Reference > Quotations > C.N. Douglas, comp. > Forty Thousand Quotations > Category Index
  PREVIOUSNEXT  
CONTENTS · BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD
C.N. Douglas, comp.  Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical.  1917.
 
Boasting
 
  Where boasting ends, there dignity begins.
Young.    
  1
  The less people speak of their greatness the more we think of it.
Bacon.    
  2
  No more delay, vain boaster, but begin.
Dryden.    
  3
  Where there is much pretension, much has been borrowed; nature never pretends.
Lavater.    
  4
  It will come to pass that every braggart shall be found an ass.
Shakespeare.    
  5
  The honor is overpaid when he that did the act is commentator.
Shirley.    
  6
  Commonly they use their feet for defense, whose tongue is their weapon.
Sir P. Sidney.    
  7
  Fools carry their daggers in their open mouths.
H. W. Shaw.    
  8
  A gentleman that loves to hear himself talk will speak more in a minute than he will stand to in a month.
Shakespeare.    
  9
  With all his tumid boasts, he’s like the sword-fish, who only wears his weapon in his mouth.
Madden.    
  10
  Self-laudation abounds among the unpolished; but nothing can stamp a man more sharply as ill-bred.
Charles Buxton.    
  11
        The man that once did sell the lion’s skin
While the beast lived, was killed with hunting him.
Shakespeare.    
  12
  We wound our modesty, and make foul the clearness of our deservings, when of ourselves we publish them.
Shakespeare.    
  13
        Conceit, more rich in matter than in words,
Brags of his substance, not of ornament:
They are but beggars that can count their worth.
Shakespeare.    
  14
  Men of real merit, and whose noble and glorious deeds we are ready to acknowledge, are yet not to be endured when they vaunt their own actions.
Æschines.    
  15
  Boasting and bravado may exist in the breast even of the coward, if he is successful through a mere lucky hit; but a just contempt of an enemy can alone arise in those who feel that they are superior to their opponent by the prudence of their measures.
Thucydides.    
  16
  There is this benefit in brag, that the speaker is unconsciously expressing his own ideal. Humor him by all means, draw it all out, and hold him to it.
Emerson.    
  17
  Lord Bacon told Sir Edward Coke when he boasted, “The less you speak of your greatness, the more I shall think of it.” Mirrors are the accompaniments of dandies, not heroes. The men of history were not perpetually looking in the glass to make sure of their own size. Absorbed in their work they did it, and did it so well that the wondering world saw them to be great, and labeled them accordingly.
Rev. S. Coley.    
  18
                        I know them, yea,
And what they weigh, even to the utmost scruple;
Scambling, out-facing, fashion-mong’ring boys,
That lie, and cog, and flout, deprave, and slander,
Go antickly, and show outward hideousness,
And speak off half a dozen dangerous words,
How they might hurt their enemies, if they durst;
And this is all.
Shakespeare.    
  19
  One man affirms that he has rode post a hundred miles in six hours: probably it is a lie; but supposing it to be true, what then? Why, he is a very good post-boy; that is all. Another asserts, and probably not without oaths, that he has drunk six or eight bottles of wine at a sitting; out of charity I will believe him a liar; for, if I do not, I must think him a beast.
Chesterfield.    
  20
 
 
CONTENTS · BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD
  PREVIOUSNEXT  
 
Loading
Click here to shop the Bartleby Bookstore.
Shakespeare · Bible · Saints · Anatomy · Harvard Classics · Lit. History · Quotations · Poetry
© 1993–2013 Bartleby.com · [Top 150]