Boast Quotes - Page 10

• Boasting is always an advertisement of poverty.

  W. Graham Scroggie

  Poverty, Advertisements

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• Do not fall into the error of the artist who boasts of twenty years experience in his craft while in fact he has had only one year of experience - twenty times.

  Trevanian

  Fall, Artist, Errors

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• But as Shakespeare’s Richard II boasts, ‘Not all the water in the rough rude sea/Can wash the balm off from an anointed king.

  Leanda de Lisle

  Kings, Sea, Water

  Leanda de Lisle, Leanda Lisle (2013). “Tudor: Passion. Manipulation. Murder. The Story of England's Most Notorious Royal Family”, p.27, PublicAffairs

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• Tis a sort of coquetry to boast that we never coquet.

  Francois de La Rochefoucauld

  Coquetry

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• The plague of man is boasting of his knowledge.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Men, Plague

  "Essais" by Michel de Montaigne, Book II, Ch. 12, 1595.

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• Say, Britain, could you ever boast, Three poets in an age at most? Our chilling climate hardly bears A sprig of bays in fifty years.

  Jonathan Swift

  Years, Age, Climate

  'On Poetry' (1733) l. 5

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• A town that boasts inhabitants like me Can have no lack of good society.

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

  Towns, Like Me

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1873). “Tales of a Wayside Inn”, p.138

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• Big words do not smite like war-clubs, Boastful breath is not a bow-string, Taunts are not so sharp as arrows, Deeds are better things than words are, Actions mightier than boastings.

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

  War, Arrows, Deeds

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, J. D. McClatchy (2000). “Poems and Other Writings”, p.195, Library of America

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• That, Senators, is what a favour from gangs amounts to. They refrain from murdering someone; then they boast that they have spared him!

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Favour, Gang, Refrain

  "Philippics". Book by Marcus Tullius Cicero, 44 BC.

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• Other countries may boast of this and that, but nobody can touch the United States for poisonous snakes. We have about twenty species, most of them deadly, and Europe has only five or six, none of them much good. We have fifteen kinds of Rattlesnakes alone and nobody else has even one. [Footnote: There is a species in Central and South America, but it probably came from here.]

  Will Cuppy

  Country, Europe, Snakes

  "How to Become Extinct". Book by Will Cuppy, 1941.

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• There is a note that comes into the human voice by which you may know real weariness. It comes when one has been trying with all his heart and soul to think his way along some difficult road of thought. Of a sudden he finds himself unable to go on. Something within him stops. A tiny explosion takes place. He bursts into words and talks, perhaps foolishly. Little side currents of his nature he didn't know were there run out and get themselves expressed. It is at such times that a man boasts, uses big words, makes a fool of himself in general.

  Sherwood Anderson

  Running, Real, Heart

  Sherwood Anderson (2016). “Triumph of the Egg and Other Stories”, p.14, Sherwood Anderson

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• Man's birth is a lottery; it may be in the pleasant home of ease and affluence, or in the hut of poverty; in either case it may be a stain or an honor. If he is born in poverty, and his future life throws a lustre over an humble birth, the reward will not only be great, but his name will stand higher on the roll of honor and virtue, than he who can only boast of his proud descent.

  James Ellis

  Home, Humble, Men

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

  Sallust

  Brave, Victory, Adverse

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

  Mike Royko

  Hollywood, Likes, Conscience

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• 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

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• 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

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• 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.

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• A French traveler with a sore throat is a wonderful thing to behold, but it takes more than tonsillitis to prevent a Frenchman from boasting.

  Paul Theroux

  Wonderful, Sore Throat, Traveler

  Paul Theroux (1989). “The Old Patagonian Express: By Train Through the Americas”, p.244, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Canada, as you know, is a major important nation boasting a sophisticated, cosmopolitan culture that was tragically destroyed last week by beavers.

  Dave Barry

  Funny, Humorous, Important

  Dave Barry (2010). “Dave Barry Talks Back”, p.47, Crown Archetype

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• Although it was constructed in 1536, the New York subway system boasts an annual maintenance budget of nearly $8, currently stolen, and it does a remarkable job of getting New Yorkers from Point A to an indeterminate location somewhere in the tunnel leading to point B.

  Dave Barry

  Funny, Jobs, New York

  Dave Barry (2010). “Dave Barry's Greatest Hits”, p.66, Ballantine Books

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• There is no relationship here between Church and State. Religious liberty has its unalterable place, along with civil and human liberty, in the very foundation of the Republic. I hold it [religious intolerance] to be a menace to the very liberties which we boast and cherish.

  Warren G. Harding

  Religious, Church, Liberty

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• It is not easy to conceive of anything that would be more unfortunate in a community based upon the ideals of which Americans boast than any considerable development of intolerance as regards religion.

  Calvin Coolidge

  Community, Church, Would Be

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• 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

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• 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

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• You can gain experience, if you are careful to avoid empty redundancy. Do not fall into the error of the artisan who boasts of twenty years experience in craft while in fact he has had only one year of experience–twenty times. And never resent the advantage of experience your elders have. Recall that they have paid for this experience in the coin of life, and have emptied a purse that cannot be refilled.

  Trevanian

  Fall, Errors, Years

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