...
— Richard Lovell Edgeworth - A Selection From His Memoir • Richard Lovell Edgeworth
... the matter of valor there is no brag or bravado in a Pole, so thoroughly and seriously brave ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... save his 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 and ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... four of Mr. Gellatly's varieties, namely Craig, Brag, Comet and Holder, as well as Barcelona, Cosford, Medium Long and Buchanan. Craig and Brag are the only ones which have borne. Trees of those varieties planted in 1942 bore their first crop in 1946. They have very few nuts on them this year. All varieties ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Thirty-Eighth Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... 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 ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... half-dazed leader in their midst. Good Mr. Burke (who had succeeded Mr. Clarke as school-master) guessed as they came in and took their seats that there had been an altercation of some kind, and that his two brag scholars had been prominent in it; but he was wise in his generation and allowed the boys to settle their own differences without asking any questions unless he were appealed to, when his sympathy and interest were found to ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... Wal, he was one of 'em—that buck was. The horns on his head were like an old-fashioned round-posted chair, and if they hadn't a dozen prongs on 'em, you may skin me! He wasn't as big as an ox, but a two-year-old that could match him, could brag of a pretty rapid growth. I crept up behind a little clump of bushes to about fifteen rods of where he stood on the sandy beach, and sighting carefully at his head, let drive. My gun hung fire a little, owin' to the night-dews, ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond
... haven't gone five miles yet, according to Verny's map, and there is still that walk home, so don't brag too ...
— Girl Scouts in the Adirondacks • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... a thing never done before, to make a hammer of that weight make 300 blows per minute; and, in fact, it is more a matter to brag of than for any other use, as the rate wanted is from 90 to 100 blows, being as quick as the workmen can ...
— James Watt • Andrew Carnegie
... the kind of fellows that always do brag," returned the player addressed. "Their brag will all be gone within a half an ...
— The Grammar School Boys in Summer Athletics • H. Irving Hancock
... toward the feminine world, he listed her high in the assets of the home; and so in the only way he could love, he loved her jealously. She and the rugs and pictures and furniture—all were dear to him, as chattels which he had bought and paid for and could brag about. And because he was too well bred to brag, the repression of that natural instinct he added to the cost of the items listed,—rugs, pictures, wife, furniture, house, trees, lot, and blue grass lawn. So when toward the end of the first year of his marriage, he found that actually he ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... said, with his shrewd smile, "never brag of catching a fish until he is on dry ground. I've seen older folks doing that in more ways than one, and so making fools of themselves. It's no use to boast of anything until it's done, nor then, either, ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... letter was signed "Henry Thomas, James & Sons," the District Contract Agent's vague reply on the file before me commences: "Sir (or Madam);" and I feel now, as I did then, that it is not in the best of taste for him to brag as he does about his telephone and his "Private Branch Exchange" on the very paper on which he writes to baffled applicants ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, February 25th, 1920 • Various
... To brag or hector; also to tell an improbable story. To bully a man out of any thing. The kiddey bounced the swell of the blowen; the lad bullied the gentleman ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... 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 men ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... When alone with his brother, Charles dropped his egotistic brag and dramatic bluster, and touched craftily upon the dare-devil, boyish life they had led together. He was shrewd enough to see and understand that this was his most ingratiating role, and he played it "to the limit," as Bertha ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... it won't,' said Villiers; 'Brag's a good dog, but he don't bite. I've tried that game on before, and it ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... something to brag about, didn't I?" demanded Washer, his intemperate little pompadour bristling, and his waxed mustache as waspish as if he ...
— Five Thousand an Hour - How Johnny Gamble Won the Heiress • George Randolph Chester
... led the way into the stables, where he lingered to slap his mare on the back and brag about her, and then Mark had to be introduced to the pig. 'What I call a 'andsome pig, yer know,' he remarked; 'a perfect picture, he is' (a picture that needed cleaning, Mark thought)—'you come down to me in another three weeks or so, and we'll try a bit off of that ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... 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 is a general and natural Law. I call not this an Answer to Absalom, I have nothing to do ...
— Anti-Achitophel (1682) - Three Verse Replies to Absalom and Achitophel by John Dryden • Elkanah Settle et al.
... interests of Haha Bay on the American scale; and to enrich the whole region, buying land of those who wished to sell, and employing all those who desired to work. If he was impatient for the verification of these promises by Northwick, he was too polite to urge it; and did nothing worse than brag to him as he bragged about him. He probably had his own opinion of Northwick's reasons for the silence he maintained concerning himself in all respects; he knew from the tag fastened to the bag ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... thing whom you called instinctively by her first name at the end of half an hour—a sort of little mother of loose-ended men, who can make silk purses out of sows' ears, and wouldn't know how to brag if ...
— Affair in Araby • Talbot Mundy
... the feller's arm had a kind of a mule's kick in it, but, good gracious! If he'd a seen as many arms as you an' I have that have growed up on a hickory helve he'd a known that his was nothing to brag of. I didn't know just how good a man Abe was and I was kind o' scairt for a minute. I never found it so hard work to do nothin' as I did then. Honest my hands kind o' ached. I wanted to go an' cuff that feller's ears an' grab hold o' him an' toss him over the ridge pole. Abe went right up ...
— A Man for the Ages - A Story of the Builders of Democracy • Irving Bacheller
... of courage and valor as they tossed off horn after horn of mead and ale. Each time their mighty valor grew until there was no limit set to their attainments. It is possible that their boastful pledges may have given rise to the term, to brag. ...
— Yule-Tide in Many Lands • Mary P. Pringle and Clara A. Urann
... else. At luncheon, we relate droll anecdotes concerning our infant platoons; at tea, we explain, to any one who will listen, exactly how we placed our sentry line in last night's operations; at dinner, we brag about our Company musketry returns, and quote untruthful extracts from our butt registers. At breakfast, every one has a newspaper, which he props before him and reads, generally aloud. We exchange ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... do I care about his opinions? let him preach and stick to his controversy with Father Tom—from whom he hadn't so much to brag of—but as for you, Fergus, you are, to spake plainly, a thorough ass. What d—d stuff you have been letting out of you! Go and find, if you can, some purer world for yourself to live in, for, let me tell you, you are ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... 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 out with a ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... what little employment he had was performed ill, at best unpleasantly. "Great practical method and expertness" he may brag of; but is there not also great practical pride, though deep-hidden, only the deeper-seated? So shy a man can never have been popular. We figure to ourselves, how in those days he may have played strange freaks with his ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... I'll do what I brag o'!' she added, throwing her stocking on the patch of green sward about the stone, and starting to her feet with a laugh. 'Is't to be ...
— Heather and Snow • George MacDonald
... tide? how fritter the capital just at the turn of doubling? Soon it grew irksome even to think of you; yet still when I did, I said, 'Life is long, I shall win riches; he shall share them some day or other!'—Basta, basta!—what idle twaddle or hollow brag all ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... thumb 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 ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 3, January 19, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... want 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 over ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... our Cornhill Magazine owners strive to provide thee with facts as well as fiction; and though it does not become them to brag of their Ordinary, at least they invite thee to a table where thou shalt sit in good company. That story of the "Fox"* was written by one of the gallant seamen who sought for poor Franklin under the awful Arctic Night: that account of China** is told by the man of all ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... to give up here, but a little windfall come to us t'other day from an old uncle in Vermont. It ain't nothin' to brag of, but it'll give us a start an' we thought that while we had the money we'd do somethin' that we've been wantin' to do for years an' years—give a Chris'mas—an' we've done it. The money'll go some way an' we may never have another chance. Bart is a good ...
— The Light in the Clearing • Irving Bacheller
... "Some day 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 gave her ...
— The Girls at Mount Morris • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... Bassett continued, "and that he felt it his duty to join the club, because most of them were so anxious to have him, and he is sure he would have a good influence over them. He really did speak of it in quite a touching way, Mrs. Williams. Of course, we mothers mustn't brag of our sons too much, but Georgie REALLY isn't like other boys. He is so sensitive, you can't think how this little affair has hurt him, and I felt that it might even make him ill. You see, I HAD to respect ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... certain smart youth who brag about having obtained kirsch for their tilleul, or rum in their tea, but such ...
— With Those Who Wait • Frances Wilson Huard
... His opponent, with brag, bluster, pomposity, cheap wit, and insincerity, served him as a magnificent foil. Never again were wind and ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... external, the immediate, the idiots of the moment, telling tales that signify nothing, yet that so overcry the suggestion of our deeper life as by the sad and weary to be mistaken for the discourse of life itself,—these obtrude themselves upon us, and multiply and brag and brawl about us, until we have neither room for better guests, nor spirits for their entertainment. We are like schoolboys with eyes out at the windows, drawn by some rattle of drum and squeak of fife, who would study, were they but deaf. Reproach sleep ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... as thin as a fathom of pump-water an' as weak as a babby. Now, you know-at least I can tell 'ee—that my old chum Willum is as rich as a East Injin nabob. You wouldn't believe, madam, what fortins some gold-diggers have made. W'y, I've seed men light their pipes with fi'-pun' notes for a mere brag out there. I've made a goodish lump o' money myself too,—a'most more than I know what to do with, an' as to Willum, I may say he's actooally rollin' in gold. He's also chockfull of regard for you and yours, ma'am. That bein' so, ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... "Nothin' to brag on," said Nance, still smarting at his indifference. But as she turned the corner of the building, she stole a last look through the window to where Dan was standing at his fiery post, his strong, ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... obtained even a partial divorce from worldly and parental influences. Moreover the great battle of society, to crush wrong and elevate right, was never before so bravely fought, on so many fields, by so many people as to-day. But because our lovers and heroes no longer brag to the world of their doings; no longer stand in the moonlight, and sing of their 'dering does,' the world assumes that the days of tourneys and guitars were the only days of true love and noble deeds. Even our professed writers of romance join in the ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... world, but neither "the world forgetting," nor, we imagine, "by the world forgot." The inhabitants of the "Mecca of civilization" are still, like Sister Anne, looking out for some one to come to their assistance. I am utterly sick and tired of the eternal brag and bombast around me. Let the Parisians gain some success, and then celebrate it as loudly as they please: but why, in the name of common sense, will they rejoice over victories yet to come? "We are preserving," ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... v.), used affectedly, like "humour," in many senses, often very vaguely and freely ridiculed by Jonson; humour, disposition, whims, brag(ging), ...
— Sejanus: His Fall • Ben Jonson
... a small present, though they made a mighty brag about it. Neither do they spare bragging of their king, as they called Prince Maurice, whom at every word in those parts they styled Raia Hollanda. Many quarrels took place between their men and ours, the Hollanders always beginning ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... the extract I brag'd of, as superior to that I sent you from Marlow. Perhaps you smile; but I should like your remarks on the above, as you are ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... whist, rubber; round game; loo, cribbage, besique^, euchre, drole^, ecarte [Fr.], picquet^, allfours^, quadrille, omber, reverse, Pope Joan, commit; boston, boaston^; blackjack, twenty- one, vingtun [Fr.]; quinze [Fr.], thirty-one, put, speculation, connections, brag, cassino^, lottery, commerce, snip-snap-snoren^, lift smoke, blind hookey, Polish bank, Earl of Coventry, Napoleon, patience, pairs; banker; blind poker, draw poker, straight poker, stud poker; bluff, bridge, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... all names can tickle the town, Anacreon, Tom Little, Tom Moore, or Tom Brown, [1]— For hang me if I know of which you may most brag, Your Quarto two-pounds, or your ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... brood of th' Earth, vain man, Why brag'st thou of thy might? The Heavens thy courses scan, Thou walk'st still in their sight; Ere thou wast born, thy deeds Their registers dilate, And think that none exceeds The bounds ordain'd by fate; What heavens would have ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... "Nacherlly I ain't got no love to speak of for him. Well, I was in the room next to this just now, and as I was leanin' against the partition I happened to overhear what you chaps was sayin' in here. From what I heard, I judged you didn't love this Merriwell none to brag about, and I says to myself, 'Mike, if you want to get even, them is the boys to hitch fast to.' Then I got right up and came in here without bein' invited. I hope you'll excuse me, gents, but I couldn't help it under the circumstances. ...
— Frank Merriwell's Races • Burt L. Standish
... "Nawthin' to brag about," came the reply from the old skipper. "I reckons that it'll pay me nigh as well to go back to whalin' agin; and there needn't be sech risks of havin' your ship and cargo confiscated by revenue vessels, as this seal huntin' in Hudson Bay ...
— Boy Scouts on Hudson Bay - The Disappearing Fleet • G. Harvey Ralphson
... could have maintained his position there as a dependent in any case. He was gentle and good-humored, genial and agreeable, when pleased; but he had that personal pride which is as stubborn as any haughtiness of descent, and infinitely more inflammable. It was no idle brag when he told the Crompton chaplain that he would put up with injustice from no man (if he could help it), and would repay his wrong-doer sevenfold (if he got the chance). His sense of right was very acute ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... present we find venter as early as vanter, and this would represent Lat. venditare (frequentative of vendere, to sell), to push one's goods, "to do anything before men to set forth himselfe and have a prayse; to vaunt; to crake; to brag" (Cooper). ...
— The Romance of Words (4th ed.) • Ernest Weekley
... It might have been a guilty conscience or merely impatience 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 he ...
— The Little Red Chimney - Being the Love Story of a Candy Man • Mary Finley Leonard
... they are made the offerings of respect, esteem, and gratitude: these you have given me so mighty and peculiar reasons to have, in the highest degree, for your lordship, that if they can add a price to what they go along with, proportionable to their own greatness, I can with confidence brag, I here make your lordship the richest present you ever received. This I am sure, I am under the greatest obligations to seek all occasions to acknowledge a long train of favours I have received from your lordship; favours, though great and important in themselves, ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books I. and II. (of 4) • John Locke
... it at leisure. I don't want to brag, but I hope I've been found faithful. It's rather hard to tell poor John Bur, the workhouse boy, after clothing, feeding, and making him your man of trust, for two and twenty years, that you wonder he don't run away from you, now you're ...
— John Bull - The Englishman's Fireside: A Comedy, in Five Acts • George Colman
... and actual mate—no "t'penny-ha'penny" position in his eyes evidently; his anticipation of the "master extra" and the pass in steam, which might lead to anything—the whole tale was told her in terse, straightforward fashion, but with an art new to the modest sailor-man, who hated brag as much as cowardice. He bragged in self-defence, in challenge of the formidable equipment of his rival. And how interested she was! How well she understood his case—that it was better than the swellest training-ship to make your own way by your own exertions, and splendid to have done so much ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... bagbytynge, y the rede; ley flateryng{e} vndyr thy foote, loke; Deme the beste of eu{er}y dede Tyll{e} trowth haue serchyd truly e roote; 36 Rrefrayne malyce cruell{e} & hoote; Dyscretly and wysly speende thy spelle; Boost ne brag{e} ys worth A Ioote; Whate eu{er} thow sey, A-vyse ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... me. My father—Andre—and self-condemnation! Why seek I Andre now? Am I a man, To soothe the sorrows of a suffering friend? The weather-cock of passion! fool inebriate! Who could with ruffian hand strive to provoke Hoar wisdom to intemperance! who could lie! Aye, swagger, lie, and brag!—Liar! Damnation!! O, let me steal away and hide my head, Nor view a man, condemn'd to harshest death, Whose words and actions, when by mine compar'd, Shew white as innocence, and bright as truth. I now would shun him; but that his shorten'd ...
— Andre • William Dunlap
... see, I've been away from Boston so long, and am back so short a time, that I can't realize your luxuries and conveniences. In Florence we ALWAYS walk up. They have ascenseurs in a few great hotels, and they brag of it in immense signs on the ...
— The Elevator • William D. Howells
... Verde, where Pike was nursed back to strength and health, where Nellie was caressed as a heroine, and where little Ned was petted and well nigh spoiled as "the boy that shot an Indian"—and if he did brag about it occasionally, when he came east to school, who can blame him? But when they came they did not this time try the route of ...
— Sunset Pass - or Running the Gauntlet Through Apache Land • Charles King
... gang, ain't that kind; and them and Tooms's crowd's goin' to be took out to Smelter's ice-houses in three express wagons at four o'clock in the morning. It ain't goin' to cost over two dollars a head, whiskey and all. Then, Dan Kelly is fixed, and the Loo boys. Mike, I don't like to brag, and I ain't around throwin' no bokays at myself as a reg'lar thing, but I want to say right, here, there ain't another man in this city—no, nor the State neither—that could of worked his precinck better'n I have this. I tell you, I'm within five or six votes ...
— In the Arena - Stories of Political Life • Booth Tarkington
... case, the Brewsters could ride on Chicago society's very crest! But they never brag about their money!" laughed ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... get Tip to go off with them, in swimming, or hunting, or simply running races. He was known through the whole town, and beloved for his many endearing qualities of heart. As to his mind, it was perhaps not much to brag of, and he certainly had some defects of character. He was incurably lazy, and his laziness grew upon him as he grew older, till hardly anything but the sight of a gun or a bone would move him. He ...
— Boy Life - Stories and Readings Selected From The Works of William Dean Howells • William Dean Howells
... play-actor'! I notice, mamma, you are the one always likes to brag when the girls and fellows like Norma Beautiful and Allan Hunt and Lester and—and all come up to the house. It's the biggest feather in your cap the way on account of papa the big names got to come running ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst
... 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
... in England 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 that "those French fellows were ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... and Colonel Jones's vast bounty consisted in paying them the day he dismissed them, instead of compelling them to loiter about two or three days waiting to be paid. It well became Colonel Jones, indeed, to brag of such an act, in face of the many inquests at which such verdicts as this were returned:—"Died of hunger, in consequence of not being paid by the Board of Works, a fortnight's wages being due ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... have known princes that had nothing and the people laughed at them. And a milord who is poor—the very donkey-boys scorn him. You can do nothing without money," the girl said with almost fierce derision, "and you tell me you will give it away!" She laughed again angrily, as if such a brag was offensive and insulting to her own poverty. The boy who had never in his life known what it was to want anything that money could procure for him, treated the whole question lightly, and undervalued its importance altogether. But the girl who knew by experience what was involved in the want ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... puddles, thick, thin, wet and dry, I travelled to the city Coventry. There Master Doctor Holland[9] caused me stay The day of Saturn and the Sabbath day. Most friendly welcome, he me did afford, I was so entertained at bed and board, Which as I dare not brag how much it was, I dare not be ingrate and let it pass, But with thanks many I remember it, (Instead of his good deeds) in words and writ, He used me like his son, more than a friend, And he on Monday his commends ...
— The Pennyles Pilgrimage - Or The Money-lesse Perambulation of John Taylor • John Taylor
... which is to wait upon this happy "peace" glows with a like golden promise. It is a prosperity that shall bless Kansas into a Virginia or a North Carolina by virtue of the same means which has crowned the Slave-country with the wealth, the civilization, and the intelligence it has to brag of. It is such a prosperity as ever follows after the footsteps of Slavery,—a prosperity which is to blight the soil, degrade the minds, debauch the morals, impoverish the substance, and subvert the independence of a loathing population, if the joy of the President and his directors is to be made ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... once into boisterous raillery of the Chief Trader. "Oh, ho," he began, "me freebooter, me captain av the looters av the North!" The Trader snarled at him. "What d'ye mean, by such talk to me, sir? I've had enough— we've all had enough—of your brag and bounce; for you're all sweat and swill-pipe, and I give you this for your chewing, that though by the Company's rules I can't go out and fight you, you may have your pick of my men for it. I'll take my pay for your insults in ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... be 'Rats.' They might put it more 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
... him up 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 ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt
... whist, rubber; round game; loo, cribbage, besique[obs3], 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 poker; bluff, bridge, bridge whist; lotto, monte, three-card monte, nap, penny-ante, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus |
