"Depravation" Quotes from Famous Books
... Unlike those whose lives we have hitherto considered, he knew none of the softening influences of a home; to him the very name of mother, instead of recalling every tender and affectionate feeling, was but the symbol of a vague horror, the fountain of that degradation and depravation of his nature, from which no subsequent prosperity could ever ... — The Drama • Henry Irving
... she hesitated. An intense disinclination to go into the flat struggled with the intense desire to yield herself to Arabian's will. Arabian was before her eyes, standing there by the opening door, and Garstin's portrait was before the eyes of her mind in all its magnificent depravation. Which showed the real man and which the unreal? Garstin said that he had painted her intuition about Arabian, that she knew Arabian's secret and had conveyed it to him. ... — December Love • Robert Hichens
... therefore will not be expected. We were told, that it is an Island of no great extent, rough and barren, inhabited by the Macquarrys; a clan not powerful nor numerous, but of antiquity, which most other families are content to reverence. The name is supposed to be a depravation of some other; for the Earse language does not afford it any etymology. Macquarry is proprietor both of Ulva and some adjacent Islands, among which is Staffa, so lately raised to renown by ... — A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson
... would make him a singer, and his mental capacity is far above the average; but he has perverted his gifts, till his music is nothing but noise and his talent nothing but smartness. A like process of depravation the world has before now witnessed in political life, when a man of brilliant natural endowments has yielded to low ambitions and stooped to unworthy means, till what was meant to be a statesman turns put to be a demagogue. But perhaps we wrong our handsome friend, ... — Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey
... regard such a sanction and establishment of a flagrant iniquity as a cause, or as an effect. Suppose this sanction of some one enormity to precede the general and equal corruption of morals,—how powerfully would it tend to bear them all down to a conformity in depravation. Suppose it to be (the more natural order) the result and completion of that corruption—how vicious must have been the previous state which could go easily and consistently to such ... — An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... mischief of this new system is not confined to the depravation of language only; it extends to the sentiments and emotions, and leads to the debasement of all those feelings which poetry is designed to communicate. It is absurd to suppose, that an author should make use of the language of the vulgar, to express ... — Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... vainly persuade ourselves, that although prosperity and wealth may have caused us to relax a little too much, in those more serious duties which regard our Maker, yet that we shall stop where we are; or, at least, that we can never sink into the same state of moral depravation. Doubtless we should sink as low, if God were to give us up also to our own imaginations. And what ground have we to think he will not? If we would reason justly, we should not compare ourselves with the state of the Heathen world when at its worst; but with its state at that period, when, for ... — A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... each other, exists in the most innocent and uncorrupted heart. Can it then be reasonable to condemn such a moderate indulgence of this passion, as interrupts no employment, and impedes no pursuit? This indulgence, in the present civilized state of society, requires no infringement of order, no depravation of character. The legislators of every country, whose wisdom may surely be considered as somewhat greater than that of its priests, have judiciously overlooked this imagined irregularity, and amongst all the penalties which they have ambitiously, and too often without either sentiment ... — Italian Letters, Vols. I and II • William Godwin
... twofold: first, the fall of the drama, and the replacement of this important weapon of progress by an empty and immoral amusement; and secondly, the direct depravation of men by presenting to them ... — Tolstoy on Shakespeare - A Critical Essay on Shakespeare • Leo Tolstoy
... annihilation of the one good of geometry,—which was thus shamefully turning its back upon the unembodied objects of pure intelligence to recur to sensation, and to ask help (not to be obtained without haste subservience and depravation) from matter; so it was that mechanics came to be separated from geometry, and, being repudiated and neglected by philosophers, took its place as a military art. Archimedes, however, in writing to King Hiero, whose friend and near relation he was, had stated, that given ... — The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... be remarked here that the Orientals, amidst their sometimes so picturesque misery, and in the ocean of depravation in which they slumber, always have, under the influence of their priests and teachers, a pronounced inclination for learning and understand easily good common sense explications. It happened to me more ... — The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ - The Original Text of Nicolas Notovitch's 1887 Discovery • Nicolas Notovitch |