Boast Quotes - Page 14

• Paris is certainly one of the most boastful of cities, and you could argue that it has had a lot to boast about: at various times the European centre of power, of civilisation, of the arts, and (self-advertisingly, at least) of love.

  Julian Barnes

  Art, Self, Cities

  "A vineyard in Montmartre: just one of the hidden pleasures of Paris" by Julian Barnes, www.theguardian.com. March 26, 2011.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• A bureaucracy is sure to think that its duty is to augment official power, official business, or official members, rather than to leave free the energies of mankind; it overdoes the quantity of government, as well as impairs its quality. The truth is, that a skilled bureaucracy is, though it boasts of an appearance of science, quite inconsistent with the true principles of the art of business.

  Walter Bagehot

  Art, Thinking, Government

  Walter Bagehot (1867). “The English Constitution”, p.237

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• People who boast of happy marriages are, I submit, usually self-deceivers, if not actually liars.

  Iris Murdoch

  Marriage, Liars, Self

  Iris Murdoch (2003). “The Black Prince”, p.89, Penguin

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• You shall not pile, with servile toil, Your monuments upon my breast, Nor yet within the common soil Lay down the wreck of power to rest, Where man can boast that he has trod On him that was "the scourge of God."

  Edward Everett Hale

  Power, Men, Toil

  7 Copy quote

• In victory even the cowardly like to boast, while in adverse times even the brave are discredited.

  Sallust

  Brave, Victory, Adverse

  6 Copy quote

• I am afraid I shall have to give up my trade; I am far too inert to keep up with organic chemistry, it is becoming too much for me, though I may boast of having contributed something to its development. The modern system of formulae is to me quite repulsive.

  Friedrich Wohler

  Giving Up, Science, May

  15 Copy quote

• Hollywood likes to boast that it can elevate the national conscience.

  Mike Royko

  Hollywood, Likes, Conscience

  4 Copy quote

• Advertising holding companies used to boast about their share of the advertising market. Now they are proud of how much of their business is not in advertising.

  Maurice Saatchi

  Proud, Advertising, Share

  5 Copy quote

• Science appears but what in truth she is, Not as our glory and our absolute boast, But as a succedaneum, and a prop To our infirmity.

  William Wordsworth

  Glory, Props, Infirmity

  'The Prelude' (1850) bk. 2, l. 211

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• Being a Christian... is a character which I prize far above all this world has or can boast.

  Patrick Henry

  Christian, Character, World

  "FIRST-PERSON: The faith of Patrick Henry" by Kelly Boggs, www.bpnews.net. June 27, 2014.

  41 Copy quote

  Show source

• When we look for success, it should be for the sole purpose of boasting sincerely in Christ. There's no other reason for it. Success is only worth it when the more intense it gets for you, the more you find yourself bragging for his glory rather than your own.

  Criss Jami

  Finding Yourself, Looks, Purpose

  Criss Jami (2015). “Killosophy”, p.49, Criss Jami

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• There is a certain class of people who prefer to say that their fathers came down in the world through their own follies than to boast that they rose in the world through their own industry and talents. It is the same shabby-genteel sentiment, the same vanity of birth which makes men prefer to believe that they are degenerated angels rather than elevated apes.

  William Winwood Reade

  Father, Believe, Angel

  William Winwood Reade (1874). “The Martyrdom of Man”, p.395

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• Could one start a Stagnation Party-which at General Elections would boast that during its term of office no event of the least importance had taken place?

  C. S. Lewis

  Party, Taken, Office

  4 Copy quote

• I come from grunge, and then Brit-pop, scenes where you boast about how little you spent on an outfit. ... Now, it seems you must find The Dress, then The Dress needs to have The Belt, and a complementary but not overly-matching bag must be found which works with not only the correct hosiery, but with something to throw over yourself if you become chilly.

  Caitlin Moran

  Fashion, Clothes, Over You

  4 Copy quote

• Enjoy the peace your valor won. Let independence be our boast, Ever mindful what it cost; Ever grateful for the prize, Let its altar reach the skies!

  Joseph Hopkinson

  4th Of July, Grateful, Sky

  8 Copy quote

• In lazy apathy let stoics boast, their virtue fix'd: 't is fix'd as in a frost; contracted all, retiring to the breast; but strength of mind is exercise, not rest.

  Alexander Pope

  Being Strong, Exercise, Lazy

  Alexander Pope, George Croly (1854). “The Poetical Works of Alexander Pope; with a Memoir of the Author, Notes, and Critical Notices on Each Poem. By the Rev. George Croly ... New Edition. [With a Portrait.]”, p.263

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The man who boasts that he habitually tells the truth is simply a man with no respect for it. It is not a thing to be thrown about loosely, like small change; it is something to be cherished and hoarded and disbursed only when absolutely necessary. The smallest atom of truth represents some man's bitter toil and agony; for every ponderable chunk of it there is a brave truth-seeker's grave upon some lonely ash-dump and a soul roasting in Hell.

  H. L. Mencken

  Lonely, Truth, Lying

  1922 Prejudices, 3rd series, ch.14.

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• Woman makes half the sorrows which she boasts the privilege to sooth. Woman consoles us, it is true, while we are young and handsome; when we are old and ugly, woman snubs and scolds us. On the whole, then, woman in this scale, the weed in that. Jupiter! Hang out thy balance, and weigh them both; and if thou give the preference to woman, all I can say is, the next time Juno ruffles thee, O Jupiter, try the weed.

  Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

  Weed, Giving, Smoking

  7 Copy quote

• The traveler's boast, sometimes couched as a complaint, is that of having been an eyewitness, and invariably this experience - shocking though it may seem at the time - is an enrichment, even a blessing, one of the life-altering trophies of the road.

  Paul Theroux

  Travel, Blessing, May

  4 Copy quote

• Our love of what is beautiful does not lead to extravagance; our love of the things of the mind does not make us soft. We regard wealth as something to be properly used, rather than as
  something to boast about. As for poverty, no one need be ashamed to admit it, the real shame is in not taking practical measures to escape from it.

  Pericles

  Beautiful, Real, Mind

  Funeral Oration, Athens, 430 B.C., in Thucydides 'History of the Peloponnesian War' ii.40, 1 (translation by Rex Warner)

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• To write much, and to write rapidly, are empty boasts. The world desires to know what you have done, and not how you did it.

  George Henry Lewes

  Writing, Desire, Done

  George Henry Lewes (1846). “The Spanish Drama. Lope de Vega and Calderon”, p.89, London, Knight

  16 Copy quote

  Show source

• The honor that we pay to the Son of God, as well as that which we render to God the Father, consists of an upright course of life. This is plainly taught us by the passage, "You that boast of the Law, through breaking the Law dishonor God."...For if he who transgresses the law dishonors God by his transgression,...it is evident that he who keeps the law honors God. So the worshipper of God is he whose life is regulated by the principles and teachings of the Divine Word

  Origen

  Father, Teaching, Son

  18 Copy quote

• I grew up in a completely bookless household. It was my father's boast that he had never read a book from end to end. I don't remember any of his ladies being bookish. So I was entirely dependent on my schoolteachers for my early reading with the exception of The Wind in the Willows, which a stepmother read to me when I was in hospital.

  John le Carre

  Father, Book, Reading

  5 Copy quote

• Having my freedom, boast of nothing else.

  William Shakespeare

  4th Of July

  'Richard II' (1595) act 1, sc. 3, l. 271

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• We have abundant reason to rejoice that in this Land the light of truth and reason has triumphed over the power of bigotry and superstition, and that every person may here worship God according to the dictates of his own heart. In this enlightened Age and in this Land of equal liberty it is our boast, that a man's religious tenets will not forfeit the protection of the Laws, nor deprive him of the right of attaining and holding the highest Offices that are known in the United States.

  George Washington

  Religious, Heart, Men

  George Washington, Jared Sparks (1838). “The Writings of George Washington: Being His Correspondence, Addresses, Messages, and Other Papers, Official and Private”, p.202

  33 Copy quote

  Show source