“You should only boast about having nothing to boast about!”
Fausto Cercignani (1941) Italian scholar, essayist and poet
Examples of self-translation (c. 2004), Quotes - Zitate - Citations - Citazioni
“He was always boasting of his ancestors, as stupid people do who are aware that they have done nothing themselves to boast about.”
— Robert Graves, book I, Claudius
Source: I, Claudius (1934), Ch. 5.
Context: My tutor I have already mentioned, Marcus Porcius Cato who was, in his own estimation at least, a living embodiment of that ancient Roman virtue which his ancestors had one after the other shown. He was always boasting of his ancestors, as stupid people do who are aware that they have done nothing themselves to boast about. He boasted particularly of Cato the Censor, who of all characters in Roman history is to me perhaps the most hateful, as having persistently championed the cause of "ancient virtue" and made it identical in the popular mind with churlishness, pedantry and harshness.
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English poet and novelist 1895–1985Related quotes
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