"Impiety" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... depuis 1789," I., 391. "The kernel of boarding-scholars, (holders of scholarships) was furnished by the Prytanee. Profound corruption, to which the military regime gives an appearance of regularity, a cool impiety which conforms to the outward ceremonies of religion as to the movements of a drill,... steady tradition has transmitted this spirit to all the pupils that have succeeded each other for ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 6 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 2 (of 2) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... dealing with your daily dreads you simply counted God out. Either He had nothing to do with them or He brought them upon you. In any case His intervention on your behalf was not supposed to be in this world, and to look for rewards from Him here and now was considered a form of impiety. You were to be willing to serve God for naught; after which unexpected favours might be accorded you, but you were to hope for nothing as a right. I do not say that this is what I was taught; it was what I understood; but to the best of my memory it ...
— The Conquest of Fear • Basil King
... pomp and ceremony, the monarch, the Druids, and the chiefs of the kingdom attending; and from this holy fire, and no other, was every fire in the land first lit for the winter. It was deemed an act of the highest impiety to kindle the winter fires from any other; and for this favour the head of every house paid a Scrubal, or threepence, tax, to the Arch-Druid of Samhain." [222] Another writer mentions another Irish moon-god. "The next heathen divinity which I would bring under notice ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley
... state, and the change of order from the keeping of the garden to the tilling of the ground. We cannot say how far it is right or agreeable with God's will, while men are perishing round about us, while grief, and pain, and wrath, and impiety, and death, and all the powers of the air, are working wildly and evermore, and the cry of blood going up to heaven, that any of us should take hand from the plough; but this we know, that there will come a time when the service of God shall be the beholding of ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... of Wynkyn de Worde. He turned away his eyes from that corner of the bookcase where he had good reason to suppose them to be. He would have to look at them some time, meanwhile he shrank from approaching them as from some gross impiety. His father had written to him several times, making special inquiries after the Aldine Plato, the Neapolitan Horace, and the Aurea Legenda of Wynkyn de Worde. He replied with generalities in a guarded manner. He was kept very busy, and was as yet unable to send ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... some of the zeal of these Christians might be infused into the sluggish spirits of our own people. The ancient faith suffers through neglect, and the prevailing impiety of those who ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... from earth and water. The four Ages follow, and in the last of these the Giants aspire to the sovereignty of the heavens; being slain by Jupiter, a new race of men springs up from their blood. These becoming noted for their impiety, Jupiter not only transforms Lycaon into a wolf, but destroys the whole race of men and animals by a Deluge, with the exception of Deucalion and Pyrrha, who, when the waters have abated, renew the human race, by throwing stones behind ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... appears either as an annihilation of self or as a prolonged tedium to our natural way of feeling. And hence a certain feeling which we not infrequently observe and which has more than once expressed itself in satires, not altogether free from irreverence or perhaps impiety, with reference to the heaven of eternal glory as a place of eternal boredom. And it is useless to despise feelings such as these, ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno
... a la Cassette replied with a sudden turn of her masked face and a murmur of surprise and protest against this impiety. A low, merry laugh came out of the Monk's cowl, and the Huguenotte let her form sink a little in her chair with a ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... down the staircase, the Prince spoke to Rivabarella: "Now, who would have taken Don Juan's impiety for a boast? ...
— The Elixir of Life • Honore de Balzac
... to pray neglect their home duties, their duties as wife and as mother. To them, I say of a truth, God remains deaf. He wills, before aught else, that you should fulfil your duties to your own. Every prayer which causes another to suffer is an impiety." Such was pretty near the essence of his sermons: they were short and simple. No great sonorous words, no pompous digressions, no Latin quotations which no one would have understood, no declamations on Our Lady of Lourdes or of La Salotte, on the miracle ...
— The Grip of Desire • Hector France
... in the lovely bloom and spring-time of womanhood; at that age, when, if ever angels be for God's good purposes enthroned in mortal forms, they may be, without impiety, supposed to abide ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... movement. So late a poet as Bowles delighted to stress the "churchman's ardor" of the poet. [Footnote: See his verse on Southey and Milton.] Southey also was ready to exhibit his punctilious orthodoxy. Yet poor Southey was the unwitting cause of the impiety of his brothers for many years, inasmuch as Byron's A Vision of Judgment, with its irresistible satire on Southey, sounded the death-knell of ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... state of society in which appearances are made to take the place of reality. What is more, it is a result that we may look for equally among the formalists of established sects, and among the descendants of those who once deserted the homes of their fathers in order to escape from the impiety of so meretricious an abuse of the substance of godliness. In the case of the latter, appearances occupy the mind more than that love of God which is the one great test of human conversion from sin to an improving state of that holiness, without which we are told no man shall ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... of the early study of letters,—literae humaniores. I do not doubt the value of any honest mental labor. Indeed, since the material working of the Creator has been so far displayed to our gaze, it is both dangerous and full of impiety to resist its ennobling influence, even on the ground that His moral work is greater. But notwithstanding this, the study of language, of history, and of the thoughts of great men which they exhibit, seems ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... religious,) the more recent counterfeits of the notorious Greek Simonides—such literary humbugs as these are equal in presumption and in ingenuity too, to any of a merely business kind, though usually destitute of that sort of impiety which makes the great religious humbugs horrible ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... nations administer the office entrusted to them, asking God for mercy, they plead the cause of the human race, and together with the whole Church ask and pray that the unbelievers may receive the faith, that the idolaters may be freed from the errors of their impiety, that the veil be lifted from the heart of the Jews, and they be enabled to perceive the light of truth, that the heretics may return to their senses by a true perception of the Catholic faith, that the schismatics may receive the ...
— Grace, Actual and Habitual • Joseph Pohle
... Nicholas) saith, It is lawfull for one of his Familie to dissemble," (i.e., to conceal his religion when questioned by the magistrate); and (2.) "H.N. maketh God the Author of sinne, and the sinner guiltless," (but no proof is alleged that this speculative impiety was ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 43, Saturday, August 24, 1850 • Various
... slain or deprived of their liberty they naturally became exasperated and turned against their dastardly oppressors. But from their point of view it was absolutely necessary to find out if the Spaniards were mortal. If they were not, it would be an act of impiety to resist them. ...
— Porto Rico - Its History, Products and Possibilities... • Arthur D. Hall
... given any promise of obedience. Has a government, then, no authority over such as these, because they never consented to it, and would esteem the very attempt of such a free choice a piece of arrogance and impiety? We find by experience, that it punishes them very freely for what it calls treason and rebellion, which, it seems, according to this system, reduces itself to common injustice. If you say, that by dwelling in its dominions, ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... accounted for, and hundreds of trivial incidents, are considered by the gravest as portentous signs of events to come. The coincidence of any event and its prognostic, though it might have been ten to one that it would happen, is received as evidence of their connexion, which it would be impiety to laugh at! But need I quote a more striking instance than the still prodigious annual sale of 300,000 of Partridge's and Moore's Almanacks, whose recommendations are their prognostications, and which a few years since lost most of their patrons, because the Stationers' Company, in the edition ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips
... and raising our puny arms against the authority of Heaven. He beheld us, not as the Ninevites once were, in sackcloth and ashes, but recklessly violating all his holy laws. It was in view of all the deformity, bitterness, rage and heaven-daring impiety of our naked hearts, that Christ left his throne of glory and died on the cross. It was for such beings that he voluntarily endured humiliation, toil, self-denial and death. He toiled and died for the ungodly. He came, though men despised his aid. He ...
— Thoughts on Missions • Sheldon Dibble
... and expresses his intention of yielding to the illusion to-day, and to-morrow he will go to a priest and be purified, we easily see that his words are not to be taken seriously. In this part of the dialogue his dread of committing impiety, the pretended derivation of his wisdom from another, the extravagance of some of his etymologies, and, in general, the manner in which the fun, fast and furious, vires acquirit eundo, remind us strongly of the Phaedrus. The jest is a long one, extending ...
— Cratylus • Plato
... besides, over and above, God's Commandments, which they call Works of Supererogation, cannot be taught without arrogancy and impiety: for by them men do declare, that they do not only render unto God as much as they are bound to do, but that they do more for his sake, than of bounden duty is required: whereas Christ saith plainly, ...
— The Book of Common Prayer - and The Scottish Liturgy • Church of England
... of truth and virtue, we may impress it for that service; and good it were to rescue so worthy a faculty from so vile abuse. It is the right of reason and piety to command that and all other endowments; folly and impiety do only usurp them. Just and fit therefore it is to wrest them out of so bad hands, to revoke them to their ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow
... he loves himself, mend speedily; for of all styles wherein to become stereotyped the one which he has chosen is the worst, because in it the greatest amount of insincerity is possible. There is a Tartarus in front of him as well as an Olympus; a hideous possibility very near him of insincere impiety merely for the purpose of startling; of lawless fancy merely for the purpose of glittering; and a still more hideous possibility of a revulsion to insincere cant, combined with the same lawless fancy, for the purpose of keeping well with the public, in which to ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... of the Ujigami embodies the moral experience of the community,—represents all its cherished traditions and customs, its unwritten laws of conduct, its sentiment of duty .... Now just as an offence against the ethics of the family must, in such a society, be regarded as an impiety towards the family-ancestor, so any breach of custom in the village or district must be considered as an act of disrespect to its Ujigami. The prosperity of the family depends, it is thought, upon ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... knowing how imagination forestalls experience in passionate blood, Georgiana said, "You speak like one who has undergone them. But now at least you have thrown off the mask. You love him still, this man! And with as little strength of will! Do you not see impiety in the comparison you ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... point Cleanor the Ochomenian stood up and spoke as follows: "You see, men, the perjury and the impiety of the king. You see the faithlessness of Tissaphernes, professing that he was next-door neighbour to Hellas, and would give a good deal to save us, in confirmation of which he took an oath to us himself, he gave us the pledge of his right hand, and then, with ...
— Anabasis • Xenophon
... around it. What movement, what shouting, what laughter, what merriment! There is nothing so interesting as a regiment. It is our country in its youthful and vigorous aspect. All the ineptitude, the turbulence, the superstition at times, and at times the impiety of the country as represented in the individual, disappears under the iron rule of discipline, which of so many insignificant figures makes an imposing whole. The soldier, or so to say, the corpuscle, separating at the command "Break ranks!" ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... letters bearing the name Jhesus Maria, was declared to prove that she was cruel, "seeking the shedding of blood, seditious, and a blasphemer of God." The tenor is the same to the end: Blasphemy, superstition, pernicious doctrine, impiety, cruelty, presumption, lying; a schismatic, a heretic, an apostate, an idolator, an invoker of demons. These are the conclusions drawn by the most solemn and weighty tribunal on matters of faith in France. ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... the gods wished men to know them, not by beliefs and observances, but by doing good." This teaching, which was misunderstood by many, together with the dislike—not to say hatred—which such a "cross-examining missionary" would inevitably excite, caused his trial for impiety or rejection of the popular deities. He was then over seventy. When asked whether he had prepared his defence, he replied "that his whole life had been a preparation, since he had spent it in studying what was right and endeavoring to do it." Condemned by the ...
— The Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote
... fraudulently injuring another; giving false evidence; speaking disrespectfully to the aged; marrying an elder brother's wife; putting your foot on, or walking over, a man's body; speaking profanely of religion—are acts of impiety.[198] ...
— Sex and Society • William I. Thomas
... other orbits. I dimly remember that we talked of Angola cats, Dresden china, Turkish chibouques, maccaroni, and Lord Byron, with whose poems this lady seemed sufficiently familiar. I improved the occasion, as the right thing to do, when talking with ladies about Byron, to find fault with his impiety, his blasphemous scepticism, his cutting sarcasm, and the unhappy frivolity which defaces the works of the man, who, with all his faults, was undoubtedly the greatest poet the nineteenth ...
— Notes in North Africa - Being a Guide to the Sportsman and Tourist in Algeria and Tunisia • W. G. Windham
... unjustly acts impiously. For since the universal nature has made rational animals for the sake of one another to help one another according to their deserts, but in no way to injure one another, he who transgresses her will is clearly guilty of impiety towards the highest divinity. And he too who lies is guilty of impiety to the same divinity; for the universal nature is the nature of things that are; and things that are have a relation to all things that come into existence. And further, this universal nature is named truth, and is ...
— The Thoughts Of The Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus • Marcus Aurelius
... commenced his reign, according to Moslem historians, with much wisdom, but afterwards acquired a reputation for impiety, cruelty, and unreasoning extravagance, by which he has been rendered odious to posterity. He is said to have had at the same time "courage and boldness, cowardice and timorousness, a love for learning and vindictiveness towards the learned, ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 11 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... prophecies? Has not Virgil himself quoted the predictions of the sibyls? If we have not the first examples of the Sibylline Books, written at a time when people did not know how to read or write, have we not authentic copies? Impiety must be silent before such proofs." Thus did Houttevillus speak to Sejan. He hoped to have a position as augur which would be worth an income of fifty thousand ...
— Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary • Voltaire
... carried human reason as far and as high as it could go, both in politics and in morals. On the other hand, Malebranche and the writers of Port Royal were against him; some reprehended the licentiousness of his writings; others their impiety, materialism, epicureanism. Even Pascal, who had carefully read the Essays, and gained no small profit by them, did not spare his reproaches. But Montaigne has outlived detraction. As time has gone on, ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... style, with laughter and terror and tears at his order, this great writer halts in his stride towards the place which should be his by right? It seems to me at times as if I had a partial answer to that question. I believe that a judicious editor, without a solitary act of impiety, could give Charles Reade undisputed and indisputable rank. One-half the whole business is a question of printing. This great and admirable writer had one constant fault, which is so vulgar and trivial ...
— My Contemporaries In Fiction • David Christie Murray
... otherwise—according to the nature of the wickedness perpetrated? This is but an amateur opinion, monsieur; I offer it as an individual, not as a priest speaking on the part of the Church. But it may serve to account for a real difficulty, and may be held without impiety. Of one thing at least we may rest assured as Christian men; that the souls of the dead, whether of saints or sinners, are in God's safe keeping, and walk the earth no more." Then I shook hands with M. Pierre, and we parted. And after that, reader, ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... See Sherefeddin, (l. v. c. 15, 25. Arabshah tom. ii. c. 96, p. 801, 803) approves the impiety of Timour and the Moguls, who almost preferred to the Koran the Yacsa, or Law of Zingis, (cui Deus maledicat;) nor will he believe that Sharokh had abolished the use and authority ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... the race of men who had now the sacred element of fire. But he knew that Prometheus had stolen this fire even from his own altar and had given it to men. And he thought on how he might punish the great Titan god for his impiety. ...
— The Golden Fleece and the Heroes who Lived Before Achilles • Padraic Colum
... "When heathen impiety, loathsome and dread, With a chaos of darkness our Spain overspread, Thou wast the first light which dispell'd with its flames The ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... the recitation of yet another brief poem—one very different in character from any that I have before quoted. It is by Motherwell, and is called "The Song of the Cavalier." With our modern and altogether rational ideas of the absurdity and impiety of warfare, we are not precisely in that frame of mind best adapted to sympathize with the sentiments, and thus to appreciate the real excellence, of the poem. To do this fully, we must identify ourselves, in fancy, with the soul ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... which sits enthroned above the Constitution and the laws"; and he gives an extract from a nameless English correspondent, in which the writer remarks, "Religion is an excellent thing except in politics," a maxim exceedingly palatable to very many of our politicians. Aware that the impiety of this sentiment was not exactly suited to the meridian of Massachusetts, he says his friend undoubtedly meant "a fantastical notion of religion." Of course, he regards the religious prejudice against ...
— A Letter to the Hon. Samuel Eliot, Representative in Congress From the City of Boston, In Reply to His Apology For Voting For the Fugitive Slave Bill. • Hancock
... Archives; thus Gemiste of Lacedaemon; thus Antoine of Heraclius; thus spake they all, the high and the low alike, even George Scholarius, whom thou didst see marching last night first penitent of the Vigils. 'Why did you sign the Decree?' And they answered, 'We were afraid of the Franks.' Perjury to impiety—cowardice to perjury!... And now, son Sergius, it is said—all said—with one exception. Some of the Metropolitans, when they were summoned to sign the Decree, demurred, 'Without you pay us to our satisfaction we shall not sign.' The silver was counted down to them. Nay, son, look not so incredulous—I ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... poor man, once satisfied that the priests deceive him, that the rich rob him, that all men have rights, that all good is of this world, and that misery is impiety; if the poor man, believing in himself and in his two arms, says to himself some fine day: "War on the rich! For me, happiness here in this life, since there is no other! for me, the earth, since heaven is empty! for me and for all, since all are equal." Oh! reasoners ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... Maximilian. In a letter of congratulation to Bonaparte, on the occasion of his present elevation, he also implored him to honour the God of the Christians by styling himself Jesus Christ the First, Emperor of the French, instead of Napoleon the First. But it was not his known impiety that made Talleyrand wish to exclude him from insulting with his presence a Christian pontiff. In the summer of 1799, when the Minister was in a momentary disgrace, De Lalande was at the head of those who imputed to his treachery, ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... the voice of the reformer, the ancient city, evangelized by St. Cromadaire, and enlightened by St. Gibbosine, fell into disorder and dissolution; every sort of extravagance and impiety was committed there, by day and by night. In vain did the great St. Nicolas warn his flock by exhortations, threats, and fulminations. The evil increased unchecked, and it was sad to see the contagion spreading itself among the well-to-do townsfolk, the lords, ...
— The Miracle Of The Great St. Nicolas - 1920 • Anatole France
... "Impiety did not move me, great goddess," said Hercules in his own defense, "but only the direst necessity. How otherwise could I ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various
... that I may speak without harshness, are not of sound judgment; these opinions are not in harmony with the Church, but involve those adopting them in the greatest impiety; these opinions even the heretics outside the pale of the Church have never ventured to broach; these opinions the elders before us, who also were disciples of the Apostles, did not hand down to thee. For ...
— Essays on "Supernatural Religion" • Joseph B. Lightfoot
... sufferings, such inflictions are mentioned only as trials permitted by providence, for the better and brighter display of their faith, and constancy of principle. But when similar afflictions befell the opposite party, they are imputed to the direct vengeance of Heaven upon their impiety. If, indeed, the life of any person obnoxious to the historian's censures happened to have passed in unusual prosperity, the mere fact of its being finally concluded by death, is assumed as an undeniable token ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... life; and yet the moral tendency of the reflections are framed in a mood of reverence as awful towards Omnipotence as the austere divinity of Milton. It would be presumption in me, however, to undertake the defence of any question in theology; but I have not been sensible to the imputed impiety, while I have felt in many passages influences that have their being amid the shadows and ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... outward. God absolves as soon as He sees penitence in the heart; the Church when she sees it in works. God will make a Church pure within, which confounds, by its inward and entirely spiritual holiness, the inward impiety of proud sages and Pharisees; and the Church will make an assembly of men whose external manners are so pure as to confound the manners of the heathen. If there are hypocrites among them, but so well disguised ...
— Pascal's Pensees • Blaise Pascal
... nationality, when the realization of the idea of humanity on the planet cannot be filled without it, is a rebellion against the eternal truth of God—it is a sacrilege! The recognition of such violation were participation; opposition to such impiety is religion!' ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... professor began to stammer out mechanically the first words of the Creed; but either from a sense of impiety or from mere confusion of mind, he passed abruptly to the first book of the "Iliad." His memory played him false. How his pupils would have suffered if they had thus maltreated ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Polish • Various
... difficulties raised by the Church against the Christian burial of Perugino: but if he died of plague, as it is believed (see C. and C., vol. iii. p. 244), these difficulties were probably caused by panic rather than belief in his impiety. For Gasparo Celio's note on Perugino's refusal to confess upon his death-bed, saying that he preferred to see how an impenitent soul would fare in the other world, the reader may consult Rio's L'Art Chretien, vol. ii. p. 269. The record of Perugino's arming ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... all this injustice, and impiety on your parts, you have prosecuted that with the extreamest madness, which you esteemed criminal in your enemies, viz. To arrogate the supream power in a single person;{3} condemn men without Law; execute, and proscribe them with as little: Imprest ...
— An Apologie for the Royal Party (1659); and A Panegyric to Charles the Second (1661) • John Evelyn
... went across the vast ocean beyond, with never a sacrifice to implore the Gods that they should help our direction. One might feel censure towards these rugged mariners for their impiety, but one could not help an admiration for ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... affection (to use his own termes) The true and reall upholder of Learned endeavors. This, therefore, beeing left unto mee, as a Legacie unto your Lordship (pardon my presumption, great Lord, from so meane a man to so great a person) I could not without some impiety present it to any other; such a sad priviledge have the bequests of the dead, and so obligatory they are, more than the requests of the living. In the hope of this honourable ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... his "axiom in morals and politics" can be found so monstrous a combination of ignorance, injustice, falsehood, and impiety? Ignorant of the meaning of an "axiom"; denying the truths of science; falsifying history; setting above the Constitution the most odious theory of tyranny, long before exploded; scoffing at the rules of justice and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... vii. 43. Let thy speeches be seriously reverent when thou speakest of God or his Attributes, for to jest or utter thy selfe lightly in matters divine, is an unhappy impiety, provoking heaven to justice, and urging all men to suspect thy beliefe.—vii. (unnumbered) Honour and obey thy natural parents although they be poor; for if thy earthly Parents cannot give thee riches and honour, yet thy heavenly Father ...
— George Washington's Rules of Civility - Traced to their Sources and Restored by Moncure D. Conway • Moncure D. Conway
... exorbitant evils and cruelty than the other, in verification of the rule we have given above. 3. In the year 1529 there arrived a great tyrant accompanied by many men, devoid of any fear of God or any mercy on mankind; so great were the massacres, slaughter and impiety he perpetrated, that he surpassed all his predecessors. During the space of six, or seven years that he lived, he and his men stole much treasure. (96) 4. He died without sacraments after also avoiding the commission of investigation ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt
... conceive to whom it could be a matter of such importance whether I communicated or not. Considering this condescension on my part as an act of cowardice, and moreover, being unwilling to give to the people a new pretext under which they might charge me with impiety, I refused the request of the minister, and he went away dissatisfied, giving me to understand I should ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... Pulcher, who was a demagogue of the worst moral character, in the pursuance of his base intrigues, committed an act of sacrilege by entering the house of Csar, disguised as a woman, during the celebration of the mysteries of the Bona Dea, to which men were never admitted. He was tried for the impiety, and, through the efforts of Cicero, was almost convicted, though he managed to escape by bribery. He was ever afterward a determined enemy of the great orator, and, by the aid of Pompey, Csar, and Crassus, finally succeeded in having him condemned for putting to death the Catilinian conspirators ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman
... stupidity or peculiarity—never to his incapacity. She had been helped to so much by his superior acquirements, and his real gift for communicating what he thoroughly understood; he had been so entirely her guide to knowledge, that she would at once have felt self-condemned of impiety—in the old meaning of the word—if she had doubted for a moment his ability to understand or explain any difficulty which she ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... your living without sedition, to this honorable employment, although in truth it was with your approbation that he obtained it; for though God were the donor, yet do we not offend when we think fit to accept it with your good-will; yet would it have been an instance of impiety not to have taken that honorable employment when he offered it; nay, it had been exceedingly unreasonable, when God had thought fit any one should have it for all time to come, and had made it secure and firm to him, to ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... not let them steal, also what dire woes they were going to work upon Polyphemus. In spite of their protests Silenus is believed: Ulysses promises, if set free, to erect shrines in Greece for the Cyclops, besides dwelling upon the impiety of attacking innocent strangers: Polyphemus replies that he does not care for shrines, and as for impiety he is independent of Zeus; which gives occasion for a glorification of the life of nature. They are driven into the cave to be fed on ...
— Story of Orestes - A Condensation of the Trilogy • Richard G. Moulton
... of the King's subjects, were to be forced, at the sword's point if necessary, to worship God in his way, and not in theirs. Viewed in this light, the whole proceeding would appear to be a ludicrous absurdity, but for its revolting impiety and the abominable cruelties with which it was accompanied. Yet the Royalists even blamed themselves for the mercy which they had hitherto shown to the Protestant peasantry; and the more virulent amongst ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles
... sent to Delphi with a large sum of gold for distribution among the citizens, he was so provoked at their covetousness that he refused to divide the money, and sent it back to his master. The Delphians, enraged at this treatment, accused him of impiety, and, in spite of his sacred character as ambassador, executed him as a public criminal. This cruel death of Aesop was not unavenged. The citizens of Delphi were visited with a series of calamities, until they made a public reparation of their crime; and, ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... house, who expressed themselves freely about it. "With your looks," they said, "it was to be expected she would take notice of you. But to see so much, and to tell you all!" The poor girl herself, however, took it very hard, and saw herself punished for impiety. She felt as if she was branded for ever—the girl who was to kill two men, and perhaps a third. In her mind's eye she could see that doomed first husband of hers, the shadow coldly upon him, herself looking sorrowfully at him, seeing him in the shadow but not able ...
— Gudrid the Fair - A Tale of the Discovery of America • Maurice Hewlett
... was all against this family. They were, as I say, glad to encourage any friends; and therefore, since their accession, there is no instance of any man being kept back on account of his bad principles; and hence this inundation of impiety.' I observed that Mr Hume, some of whose writings were very unfavourable to religion, was, however, a Tory. JOHNSON. 'Sir, Hume is a Tory by chance, as being a Scotchman; but not upon a principle of duty; for he has no principle. ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... in Behalf of it in a Christian Country, is, first, to establish it by Law; and, after that, every way to secure and promote the Exercise of it on the one Hand; and, on the other, to prohibit and punish Wickedness, and all Manner of Impiety, that can fall under the Cognizance of Magistrates. But thus much I think to be necessary in the Civil Administration of all Governments, for the temporal Interest of the Whole, before true Christianity ...
— A Letter to Dion • Bernard Mandeville
... knowledge of divinity. In short, the one leads to all that is grand, sublime and splendid in the universe; the other to all that is little, groveling[14] and dark. The one is the parent of the most pure and ardent piety; the genuine progeny of the other are impiety and atheism. And, in fine, the one confers on its votary the most sincere, permanent, and exalted delight; the other continual disappointment, and ...
— Introduction to the Philosophy and Writings of Plato • Thomas Taylor
... English thinkers, of man against circumstance, of spirit against form, of the present against the past. What splendid affirmation, what inspiring audacity, what glorious egoism, what generous brag, what sacred impiety! There is an eclat about his words, and a brave challenging of immense odds, that is like an army with banners. It stirs the blood like a bugle-call: beauty, bravery, and a sacred cause,—the three things that win with us always. The first essay is a forlorn hope. See what the chances ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... don't know as to the Gods)—Ver. 1037. "Deos nescio." The Critic Lambinis, in his letter to Charles the Ninth of France, accuses Terence of impiety in this passage. Madame Dacier has, however, well observed, that the meaning is not "I care not for the Gods," but "I know not what the ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... affectionate mildness when he transgressed the laws of taste or feeling. The Indians all despised the white settlers, whom they thought stupid and cowardly, and they expected to drive them beyond the sea. They despised them for their impiety, and Tecaughretanego once said to Smith, "As you have lived with the white people, you have not had the same advantage of knowing that the Great Being above feeds his people and gives them their meat in due season, ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells
... the source of an inner brightness which not even the 'malignity of fortune,' the 'impiety of men,' the tragedy of his mother's death, the imprisonment of his sister, and the ever-present sorrow of his father, 'the poor gentleman fallen into misery and misfortune through no fault of his own,' could wholly overcloud. The boy ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... by the great profits in the new, oversea trade, he had decided to arrange for a voyage in one of the great ships. Then, the efficiency of the priestly bookkeeping methods had become apparent. The Great God had become incensed at Tonda's impiety during his many previous trips across the channel, and a curse had been placed upon him and upon his goods. Of course, if Tonda wished to do penance, and to make votive offerings, amounting to about two thousand caldor, it might be that the Great God would relent and allow his passage, ...
— The Players • Everett B. Cole
... Voltaire, whose pen is without bit or bridle; Voltaire, who devoured the Bible, and ridiculed our dogmas, doubts, and after having made proselytes to impiety, is not ashamed, being reduced to the extremity of life, to ask for the sacraments, and to cover his body with more relics than St. Louis had ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... wear rather than a periwig." St. Evremond was a kind of Epicurean philosopher, and drew his own character in the following terms, in a letter to Count de Grammont. "He was a philosopher equally removed from superstition and impiety; a voluptuary who had no less aversion from debauchery than inclination for pleasure: a man who had never felt the pressure of indigence, and who had never been in possession of affluence: he lived in a condition despised by ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton
... Greek philosopher, who, in maintaining truth, incurred the charge of infecting the young men of Athens with impiety, and was put to death by being made to drink hemlock. His life and teaching are known to us through the writings of his ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... in all priestly ceremonies, whether ritual or pontifical, care is taken not at such times to name one god more than another, for fear of impiety, since it is quite uncertain which god causes ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... Between two impending law-suits how shall we muster courage to keep on the even tenor of our way? Even our staunch friend, the anonymous Public, torments us with frequent accusatory epistles, charging us with dulness, impiety, and irreverence for American institutions. All these we must lay on the back of our Englishman, whose compatriots we confess are apt to assume a latitude of style hardly tolerated among us. In the mean time, gentle Public, respected ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... me!" cried she; "and the chastisement for my impiety is not delayed. Will you still force me to obey you? Shall I be dragged to the altar, in spite of myself, at the very hour he's ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About
... errors which witty make-bates design for you), labour daily for increase of knowledge, and as they to their errors in opinion do add the overplus of a licentious practice and lewd conversation, so must you (having so much the more ado to flee from their impiety), labour still for a greature measure of the lively work of sanctifying grace; in which respects Augustine saith well, that the adversaries of the truth do this good to the true members of the church, that the fall of those makes these to take ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... opportunity they lost of earning for themselves immortal honors from God and man! If, instead of raising the standard of revolt, they had waged war upon their own passions, and fought with the Catholic reformers against impiety, they would be hailed as true soldiers of the cross. They would be welcomed by the Pope, the Bishops and clergy, and by all good men. They might be honored today on our altars, and might have a niche in our temples, ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons
... that the next recorded instance of new gods occurs. The first war with Carthage was in progress, Rome had just suffered a terrible defeat off the north-western point of Sicily, at Drepana, a defeat all the more hideous because it was supposed to have been caused by the impiety of the Consul Clodius, who, hearing that the sacred chickens would not eat, perpetrated his grim jest by saying "let them drink then instead," and drowning them all. But to cap it all the wall of Rome was struck by lightning. Then action ...
— The Religion of Numa - And Other Essays on the Religion of Ancient Rome • Jesse Benedict Carter
... duty, which are not found on the tables of municipal law, but with which the generous minds of Greece were conversant, were held of little account, and the philosophy which dealt with such speculations was repeatedly proscribed, as a teacher of sedition and impiety. ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... with the epitaphs of the later popes, as they are found on their monuments in St. Peter's,—"flattering, false insculptions on a tomb, and in men's hearts reproach,"—epitaphs overweighted with superlatives, ridiculous, were it not for their impiety, and full of the lies and vanities of man in the very house ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... Henry III. Society was corrupted to its core. "There is no more truth, no more justice, no more mercy," moaned President L'Etoile. "To slander, to lie, to rob, to wench, to steal; all things are permitted save to do right and to speak the truth." Impiety the most cynical, debauchery the most unveiled, public and unpunished homicides, private murders by what was called magic, by poison, by hired assassins, crimes natural, unnatural, and preternatural, were the common characteristics of the time. All posts and charges were venal. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... ends to which our faith aspires. So, then, that Michelangelo stupendous in his fame, that Michelangelo renowned for prudence, that Michelangelo whom all admire, has chosen to display to the whole world an impiety of irreligion only equalled by the perfection of his painting! Is it possible that you, who, since you are divine, do not condescend to consort with human beings, have done this in the greatest temple built to God, upon the highest altar raised to ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... to pass the ordeal of official approval was cashiered, and the author was dismissed from an honorary post in the Queen's household.[97] The indictment described the book as "the code of the most hateful and infamous passions," as a collection into one cover of everything that impiety could imagine, calculated to engender hatred against Christianity and Catholicism. The court condemned the book to be burnt, and, as if to show that the motive was not mere discontent with Helvetius's paradoxes, the same fire consumed Voltaire's fine poem ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... wicked fact of our age; this unreasonable spoil of England's most noble antiquities." "On the whole," says Blunt, "it may be said that we must ever look back on that destruction as a series of transactions in which the sorrow, the waste, the impiety that were wrought, were enough to make the angels weep. It may be true that the monastic system had worn itself out for practical good; or at least, that it was unfitted for those coming ages which were to be so different ...
— A Short History of Monks and Monasteries • Alfred Wesley Wishart
... lived in that happy era. But, indeed, it is now no unheard-of thing for an ordinary person to suggest that customs which have been established for centuries might with advantage be changed—a form of impiety which is in no degree removed from declaring oneself to be wiser or more profound than one's ancestors! Scarcely more seemly is this than irregularity in maintaining the Tablets or observing the Rites; and how narrow is the space dividing these delinquencies ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah
... of the people; whilst beneath the shade of the tree of liberty was instituted universal slavery; and that the most Christian, as well as the most civilized of all nations, had fallen down to the lowest limits of impiety and barbarism. ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... and the trader. They believed that brandy would wreck the Indian's body and ruin his soul. They were right; it did both. It made of every western post, in the words of Father Carheil, a den of "brutality and violence, of injustice and impiety, of lewd and shameless conduct, of contempt and insults." No sinister motives need be sought to explain the bitterness with which the blackrobes cried out against the iniquities of a system which swindled the redskin out of his furs and debauched him into the bargain. ...
— Crusaders of New France - A Chronicle of the Fleur-de-Lis in the Wilderness - Chronicles of America, Volume 4 • William Bennett Munro
... my face, you Jews, and pierce my side, Buffet and scoff, scourge and crucify me, For I have sinned, and sinned, and only he Who could do no iniquity hath died, But by my death cannot be satisfied My sins, which pass the Jews' impiety: They killed once an inglorious man, but I Crucify him daily, being now glorified. O let me then his strange love still admire. Kings pardon, but he bore our punishment; And Jacob came, clothed in vile harsh ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... Gilert, and that, repenting of the deed, he caused a tomb to be erected over his grave, where afterwards the parish church was built. See the story at large in Mr. Edw. Jones's Welsh Music. But we may reasonably conclude that this is all a fable, both when we consider the impiety of building a church for divine worship over the grave of a dog, an impiety not consistent with the genius of that age; and when we consider, also, that the establishment of parochial cures, and the building of ...
— Welsh Fairy-Tales And Other Stories • Edited by P. H. Emerson
... ourselves, we take no mark Though round about us thousand trumpets clang! What moves thee, if the senses stir not? Light Kindled in heav'n, spontaneous, self-inform'd, Or likelier gliding down with swift illapse By will divine. Portray'd before me came The traces of her dire impiety, Whose form was chang'd into the bird, that most Delights itself in song: and here my mind Was inwardly so wrapt, it gave no place To aught that ask'd ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... dulness, or impiety will indeed always express themselves through art, in brown and gray, as in Rembrandt."—Prof. JOHN ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler
... Empire of Women is not of such importance that for the surpressing of the same any man is bound to hazard his life: I answer, that to suppress it, is in the hand of GOD alone; but to utter the impiety and abomination of the same, I say, it is the duty of every true messenger of GOD to whom the truth is ...
— The First Blast of the Trumpet against the monstrous regiment - of Women • John Knox
... through whatever comes to pass!"—No; but there you sit, trembling for fear certain things should come to pass, and moaning and groaning and lamenting over what does come to pass. And then you upbraid the Gods. Such meanness of spirit can have but one result—impiety. ...
— The Golden Sayings of Epictetus • Epictetus
... fault; for whether he Obey'd or not, 'twas equal destiny. So fatal beauty is, and full of waste. That neither wanton can be safe, nor chaste. What then should man pray for? what is't that he Can beg of Heaven, without impiety? Take my advice: first to the gods commit All cares; for they things competent and fit For us foresee; besides, man is more dear To them than to himself; we blindly here, Led by the world and lust, in vain assay To get us portions, wives and sons; but they Already ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan
... which he could hardly deal without committing himself in some direction. His conscience was not quite at rest. Henrietta's pain had not, he thought, served any good purpose; but he did not want to say so, lest he should acquire a reputation for impiety and lose his practice. He believed that the general practitioner who attended the family, and had called him in when the case grew serious, had treated Henrietta unskilfully, but professional etiquette bound ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... the tomb of Seti I.(1) The late Sir Gaston Maspero indeed called it "a dry deluge myth", but his paradox was intended to emphasize the difference as much as the parallelism presented. It is true that in the Egyptian myth the Sun-god causes mankind to be slain because of their impiety, and he eventually pardons the survivors. The narrative thus betrays undoubted parallelism to the Babylonian and Hebrew stories, so far as concerns the attempted annihilation of mankind by the offended god, but there the resemblance ends. For water has no part in man's destruction, ...
— Legends Of Babylon And Egypt - In Relation To Hebrew Tradition • Leonard W. King
... is, to see a capped and gowned Fellow, profaning with his footsteps the floor of that, in some sort, sacred temple, merely because he can, by so doing, reach his habitation by a few footsteps less than if he kept to the path allotted for him. We look upon the act as a species of impiety; to say nothing of its proving, to a demonstration, that the person who commits it is either utterly insensible to the mysterious harmony that subsists between a certain class of natural objects and the heart of man; or utterly disregards that harmony, and sets it at naught. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 345, December 6, 1828 • Various
... consort Parvati in a litter when she was tired; the first Mang was made by Mahadeo from his own sweat to castrate the divine bull Nandi when he was fractious, and his descendants have ever since followed the same calling, the impiety of mutilating the sacred bull in such a manner being thus excused by the divine sanction accorded to it. The first Mali or gardener gave a garland to Krishna. The first Chamar or tanner made sandals for Siva from a piece of his own skin; the ancestor of the Kayasth or writer ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell
... an earlier age, they rebuild the letter of the text into creeds and systems, and erect an amazing edifice of steel-framed and stone-cased tradition, to challenge which is taught to be heresy and impiety. The poetical similes used in the Rig Vedas have been transformed into mythological tales. In the change of language the Vedas themselves are unreadable, except by the priests, who fatten on popular beliefs in the transmigration of ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... through the grace of His Holy Spirit we may be disposed and enabled to yield a more suitable obedience to His righteous requisitions in time to come; that He would interpose to arrest the progress of that impiety and licentiousness in principle and practice so offensive to Himself and so ruinous to mankind; that He would make us deeply sensible that "righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people;" ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 4) of Volume 1: John Adams • Edited by James D. Richardson
... judicial trial—the ordeal by water. Another 'method of proving a witch,' by weighing against the Church Bible (a formidable balance), is traced to some of their ancient customs. James VI. (Demonologie) is convinced that 'God hath appointed, for a supernatural sign of the monstrous impiety of witches, that the water shall refuse to receive them in her bosom that have shaken off them the sacred water of baptism and wilfully refused ...
— The Superstitions of Witchcraft • Howard Williams
... a sacred city, and the soldiers were affected rather by the impiety of the act than by the actual destruction that was being wrought. As General Wilson and Frank rode back to the spot where General Barclay was stationed, a mass of Russian infantry moved down the hill towards the bridges, and at once ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty
... taking revenge, of doing evil, of stealing, of deceiving; internal dissimilitude, whence comes antipathy; a froward requirement of the conjugial debt, whence the man becomes as cold as a stone; being addicted to magic and witchcraft; an extreme degree of impiety; and ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg
... venerable representations of saints and angels—for as sacred and venerable they had been taught to consider them—with very different feelings. The antiquary may be permitted to regret the necessity of the action, but to Magdalen Graeme it seemed a deed of impiety, deserving the instant vengeance of heaven,—a sentiment in which her relative joined for the moment as cordially as herself. Neither, however, gave vent to their feelings in words, and uplifted ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... the wicked, the sacredness of the social contract and of the laws.[3429] Without forcing anyone to believe in this creed, whoever does not believe in it must be expelled from the State; it is necessary to banish such persons not on account of impiety, but as unsociable beings, incapable of sincerely loving law and justice and, if need be, of giving ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... laid low. It was a mournful spectacle, and a terrible proof of the Divine wrath and vengeance. Yes, my brethren, the temple of the Lord has been profaned, and it will be razed to the ground. It has been the scene of abomination and impiety, and must be purified by fire. Theft, murder, sacrilege, and every other crime have been committed within its walls, and its destruction will follow. The ministers of Heaven's vengeance are even now hovering above it. Repent, therefore, ye ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... translated so often. Men who have known it in its earliest tongues have realized that their fellows would not learn these earliest tongues, and they have set out to make it speak the tongue their fellows did know. Some have protested that there is impiety in making it speak the current tongue, and have insisted that men should learn the earliest speech, or at least accept their knowledge of the Book from those who did know it. But they have never stopped the movement. ...
— The Greatest English Classic A Study of the King James Version of • Cleland Boyd McAfee
... book but that of the mind, would be found no ward if you should die tomorrow, yet it is a great hazard, methinks, to see so sweet a disposition guarded with no more, amongst a people whereof many make it their religion to be superstitious in impiety, and their behaviour to be affected in all manners. But God, who only knoweth the periods of life and opportunities to come, hath designed him, I hope, for his own service betime, and stirred up your providence to husband him so early for great affairs. Then shall he be sure to find ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... sawyer was dwelt upon by the preacher, from a text preached upon the chapter that relates to the conversion of Saul, and the cases were cited as parallel. Let the opponents of the Established Church rail at it as they will, scenes of such wickedness and impiety could never have happened within its ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... unchanging authoritative source, the Gospels and the writings of the Apostles; faith and authority took the place of reason; and any attempt to question the injunctions of the Bible was regarded as an act of impiety, to be punished accordingly. And as the various regulations about women had now a divine sanction, the permanence of these convictions ...
— A Short History of Women's Rights • Eugene A. Hecker
... been beaten by them in an engagement, though they could not effect a public co-operation in their designs, procured volunteers from all quarters allured by the hope of plunder. The state of the Fidenatians alone determined on renewing hostilities; and as if it would be an impiety to commence war unless with guilt, after staining their arms with the blood of the new settlers there, as they had on a former occasion with that of the ambassadors, they join the Veientians. After this the leading men of the two states consulted whether they should select ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... also to quarrel, to strike, to take revenge, to do evil, to steal, to tell lies, to deceive, to blaspheme; carelessness about the children, intemperance, luxury, excessive prodigality, drunkenness, uncleanness, immodesty, application to magic and witchcraft, impiety, with several other causes. By legitimate causes we do not here mean judicial causes, but such as are legitimate in regard to the other married partner; separation from the house also is seldom ordained in ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg
... these juggling tricks, how grosly soever they may impose on the eyes and minds of the ignorant multitude, not only scandalize, but also do a real injury to, men of greater penetration. For such, seeing into the cheat, often rush headlong into impiety; and viewing all sacred things in the same light, after ...
— Medica Sacra - or a Commentary on on the Most Remarkable Diseases Mentioned - in the Holy Scriptures • Richard Mead
... Edinburgh, had conceived a mortal antipathy to the name and character of Milton. His reason was, because the prayer of Pamela, in sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia, was, as he supposed, maliciously inserted by the great poet in an edition of the Eikon Basilike, in order to fix an imputation of impiety on the memory of the murdered king. Fired with resentment, and willing to reap the profits of a gross imposition, this man collected, from several Latin poets, such as Masenius the jesuit, Staphorstius, a Dutch divine, ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... accusation against the millions of American citizens who have during nearly half a century petitioned the national legislature to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia,—charging them either with the ignorance or the impiety of praying the nation to violate its "Plighted Faith." The resolution virtually indicts at the bar of public opinion, and brands with odium, all the early Manumission Societies, the first petitioners for the abolition of slavery in the District, and for ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... I purposed thus briefly to indicate, before beginning to prove them in greater detail. I have taken this course, in order, if possible, to gain the attention of those who believe, that the principle that every man is bound to seek what is useful for himself is the foundation of impiety, rather than of piety and ...
— Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata - Part I: Concerning God • Benedict de Spinoza
... employment outside the country; whereon an officer standing by said to him that that appeared a pretty shabby thing, to take pay and dodge duty. The remark sank deep; he changed his mind, and served with great gallantry. It seems to me now almost an impiety to record, but, knowing my father's warm love for the South, I hazarded to the marine captain a doubt as to his position. He replied that there could be no doubt whatever. "All your father's antecedents ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... community one state is wiser and one counsellor better than another—they will scarcely venture to maintain, that what a city enacts in the belief that it is expedient will always be really expedient. But in the other case, I mean when they speak of justice and injustice, piety and impiety, they are confident that in nature these have no existence or essence of their own—the truth is that which is agreed on at the time of the agreement, and as long as the agreement lasts; and this is the ...
— Theaetetus • Plato
... calumnies confined to public scorn—they often went to the pecuniary ruin of families; sometimes, as in the case of Socrates, afterwards to the death of their object. At length the miscreants proceeded to open impiety, and held up the gods, no less than men ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various
... Christian villages; and they did it like a river which overflows its bed, after having rid itself of the embarrassment of its dikes. He was not content with that, but in order to give greater flights to his impiety, he excused it among the neighboring Moros under the name of a religious war; and under that title he invited to it the Borneans, Tidorans, and Joloans, so that confederated with him into one body they might unfurl the banners ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 41 of 55, 1691-1700 • Various
... of men are bent upon us, and we must answer before that Judge.... He preserved us in the darkness of our mothers' bosom, He provided our food in their breasts, and instructed us to use the same, when we knew Him not, He hath nourished us in the time of blindness and of impiety; and will He now despise us, when we call upon Him, and preach the glorious Gospel of His dear Son our ...
— John Knox • A. Taylor Innes
... bell was outraged at the impiety of the woman's touch, and the cold metal shrank back, leaving a hollow place, and spoiling the even surface of the bell. From that time forth the bell gradually lost its polish, and became dull and ...
— Japanese Fairy World - Stories from the Wonder-Lore of Japan • William Elliot Griffis
... ideas and true liberties? Yes; there are Abolitionists who reject the Bible because they have heard certain orthodox Christians maintain that the Bible is in favor of slavery. Whoever preaches this, is of a school of impiety. ...
— The Uprising of a Great People • Count Agenor de Gasparin
... Ephialtes, who at nine years of age were nine fathoms in height and nine cubits in breadth. Haughty were they, and presumptuous in their youth; for they made war on the gods, and piled Ossa on Olympus, and Pelion on Ossa, that they might scale the sky. But they perished in their impiety, shot down by the bolts of Apollo's golden bow. Last came Eriphyle, the false wife, who sold her husband's life for a ...
— Stories from the Odyssey • H. L. Havell
... in all other things, that at some times and to some persons only it is better to die than to live; yet that these men for whom it is better to die—this probably will appear wonderful to you—may not, without impiety, do this good to themselves, but must ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various
... Cunegonda in a voice shrill with passion, while Agnes uttered a loud shriek; 'By St. Barbara, young Lady, you have an excellent invention! You must personate the Bleeding Nun, truly? What impiety! What incredulity! Marry, I have a good mind to let you pursue your plan: When the real Ghost met you, I warrant, you would be in a pretty condition! Don Alphonso, you ought to be ashamed of yourself for seducing a young ignorant Creature to leave her family and Friends: ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... or vain interpretations of dreams, some of them are fulfilled, either this is occasioned by chance or it is the work of the devil, who is often permitted by God to deceive those whose foolishness and impiety lead them to address themselves to him and place their confidence in him, all which the wise lawgiver, animated by the Divine Spirit, justly repressed by ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... affixed his answer in writing upon it, and again shut himself in. The oracle had spoken: 'Wretched Romans, whither have ye strayed, and gone far from hope in God to put your trust in the Franks? Your city and your religion will perish together. You abandon the faith of your fathers and embrace impiety. Woe unto you in the day of judgment.' The words spread like wildfire and enflamed the excited crowd within and around the monastery. Anathemas, cursing all supporters of the union in the past, in the present, and in the future resounded on every hand. The answer of Gennadius was carried through ...
— Byzantine Churches in Constantinople - Their History and Architecture • Alexander Van Millingen
... return of all moneys and objects of value which any persons had received from Nero. However, if anybody had been exiled by the latter on the charge of impiety towards the emperor, he restored him to citizenship; and he also transferred to the tomb of Augustus the bones of members of the imperial family who had been murdered, and he ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume V., Books 61-76 (A.D. 54-211) • Cassius Dio
... not realize," he said, "the spirit of the age. We are highly irreligious in France; impiety is deeply rooted in our soil. You do not know the progress achieved by the ideas of Montesquieu, Raynal and Rousseau. Public worship is abolished; veneration is a thing of the past. You must have seen this from the ...
— The Well of Saint Clare • Anatole France
... foretold to certain tender ladies things they were only too desirous to imagine predestined by an extraordinary indication of the course of planets through the zodiac, thus causing them to sin by the example of celestial conjunctions—a piece of wanton impiety. The beau took high ground in his objections to the adventure. Nevertheless, Duchess Susan did go. She drove to the heath at an early hour of the morning, attended by Chloe, Colonel Poltermore, and Caseldy. They subsequently breakfasted at an inn where ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... ask them whether it be better to take a coachman who knows how to drive than one who knows nothing of the matter? whether it be more eligible to take an experienced pilot than one that is ignorant? In a word, he counted it a kind of impiety to consult the oracles concerning what might be numbered or weighed, because we ought to learn the things which the gods have been pleased to capacitate us to know; but that we ought to have recourse to the oracles to be instructed in those that surpass our knowledge, because the gods are ...
— The Memorable Thoughts of Socrates • Xenophon
... describes the most absurd relics, and tells how a priest deceived a woman by pretending that he was the angel Gabriel. The trend of such a work was naturally the reverse of edifying. The irreligion is too spontaneous to be called philosophic doubt; it is merely impiety. ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith |
