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Quotations about bragging
Note that not all quotations have been tagged, so the Search function may find additional quotations on this topic.
In artful boasting, one states all the information necessary to impress people, but keeps the facts decently clothed in the language of humility.
Judith Martin (b. 1938) American author, journalist [a.k.a. Miss Manners]
Miss Manners’ Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior: Freshly Updated (2005)
(Source)
The less you speak of your greatness, the more I will think of it.
Francis Bacon (1561-1626) English philosopher, scientist, author, statesman
Remark to Sir Edward Coke
(Source)
Quoted in Joseph Sortain, The Life of Francis, Lord Bacon (1851).
Bragging is not merely designed to impress. Bragging is designed to produce envy and assert superiority. It is, therefore, an act of hostility. Bragging is also a transparent ploy. It reveals your lack of self-confidence. “I am not enough,” you feel. So you resort to showering me with your “achievements,” in order to mask your perceived deficiencies.
Aaron Hass (contemp.) American clinical psychiatrist, academic, author
Doing the Right Thing: Cultivating Your Moral Intelligence, Sec. 1, ch. 7 “Self-Control” (1998)
(Source)
Mules are always boasting that their ancestors are horses.
Other Authors and Sources
German Proverb
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember’d, —
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me,
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England, now a-bed,
Shall think themselves accurs’d, they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap, whiles any speaks,
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Henry V, Act 4, sc. 3 [Henry] (1599)
(Source)
In our judgment of men, we are to beware of giving any great importance to occasional acts. By acts of occasional virtue weak men endeavour to redeem themselves in their own estimation, vain men to exalt themselves in that of mankind.
Henry Taylor (1800-1886) English dramatist, poet, bureaucrat, man of letters
The Statesman: An Ironical Treatise on the Art of Succeeding, ch. 3 (1836)
(Source)
Ability hits the mark where presumption overshoots and diffidence falls short.
John Henry Newman (1801-1890) English prelate, Catholic Cardinal, theologian
(Attributed)
Also attributed to Golda Meir.
Talking much about oneself can also be a means to conceal oneself.
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) German philosopher and poet
Beyond Good and Evil, 169 (1886) [tr. Kaufmann (1966)]
Most people have a furious itch to talk about themselves and are restrained only by the disinclination of others to listen. Reserve is an artificial quality that is developed in most of us but as the result.
W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) English novelist and playwright [William Somerset Maugham]
The Summing Up, ch. 19 (1938)
Noise proves nothing. Often a hen who has merely laid an egg cackles as if she had laid an asteroid.
Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
Following the Equator, ch. 5, Epigraph (1897)
Whoo-oop! I’m the old original iron-jawed, brass-mounted, copper-bellied corpse-maker from the wilds of Arkansaw. — Look at me! I’m the man they call Sudden Death & General Desolation! Sired by a hurricane, dam’d by an earthquake, half-brother to the cholera, nearly related to the small-pox on the mother’s side! Look at me! I take nineteen alligators and a bar’l of whiskey for breakfast when I’m in robust health, and a bushel of rattlesnakes and a dead body when I’m ailing! I split the everlasting rocks with my glance, and I squench the thunder when I speak! Whoo-oop! Stand back and give me room according to my strength! Blood’s my natural drink, and the wails of the dying is music to my ear! Cast your eye on me, gentlemen! — and lay low and hold your breath, for I’m bout to turn myself loose!
Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
Life on the Mississippi, ch. 3 (1883)
It therefore comes to pass that everyone is fond of relating his own exploits and displaying the strength both of his body and his mind, and that men are on this account a nuisance one to the other.
Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) Dutch philosopher
Ethics, Part 3 (1677)
Tell me what you brag about and I’ll tell you what you lack.
Other Authors and Sources
Spanish proverb
PAROLLES: Who knows himself a braggart,
Let him fear this; for it will come to pass
That every braggart shall be found an ass.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
All’s Well That Ends Well, Act 4, sc. 3 (1602-04)
(Source)
Do you wish people to think well of you? Don’t speak well of your-self.
[Voulez-vous qu’on croie du bien de vous? N’en dites point.]
Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) French scientist and philosopher
Pensées, # 4 (1670)
Alt. trans.:
- "If you want people to think well of you, do not speak well of yourself."
- "Do you want people to think well of you? Don't say a word about it."
To have a thing is little, if you’re not allowed to show it;
And to know a thing is nothing, unless others know you know it.Charles Neaves (1800-1876) Scottish judge, theologian, critic, poet
(Attributed)
Quoted in Booth Epigrams, Ancient and Modern (1865).
It is a great deal better to live a holy life than to talk about it. We are told to let our light shine, and if it does, we won’t need to tell anybody it does. Light-houses don’t ring bells and fire cannon to call attention to their shining — they just shine.
Dwight Lyman "D. L." Moody (1837-1899) American evangelist and publisher
(Attributed)
Sometimes quoted, "they just shine on."
Man is always looking for someone to boast to; woman is always looking for someone to complain to.
H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) American writer and journalist [Henry Lewis Mencken]
The New York Evening Mail (15 Nov 1917)
A year later he wrote: "Man is always looking for someone to boast to; woman is always looking for a shoulder to put her head on." [In Defense of Women (1918)]
Don’t take up a man’s time talking about the smartness of your children; he wants to talk to you about the smartness of his children.
Edgar Watson "Ed" Howe (1853-1937) American journalist and author [E. W. Howe]
Country Town Sayings (1911)
This sad little lizard told me that he was a Brontosaurus on his mother’s side. I did not laugh; people who boast of ancestry often have little else to sustain them. Humoring them costs nothing and adds to happiness in a world in which happiness is in short supply.
Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988) American writer
Time Enough for Love (1973)
Make the least ado about your greatest gifts. Be content to act, and leave the talking to others.
Baltasar Gracián y Morales (1601-1658) Spanish Jesuit priest, writer, philosopher
The Art of Worldly Wisdom [Oráculo Manual y Arte de Prudencia], #295 (1647)
Alt. trans.: "The greater your exploits the less you need affect them: content yourself with doing, leave the talking to others." [tr. Jacobs (1892)]
The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons.
Be wiser than other people, if you can; but do not tell them so.
Lord Chesterfield (1694-1773) English statesman, wit [Philip Dormer Stanhope]
Letter to his son (19 Nov 1745)
