"Despicable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... his self-respect, his franchise, his liberty, and life itself. Many of the officials of Southern States, including numerous judges and not a few Christian ministers, helped or sanctioned these Negro-hating editors and reporters in their despicable onslaught upon the Negro, while tens of thousands of white business men of the South fattened upon Negro convict labor and the proceeds ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... sat down by the bunk, after she had given Maigan a big feed of oats, with a small remnant of the bacon grease. She felt humbled now, as if her accusations constituted some unforgivable, despicable sin. This man had never intended to do her the slightest harm. He really never knew that she was coming. And through her stupid clumsiness his life was now ebbing. The doctor's long words sounded dreadfully in her ears: general sepsis, blood poisoning, a system overwhelmed ...
— The Peace of Roaring River • George van Schaick
... he practises most frequently in his tragedies, the former in his comedies. The comic characters are, without mixture, loathsome and despicable. The men of Etherege and Vanbrugh are bad enough. Those of Smollett are perhaps worse. But they do not approach to the Celadons, the Wildbloods, the Woodalls, and the Rhodophils of Dryden. The vices of these last are set off by a certain fierce hard impudence, ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... bright side of the European situation as I saw it. Unfortunately, to complete the picture, it is necessary to acknowledge the numerous evidences of a widespread revival of one of the most despicable, brutal, and dangerous forms of racial hatred and antagonism known to mankind—anti-Semitism. Even in England, long hitherto so free from Jew-baiting, the land in which the Jew Disraeli became Prime Minister, I found an extensive, active, and skillfully organized campaign directed against Jews, ...
— The Jew and American Ideals • John Spargo
... and landed four of them, in one pool, I never had such a chance before; the heavy flood and high wind had made the salmon as "silly" as perch. One might have caught half a dozen of the great sturdy fellows, who make all trout, even sea-trout, seem despicable minnows. Next day I fished again in the same water, with a friend. I rose a fish, but did not hook it, and he landed a small one, five minutes after we started, and we only had one other rise all the rest of the day. Probably it was not dark ...
— Angling Sketches • Andrew Lang
... that Ben Johnson was every where to be traced in the Snow of the Ancients. We may say that Malloch is every where to be traced in the Puddle of the Moderns. Instead of selecting the Beauties, he has pick'd out whatever is despicable in Shakespeare, Otway, Dryden, and Rowe, like a Pick-Pocket who dives for Handkerchiefs, not for Gold; and contents himself with what he finds in our Great Coat Pocket, without attempting our Watch or your Purse. ...
— Critical Strictures on the New Tragedy of Elvira, Written by Mr. David Malloch (1763) • James Boswell, Andrew Erskine and George Dempster
... Rabelais are more exquisitely ludicrous than that in which he pictures the monk Panurge in a storm at sea. The oily ecclesiastic is terrified as only a combination of hypocrite and coward can be; and, in the extremity of his craven distress, he fancies that any situation on shore, no matter how despicable, would be paradise. So at length he whines, "Oh that I were on dry land, and somebody kicking me!" In a similar manner—similar, save that farce deepens to tragedy—many a man in America of opulent ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... No," replied Thaddeus to himself. "Unhappy that I am, to have been induced to apply twice to so despicable a man! Oh, Somerset," cried he, looking at the papers as they lay before him; "was it necessary that insult should be added to unfaithfulness and ingratitude, to throw me off entirely? Good heavens! did he think because I wrote twice, I would persecute him with applications? ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... And that blazing Brahmana of mighty intellect, having appeared, will destroy all things. And he will be the Destroyer of all, and will inaugurate a new Yuga. And surrounded by the Brahmanas, that Brahmana will exterminate all the mlecchas wherever those low and despicable persons ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... guess at my uneasy situation. But I am, however, comforted in some degree, by the glory that accrues to me from it, and a reflection on the contempt I should otherwise fall under. You won't know what to make of this speech; but, in this country, 'tis more despicable to be married and not fruitful, than 'tis with us to be fruitful before marriage. They have a notion, that whenever a woman leaves off bringing forth children, 'tis because she is too old for that ...
— Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M—y W—y M—e • Lady Mary Wortley Montague
... do, father?" replied Titus, sorry to see his scheme for vengeance blocked; "shall that despicable tyrant defy law and justice, and refuse to give Mistress ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... Hermione stood where she was. She had just done a thing that was mean, or at least she had done a thing from a mean, a despicable motive. She knew it as the door shut behind her child, and she was frightened of herself. Never before had she been governed by so contemptible a feeling as that which had just prompted her. If Emile ever knew, or even suspected what it was, she ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... German was held a mark of vulgarity; and what more despicable than to be ashamed of ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel
... ignominiously brought back and put under guard. I am glad to say that his case inspired no sympathy. To enlist, obtain a bounty, and then attempt to evade the service for which the bounty was given, is despicable in the extreme. I am glad to know that no others of our company had the least desire ...
— Frank's Campaign - or the Farm and the Camp • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... other theories of transmutation of species had been utterly scorned. Men who had found Lamarck's conception of change through voluntary effort ridiculous, and the vaporings of the Vestiges altogether despicable, men whose scientific cautions held them back from Spencer's deductive argument, took eager hold of that tangible, ever-present principle of natural selection, and were led on and on to its goal. Hour by hour the attitude of the thinking world towards ...
— A History of Science, Volume 4(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... unimportant ornament, it has, in every case, been simply for the purpose of filling up a void occasioned by my lack of memory. I may have taken for granted as true what I knew to be possible, never what I knew to be false. Such as I was, I have exhibited myself,—despicable and vile, when so; virtuous, generous, sublime, when so. I have unveiled my interior being, such as Thou, Eternal Existence, hast beheld it. Assemble around me the numberless throng of my fellow-mortals; let them listen to my confessions, let them blush at my depravities, let them ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... when man will no longer give birth to any star. Alas! There cometh the time of the most despicable man, who can ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... released him, for he is not entitled to be treated as a prisoner of war, and the judgment meted out to him is as terrible as it is sure. Certain codes of honor are supposed to be observed even in international warfare, and a soldier who breaks his word of honor is considered the most despicable of men. ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... taking lives with the irresponsibility of a baby hammering at the jewels of a watch. The fact that he knew better made him far more culpable, he thought, than little Peterkin or any of his comrades. Yes, he was despicable; he ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... and half-drunken men, sitting here and there round the room, on wooden benches. You see ignorance and cruelty written in their very countenances. For nearly three weeks they have not scented the air of heaven, but have been held here in a despicable bondage. Ragged and filthy, like Falstaff's invincibles, they will be marched to the polls to-morrow, and cast their votes at the bid of the cribber. "A happy lot of fellows," says Mr. Snivel, exultingly. "I have a passion for this sort of business-am general supervisor ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... and dignified words of the young prince—for Charles Stuart, though despicable as a king, was ever loving and loyal as a friend—were as oil upon the troubled waters. The ruffled temper of the ambassador of Spain—who in after years really did work Raleigh's downfall and death—gave place to courtly bows, and the King's quick anger melted away before the dearly loved ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... point. I am going to fulfill your wishes in perhaps a little different way from what you desire. To lie, to act a degrading comedy, to bribe women of the streets for evidence—the ugliness of it all disgusts me. I am a bad man, but this despicable thing I am utterly unable to do. My solution is after all the simplest. You must marry to be happy. I am the obstacle, consequently that obstacle ...
— Redemption and Two Other Plays • Leo Tolstoy et al
... dependence. We are tenants at the will of these gentlemen for everything; and a metaphysical quibble is to decide whether the greatest villain breathing shall meet his deserts, or escape with impunity, or whether the best man in the society shall not be reduced to the lowest and most despicable condition it affords. In a word, my lord, the injustice, delay, puerility, false refinement, and affected mystery of the law are such, that many who live under it come to admire and envy the expedition, simplicity, and equality of arbitrary judgments. I need insist the less on this article ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... and the honor of women and children, and they were in no degree disposed to hesitate at slaughter where so precious a purpose inspired them. Their attitude of mind was uncompromising. Their resolution was unalterable. Their impulse was to kill, and their victims were men of so despicable a kind that after a moment's thought Guilford Duncan's impulse was to let ...
— A Captain in the Ranks - A Romance of Affairs • George Cary Eggleston
... art and opulentia can give. I am free, and which [3723]Seneca said of Rome, culmen liberos texit, sub marmore et auro postea servitus habitavit, thou hast Amaltheae cornu, plenty, pleasure, the world at will, I am despicable and poor; but a word overshot, a blow in choler, a game at tables, a loss at sea, a sudden fire, the prince's dislike, a little sickness, &c., may make us equal in an instant; howsoever take thy time, triumph and insult awhile, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... dishonoured grave. The English were driven out of Paris, and in 1453, of all the "large and ample empery" of France, won at the cost of a hundred years of bloodshed and cruel devastation, a little strip of land at Calais and Guines alone remained to the English crown. Charles, who with despicable cowardice had suffered the heroic Maid to be done to death by the English without a thought of intervention, was moved to call for a tardy reparation of the atrocious injustice at Rouen; and a quarter of a century after the Te Deum sung in Notre Dame at Paris for her ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... foolish; yet the mottoes are good reading—some of them; and the book itself a sort of gold-laced and livened lackey to History, and in so far serviceable. But what good ever came out of, or went into, a betting-book? If I could be Caliph Omar for a week, I would pitch every one of those despicable manuscripts into the flames; from my Lord's, who is 'in' with Jack Snaffle's stable, and is over-reaching worse-informed rogues and swindling greenhorns, down to Sam's, the butcher-boy's, who books eighteenpenny odds in the tap-room, and 'stands to ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Houghton fooling about with the last bit of money, mortgaging Manchester House up to the hilt. Alvina sank in a kind of weary mortification, in which her peculiar obstinacy persisted devilishly and spitefully. "Oh well, so be it," said her spirit vindictively. "Let the meagre, mean, despicable fate fulfil itself." Her old anger against ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... laments explicitly the fact that he did not print from an original MS. He printed from a Latin translation, the work of an unknown hand, which had come into his possession, as he tells us, from a man who was learned in such matters. Miss Vaughan's pretended autograph, with its despicable marginal readings, is obviously a Latin copy, whatever be its history otherwise. The original was in English, and when Langius was regretting its loss, "a transcript, probably written from the author's copy, or very little corrupted," ...
— Devil-Worship in France - or The Question of Lucifer • Arthur Edward Waite
... asked how her ladyship did; but, instead of revealing her disorder, as she intended, she entered into a long encomium on the beauty and virtues of Joseph Andrews; ending, at last, with expressing her concern that so much tenderness should be thrown away on so despicable an object as Fanny. Slipslop, well knowing how to humour her mistress's frenzy, proceeded to repeat, with exaggeration, if possible, all her mistress had said, and concluded with a wish that Joseph ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding
... had the full assurance of life. It is precisely because we are despicable and worthless that we are accepted. Till we throw over that idea that we are better than others, we can ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... is, imputing to our neighbor's practice, judgment, or profession, evil consequences (apt to render him odious, or despicable) which have no dependence on them, or connection with them. There do in every age occur disorders and mishaps, springing from various complications of causes, working some of them in a more open and discernible, others in a more ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... to furnish an object-lesson in the world's history, whose destiny had been fuller than any other of changes and contradictions—the German people, at once so large-minded and so petty, so admirable and so despicable, so strong and so weak; who had done so much for the advancement of culture, and yet were so unconscious of their great work; hated by the rest of the world, yet divided amongst themselves—the German people had least ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... moreover, played up to it, for she was forever destroying her last will and making a new one. Each was read aloud to a concourse of expectant and envious legatees. Each specified scores of legacies of no despicable amount, and yet more numerous sops to numerous acquaintances. In every will Calvaster, her nearest relative and favorite grandnephew, was named ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... so there is 'talk'!" She scorned herself for being nobody's. To belong utterly to some male seemed to be the one tolerable fate for her in the world. And it was a glorious fate, whether it brought good or evil. Any other was ignobly futile, was despicable. And then she thought, savagely: "And just see my clothes! Why don't I take ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... a pale and weak and almost despicable miniature that such ideas are now set up, but you will observe that the poison lies—that the poison and the mischief lie—in the principle and not the scale. It is the opposite principle which, I say, has been compromised by the action of the Ministry, and which I call upon you, and upon ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... no despicable one, and the members of the Council were brought by it to a milder disposition than that disclosed by the testy reply of their President to Fray Miguel's opening discourse. Garcia Padilla undertook the apology ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt
... too timid to control their flocks. If they only had the nerve to pick us up, turn our hearts inside out, show us the black corners, and the ossifications, and call sin, sin, we should begin to realize what despicable shams we are. Dr. Douglass, the Bishop, is the only one I know who lays us on the dissecting table, and who does not speak of 'human fallibility' when he means vice. He told us one day that the Gospel required a line of demarcation between ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... it's worse than I've said. I'm a low creature. I don't only want to do jobs that want doing: I want to count, to make a name. I'm damnably ambitious. You'll despise that, of course—and you're quite right, it is despicable. But there it is. Most men and many women are tormented by it—they itch ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay
... Despicable Spirit of Death! You will be rejoicing that glory is at its height when hateful death will come once again, and with eyes wide with horror, you will discard all things, and dimly and softly the fragrant ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... impresses me most is, that his many acts of kindness to his own men, the absence of flogging and other debasing treatment in his own service, his generosity and consideration for the comfort of British prisoners during the wars, his ultimate defeat by the combined forces of Europe, the despicable advantage they took of the man who was their superior in everything, and to whom in other days the allied Kings had bent in homage, had become known ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... and Mohanycom, who had fortunately seen and recaptured the truant. Returning to the giraffe, we all feasted merrily on the flesh, which, although highly scented with the rank mokaala blossoms, was far from despicable, and losing our way in consequence of the twin-like resemblance of two scarped hills, we did not finally regain the wagons until after the setting sunbeams had ceased to play upon the trembling leaves of the light acacias, and the golden splendor which was sleeping upon the plain ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... But to tacitly accept a means by which the injured man risked his life to avenge his honor, and then afterwards to shirk the fate which a perfectly even chance had thrown upon him instead of on his antagonist! It was too mean, too despicable. Hugh's ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... the sort of inflated popularity which has gathered around those of Cruikshank. With much spirit and pleasant invention, Doyle lacked academic skill, and often betrays considerable weakness, not merely in composition, but in invention. Yet the qualities which won him reputation are by no means despicable. He evidently felt the charm of fairyland, and peopled it with droll little folk who are neither too human nor too unreal to be attractive. He joined the staff of Punch when but nineteen, and soon, by his political cartoons, and his famous "Manners and Customs of y^e English drawn from ...
— Children's Books and Their Illustrators • Gleeson White
... whose hair had gone white in a night, was tried as "the widow Capet," going to the guillotine with majestic serenity on the 16th of October 1793. The Girondist deputies followed; also the despicable Egalite Orleans, who went to his doom as the dandy he was, blotting out his many sins in a final dignity. Amongst the many batches came the miserable Du Barry, shrieking with terror, to her awful death, which she had brought upon herself by foolishly advertising a reward for a robbery from her house ...
— Vigee Le Brun • Haldane MacFall
... way and kiss the hands—just as the British elementary teachers bow unbelieving heads to receive the episcopal pat, and just as the British sceptic in orders will achieve triumphs of ambiguity to secure the episcopal see. And their reason for submission will not be absolutely despicable; they will know there is no employment worth speaking of without it. After all, one has only one life, and it is not pleasant to pass through it in a state of futile abstinence from the general scheme. Life, unfortunately, does not end with heroic moments of repudiation; ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells
... caresses. Then the clock struck, and he had to bolt off at once to catch the only train that would get him back to Tercanbury in time for call-over. As he sat in the corner of the railway carriage he saw that he had done nothing. He was angry with himself for his weakness. It was despicable to have allowed himself to be turned from his purpose by the pompous airs of the Vicar and the tears of his aunt. But as the result of he knew not what conversations between the couple another letter was written ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... instantaneously hated, and of whom it was so difficult to be rid. I was standing at the bar when he invaded me; therefore I could not wave the white ribbon in his face. I would have paid gladly for the drinks, hoping, thereby, to escape another; but he was one of those despicable, roaring, advertising bibbers who must have brass bands and fireworks attend upon every cent that ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... wish to converse with the meanest of the Lacedaemonians, he will at first find him, for the most part, apparently despicable in conversation; but afterwards, when a proper opportunity presents itself, this same mean person, like a skilful jaculator, will hurl a sentence, worthy of attention, short and contorted; so ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... century, which was announced, and announced with great precision, by La Bruyere, was inaugurated by his enemy Fontenelle. Fontenelle, nephew of Corneille, began with despicable trifles, eclogues, operas, stilted tragedies, letters of a dandy, so he might be justly regarded as an inferior Voiture. Very soon, because he possessed the passion of the eighteenth century for ...
— Initiation into Literature • Emile Faguet
... their match, they acknowledged, upon the admission of the despicable nature of the game. The Tinleys had winged a dreadful shaft at them; not in itself to be dreaded, but that it struck a weak point; it was a common shot that exploded a magazine; and for a time it quite upset their social policy, causing them to ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... were Ned's feelings when he heard the news; it was the very station to which he had hoped the ship might be sent. His knowledge of the good qualities possessed by Tom Baraka made him sure that the blacks were not the despicable race some of his messmates were disposed to consider them. They, at all events, had immortal souls, and might with the same advantages become as civilised and as good a Christian as Tom was. There was a possibility, though a very remote one, that he might fall in ...
— Ned Garth - Made Prisoner in Africa. A Tale of the Slave Trade • W. H. G. Kingston
... speedily saw that there would be little hope of victory until this man could be placed hors de combat. He therefore pressed in toward him, plying his cutlass vigorously with one hand, and laying manfully about him with the butt of his empty pistol with the other, and calling upon the fellow by every despicable epithet he could think of to turn and meet him. He had very nearly reached him—there were only some half-a-dozen people between the two—when another voice, that of Bowen, was heard, and the next instant the chief mate, his eyes literally blazing with fury, appeared, forcing ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... exonerate them from the charges I have brought against those whose very nature it is to love money for its own sake. At the same time the strong expressions I have made use of respecting these latter, may, I hope, serve to obviate the suspicion that I have any indulgence for so despicable a vice, and may induce you to expect an unprejudiced statement of the merits ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... According to his ideas no circumstances could excuse a crime—and certainly not such a crime. This was the opinion generally received. The duty of a human being was to starve. Falk therefore was a beast, an animal; base, low, vile, despicable, shameless, and deceitful. He had been deceiving him since last year. He was, however, inclined to think that Falk must have gone mad quite recently; for no sane person, without necessity, uselessly, for no earthly reason, and regardless ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad
... and necessary dues levied on every Persian Shiyaee while traversing Central Arabia, and under Wahabee guidance and protection, amounted, I found, to about one hundred and fifty gold tomans, equalling nearly sixty pounds sterling, English, no light expenditure for a Persian, and no despicable gain to an Arab."—Palgrave's Central and Eastern ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood
... company of scrambling mice ran over his back, and waked him; upon which, starting up, he clapped his paw upon one of them, and was just going to put it to death, when the little supplicant implored his mercy in a very moving manner, begging him not to stain his noble character with the blood of so despicable ...
— Favourite Fables in Prose and Verse • Various
... because I wanted to talk, for once, with a natural man—one unspoiled by the despicable gloss of wealth and supposed social superiority. Oh! you do not know how weary I am of it—money, money, money! And of the men who surround me, dancing like little marionettes all cut by the same pattern. I am ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... cannot, in its nature, rise above its origin. A man can never become superior in nature to his mother, and can certainly never, with right or justice, exercise authority over her. He may be stronger, wiser, and better, but he cannot be a superior being. Such a claim is alike foolish and despicable. The two sexes, therefore, being one in nature, their chief end is one, and reason and revelation unite in the assertion that man was created to glorify God and enjoy him forever. God made all things for ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... You tear and bedraggle yourself incessantly. You have eaten up all my little property; our six children lie on straw, and we are living in a stable with the beasts. Here we are forced to beg for alms, and, besides, you are so ugly and vile and despicable that very soon they will be tossing us bread as if we were dogs. Ah, my poor people, take pity on us! Take pity on me! I have n't deserved my lot, and never had woman a more dirty and detestable husband. Help me to pick him up, else the wagons will run ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... river being once more open, the Dacians endeavoured to prevent the landing of the Roman troops, or, failing that, they made good their retreat to the mountains, whither the Romans feared to follow them. Nor were the Dacians by any means despicable opponents. Although many of them fought bareheaded and clothed in a light tunic, they were well acquainted with the use of armour, and possessed standards, shields, helmets, breast-plates, and even chain and plate mail, fighting with bows ...
— Roumania Past and Present • James Samuelson
... Maggie. The mocking laugh which Angus sent after him, did not move any feeling but contempt; he was far more anxious to comfort and conciliate the suffering, angry woman, than to revenge himself upon so despicable an enemy. ...
— A Daughter of Fife • Amelia Edith Barr
... listlessness and utter lack of animation in all their movements and conversation, which contrasted painfully with the boisterous hilarity and rugged healthiness of our late Californian fellow-travellers. Their appearance was most forlorn and despicable in a military view,—no soldier's uniform or spirit amongst them, only the poor man's uniform of rags and dirt, and the spirit of careless, disease-worn, doomed men. Nevertheless, all bore about them some emblem of their trade; some, for the most part with ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... Flagitious manners make impressions deep On those, that o'er a page of Milton sleep: Nor in their dulness think to save your shame, True, these are fools; but wise men say the same. Wits are a despicable race of men, If they confine their talents to the pen; When the man shocks us, while the writer shines, Our scorn in life, our envy in his lines. Yet, proud of parts, with prudence some dispense, And play the ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... exhausted, yet upheld by the sudden transport she had felt, was led by her father out of this wretched dwelling—more despicable than the ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... declined from the Love of Glory, and a martial Spirit, that they were no longer formidable but by their Numbers. They grew intoxicated with Luxury, and run into Extremes opposite to their original Ferosity, so as to become more despicable than ...
— The Amours of Zeokinizul, King of the Kofirans - Translated from the Arabic of the famous Traveller Krinelbol • Claude Prosper Jolyot de Crbillon
... the Huguenots were despicable, that Charles I. was a saint, that the Old Pretender was James III., that the Revolution of 1688 was a crime, and that the Non-jurors were the true confessors of the English Church, it did not seem to square with his reading, or his reflections. Perhaps, after all, the infallible Hurrell ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... observations will hold universally true, and that those who expect so much for themselves, without being willing to consider their fellow-creatures in turn, in whatever station they are found, are always the most mean, ignorant, and despicable of the species." ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... to me about it, but I knew that the principal and at least four girls in school knew what I had done. When I entered the sophomore class in the fall I felt a positive hatred for this girl and for her friends. I did all sorts of cruel, despicable things that year, and succeeded in dividing my class into two factions who opposed each other ...
— Grace Harlowe's Second Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... as amusing and quite as observant, we are made to feel that the two heroes detest each other hardly more than Mr. Anstey detests Culcherd, the more unsympathetic and contemptible of the two. They are nearly as despicable as they are funny, and their creator has little pity for them on that account. There is a "plentiful lack of tenderness," but an abundance of humour to excuse it. This quality is not visible in "Mr. Punch's Pocket Ibsen"—a parody so good that we sometimes wonder if the ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... unwittingly enunciating a profound truth, the force of which mankind is only now beginning to realize, that the pursuit of profit will transform natures inherently capable of much good into sordid, cruel beasts of prey, and accustom them to committing actions so despicable, so inhuman, that they would be terrified were it not that the world is under the sway of the profit system and not merely excuses and condones, but justifies and throws a glamour about, the unutterable degradations and crimes which the profit ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus
... said he, "for he is not afraid to sacrifice us all. Many officers are afraid to lose too many men in the gaining of an end, but not so he. He is clever, for who else would have thought of making us seem despicable to the Germans in order to tempt them to attack in force at this point? Have ye not noticed how to our rear all is being made ready for the defense and for a counter-attack to follow? We are the bait. The battle is to be ...
— Hira Singh - When India came to fight in Flanders • Talbot Mundy
... natural enough, but somehow the satisfaction of his bodily vanity had stung his moral pride beyond endurance. It seemed a despicable thing to be as vain as he was of a gift for which he had not paid any price. Deep down, too, he felt bitterly that he had never received the slightest praise for any thought of his which he had written down and sent to that cauldron ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... record the effect of an actual though undesigned experiment, which I prosecuted for upwards of twelve years among you. For the greater part of that time I could expatiate on the meanness of dishonesty, on the villany of falsehood, on the despicable arts of calumny; in a word, upon all those deformities of character which awaken the natural indignation of the human heart against the pests and the disturbers of human society. Now, could I, upon the strength ...
— The Preacher and His Models - The Yale Lectures on Preaching 1891 • James Stalker
... my grandfather. He threatens to destroy the whole of New Aberfoyle. His is a soul incapable of mercy or forgiveness, and no mortal can say to what horrid deed the spirit of revenge will lead him. My duty is clear; I should be the most despicable creature on earth did I hesitate to perform it. Farewell! I thank you all heartily. You only have taught me what happiness is. Whatever may befall, believe that my whole heart ...
— The Underground City • Jules Verne
... the ideas and influence of so despicable a creature? Because, sophistical as they were, those ideas contained truths of tremendous germinant power; because in the rank soil of his times they produced a vast crop of bitter, poisonous fruit, while in the ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... not move, nor did he offer to speak. In his present bad plight he would have been glad enough to talk with anything living, even with so despicable a ...
— The Grammar School Boys of Gridley - or, Dick & Co. Start Things Moving • H. Irving Hancock
... suffer, but the sacrifice must not touch his mother nor estrange the Waldstrickers. That Madelene would be wronged by his action gave him little concern. But at that moment to hurt the girl at his side; oh, how he hated the bitter necessity! Conscious of the despicable part he was playing, but having really decided, he drew himself from the girl's arms. To gain a little more time, he thrust his fingers several times through his ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... methods as lining up the servants, and asking them if they stole them or not. Any one of the servants is likely to be guilty, except only Harrigan, Blumenroth, and myself. All the others are unspeakable imbeciles! Go ahead, then, and get your information, without casting your despicable insinuations upon me." ...
— The Adventures of the Eleven Cuff-Buttons • James Francis Thierry
... nation, I think they are; and it is one evidence of their mental development. They have a great variety of native dishes, some of which, I believe, are not despicable." ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner
... glance even her brazen face fell. Six months previously that creature had stolen Wilkins, the best cook I ever had. Mere man may not understand the enormity of this offence; but every woman knows there is no crime more heinous, more despicable, more unforgivable. She might find it in her heart to condone larceny, think lightly of arson, or even excuse murder; but there is not one who would extend even a deathbed pardon to the person who had robbed her ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, April 7, 1920 • Various
... replied Dame Hilda, with one of those superior smiles which used to make me feel so very naughty. It seemed to say, "My poor, little, despicable insect, how could you dream of supposing that your intellect was even with Mine?" (There, I have writ that a capital M in red ink. To have answered to Dame Hilda's tone when she put that smile on, it should have been in vermilion and gold leaf.) Howbeit, Jack never ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... detachment of British sepoys. It was evident that the Burmese were bent on the conquest of Bengal. Lord Amherst, who had assumed charge early in 1824, sent an expedition against them under Sir Archibald Campbell. The resistance of the Burmese was despicable. The British soldiers nowhere found foes worthy of their steel. In May, the British expedition, having marched straight to Burma, occupied the capital Rangoon, which was found deserted and denuded of all supplies. Ill fed and far from succor, the British had to spend a rainy ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... Levison. He got acquainted with some friends of mine, and at their house I met him. He behaved shamefully ill; he repaid their hospitality with gross ingratitude; other details and facts regarding his conduct also became known to me. Altogether I believe him to be a base and despicable man, both by nature and inclination, and that he will remain such to ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... demons who are afflicting you. That is exactly what they would like you to believe—what they will try to make you believe; but do not be so foolish as to listen to them. I know the type perfectly, and mean, despicable, bullying villains they are; they will torment a weak woman for months together, but will fly in cowardly terror the moment you turn upon them in righteous anger! I should just laugh at them, but I would ...
— Elementary Theosophy • L. W. Rogers
... conscience was whispering fiercely: "Oh, fool! Coward! Paltering, despicable coward! This girl throws herself on you, on your honour, chivalry, manhood, and you screen yourself behind a ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... finished speaking, he again bent over his writing. George watched him as his pen flew rapidly over the paper; he had nothing that he cared to say to such a despicable hound. He was simply raging with indignation at the traitor, and his fingers twitched longingly to get to the man's throat. However, he restrained himself, and waited for anything further that he had to say. ...
— Under the Rebel's Reign • Charles Neufeld
... method of obtaining any knowledge of the manners of what is called "genteel society;" hence, they are ever regarded as a privileged class; and are sometimes greatly envied, while others are bitterly hated. And too often justly, for many of them are the most despicable tale-bearers and mischief-makers, who will, for the sake of the favor of his master or mistress, frequently betray his fellow-slave, and by tattling, get him severely whipped; and for these acts of perfidy, and sometimes downright ...
— Twenty-Two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman • Austin Steward
... tell you so this morning?' he answered loftily. There is always a despicable joy in resuscitating a lie which events have changed into ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... well as anybody, I guess," she stuttered; 'but I'd never sell a secret to get it. I ain't low down and despicable if I am poor." "Then you admit it is mere curiosity? I ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... morning consisted of smoked and dried herrings, corned mackerel, fresh prawns, beef steaks, cold roast beef, cold ham, roast and boiled yams, eggs, and toast: a supply that will not be thought despicable for the passengers of a merchant schooner, in the Bight of Biafra, where the sun was so powerful, that our anchor was hot enough to serve the purposes ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman
... garden gate. The sound of bolts and bars was then repeated; and a moment after, Francis perceived the Dictator escorting into the house, in the mobile light of the lantern, an individual of the lowest and most despicable appearance. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... thing. Every country has its slackers, and Belgium is no exception. But to attempt to belittle the glorious heroism of the Belgian nation because of a few young slackers or the ingratitude and ill-manners of some ignorant peasants, is an unworthy and despicable thing. The assertion that the Belgians are lacking in courage is as untruthful as it is cruel. Ask the Germans who charged up the fire-swept slopes of Liege—those of them left alive—if the Belgians are cowards. Ask those who saw the fields ...
— Italy at War and the Allies in the West • E. Alexander Powell
... witticism, and Brett instantly took his measure as a member of the gang of flash thieves which infest Paris. He knew that such a ruffian was both pitiless and cowardly. Whatever the outcome of the situation which faced him, he would not stoop to conciliatory methods with this despicable rascal. ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy
... within the gift of the party; and disloyalty should be looked upon as political treason. One who votes for anybody except the organization candidate feels himself superior to his party, is faithless to the great ideal and is only a little less despicable than he who, having been elected to an office through the energy and devotion of the party workers, is then so ungrateful as to refuse to appoint the workers to positions within his gift. Positions constitute the cohesive force that holds ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... friends: just to offer it to them as so much capital, for whatever it may be worth. In pondering the fancy, I need hardly say that I do not assess myself at any extravagant value. I but venture to think that the devotion of one human creature, however humble, throughout a lifetime, is not a despicable offering. To use me as they would, to fetch and carry with me, to draw on me for whatever force resides in me, as they would on a bank account, to the last penny, to use my brains for their plans, my heart for their love, my blood for added length ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... to ease to the end of the chapter. He vacillates abominably and forever between two irreconcilable desires. Even when, at the close, he sinks into a whining sort of resignation, the proud courage of Cowperwood is not in him; he is always a bit despicable in ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... honeymoon entered upon its second phase. Every moment brought some new discomfort to her; the saddle hurt her: her clothes were torn, her tender skin bruised and scratched; pains came stabbingly with early fatigue As for King, he had come abruptly to look down upon her as utterly despicable; being a man of high honour he convicted her out of hand as one without honour; despising her, he despised himself for having linked his life in ever so little with hers. But yesterday he had knelt to her humbly in his innermost heart of hearts; now he sought to shut his mind against her quite ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... see what is got by those extravagant and presumptuous speculations which have taught your leaders to despise all their predecessors and all their contemporaries, and even to despise themselves, until the moment in which they became truly despicable. By following those false lights, France has bought undisguised calamities at a higher price than any nation has purchased the most unequivocal blessings. She has abandoned her interest that she might ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... passed by unchallenged; in our bag, however, we had rebel ammunition: a loaded shell fired at our men as they were crossing the stone bridge at Antietam. Fortunately the fuse had gone out, and it remained a trophy for one of the despicable Down-East Yankees. We heard the old General was still the centre of attraction to the pretty secesh ladies who had friends or relatives in durance vile in Fort McHenry. The veteran hero, though rich, wears a uniform that shows the marks ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... is a little more democracy in the west of Canada than the east; the communities seem a little less incapable of looking after themselves. Out in the west they are erecting not despicable public buildings, founding universities, running a few public services. That 'politics' has a voice in these undertakings does not make them valueless. There are perceptible in the prairies, among all the corruption, irresponsibility, and disastrous individualism, ...
— Letters from America • Rupert Brooke
... contrary, it would only be a welcome occasion for the Great Kophta to reveal himself, and hurl his despicable, malicious enemy into the dust at his feet," replied Cagliostro, calmly. "Try it, you faithless, fallen daughter of the Invisibles—try to unloose the pack of my enemies, to recognize that all their yelling and barking does not trouble the noble stag to whom God has given the ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... undone Rankle and snarl and hunger for their due, Till there seems naught so despicable as you In all the grin o' ...
— Poems by William Ernest Henley • William Ernest Henley
... "Historical Sketches," will now be given, which cannot be viewed in any other light than that of disinterested evidence. The Governor proceeds by saying, "the situation in which I find myself at present is indeed, my Lord, most despicable and mortifying. ... I live, alas! ingloriously, only to deplore it. ... The resolves of the Committee of Mecklenburg, which your Lordship will find in the enclosed newspaper, surpass all the horrid and treasonable publications that the inflammatory spirits ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter
... more shameful?—anything more despicable? Was ever a heroine so placed, even by English romancers or French dramatists? And was not the long dissertation at the beginning of this chapter, to prove the applicability of the spy system to war ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... great roads without having every feeling of humanity insulted and lacerated by this spectacle, nor can you go into any county or any neighborhood, scarcely, without seeing or hearing of some of these despicable creatures, ...
— The Narrative of William W. Brown, a Fugitive Slave • William Wells Brown
... inside!—heavens! what taste, what decoration—what ruin of a beautiful thing! Half the old mantelpieces gone, the ceilings spoiled, the decorations "busy," pretentious, overdone, and nothing left to console her but an ugly row of bad Lelys and worse Highmores—the most despicable collection of family portraits she had ever ...
— Marriage a la mode • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... time the United States had been immensely popular in Rumania. But Mr. Hoover's action made us about as popular with the Rumanians as the smallpox. He and we were charged with being actuated by the most despicable and sordid motives. The King himself told me that he was convinced that Mr. Hoover was in league with certain great commercial interests which wished to take their revenge for their failure to obtain commercial concessions of great value ...
— The New Frontiers of Freedom from the Alps to the AEgean • Edward Alexander Powell
... is worse than a failure. "Our civilisation seems all so savage and bestial and filthy and inartistic; all so cowardly and devilish and despicable. We fight by cheatery and underselling, and adulteration and bribery, and unmanly smirking for our bone of a livelihood; all scrambling and biting round the platter when there is abundance for all, if we were orderly and courteous and ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker
... noble type of man separates from himself the beings in whom the opposite of this exalted, proud disposition displays itself he despises them. Let it at once be noted that in this first kind of morality the antithesis "good" and "bad" means practically the same as "noble" and "despicable",—the antithesis "good" and "EVIL" is of a different origin. The cowardly, the timid, the insignificant, and those thinking merely of narrow utility are despised; moreover, also, the distrustful, with their constrained glances, the self-abasing, the dog-like kind of men who let themselves ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... field, has devoted itself entirely to literature." Nothing can be more serious, as I have already remarked, than this diary of Alfieri's struggles, where he notes, day by day, the laziness, the meanness, the want of frankness to himself and others, the despicable vanity, the attempt to appear what he is not, the indulged unfounded suspiciousness towards his friends, all the little base defects which must have pained a nature like his more than any real sinfulness, as the prodding of a surgeon's instruments would have agonised ...
— The Countess of Albany • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... for what his father or his friends have done. If they have given him a position, the greater is his shame for sinking beneath that position. The person who is above labor or despises the laborer, is himself one of the most despicable creatures on God's earth. He not only displays a dull intelligence of those nobler inspirations with which God has endowed us, but he even shows a lack of ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis |
