"Vainglory" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... suppose I have presumed to dedicate to your Serenity this trivial offering because of my esteeming it to be not undeserving of your acceptance. The truth is otherwise: your postulant approaches not spurred toward you by vainglory, but rather by equity, and equity's plain need to acknowledge that he who seeks to write of noble ladies must necessarily implore at outset the patronage of her who is the light and mainstay of our age. I humbly bring my book to you as Phidyle approached another and less sacred shrine, ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell
... dull observers he preserves a name for truth, the dog has been credited with modesty. It is amazing how the use of language blunts the faculties of man—that because vainglory finds no vent in words, creatures supplied with eyes have been unable to detect a fault so gross and obvious. If a small spoiled dog were suddenly to be endowed with speech, he would prate interminably, and still about himself; when we had friends, we should be forced to lock him in a garret; ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... upon the logs; not a Blackfoot was hurt, but several Crows, in spite of their leaping and dodging, were shot down. In this childish manner the fight went on for an hour or two. Now and then a Crow warrior in an ecstasy of valor and vainglory would scream forth his war song, boasting himself the bravest and greatest of mankind, and grasping his hatchet, would rush up and strike it upon the breastwork, and then as he retreated to his companions, ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... 18. Vainglory [10]—glory, be to God!—so far as I know, there is no reason why I should have any; for I see plainly that in these things which God sends me I have no part myself; on the contrary, God makes me conscious of my own wretchedness; for whatever reflections ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila
... Barkerville. He called in guests from the highways and byways and treated them to champagne which cost thirty dollars and fifty dollars a bottle. When the rabble could drink no more champagne, he ordered every glass filled and placed on the bar. With one magnificent drunken gesture of vainglory he swept the glasses in a clattering crash to the {95} floor. There was still a basket of champagne left. He danced the hurdy-gurdy on that basket till he cut his feet. The champagne was all gone, but he still had some gold nuggets. There was a mirror ...
— The Cariboo Trail - A Chronicle of the Gold-fields of British Columbia • Agnes C. Laut
... 18th February 1864, and within a week came news that Gelele, puffed up with confidence and vainglory, had set out for Abeokuta, and was harrying that district. He and his Amazons, however, being thoroughly defeated before the walls of the town, had to return home in what to any other power would have been utter disgrace. ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... of foot and thousands of horse, now receiving their daily bread from the hands of their foes, can we suppose that our present prosperity is likely to endure for all time? You, young men, be sure that you lay aside your haughty looks and vainglory in your victory, and await with humility what the future may bring forth, ever considering what form of retribution Heaven may have in store for us to set off against our present good fortune." They say that Aemilius spoke ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... is insane; if he even praises himself, as he did to me lately, he gets into a rage in order to do it, and perhaps unwittingly you annoyed him by the way you asked. If you put it to his generosity and vainglory you would get it easier than from his sense of justice and right. He has ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... did my son, thy chief, learn to boast of bravery? They tell me he inscribed the offerings to the gods with his name as the victor of Plataea—the battle won not by one man but assembled Greece. The inscription that dishonours him by its vainglory will be erased. To be brave is nought. Barbarians may be brave. But to dedicate bravery to his native land becomes a Spartan. He who is everything against a foe should count himself as nothing in the service of ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton
... they be buried, Though that their soules go a blackburied. For certes *many a predication *preaching is often inspired Cometh oft-time of evil intention;* by evil motives* Some for pleasance of folk, and flattery, To be advanced by hypocrisy; And some for vainglory, and some for hate. For, when I dare not otherwise debate, Then will I sting him with my tongue smart* *sharply In preaching, so that he shall not astart* *escape To be defamed falsely, if that he Hath trespass'd* to my brethren or to ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... that observed it not; As Diotrephes (3 John 9. &c.) who cast out of the Church, such as S. John himself thought fit to be received into it, out of a pride he took in Praeeminence; so early it was, that Vainglory, and Ambition had found entrance ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes
... humble attempt was in manner and form following, and I print it here, I sincerely trust, out of no vainglory, but solely with ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... action may happen to be ordained to an evil end, as when a man gives an alms from vainglory; and conversely, an evil action may happen to be ordained to a good end, as a theft committed in order to give something to the poor. Therefore an action is not good or evil ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... of Abbot,' he writes, 'is a solemn, great office, being no less than that of spiritual father to a family of men consecrate (as it is written, Abba, father); yet not on that account should vainglory puff the cheeks of a pious man. God knows that I am no boaster. He, therefore, will not misjudge me, as certain others have done, when I record in this place (for positive cause and reason good) the exorbitant honours I received on the day ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... which is represented by Greek tragedy, displays the individual in conflict with Fate, an inscrutable power dominating alike the actions of men and of gods. It is the God of the gods,—the destiny of which they are the instruments and ministers. Through irreverence, through vainglory, through disobedience, through weakness, the tragic hero becomes entangled in the meshes that Fate sets for the unwary; he struggles and struggles to get free, but his efforts are necessarily of no avail. He has transgressed the law of laws, and he is therefore doomed to inevitable agony. Because ...
— The Theory of the Theatre • Clayton Hamilton
... in love with her, though he deferred his blandishments to a more convenient season, and by way of supporting his character for holiness began instead to chide her, telling her (among other novelties) that this was vainglory: whereto the lady retorted that he was a blockhead, and could not distinguish one degree of beauty from another. Wherefore Fra Alberto, lest he should occasion her too much chagrin, cut short the confession, and suffered her to depart with the other ladies. Some days ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... also on the things of others." That is, even in the exercise of his choicest gifts and graces, let a man forget his own in his desire to employ and bring forward the gifts of others. "Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves." That is, in your own mind take a humble view of yourself, your own powers, and your own worthiness, and hold your comrades in higher esteem than you hold yourself, in honour preferring one another to yourself. ...
— Our Master • Bramwell Booth
... waste and overlapping in the first camp and billeting organization of the enormous forces raised. But when all is said, did we not, in the language of a French observer "improvise the impossible"?—and have we not good reason to be proud?—not with any foolish vainglory, but with the sober and resolute pride of a great nation, conscious of its past, determined to correct its mistakes, and looking open-eyed and fearless ...
— The War on All Fronts: England's Effort - Letters to an American Friend • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... attendance in the forenoon amounted to seven, including the minister; but in the afternoon there was a turn-out of upward of fifty. How much denominational competition had to do with this, none can say; but the general opinion was that this muster to afternoon service was a piece of vainglory. Next Sunday all the kirks were on their mettle, and, though the snow was drifting the whole day, services were general. It was felt that after the action of the Free Kirk the Established and the U.P.'s must show what they too were capable of. ...
— Auld Licht Idyls • J.M. Barrie
... every one remarks," said the good-looking vine to herself; and, raising her head very high in the air, she put forth another shoot. Yet, with all her fullness of conceit and vainglory, she grew very impatient for the hour to arrive when her sister would be at leisure ...
— Allegories of Life • Mrs. J. S. Adams
... to be hoped they line out of their prayer- books a certain passage for the common people about pride and vainglory. Forgive me, grandmother! Only ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... exhibit his vainglory, proclaims throughout Babylon, that all the great ones should assemble on a set day, at the Sultan's feast.] The{n}ne is bolde Balta[gh]ar bienkkes hy{m} ones, To vouche on a vayment of his vayne g[l]orie; Hit is not i{n}nogh{e} to e nice al ...
— Early English Alliterative Poems - in the West-Midland Dialect of the Fourteenth Century • Various
... Epicurus was by no means a trifle spun for vainglory in the fertile fancy of Demedes; but a fact just as the Brotherhoods of the City were facts, and much more notorious ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... was sad news for the Goose Green, a sorrow justly qualified by honorable pride in his gallantry and devotion. Only the Cobbler dissented, but that was his way. He said he saw nothing in it but foolhardiness and vainglory. They might both have been killed, as easy as not, and then where would ye have been? A man's life was a man's life, and one life was as good as another. No one would catch him throwing his away. And, ...
— Jackanapes, Daddy Darwin's Dovecot and Other Stories • Juliana Horatio Ewing
... not excepted. "Fellow Florentines," he said, "here is a straight challenge. It equals the big man with the little; it fills me to the giant's girth and inches. It saves him from shame if he wins, for it were little to his credit to kill a civilian. It denies me if I win the vainglory of overcoming a Titan. Is not ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... it is an error to think that our advantages, whatever they are, should be put to the service of our vanity. Each of them constitutes for him who enjoys it an obligation and not a reason for vainglory. Material wealth, power, knowledge, gifts of the heart and mind, become so much cause for discord when they serve to nourish pride. They remain beneficent only so long as they are the source of modesty in those ...
— The Simple Life • Charles Wagner
... his tribunitial title, or his inexperience, to spend his time in pleasures and absences from duty; but he employed himself in gaining a knowledge of the country, making himself known to the army, learning from the experienced, and imitating the best; neither pressing to be employed through vainglory, nor declining it through timidity; and performing his duty with equal solicitude and spirit. At no other time in truth was Britain more agitated or in a state of greater uncertainty. Our veterans slaughtered, our colonies ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus
... vainglory, but in the utmost confidence. She glanced covertly at him. He seemed to her strong and full of resource. But she ...
— The Young Trailers - A Story of Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... attack became suddenly wise after the event and eager to share the honour. The temptation to improve the opportunity, to any man less strong than our hero, would have been irresistible, but there was no display of vainglory, no cheap boasting. The sword of the conquered American general was accepted with manly deference and the consideration due to his rank, and he was told, without solicitation on his part, he could return to the United States on parole. Then Brock hurriedly dictated ...
— The Story of Isaac Brock - Hero, Defender and Saviour of Upper Canada, 1812 • Walter R. Nursey
... says, since the Christians have taken their business in hand. The townsman is once more about to turn the peasant out of his house when a monk enters. He then lays the matter before the new-comer, who promises to talk the peasant over with soft words; for, says he, there is nothing accomplished with vainglory. He thereupon takes him aside and explains it to him by the illustration of a merchant whose gain on the wares he sells is not called usury, and argues that therefore other forms of gain in business should ...
— German Culture Past and Present • Ernest Belfort Bax
... having little active work to do, were endeavoring to forget the irksomeness and the humiliation of their situation. Through no fault of their own the position was a hard one; they had boasted, and were not allowed to make good their vainglory; they had despised their adversaries, and were cooped up in a provincial town. In letters home they uneasily endeavored to explain their inaction; by return mail they learned what the wits of London had to say of both them and the ...
— The Siege of Boston • Allen French
... warranted and confirmed by the laws of the country. A proclamation in those terms, those good set terms, which time and custom approve, forbids shooting on this and two neighbouring groups of islands. Is there not excuse in this flattery for just a little vainglory? ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... and heart seem to be just as young and as old as ever they were; this triumph will intoxicate him; if he could not agree with Pitt, when his prospect was worst, be will not be more firm or more sincere when all his doublings have been rewarded. If his vainglory turns his head, it will make no impression on Pitt, who is as little likely to be awed by another's pageant, as to be depressed by his own slender train. They can't agree—but what becomes of us? There ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... over, which are worth the price of a pound of tobacco to a man of limited means. This is a sobering reflection for the proudest of our earthly vanities. Even a tobacconist may, upon consideration, find no great cause for personal vainglory in the phrase; for although tobacco is an admirable sedative, the qualities necessary for retailing it are neither rare nor precious in themselves. Alas and alas! you may take it how you will, but the services of no single individual ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... affluent cape-merchant, directed in his will, 1628, that he be buried "without any pomp or vainglory," he probably was protesting the tendency towards elaborate funerals, even in the early days of the Colony. It is not known whether or not his wishes in this respect were carried out; however, ...
— Domestic Life in Virginia in the Seventeenth Century - Jamestown 350th Anniversary Historical Booklet Number 17 • Annie Lash Jester
... Lord to shield him in this his office from the commission of all sin; and furthermore he suppliantly besought that the church over which he presided might not be called by his name, as was in many places the custom among the Irish people. And this did he to preserve his lowliness, and to avoid vainglory, which is the fretting moth of all virtues. Then Saint Patrick, understanding the worthiness of Sennachus and the simplicity of his heart, promised unto him all his desire; and blessing him and his flock, prophesied that thereout should proceed many holy and eminent priests. ...
— The Most Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick - Including the Life by Jocelin, Hitherto Unpublished in America, and His Extant Writings • Various
... liberty. Sir Arthur Lee had honoured me with a certain kindness and some excellent advice; consequently my head was somewhat turned, even as the heads of those whom I railed at so bitterly were turned, and to such an extent that this little vainglory brought sorely needed relief to my agonies of mind. Perhaps you will shrug your shoulders when I own that I took the greatest pleasure in the world in leaving my hair unpowdered, in wearing big shoes, and appearing everywhere in a dark-coloured coat, of aggressively simple cut ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... letters; and besides, it is plain that my sister could not find any one else to trust. It hurts me cruelly to think that I shall be so near you to-day, and yet that you will not be present at this banquet in my honor. I owe my little triumph to the vainglory of Angouleme; in a few days it will be quite forgotten, and you alone would have taken a real pleasure in it. But, after all, in a little while you will pardon everything to one who counts it more than all the triumphs in the world to be your ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... was a direct tempting of Providence, to trip his heels and lay him on a sickbed for his boast. So, after a slight hesitation, he added, 'But the race is not to the swift, brother, and I am wrong to indulge in vainglory about anything. Life and death are uncertain; none realize it, I trust, more ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... of Solomon is the most mournful fall recorded in history, thereby showing that no intellectual power can rescue a man from the indulgence of his passions and the sins of pride and vainglory. How immeasurably superior to him in self-control was Marcus Aurelius, who had the whole world at his feet! It was women who had estranged him from allegiance to God—the princesses of idolatrous nations. Although no mention is made of his repentance, the heart of the world will not accept ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... made daily the most desperate sallies. In one outbreak the Haarlemers, under cover of a thick fog, marched up to the enemy's chief battery, and attempted to spike the guns before his face. They were all slain at the cannon's mouth, whither patriotism, not vainglory, had led them, and lay dead around the battery, with their hammers and spikes in their hands. The same spirit was daily manifested. As the spring advanced, the kine went daily out of the gates to their peaceful ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas
... mostly little books—no one of them produced by an author of the first magnitude as usual estimates run—has been here handled. But the truth is that the actual birth of the French novel took a much longer time than that of the English—a phenomenon explicable, without any national vainglory, by the fact that it came first and gave us patterns and stimulants. The writers surveyed in this chapter, and those who will take their places in the next—at least Scarron, Furetiere, Madame de La Fayette and ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... rather an imaginary than an actual evil, and though a deep wound to pride, no offence to morality. Thus have I laid open to you my whole heart, confessed my perplexities, acknowledged my vainglory, and exposed with equal sincerity the sources of my doubts, and the motives of my decision. But now, indeed, how to proceed I know not. The difficulties which are yet to encounter I fear to enumerate, and the petition I have to urge I have scarce courage to mention. My family, mistaking ambition ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... drawing room to another. They strive to get their pieces played; they previously submit them to the judgment of actors; they solicit a word of praise from the Mercure; they read fables at the sittings of the Academy. They become involved in the bickering, in the vainglory, in the pettiness of literary life, and still worse, of the life of the stage, inasmuch as they are themselves performers and play in company with real actors in hundreds of private theaters. Add to this, if you please, other petty amateur talents ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... of our community may ever arrogate to himself extraordinary gifts or supernatural perfection, or through vainglory give himself out to be a holy man; such, for instance, as to withdraw into solitary places on pretence of enjoying ecstasies like the Ariahs, and afterwards to presume to teach others the way to uncommon spiritual attainments. Sooner may the lofty ...
— The Soul of a People • H. Fielding
... would be very long in such a volume as this to count up the successions [i.e., series of bishops] in all the churches, we confound all those who in any way, whether through self-pleasing or vainglory, or through blindness and evil opinion, gather together otherwise than they ought, by pointing out the tradition derived from the Apostles of the greatest, most ancient, and universally known Church, founded and established by the ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... perhaps the most frantic of all the Jacobite libels. In this tract the Prince of Orange is gravely accused of having ordered fifty of his wounded English soldiers to be burned alive. The governing principle of his whole conduct, it is said, is not vainglory, or ambition, or avarice, but a deadly hatred of Englishmen and a desire to make them miserable. The nation is vehemently adjured, on peril of incurring the severest judgments, to rise up and free itself from this plague, this curse, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... gewesen sind, mag dahingestellt bleiben. Der Historiker darf sich jedoch nie durch apologetische Zwecke leiten lassen; sein einziges Ziel soll die Ergrundung der Wahrheit sein.—PASTOR, Geschichte der Pabste, ii. 545. Church history falsely written is a school of vainglory, hatred, and uncharitableness; truly written, it is a discipline of humility, of charity, of mutual love.—SIR W. HAMILTON, Discussions, 506. The more trophies and crowns of honour the Church of former ages can be shown to have won in the service of her adorable ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... expression, "Be ye perfect?" Why is it that in this discourse, instead of being commanded to perform religious duties, we are commanded to think of being like God? Will not that inflame our pride, and increase our natural vainglory? Now the nature and possibility of human perfection, what it is and how it is possible, are both contained in one single expression in the text. "Even as your Father which is in Heaven is perfect." The relationship between father and son implies consanguinity, ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson
... against a snag," he repeated, "and now your mate's run against another." He gave the butt of his ready pistol a significant tap. "But I'm the worst snag that ever either of you struck," he went on in his vainglory. "Make no mistake about that. And the worst day's work that ever you did in your life, Mr. Sanguinary Stingaree, was when you dared to play ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
... success of the expedition very uncertain. Porter, therefore, determined to try to adjust the difficulty amicably, and with this purpose sent an ambassador to the Typees, proposing a peaceful alliance. The reply of the natives is an amusing example of the ignorant vainglory of savage tribes, unacquainted with the power of civilized peoples. The Typees saw no reason to desire the friendship of the Americans. They had always got along very well without it. They had no intention of sending hogs or fruit to sell to the Americans. If the Americans ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... only their own kindred and race can bring to the masses, but which once saintly souls brought to their favored children in the crusade of the sixties, that finest thing in American history, and one of the few things untainted by sordid greed and cheap vainglory. The teachers in these institutions came not to keep the Negroes in their place, but to raise them out of their places where the filth of slavery had wallowed them. The colleges they founded were social settlements; homes where the best of the sons ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... two hundred years Mary did not occupy a prominent place in the Christian communities; even in the fourth century she was still regarded as a human woman and denied divinity by St. Chrysostom, who reproached her with vainglory. But in proportion as Christ transcended humanity, and was more dogmatically and formally interpreted by the Church—more especially the Greek Church—the desire for a mediator between the wrathful ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... allow tattling in my presence; I pry not into my neighbours' lives, nor have I lynx-eyes for what others do. I hear mass every day; I share my substance with the poor, making no display of good works, lest I let hypocrisy and vainglory, those enemies that subtly take possession of the most watchful heart, find an entrance into mine. I strive to make peace between those whom I know to be at variance; I am the devoted servant of Our Lady, and my trust is ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... Euphrosyne in full fig and in very active circulation. She rustled, she swooped, she darted, she was as if on springs. "Well, she feels her oats," commented Little O'Grady. He looked at her again. No, what moved her was not vainglory, not a restless sense of triumph. She was keyed up to the most racking pitch of anxious expectation. She looked whither Eudoxia and Roscoe Orlando and all the others had looked, but with an intensified expression, and Little O'Grady almost felt ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... admit that slavery is an evil, they disclaim all participation in the introduction of it, and cast it all upon the shoulders of our old granddam Britain. But when probed to the quick upon it, they show at the bottom of their souls pride and vainglory in their condition of masterdom. They fancy themselves more generous and noble-hearted than the plain freemen who labor for subsistence. They look down upon the simplicity of a Yankee's manners, because he has no habits of ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... and to merit the respect of others would think of advertising his own virtues or bragging of his own deeds. Nor would any Nation wishing to stand well in its own eyes and in the eyes of the world boast of its own conquests over weaker foes or shout itself hoarse in the exuberance of vainglory. ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... has slain. If any who promised themselves Success in any Uncommon Undertaking miscarry in the Attempt, or he that aimed at what would have been Useful and Laudable, meets with Contempt and Derision, the Envious Man, under the Colour of hating Vainglory, can smile with an inward Wantonness of Heart at the ill Effect it may have upon an ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... enjoying her publicly but ruffling and debauching her in a corner? For as men's bodies are oft necessitated by famine, for want of other food, to prey against nature upon themselves, a like mischief to this does vainglory create in men's minds, forcing them, when they hunger after praise and cannot obtain it from other men, at last ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... interesting, and it affords the consolation which the humble (but not too humble) spirit may gather from witness of the past, that the fashion of this world and the pride of the eyes and all ruthless vainglory defeated themselves in ancient Rome, as they must everywhere when they can work their will. If one had thought that in magnitude and multitude some entire effect of beauty was latent, one had but to look at that huddle of warring forms, each with beauty ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells
... independent aspirants, whom some capricious fortune has brought within their contact? Does one little star in the vault above shine less brightly or twinkle less gladly because myriads of others do likewise? After all, what vainglory need there be in accidents of birth or fortune. They are not virtually ours, they have been given to us, and rest upon a changing wind that, to-morrow, may waft them far out of our Reach or ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... great discovery. What you tell me will confound the vainglory of our modern sceptics. Listen to me. We live today in the midst of miracles as did the first-born of men. Listen, listen! Adam, as I have already told you, had a first wife whom the Bible does not make mention of, but of whom the Talmud speaks. Her name was Lilith. Created, not out of one of his ...
— Balthasar - And Other Works - 1909 • Anatole France
... know him now. You know that he is cold, callous, that he is a bad man, that ambition and vainglory are his only guides. And you always loved him better than me. When we lived together, all three of us, you set him up as my pattern to copy. His staid demeanour and grave speech impressed you; you thought he possessed all the virtues. And me, me you always blamed, you gave me all ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... conceit and vanity and vainglory. Go away! My head is fit to split. Natalina, why haven't you given me my smelling salts? And why ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... quite safe from recapture by the Pope if I could have stayed there; but my exploits up to this point had been too marvellous for a human being, and God was unwilling to encourage my vainglory; accordingly, for my own good, He chastised me a second time worse even than the first. The cause of this was that while I was crawling on all fours up those steps, a servant of Cardinal Cornaro recognized me. His master was ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... consciousness of this literary revenge that made H.W. Herbert, in his last agony, call on his brother-penmen for mercy on his remains, and that induces many of our public men to bring out their own memoirs or encourage others to do so. It looks like vainglory, but it is not such. The memoirs show a mortal dread of calumny or misrepresentation. Mr. Barnum, for instance, was more just to himself than anybody else would be. He showed that his doings were only of a piece with those of thousands around ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... corresponding to our PRESENT conception of ourselves—that is as separate personalities having each a separate and limited character and function, and animated by the separatist motives of ambition, possession, power, vainglory, superiority, patronage, self-greed, self-satisfaction, etc.—in so far as anthropomorphism is the expression of that kind of belief it is of course destined, with the illusion from which it springs, to pass away. When man arrives at the ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... youth. That I took not upon me to be a man before my time, but rather put it off longer than I needed. That I lived under the government of my lord and father, who would take away from me all pride and vainglory, and reduce me to that conceit and opinion that it was not impossible for a prince to live in the court without a troop of guards and followers, extraordinary apparel, such and such torches and statues, and other ...
— Meditations • Marcus Aurelius
... son, was highly endowed with mental powers and personal beauty and prowess, and was much preferred by Edward the Confessor to the old Earl himself. He obtained all his father's lands, and, shortly after, distinguished himself in a war with the Welsh, showing, however, that vainglory was his characteristic; for he set up mounds of stones along the course of his march, bearing the inscription, ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... Egypt be should come to Jerusalem to see, ere the warfare be at end for him. The other two points which are asked not for sake of knowing, but that he may report how greatly this virtue is pleasing to thee, to him I leave, for they will not be difficult to him, nor of vainglory, and let him answer to this, and may the grace of ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 3, Paradise [Paradiso] • Dante Alighieri
... nothing, then? He had schooled himself in the tongue, he had lived in the bazaars, to no end? He was still the craven who had sent in his papers? The quiet confidence with which he had revealed his plan to Lieutenant Sutch over the table in the Criterion grill-room was the mere vainglory of a man who ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... bullets and arrows upon the logs, yet not a Blackfoot was hurt; but several of the Crows, in spite of their antics, were shot down. In that ridiculous manner the fight continued for an hour or two. Now and then a Crow warrior, in an ecstasy of valour and vainglory, would scream forth his war-song, declare himself the bravest and greatest of all Indians, grasp his hatchet, strike it wildly upon the breastwork, and then, as he retreated to his companions, fall dead, riddled ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... enlightened nations of Europe, powerful and strong beyond what their security and independence require, sacrifice the interest of commerce, the prosperity of their people, and the happiness of families, to ideas of vainglory? ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... is unwilling to subject his intellect to the rules of faith, and to the sound interpretation of the Fathers. Hence Gregory says (Moral. xxxi, 45) that "presumptuous innovations arise from vainglory." ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... the eyes of Russia and her Allies the present war has as its object the crushing and dispersing of "the nest of militarism," constructed in the centre of Europe by the hand of Bismarck and the vainglory of Wilhelm II. That was clearly defined last autumn by our diplomatic department. That is precisely the way in which it was and is defined by all classes of the Russian people, not excluding those who are represented by Kropotkin and Plekhanoff. The present war became far ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... mysticism. It would have been strange indeed, growing up as he did in the whited sepulchre of Parisian salon life, if he had not accustomed himself to sacrifice a little of the soul of art for the sake of vainglory, and a little of its poetry and feeling to make display of those dazzling digital feats which he invented. But, be it said to his honor, he never played mountebank tricks in the presence of the masters whom he revered. It was when he approached the music of Beethoven ...
— How to Listen to Music, 7th ed. - Hints and Suggestions to Untaught Lovers of the Art • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... therefore any comfort in Christ, if any consolation of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any tender mercies and compassions, 2. Fulfil ye my joy, that ye be of the same mind, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind; 3. Doing nothing through faction or through vainglory, but in lowliness of mind each counting other better than himself; 4. Not looking each of you to his own things, but each of you also to the things of others.'—PHIL. ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... habit of the true servants of God, to emerge in time of need and adversity, but not in the time of prosperity—nay, that they flee. There is no need to flee just now, through fear lest our great prosperity make our hearts sail away in the wind of pride and vainglory; for there is no one who can glory now otherwise than in labours. But light seems to be failing us, dazzled as we are by our consolations and the hope we place in special revelations— things which do not let us know the truth rightly, though we act in good faith. ...
— Letters of Catherine Benincasa • Catherine Benincasa
... without vainglory recall the good that for us and for others has been accomplished in our limited circle, the least significant aspects of which cannot but excite the observer's admiration, which would be greatly increased if a well informed ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... wholesome spiritual warfare, to rebuke vainglory, to offset boastful emptiness, to crown patient toil, and rejoice in the spirit and power of Christian Science, we must ourselves be true. There is but one way of doing good, and that is to do it! There is but one way of being good, and that ...
— Retrospection and Introspection • Mary Baker Eddy
... in him the hunting desire to run her to earth, or to the dead wall against which she would sturdily plant that fine back of hers, and to vanquish her vainglory; but it made him softer, more protective of her than he had felt before; it made him wish that always she would keep this spirit and courage which burned like a brave candle in the mists of life. As they said good-bye upon the imposing pillar-guarded steps ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton
... powers of genius, then, limited to a single art, and even to departments in that art? May not men of genius plume themselves with the vainglory of universality? Let us dare to call this a vainglory; for he who stands the first in his class, does not really add to the distinctive character of his genius, by a versatility which, however apparently ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... two ashamed hands. Not since his father's death had any one talked to him like this—never with so much tenderness and truth and with every word meant for his good. All his selfrighteousness, his silly conceit and vainglory stood out before him. What an ass he had been. What a ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... said that "there shall be joy before the angels of God upon one sinner doing penance." (Luke XV, 10.) These splendors in Mercury are the souls of those in whose virtue there was the alloy of ambition and vainglory—a combination, according to Dante, which makes "the rays of true love less vividly mount upwards." The poet is addressed by a spirit who bids him ask any question he will and Beatrice confirms the invitation. "Speak, speak with confidence and trust ...
— Dante: "The Central Man of All the World" • John T. Slattery
... moment propitious for capturing the "philanthropist." He exclaimed with an accent which smacked at the same time of the vainglory of the mountebank at fairs, and the humility of the mendicant ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... his leading division (Meade's) to start before he would go." Official Records, vol. xix. pt. i. p. 422.] The men of the First Corps and its officers did their duty nobly on that as on many another field, and the only spot on the honor of the day is made by the personal unscrupulousness and vainglory of its commander. ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... so say the traditions of the family, under the ruins of the pile that he reared with such pride and vainglory—never lived to enjoy his riches. Twice he built the house, and twice it was destroyed; the first time partially, and by fire, the second time utterly. "For," so the story goes, "a wind rose in the night, ...
— Only an Irish Girl • Mrs. Hungerford
... achievements of the same compatriots; of whose existence he will commonly have no other or more substantial evidence, and in whose traffic he has no share other than this vicarious suffering of vague and remote indignity or vainglory by force of the wholly fortuitous circumstance that they are (inscrutably) his compatriots. These immaterial goods of vicarious prestige are, of course, not to be undervalued, nor is the fact to be overlooked or minimised that they enter into the sum total of the common citizen's "psychic ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... The young man who joins your society does it only to ape you and to advance his own ends and vainglory. He forever deprives himself of understanding the meaning of life and of becoming helpful to those ...
— Moral • Ludwig Thoma
... parts of the universe does not necessarily involve greatness of character, nor does microscopic study of the infinitely little always produce humility. We have our full share of original sin; need, greed, and vainglory beset us as they do other mortals; and our progress is, for the most part, like that of a tacking ship, the resultant of opposite divergencies from the straight path. But, for all that, there is one moral benefit which the pursuit of science unquestionably bestows. It keeps ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... twined about each other's waists. They wore white muslin dresses, and straw hats with wide and jaunty brims, and the loose ends of gay ribbons fluttered about them. These young ladies, fresh from school, and no doubt full of vainglory, greeted the bridal procession with a little explosion of giggles, and when Puss Pringle pushed back her gingham sun-bonnet and innocently gazed upon them, they turned up their noses, sniffed the air scornfully, ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... and removes the veil, and clears away obscuring mists, and by his word and Spirit leads to deeper peace and a holier walk. Ah! there is nothing like a calm look into the eternal world to teach us the emptiness of human praise, the sinfulness of self-seeking and vainglory, to teach us the preciousness of Christ, who is called 'The Tried Stone.' I have been able to be twice at college to hear a lecture from Dr. Chalmers. I have also been privileged to smooth down the dying pillow of an old school-companion, leading him to a fuller joy ...
— The Biography of Robert Murray M'Cheyne • Andrew A. Bonar
... antagonists. The contest, however, invariably terminates in favor of the good cause. The Moors are defeated and taken prisoners. The image of the Virgin, rescued from thralldom, is elevated in triumph; and a grand procession succeeds, in which the Spanish conquerors figure with great vainglory and applause, and their captives are led in chains, to the infinite delight and edification of the populace. These annual festivals are the delight of the villagers, who expend considerable sums in their celebration. ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... enthusiasm for this philosophy, and conviction on the subject was out of question. I never was an abstract thinker, and I accepted the synthesis of the Hegelian doctrine without demanding any proof; since its consequences flattered my vanity. I was young and proud, and it pleased my vainglory when I learned from Hegel that the true God was not, as my grandmother believed, the God who lives in heaven, but myself here upon earth. This foolish pride had not in the least a pernicious influence on my feelings; on the contrary, it heightened these to the pitch of heroism. ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... evidence, if the ecclesiastical evidence is accepted, and deprived of any a priori objection by their implicit belief in Christian Demonology, show themselves ready to take poor Sludge seriously, and to believe that he is possessed by other devils than those of need, greed, and vainglory. ...
— Lectures and Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... called for the vigor and effort without which the manlier and hardier virtues wither away. Under such conditions it would be our own fault if we failed; and the success which we have had in the past, the success which we confidently believe the future will bring, should cause in us no feeling of vainglory, but rather a deep and abiding realization of all which life has offered us; a full acknowledgment of the responsibility which is ours; and a fixed determination to show that under a free government a mighty people can ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... the stream of rhetoric, the denunciations, the satire, the tremendous assertions of God's mind and purposes. The lash that was wielded was far-reaching; all the vices of the age—irreligion, blasphemy, drunkenness, extravagance, vainglory, loose living—fell under its sting. The condemnation was general, and each man looked to see his neighbor wince. The occurrence at the ball last night,—he was on that for final theme, was he? There was a slight movement throughout the congregation. Some glanced to where would have sat Mr. ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... of vainglory, though according to the custom of the time, he might have demanded absolute submission and obedience. But he was a man who rather desired the love of his fellowmen than their slavish fear, and in all things he guided them so, that ...
— Three Young Pioneers - A Story of the Early Settlement of Our Country • John Theodore Mueller
... not from the pen of vainglory, but from the process of that pensiveness, which two summers since overtook me; whose obscured cause, best known to every name of curse, hath compelled my wit to wander abroad unregarded in this satirical disguise, and counselled my ...
— The Vnfortunate Traveller, or The Life Of Jack Wilton - With An Essay On The Life And Writings Of Thomas Nash By Edmund Gosse • Thomas Nash
... handful of infidel boors, for we are assured that all this rout and destruction was effected by five hundred foot and fifty horse, and those mere mountaineers without science or discipline.* "It was intended," observes one historiographer, "as a lesson to their confidence and vainglory, overrating their own prowess and thinking that so chosen a band of chivalry had but to appear in the land of the enemy and conquer. It was to teach them that the race is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong, but that God ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... with everything he saw at the Park. Shall I once more give you a peep into my vile and deceitful heart? What motive do you think lay at the bottom of my conduct when I desired him to call upon you? I did not suspect, at first, that pride and vainglory had any share in it, but quickly after I had recommended the visit to him, I discovered, in that fruitful soil, the very root of the matter. You know I am a stranger here; all such are suspected characters, unless they bring their credentials with them. ...
— Cowper • Goldwin Smith
... with the fishing. He and Krok gave me all they had to give; and, without vainglory, but simply as grateful testimony to their goodness, I think that at two-and-twenty I knew as much as any of my age in Sercq, and more than most. I knew too that there were things I did not know, and did not care to know, and for that, and ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... was always on his guard against showy virtues, which of their very nature encourage vainglory, the bane ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... at Paris, in a furnished lodging-house of the eighteenth order. By not haggling over one or two hundred thousand francs, they might come to terms with that famished legislator who, when sounded by Paganetti, did not say yes or no, being allured by the magnitude of the sum but held back by the vainglory of his office. The affair was in that condition and might be ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... President of the Council (or prime minister); but the real head of the Government and Minister for Foreign Affairs was Alphonse de Lamartine. He was a Christian believer, a high-minded man, by birth an aristocrat, yet by sympathy a man of the masses. "He was full of sentimentalities of vainglory and of personal vanity; but no pilot ever guided a ship of state so skilfully and with such absolute self-devotion through an angry sea. For a brief while, just long enough to effect this purpose, he was the idol of the populace." With him were associated Cremieux, a Jew; Ledru-Rollin, the historian, ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... The Dignity and Utility of the Hebrew Tongue, he puts himself on record in favour of the Divine origin and miraculous purity of that language. "Who," he says, "can call in question the fact that the Hebrew idiom is coeval with the world itself, save such as seek to win vainglory for their ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... a lasting testimony of their crimes and devotion, their weakness and genius, their religion and their irreligion. Though he had seen Rome to familiarity, he was gratified. The sight filled a measure of pride which would have made him drunk with vainglory but for the thought, princely as the property was, it did not any longer belong to his countrymen; the worship in the Temple was by permission of strangers; the hill where David dwelt was a marbled cheat—an office in which the chosen of the Lord were wrung and wrung for taxes, and ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... not been free from any taint of imposture and vainglory, and if his reputation had not been of that kind which can be submitted to the austerest tests without being materially lessened, he would have suffered much in having so frank and truthful a biographer as Dr. Elder. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... that they can act a public part with uniformity, perseverance, or efficacy. In a connection, the most inconsiderable man, by adding to the weight of the whole, has his value, and his use; out of it, the greatest talents are wholly unserviceable to the public. No man, who is not inflamed by vainglory into enthusiasm, can flatter himself that his single, unsupported, desultory, unsystematic endeavors are of power to defeat the subtle designs and united cabals of ambitious citizens. When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... said aloud; "but he is right: his wife was greater than either of us. If he'd listened to her and not his own vainglory, both could ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts
... words, "there would be a good deal to give and take if you came home for a time;" less perhaps now than before I was somewhat tamed by my illness. I see more of the meaning of that petition, "from all blindness of heart, from pride, vainglory, and hypocrisy; and from ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... only fate had gifted me with an exigent conscience and a turn for oratory, I would, I like to think, have publicly confessed, at that first public performance, to all those tributary clarifying rills to the play's progress: but, as it was, vainglory combined with an aversion to "speech-making" to compel a taciturn if smirking acceptance of the curtain-call with which an indulgent audience flustered the nominal author of The Jewel Merchants.... Now, in any case, it is due my collaborators to tell you that The Jewel Merchants has ...
— The Jewel Merchants - A Comedy In One Act • James Branch Cabell
... surveyed the bustling camp in the plain, where tents, green, brown, and white, were being hastily erected by half-stripped soldiers. The little army altogether, may have numbered a hundred men, which, in his vainglory, Gian Maria accounted all that would be needed to reduce Roccaleone. But the most formidable portion of his forces rolled into the field even as they watched. It was heralded by a hoarse groaning of the ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... my acquaintance, and opens the door to let me in, there enter unseen by my side Arrogance, Folly, Vainglory, Effeminacy, Insolence, Deceit, and a goodly company more. These possess his soul; he begins to admire mean things, pursues what he should abhor, reveres me amid my bodyguard of the insinuating vices which I have begotten, and would consent ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... revenged, and in order to it, made proclamation that for ten years to come no one should pray to Him, or so much as mention Him throughout his dominions, or, so far as his authority went, believe in Him; by which they meant to paint not so much the folly as the vainglory of the nation of which this tale was told. They are vices that always go together, but in truth such actions as these have in them still more of presumption than want of wit. Augustus Caesar, having been tossed with a tempest at sea, fell to defying Neptune, ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... All the letters which he writ after his battles show awe rather than exultation; and he attributes the glory of these achievements, about which I have heard mere petty officers and men bragging with a pardonable vainglory, in nowise to his own bravery or skill, but to the superintending protection of heaven, which he ever seemed to think was our especial ally. And our army got to believe so, and the enemy learnt to think so too; for we never entered ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... contrary, It is written (Gal. 5:26): "Let us not be made desirous of vainglory, provoking one another, ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... his usance, he asked him if he had ever sinned by way of lust with any woman. 'Father,' replied Master Ciappelletto, sighing, 'on this point I am ashamed to tell you the truth, fearing to sin by way of vainglory.' Quoth the friar, 'Speak in all security, for never did one sin by telling the truth, whether in confession or otherwise.' 'Then,' said Master Ciappelletto, 'since you certify me of this, I will tell you; I am yet a virgin, even as I came forth of my mother's ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... Pleasant View, Concord, N. H., Before 2,500 Members Of The Mother Church, 1897 Well Doinge Is The Fruite Of Doinge Well Little Gods Advantage Of Mind-Healing A Card Spirit And Law Truth-Healing Heart To Heart Things To Be Thought Of Unchristian Rumor Vainglory Compounds Close Of The Massachusetts Metaphysical College Malicious Reports Loyal Christian Scientists The March Primary Class Obtrusive Mental Healing Wedlock Judge Not New Commandment A Cruce Salus Comparison to English Barmaids A Christian Science Statute Advice To Students ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... Lord Castlemallard's pew, which brought them up pretty near to the spot where grave Mr. Irons was prowling serenely. The pew would soon want new flooring, Mr. Dangerfield thought, and the Castlemallard arms and supporters, a rather dingy piece of vainglory, overhanging the main seat on the wall, would be nothing the worse of a little fresh gilding ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... an hour of passionate grief, after hearing my mother's woeful story from the lips of my aunt, I fell upon that mother's grave and vowed to make her name—the only thing she had to leave me, poor mother!—illustrious. It was a piece of boyish vainglory, no doubt, but it was a vow, and I must try to keep it," said Ishmael, ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... sleep and lose thy choice thing; thou wast also almost persuaded to go back at the sight of the lions; and when thou talkest of thy journey, and of what thou hast heard and seen, thou art inwardly desirous of vainglory in all ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... mighty import. What it was, Captain Bonneville could not fathom, nor did he make much effort to do so. From some casual sentences that he overheard, he perceived that it was something from which the old man promised himself much satisfaction, and to which he attached a little vainglory but which he wished to keep a secret; so he suffered him to spin out his ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... should have secured by legislation to the Government what it had gained at the point of the sword, and when the nation declared its purpose to enfranchise the negro it was a political necessity. I do not want to take too much vainglory out of the heads of Republicans, but nevertheless it is a great national fact that neither of those great acts of beneficence to the negro race was done because of any high, overshadowing moral conviction on the part of any considerable minority even of the people of this nation, but simply because ...
— Debate On Woman Suffrage In The Senate Of The United States, - 2d Session, 49th Congress, December 8, 1886, And January 25, 1887 • Henry W. Blair, J.E. Brown, J.N. Dolph, G.G. Vest, Geo. F. Hoar.
... the King. "We have ourselves witnessed him. It is indeed our purpose in placing ourselves ever in the front of battle, to see how our liegemen and followers acquit themselves, and not from a desire to accumulate vainglory to ourselves, as some have supposed. We know the vanity of the praise of man, which is but a vapour, and buckle on our armour for other purposes than ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... the turning of an angle of the wall—a great smacking of the whip, straining and scrambling of the horses, glistening of harness, and flashing of wheels through gravel. This was the moment of triumph and vainglory to the coachman. The horses were urged and checked, until they were fretted into a foam. They threw out their feet in a prancing trot, dashing about pebbles at every step. The crowd of villagers sauntering quietly to church opened precipitately to the right ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... Great Powers! will the vainglory of men, especially of Frenchmen, never cease? Will it be believed, that after the action of St. Cas—a mere affair of cutting off a rearguard, as you are aware—they were so unfeeling as to fire away ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... subtle form of presumptuous trust. It forms a true climax in the testing of the ideal Man. The order given by Matthew is suggested by the apostle John who mentions "the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the vainglory of life." The order of Luke takes us back to the story of Eden and to the first human sin, which was due to a love for that which was "good for food" and "a delight to the eyes" and "to be desired to make one wise." As in Eden also, the first temptation is to doubt the goodness of God, the second ...
— The Gospel of Luke, An Exposition • Charles R. Erdman
... up interested. Incongruously enough a vein of romance ran through the massive strata of conceit, and intolerance, and vainglory, and pertinacity, and pugnacity that made up the very definite structure of his nature. He dearly loved a lover. He was as sentimental as a girl of eighteen, and he melted instantly into suavest amenities at the first intimation ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... says "basket," the other responds "crossbow." He who has the most gold and riches is the greatest chief and of the highest nobility, and is the most respected, in accordance with the vanity and vainglory of this world. It occurs to me now that this is borne out by the proverb current among the Spaniards, namely, "Dost thou wish to know thy value? see what ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 - Volume III, 1569-1576 • E.H. Blair
... simple in her taste, her dress, and her furniture, but choice in her simplicity, having the refinements and delicacies of luxury, but nothing of its ostentation nor its vanity; modest in her air, carriage, and manners, but with a touch of pride, and even a little vainglory. Nothing flattered her more than her intercourse with the great. At their houses she rarely saw them,—indeed she was not at her ease there,—but she knew how to attract them to her own by a coquetry subtly flattering; and in the easy, natural, half-respectful and half-familiar air with ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... teach us to remember that his accustomed mildness is the fruit of no indolent or sentimental peace; and that, on the other hand, when his counsels are sternest, and "his voice is still for war," this is no voice of hardness or of vainglory, but the reluctant resolution of a heart which fain would yield itself to other energies, and have no message ...
— Wordsworth • F. W. H. Myers
... liu'd thus long (let me speake my selfe, Since Vertue findes no friends) a Wife, a true one? A Woman (I dare say without Vainglory) Neuer yet branded with Suspition? Haue I, with all my full Affections Still met the King? Lou'd him next Heau'n? Obey'd him? Bin (out of fondnesse) superstitious to him? Almost forgot my Prayres to content him? And am I thus rewarded? 'Tis ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... be a mad, conceited, rediculous woman, and he an asse to suffer her to write what she does to and of him". Her own memoir is charmingly and unaffectedly egotistical. She tells us: "I fear my ambition inclines to vainglory, for I am very ambitious, yet 'tis neither for beauty, wit, title, wealth, or power, but as they are Steps to raise me to Fancies Tower, which is to live by remembrance in all ages.... My Disposition is more inclined to Melancholy than Merry, but not ...
— The Dukeries • R. Murray Gilchrist
... disturb you? Men should not dispute amongst themselves about vainglory and rank; that which perfectly distinguishes one from the other ...
— The Middle Class Gentleman - (Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme) • Moliere
... foreign lord dared to beat me—Triboulet—who has only been beaten by the king. Sooner or later must I have fled, in any event, for what is Triboulet without the court; or the court, without Triboulet?" his indignation merging into arrogant vainglory. ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... is this little place from the stir and bustle of travel, and so destitute of the show and vainglory of this world, that my calesa, as it rattled and jingled along the narrow and ill-paved streets, caused a great sensation; the children shouted and scampered along by its side, admiring its splendid trappings of brass and ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... man sank slowly into a chair. "George—George stole from me— stole money from me!" he whispered. His face was white. His pride and vainglory were broken. He was a haggard, shaken figure. His self- righteousness was levelled in ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... presumption, self-respect, conceit, reserve, superciliousness, disdain, self-complacency, vainglory, haughtiness, self-conceit, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... what did he get for it? Not even enough respect. They could not have given him enough of that if all their thoughts and all their actions had been directed to that end. The vanity of possession, the vainglory of power, had passed away by this time, and there remained only the material embarrassments, the fear of losing that position which had turned out not worth having, and an anxiety of thought which no abject ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad
... at them the finger of scorn, to taunt them for their inferiority or helplessness, is like putting out the eyes and clipping the wings of the eagle, and then reproaching him because he can neither see nor fly. To boast of our superior refinement, intelligence and virtue, is the extreme of vainglory, and adding ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... but a neophyte where Madame is an expert. I know the superficial nature of cats. Now and then without vainglory I can say I know their hearts; but Madame penetrates to and holds commune with their souls. And a cat's soul, monsieur, is a wonderful thing. Once it was divine—in ancient Egypt. Doubtless monsieur has heard of Pasht? Holy men spent their lives in approaching the cat-soul. ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... easily: the Jews spoke of the Kingdom of Heaven so that they might gain the kingdom of earth. A method not very remarkable for its success, Joseph interposed. The Romans do otherwise, never thinking about the Kingdom of Heaven, but only of riches and vainglory, whereas Jesus, he said, says it is as hard for the rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven as it would be for a sword to pass through the eye of a needle. A sword through the eye of a needle, Nicodemus repeated, walking up and down the floor, ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... feudal retainers," explained Hadden, not without vainglory. "They're My Followers. They belong to My Family. I tell you, they come expensive, though; you can't fill up all these retainers on tinned salmon for nothing; but whenever I could get it, I would give 'em squid. ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... defect respectively has been already explained, and may be further shown by a review of the virtues. Besides fortitude and temperance, already described, liberality is a mean between prodigality and stinginess; magnificence between vulgar display and pettiness: magnanimity between vainglory and pusillanimity; truthfulness between exaggeration and dissimulation; friendship between complaisance, or flattery, and frowardness,—and so of the rest. The golden mean must be taken in relation to ourselves, because in many matters of behaviour and the management of ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... solaced himself by going about to all his neighbours with this surprising paper in hand, for about the space of a fortnight, he thought to put the climax to his policy and his vainglory, by taking it and himself up to the banker's in town, where he always got the full amount of his bills for my board and education paid without either examination or hesitation. The worthy money-changer looked grimly polite at the long and wonderful account of the schoolmaster, received ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... him,—for Niphrata's words burnt into his brain like fire, ..too well, too well he understood their full intensity of meaning! She loved the IDEAL Sah-luma, . . the Sah-luma of her own pure fancies and desires, . . NOT the REAL man as he was, with all his haughty egotism, vainglory, and vice,— vice in which he took more pride than shame. Perhaps she had never known him in his actual character,—she, like other women of her lofty and ardent type, had no doubt set up the hero of her life as a god in the shrine ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... beneficial to his own creatures. Poor creatures, indigent at home, are yet proud of nothing, and endeavour, in seeking of themselves, to engross all perfections into their own bosoms! Ambition and vainglory robs and spoils others' excellencies to clothe itself withal; and then boasts itself in these borrowed feathers! But our blessed Lord is then doing most for our advantage when he does all for his own glory. He needs ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... fascination for him than outward show and pomp. He cares for little else, and a further proof of this unhappy vainglory is obtained by the study of the wall scrolls of the travelling public—whether travelling officially or for trading purposes—representing in Persia usually the most go-ahead and intelligent section ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... righteousness busily to birth, until he is led to God and may sit with heavenly citizens in everlasting seats. Therefore he stands clear in conscience and is steadfast in all good ways the which is never noyed with worldly heaviness nor gladdened with vainglory." ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry
... who strove with Breca, contested with him on the open sea, in a swimming contest, when ye two for vainglory tried the floods, and ventured your lives in deep water for idle boasting? Nor could any man, friend or foe, dissuade you from your sorry enterprise when ye swam on the sea; when ye compassed the flowing stream with your arms, meted out the sea-paths, battled ...
— The Translations of Beowulf - A Critical Biography • Chauncey Brewster Tinker
... be snapped in case the pear fails to ripen. But in the humble opinion of Ch'i-chao, the troops are now all fully inspired with a sense of obedience to the Chief Executive. Who then can claim the right to drag our Great President into unrighteousness for the sake of vanity and vainglory? Who will dare disobey the behests of the Great President if he should elect to open his heart and follow the path of honour and unbroken vows? If today, as Head of the nation, he is powerless to silence the riotous clamour of the soldiery as happened at Chen-chiao ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... and continued intermittently until 1783. But troubles dogged the great naturalist. The relations between him and Daubenton had grown acute, and the latter, unwilling any longer to put up with Buffon's love of vainglory, withdrew from the enterprise to which his co-operation had imparted so much value. Serious illness, also, and the death of Buffon's wife, caused a long suspension of his labours, which were, however, lightened by the assistance of Gueneau ...
— The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 - Science • Various
... tied my garment about me: When I gave up tying my garment, still I covered my body in its folds. So, when I give up passion, I see that anger remains; And when I renounce anger, greed is with me still; And when greed is vanquished, pride and vainglory remain; When the mind is detached and casts Maya away, still it clings to the letter. Kabr says, "Listen to me, dear Sadhu! the true path ...
— Songs of Kabir • Rabindranath Tagore (trans.)
... a reaction was of course inevitable. Man could not go on for ever describing himself as "a worm" and an outcast, or avowing himself "a miserable sinner" and a limb of Satan; and consequently, with an awakened sense of human dignity, inspiring him, not with vainglory, but with an ever-deepening self-reverence, the ascription of all agency to supernatural power began to be seriously curtailed. "The Divine right of kings" went its way with other archaisms into the limbo of oblivion, from which the reigning monarch ...
— Morality as a Religion - An exposition of some first principles • W. R. Washington Sullivan
... of Jeroboam, the son of Joash. Jeroboam's reign was a time of great prosperity for Israel. Moab, Gilead, and part of Syria were reconquered, and the usual effects of conquest, increased luxury and vainglory, followed. Amos was not an Israelite born, for he came from Tekoa, away down south, in the wild country west of the Dead Sea, where he had been a simple herdsman till the divine call sent him into the midst of the corrupt civilisation of the Northern Kingdom. The first words of ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... her aunt who was ill, away for an indefinite period, for Patsy's steady wages quite sufficed to keep his cousin at home to care for his grandmother. Lydia sometimes feared the satisfaction she took in Patsy's exemplary career was tinctured with vainglory for her own share in it, but, if so, she was punished for it now, since it was his very prosperity that took away from her the only steady domestic help she had ever been able to keep. She had now only a cook, a slatternly negress, ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... He saw that if he had gifts and wanted grace he was but as a "tinkling cymbal." "What, thought I, shall I be proud because I am a sounding brass? Is it so much to be a fiddle?" This thought was, "as it were, a maul on the head of the pride and vainglory" which he found "easily blown up at the applause and commendation of every unadvised christian." His experiences, like those of every public speaker, especially the most eloquent, were very varied, even ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables
... were discussing, over the cheese and ale, the Chezzetcook and negro settlements, and exhibiting with no little vainglory a gorgeous bunch of wild flowers (half of which vanity my compagnon de voyage is accountable for), there was a young English-Irish gentleman, well built, well featured, well educated: by ...
— Acadia - or, A Month with the Blue Noses • Frederic S. Cozzens
... leave others to enjoy theirs in peace. Cease to look upon yourselves as better than the rest of the world. I wish you well, for a pride founded on self-respect is pleasing in mine eyes; but take heed lest pride degenerate into vainglory. Farewell! ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers |
