"Priggish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... character of the crimes which polluted the palaces of the Renaissance. But they need not be so anxious to show that Savonarola was no ascetic, that he merely picked out the black specks of wickedness with the priggish enlightenment of a member of an Ethical Society. Probably he did hate the civilisation of his time, and not merely its sins; and that is precisely where he was infinitely more profound than a modern moralist. He saw that the actual crimes were not the only evils: that ...
— Twelve Types • G.K. Chesterton
... pass a strange man in the woods or fields with as finished an air of being unaware of him (particularly if he be a rather shabby painter no longer young) as if the encounter took place on a city sidewalk; but this woman was not of that priggish kind. Her straightforward glance recognised my existence as a fellow-being; and she further acknowledged it by a faint smile, which was of courtesy only, however, and admitted no reference to the fact that at the first sound of her voice I had ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... no irreverence in it all, for the jest is not aimed at the real Washington, but at the Washington portrayed in the Weems biography. The worthy "rector of Mount Vernon," as he called himself, meant no harm, and there is a good deal of truth, no doubt, in his book. But the blameless and priggish boy, and the equally faultless and uninteresting man, whom he originated, have become in the process of development a myth. So in its further development is the Washington of the humorist a myth. Both alike are utterly and crudely false. They resemble ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge
... though he had some faults, being as proud as was endurable, as shy as a child, and altogether endowed with a full appreciation, to say the least, of his own charms and merits: but he was sincere, and loyal, and tender; well cultivated, yet not priggish or pedantic; brave, well-bred, and high-principled; handsome besides. I knew him thoroughly; I had held him on my lap, fed him with sugar-plums, soothed his child-sorrows, and scolded his naughtiness, many a time; I had stood with him by his mother's dying bed and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... reflected. "As to titles, perhaps he only wants to try me. He has been told that I am mad about titles, and bent on marrying none but a peer's son. My priggish sisters have played me that trick."—"I assure you, monsieur," she said aloud, "that I have had very extravagant ideas about life and the world; but now," she added pointedly, looking at him in a perfectly distracting way, "I know where true riches ...
— The Ball at Sceaux • Honore de Balzac
... their complaints in those plaintive notes, that steal sadly, yet sweetly, on the ear—hearts that, now cold in death, are laid to rest around that sacred fane, within whose walls they had so often swelled with emotion! Tell us not of neatly trimmed "cemeteries," redolent of staring sunflowers, priggish shrubs, and all the modern coxcombry of the tomb; with nicely swept gravel walks, lest the mourner should get "wet on's feet," and vaults numbered like warehouses, where "parties may bring their own minister," ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... the same time be thankful that not even in fairyland can two and two make five; he can state quite calmly that the weakness of Feminism is that it drives the woman from the freedom of the home to the slavery of the world; he can make priggish clergymen, who accuse him of joking and taking the name of the Lord in vain, bite their words by explaining that to make a joke of anything is not to take it in vain. As an essayist, Chesterton stands apart from his contemporaries. Of older essayists I can think of none who could in ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... riches alone don't make any fellow happy. You must have observed that they're apt to—well, to land him in all kinds of messes and worries.... I'm talking like a confounded copybook," he thought, "but I don't care how priggish I am if I ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... Clerks, the young men who give the tale its title are all well drawn. To accomplish this in the cases of Alaric and Charley Tudor was easy enough for a skilled writer, but to breathe life into Harry Norman was difficult. At first he appears to be a lay-figure, a priggish dummy of an immaculate hero, a failure in portraiture; but toward the end of the book it is borne in on us that our dislike had been aroused by the lifelike nature of the painting, dislike toward a real man, priggish indeed in many ways, but with a very human strain of obstinacy ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... selves for once that we are disappointed in our friend; that it is we who seem most frequently undeserving of the love that unites us; and that it is by our friend's conduct that we are continually rebuked and yet strengthened for a fresh endeavour. Thoreau is dry, priggish, and selfish. It is profit he is after in these intimacies; moral profit, certainly, but still profit to himself. If you will be the sort of friend I want, he remarks naively, "my education cannot dispense with your society." His education! as though a friend were ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... big goose," sneered Marian. "I never thought you'd be so silly. And all on account of that priggish ...
— Jane Allen: Right Guard • Edith Bancroft
... of archaeology in shows, so far from being a bit of priggish pedantry, is in every way legitimate and beautiful. For the stage is not merely the meeting-place of all the arts, but is also the return of art to life. Sometimes in an archaeological novel the ...
— Intentions • Oscar Wilde
... spiritual son, although that path seemed to lead, in its unobtrusive manner, upward. It was an age when materialism was to the fore, when the old faiths had not yet seen their way to harmonise with the undeniable facts of science, when morality itself was of a rather priggish and material order. And Ishmael would in not so many years now be reaching the most material time of life—middle age. At present he was very much under the sway of two entirely different people—Daniel Flynn ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... uneasy glance over the room. It was extremely tidy, and unmistakably it was a bedroom. But though her color rose she asked him in. After all, what did it matter? To have refused would have looked priggish, she said to herself. And as a matter of fact one of the early lessons she learned in France was learned that morning—that though convention had had to go, like many other things in the war, men who were ...
— The Amazing Interlude • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... art that they might have a soul-developing aesthetic training, a means of solace, delight, and self-expression—but that they might "play their piece" to the casual visitor to the school-room with priggish pride, expectant of praise; they were not to be Christian for any other reason than that it was the recommended way to Eternal Bliss and a Good Time Hereafter—the whole duty of canny and respectable man being to "save ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... silly moralizing, he nearly buried the real Washington, giving us instead a priggish, punk youth, and a Madame Tussaud, full-dress general, with a wax-works manner and ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... fortune, and literary distinction in other ways, who was at the time of more than middle age, published The Fool of Quality or The Adventures of Henry Earl of Morland. The hero is a sort of Grandison-Buncle, as proper though scarcely as priggish as the one, and as eccentric and discursive as the other; the story is chaos: the book is stuffed with disquisitions on all sorts of moral, social, and political problems. It is excellently written; it is ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... sir, at my age one is naturally experimenting, and trying to find one's (with a laugh)—well, it sounds priggish, but one's medium of expression. I shall find out what I want to do directly, but I think I shall always be able to earn enough to live on. Well, I have for ...
— Second Plays • A. A. Milne
... now," said Dandy, airily. "The young ladies who drove with my master used to say that it was priggish and tiresome to be too good. To go on with my story: I stayed with Mrs. Judge Tibbett till I got sick of her fussy ways. She made a simpleton of herself over those poodles. Each one had a high chair at the table, ...
— Beautiful Joe - An Autobiography of a Dog • by Marshall Saunders
... generally rendered more stupid by teaching, for reasons that will be analyzed later on. But boys whose brains are amenable to academic training are liable, unless the environment of the school is peculiarly unfavourable to the development of the species, to become priggish. ...
— The Curse of Education • Harold E. Gorst
... from herself—for she evidently had not the faintest notion of concealment. On the other hand, what could Ericson do? Give Helena Langley an exposition of his theories concerning proper behaviour in unmarried womanhood? Why, how absurd and priggish and offensive such a course of action would be? The girl would either break into laughter at him or feel herself offended by his attempt to lecture her. And who or what had given him any right to lecture her? What, after all, had ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... Jensen again, nor the forty Malays and the two women. Jensen may have escaped; he may even have lived to read these lines; God only knows what was the fate of the unfortunate fleet of pearl- fishers. Priggish and uncharitable people may ejaculate: "The reward of cupidity!" But I say, "judge not, lest ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... thought, is to say that I myself, potentially at least, am all. There is no radically alien corner, but an all-pervading intimacy. Now, in certain sensitively egotistic minds this conception of reality is sure to put on a narrow, close, sick-room air. Everything sentimental and priggish will be consecrated by it. That element in reality which every strong man of common-sense willingly feels there because it calls forth {90} powers that he owns—the rough, harsh, sea-wave, north-wind element, the denier of persons, the democratizer—is banished because it jars too much on ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... unwilling because it is something very new and curious in his experience; he is often a little frightened of it, and he is exceedingly frightened of other people's contempt for it. And he is unable, because the words he is accustomed to use are valueless in this connection, and he feels priggish if he tries to use others.... But, though unexplained, the mystical tendency is there, and should be appealed to ...
— Religion & Sex - Studies in the Pathology of Religious Development • Chapman Cohen
... it must be a task to be good when everybody flatters even one's shortcomings," said Brandon, and then continued in a way that, I am free to confess, was something priggish: "It is almost impossible for us to see our own faults, even when others are kind enough to point them out, for they are right ugly things and unpleasant to look upon. But lacking those outside monitors, one must all the more cultivate the habit of constant inlooking and ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... who have perished miserably. Juries are much too conventionally minded. For they are public functionaries; or, if not that, at least they feel self-consciously as if they were going to be held publicly responsible, and are apt to bring extremely conventional, and perhaps priggish, standards to bear upon their choice. "They invariably become timid and narrow," wrote Mr. Wells, "and seek refuge in practical, academic, and moral tests that invariably exclude ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... when such knowledge is almost instinctively sought and is most pleasant and easy in its acquisition. These things need not be specially forced upon him. In no way should he be led to emphasize them or give a priggish importance to his knowledge of them. They will come into his toys and play mingled with a thousand other interests, the fortifying powder of clear general ideas, amidst the ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells
... toil with brave, unflinching hearts—these are the ones who are developing a moral fiber and strength of will which will stand in the day of stress. Better a thousand times such training as this in the thick of life's real conflicts than any volitional calisthenics or priggish self-denials entered into solely for the training ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts
... be forgiven on the plea that where so many names of the strong and powerful bid for recognition, a good way to avoid jealousies, is to ignore them all. So speaks proud and pious Philadelphia—snug, smug, prosperous, priggish and pedantic Philadelphia. But how about these five supremely great names—William Penn, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine, Stephen ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... queer, Pat, but now that I know him he doesn't seem interesting in the least. He's priggish and conceited; he's a poser, too. It is too bad, Pat, for you to tire yourself out and get such a—a dry ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... that very Napoleon whom they now keep a prisoner upon a barren rock at Saint Helena, contrary to every principle of justice and humanity, and in violation of all law, and particularly in violation of the law of nations, notwithstanding Mr. Brougham's priggish ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt
... left at a friend's house, and he entreated me to come and examine them. In the mean while, I had had not only a peep at the Tapestry, but an introduction to the mayor, who is chief magistrate for life: a very Caesar in miniature. He received me stiffly, and appeared at first rather a priggish sort of a gentleman; observing that "my countryman, Mr. STOTHARD,[143] had been already there for six months, upon the same errand, and what could I want further?" A short reply served to convince him "that it would be no abuse of an extended indulgence if he would allow another ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... Winnie, stopping to bestow a smile on the elder girl's pleasant face. "But you can't understand why I am so happy. You don't belong to our set, and therefore know very little about Ada's conceit and—yes, I shall say it—priggish ways. She's just as horrid as can be, and I hate her," wound up the malicious monkey, quite reckless of the ...
— Aunt Judith - The Story of a Loving Life • Grace Beaumont
... darknesses of Time, that will presently crush and consume him again. Why not flounder with the rest, why not eat, drink, fight, scream, weep and pray, forget Hugh, stop brooding upon Hugh, banish all these priggish dreams of "The Better Government of the World," and turn to the brighter aspects, the funny and adventurous aspects of the war, the Chestertonian jolliness, Punch side of things? Think you because your sons are dead that there will be no more cakes and ale? Let mankind blunder ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... Mrs. Grundy's objections, before she has opened her mouth. I love, I say, and scarcely ever tire of hearing, the artless prattle of those two dear old friends, the Perigourdin gentleman and the priggish little Clerk of King Charles's Council. Their egotism in nowise disgusts me. I hope I shall always like to hear men, in reason, talk about themselves. What subject does a man know better? If I stamp on a friend's corn, his outcry is genuine—he ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the real author, all this would of course have been delightful to him; it was all so kind and so evidently sincere for the most part, that only a very priggish or cynical person could have affected to undervalue it, and any other, even if he felt it overstrained now and then, would have enjoyed it frankly while it lasted, remembering that, in the nature of things, it could not last ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... deliberate, old-fashioned way, with precise articulation, and a certain manner that an English mother would have called priggish, but which was only the outcome of Scotch stiffness, her father's rebukes, and her ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... it made him approach his dinner with vexation, and, failing to find the man he had sought, he finished hastily. As he went out, Silas Trimmer, though looking straight in his direction, did not seem to be at all aware of Bobby's approach. He was deep in a business discussion with his priggish son-in-law. ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester
... individual, namely, the prince. His hand belongs to his country, and can be given in marriage only for reasons of State, that is, for the good of the country. Still, for all that, he is a man; and, as a man, he likes to follow whither his heart leads. It is an unjust, ungrateful and priggish thing to forbid, or to desire to forbid, a prince from following his inclinations in this matter; of course, as long as the lady has no influence upon the Government of the country. From her point of view she occupies an exceptional position, and does not come under the ordinary rules of ...
— The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer: The Wisdom of Life • Arthur Schopenhauer
... and I pleaded guilty to a moment's gratification at the announcement that Pethel liked me. But I did not go and seek him in the baccarat-room. A great character assuredly he was, but of a kind with which (I say it at the risk of seeming priggish) ...
— James Pethel • Max Beerbohm
... scholastic attainments, although the junior of the youngest of them, keeping at the head of every class with unostentatious ease. I am afraid that I may have done my orphaned cousin seeming injustice in former chapters of this autobiography. Her temper was even, and her nature was finer than her prim, priggish ways would have led the casual acquaintance to suppose. She was ultra-conscientious, and naturally so exemplary that her good behavior was a snare. She could not sympathize with my temptations to naughtiness and many falls from ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... of mentor nettled her, his attitude seemed to her priggish and dictatorial, and as the sun disappearing behind a sudden cloud, so her childish merriment quickly gave place to ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... forget that he lived with consumption. And without using much charity, this can be made to excuse many of his irascible and uncongenial moods. You to whom that gaunt face seems forbidding—look into the eyes! If he seems "dry and priggish" to you, Mr. Stevenson, "with little of that large unconscious geniality of the world's heroes," follow him some spring morning to Baker Farm, as he "rambles through pine groves ... like temples, or like fleets ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives
... about spoiling my record by breaking rules. I want you to know this, because some one may have seen us come out of the Christian Science hall together and might think she took me there; but she never breaks a rule, and she isn't a bit priggish about it, either. She tried her best to make me go back to my room before the 'racket' last night, and I just want you to know that she's ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... cried, "every time I see you, you are more and more like your father. You're going off—just as he did. That baffled, MULISH look—priggish—solemn! Oh! it's strange the stuff a poor woman has to bring into the world. But you'll do nothing. I know you'll do nothing. You'll stand everything. You—you Cuckold! And she'll drive by me, she'll pass me in theatres ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... wait. Don't go off, half-cocked. Go clear through with this thing," she exhorted herself. "There must be more in it than mere childish, silly vanity." She probed deep and brought up, "Yes, there is more to it. In the first place I was priggish and hypocritical when I tried to pretend that it was nothing to me when I looked in the glass and saw for the first time that my youth has begun to leave me. That was Anglo-Saxon pretense, trying to seem to myself made of finer stuff ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher |
