cocksureness

• “His very cocksureness is filched from Darwin’s morality of strength based on the survival of the fittest.”

  The Little Lady of the Big House, by Jack London

• “Oh, believe me, I see it very clearly — myself in the heyday and cocksureness of youth, flinging at you, with much energy and little skill, my immature generalisations from science; and you with an elderly beneficence and tolerance, smiling shrewdly and affectionatety upon me, secure in the knowledge that sooner or later I am sure to get through with it all and join you in your broad and placid philosophy.”

  The Kempton-Wace Letters

• “In moments where his air of mystery is challenged he loses that cocksureness.”

  The Guardian: How Rinse FM, the radio station behind Dizzee Rascal and Katy B, keeps it salty

• “On the surface he was all bluster, bravado and cocksureness.”

  The Wall Street Journal: He Knew He Was Right

• “Kissing my mother and padding her bosom, carrying a banal effervescent cocksureness, he kicked his boots to the center of the room, and whisked her up the stairs.”

  Fictionaut: Carolina Grüber: I

• “We hope he would navigate between the amoral realism of some in his party and the counterproductive cocksureness of the current administration, especially in its first term.”

  The Wall Street Journal: Not in My Backyard

• “Padding her bosom, carrying around an effervescent cocksureness, he kicked his boots to the center of the room and whisked her up the stairs.”

  Fictionaut: We Stabbed and a Mighty Scarf Shot Red

• “For “democracy” or the “democratic spirit” (diabolical sense) leads to a nation without great men, a nation mainly of subliterates, full of the cocksureness which flattery breeds on ignorance, and quick to snarl or whimper at the first sign of criticism.”

  Screwtape on Democracy | Diane Duane's weblog: "Out of Ambit"

• “Perhaps there had been a shade too much cocksureness in the hakim's voice, but he acted faultlessly when he answered.”

  Fictionaut: In The Time Of Light

• “They are popular because of their personalities, teeming with brio and cocksureness.”

  Lionel: Olbermann Versus O'Reilly: It's a Shoot

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