"Braggadocio" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... openness and loyalty were written on his face. There are hundreds like him, and I would not mention him if it were not that that same day I read with a new and heightened sense of disgust a speech by the German Chancellor, writhing with timidity and dishonesty and uneasy braggadocio. Those who feel this contrast as I did may be excused, I think, if they come to the conclusion that to talk about war is an accursed trade, and that to fight well, whether on the one side or the other, is ...
— England and the War • Walter Raleigh
... you would see a man leave the trench with a comrade's arm around him, and start on the long walk to the town where the hospital corps were waiting for him. These men did not wear their wounds with either pride or braggadocio, but regarded the wet sleeves and shapeless arms in a sort of wondering surprise. There was much more of surprise than of pain in their faces, and they seemed to be puzzling as to what they had done in the past to deserve such ...
— Notes of a War Correspondent • Richard Harding Davis
... PATTLE's able and convincing speech proves 'im not only a master of English, but a consummate orator, able to wield the harmoury" (why he put the "h" there I don't know) "of wit and sarcasm like a master. I'm not given to boasting," he continued. "I never indulge in badinage" (query, braggadocio?); "but, with such a Candidate, we must win." JERRAM seconded the resolution, which was carried nem. con. Must get local newspapers, to show to mother. She'll like that. Shall go back ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, April 11, 1891 • Various
... result, until the German was reached whom Frank had arrested at the point of his pistol. All his insolence and braggadocio had vanished. He was evidently a poltroon at heart, for he showed every evidence of being willing to betray his comrades and tell all that he knew on condition that his own lot would ...
— Army Boys on German Soil • Homer Randall
... of the English periodicals, even those most favorable to America, undertook to doubt his statements of fact, to sneer at his prophecies of the future as ludicrous exaggerations, and to term them striking and whimsical instances of Yankee braggadocio, and of the love of building castles in the air. Cooper could not well overstate the material prosperity and progress of the country, nor the inability of men trained under different conditions either to believe it or to comprehend it. Reality soon outran some ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... believed himself to be Napoleon reincarnated, and amused everybody with his military toggery and braggadocio. ...
— Dainty's Cruel Rivals - The Fatal Birthday • Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller
... Wollaston seized upon that excuse to ask to share Maria's seat. They talked incessantly—an utterly foolish gabble like that of young birds. An old gentleman across the aisle cast an impatient glance at them from time to time. Finally he arose stiffly and went into the smoker. Their youth and braggadocio of innocence and ignorance, and the remembrance of his own, irritated him. He did not in the least regret his youth, but the recollection of the first stages of his life, now that he was so near the end, was like looking backward over a long road, which had ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... tumbled out of the fuselage, for his nerves were still on edge as a result of the harrowing experience of the loop, yet with terra firma once more under foot, he quickly regained his composure. Strutting about with great show and braggadocio, he strove to impress his followers with the mere nothingness of so trivial a feat as flying birdlike thousands of yards above the jungle, though it was long until he had thoroughly convinced himself by the force of autosuggestion that he had enjoyed every instant ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... not been the only speaker to indulge in braggadocio and boasting. In all the debates in Congress, Canada was to be invaded on the northern boundary and rolled up at each end. In vain the conservatives showed the neglected condition of the national defences. Jefferson's policy of economy ...
— The United States of America Part I • Ediwn Erle Sparks
... Johnson—that is, he was a strong, sensible man with a kind of running spring of hysteria and melancholy in him. Like Johnson, he was all the more healthy because he was morbid. The tales of all the admirals and adventurers of that England are full of braggadocio, of sentimentality, of splendid affectation. But it is scarcely necessary to multiply examples of the essentially romantic Englishman when one example towers above them all. Mr. Rudyard Kipling has said complacently of the English, "We do not ...
— Heretics • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... boy. There is a great deal of braggadocio and pride in your Spanish don, and they have plenty of enterprise and fight in them sometimes, as we know ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn
... to Julia. 'If Vespius were made immortal, what a specimen of tiresome braggadocio ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... he could learn was that pasquinades had been found on the doors of the University, and that the Vice-Rector had ordered them to be taken down and sent to the Civil Government. It was said that they were filled with threats of assassination, invasion, and other braggadocio. ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... tent-pegging and lime-cutting, and invited the Afghan horsemen to join them. But, as showing how curious are the workings of the Asiatic mind, it afterwards transpired that this apparently unexceptional proceeding was looked on by many with grave offence. The Afghan officers muttered that this was mere braggadocio on the part of the sahibs; that the sport was only to show how they would spit and cut down the sons of the Prophet, if they had the chance! To fathom such depths of bigotry as this incident reveals is one of the many difficulties which face ...
— The Story of the Guides • G. J. Younghusband
... no humbug or braggadocio about Buffalo Bill. He is known far and wide, and his reputation has been earned honestly and by hard work. By a combination of circumstances he was educated to the life of a plainsman from his youth up; and not the least interesting portion of his career is that of his early life, passed as it ...
— The Life of Hon. William F. Cody - Known as Buffalo Bill The Famous Hunter, Scout and Guide • William F. Cody
... beneath the focused gaze of eyes that contained anger, scorn, in some instances, incredulity. He looked for a moment as though he were going to faint, then he clutched the edge of the table cloth in a convulsive grip, and shouted with an attempt at his old braggadocio: ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... Ulster period; and patriotism, which it is his object to encourage, is like to remain unaffected by a play in which our sympathies are fairly distributed between rebel and royalist. In the second place I cannot believe that the glorification of drunkenness and braggadocio in the person of Falstaff can directly assist the cause (which at this moment needs all the help it can ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 25, 1914 • Various
... of "the noble voice that could thus speak to the throne," and the noble throne that could return such a noble answer to the noble voice? You get nothing done here gravely and decently. Tawdry stage tricks are played, and braggadocio claptraps uttered, on every occasion, however sacred or solemn: in the face of death, as by Barbes with his hideous Indian metaphor; in the teeth of reason, as by M. Victor Hugo with his twopenny-post ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... his friends their powers of resistance. He fed them well, and after the dinner was over he suggested that they give an exhibition of their wonderful powers to the friends whom he had invited. This they could not well refuse to do after the braggadocio way in which they had talked, and so the Governor lined them up, called forth a number of his best marksmen, and proceeded with the exhibition, and it is unnecessary to add that if the Empress Dowager had invited ...
— Court Life in China • Isaac Taylor Headland
... strangely ill at ease; for, even if it had not been inspired by good-will towards me, I could never have brought myself to understand that it might be something very different from real goodness. It bore so little resemblance to the facetious braggadocio of the Mauprats, that it seemed to me like an entirely new language, which I understood ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... army, under the command of the Prince of Hesse, to watch ours. He arrived in sight of the camp at Malpladuet at the same time that we entered it, and was quickly warned of our existence by, three cannon shots that Villars, out of braggadocio, fired by way of appeal to Marlborough and Prince Eugene. Some little firing took place this day and the next, the 10th of September, but without doing ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... Committee, relative to her personal experiences of this work, and her own labors in connection with it. The clear, calm statements made by her before this Committee cast considerable light upon her doings, and the principles upon which she acted. There is no exaggeration, no braggadocio, no flourish of philanthropy,—simply a straightforward story of quiet but persistent endeavors to lessen the human misery within the walls of the prison at Newgate; for, hitherto, her efforts had ...
— Elizabeth Fry • Mrs. E. R. Pitman
... this girl assisted me in bearing the braggadocio of her brother, who did not always keep within bounds. I had often to endure prolix accounts of his exploits,—how he had already often fought, without wishing to injure the other, all for the mere sake of honor. He had always contrived to disarm his adversary, and had then forgiven him; nay, ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... army was almost entirely composed of fresh troops. The most extraordinary illusion prevailed in the enemy's camp. The north of Europe has its Gascons as well as the south of France, and the junior portion of the Russian army at this period assumed an absurd braggadocio tone. On the very eve of the battle the Emperor Alexander sent one of his aides de camp, Prince Dolgorouki, as a flag of truce to Napoleon. The Prince could not repress his self-sufficiency even in the presence of the Emperor, and Rapp informed me that on dismissing him the Emperor said, "If you ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... on without a word, not so much as a momentary knitting of thy fist When ignorance has waxed proud, and put thee to the mock, thou hast sat meek, and uttered never a word. It must needs be thou art pigeon-livered and lack gall! There is not in thee the swagger, the rustle, the braggadocio of a true swashbuckler manhood. ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... Snaggs shiver—all his coarse, bullying manner and braggadocio deserting him, as Jan Steenbock's accents rang through the ship, like those of an accusing judge; the index finger of the second-mate's right hand pointing at him, as he leant over the poop rail, ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... ourselves, old Mr. Sedley had a feeling very much akin to contempt for his son. He said he was vain, selfish, lazy, and effeminate. He could not endure his airs as a man of fashion, and laughed heartily at his pompous braggadocio stories. "I shall leave the fellow half my property," he said; "and he will have, besides, plenty of his own; but as I am perfectly sure that if you, and I, and his sister were to die to-morrow, he would say 'Good Gad!' and eat his dinner just as well ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of the braggadocio spirit about him, but no rightly constituted young man is entirely devoid of the desire to "show off" in the presence of timid and interesting ladies. Without that spirit of "show-off," what would induce our knights to meet in glorious tournaments? ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... governed and at peace. The child began by assuming that astounding title: Ts'in Shi Hwangti, the First August Emperor: peace to the ages that were past; let them lie in their tomb; time now should begin again!—Childish boyish swank and braggadocio, said the world; but very soon the world found itself mistaken. Hwangti;—but no sitting on his throne in meditation, no letting the world be ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... Scopus," Beric said quietly, "I am perfectly ready to fight with this braggadocio, and challenge him to a contest; a few hard knocks will do neither of us any harm, therefore let us go into the school and have it out. It is much better so than to have ...
— Beric the Briton - A Story of the Roman Invasion • G. A. Henty
... possibilities of wounds and mutilation, of disease, suffering, and horror. What woman that knew them could look on unmoved at the sight of these men, so grave and earnest, so quietly resolute, so deprecatory of anything like braggadocio or over-confidence? It filled Christine Latimer with a fierce pride in herself and them; in a race that could breed men so gentle and so brave; in a country that was founded so surely on the devoted hearts ...
— Love, The Fiddler • Lloyd Osbourne
... insight was immense, and he was too profoundly intelligent to be a merely destructive or sterile force. He builded better than he knew. For instance, courage, it has been alleged, he denies, and indeed he is so savage in his exposure of braggadocio that it might well be believed that he refused to admit that men could be brave. Yet what ...
— Three French Moralists and The Gallantry of France • Edmund Gosse
... is a story of the home life and business career of a self-made merchant, who has the customary braggadocio and lack of culture, but who possesses a substantial integrity at the root of his nature. The little shortcomings in social polish, so keenly felt by his wife and daughters, as they rise to a position due to great ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... perfect. The best possible tree, for instance, does not exist in nature, owing to a confused environment which does not permit its formation. In literature a type is made a high type either by intensity, if it be simple, or by richness of nature, if it be complex. Miserliness, braggadocio, hypocrisy, in their extremes, are the characters of comedy; a rich nature, such as Hamlet, showing variety of faculty and depth of experience, is the hero of more profound drama. This truth, the necessity of high development in the type, underlay the old canon that the characters of tragedy ...
— Heart of Man • George Edward Woodberry
... gruesome arabesques that yet were formless; some burst like pon-pons; some released long streamers and darted earthward. Jeb's eyes were held by this appalling grandeur; his soul was chained, numbed, by its unlicensed braggadocio. ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris
... stories in which giants are outwitted by men are more complicated, and may be divided into two classes: one where the giant is outwitted by superior cunning, the other where the giant's stupidity is deceived by the man's braggadocio. The first class may be represented by a Sicilian ...
— Italian Popular Tales • Thomas Frederick Crane
... he continued with quiet masterfulness, as one who, staking all on one throw of the dice, dispenses with pretense and braggadocio in the face of despair. "Listen to me. I would make you happy. I'd be your devoted slave, till white-haired, aged and blissful, life should pass from us gently as the echoes of ...
— Trusia - A Princess of Krovitch • Davis Brinton
... PIKE [not with braggadocio, but earnestly, almost pathetically]. Like it? Well, sir, for public buildings and architecture, I wouldn't trade our State insane asylum for the worst-ruined ruin in Europe—not for ...
— The Man from Home • Booth Tarkington and Harry Leon Wilson
... himself the Capitano Ciabatti, the other Cavaliere Dursi, at your service," answered Freccia, indifferently. "Good swearers both and hard drinkers—filled with stock phrases, such as 'our distinguished dear friend, Ferrari, 'wrongs which can only be wiped out by blood'—all bombast and braggadocio! These fellows would as soon be on one side ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... city, he saw a mysterious and hopeful hieroglyph. But although the elements of adventure were streaming by him as thick as drops of water in the Thames, it was in vain that, now with a beseeching, now with something of a braggadocio air, he courted and provoked the notice of the passengers; in vain that, putting fortune to the touch, he even thrust himself into the way and came into direct collision with those of the more promising demeanour. Persons brimful ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... of braggadocio in Tom Reade's quiet voice, but Leon knew, instantly, that the young engineer could and would be as ...
— The Young Engineers in Nevada • H. Irving Hancock |
