Pretensions

Examples

• You showed me how insufficient were all my pretensions to please a woman worthy of being pleased. Jane Austen. Pride and Prejudice.
• It very seldom happens that anybody--of any pretensions--any pretensions--comes here without being presented to me. Charles Dickens. Little Dorrit.
• We must not swing across from the repudiation of the extravagant pretensions of the faithful to an equally extravagant condemnation. H. G. Wells. The Outline of History_Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind.
• For they certainly do believe it, and generally the more parochial their outlook, the more cosmic their pretensions. Walter Lippmann. A Preface to Politics.
• I am not a moral sort of fellow,' he said, 'and I never make any pretensions to the character of a moral sort of fellow. Charles Dickens. Hard Times.
• Everybody went away having any pretensions to politeness, and of course, with them, Doctor von Glauber, the Court Doctor, and his Baroness. William Makepeace Thackeray. Vanity Fair.
• He never dreamed of disputing their pretensions, but did homage to the miserable Mumbo jumbo they paraded. Charles Dickens. Little Dorrit.
• I do assure you, sir, that I have no pretensions whatever to that kind of elegance which consists in tormenting a respectable man. Jane Austen. Pride and Prejudice.
• What a launch in life I think it now, on looking back, to be so mean and servile to a man of such parts and pretensions! Charles Dickens. David Copperfield.
• The upstart pretensions of a young woman without family, connections, or fortune. Jane Austen. Pride and Prejudice.
• In the other corner was a bed of much humbler pretensions, and evidently designed for _use_. Harriet Beecher Stowe. Uncle Tom's Cabin.
• Should he oppose any of their pretensions or usurpations, the danger is equally great. Adam Smith. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations.
• Nobody believed in his pretensions any more. H. G. Wells. The Outline of History_Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind.
• What Nietzsche has done here is, in his swashbuckling fashion, to cut under the abstract and final pretensions of creeds. Walter Lippmann. A Preface to Politics.
• She is such a very nice girl--no airs, no pretensions, though on a level with the firSt. I don't mean with the titled aristocracy. George Eliot. Middlemarch.
• Know then, that I have supported my pretensions to your hand in the way that best suited thy character. Walter Scott. Ivanhoe.
• Celia, whose mind had never been thought too powerful, saw the emptiness of other people's pretensions much more readily. George Eliot. Middlemarch.
• How can people be blamed for laughing at such pretensions, and believing that even if such a thing were true it was more fit for an exposition than for public use? Rupert S. Holland. Historic Inventions.
• Quite early in its career Buddhism came into conflict with the growing pretensions of the Brahmins. H. G. Wells. The Outline of History_Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind.
• To the Public, for the indulgent ear it has inclined to a plain tale with few pretensions. Charlotte Bronte. Jane Eyre.
• I took personal charge of running down this man and his pretensions in the section of the city where he lived and among his old neighbors. Frank Lewis Dyer. Edison, His Life and Inventions.
• Though the older courses resisted, they have had at least in this country to retire their pretensions to a monopoly. John Dewey. Democracy and Education.
• A prejudice against some mannerism or a dislike of pretensions may merely cloak some other kind of routine. Walter Lippmann. A Preface to Politics.
• Taken literally, they are absurd pretensions; they indicate insanity. John Dewey. Democracy and Education.
• I knew that Floyd was in command, but he was no soldier, and I judged that he would yield to Pillow's pretensions. Ulysses S. Grant. Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant.
• I do not care to dilate upon the exploded pretensions of Mr. and Mrs. Grundy. Walter Lippmann. A Preface to Politics.
• It makes no pretensions, but it is a comfortable little place, I hope, and will be more so with such bright young looks in it. Charles Dickens. Bleak House.
• Scarce can we believe the first citizens of the ancient republics had such pretensions to consideration, though so highly celebrated in ancient story. Benjamin Franklin. Memoirs of Benjamin Franklin.
• The man of real high rank and breeding might here have been easily distinguished from the mere man of impudent pretensions. Harriette Wilson. The Memoirs of Harriette Wilson.

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