"Posturing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... reaction was neither fear nor sorrow—only this deep delight in being with her that colored the banality of his words and made the mawkish seem sad and the posturing seem wise. He would come ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... Martha," Maggie answered sharply, annoyed that she should be found, posturing and bowing, by the woman. ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... You'll see what 'tis to be an upright man, Who keeps a patient anger for his wrongs Thinking of judgment coming—you will see that When you mark how my looks hunt these wretches, And smile upon their groans and posturing anguish. O watch how calm I'll be, when the blazing air Judges their wickedness; you watch me then Looking delighted, like a nobleman Who sees his horse winning ...
— Georgian Poetry 1913-15 • Edited by E. M. (Sir Edward Howard Marsh)
... room (on a short visit) he boldly attacked him, in spite of his size and strength. The parrot had a temporary perch before the window, and on the cage nearest to him the mocking-bird took his place, and after posturing and threatening, stooped to a crouching position, and then darted past him, trying to hit him as he went. The first time this occurred the parrot whirled on his perch and cried "Whoo!" and after that greeted every charge with a very good imitation of a policeman's rattle, probably as the loudest ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller
... by bagpipes, rhythmically accompanied in syncopation by a very flabby drum. Round the corner came four jolly niggers blowing pipes, and the drummer behind them. Very slim young men with bright sashes and light trousers were twisting, posturing, and dancing joyfully. One of them threw to Jo the most graceful kiss ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... could not be more indifferent, or more superior in appearance, were they dandies judging the class for costermonger's donkeys at a provincial horse-show. The three most beautiful women in the world are squirming and posturing for praise, and a decision, before two as sophisticated and self-satisfied men as one will ever see on canvas or ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... robes which the girl had worn; they put the mitre on his head, the necklace of golden maize-cobs about his neck, the maize-cobs of feathers and gold in his hands; and thus arrayed they led him forth in public, all of them dancing to the tuck of drum, while he acted as fugleman, skipping and posturing at the head of the procession as briskly as he could be expected to do, incommoded as he was by the tight and clammy skin of the girl and by her clothes, which must have been much too small ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... stage four gipsy girls, in unfashionably and untheatrically decent gowns of white, blue, or red, with flowers in their hair, sat in a semicircle with one subtle, silent, darkling man among them. One after another they got up and did the same twisting and posturing, without dancing, and while one posed and contorted the rest unenviously joined the spectators in their clapping and their hoarse cries of "Ole!" It was all perfectly proper except for one high moment of indecency thrown in at ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... misses his best qualities. This polonaise illustrates not only the most brilliant, but also the least lovable features of the Polish character—ostentatiousness and exaggerated rhetoric. In it Chopin is discovered posturing, dealing in phrases, and coquetting with sentimental affectations. In short, the composer comes before us as a man of the world, intent on pleasing, and sure of himself and success. The general airiness of ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... it was wound slowly up the foreshore, came from the direction of the ferry and of Faircloth's Inn. The effect was languorous, would have been enervating to the point of mental, as well as physical, inertia had not the posturing cormorants introduced a note of absurdity and the tainted breath of the mud-flats a wholesome ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... of Clothes-Pin Row. Two or three men were near it. At that distance they seemed gaily posturing to each other ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
... WITH HUMAN SIN.—"He riseth from supper, and layeth aside His garments; and He took a towel and girded Himself." This is what the apostle calls taking upon Himself the form of a servant. The charm of the scene is its absolute simplicity. You cannot imagine Christ posturing to the ages. There was no aiming at effect, no thought of the beauty or humility of the act, as there is when the Pope yearly washes the feet of twelve beggars, from a golden basin, wiping them with a towel of rarest fabric! Christ did not act thus for show or pretence, but with ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer
... From the birth-robe to the pall, In this travesty of life, Hollow calm and fruitless strife, Whatsoe'er the actors seem, They are posturing in a dream; Fates may rise, and fates may fall, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... on for an hour; and the rivalry between Johnny and the young Spaniard grew in intensity. Certainly Mercedes did nothing to modify it. The scene became more animated and more interesting. A slow, gliding waltz was danced, and several posturing, stamping dances in which the partners advanced and receded toward and from each other, bending and swaying and holding aloft their arms. It was very pretty and graceful and captivating; and to my unsophisticated mind ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... to preserve your good name, why did you not give up your—your 'guardian,' Totski, without all that theatrical posturing?" said Aglaya, suddenly a ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... But, oh, what mingled joy and admiration, when out from the worried mass of coats leaped the nimble rider, now no longer a miserable tailor, but a roseate young man in tights and spangles, featly posturing over all the available area of his steed, and "witching the world with ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... months later he was taken at night outside a cafe by the lake at Tunis. He was gazing through the doorway at a girl who was posturing to the sound of pipes between two rows of Arabs. The light from the cafe fell upon his face, the dancer uttered ...
— The Desert Drum - 1905 • Robert Hichens
... playing instruments before their victims, others, like the mermaid of the fable, admiring themselves in mirrors and waving a seductive comb. There is also yet another violin player, with his back towards you, playing to a dancer who is posturing head downwards on his hands, like the daughter of ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook
... an hour more. Jealousy notwithstanding, Northway had made up his mind to gain what was to be gained. Lilian was beyond his reach; it would be foolish to go back to his poverty and cloudy overlook when solid assistance was held out to him. With much posturing and circumlocution, he came at length to the avowal that a sum of ready ...
— Denzil Quarrier • George Gissing
... discreetly among the little groups of people who strolled processionally along the gravel walks and beneath the trees, or disposed themselves in basket chairs upon the lawn, feeling himself vaguely exhilarated by the not too abstruse music of the posturing fiddlers, his eyes caressed by the soft glow of the Japanese lanterns, strung like antique jewelled necklets against the almost tangible blackness of the night, he found himself listening with an half-malicious amusement ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... die, if need be. But ere you do your will upon me, I would fain tell you a tale and give you a warning. Here I am one among many. I am also of your opinion, if your opinion be against tyranny. But for God's sake seek it as wise men and not as posturing ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... From more than elemental fire, The soul's unsanctified desire, From sin itself, and not the pain That warns us of its chafing chain; That worship's deeper meaning lies In mercy, and not sacrifice, Not proud humilities of sense And posturing of penitence, But love's unforced obedience; That Book and Church and Day are given For man, not God,—for earth, not heaven,— The blessed means to holiest ends, Not masters, but benignant friends; That the dear Christ dwells ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman
... wonderful. It couldn't however be contagious: too great was the limit of her sense of what painters call values. Her colours were laid on like blankets on a cold night. How indeed could a person speak the truth who was always posturing and bragging? She was after all vulgar enough, and by the time I had mastered her profile and could almost with my eyes shut do it in a single line I was decidedly tired of her perfection. There grew to be something silly in its eternal smoothness. ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James
... accretions; that Germany was a forest fated to grow; that France was a dung-heap fated to decay—a dung-heap with a crowing cock on it. What would the ladder of education have led to, except a platform on which a posturing professor proved that a cousin german was the same as a German cousin? What would the guttersnipe have learnt as a graduate, except to embrace a Saxon because he was the other half of an Anglo-Saxon? The day came, and the ignorant fellow found he had other ...
— A Short History of England • G. K. Chesterton
... to this heroic posturing of the chief magistrate is one of the most humiliating chapters in American politics. Attendant circumstances leave little doubt that a portion of Mr. Buchanan's cabinet, in secret league and correspondence ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... It was undoubtedly true—her posturing recalled the feminine attitude in extreme miniature. In that he felt outside her sympathy, she belonged with her mother; to Gregory he was far more nearly allied. Gregory, anyhow, had the potentialities ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... that Uncanoola did the skilfulest bit of jugglery it has ever been my lot to witness. Posturing like one of those old Grecian discus-throwers, he sent his scalping-knife handle foremost to glide snake-like through the grass to stop at Margery's feet. Though I think she knew not how it got there, she saw it, and the courage of ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... himself in the left foreground, with six of his men behind him. HAF behind him in the middle ground. THOROLF advances to the right foreground, posturing himself ...
— Poet Lore, Volume XXIV, Number IV, 1912 • Various
... whole advantage without it. Her motive is, primarily, vanity—clearly not kindness—however amicably they may in general work together. But still it is the kindness that makes the vanity flow into pleasant, friendly forms. In a selfish woman the very same vanity would degenerate into posturing or dressing. And, odd as it may seem, and as much as it may reflect upon the common sense of poor humanity, we believe that kind acts done out of genuine, unadulterated benevolence are less appreciated by the recipient ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... ran the local phrase; but in this mixture there was a less tedious posturing and a more massive intellect than usually go to the achievement of a provincial renown such as Meshach's. The man's externals were deceptive, for he looked like a local curiosity who might never have been out of Bursley. Meshach, however, travelled sometimes in the British ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... facing it, but quite the contrary, a perfect picture of the content afforded by a blazing hearth contemplated from that point of view, and, as the heat stole through his person and kindled his emphatic features, seeming to me a pattern of manly beauty. What a statue gallery of posturing friends we all have in our memory! The old Professor himself sometimes visited the house after it had changed hands. Of course, my recollections are not to be wholly trusted, but I always think ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... thither,—and at length, as Pluto's torch flared up, ran tinkling along the turf, into the glow; and her voice broke, as she danced, into high, clear singing, triumphant singing, that welled up to the very sky, and made the air echo with sweetness. As she sang, all her slender form swayed to the tune, posturing, gesturing, bending now, now almost soaring, while, falling in showers of twinkling steps, her fleet feet seemed to weave their way on air. What ailed the girl? all asked;—such a play of emotion of mingled sorrow and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... and something inexplicably near to envy for my own departed youth, but I should find it difficult to maintain my case against any one who would condemn me altogether as having been a very silly, posturing, emotional hobbledehoy indeed and quite like my faded photograph. And when I try to recall what exactly must have been the quality and tenor of my more sustained efforts to write memorably to my sweetheart, I confess I shiver. . . Yet I wish ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells
... peculiar; ours is the general system of the world, and the free system is the peculiar one," and Mr. Palfrey dryly responding that slavery was natural just as barbarism was, just as fig-leaves and bare skins were a natural dress. When the time arrived, however, for leaving off grimacing and posturing, and the House went to voting, the advocates of slavery usually carried the day, as the South, Whigs and Democrats together, voted solidly, and the North was divided. Especially was this the case after the arrival of the treaty of peace between the United States and Mexico, which was signed ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... does not sit on it, for they say that whoever sits on it must be a very truthful man, one who speaks the whole truth, and this King never does so. Whilst this is going on there pass by the King fully a thousand women, dancing and posturing before him. After all the devices that have been prepared have been witnessed all the horses of the King pass by, covered with their silken trappings,[604] and with much adornment of gold and precious stones on their heads, and then all the elephants ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell
... that himself, yet he will be the first to take offense, and will revel in his resentment till he feels great pleasure in it, and so pass to genuine vindictiveness. But get up, sit down, I beg you. All this, too, is deceitful posturing...." ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky |
