"Self-confidence" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... for Pharaoh's golden chariot-wheels," lost in that famous pursuit. Is it possible, in the nature of things, for such an expedition to be made by any but an American? It takes a strong Bible faith, allied to a simple but strong self-confidence, to start a man on such an adventure. The curious transforming magic of the sea had its effect on the Arab dragoman he had engaged to assist him. Having settled on the exact spot, the swart Arabian ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... attract attention in public; who speaks loudly, and jokes and laughs and tells stories in order to be heard by others than her immediate companions; who dresses conspicuously; who enjoys being the object of remark; who expresses opinions on all subjects with forward self-confidence, is rightly regarded by all thoughtful and cultivated people as one of the most disagreeable and obnoxious characters to be met with in society. Modesty is one of the loveliest of graces, and should ...
— Letters to a Daughter and A Little Sermon to School Girls • Helen Ekin Starrett
... them intelligently; but Charlie labors under no such restraints. Once he went into the Louvre, but it was to get out of the rain. Except for an acute sense of smell, he could not detect an oil painting from a water color, even if he should try; and except for an abnormal self-confidence he would hesitate in the first step of criticism—a careful consideration of the value of the canvas as compared with that of the frame. It is therefore because Charlie is the only self-admitted art critic who knows nothing whatever of the subject, that his opinions are so interesting, ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... Desbrosses Trust & Guaranty Company, had not only pleased him, but the success that had attended his efforts to adjust the traction company's difficulties without resorting to the courts had strengthened his waning self-confidence. He even appeared in a new suit of clothes, and with his beard cut shorter than he usually wore it,—changes that evoked the raillery in which Phil liked to indulge herself. He was promised the care of certain other Western interests of the Trust Company, ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... to discover that I have not told you," she said gravely. In her manner there was a subdued dignity which he had noticed recently—something of the self-confidence of the very young and unspoiled—which, considering all things, he ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... sort of sustenance she would look for from my sagacity. And as to taking stock of the wares of my mind no one I imagine is anxious to do that sort of thing if it can be avoided. A vaguely grandiose state of mental self-confidence is much too agreeable to be disturbed recklessly by such a delicate investigation. Perhaps if I had had a helpful woman at my elbow, a dear, flattering acute, devoted woman... There are in life moments when one positively regrets not being married. ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... to you now—though, by the way, I've never said it before— that your self-confidence is appalling. Don't you know that I'm very popular, that they say I'm clever, and that I'm a ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... and deportment, his sense of justice and emotional tenderness, but none of his vitality, impulse or hope. Jack has his ambition and push, keenness and self-confidence; but he is not so good-humoured in a losing game. Frank has more of his straight tongue and appreciation of beautiful things, ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith
... could get a job now. Not much of a position, perhaps, but something self-respecting and fairly well-paying. It would teach you many things. You might get a knowledge of human nature that no college could give you. But there's something—poise—self-confidence—assurance—that nothing but college can give you. You will find yourself in those three years. After you finish college you'll have difficulty in fitting into your proper niche, perhaps, and you'll want to curse the day on which ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber
... a round-shouldered, middle-sized woman, who had once had the transient pink-and-white beauty of a blonde, with ill-defined features and early embonpoint. Miss Assher was tall, and gracefully though substantially formed, carrying herself with an air of mingled graciousness and self-confidence; her dark-brown hair, untouched by powder, hanging in bushy curls round her face, and falling in long thick ringlets nearly to her waist. The brilliant carmine tint of her well-rounded cheeks, and the finely-cut ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... her quizzically, bowed to her with his head, and retired among the rest of the company. He possessed a brazen self-confidence and decided, at ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... Kant had been little used to contradiction. His superb understanding, his brilliancy in conversation, founded in part upon his ready and sometimes rather caustic wit, and in part upon his prodigious command of knowledge—the air of noble self-confidence which the consciousness of these advantages impressed upon his manners—and the general knowledge of the severe innocence of his life—all combined to give him a station of superiority to others, ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... to its associates. 2. Patience, or submission to discipline and training. 3. Courage, which gives self-confidence and steadiness. 4. A disposition ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... Krishna may not be regarded as having been acquiesced in by us. And impelled by a belief in their power and great assurance, the kings, deprived of reason through anger, began to say this. And being moved by self-confidence and smarting under the insult offered unto them, the monarchs repeatedly exclaimed thus. Though their friends sought to appease them, their faces glowed with anger like those of roaring lions driven away from their preys. Krishna then understood that the vast sea ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... thinking of so perilous a position, on which calumny and persecution were the inevitable attendants. 'Of that,' Hamilton answered, 'I am aware; but I am convinced it is the situation in which I can do most good.'" He had the same just self-confidence that Cromwell felt, when he said to John Hampden that he would effect something for the Parliamentary cause, and that William Pitt felt in 1757, when he said to the Duke of Devonshire, "My Lord, I am sure that I can save ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... where he was, and was sober in an instant. So this was their new home, the only place they had to stay in and expect anything of on this earth! And as he looked out over the big yard, where the dinner-bell was just sounding and calling servants and day-laborers out of all the doors, all his self-confidence vanished. A despairing feeling of helplessness overwhelmed him, and made his face tremble with impotent concern for ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... exclusive property of his own coterie. And as Shakespeare had the faculty of absorbing all new ideas afloat in the air, he would hardly have escaped the influence of the teacher who proclaimed in proud self-confidence that he was come to arouse men out of their theological stagnation. His influence on Bacon is more evident, because of their friendly associations. Bruno lectured at Oxford, but the English university found less favor in his eyes than English ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... he wished was a chance to fight, for he had the fighting temperament, and he knew that, in the long run, an enemy can only be beaten by being out-fought, as well as out-manoeuvered. He possessed a splendid self-confidence, and scornfully threw aside any idea that he would be defeated, while he utterly refused to be daunted by the rumors of the formidable nature of the defenses against which he was to act. "I mean to be whipped or to whip my enemy, and not to be ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt
... will not. I know his nature well," returned the princess, kissing, and trying to reassure her friend, whose timid look and tearful eyes seemed to indicate that all her self-confidence and courage were vanishing. "He loves you already, and love is a preventive of hate as well as ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne
... slate washed clean,' as Dolly says, and we can begin all over again?" She held out her hand, entreatingly, and the shy lad took it for a moment, then dropped it as if its touch had burned. A sudden wave of his old bashfulness had swept over him, for though he had gained much self-confidence during those weeks in camp it would be a long time before he conquered the timidity of his nature, if ...
— Dorothy's Travels • Evelyn Raymond
... the Frenchman's enthusiastic self-confidence. He had a great admiration for the constructor of the Jules Verne, and, besides, the proposed adventure was exactly after his own heart. After meditating a while, he ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss
... credulous and confiding. Children of that character if reared by timid and over-fond parents, are deprived of the rough contact with society that is necessary to their development. There are many whom the lack of self-confidence, the lack of ambition, and lack of business energy condemn to an obscure life, when their intellectual capacities would fit them for an influential position. A kind but mistaken system of training ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, August 1887 - Volume 1, Number 7 • Various
... estimates, the strength of the five Iroquois nations must now have been considerably less than three thousand warriors. Their true superiority was a moral one. They were in one of those transports of pride, self-confidence, and rage for ascendency, which, in a savage people, marks an era of conquest. With all the defects of their organization, it was far better than that of their neighbors. There were bickerings, jealousies, plottings, and counter plottings, ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... nature, he adopted the course which in the long-run will be found to have been the wisest.... I do not like to speak too confidently of the future. Of course their victory of last year has increased the self-confidence of the Chinese Government, and rendered it more arrogant in its tone. Nevertheless, I am of opinion that the result will prove that I estimated correctly their power of resistance; that we have spent in our armaments against ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... meed of merit or victory the unfailing guerdon of heroism.[105] Such wisdom as is within man's reach is often a positive disadvantage in life, owing to the modesty it inspires as pitted against the self-confidence of noisy fools. Besides, should it contrive to build up a stately structure, a small dose of folly, with which all human wisdom is largely alloyed, is capable, in an instant, of undoing the work of years.[106] In a word, the wise man is often worse off than ...
— The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur • Emile Joseph Dillon
... that all who desire to serve him, should seek his will by listening to those whom he has commanded us to hear, and whom he has sent in his own name and appointed to be our guides. So perfectly would he abolish in his servants all self-confidence and presumption, the source of error and illusion. The convert, rising from the ground, found that, though his eyes were open, he saw nothing. Providence sent this corporal blindness to be an emblem of the spiritual blindness in which he had lived, and to signify to him that he was ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... this green squadron, had succeeded instead in greatly increasing their confidence in themselves. The enemy had come to sow destruction; they had actually planted a seed that sprang instantly from the ground, bearing the bold and sturdy flower of self-confidence. Old dogs of war had been unleashed, and now a new pack ...
— Aces Up • Covington Clarke
... there like an early Christian refugee in the catacombs; but what little faith he had in the success of his enterprise was oozing out at his finger-tips. At a dark turn under a gas bracket whose flame was half turned down his self-confidence abandoned him altogether. ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... comparison. Both works set forth the same conflict between humanity and its gods and governments, issuing in the redemption of man from their tyranny by the growth of his will into perfect strength and self-confidence; and both finish by a lapse into panacea-mongering didacticism by the holding up of Love as the remedy for all evils and the solvent ...
— The Perfect Wagnerite - A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring • George Bernard Shaw
... indestructible, but he had put an end to one, aided by luck and a very rough weapon. With that to bolster his self-confidence to a higher notch, Shann dropped by cautious degrees over the bank and down to the water's edge. When his boots splashed into the oily flood he began to tramp downstream, feeling the pull of the water, first ankle high and then about his calves. This early in the season ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... himself plunged into the urgent practical activities of the world. Our happiness was the happiness which comes of intense toil, with no fatigue to dog it, and from a consciousness of the vital issues which we were pursuing. But my companions had still intellectual faults and preferences, self-confidence, critical intolerance, boisterousness, wilfulness. Stranger still, I found coldness, anger, jealousy, still at work. Of course in the latter case reconciliation was easier, both in the light of common enthusiasm and, still more, because mental communication ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson
... deemed one of the strongest on any front, had collapsed beneath the Italian assaults; though the crest of the Carso still remained in Austrian hands, the gateway to Trieste had been opened; and most important of all, the Italian people had gained the self-confidence which they had long lacked and which comes ...
— Italy at War and the Allies in the West • E. Alexander Powell
... once the part of a man, it would seem hardly possible for her to go through the undertaking without more of self-confidence than were becoming in a woman: and the student may find plenty of matter for thought in the Poet's so managing as to prevent such an impression. For there is nothing like ostentation or conceit of intellect in Portia. Though ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... capable of administering physic enough to settle the question with the Yankees, soon became an object of great admiration with his noisy people. And this so pleased him, that he came in time to admire himself, and to firmly believe in his own mind that the world had no greater warrior. Self-confidence, my son, is one of the most necessary things in war. I have sometimes thought that this element of an army's strength was not fully understood. It was at least not understood by us when the war began. If it had been, a much less number ...
— Siege of Washington, D.C. • F. Colburn Adams
... announcement of his death. "My actions," he wrote, "have been so inconsiderable in the world, that the most durable monument will not perpetuate my folly while it lasts." It is evident that Gouverneur did not inherit from him the almost bumptious self-confidence which was to mar more than help him. That inherent defect came from his mother, who gave him, also, a brilliancy and versatility that other members of the family did not share, making him more conspicuously active in high places during the ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... irresistible impulse; and before Sims could make any remark he had crossed the intervening space to where the lady at whom he had pointed was sitting, and was bowing and scraping, and smiling with the greatest self-confidence. ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... the self-confidence needed are certainly admirable. And then there is a cringing and almost contemptible littleness about honesty, which hardly allows it to assert itself. The really honest man can never say a word to make those who don't ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... the mighty and illustrious authorities in the matter of the feminine toilette, pointed out to her by Chatelet, for she had written to tell the Marquise d'Espard of her arrival. Mme. de Bargeton possessed the self-confidence born of a long habit of rule, but she was exceedingly afraid of appearing to be provincial. She had tact enough to know how greatly the relations of women among themselves depend upon first impressions; and though she felt that she was equal to ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... believes with all his heart and soul in the future of his country and in the powers of the American people. What Whitman called their "barbaric yawp" may yet turn into the lordliest speech and thought, but without self-confidence a race will go no whither. If Irish people do not believe they can equal or surpass the stature of any humanity which has been upon the globe, then they had better all emigrate and become servants to some superior ...
— Imaginations and Reveries • (A.E.) George William Russell
... his breakfast, and a little later walked in to town. He was in exuberant spirits, and his thoughts were high on the scaffolding where his future was building. Success and Eugenia startled, allured, delighted him. He was at the age of sublime self-confidence, but his eyes were not bandaged by it. He knew that without success—such success as he dreamed of—there could be, for him, no Eugenia. He believed in her as he believed in the sun, and yet he was not sure of her—he ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... to a steadier mind, pouring honest contempt upon his momentary lapse from self-confidence. He was ashamed of it. It amounted to being silly, simply silly. He couldn't understand, couldn't account for it. What possessed him to get a regular scare like this? It was too absurd for words. Sentiment?—Yes, by all ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... inherit knowledge and skill, and it is certainly fair to presume that human beings do the same. No person will be likely to practice surgery without having had a course of training, unless he has great confidence in himself, and self-confidence makes one resolute. Mr. Hutton, it is said, never administered an anaesthetic and never employed an assistant. He was very strong, quick, and active. He jerked a bone into place in an instant, while he was telling a story, and before the sufferer knew what was about to happen. He had a most ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, November 1887 - Volume 1, Number 10 • Various
... although the flash died away at once, he was happy for that moment. She glanced at her husband to find out whether he knew Vronsky. Alexey Alexandrovitch looked at Vronsky with displeasure, vaguely recalling who this was. Vronsky's composure and self-confidence here struck, like a scythe against a stone, upon the ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... march; but the officers and men of each particular city should always be prepared for the advent of danger in their own quarters. The course of war cannot be foreseen, and its attacks are generally dictated by the impulse of the moment; and where overweening self-confidence has despised preparation, a wise apprehension often been able to make head against superior numbers. Not that confidence is out of place in an army of invasion, but in an enemy's country it should also be accompanied by the precautions ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... made, but advised me for the present to turn my attention to the physical rather than the moral sciences. "These studies," said he, "store a man's mind with valuable facts, and at the same time repress self-confidence, by letting him know how boundless are the realms of knowledge, and how little we can possibly know. Whereas metaphysical studies, though of an ingenious order of intellectual employment, are apt to bewilder some minds ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... piano-forte, when the weather was pleasant enough to sit on the piazza or to walk on the prairie. To Albert the parlor was full of associations of the days in which he had studied botany with Helen Minorkey. And the bitter memory of the mistakes of the year before, was a perpetual check to his self-confidence now. So that he prepared himself to listen with meekness even to ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston
... scientific theories are made. Browne, however, used his love of details for another purpose: he co-ordinated them, not into a scientific theory, but into a work of art. His method was one which, to be successful, demanded a self-confidence, an imagination, and a technical power, possessed by only the very greatest artists. Everyone knows Pascal's overwhelming sentence:—'Le silence eternel de ces espaces infinis m'effraie.' It is overwhelming, obviously and immediately; it, so to speak, knocks one ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... wretch who has been drowned in its treacherous waters fully attest. More than one prospector, cattleman, or even cattle and horse "rustler" (as in Arizona parlance a cattle and horse-thief is known), with too great self-confidence, has attempted to cross on a log, in a leaky skiff, or in a canvas boat, and ere he was aware of his danger, the current had swept him out of reach of all help. It is a river to know ere you risk yourself ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James
... much less a picturesque course of action, unless it was all in the day's work. Well, History had condescended to such as he; this whole brilliant adventure had become the day's work. He had got into it after all, along with Victor and the Marine and other fellows who had more imagination and self-confidence in the first place. Three years ago he used to sit moping by the windmill because he didn't see how a Nebraska farmer boy had any "call," or, indeed, any way, to throw himself into the struggle in France. He used enviously to read ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... rode as hard as he drank. Even in moments of political peril, the first despatch he would open was the letter from his gamekeeper. There was the temper of the Norfolk fox-hunter in the "doggedness" which Marlborough noted as his characteristic, in the burly self-confidence which declared "If I had not been Prime Minister I should have been Archbishop of Canterbury," in the stubborn courage which conquered the awkwardness of his earlier efforts to speak or met single-handed at the last the bitter attacks of a host of enemies. There was the same temper ...
— History of the English People, Volume VII (of 8) - The Revolution, 1683-1760; Modern England, 1760-1767 • John Richard Green
... would have shrunk. She thought, forsooth, as the old proverb says, that she could deal in honey, without putting her hand to her mouth. But Lancelot knew better, and marked her for his own. And daily his self-confidence and sense of rightful power developed, and with them, paradoxical as it may seem, the bitterest self-abasement. The contact of her stainless innocence, the growing certainty that the destiny of that innocence was irrevocably bound up with his own, made him shrink from ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... attained by the introduction of scientific psychological methods. So far in most factories the laborer who is not doing well simply loses his position, and by such an unfortunate experience he is not mentally enriched but impoverished, as he has lost much of his self-confidence and of his ...
— Psychology and Industrial Efficiency • Hugo Muensterberg
... days Lanyard's faith in himself was a beautiful thing. He could not have enjoyed the immunity ascribed to the Lone Wolf as long as he had without gaining a power of sturdy self-confidence in addition to a certain amount of temperate contempt for spies of the law and all ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... nostrils of Dalis quivered as though with fear. His face was white with his illness; but out of his eyes peered the fanatic self-confidence ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science July 1930 • Various
... but they exercise it now for worthier ends than of old. Similarly, the Dutch stolidity which amuses us in the chronicles, reappears to-day in the form of steadiness and judgment; the obstinacy of headstrong Peter, as self-confidence and perseverance; the physical grossness of the old burghers, as constitutional vigor. Many of their customs too have come down to us; their heavy afternoon teas are recalled in our informal receptions; their New Year's Day sociability in our ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... adapted herself to circumstances. As a boy she assumed the character so perfectly that no one would suspect her of being aught else. She was a French gamin, with all the shrewdness, impudence, and self-confidence of the class. As he saw her at her father's in female attire something of the boy's nature seemed still to influence her. There was still a touch of sauciness in her manner, and something of defiance, as if she resented his knowledge of her in her other ...
— At Agincourt • G. A. Henty
... raw self-confidence. "I'm not one to run away; but I'll promise to keep my eye on the fellow after this and be cautious. All his schemes aren't in the same class as those mining shares, ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss
... musculus superbus. In some photographs of patients affected by a monomania of pride, sent me by Dr. Crichton Browne, the head and body were held erect, and the mouth firmly closed. This latter action, expressive of decision, follows, I presume, from the proud man feeling perfect self-confidence in himself. The whole expression of pride stands in direct antithesis to that of humility; so that nothing need here be said of the latter state ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin
... hold his own against the fire of objections with which Kellogg would undoubtedly seek to shake his stand. Kellogg could talk, Heaven alone knew how winningly he could talk! with all the sound logic of a close reasoner, all the enthusiasm of youth and self-confidence, all the persuasiveness of profound conviction singular to successful men. Duncan had been wont to say of him that Kellogg could talk the hind-leg off of a mule. He recalled this now with a sour grin: ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... Her self-confidence and satisfaction measurably dashed, she climbed down, so fearful of betraying herself to the person on the roof that she went to the absurd extreme of gathering her skirts up tightly to still ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... and proud of their faith. According to them principles are true and must be applied without reservation;[2227] whoever would stop half-way is wanting in courage or intelligence. As for themselves their minds are made up to push through. With the self-confidence of youth and of theorists they draw their own conclusions and hug themselves with their strong belief in them. "These ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... speak of wealth, but his cheek paled with gnawing envy. The astonishing natural advantages of this poor boy—his beauty, his readiness, the daring spirit that breathed around him like a fiery atmosphere—had raised his constitutional self-confidence into an arrogance that turned his very claims to admiration into prejudices against him. Irascible, envious—bad enough, but not the worst, for these salient angles were all varnished over with a cold, repellant cynicism, his passions vented themselves in sneers. There seemed to ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... to walk about the room in his nervous, restless way, looking at Peter's things. Peter's room was rather pleasing. Everything in it had the air of being the selection of a personal and discriminating affection. There was a serene self-confidence about Peter's tastes; he always knew precisely what he liked, irrespective of what anyone else liked. If he had happened to admire "The Soul's Awakening" he would beyond doubt have hung a copy of it in his room. What he had, as a matter ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... much of an oarsman. Big and strong, and heretofore so successful that his large self-confidence had never been badly jolted, he was quite at a disadvantage, this June afternoon, as he attempted to row pretty Annette Neil across the head of the lake to where she said the fishing was good. Twice already he had splashed her dainty, starched frock, ironed, he knew, in the ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll
... quality and greater speed than foreigners. We have in our officers the exact stuff we want. Their very sports and amusements start them with all the makings of cavalry soldiers. But the quickness of eye, the self-confidence and readiness that these sports and games may give, require nowadays more than ever something beyond this to produce the trained cavalry leader. Cavalry is an arm of opportunity, and above all others depends greatly on its leaders, but with the chances ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 664, September 22,1888 • Various
... In spite of her defence of her aunt's system and her own love of independence and self-confidence, she did feel conscious that the three of them were left in some ways too much to themselves: her sister's tone was not quite what a young lady's should be in ...
— Robin Redbreast - A Story for Girls • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... to spend and work for his own rights' sake, but no niggard of time or money in larger causes; sincere in his convictions, dauntless in affirming and upholding them, hardly conceiving that honest men could differ from them; strong in his self-confidence, believing that the best men always won, suspecting from the bottom of his heart every appeal to sentiment in the mouth of a politician. Such he was—a type of the man of success, with the hardness that success is apt to bring, but with the virtues that attain it; ...
— Half a Hero - A Novel • Anthony Hope
... with great phlegm and good nature, based, perhaps, on an invincible self-confidence. When his "Sigismonde" had been hissed at Venice, he sent his mother a fiasco (bottle). In the last instance he sent her, on the morning succeeding the first performance, a letter with a picture ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris
... and Pharpar, when he came on this next evening to discourse up-to-date wisdom in his father's ears; not a hair of his well-groomed head showed the ruffling of perturbed thoughts within, nor were his self-confidence and easy satisfaction in the moral and mental liberties wherein he ranged at large in any ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... other women, curiously. She was not quite sure of herself, but she was not in the least afraid or apologetic. She seemed to sit there on the edge, emerging from one world into another, taking her bearings, getting an idea of the concerted movement about her, but with absolute self-confidence. So far from shrinking, she expanded. The mere kindly effort to please Dr. Archie was enough ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... the result of the two successive Balkan Wars, though these had exhausted the material resources of the two countries, was a justifiable return of national self-confidence and rejoicing such as the people, humiliated and impoverished as it had habitually been by its internal and external troubles, had not known for very many years. At last Serbia and Montenegro had joined hands. ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth
... of circumstances, came the pressing need of service for his father's sake. It was a call upon his deepest strength, and he responded bravely. While the future might be doubtful, he had no doubt of himself; and this very state of mind, this self-confidence, by a generous alchemy, gave him added resolution. Nor did he fail to be vaguely aware of it, and to grasp dimly at the truth that ...
— The Cruise of the Dazzler • Jack London
... moving aside to let the children pass out. "No more than might have been expected; it's no use, though. Marston will settle that little affair in a very quiet way." He gives the man-vender a look of approval; the very celebrated Mr. Graspum has self-confidence enough for "six folks what don't deal in niggers." A bystander touching him on the arm, he gives his head a cunning shake, crooks his finger on his red nose. "Just a thing of that kind," he whispers, making some very delicate legal gesticulations ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... besetting the way of the enthusiast; and behold, he had stumbled into the first sentimental trap in his path, and tricked his eyes with a Christmas-chromo vision of lovely woman dispensing coals and blankets! Luckily, though such wounds to his self-confidence cut deep, he could apply to them the antiseptic of an unfailing humour; and before he had finished dressing, the picture of his wide schemes of social reform contracting to a blue-eyed philanthropy ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... the power of self-confidence over everyone else, that Aunt M'riar entrusted twopence to this youth, quite forgetting that he was only eleven. Yet her faith in him was not ill-founded, for he returned like an echo as to promptitude. Only, unlike the echo, ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... Pomponia disturbed his understanding of women to such a degree that that man, corrupted to the marrow of his bones, and self-confident as no one in Rome, not only felt for her a kind of esteem, but even lost his previous self-confidence. And now, thanking her for her care of Vinicius, he thrust in, as it were involuntarily, "domina," which never occurred to him when speaking, for example, to Calvia Crispinilla, Scribonia, Veleria, Solina, and other women of high society. After ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... apartment was fit for a prince, that his man servant was perfection, that he had his own pet affectations in the matter of monogrammed linen, Italian stationery, and specially designed speed cars. His manner with servants, his ready check book, his easy French, and his unruffled self-confidence in any imaginable contingency, coupled with his youth, had strong attraction for a woman conscious of the financial restrictions of her own early years and the limitations of her public ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris
... self-confidence are not sufficient by themselves to enable a class to attain to this emancipatory position, and thereby exploit politically all social spheres in the interest of its own sphere. In order that the revolution of a people should coincide with the ...
— Selected Essays • Karl Marx
... Manila is 630 miles, and it needed only a little figuring on the part of the inhabitants to decide that the dreaded squadron would be due on the following Saturday evening or early the next morning, which would be the first of May. The self-confidence of Admiral Montojo and his officers was almost sublime. All they asked was a fair chance at the "American pigs." They hoped that nothing would occur to prevent the coming of the fleet, for the Spaniards ...
— Dewey and Other Naval Commanders • Edward S. Ellis
... scarcely five feet tall, was in outward appearance and bearing the most truly royal and imposing prince I have ever seen. His stature, rising nearly two inches over the tallest of those around him, perhaps added to the effect of a mien remarkable for dignity, composure, and self-confidence. The predominant and most immediately observable expression of his face was one of serene calm and command. A closer inspection and a longer experience explained why, notwithstanding, my first conception of his character (and it was a true one) ascribed to him quite ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... and temperament. It was large, and of a cast which glowed (I say literally glowed) when he spoke with feeling or interest. I never saw such another eye in a human head, though I have seen the most distinguished men of my time. His conversation expressed perfect self-confidence, without the slightest presumption. Among the men who were the most learned of their time and country, he expressed himself with perfect firmness, but without the least intrusive forwardness; and when he differed an opinion, he did not ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... found himself. He had taken the line prescribed by his idiosyncrasy. His father's injudicious forcing had increased his shyness at the bar, and he was like an owl in daylight. But no one, as we shall see, was less diffident in speculation. Self-confidence in a philosopher is often the private credit which he opens with his imagination to compensate for his incapacity in the rough struggles of active life. Bentham shrank from the world in which he was easily ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... good-bye to his master, and over a glass of wine heartily thanked his friend, the commercial traveller, for having given him self-confidence and will,—"will, that iron bar, which keeps a man's back erect and prevents him from grovelling on all fours." And he swore a solemn oath never to forget his friend, who had taught him ...
— In Midsummer Days and Other Tales • August Strindberg
... fair proportion of good soil, and any amount of water-power. Then for inhabitants, you've got the Scotchman, cautious and far-seeing; the Irishman, a little hot and heady, perhaps, but earnest; you've got the Englishman, who'll never fail of his aim for want of self-confidence, anyhow; you've got Frenchmen, Germans, and a sprinkling of the dark element out west; and you've got what we didn't have to begin with, you've got the Yankee element, and that is considerable more than you seem to think ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... passed upstairs, his firm, heavy steps resounding through the house. Johnson could hear his boots creaking as he walked about the floor above him, and the sound was a consolation to him. It was crisp and decided, the tread of a man who had plenty of self-confidence. Presently, still straining his ears to catch what was going on, he heard the scraping of a chair as it was drawn along the floor, and a moment later he heard the door fly open and someone come rushing downstairs. Johnson ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... can say? Was it because of those Spanish hidalgoes wrecked on the Irish coast long since? Her mind and her tongue, however, were Irish like her father's. You would have liked her, everybody did,—yet you would have thought that nature had failed in self-confidence for once, she was so pointedly designed to express the ancient dame's colour-scheme, even to the delicate auriferous down on her youthful cheek and the purse-proud look of her faintly retrousse nose; though in fact she never had had a purse and scarcely needed one. In any case she had an ample ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... valued that four days' experience very highly at that juncture as I felt that it was experience, at any rate, and would no doubt help me in the way of giving me self-confidence. ...
— Twenty Years of Hus'ling • J. P. Johnston
... canoeing had hitherto been slight. Karlsefin and his bowman Krake were indeed tolerably expert, having practised a good deal with the Scottish brothers, but Thorward turned out to be an uncommonly bad canoe-man; nevertheless, with the self-confidence natural to a good seaman, and one who was expert with the oar, he scouted the idea that anything connected with fresh-water voyaging could prove difficult to him, and resolutely claimed and took his position as one of the steersmen of the expedition. His bowman, Tyrker, as ill luck would have it, ...
— The Norsemen in the West • R.M. Ballantyne
... brow above deeply set small eyes of a pale conspicuous blue. The nose, aquiline and large; the mouth large also, but thin-lipped and flexible; slight hollows in the cheeks, and a long, lantern jaw. The whole figure made an impression of ease, power, and self-confidence. ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Hsi called the young man to her, and addressing him by name told him to fetch his knife, as she intended to carry out her husband's wishes and supply the Refuges with the necessary medicine without delay. Abashed, and half-ashamed by her self-confidence and dignity, he muttered excuses and left her ...
— The Fulfilment of a Dream of Pastor Hsi's - The Story of the Work in Hwochow • A. Mildred Cable
... endeared him to children; he could do almost anything you please—save stay in one place and acquire material possessions. The fact that he had never done a thing before was to him no proof of his inability to do it. In his superb self-confidence he would have undertaken to conduct the orchestra at Covent Garden or navigate a liner across the Atlantic. Knowing this, I cease to bother my head about so small a matter as the way in which he learned to drive ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... adventurous pursuit kept me in contact with the sea where I found occupation, protection, consolation, the mental relief of grappling with concrete problems, the sanity one acquires from close contact with simple mankind, a little self-confidence born from the dealings with the elemental powers of nature. I couldn't give all that up. And besides all this was related to Dona Rita. I had, as it were, received it all from her own hand, from that hand the clasp of which was as frank as a man's and yet conveyed a unique sensation. The very ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... effaced on my soul, of course I could not tell him about. But when we went back to the car he said to me that he would help me to get back into the sunlight. He said the first thing I must do to regain self-confidence was to begin driving again. I told him I could not, but he said I must, and made me take the driver's seat of a car I had never seen and take the steering wheel of a make of machine I had never driven, and tackle two or three serious problems for a driver. I did it all right, Linda, ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... were more gracious to him, but certainly they appeared to take him more for granted. In a hundred little ways, he seemed to perceive that he was no longer held mentally at arm's length as a stranger to their caste. Of course, his own restored self-confidence could account for much of this, but he clung to the whimsical conceit that much was also due to the fact that he was the man of ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... of his high regard for the Douglas name, whose house, kin, and friends were more dear to him than any in Scotland, and of affection to the young Earl himself. Perhaps this was the turning-point, though the young gallant in his heyday of power and self-confidence was all unconscious of it; perhaps he received the advice too lightly, or laughed at the seriousness of his counsellor. At all events, when the gay band took horse again and proceeded towards Edinburgh, suspicion began to steal among ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... quite the strangest emotion he had ever experienced in his life. His usual serene self-confidence and easy flow of words deserted him, and Verisschenzko, watching him, began to link certain ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn
... no wonder, therefore, that Augustus was at length compelled to allow himself disappointed. That it was the fault of his self-confidence made the thing no whit better. He was too much of a man not to cherish a certain tenderness for her, but he soon found to his dismay that it had begun to be mingled with a shadow of contempt. Against this he struggled, but with fluctuating success. He stopped later and later at business, and ...
— Stephen Archer and Other Tales • George MacDonald
... Hicks" quoth the irrepressible youth, swaggering toward the door with an affected nonchalant self-confidence that aroused Butch to wrath, and vastly amused his companions. "I'll admit a human juggernaut like Coach Corridan dreams of will be hard to round up, but, I'll have an inspiration soon. Don't worry about your old eleven, your problem will be solved, and you will have a team ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... the above be frequently carried out. Indeed, one will notice that the already indicated exercises, indirectly, gradually yield that which at first does not seem to be in them. A person endowed with but little self-confidence, for instance, finds in the course of time, that by persistent practice the needed confidence in himself has come about. And it is the same with ...
— An Outline of Occult Science • Rudolf Steiner
... nonsense is talked in the name of philosophy," he observed, in a tone of gay self-confidence peculiar to him, and more indicative of character than even what he said. "People seem to think that they have only to quote Spencer or Huxley, or take an interest in heredity, to justify themselves in throwing off all ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... was scanty; but the parental consent, or rather the parental tolerance, was at last obtained for his experiment. The future author of the "Pere Goriot" was at this time but twenty years of age, and in the way of symptoms of genius had nothing but a very robust self-confidence to show. His family, who had to contribute to his support while his masterpieces were a-making, appear to have regretted, the absence of further guarantees. He came to Paris, however, and lodged in a garret, where the allowance ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... in vain to attempt fixing his attention on critical distinctions of philology, upon the difference of idiom, the beauty of felicitous expression, or the artificial combinations of syntax. 'I can read and understand a Latin author,' said young Edward, with the self-confidence and rash reasoning of fifteen, 'and Scaliger or Bentley could not do much more.' Alas! while he was thus permitted to read only for the gratification of his amusement, he foresaw not that he was losing for ever the opportunity of acquiring habits of firm and assiduous application, ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... Burke, regaining his self-confidence, saw that she was not an enemy, but an appreciative spectator, and his face broke up in a smile, ...
— The Happiest Time of Their Lives • Alice Duer Miller
... hostile Kaffir tribes. The Government, therefore, refrained from preventive measures, and confined its efforts to discouraging the emigration and to reconcile the malcontents. Those efforts, however, proved fruitless; the people held to their project with resolute fearlessness and self-confidence, and were even content to sacrifice their farms and homesteads, their sale being in some cases forbidden ...
— Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed (2nd ed.) - The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked • C. H. Thomas
... she rang the bell, for all her distaste of the task had returned with redoubled force, but her self-confidence was soon restored under the genial warmth of the ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt
... Now as she looked at me across the room, all self-confidence trickled away from me. What distinguished me from a thousand men she might meet on any city street? What had I ever said worth note in the hours we had spent together? Now she saw me in the light, plainly commonplace; and remembering myself lame, I stood amazed at the audacity with which ...
— The Thing from the Lake • Eleanor M. Ingram
... have made the suggestion if I weren't more or less of an expert in such matters." Storm said this with almost aggressive self-confidence. One had to believe that he knew what he was talking about; that his apparently mysterious past included the management of hotels, and this instinctive if reluctant credence was a tribute to the man's magnetic power. He did look the last ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)
... And the very risk she had run, was not that too a matter of deliberate speculation? She might succeed in her design upon Narramore; if she failed, the 'poorer man was still to be counted upon, for she knew the extent of her power over him. It was worth the endeavour. Perhaps, in her insolent self-confidence, she did not fear the effect on Narramore of the disclosure that might be made to him. And who could say that her boldness was not likely to ...
— Eve's Ransom • George Gissing
... influences come, which change our happiness into discouragement, and our self-confidence into diffidence? One might almost say that the air, the invisible air is full of unknowable Forces, whose mysterious presence we have to endure. I wake up in the best spirits, with an inclination to sing in my throat. Why? I go down by the side of the water, and suddenly, ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... apply to a successful man. Not too much caution—slow but sure is the thing. The highest monuments are built piece by piece. Step by step we mount the pyramids. Be bold—be resolute when the clouds gather, difficulties are surmounted by opposition. Self-confidence, self-reliance is your capital. Your conscience the best monitor. Never be over-sanguine, but do not underrate your own abilities. Don't be discouraged. [Transcriber's Note: The original text reads 'Nintynine'] Ninety-nine ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs
... laid it over the chair, cushions and all. Taking Wych Hazel's hands then, he softly transferred her from her own chair to this, and placed a cushion under her feet. Then considered her with a grave face and eyes from which no one of average self-confidence would ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner
... superiority of the admirable few who day after day could proceed with leisurely step and serene brow amid the heated, breathless, tugging, anxious multitude. It seemed to indicate a steadiness of nerve, a systematic habit, a wise and deliberate forecast, a self-control and self-confidence, and a belief in their watches, to which I never hope to attain this side of Old Charon's ferry itself. And yet somebody is nearly always late. Quite as likely, however, it is somebody who is too early,—because he really belongs to the next boat, and not to the one which is just leaving the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... Days back self-confidence had come to him in Hannah's kitchen and Adam Craig, in the course of time, had crushed it out with a keen and understanding leer. Later it had returned with Adam's death, and the weary voice of Doctor Cole ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... more patience, a little more charity for all, a little more love; with less bowing down to the past, and the silent ignoring of pretended authority; a brave looking forward to the future, with more self-confidence and more faith in our fellow men, and the race will be ripe for a great ...
— Love, Life & Work • Elbert Hubbard
... next to Lona is empty: I know I am unworthy, but may I not sleep this night in your chamber with my dead? Will you not pardon both my cowardice and my self-confidence, and take me in? I give me up. I am sick of myself, and ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald
... expected and natural ways, Alix thought. She had always had a generous share of the family devotion, but she entirely eclipsed the others now. Her daily letter from Martin, her new prospects, not only increased her importance in the other girls' eyes, but innocently inflated her own self-confidence. She received a diamond ring, and although at her father's request she did not show it for a few weeks, eventually it slipped mysteriously from the little chamois bag on her neck, and duly appeared on her left hand. She had promised to keep the engagement "or understanding, or preference," ...
— Sisters • Kathleen Norris
... blue mantle over her shoulders when she entered the house, and the touch of boyish self-confidence which had been hers on the ride was gone. In its place there was something even more difficult for Randall Byrne to face. If there had been a garish brightness about her when he had first seen her, the brilliancy of a mirror playing in the sun against his ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... again to sing, timidly, like an artist afraid of an impending interruption. He uttered a few disconnected notes with anxious rests between them—love sighs they seemed, broken by sobs of passion. Then gradually he took courage, regained self-confidence, and entered on his full song, just as a soft breeze rose, swept over the island, and set all the trees and ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... mind; but still, with all the confidence of one who has had but few trials, she was grieved that any one should suppose she could for a moment forget her heavenly Father, or prefer any thing to His glory and honour. She repeated what her mother had said to her brother Harry, and he increased her self-confidence by recalling a great many little sacrifices she had made, which he was quite sure other young persons would ...
— Effie Maurice - Or What do I Love Best • Fanny Forester
... should succeed so quickly, so easily, even with the help of one so powerful as Helen Merival. It is my fate to work for what I get." And with this return of his belief that to himself alone he must look for victory, his self-poise and self-confidence came back. ...
— The Light of the Star - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... ushered me into the apartment where I was to preside with delegated authority, led me up a low flight of steps and waved his hand towards a high magisterial arm-chair which was to be my future throne, I felt a degree of self-confidence that surprised and encouraged me. Every thing was so novel, so fresh, it imparted an elasticity to my spirits I had not felt in Mrs. Linwood's luxurious home. Then there was something self-sustaining, inspiring in the consciousness ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... out to the stables, whither Walter Skinner followed him as if to look after the welfare of his own horse, thus confirming Humphrey's suspicion that he had recognized him. And the serving-man at once put on an air of self-confidence and pride in his own wisdom which effectually concealed his anxiety from the watching Walter Skinner. He entered into conversation with the grooms, and let fall, in a loud voice, such a weight of opinions as must have crushed any ...
— A Boy's Ride • Gulielma Zollinger
... his office when his young friend's card was brought to him. Tempted for a moment to deny his own presence, he thought: 'No! What's the good? Bound to see him some time!' If he had not exactly courage, he had that peculiar blend of self-confidence and insensibility which must needs distinguish those who follow the law; nor did he ever forget that he was in ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... made the journey twice, and intended to go every winter. "And you always bring home a big pile of money with you?" I inquired. "Nitchevo!" replied the little fellow, gaily, with an air of pride and self-confidence; "last year I brought home three roubles!" This answer was, at the moment, not altogether welcome, for I had just been discussing with a Russian fellow-traveller as to whether the peasantry can fairly ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... the carnal man still is in Peter. Christ speaks of His cross; He could understand about the glory, "Thou art the Son of God;" but about the cross and the death he could not understand, and he ventured in his self-confidence to say, "Lord, that shall never be; Thou canst not be crucified and die." And Christ had to rebuke him: "Get thee behind me, Satan. Thou savorest not the things that be of God." You are talking like a mere carnal man, and not as the Spirit of God would teach you. Then Christ ...
— The Master's Indwelling • Andrew Murray
... I would only observe that, after I had seen fraeulein Johanna repeatedly in Cardemin, after the trip we made together this summer, I have only been in doubt as to whether the attainment of my desires would be reconcilable with the happiness and peace of your daughter, and whether my self-confidence was not greater than my ability when I believed that she could find in me what she would have a right to look for in her husband. Very recently, however, together with my reliance on God's grace, the resolution which I now carry out has also ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... to those endowed with the greatest intelligence—perhaps mostly to those—takes on a somber hue. They see so many phases of its dreary subtleties. It is only when the soul of man has been built up into some strange self-confidence, some curious faith in its own powers, based, no doubt, on the actual presence of these same powers subtly involved in the body, that it fronts life unflinchingly. It would be too much to say that Cowperwood's mind was of the first order. It was subtle enough in all conscience—and involved, ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... and her friends took passage, carried a cargo for the Southern market. The crew numbered eight picked men, commanded by Eli Winslow, a talkative Vermonter, with none too much experience on the Mississippi, but overstocked with self-confidence. ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... writing which, judging from the full abstracts given in translation in the Times, appear to have been interspersed, and except the undoubting self-confidence and aplomb with which a historical survey, reversing the common ideas of mankind, was delivered, there was little new to be learned from M. Renan's treatment of his subject. Perhaps it may be described as the Roman Catholic theory of the rise of the Church, put in an infidel point of view. ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... carried her back in a rush to the dear days of childhood, when the little sister had been the pet and pride of the family. Indeed, and Pixie had had no need to blush! Her very failings had been twisted round to pose as so many assets in her favour, while her own happy self-confidence had instilled the belief that every one wanted her, every one appreciated. What cause had Pixie O'Shaughnessy ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
... be no doubt of the fact that Sylvia was really ill, and two days later Dr. Wells shook his head with dissatisfaction after using his thermometer and stethoscope. He was a conscientious man who lacked self-confidence, and the look of ...
— The Old Gray Homestead • Frances Parkinson Keyes
... inexperience, he found himself laughing quietly, and he suddenly knew that he was laughing over the interview with Joanna. And directly he had laughed, he was smitten with a sense of pathos—her bustle and self-confidence which hitherto had roused his dislike, now showed as something rather pathetic, a mere trapping of feminine weakness which would deceive no one who saw them at close quarters. Under her loud voice, her almost barbaric appearance, her queerly truculent manner, was a naive ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... to think that, but for the determination and self-confidence of quite a young author, a story that has gladdened and softened the hearts of thousands,—a story that has drawn welcome smiles and purifying tears from all who can appreciate its deftly-mingled humour and pathos,—a story that has been a boon to humanity—might have been sacrificed ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... scholarships are boarded, is a school within a school. The Collegers wear gowns and surplices in public, they have their own customs and traditions and games. It is a small, close, clever society, and produces a tough kind of self-confidence, together with a devotion to a particular tradition which is almost like a religious initiation. Perhaps if the typical Etonian is conscious of a certain absolute rightness in the eyes of the world, the typical Colleger ...
— Hugh - Memoirs of a Brother • Arthur Christopher Benson
... Cavallo to get a closer view of the phenomenon, were suddenly caught by the lava stream and enfolded in its burning clutches. For if ignorance and superstition seem to make the poor fisherman or peasant unduly alarmed on such occasions, curiosity and self-confidence are sometimes apt to lead the educated or scientific into unnecessary peril. Naples itself was once more alarmed in 1872, so that the relics of St Januarius at the furious demand of the populace were again brought forth in solemn procession, and exposed towards the face of the Mountain on the ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... his eyeglasses and began cleaning them with his handkerchief. Vaviloff looked at him sadly and respectfully. The calm face of Petunikoff, his gray eyes and clear complexion, every line of his thickset body betokened self-confidence and a well-balanced mind. Vaviloff also liked Petunikoff's straightforward manner of addressing him without any pretensions, as if he were his own brother, though Vaviloff understood well enough that he was his superior, he ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky
... record with me for future ages, he wrote as follows in my album, with a cheerfulness, an imperturbability, a serene self-confidence, past all my conceptions of a visionary ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... the admiring eyes of the novice; but he had, even then, his own ideas as to how leaders ought to be written and newspapers edited, and he did not affect to conceal them. There was something that was irresistible in his candour, his enthusiasm, and his self-confidence. The Press was the greatest agency for influencing public opinion in the world. It was the true and only lever by which Thrones and Governments could be shaken and the masses of the people raised. In all this I was in strong sympathy with his opinions. But I was staggered by the audacity of the schemes ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... it came to the point, away went all Adam's self-confidence, all Adam's pride, all Adam's fine notions of what he had a right to do; and he hides himself miserably, like a naughty and disobedient child. And then, like a mean and cowardly one, when he is called out and forced to answer for himself, he begins to make pitiful ...
— The Good News of God • Charles Kingsley
... not a man who held it good public economy to pull down on the mere chance of rebuilding better. Mr. Lincoln's faith in God was qualified by a very well-founded distrust of the wisdom of man. Perhaps it was his want of self-confidence that more than anything else won him the unlimited confidence of the people, for they felt that there would be no need of retreat from any position he had deliberately taken. The cautious, but steady, advance of his policy during the war was like that of ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various
... God arises. The ascetic character wants these; therefore in its religion there will be a harshness of outline,—a bareness, so to say,—as well as a grandeur. In life we may look for a singular purity; but also, and with equal probability, for singular self-confidence, a certain unsympathizing straitness, and perhaps ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... of conscience in all this, strongly contrasting with Sarah's want of self-confidence when travelling the same path. If Angelina suffered for her religion, no one suspected it, and for this very reason she was enabled to exert a stronger influence upon those about her than Sarah ever could have done. She herself saw the great points of difference between them, and frequently ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney
... young Englishwomen he remembered. The men were athletic, and their well-cut clothes, which fitted somewhat tightly, showed their finely developed but rather lean figures. They had a virile, decided look, and an ease of manner that indicated perfect self-confidence. Indeed, some were marked by an air of smartness that was half aggressive. A large number were employed at the Hulton factory, but there were brown-faced farmers and miners from the bush, as well ...
— Carmen's Messenger • Harold Bindloss
... hand, hazing of the new worker and the sneers of the jealous, accompanied by such trite expressions as—"You can't teach an old dog new tricks," have often destroyed self-confidence in a worker, who, in the absence of accurate records of his efficiency, is trying to judge himself at new methods. The jibes and jokes at the new man at the new work, and especially at the experienced, efficient man at unfamiliar work cease, or at least are wholly impotent, ...
— The Psychology of Management - The Function of the Mind in Determining, Teaching and - Installing Methods of Least Waste • L. M. Gilbreth
... aristocratic circles, such as Lucius Caesar (aedile in 664, 667), engaged in writing for the Roman stage and proud of sitting in the Roman "poet's club" by the side of the ancestorless Accius. Art gains in sympathy and honour; but the enthusiasm has departed in life and in literature. The fearless self-confidence, which makes the poet a poet, and which is very decidedly apparent in Plautus especially, is found in none of those that follow; the Epigoni of the men that fought with Hannibal ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... back, Hyacinth for the moment was less nervous than usual, but almost at the first words of the Countess she felt her self-confidence oozing from her. Did I say I was like this with my publishers? And Roger's ...
— Once on a Time • A. A. Milne
... committee had beaten time with their feet, and began to clap their hands softly. Then Mr. Birdsall, with kindly energy, exhorted Uncle Sheba, who groaned aloud and said "Amen" as if in the depths of penitence. A long prayer followed which even moved old Tobe, for Aun' Sheba had shaken his self-confidence terribly. The little company broke up with hand-shaking all around, Tobe saying: "Sister Buggone, I bears no ill-will. I'se gwine ter look inter my speritool frame, an' ef I cotch de debil playin' hob wid me he's gwine to be put out, hoof ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... his sleepless bed an altered man; altered above all in this that his self-confidence was clean gone. "How little I knew myself," said he, "and how well his reverence knew me! I am the weakest fool on earth—he saw that and told me what to do. He provided help for me—and I, like an ungrateful idiot, never once thought of obeying him; but from this hour I see myself as ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... remarkable individual, but no less interesting as depicting the crucial moment in the history of an aristocracy. Colonel Moore wisely entitles the life of his father simply An Irish Gentleman. Versatile, eloquent, quick-tempered and lovable, excessive in generosity, excessive in courage and self-confidence, with the racecourse for his ruling passion and horsemanship for his supreme achievement, George Henry Moore was the paragon of his class. He displayed in the highest degree those qualities on which the Irish gentry prided themselves and which they most admired: he shared ...
— Irish Books and Irish People • Stephen Gwynn
... a few moments sufficed to restore my self-confidence; and without further hesitation I dived under the inner little fan-shaped fall—which was there, indeed, as Camille had described it—and recovered my balance with pulses drumming thicker than ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... of his self-confidence appeared at last to make an impression on his antagonist, who lowered his head a little, like some butting animal, and looked at the young man from beneath bushy eyebrows. "Well, I have heard a good deal, since ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James |
