"Demoralizing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... effort. Its work cannot be done vicariously by drugs or the knife. Large, allopathic doses of medicine may be given with the idea of doing the work for the cell by violently stimulating or else paralyzing the organism as a whole or certain ones of the vital organs; but this is demoralizing and destructive to the cell. The powerful doses calculated to affect the body and its organs as a whole make superfluous or paralyze the individual efforts of the cells and thus intensify the chronic disease conditions ...
— Nature Cure • Henry Lindlahr
... cross-cut, seen near Nuwaybi', and still visible. They also refused, without preliminary "bakhshsh," to show or even to tell where certain ruins, concerning which they spoke or romanced, are found in their hills. And yet there are theologians who would raise Poverty, the most demoralizing of all conditions, to the rank of ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... to care. He was a profuse giver and a careless payer. It was far easier for him to send a hundred-dollar note in reply to a begging letter, than it was to discharge a long-standing account; and when he had wasted his resources in extravagant and demoralizing gifts, he deemed it a sufficient answer to a presented bill to ask his creditor how a man could ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... pastures were poorer, but where they would be free from his depredations. If the $1,750 in the bank had been meant as a bribe or a stipend for good behavior, such as was formerly paid to Italian brigands, it certainly could not have been more demoralizing in its effect; for all agreed that, since Lars Moe's death, ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... in serial form in Scribner's, Pearson's and other reliable periodicals (accounts which bear the impress of truth, and are hardly liable to the charge of having been written within too close range of time and space, or vice versa, to be strictly truthful), indicate the demoralizing and debasing effects of the "system" from its initial period, this followed up by the blighting influences of slave life, even under the most favorable conditions, for nearly two hundred and fifty years, left upon Negro life ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... woman to dream of sea foam, foretells that indiscriminate and demoralizing pleasures will distract her from the paths of rectitude. If she wears a bridal veil of sea foam, she will engulf herself in material pleasure to the exclusion of true refinement and innate modesty. She will be likely to cause sorrow ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... almshouse? What course would be most sure to pauperize them utterly?" For once, my critic and myself are in agreement. I believe it is better for one to partly support himself than not to do anything towards it. Nothing is more demoralizing to any one than to become accustomed to receive charity. But, after all, you may pauperize people almost as rapidly in the attic as in the almshouse. It is against the whole system that I make war. I do not admit, for a moment, that it is necessary for the sewing-woman to receive such wages ...
— White Slaves • Louis A Banks
... great pleasure. He saw that despite her constant association with such demoralizing influences, Mrs. McGee was still a true Southern gentlewoman. And as a morsel of yeast may leaven the entire lump of dough, so her presence here in the midst of such unruly elements might yet ...
— Chums in Dixie - or The Strange Cruise of a Motorboat • St. George Rathborne
... Wood became another hell, on a day of great battle—September 14, 1916—when for the first time tanks were used, demoralizing the enemy in certain places, though they were too few in number to strike a paralyzing blow. The Londoners gained part of High Wood at frightful cost and then were blown out of it. Other divisions followed ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... not a uniform dress; the Shakers and Rappists have, and it is an advantage in point of neatness. The slop-made coats and trousers worn in many societies quickly turn shabby, and give a slouchy appearance to the men, which is disagreeable to the eye, and must be more or less demoralizing to the wearers. The blue jacket of the Rappist is a very suitable and comfortable working garment; and the long coat of the Shaker always ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... prostitution, parcelled out to meet the sordid spirit of family alliances and ungodly bargains; or, in other words, to turn her into a mass of bribes—a base appendage to the authority of the British minister, who used her as the successful medium of at once enslaving and demoralizing the country, instead of elevating and civilizing it. It is for this great neglect of national duty, and for permitting ourselves to be imbued with the carnal and secular spirit, which has led us so far from practical truth and piety, ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... his leg broken by a ball, clung to a sergeant's stirrup until a second shot stretched him dead upon the bank. The loss in that wild retreat (which Reno later called a "charge") was heavy, the effect demoralizing; but those who escaped found a spot well suited for defence. Even as they swung down from off their wounded, panting horses, and flung themselves flat upon their faces to sweep with hastily levelled carbines the river banks below, Benteen came trotting gallantly ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... it was through the persuasions of my poor mother, that my father was induced to give up that nefarious traffic. Since that, his capital has been chiefly employed in privateering, which, if not so brutal and disgraceful, is certainly nearly as demoralizing. I have been home but a short time, and I have already ventured to express my opinion, certainly not so forcibly and so well as you have, upon the subject; but I was laughed at as a tender-hearted girl, who could not be a fit judge of such matters. But now that you, a captain of one of his ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat
... criminating facts but do not consider it to be any of their business to inform the authorities that the law is being defied. The entire result of this evasion of responsibility on the part of those who are responsible is demoralizing to every young man connected with the road. The editor of the News recalls the statement made by a prominent railroad official in this city a little while ago, that nearly every clerk in a certain department of the road ...
— In His Steps • Charles M. Sheldon
... selling lead pencils. With a roar of consternation, the tall man rushed into the street, flourishing his arms, and begging some one—any one—to "Take it away! Take it away!" He finally collided with the head end of the dragon, demoralizing that half of the chink procession as completely as the latter half ...
— Owen Clancy's Happy Trail - or, The Motor Wizard in California • Burt L. Standish
... to be tabooed from this moment. You must not say, 'How tired you look!' or 'How pale you are!' It is not manners at the Friary, and it is demoralizing. I am ten times more tired this minute than I was before you told ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... the absurd but popular notion that the gods could be full of human imperfections, could make war upon each other, could engage in intrigues, and be guilty of base passions. And he earnestly maintained that it was demoralizing to children and youth to hold up such beings as objects of worship. Such was his condemnation of what he considered false gods. He was equally opposed to the idea that there is no God. "All things," he says, "are from God, and not from some spontaneous ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood
... tell us, and let us be ready for two brides instead of one?' asked Mrs Jo, looking as usual rather demoralizing in a wrapper and crimping-pins, having rushed down from her chamber, where she was preparing for the labours ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... him whose brain may be dizzy with excess, whose limbs may be paralyzed, or if sound in body, may be without aim or ambition, without plans or projects, destitute of executive ability or good judgment in the business affairs of life. And such sentimentalists, after demoralizing women with their twaddle, discourage our demand for the right of suffrage by pointing us to the fact that the majority of women are indifferent to this movement in their behalf. Suppose they are; have not the masses of all oppressed classes been ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... experiment of universal liberty has failed. The evils of free society are insufferable. Free society in the long run is impracticable; it is everywhere starving, demoralizing, and insurrectionary. Policy and humanity alike forbid the extension of its evils to new peoples and to coming generations; and therefore free society must fall and give way to a slave society— a social system old as the world, universal ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright
... nine tenths of our journals abandoned many years ago the abominable practice of regularly publishing police cases; and that, making every allowance, English newspapers at present publish on an average ten times as much demoralizing matter as the American. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... general breakdown in the old arrangements for providing water, drainage, and fresh air; and made rents high, and consequently living in crowded rooms necessary. The factory towns in the early part of the century were filthy, crowded, and demoralizing, compared alike with their ...
— An Introduction to the Industrial and Social History of England • Edward Potts Cheyney
... and talented divine, who had so often denounced the sins and follies of the fashionable world, and declaimed particularly against the demoralizing influences of masquerade balls—that young and handsome preacher, whose exalted reputation for sanctity and holiness had induced the amorous Josephine and her licentious mother to suppose him inaccessible to their lustful glances, and far removed from the power ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... the early part of the century were not happy ones for childhood in general. Too much happiness was considered demoralizing in this world and a poor preparation for the next. Work was the great panacea for all sorts of evils. It was seldom work for one's neighbors, though people were ready to go in sickness and trouble. It was adding field to field and interest ...
— A Little Girl in Old Boston • Amanda Millie Douglas
... away and went into the hut. He was in the hardest moment of his trial. It was the inability to fight, the lack of freedom, of weapons, the sense of helplessness, that had come nearer to demoralizing Menard than a hundred battles. He had been trusted with the life of a maid, and, more important still, with the Governor's orders. He was, ...
— The Road to Frontenac • Samuel Merwin
... whilst the Anti-corn-law League can display such perseverance, determination, and system, its opponents obstinately remain supine and silent, can any one wonder if such progress be not made by the League, in their demoralizing and revolutionary enterprize, that it will soon be too late to attempt even ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... the other hand, you are demoralizing me completely. You have no idea what empty, formal affairs recitals seem to me now; they are so impersonal. I feel like grumbling, because I can't talk over each item of the programme with the one who does it. I said something of the sort to Miss Dane, ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... having had a sinister influence over its hero is so easily disposed of by a reference to that romance itself that it is hard to understand its ever having been made. Here is the passage describing the demoralizing book in question: ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... result of which was the decision to let the negroes alone, provided they kept quiet and obeyed. It was evident to both of them that the approach of Union forces, though yet comparatively distant, had produced the usual demoralizing effects. The government at The Oaks had not been harsh, but it had been strict and animated by a spirit which alienated sympathy. The situation was now seen to be too critical to admit of severity, all ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... account young Orphans, generally speaking, require particular care as to their health. In this respect I desire to care for them; but there is more than that to be attended to. I further heartily desire to keep them from the corrupting and demoralizing effect of the lowest sort of children in the streets, courts and Unions; but I desire more for them than mere decency and morality. I desire that they should be useful members of society, and that the prisons of the ...
— A Narrative of Some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself, Fourth Part • George Mueller
... large section of the educated world. The author of this tract connects the old logic with the indecencies of the classical writers, and the new with moral purity: he appeals to women, who, "when they see plainly the demoralizing tendency of syllogistic logic, they will no doubt exert their powerful influence against it, and support the Baconian method." This is the only work against logic which I can introduce, but it is a rare one, I mean in contents. I quote the ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... get to the point of things, Philadelphia had what some of the fans called "one of them afternoons." There is no use trying to describe all the details of this so-called contest, for it is demoralizing to the young to see such things in print. Many criminals have confessed on the scaffold that they got their start watching the Athletics assault some honest young pitcher who was trying to support his aged mother. They say that, if the ...
— Practical English Composition: Book II. - For the Second Year of the High School • Edwin L. Miller
... soul. A Bro. McPherson undertook to contest the matter with her, but, not finding the scripture he was looking for, she exclaimed with bitter and vixenish speech, "Ah! You can't find it! You can't find it! It isn't there! I told you so!" And thus this couple were fast demoralizing the church, Billy Greenwell, the richest man in the church, being wholly carried away with this fanaticism. John Brown lived half way between Ripley and Rushville, but was a member of the church at Rushville. Bro. Brown was a man of good sense, excellent character, and had been a member ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler
... large amounts. The life insurance company finds the beer drinker a precarious risk; the surgeon finds him an unpromising subject; the criminal court finds him conspicuous in its proceedings. The united testimony from all these sources is that beer is demoralizing, mentally, morally, and physically. ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell
... have been seeking amusement and profit by some exercises in elocution. Mr. G—— and myself have been trying to read Shakespeare a little; but some gentlemen here have had some qualms of conscience as to the propriety of it, and have condemned the reading of Shakespeare as demoralizing. What ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... thoughtful men of the South began to threaten the institution. Men felt that it was a curse to the slave, and poisoned the best white society of the slave-holding States. As early as 1781, Mr. Jefferson, with his keen, philosophical insight, beheld with alarm the demoralizing tendency of slavery. "The whole commerce," says Mr. Jefferson, "between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions; the most unrelenting despotism on the one part, and degrading ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... of the District presented a petition to Congress, complaining of the "DOMESTIC SLAVE-TRADE" as a grievance disgraceful in its character, and "even more demoralizing its influence" than the foreign traffic. The petition concluded as follows: "The people of this District have within themselves no means of legislative redress, and we therefore appeal to your Honorable body as the only one vested by the American ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... era of fifty-nine years—inherited as legacies from the immediate past: a well-furnished treasury, a nation in the enjoyment of peace, a firmly established throne, and a satisfactory state of foreign relations. These comfortable conditions seem to have exercised demoralizing influence. The bonds of discipline grew slack; fierce quarrels on account of women involved fratricide among the princes of the blood, and finally the life of an Emperor was sacrificed—the only instance of such a catastrophe in ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... a dread of the ultimate results of slavery. He wished—it had been accounted sensible in his family to wish—that slavery had never existed. Having existed, they never thought of favoring its extinction. They thought it corrupting and demoralizing to the white race. They felt that it was separating them, year by year, farther and farther from that independent self-relying manhood, which had built up American institutions and American prosperity. They feared the fruit of this demoralization. For the sake of the white man, ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... cracking of splitting iron everywhere—that is war. And accompanying it all the hopeless sensation that this will never, never stop, that it will go on like this forever, until one's thoughts are dulled by some terrible, cruel, incomprehensible, demoralizing force. Those bounding puffs of smoke everywhere on the ground, rifle shots which have been aimed too short and every one of which— That abominable sharp singing as of a swarm of mosquitoes, buzz, buzz, like the buzzing of angry hornets continually ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff
... failed to find out, and the management sent to Chicago for a real live detective who would not be predisposed to accept the "mystery" as such, but would do his utmost to find the cause of a phenomenon that was not only interrupting traffic but demoralizing ...
— The Last Spike - And Other Railroad Stories • Cy Warman
... Lady Harman, as the door closed on Snagsby. Her mind was full of confused protest, but she had again that entirely feminine and demoralizing conviction that if she tried to express it she would weep or stumble into some such emotional disaster. If now she went upstairs and told Peters not ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... with its anniversaries and its dragging, interminable weeks: demoralizing summer, when Mrs. Mayo quite frankly appeared at her side window in a dressing sacque, and Honora longed to do the same. But time never stands absolutely still, and the day arrived when Mr. Beckwith called in a carriage. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... for harsh ministers. In one man God lights the heart, in another the reason becomes a consuming fire. God takes his own where he finds it. He does not limit himself to nice people. In these matters of evidence and argument, in his contempt for amiable, demoralizing compromise, Chasters served God as Scrope could never hope to serve him. Scrope's new faith had perhaps been altogether impossible if the Chasters controversy had ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells
... two later by an extraordinary exhibition of wearing apparel of divers colors, fluttering on lines like a display of bunting on ship-board, and whose flapping in the breeze was like irregular discharges of musketry. It was evident also that the court exercised a demoralizing influence over the whole neighborhood. A sanguine property-owner once put up a handsome dwelling on the corner of our street, and lived therein; but although he appeared frequently on his balcony, clad in a bright crimson dressing-gown, which made him look like a tropical ...
— Urban Sketches • Bret Harte
... which changed the whole current of David Crockett's life, leading him from his lonely cabin and the peaceful scenes of a hunter's life to the field of battle, and to all the cruel and demoralizing influences of horrid war. ...
— David Crockett: His Life and Adventures • John S. C. Abbott
... certificate to be given to that effect, which should be taken in payment of the rate. The Kells and Fore Committee add, with truth, that this labour, being carried on under the ordinary relations of employer and employed, would be free from the difficulties of superintendence, and the demoralizing effects which "charity works" are apt ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... the addition of so many thousands of men of voting age upon our political conditions? Undoubtedly demoralizing and dangerous. Professor Mayo-Smith says: "We are thus conferring the privilege of citizenship, including the right to vote, without any test of the man's fitness for it. The German vote in many localities controls the action of political leaders on the liquor question, oftentimes in opposition ...
— Aliens or Americans? • Howard B. Grose
... truth, needs no other legal restraint; the public judgment will correct false reasoning and opinions on a full hearing of all parties; and no other definite line can be drawn between the inestimable liberty of the press and its demoralizing licentiousness. If there be still improprieties which this rule would not restrain, its supplement must be sought in the censorship of ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various
... and suggestion; that in no other writer is its latent presence more constantly felt, even if there be any in whom it is more often openly obtruded. The unclean spirit pursues him everywhere, disfiguring his scenes of humour, demoralizing his passages of serious reflection, debasing even his sentimental interludes. His coarseness is very often as great a blot on his art as on his morality—a thing which can very rarely be said of either Swift or Rabelais; and it is sometimes ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... while he was learning his trade, and though he lived under demoralizing influences, he never lapsed into bad habits. What he said of himself one day was strictly true, and it was one of the most material causes of his ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... perhaps nothing so demoralizing to regular troops as employment on police duty which requires them to work singly or in small squads. Discipline speedily goes to the dogs ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester
... employee is off duty, she should not be allowed to remain with or to talk to the other employee or employees who are still on duty. When her work is finished, she ought to leave her employer's house. The non-observance of either of these two points produces a demoralizing effect. ...
— Wanted, a Young Woman to Do Housework • C. Helene Barker
... to see them look at a fly, I'll put it over them," she said, good-naturedly, "but, you know, it is most demoralizing." ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... uncertainty of resupply, the necessity for securing fire superiority in order to advance within the shorter ranges, and the impossibility of accomplishing this at ineffective ranges, make it imperative that fire be not opened as long as the advance can be continued without demoralizing losses. The attack which halts to open fire at extreme range (over 1,200 yards) is not likely ever to reach its destination. Every effort should be made, by using cover or inconspicuous formations, or by advancing the firing line as a whole, to arrive within ...
— Infantry Drill Regulations, United States Army, 1911 - Corrected to April 15, 1917 (Changes Nos. 1 to 19) • United States War Department
... profession, and to mislead their deluded followers, by clamouring about the expense of the army, and the aristocratic bearing of its members, that they may the more readily carry out their own schemes of personal vanity and demoralizing political economy. ...
— Campaign of the Indus • T.W.E. Holdsworth
... this exhibition was to give voice to a growing sentiment against public hangings. The next issue of the Freeman's Journal protested against such spectacles as demoralizing, and suggested a movement in the State legislature to amend the law. Kelley's was in fact the last ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall
... after many other accusations, "I consider that Mr. Quarrier is setting the very worst, the most debasing, the most demoralizing example to these working folk, whose best interests he professes to have at heart. I am assured (and the witness of my own eyes in one instance warrants me in giving credit to the charge) that he constantly enters public-houses, ...
— Denzil Quarrier • George Gissing
... usually he had two Meals in the Dark. On Sunday he and the Hired Help would sit in the Hay-Mow and read Almanacs. In the Winter he attended a District School and learned to bound Patagonia, but he did not go to any demoralizing Shows nor learn to ...
— People You Know • George Ade
... was a wealth and a comfort to us. Besides, we really did not need half the lumber of a common kitchen closet; a china bowl or plate would no longer be contraband of war, and Barbara said she could stir her blanc-mange with a silver spoon without demoralizing anybody to the extent of having the ashes taken up ...
— We Girls: A Home Story • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... simple, perspicuous style, without that ambition of rhetorical display too common with his countrymen. He writes with honest candor, and while he does ample justice to the merits and capacity of the conquered races, be notices with indignation the atrocities of the Spaniards and the demoralizing tendency of the Conquest. It may be thought, indeed, that he forms too high an estimate of the attainments of the nation under the Incas. And it is not improbable, that, astonished by the vestiges it afforded of an original civilization, ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... seeing his subjects so completely infatuated by the riotous worship of this new divinity, and fearing the demoralizing effects of the unseemly nocturnal orgies held in honour of the wine-god, strictly prohibited his people from taking any part in the wild Bacchanalian revels. Anxious to save him from the consequences of his impiety, ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... that usually those conditions are extremely bad for the children. The tension between the parents absorbs energy which should be devoted to the children. The spectacle of the grievances or quarrels of their parents is demoralizing for the children, and usually fatal to any respect towards them. At the best it is injuriously distressing to the children. One effective parent, there cannot be the slightest doubt, is far better for a child than two ineffective parents. There is a further point, often overlooked, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... this case), and to get as much out of them as one can: and to do this a man must learn a little dissimulation, and how to put a good face upon a bad business. But, on the other hand, it is exactly for this reason that card-playing is so demoralizing, since the whole object of it is to employ every kind of trick and machination in order to win what belongs to another. And a habit of this sort, learnt at the card-table, strikes root and pushes its way into practical ...
— The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer: The Wisdom of Life • Arthur Schopenhauer
... onslaught was such that the other three jumped backward, thereby releasing the King's arms so that we were now two to three, which in a moment became two to two, for I lost no time in knocking out my second man with as pretty a solar plexus as you ever saw. There is nothing in the world more demoralizing than a good, solid blow straight from the shoulder to chaps whose idea of fighting is to sneak up behind you and choke you to death, or to stick a knife into the small of your back, and had I been far less expert with my fists, I should still have had an incalculable moral advantage ...
— R. Holmes & Co. • John Kendrick Bangs
... no longer identified with Christianity; and when all persons, with any sense of moral good and evil, will look upon it with the same indignation with which my father regarded it. My father was as well aware as anyone that Christians do not, in general, undergo the demoralizing consequences which seem inherent in such a creed, in the manner or to the extent which might have been expected from it. The same slovenliness of thought, and subjection of the reason to fears, wishes, and affections, which enable them to accept a theory involving a contradiction ...
— Autobiography • John Stuart Mill
... Life is never, and in nothing, the famine, perhaps, that we imagine it. Much more probably it is a surfeit, and what we suppose are the pangs of hunger are really the miseries of repletion. More people are suffering from too much than from too little. Especially are the good things here in a demoralizing profusion. Ask any large employer of labor, and he will tell you that what ails the working-classes is an excess of pianos and buggies and opera-boxes. Ask any workman what ails his employer, and he will say that ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... and his opening policy in Kansas, soothed the irritation, and was rapidly demoralizing the new Party, when the Pro-Slavery Party in Kansas perpetrated, and the President and the South accepted, the Lecompton fraud, and again united the North more resolutely in resistance to that invasion of the ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... pleasant and attractive, and yet very heartless. Art is a source of innocent enjoyment, and an important aid to higher culture; but unless it leads to higher culture, it will probably be merely sensuous. And when art is merely sensuous, it is enfeebling and demoralizing rather than strengthening or elevating. Honest courage is of greater worth than any amount of grace; purity is better than elegance; and cleanliness of body, mind, and heart, than any ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... these abilities on the coasts. For if they were only required to be expert in war, the country would be in ruins before they became capable of governing it—as, for our sins, we have seen in past years. They should not come burdened with debts, which are demoralizing in a thousand ways. Notwithstanding that your Majesty has issued decrees which prohibit them from giving offices of profit to members of their households, rather than to the worthy persons of the kingdom, these decrees are the least complied with; nor is there any one who dares ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 • Emma Helen Blair
... first be imagined. However, they could not be as dangerous as the chief eunuch of the Grand Cherif of Mecca and increase the population to the same extent; but I should judge that they might be a very demoralizing moral element if introduced into modern society. If eunuchs must be employed, it can easily be understood why the Turk and Chinese prefer the real, clean-cut article. The New York "Four Hundred" should make ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... Servitude was not the nurse of your childhood; you are getting on in years when she takes you in hand; accordingly, you will do her little credit, and give little satisfaction to your lord. Recollections of Freedom will exercise their demoralizing influence upon you, causing you to jib at times, and you will make villanous work of your new profession. Or will your aspirations after Freedom be satisfied, perhaps, with the thought, that you are no son of a Pyrrhias or ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... Julius!" said Raymond. "You will head a clerical crusade against the turf, but I do not think it just to compare it with those ferocious sports which were demoralizing in themselves; while this is to large numbers simply a harmless holiday and excuse for an outing, not to speak of the benefit to the breed ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... had always been very terrible, vindictively thorough. The indignity of them lashed her soul even more cruelly than the unsparing thong her body. Because of them she went in daily trepidation, submissive almost to the point of abjectness, lest this hateful and demoralizing form of punishment should be inflicted upon her. For some time now, by great wariness and circumspection she had evaded it, and she had begun to entertain the trembling hope that she was at last considered to have passed the age for ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... "Don't put such demoralizing ideas into the child's head. How it is that girls are not ruined," said Miss Dorset, shaking her head, "ruined! by such examples, I cannot tell. They must have stronger heads than we think. As poor as Cinderella one day, and the next as rich as the Queen—without any merit of theirs, all ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... instructive, indeed, for then the mask is off and the true character is revealed. I have been away down in the depths, and for years have toiled cheek by jowl, through sunshine and storm, in blinding snows and pelting rain, with my brother men under conditions too brutal and demoralizing to be understood if described—conditions where the very worst side of human character would naturally be thought to come to the front, and I came out of the fierce struggle in that pit of death with conclusions as to the human animal that are decidedly favorable, and I am inclined to ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... the language of a powerful journalist, (the Spectator,) opposed on most points to the present Government, "the late Ministers commenced a career, perilous in the extreme to all the best interests of the nation—demoralizing public opinion, wasting public resources, and entangling the country in quarrels alike endless and aimless; and all this with a labouring after melodramatic stage effect, and a regardlessness of consequences perfectly unprecedented." We were, in the words ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... America has taught me the demoralizing tendency of the doctrine of 'equality of races and of sexes,' and you must admit, Miss Earl, that your countrywomen are growing dangerously learned," answered ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... another. A dear friend whose life has been devoted to philology once said to me while commenting upon the deterioration of manners among the students of Japan: "Why, the English language itself has been a demoralizing influence!" There was much depth in that observation. Setting the whole Japanese nation to study English (the language of a people who are being forever preached to about their "rights," and never about their "duties") was almost ...
— Kokoro - Japanese Inner Life Hints • Lafcadio Hearn
... cutting of rates and the sudden fluctuations that constantly take place are demoralizing to all business except that of a purely speculative character, and frequently occasion great ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee
... had been withered by them, like flowers scorched by the blast of a furnace; how, in fact, as in the case of those cruel executions and bloody tortures then universal in the jurisprudence of Europe, these pictures of eternal torture seemed to exert a morbid demoralizing influence which hurried on the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various
... to me that being a soldier, and belonging for the time being to Uncle Sam, I was a species of government property, which it was my duty to protect at all hazards. That settled the question, and conscience and honesty withdrew. Without going into the demoralizing details, suffice it to say that I stole a blanket from some hapless victim belonging to another company, and thus safeguarded the health and military efficiency of a chattel of the Nation. How the other fellow got along, I ...
— The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 • Leander Stillwell
... we shall be rid of phthisis and phthisic and pneumonia and pneumatics, and diphtheria and pterodactyl, and all those other insane words which no man addicted to the simple Christian life can try to spell and not lose some of the bloom of his piety in the demoralizing attempt. Do not doubt it. We are chameleons, and our partialities and prejudices change places with an easy and blessed facility, and we are soon wonted to the change and happy in it. We do not regret our old, yellow fangs and snags and tushes after we have worn nice, fresh, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Church, in general society and in individual life among the people. He must not hesitate to use constantly his voice as a protest against all forms of evil. This duty is the more incumbent upon him as there are none among the people to protest and to denounce the most flagrant, demoralizing and universal evils of the land. One of the most discouraging things concerning the situation in India is, not the universality of certain evils, but the utter absence of those who dare to withstand them and denounce them as sins before all the people. ...
— India's Problem Krishna or Christ • John P. Jones
... ministers and officers of State than were the early English sovereigns of the House of Hanover. The filthy indecency which came so habitually from the lips of Walpole, of other statesmen, of the King—sometimes even of the Queen herself—hardly seems more ignoble, more demoralizing, than the outpouring of a flattery as false as it was gross, a flattery that ought to have sickened alike the man who poured it out and the man whom it was poured over. Poor, stupid George seems to have been always taken in by it. Indeed, in his ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... accrue to the speedier protagonist. One then, witnesses what might almost be described as an application of the process of capping the line or "crossing the 'T.'" This tends to throw the slower squadron into confusion by bending it back upon itself, meanwhile exposing it to a demoralizing fire. ...
— Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War • Frederick A. Talbot
... that I could laugh if I did not dread to be thought insane. She refused his hand, and he was at liberty to offer it? My girl! We are all on our heads. The fairy-tales were right and the lesson-books were wrong. But it is really, it is really very demoralizing. An invalid—and I am one, and no momentary exhilaration will be taken for the contrary—clings to the idea of stability, order. The slightest disturbance of the wonted course of things unsettles him. Why, for years I have been prophesying it! and ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... thus narrowed in the base contests of selfishness, jealousy, and fraud; but of all the demoralizing influences that darken the mind by closing up permanently its most important inlets, none have had such a wide-spread and far-reaching power for evil as the false theology which demands the absolute surrender of reason to ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, January 1888 - Volume 1, Number 12 • Various
... appears strange to me that any one who was not born a slaveholder, and steeped to the very core in the demoralizing atmosphere of the Southern States, can in any way palliate slavery. It is still more surprising to see virtuous ladies looking with patience upon, and remaining indifferent to, the existence of a system that exposes nearly two millions of their ...
— Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom • William and Ellen Craft
... naturally a strong affinity for truth. Hence there is nothing more demoralizing than any sustained attempt to believe that which does not commend itself to our most sacred convictions. Far better it is to be honest and sincere, even though that may involve temporary error. I believe that to the devout and enquiring ...
— Love's Final Victory • Horatio
... and more confirmed" [he said, Jan, 3, 1882] "in my belief that there is something demoralizing in politics and parties. I, at any rate, shall never be able to join a party which has the majority on its side. Bjoernson says, 'The majority is always right'; and as a practical politician he is bound, I suppose, to say so. I, on ...
— Henrik Ibsen • Edmund Gosse
... his part of the plan; but when he had nearly reached Monmouth, he found, to his amazement, that Lee had gone there, but had done no fighting at all, and was now actually retreating, and coming in his direction. As it would be demoralizing in the highest degree to his own command, if Lee's armed forces in full retreat should come upon them, Washington hurried forward to prevent anything of the sort, and soon met Lee. When the latter was asked what ...
— Stories of New Jersey • Frank Richard Stockton
... Triumph, at Spithead, at the time of the famous mutiny. A detachment of marines with shouldered arms are drawn up on the quarter deck, their drummer is beating to quarters, while all hands are assembled to witness a degrading and demoralizing spectacle,—a sailor, with his shoulders bare and his hands tied to the triangles, about to receive punishment for disobedience to orders. Conspicuous amongst the figures are two little middies, habited ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... given me great pleasure to raise your standard of taste regarding wines and alcoholic liquors. The mixed drinks, which are held in such high esteem in this community, are, in my opinion, utterly demoralizing." ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... the intelligent, respectable and cultivated citizens of every town, began to crowd to hear them, even following them from one place to another, and giving them loud and honest applause. Then they were adjudged immodest, and their conduct denounced as unwomanly and demoralizing. Their devotion to principle, the purity of their lives, the justice of the cause they pleaded, the religious stand-point from which they spoke, all were overlooked, and the pitiless scorn of Christian men and women of every sect was poured down upon them. Nor should we wonder when we remember ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney
... apprised of our plan and are able to concentrate more artillery than our guns can silence, the losses will be demoralizing," he observed. ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... Jimmy had said, was that the indispensable assets in it were not industry, intelligence, ambitions, but a reasonably presentable pair of arms and legs (a good-looking face would surely come in handy too) and a rudimentary sense of rhythm. Another demoralizing thing about it, he had said, was the fact that the work wasn't hard enough, except during rehearsal, to keep its votaries ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... to dread the demoralizing effect of the indulgence-venders' activity upon the common people. In the sermons of Tetzel the church where he happened to do business was raised to equal dignity with St. Peter's at Rome. Instead of confessing to an ordinary priest, he told the masses they had now the ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau
... Steele enlisted a number of men, mostly ex-Mounted Policemen, as scouts, his whole corps, thus augmented, being generally called Steele's scouts. Perry, who was selected by Superintendent Cotton on account of special fitness, brought with him a nine-pounder gun, which did unique service in demoralizing and scattering Big Bear's murderous and pillaging band, to whose outrages we have already referred. These two Police detachments became the tentacles of our column and the mainspring of ...
— Policing the Plains - Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous North-West Mounted Police • R.G. MacBeth
... it would not be rash to affirm that the soldiers did not manifest toward this daring leader of the insurrection the same rigor as toward the insignificant men of the place. In Spain, and especially in time of war, which is here always demoralizing, these unworthy considerations toward the great are often seen, while the little are persecuted pitilessly. Favored then by his boldness, by bribery, or by we know not what, Caballuco entered Orbajosa, gained new recruits, and collected arms ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... lost in iniquity, steeped in iniquity. incorrigible, irreclaimable, obdurate, reprobate, past praying for; culpable, reprehensible &c (guilty) 947. unjustifiable; indefensible, inexcusable; inexpiable, unpardonable, irremissible^. weak, frail, lax, infirm, imperfect; indiscrete; demoralizing, degrading. Adv. wrong; sinfully &c adj.; without excuse. Int. O tempora!^, O mores!, Phr. alitur vitium vivitque tegendo [Vergil]; genus est mortis male vivere [Lat.] [Ovid]; mala mens malus animus [Lat.] [Terence]; nemo repente fuit turpissimus [Lat.]; the trail of the serpent is over them ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... in as a tremendous make-weight, while the party lash was vigorously flourished, and the "independent voter" was as hateful to the party managers on both sides as we find him to-day. Those who refused to wear the party collar were branded by the "organs" as a "pestiferous and demoralizing brood," who deserved "extermination." Discipline was rigorously enforced, and made to take the place of argument. As regards the tariff question, Mr. Polk's letter to Judge Kane, of Philadelphia, of the 19th ...
— Political Recollections - 1840 to 1872 • George W. Julian
... mention it to show that the case has been practically considered. He has had a tolerably souring experience of the state; he might be inclined if, say, you took him in hand, for another venture. It's a demoralizing lottery. However, Government ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... portion of it which he lived between the first day of January, 1864, and the fifteenth of June, the memorable day of his death, are not very full of interest. By this it is meant that the state of war in Virginia, together with the hopeless condition of the Confederacy and the demoralizing tendency of that condition upon the soldiery of the land, raised insurmountable barriers in the way of activity on his part. We find him mostly at home, save that he was much called to see the sick and preach ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... creates are aggravated in her case. Men of the higher classes of society can, by entering a political or military life, make duties for themselves. Women in the same station are not allowed these channels of escape from the demoralizing idleness and luxury to which their social position confines them. On the other hand, women of the middle class, who are above menial service but who are forced to work, have the choice of a few despised employments. Milliners and mantua-makers are respected ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... he muttered to himself. "I'll get out of this—it's no place for a man—Lord deliver me from a mob like this, with their crazy tittering. There ought to be a way to stop these things. It's demoralizing—it's unseemly." ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung
... ticket-brokers who accommodate the poorer classes with interests to the amount of ten cents, and so on. Thus, for them, the lottery replaces the savings-bank, with entire uncertainty of any return, and the demoralizing process of expectation thrown into the bargain. The negroes invest a good deal of money in this way, and we heard in Matanzas a curious anecdote on this head. A number of negroes, putting their means together, had commissioned a ticket-broker to purchase ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... comfort he has been I now fully realize the limitations of so many of his race, at once witty, warm-hearted, soothing, and impossible; it is difficult not to believe what they say, even when you know they are lying, and this condition is equally demoralizing both to ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright
... rather disappointing, for many of them show a strong element of Chinese blood. This seems to have developed an unfortunate combination of the worst characteristics of both races. Even where there is no real mixture, their contact with the Chinese has been demoralizing, and they will rob and steal at every opportunity. The headdresses of the southern women are by no means as elaborate as ...
— Across Mongolian Plains - A Naturalist's Account of China's 'Great Northwest' • Roy Chapman Andrews
... Tiber. This may be doubted. The reaction of the conquest would seem to have been upon the morals of the conqueror. In Greece she found a spring of corruption; so also in Egypt; and the student, having exhausted the subject, will close the books assured that the flow of the demoralizing river was from the East westwardly, and that this very city of Antioch, one of the oldest seats of Assyrian power and splendor, was a principal ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... business of the country, followed by ruinous contractions. At successive intervals the best and most enterprising men have been tempted to their ruin by excessive bank loans of mere paper credit, exciting them to extravagant importations of foreign goods, wild speculations, and ruinous and demoralizing stock gambling. When the crisis arrives, as arrive it must, the banks can extend no relief to the people. In a vain struggle to redeem their liabilities in specie they are compelled to contract their loans and their issues, and at last, in the hour of distress, when their assistance is ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 5: James Buchanan • James D. Richardson
... to make objectors remember that priests have mothers and sisters and relations whom they love; and priests would be the first to prevent these beloved ones from the demoralizing influences which enemies ...
— Confession and Absolution • Thomas John Capel
... pride, or self-will, by [25] demoralizing his motives and Christlikeness, would have dethroned his ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... fifthly, when an excitable, uneducated people realize that lawlessness and outrages will be rewarded by an Act remitting debts and breaking contracts, they are not likely in future to limit their operations to land, but will apply the same maxims to other contracts. The demoralizing of character is a fact to be ...
— Is Ulster Right? • Anonymous
... of no ordinary importance. It was John Henry Wichern, founder of the Rough House, near Hamburg. He had just returned from his laborious tour through the districts of Silesia, which, in addition to the demoralizing revolutionary excitement, were stricken by famine and fever. Whole villages were depopulated, not enough inhabitants being left alive to bury the dead. Grief and despair reigned everywhere. The number of orphans had grown so large ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... more demoralizing than the spectacle of Spinks's face as he delivered himself of his immense confession; so fantastically did it endeavour to chasten rapture with remorse. Rickman controlled himself the better to enjoy it; for Spinks, taken seriously, yielded an inexhaustible vein of purest comedy. "Oh, Spinky," ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... Central Hungarian plain. There they may thrive in modesty and rue at their leisure the folly of having sacrificed their chance of national greatness to the vain pursuit of the "Magyar State Idea" under the demoralizing influence of Austro-German imperialism. ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... besides, we get to be such slaves to it that we'd gladly hurt our bodies for the sake of it. It's the most demoralizing, hard-to-break habit on earth. But glory to God! I'm saved and sanctified now, and I'll tell you ...
— Fifteen Years With The Outcast • Mrs. Florence (Mother) Roberts
... Civil-Service Reform, 1870, which opened all clerkships and similar positions in the gift of the government to the free competition of candidates, without regard to their political opinions (S609). This did away with most of that demoralizing system of favoritism which makes government offices the spoils by which successful political parties reward "little men for little services." The "secret ballot," another measure of great importance, ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... army of the North and to leave untouched that hideous subject of army contracts. And I think myself the more specially bound to allude to it because I feel that the iniquities which have prevailed prove with terrible earnestness the demoralizing power of that dishonesty among men in high places, which is the one great evil of the American States. It is there that the deficiency exists, which must be supplied before the public men of the nation can ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... throats—literally and without restraint. A strong hand was needed—a hand that could weld the warring elements into one, and push Russian trade far down from Alaska to New Spain, driving off the field those foreigners whose relentless methods—liquor, bludgeon, musket—were demoralizing the ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... you are, Ken!" said Julia gratefully. And as Kennedy came over to stand near her, Julia gave her a little rub with her head, like an affectionate pony. "I think it's partly this hotel that's demoralizing me," Julia went on, a little shamed. "I feel so useless—getting up, eating, dressing, idling about, and going to bed again. Jim has his work, and I'll be glad when I ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... Parliamentary Party in the following memorable words: 'I am not one of those who believe in the permanence of an Irish Party in the English Parliament. I feel convinced that sooner or later the influence which every English Government has at its command—the powerful and demoralizing influence—sooner or later will sap the best party you can return to the ...
— Six days of the Irish Republic - A Narrative and Critical Account of the Latest Phase of Irish Politics • Louis Redmond-Howard
... person to be rejected. It will hurt some of these Russian subscribers more than it will me, because it is only a question of when I shall read it, not of whether I shall read it at all. I wonder that so many demoralizing things do not affect the officials. However, that is not the point; pray keep for your own use anything which you regard as deleterious to me. I am obliged to you for your consideration. But you have no right to spoil three or four articles; and by a proper use of ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... terrible losses reduced their fighting effectives, the Kaiser and his war lords were determined to risk all in one mighty effort—an effort which should break through the French line at Verdun, thus bringing kudos to the armies of Prussia, and at the same time demoralizing the French soldiers. Who knows? They may have hoped to dash through the gap thus formed, and once more advance on Paris. In any case, they were well aware of the phenomenal rise in power of the British forces. Five million men had volunteered to fight for king and country; ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... should not seek political gifts. For them there is no occupation so demoralizing as office-seeking, except office-holding. At the best, as a rule, they could become only Government clerks, liable to be turned out after they had served long enough to be spoiled for any other occupation except ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 4 • Various
... doubt that the practice, like all other illegal ones, was demoralizing to the community, and particularly fatal to the character of that class of bold, enterprising young men who would be most likely to be ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... problem which perplexes the brain of the ablest statesmen to determine how we will best preserve our republican system as against the demoralizing influence of the large class of our present citizens and voters who by reason of their illiteracy are unable to read or write the ...
— Debate On Woman Suffrage In The Senate Of The United States, - 2d Session, 49th Congress, December 8, 1886, And January 25, 1887 • Henry W. Blair, J.E. Brown, J.N. Dolph, G.G. Vest, Geo. F. Hoar.
... "the other fellow" on the defensive. That makes him somewhat dependent upon your own actions. That gives you opportunities to fool him that he does not so fully enjoy. Your commander can elect to attack any point of the defensive line. Your dead and wounded—always a demoralizing element—are left behind. Your target is stationary. Your side is closing in. The enemy is straining every nerve to fire faster and more effectively, and still your side is closing in. There is ...
— The Plattsburg Manual - A Handbook for Military Training • O.O. Ellis and E.B. Garey
... have fallen so low. But Anthony was not a satyr. And deserters are not, as a rule, recommended for the D.S.O. To suggest that he was a counter-jumper was equally ridiculous. He was a most attractive gallant gentleman. This made his behaviour infinitely more discreditable. It was a sordid, demoralizing business.... ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... drawing back his head, and with flashing eyes, "I shall never lend myself to so demoralizing a practice. We must get these people ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... vice of the age. Germany has had the disease, and is near recovery. England and America have caught the epidemic. But pantheism, sir, will not live, though here and at Oxford the students are reading Hegel, Strauss, Bruno-Bauer, and Feuerbach. At Oxford,' he added, 'these pernicious doctrines are demoralizing the university. Blanco White and John Sterling were but the pioneers of a large party of university men, who are preparing to avow their disbelief in Christianity.' The Doctor was right. Francis Newman, brother ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... innocent" (p. 6 [note the suspicion of Swift's political and religious bias]), the author is mildly pleased with the first three voyages. But he finds intolerable the satire on human nature in the last, here echoing Addison's criticism of the demoralizing effect of a satire on mankind ...
— A Letter From a Clergyman to his Friend, - with an Account of the Travels of Captain Lemuel Gulliver • Anonymous
... to the man who is burdened with unnecessary and exaggerated fears, and who mistakes for a fancied security the privilege of sitting quietly in one place, that the uprooting which comes with war is demoralizing. The natural officer sees it as an hour of opportunity, and though he may not like anything else about war, he at least relishes the strong feeling of personal contention which always develops when there are many openings inviting many men. As one World War II commander ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... long painful record of war, corruption, rapine, and lust. Why Christians who wished to convert the heathen to our religion should send them these books, passes all understanding. It is most demoralizing reading for children and the unthinking masses, giving all alike the lowest possible idea of womanhood, having no hope nor ambition beyond conjugal unions with men they scarcely knew, for whom they could ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... are almost valueless in the hands of weakhearted soldiers, no matter what their number may be. On the contrary, the demoralizing power of rapid and smokeless firing, which certain armies still persist in not acknowledging, manifests itself with so much the more force as each soldier possesses greater valor and ...
— Battle Studies • Colonel Charles-Jean-Jacques-Joseph Ardant du Picq
... died at that, and he was given five years in the penitentiary. He was a demoralizing influence there, already a socialist with anarchical tendencies, and with the gift of influencing men. A fluent, sneering youth, who lashed the guards to fury with his unctuous, ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... whole four years' stay in India I was practically barred from ladies' society, nearly all the planters being unmarried men. Alas! for twenty years longer of my life this very unfortunate and demoralizing condition was ...
— Ranching, Sport and Travel • Thomas Carson
... doubtless right themselves in due course; it stands to reason that in this acute transitional stage the demoralizing effects of the new system should be more apparent than its inevitable benefits. Already these are not unseen; houses are springing up round villages, and the emigrants return home with a disrespect for many ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... the slow normalization of which, during these few critical years, everything that interferes should yield. Some kind of tacit recognition of this is indispensable, but in mixed classes every form of such concession is baffling and demoralizing to boys. ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... he frowned, recalling the incidents of the crisis at the suggestion let fall by the two outgoing lobbyists. "And so much of this dog-watch as isn't sickeningly demoralizing is deadly dull, as Crenshawe puts it. If I had anywhere to go, I'd ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... morals existed among all orders of the clergy. They were ignorant, debauched, and ambitious. The monks were exceedingly numerous; had ceased to be men of prayer and contemplation, as in the days of Benedict and Bernard; and might be seen frequenting places of demoralizing excitement, devoted to pleasure, and enriched ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... curiosity a healthy-minded girl may have, by reason of a natural coldness of temperament, to acquire such knowledge, it becomes, in spite of her, part of her daily surroundings and she cannot escape its contaminating, demoralizing influence. ...
— Bought and Paid For - From the Play of George Broadhurst • Arthur Hornblow
... your weary eyes water as if in grief, and your worn-out carcass quake pitifully. But each mood of the great autocrat has its own greatness, and each is hard to bear. Only the north-west phase of that mighty display is not demoralizing to the same extent, because between the hail and sleet squalls of a north-westerly gale one can ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad
... money for the relief of distress. We may assume that he was niggardly by habit and generous by impulse. Utterly ignorant of everything except the art of music, bred under the most unfortunate and demoralizing conditions, the fact that his character was, on the whole, so naive and upright, speaks eloquently for the native qualities of his disposition. His eccentricities, perhaps, justified the unreasoning vulgar in believing that he was slightly crazed. His appearance and manner on the platform ...
— Great Violinists And Pianists • George T. Ferris
... to know what I think of "the Single Standard of Morals, which assumes that tampering with the Seventh Commandment is as demoralizing ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... protested against these exhibitions of the phallus, which to us are so obscene. The mimus was the lowest and most popular kind of theatrical exhibition, and it was in it that the use of the phallus was most constant. Even Christian preachers who denounced the mimus as demoralizing, and who specified in detail what they found objectionable in it, never mention the display of obscene things. All people were accustomed to the phallus as the archaic symbol of the servants of Dionysus.[1550] Christian ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... pimps and knaves, has in it lessons of virtue and morality,—for those who can extract them; but even for these few it is a very partial teaching; and for the many who cannot read so spiritually, whether in the book or the brothel, the experience is demoralizing and deadening. But toward the end of the paper the critic lets it appear that he does not place Le Sage so high as some of his phrases prompt us to infer; and he quotes this judgment of Joubert: "Of the ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... I have drawn of other parts of France, I am reluctantly obliged to draw a very different picture of society here. The army and the celibate clergy, the soldier and the priest—such are the demoralizing elements that undermine domestic morality and family life in garrison, priest-ridden towns like this. Drink and debauchery fill the prisons, and the taint of immorality is not limited to one class alone. How can it be otherwise? seeing that while ...
— Holidays in Eastern France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... hundredth part of the necessary means. Failing to raise money directly, recourse was bad to the so-called loan-office certificates. These were issued to creditors of the government, and bore interest. The greater part of the military supplies were paid for in this extravagant and demoralizing fashion, and in 1789 they had to be settled, with accumulated interest amounting to nearly fifty per cent. Better success was had in Europe. No private banker would lend money to a set of rebels not recognized by any government ...
— Formation of the Union • Albert Bushnell Hart
... gold or spleen; and in the most critical epoch of an empire, the poising of his tremendous influence—the influence of so much earnestness and magical power—was the accident of an accident. We admit for him, in palliation, the demoralizing influence of terrific example, and of maddening oppression; but where is the worth of a morality that, in a man of heroic mould, will not stand assay? and what is virtue but a name, if she may be betrayed ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... additional churches should be built, "to meet the increased population of the country, and to promote the religious and moral habits of the people." In the lords the address was voted nem. con.; in the commons it met with animadversion from Lord Althorp and Sir Samuel Romilly, who deprecated the demoralizing system of espionnage, as well as the arbitrary imprisonment and tyrannical persecutions which had lately been carried on by government; but the address passed without ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... quite content with mere necessities until one grows either so old or shapeless that everything is equally unbecoming, samples are forthcoming, from which an intelligent selection can be made without the demoralizing effect of glib ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... us to use the opportunity to put far away the evil from him also." The representatives of the religious Society of Friends for Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware, have published during the year a protest against demoralizing literature and art, taking the ground that the national standard of moral purity is lowered, and the sanctity of marriage weakened, by most of the books, pictures, and theatrical exhibitions ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine
... Constitution and laws of the United States, their loyalty will be given unreservedly to the Government; whose leniency they cannot fail to appreciate, and whose fostering care will soon restore them to a condition of prosperity. It is true, that in some of the States the demoralizing effects of war are to be seen in occasional disorders; but these are local in character, not frequent in occurrence, and are really disappearing as the authority of the civil law is extended and sustained. ...
— History of the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson, • Edumud G. Ross
... for Abel Granitch. But no—he must have an outfit, complete even to a tooth-brush, which they would show him how to use. Having been done up neat and tight in khaki, with a motor-wheel on his sleeve to show his branch of the service, he stood and looked at himself in the glass, experiencing a demoralizing and unworthy excitement. He was every bit as handsome as Comrade Stankewitz! When he walked down the street would the girls giggle, and turn to look at him, as they did at the sedate and proper Comrade Emil? So the meshes of Militarism were ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... weak; and Schneider abused Whistler as he was dying—the second occurrence of the kind.... The thefts of food by Henry, and his execution, formed a culmination to the dissensions, though it did not entirely stop them. Never was there a more terrible example of the demoralizing effects of the conditions of Arctic life and privations upon men who in other circumstances were able to dwell at peace with ...
— Henry Hudson - A Brief Statement Of His Aims And His Achievements • Thomas A. Janvier
... including players notorious for their old drunken habits. Why managers cannot perceive the folly of re-engaging such men is a mystery. No matter what their skill at the bat or in the field may be, their drinking habits, with the demoralizing effect on the teams at large which follows, more than offset the advantage of their alleged ability in the field. Despite this obvious fact, however, club officials—either presidents, directors or managers—still ...
— Spalding's Baseball Guide and Official League Book for 1895 • Edited by Henry Chadwick
... demoralizing to both students and teachers. I refer to the inevitable outcome of such a system; some students (sometimes few and sometimes many) develop considerable skill in "working the Prof." Teachers offering elective courses are constantly ...
— On the Firing Line in Education • Adoniram Judson Ladd
... they are sold by fathers and mothers into an existence which is worse than slavery itself. It is not uncommon to see girls at the tender age of thirteen or fourteen—mere children—hardened courtesans, lost to all sense of shame and decency. They are reared in ignorance, surrounded by demoralizing influences, cut off from the blessings of church and Sabbath school, see nothing but licentiousness, intemperance and crime. These young girls are lost forever. They are beyond the reach of the moralist or preacher and have no comprehension ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... work for our daily bread, but, we were thankful to say, not in that way. We prided ourselves because there was no summer hotel with a demoralizing bowling-alley, and one of those dangerous chutes, in our village. We felt forbiddingly calm and superior when now and then some strange city people from Grover, the large summer resort six miles from us, travelled ...
— The Jamesons • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... discipline to his irresponsible mates, men often of scarcely a superior quality to the crew. Hence ensued a great mass of petty outrages, unjustifiable assaults, shameful indignities, and nameless cruelty, demoralizing alike to the perpetrators and the sufferers; these enormities fell into the ocean between the two countries, and could be punished in neither. Many miserable stories come back upon my memory as I write; wrongs that were immense, but for which nobody could be held responsible, and which, indeed, ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Confederates there present was that the gunboats saved the army by saving the landing and transports, while during the night the shrieking of the VIII-inch shells through the woods, tearing down branches and trees in their flight, and then sharply exploding, was demoralizing to a degree. The nervous strain caused by watching for the repetition, at measured intervals, of a painful sensation is known ...
— The Gulf and Inland Waters - The Navy in the Civil War. Volume 3. • A. T. Mahan |
