A true history of human events would show that a far larger proportion of our acts are the result of sudden impulse and accident than of that reason of which we so much boast.
Peter Cooper

An untempted woman cannot boast of her chastity.
Michel de Montaigne

Be bold and boast, just like the cock beside the hen.
Aeschylus

Boast is always a cry of despair, except in the young it is a cry of hope.
Bernard Berenson

Buonaparte has often made his boast that our fleet would be worn out by keeping the sea and that his was kept in order and increasing by staying in port; but know he finds, I fancy, if Emperors hear the truth, that his fleet suffers more in a night than ours in one year.
Horatio Nelson

But what has America to boast? What are the graces or the virtues which distinguish its inhabitants? What are their triumphs in war, or their inventions in peace?
Thomas Day

But who can paint like Nature? Can imagination boast, amid its gay creation, hues like hers?
James Thomson

He lives to build, not boast, a generous race; No tenth transmitter of a foolish face.
Richard Savage

I don't like to boast, but I have probably skipped more poetry than any other person of my age and weight in this country.
Will Cuppy

I have often noticed that ancestors never boast of the descendants who boast of ancestors. I would rather start a family than finish one. Blood will tell, but often it tells too much.
Don Marquis

I perceive two things in Scotland of the most fearful omen: ignorance of theological truth, and a readiness to pride themselves in and boast of it.
Edward Irving

If a June night could talk, it would probably boast it invented romance.
Bern Williams

If I seem to boast more than is becoming, my excuse is that I brag for humanity rather than for myself.
Henry David Thoreau

It has become almost a cliche to remark that nobody boasts of ignorance of literature, but it is socially acceptable to boast ignorance of science and proudly claim incompetence in mathematics.
Richard Dawkins

It has, therefore, been a favorite boast of the people of Wales and Cornwall, that the original British stock flourishes in its unmixed purity only among them.
Thomas Bulfinch

It is a law of human nature that in victory even the coward may boast of his prowess, while defeat injures the reputation even of the brave.
Sallust

It is common for those that are farthest from God, to boast themselves most of their being near to the Church.
Matthew Henry

Let who will boast their courage in the field, I find but little safety from my shield, Nature's, not honour's law we must obey: This made me cast my useless shield away.
Archilochus

Man is always looking for someone to boast to; woman is always looking for a shoulder to put her head on.
H. L. Mencken

No language is rude that can boast polite writers.
Aubrey Beardsley