"Impious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... peach, and her lips were roses. Her neck was alabaster, and her eyes sparkled with animation, chastened with the most unrivalled gentleness and delicacy. Her stature, her forehead, her mouth—but ah, impious wretch, how canst thou pretend to trace her from charm to charm! Who can dissect unbounded excellence? Who can coolly and deliberately gaze upon the brightness of the meridian sun? I will say in one word, that her whole figure was enchanting, that all ...
— Italian Letters, Vols. I and II • William Godwin
... occasion Alvira was present when a terrible judgement of God upon a hardened sinner thrilled the whole city with awe. St. Francis was preaching in one of the streets during Lent. He happened to pause and address a crowd near the house of an impious, ill conducted woman, who came immediately to her window to laugh and mock at the man of God. Having gratified herself tot he disgust of the crowd, she finally slammed to the window violently, uttering at the same time some filthy and unbecoming remark. St. Francis stood immovable ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly
... establishing the existence of the "three Marys," as to denounce the Bishop of Meaux for favoring "Lutheran" preachers in his diocese. Against all innovators in church or state, the sentiments of the Sorbonne, which it took no pains to conceal, were that "their impious and shameless arrogance must be restrained by chains, by censures—nay, by fire and ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... felt The dire effects of her proud tyrant's guilt;— An Umpire partial and unjust, And a lewd woman's impious lust, Lay heavy on her head, and sunk her to ...
— An Essay on the Lyric Poetry of the Ancients • John Ogilvie
... the Christian religion with more zeal than discretion; and with so much heat, that he not only preferred our worship to theirs, but condemned all their rites as profane; and cried out against all that adhered to them, as impious and sacrilegious persons, that were to be damned to everlasting burnings. Upon his having frequently preached in this manner, he was seized, and after trial he was condemned to banishment, not for having disparaged their religion, but ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... which had been newly sawne down from over the Green-Yard Pulpit, and the Service books and singing books that could be had, were carried to the fire in the publick Market place; A leud wretch walking before the Train, in his Cope trailing in the dirt, with a Service book in his hand, imitating in an impious scorne the tune, and usurping the words of the Letany; neer the Publick Crosse, all these monuments of Idolatry must be sacrificed to the fire, not without much Ostentation of a ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Norwich - A Description of Its Fabric and A Brief History of the Episcopal See • C. H. B. Quennell
... such presumptuous, foolish, or impious supplications as are at once repulsed and rebuked by the Divine silence, what are the objects we may lawfully pray for, asking for a response? It must be confessed that with the exception of petitions for spiritual blessings—for a deeper faith, for a more complete obedience, for a humbler ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... the Madeleine, at a funeral, when the door opens, and the corpse advances in a gap of daylight, all is changed. Like a superterrestrial antiseptic, an extrahuman disinfectant, the liturgy purifies and cleanses the impious ugliness ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... the fallen angel, defiant in the presence of the Creator. The little old man gazed at him, and even seemed to breathe into him this impious transport. ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne
... by displaying, in honourable and just terms, the glory which they had acquired, as well in Etruria as in Samnium, he bade them finish this insignificant appendage to the Etrurian war, and take vengeance for the impious expressions in which these people had threatened to attack the city of Rome. Such was the alacrity of the soldiers on hearing this, that, raising the shout spontaneously, they interrupted the general's discourse, ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... creation) such characters as Gengis, Tamerlane, Kouli-Khan, or Bonaparte. My instincts involuntarily revolt at their bare idea. Malefactors of the human race, who have ground down man to a mere machine of their impious and bloody ambition! Yet under all the accumulated wrongs, and insults, and robberies of the last of these chieftains, are we not, in point of fact, about to become a party to his views, a partner in his ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... elegiac quality of the one in B minor. The Barcarolle is only for heroes. So I do not set it down in malice against the student or the everyday virtuosos that he—or she—does not attempt it. The F minor Fantaisie, I am sorry to say, is beginning to be tarnished like the A-flat Ballade, by impious hands. It is not for weaklings; nor are the other Fantaisies. Why not let us hear the Bolero and Tarantella, not Chopin at his happiest, withal Chopin. Emil Sauer made a success of other brilliant birdlike music before an America public. As for the Ballades, I can no longer endure any but ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker
... impious homage saluted the ears of Herod, his mouth curled with a smile of satisfaction, his soul expanded with an inexpressible tumult of emotions, he drank in the blasphemous flatteries of the rabble, and assumed to himself ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... extreme and imminent peril. The Nun of Kent on this great occasion was admitted to conferences with angels. She denounced the meeting, under celestial instruction, as a conspiracy against Heaven. The king, she said, but for her interposition, would have proceeded, while at Calais, to his impious marriage;[391] and God was so angry with him, that he was not permitted to profane with his unholy eyes the blessed Sacrament. "It was written in her revelations," says the statute of her attainder, "that when the King's Grace was at Calais, and his Majesty and the French king were hearing ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... the grated Harem, to enclose The loveliest maidens of the Christian line; Then, menials, to their misbelieving foes, Castile's young nobles held forbidden wine; Then, too, the holy Cross, salvation's sign, By impious hands was from the altar thrown, And the deep aisles of the polluted shrine Echoed, for holy hymn and organ-tone, The Santon's frantic dance, the ...
— Some Poems by Sir Walter Scott • Sir Walter Scott
... but mine is the oldest. A flood came—sent by the gods, for the woman was impious. The king must ride with her into the sea and leave her there, himself to come back, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... lenten wicks watch out the night; I am the booth where Folly holds her fair; Impious no less in ruin than in strength, When I lie crumbled to the earth at length, Let you not say, "Upon this reverend site The righteous groaned and beat their breasts ...
— Second April • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... croaking old vagabond," exclaimed Phil, raising his whip, and letting it fall upon her almost naked shoulders, with a force as unmanly, as it was cruel, and impious, and shocking. ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... take it up and analyse it. He was sure it was true, but it would pain him acutely were rough hands to examine it too closely. To him alone of all the toiling generations of mankind had the secret of immortality been vouchsafed. It would be impious—against all the designs of the Creator— to set mankind hurrying eastward. Besides, this would crowd the steamers inconveniently, and John Hay wished of all things to be alone. If he could get round the world in two months—some one of whom he had read, he could not remember ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... so dearly, that for her sweet sake he had sacrificed honour, friendship and truth; to free her, as he believed, from the hands of impious brutes he had done a deed that cried Cain-like for vengeance to the very throne of God. For her he had sinned, and because of that sin, even before it was committed, their love had been blighted, and ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... suffice to say here that though such bold phrases as "God became man, that we might become God," were commonplaces of doctrinal theology at least till after Augustine, even Clement and Origen protest strongly against the "very impious" heresy that man is "a part of God," or "consubstantial with God.[23]" The attribute of Divinity which was chiefly in the minds of the Greek Fathers when they made these statements, was ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge
... he foreseeing, with his Son, the Earl, Forsook the City; and by secret wayes As you give out, and we would gladly have it, Escap'd their fury: though 'tis more than fear'd They fell amongst the rest; Nor stand you there To let us only mourn the impious means By which you got it, but your cruelties since So far transcend your former bloody ills, As if compar'd, they only would appear Essays of mischief; do not stop your ...
— Beggars Bush - From the Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher (Vol. 2 of 10) • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... mausolae. If the tables and written instruments of Empire, it is a Capitol. If the whole furniture of Cyclopxdia, it is a mart. If matters marine, it is an arsenal—if martial, a camp and magazine. Briefly it is the Arck, where all noble things which the deluges of impious vastitic and sacriligious furie have not devoured, are kept to bee the ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... imaginations might appear mechanical.... If their piety, however, was without enthusiasm it was also without bigotry; they wished others to think as they did, without showing rancor or contempt toward those who did not.... That monster in nature, an impious woman, was never ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... eminent degree To some vast beam compared might be; Each godling was a peg, or rather A cramp, to keep the beams together: 40 And man as safely might pretend From Jove the thunderbolt to rend, As with an impious pride aspire To rob Apollo of his lyre. With settled faith and pious awe, Establish'd by the voice of Law, Then poets to the Muses came, And from their altars caught the flame. Genius, with Phoebus for his guide, The Muse ascending by his side, 50 With ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... Pecksniff, caddish and priggish at the same time: he called the man to task for botanising on his friend's grave—that unfortunate verse of Wordsworth's, you know—and he left the impression that the writer had done something indelicate and impious, and all with a consciousness of how high-minded he ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... men, and the most hopeful Christians, must consider that solemn change. He expressed his belief, that a man who had led a dissolute life, and who yet believed the consequences of death, to affect indifference at that hour, showed himself either to be very impious, or very stupid. One apprehension still clung to his mind, proving how sensitive had been that conscience which strove in vain to satisfy itself. He told Mr. Foster "he could not be sure that his repentance was sincere, because it had never been tried by the temptation ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson
... to swear by their Kings, for feare, or flattery; yet they would have it thereby understood, they attributed to them Divine honour. And that Swearing unnecessarily by God, is but prophaning of his name: and Swearing by other things, as men do in common discourse, is not Swearing, but an impious Custome, gotten by ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes
... be a bold, but it is not an impious supposition. For God, having made all things for himself alone, must have placed, upon all that he made, an impress of himself; more or less clear, more or less luminous, more or less profound, a presentiment or a remembrance of a Creator. But this faith, when it stops here, is not worthy ...
— Atheism Among the People • Alphonse de Lamartine
... such a paroxysm of dissolution That son of mine was born; by that first act Heading the monstrous catalogue of crime, I found fore-written in his horoscope; As great a monster in man's history As was in nature his nativity; So savage, bloody, terrible, and impious, Who, should he live, would tear his country's entrails, As by his birth his mother's; with which crime Beginning, he should clench the dreadful tale By trampling on his father's silver head. All which fore-reading, and his act of birth Fate's warrant that I read ...
— Life Is A Dream • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... and when the emperor suggested his restoration, he very adroitly played the coquette. The emperor at first proposed that his son, the Archduke Ferdinand, should nominally have the command, while Wallenstein should be his executive and advisory general. "I would not serve," said the impious captain, "as second ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... Universalism and to rank infidelity; that it sanctions all the errors that were ever promulgated; that it furnishes a complete justification of the worst conduct of the worst men, that ever lived, tends to paralyze all effort to resist temptation, and condemns as impious any opposition to the commission of sin by our neighbors, and, finally, that it is worse than the pagan ...
— The Calvinistic Doctrine of Predestination Examined and Refuted • Francis Hodgson
... we mourn? Should coward virtue fly, When impious folly rears her front on high? 40 No; rather let us triumph still the more, And as our fortune sinks, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... towards heaven, distilled a plenteous shower. At length, swifter than the winged hawk, she flew towards the spot, and seized the sacred and inviolable arm of the holy Druid, which was lifted up to strike the final blow. "Barbarous and inhuman priest," she cried, "cease your vile and impious mummery! No longer insult us with the name of Gods. If there be Gods, they are merciful; but thou art a savage and unrelenting monster. Or if some victim must expire, strike here, and I will thank thee. Strike, and my bosom shall ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin
... Perhaps she didn't hear that impious remark," said Fred, chuckling maliciously. "Or if she did, perhaps she'll let you off easy: only a few hours in the dark closet, or bread and water ...
— That Mother-in-Law of Mine • Anonymous
... relates to the general body of you, if you repent of the error you have committed, I shall have received sufficient and more than sufficient atonement for it. Albius the Calenian, and Atrius the Umbrian, with the rest of the principal movers of this impious mutiny, shall expiate with their blood the crime they have perpetrated. To yourselves, if you have returned to a sound state of mind, the sight of their punishment ought not only to be not unpleasant, ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... turkey," said Marcel, pointing to a splendid bird, showing through its rosy and transparent skin the Perigordian tubercles with which it was stuffed. "I have seen impious folk eat it without first going down on their knees before it," added the painter, casting upon the turkey looks capable of ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... practice of those monarchs? I cannot utter the pains, the tortures, that would be inflicted on him, if he were to govern there as he has done in a British province. Let him fly where he will, from law to law; law, I thank God, meets him everywhere, and enforced, too, by the practice of the most impious tyrants, which he quotes as if it would justify his conduct. I would as willingly have him tried by the law of the Koran, or the Institutes of Tamerlane, as on the common law or ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... other proofs of his proposition that "the earth can be nowhere if not in the centre of the universe." So earnest does this mildest of the Reformers become, that he suggests severe measures to restrain such impious teachings as those ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... the boy replied. And while old Peter in amazement stood, Gave the hot spirits to his boiling blood: - How he, with oath and furious speech, began To prove his freedom and assert the man; And when the parent check'd his impious rage, How he had cursed the tyranny of age, - Nay, once had dealt the sacrilegious blow On his bare head, and laid his parent low; The father groan'd—"If thou art old," said he, "And hast a son—thou wilt remember me: Thy mother left me in a happy time, Thou kill'dst not her—heav'n ...
— The Borough • George Crabbe
... spoke to Antinous and said, "Wicked and insolent man, can it be that they call you in Ithaca one of their wisest men? No, it is a fool's work you are doing, plotting to kill my son. He is helpless before you now, but Zeus is the friend of the helpless and avenges their wrongs. Impious and ungrateful too! Did not Ulysses once shield your father from his enemies and save his life? Yet you waste his substance and would murder ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various
... believe me, when the hand which records that verdict shall be dust, and the tongue that asks it, traceless in the grave, many a happy home will bless its consequences, and many a mother teach her little child to hate the impious ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... presences, 280 May pierce them on the sudden with the thorn Of painful blindness; leaving thee forlorn, In trembling dotage to the feeblest fright Of conscience, for their long offended might, For all thine impious proud-heart sophistries, Unlawful magic, and enticing lies. Corinthians! look upon that gray-beard wretch! Mark how, possess'd, his lashless eyelids stretch Around his demon eyes! Corinthians, see! My sweet bride withers at their potency." 290 "Fool!" said the sophist, in an under-tone Gruff with ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats
... I sing: douce Jeemsy Todd, rushing from his loom, armed with a bed-post; Lisbeth Whamond, an avenging whirlwind; Neil Haggart, pausing in his thanks-offerings to smite and slay; the impious foe scudding up the bleeding Brae-head with Nemesis at their flashing heels; the minister holding it a nice question whether the carnage was not justified. Then came the two hours' sermons of the following Sabbath, when Mr. Dishart, revolving like a teetotum in the pulpit, ...
— Auld Licht Idylls • J. M. Barrie
... saw the slaughtered bird, And all his heart with ruth was stirred. The fowler's impious deed distressed His gentle sympathetic breast, And while the curlew's sad cries rang Within his ears, the hermit sang: "No fame be thine for endless time, Because, base outcast, of thy crime, Whose cruel hand was fain to slay One of this gentle pair at play!" E'en as he spoke his bosom wrought ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... tried mechanically to arrange it; to see her stand, alternately leering and scowling by the bedside, an incarnate blasphemy in the sacred chamber of death, was to behold the most horrible of all mockeries, the most impious of all profanations. No loneliness in the presence of mortal agony could try me to the quick, as the sight of that foul old age of degradation and debauchery, defiling the sick room, now tried me. I determined to wait alone by the ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... in watching the thermometer. Madame Renault was making tea and coffee, and punch too. Gothon, who had taken communion in the morning, kept praying to God, in the corner of her kitchen, that this impious miracle might not succeed. A certain excitement already prevailed throughout the town, but one did not know whether it should be attributed to the fete of the 15th, or the famous undertaking of the seven wise ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About
... have now a commander in the British navy, who, to his honour, has shewn the force of an excellent example supporting the best precepts: for, on board of his ship, not an oath or curse was to be heard; while volleys of both (issued from impious mouths in the same squadron, out of his knowledge) seemed to fill the sails of other ships with guilty breath, calling aloud for that perdition to overtake them, which perhaps his worthy injunctions and example, in his own, might ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... had been thus arranged, while the men destined for the service of seizing Ursicinus were waiting for the appointed time, the emperor's mind changed to mercy, and so this impious deed was put off ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... over Italy. Spartacus acer, leader of the Servile War, 73-71 B.C. 6. novis rebus infidelis faithless to revolution, because they assisted in betraying Catiline's plot 63 B.C.—Wickham. 9. impia ... aetas we an impious generation whose blood is foredoomed (i.e. there is a curse ...
— Helps to Latin Translation at Sight • Edmund Luce
... any other, to handle arms. As to courage, you are Frenchmen: you shall be the skirmishers (eclaireurs) of the national guard. I shall be without any anxiety for the capital, while the national guard and you are employed in its defence: and if it be true, that foreigners persist in the impious design of attacking our independence and our honour, I may avail myself of victory, without being checked ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. II • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... churches, the holy ceremonies of the church, and in the life of several very good Spaniards, and even of some Indians. But when the ship of the governor and auditors, or any others, is sent there, the Chinese can have but the examples of soldiers, sailors, and impious people. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume X, 1597-1599 • E. H. Blair
... of cant in talking much upon the influence of a theatre on public morals; yet, I fear, though the most moral plays are incapable of doing much good, the turn of others may make a mischievous impression, by embodying in verse, and rendering apt for the memory, maxims of an impious or profligate tendency. In this point of view, there is, at least, no edification in beholding the horrible crimes unto which OEdipus is unwillingly plunged, and in witnessing the dreadful punishment he sustains, though innocent of all moral or intentional guilt, Corneille has endeavoured ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... our Saviour, whom they would not accept as their Messias, but reviled him as an impostor because he possessed no worldly-power; this party it was that, at the end of the 8th century, treated Leo III. with such impious cruelty in their first recorded attempt to overthrow the papal government; that in the 10th century not only dethroned, but imprisoned and murdered, by the hands of the consul Crescentius, Benedict VI., and plunged the state into such disorders as to render necessary ...
— Pope Adrian IV - An Historical Sketch • Richard Raby
... thunder hurl'd, Tremendous roars thy vengeance o'er the world; Thou bow'st the heav'ns the smoaking mountains nod; Rocks fall to dust, and nature owns her God; Pale tyrants shrink, the atheist stands aghast, And impious kings in horror breath their last. To this great God alternately I'd pay, The evening anthem, ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... passions or traits—as a sort of amiable and weak-kneed sacristan in the temple of God; and this is the unhappy result of our so often making religion a pursuit apart from life—an occupation, not an atmosphere; so that it seems impious to think of the departed spirit as interested in anything but a vague species ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson
... Buddhist, of Jain and lastly of Maratha, who used the hill as a muster-ground of warriors and bored holes in the graven images for the tethering of his cattle and steeds. By some divine decree "the imperial banditti" kept their impious hands from the famous inscriptions which are the real glory of these caves and form the connecting-link between ourselves and that great king whose face was "as the sun-kissed lotus, whose army drank the waters of three oceans," ...
— By-Ways of Bombay • S. M. Edwardes, C.V.O.
... judge according to the laws, and not according to his own good pleasure; and we ought not to encourage you, nor should you allow yourselves to be encouraged, in this habit of perjury—there can be no piety in that. Do not then require me to do what I consider dishonourable and impious and wrong, especially now, when I am being tried for impiety on the indictment of Meletus. For if, O men of Athens, by force of persuasion and entreaty I could overpower your oaths, then I should be teaching you to believe that ...
— Apology - Also known as "The Death of Socrates" • Plato
... either to vice or virtue. He who looks studiously and acutely, with his eyes and eyelids downwards, denotes thereby to be of a malicious nature, very treacherous, false, unfaithful, envious, miserable, impious towards God, and dishonest towards men. He whose eyes are small and conveniently round, is bashful and weak, very credulous, liberal to others, and even in his conversation. He whose eyes look asquint, ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous
... details of the bribes received, while to their corruption they added such crass ignorance that they argue in the published reports of the Volksraad debates that using dynamite bombs to bring down rain was firing at God, that it is impious to destroy locusts, that the word 'participate' should not be used because it is not in the Bible, and that postal pillar boxes are extravagant and effeminate. Such obiter dicta may be amusing at a distance, but ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... and pleasing Pain, With Horror, tyrant of the throbbing breast. 130 A voice, as of the cherub-choir, Gales from blooming Eden bear; And distant warblings lessen on my ear, That lost in long futurity expire. Fond impious man, think'st thou yon sanguine cloud, 135 Rais'd by thy breath, has quench'd the orb of day? To-morrow he repairs the golden flood, And warms the nations with redoubled ray. Enough for me; with joy ...
— Select Poems of Thomas Gray • Thomas Gray
... the people by the moral character of Jehovah, and under the pressure of great national dangers and calamities, attained to views of God and of his ways so different from those current at the time as to appear, when first produced, most unpatriotic and even impious. In their character of seers they foresaw with clearness the terrible catastrophes which were about to burst upon their people. Amos prophesies that Israel will be carried away captive out of his land; Isaiah announces ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies
... it to be an impious and an execrable maxim that, politically speaking, a people has a right to do whatsoever it pleases, and yet I have asserted that all authority originates in the will of the majority. Am I ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... some of the awful oaths administered to the partisans of those secret societies. They proposed to war against God, to sweep away all salutary checks against the indulgence of passion, to level the alter and the throne, and advocated the claims of those impious theories that in modern times have found their fullest development ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly
... Prussia: and to the Inhabitants what multiple of usefulness shall we give? To be governed on principles fair and rational, that is to say, conformable to Nature's appointment in that respect; and to be governed on principles which contradict the very rules of Cocker, and with impious disbelief of the very Multiplication Table: the one is a perpetual Gospel of Cosmos and Heaven to every unit of the Population; the other a Gospel of Chaos and Beelzebub to every unit of them: there is no multiple ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... was not only a city, a nation, an empire, but a religion; Rome, which replied to a suggestion that the people of Latium should be admitted to citizenship, "Thou hast heard, O Jupiter, the impious words that have come from this man's mouth. Canst thou tolerate, O Jupiter, that a foreigner should come to sit in the sacred temple as a senator, as a consul?" Rome welcomed later the barbarians from the woods ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... consumption, Eli Machin saw the avenging arm of the Lord in action; and when her boy grew to be a source of painful anxiety to her, he said to himself that the wrath of Heaven was not yet cooled towards this impious daughter. The passage of fifteen years had apparently in ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... "I impious! it is you, on the contrary; there were two chemises accustomed to be together, and you separated them. Join them together ...
— Chicot the Jester - [An abridged translation of "La dame de Monsoreau"] • Alexandre Dumas
... kind of government, to be wished for, [623]rather than effected, Respub. Christianopolitana, Campanella's city of the Sun, and that new Atlantis, witty fictions, but mere chimeras; and Plato's community in many things is impious, absurd and ridiculous, it takes away all splendour and magnificence. I will have several orders, degrees of nobility, and those hereditary, not rejecting younger brothers in the mean time, for they shall be sufficiently provided for by pensions, or so qualified, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... fortune, the common patrimony of civilization, is found differently divided among the nations of the old and the new world: but by degrees the equilibrium is restored; and it is a fatal, I had almost said an impious prejudice, to consider the growing prosperity of any other part of our planet as a calamity to Europe. The independence of the colonies will not contribute to isolate them from the old civilized nations, ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V3 • Alexander von Humboldt
... maid, how monarchs you accuse: Such reasons none but impious rebels use: Those, who to empire by dark paths aspire, Still plead a call to what they most desire; But kings by free consent their kingdoms take, Strict as those sacred ties which nuptials make; And whate'er faults in princes ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott
... not allow his companion to finish. He blushed at his lack of heart. He blushed at having an instant forgotten the horrible deeds perpetrated by the Romans in their impious war. He blushed at having forgotten that the sacrifice of the enemies of Gaul was above all else pleasing to Hesus. In his anger, he rang out, for answer, the war song of the Breton seamen, as if the wind could carry his words of defiance and death to Caesar where ...
— The Brass Bell - or, The Chariot of Death • Eugene Sue
... Picardy (Arras and Noyon) furnished both these instruments of reformation! Persons who wish to study the motives of the executions ordered by Calvin will find, all relations considered, another 1793 in Geneva. Calvin cut off the head of Jacques Gruet "for having written impious letters, libertine verses, and for working to overthrow ecclesiastical ordinances." Reflect upon that sentence, and ask yourselves if the worst tyrants in their saturnalias ever gave more horribly burlesque reasons for their cruelties. Valentin ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... wisdom, I conceive, is not adequate. None doth any act by virtue of his own power. It is God. who engageth him in acts good or bad, O bestower of honour. Where then is the room for repentance? Thou deemest thyself as having perpetrated impious acts. Do thou, therefore, O Bharata, harken as to the way in which sin may be removed. O Yudhishthira, those that commit sins, can always free themselves from them through penance, sacrifice and gifts. O king, O foremost of ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... tyranny of marriage, and expressed her conception of a woman in love—a love profound and naive, exalted and sincere, passionate and chaste: such is pictured in Indiana. In Valentine she portrays the impious and unfortunate marriage that the sacrilegious conventions of the world have imposed, and the results issuing therefrom. In all of these early works are seen an inventiveness, a lively allure, an exquisite style, a freshness and brilliancy, finesse and grace; but they show an undisciplined talent, ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... nationalistic political parties, the peddlers of hate, the entrepreneurs of discord—every crank in the world had something to say against the Platform from the first. When they did not roundly denounce it as impious, they raved that it was a scheme by which the United States would put itself in position to rule all the Earth. As a matter of fact, the United States had first proposed it as a United Nations enterprise, so that denunciations that politicians found good politics actually made very poor sense. ...
— Space Platform • Murray Leinster
... wheels appeared to be drawing a little girl by the feet from under it, and the inscription stated: "By calling on Jesus, Mary and Joseph, the girl was happily rescued." Many of the shrines had images which the people no doubt, in their ignorance and simplicity, considered holy, but they were to us impious and ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... begging but stealing questions, and taking everything for granted that will serve your turn. For you are not ashamed to rob O. Cromwell himself, and make use of his canting assurances from Heaven and answering condescensions: the most impious Mahometan doctrine that ever ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... notorious that the use of these compliments implies not any design of service." This expression in particular they reprobated for another reason. It was one of those, which had followed the last degree of impious services and expressions, which had poured in after the statues of the emperors had been worshipped, after the titles of eternity and divinity had been ushered in, and after thou had been exchanged for you, and ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume I (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... service of the republic. I have been wounded in the soul's noblest part—in my honour. The dearest thing I possessed, my wife, has been stolen from me, and the thief is the most treacherous, the most impious, the most infamous of men, it is Valentinois! My lords, I beg you will not be offended if I speak thus of a man whose boast it is to be a member of your noble ranks and to enjoy your protection: it is not so; he lies, and his loose and criminal ...
— The Borgias - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... sacred fire so near suppressed, And fix her shrine in every Roman breast: Though bold corruption boast around the land, "Let virtue, if she can, my baits withstand!" Though bolder now she urge the accursed claim, Gay with her trophies raised on Curio's shame; Yet some there are who scorn her impious mirth, Who know what conscience and ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... afterwards I rise, beaten, from my desk, flinging all I have written into the fire (yet rescuing some of it on second thought), and curse myself as an ingle-nook man, for I see that one can only paint what he himself has felt, and in my passion I wish to have all the vices, even to being an impious man, that I may describe them better. For this may I be pardoned. It comes to nothing in the end, save that ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... and sainted dead! Dear as the blood ye gave; No impious footstep here shall tread The herbage of your grave; Nor shall your glory be forgot While Fame her record keeps, Or Honor points the hallowed spot Where ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... months,[37] without intermission, this destruction raged from the gates of Madras to the gates of Tanjore; and so completely did these masters in their art, Hyder Ali and his more ferocious son, absolve themselves of their impious vow, that, when the British armies traversed, as they did, the Carnatic for hundreds of miles in all directions, through the whole line of their march they did not see one man, not one woman, not one child, not ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... ribaldry were the preacher's great attractions. One of the prayers attributed to him ran as follows: "Come down among us, O Lord! Come straight through the roof; I'll pay for the shingles!" Night after night the galleries were crowded with students laughing at this impious farce; and among them, one evening, came "Charley" Chotard of Mississippi. Chotard was a very handsome fellow: slender, well formed, six feet three inches tall, and in any crowd a man of mark, like King Saul. In the midst of the proceedings, at some grotesque utterance of the revivalist, ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... Greek, and that within sight of the holy place;—for the rock, as I am told, is not far from the city. Surely you would laugh to scorn such an accusation as this; and your cruel treatment of the impious would be universally applauded. ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... containing the officiating clergy, much less the multitudes of the faithful. Touching the graves, removing them to a more suitable place, was out of the question; in the eyes of the early Christians no more impious sacrilege could be perpetrated. There was but one way left to deal with the difficulty; that of cutting away the rock over and around the grave, and thereby gaining such space as was deemed sufficient ...
— Pagan and Christian Rome • Rodolfo Lanciani
... near his home To claim the key to every heart in Rome! He spoke: in nameless awe I heard his voice,— 'Give love, that is my due, to him—thy choice,— But know, oh faithless one, ere day expires, All vain these tears for him thy heart desires!' Anon a Christian band (an impious horde), With shameful cross in hand, attest his word; They vouch Severus' truth—and, to complete My doom, hurl Polyeucte beneath his feet! I cried, 'O father, timely succour bear!' He heard, he came, my grief was now despair! He drew his dagger—plunged ...
— Polyuecte • Pierre Corneille
... been told that if he did not believe in this sleeve, his soul, immediately after his death, when passing over the pointed bridge, would fall for ever into the abyss. He has been told even worse things: If ever you have doubts about this sleeve, one dervish will treat you as impious; another will prove to you that you are an insensate fool who, having all possible motives for believing, have not wished to subordinate your superb reason to the evidence; a third will report you to the little divan of a little province, and you ...
— Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary • Voltaire
... rest, now approached the church and with his spear broke some of the windows. The Abbe D'Abbon, an eye-witness and minute historian of the siege of Paris, states that the impious Dane was at once struck dead. The same fate befell one of his comrades, who mounted to the platform at the top of the church and in descending fell off and was killed. A third who entered the church and looked round lost ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... the first weeks of the cruise, she was too much interested in the work on the cabin to consider other matters. Old Aaron Burnham, the carpenter, did the work. He was a wiry little man, gray and grizzled; and he loved the tools of his craft with a jealous love that forbade the laying on of impious hands. Through the long, calm days, when the ship snored like a sleep-walker through the empty seas, Priscilla would sit on box or bench or floor, and watch Aaron at his task, and ask him questions, and listen to the old man's long stories of things ...
— All the Brothers Were Valiant • Ben Ames Williams
... wondered less at the swift and fair creations of God when he grew weary of vacancy, than I at this spirit of an angel in the mortal paradise of a decaying body." To most Englishmen of his day, Byron, like Shelley, appeared as a monster of impious wickedness. Unlike Shelley, he attained thereby the vogue of the forbidden. His earliest poems achieved what the French call a succes de scandal. His satire, "English Bards and Scotch Reviewers," brought to the youthful poet a notoriety amounting to fame. After the publication of the first two ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... right, colonel," put in Sir Arthur, with a touch of his old pomposity; "the government shall know how its representative was delivered from the hands of these impious fiends. But bless me, I don't see that we are so much better off, after all. How are we going to get out of ...
— The River of Darkness - Under Africa • William Murray Graydon
... seen the crimes of this impious race of men, calls a council of the Gods, and determines to ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... prodigy of design, and skill, and perseverance, and tributary wealth, he may image to himself the multitudes that, during successive ages, frequented this fane in the assured belief, that the idle ceremonies and impious superstitions, which they there performed or witnessed, were a service acceptable to heaven, and to be repaid ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... not thee profane with impious shag, Nor poison thee with nigger-head and twist, Nor with Kentucky, though the planters brag That it hath virtues all the rest ...
— Pipe and Pouch - The Smoker's Own Book of Poetry • Various
... appear enormous. We have no images, making the glory of the incorruptible God like to corruptible man; we have no vain stream of incense; no shedding of the blood of bulls and calves in sacrifice: the hymns which are sung here are not vain repetitions or impious fables, which gave no word of answer to those questions which it most concerns mankind to know. Here, indeed, Jesus Christ is truly set forth, crucified among us; here life and immortality are brought to light. But follow us out of this ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold
... that we ask for ourselves be not useful for our beatitude, we do not merit it; and sometimes by asking for and desiring such things we lose merit for instance if we ask of God the accomplishment of some sin, which would be an impious prayer. And sometimes it is not necessary for salvation, nor yet manifestly contrary thereto; and then although he who prays may merit eternal life by praying, yet he does not merit to obtain what he asks for. ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... something about the anger of the Gods at the toleration shown to a sect of impious heretics who ate pigeons broiled, "whereas," said he, "our religion commands us to eat them roasted. Now therefore, O King," continued this respectable divine, "give command to thy men of war, and let them smite the disobedient people with the sword, ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... solemn supplications, that the Deity might seem to participate in their treachery, many citizens had been seized, imprisoned, tortured, and put to death; thus affording to the world a horrible and impious precedent. To avenge themselves for these injuries, they knew not where to turn with so much hope of success as to the senate, which, having always enjoyed their liberty, ought to compassionate those who had lost it. They therefore called upon them as free men to assist them against tyrants; ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli
... child, wheresoever born, whether within the Church or out of it, whether of pious parents or of impious, is received by the Lord at death; is educated in heaven; is taught and imbued with affections of good and by these with knowledges of truth; and then, as he is perfected in intelligence and wisdom, is introduced into heaven ...
— The Gist of Swedenborg • Emanuel Swedenborg
... War System by which such a duel is authorized and regulated among nations? When will this legalized, organized crime be abolished? When at last will it be confessed that the Law of Right is the same for nations as for individuals, so that, if Trial by Battle be impious for individuals, it is so for nations likewise? Against it are Reason and Humanity, pleading as never before,—Economy, asking for mighty help,—Peace, with softest voice praying for safeguard,—and then the authority of Philosophy, speaking by some of its ...
— The Duel Between France and Germany • Charles Sumner
... professing terror of certain famines, earthquakes, and pestilences in which he saw the mysterious "recompense which was meet" prophesied by St. Paul,[266] issued his edict condemning unnatural offenders to the sword, "lest as the result of these impious acts" (as the preamble to his Novella 77 has it) "whole cities should perish, together with their inhabitants; for we are taught by Holy Scripture that through these acts cities have perished with the men in them."[267] This edict (which Justinian followed up by a fresh ordinance ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... contributed to the social gaiety a sort of freedom not always kept within decorous limits. At that time society had reached the point at which everything may be expressed that excites laughter. Champfort had read to us his impious and libertine stories, and great ladies had listened to these without recourse to their fans. Hence a deluge of witticisms against religion, one quoting a tirade from 'La Pucelle,' another bringing forward certain philosophical stanzas by Diderot. ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... other king than the Eternal God!" he cried; and he cursed Antipas for his luxurious gardens, his statues, his furniture of carved ivory and precious woods, comparing him to the impious Ahab. ...
— Herodias • Gustave Flaubert
... of "The Gates Ajar" was only put to the question. Heresy was her crime, and atrocity her name. She had outraged the church; she had blasphemed its sanctities; she had taken live coals from the altar in her impious hand. The sacrilege was too serious to be ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. VI., No. 6, May, 1896 • Various
... giants may jet through/And keep their impious turbans on] The idea of a giant was, among the readers of romances, who were almost all the readers of those times, always confounded with ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson
... had he sworn, when a creeping chill passed through his frame. His features lost all their animation, and throwing away the book on which the impious oath had been taken, he turned away his face from Matilda, and sinking his head upon his chest, groaned ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... The Cloud. It was a convenient hiding-place, because when you were in one valley you could not see into the next, and the devil always leaped into the one that you were not in. As to the pestilence, it was sent as a judgment because the people had these impious dealings with the Evil One; but the devil could put an end to it if ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... becomes principal; and the "Clouds" of Aristophanes, with the personified "just" and "unjust" sayings in the latter part of the play, foreshadow, almost feature by feature, in all that they were written to mock and to chastise, the worst elements of the impious "'dinos'" and tumult in men's thoughts, which have followed on their avarice in the present day, making them alike forsake the laws of their ancient gods, and misapprehended or reject the true words ...
— The Queen of the Air • John Ruskin
... machine with a soul in it, as was lately and vainly attempted in our good city of Lynn,—where, however, it may be said, they do succeed in making soles to what resemble machines. It is not for us to be either so enthusiastic, impious, or uncharitable as to prophesy that human ingenuity will ever endow its creations with anything more than the rudest semblance of that self-directing vitality which characterizes the most servile of God-created ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... shrank back from the impious words; nevertheless on the third occasion they attended in even greater numbers ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... practices succeed, there is the grave danger of being mislead and deceived by the evil spirit, who is often permitted, as the instrument of God, to punish guilty men. When resorted to, as a means of relieving fools of their earnings, it is sacrilegious; and those who support such impious humbugs can be excused from deadly sin only on the ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... a short time he took the city by storm and slew all the Impious who dwelt in it, even as Hermes and Horus, son of Isis and Osiris, conquered those who of old revolted in the same regions . . . in return for which the Gods have granted him Health Victory Power and all other good ...
— Five Stages of Greek Religion • Gilbert Murray
... 'tis common; all that live must die. But you must know, your father lost a father; That father lost, lost his . . . But to persever In obstinate condolement is a course Of impious stubbornness. ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... Light and Eternal Life. How? I, who have given to each being air, light, life and love, that he may be happy, could I deny to one of the most transcendental, true happiness, for the sake of others? Impious! Absurd! Tell them that I, who am All, and apart from whom nothing exists, nor could exist, I have not and cannot have enemies. Nothing equals me, and no one can ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... struggle, unrighteous palm, Fine point, devouring fire, strong nerve, Sharp wound, impious ardour, cruel body, Dart, fire and tangle of that wayward god Who pierced the eyes, inflamed the heart, bound the soul, Made me at once sightless, a lover, and a slave, So that, blind I have at all times, in all ways and places, The ...
— The Heroic Enthusiast, Part II (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno
... completes its effect. The chant is preceded by an admonition from the abbot, which lays down its text: that God is unchanging, and His justice as infinite as His mercy; and singer and chorus both denounce the impious heresy of "John:" who admitted only the love, and sinned the "Unknown Sin," in his confidence in it. How the logs are fired; how the victim roasts; amidst what hideous and fantastic torments the damned soul "flares forth into the dark" ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... the wretched, and the prey From impious tyranny he tore; He stay'd th' Usurper's iron sway, 35 And bade the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... "Am I impious to say that the language used in Scripture for Christ's expresses the thoughts of my soul? Oh, could we but understand that the kingdom of heaven is always at hand to the discerner, and that God calls upon all ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... Vain, impious words! The goddess came In likeness of an ancient crone, With grizzled locks and tottering frame, And spoke with ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
... granted by the Emperor of his free grace, it is considered impious to criticize it or to suggest any change in it, since this would imply that His Majesty's work was not wholly perfect. To understand the Constitution, it is necessary to read it in conjunction with the authoritative commentary ...
— The Problem of China • Bertrand Russell
... relation, my mother's nephew. He had purchased a living in the country, but not simoniacally. I never saw him but in the country. I have been told he was a man of great parts; very profligate, but I never heard he was impious.' BOSWELL. 'Was there not a story of his ghost having appeared?' JOHNSON. 'Sir, it was believed. A waiter at the Hummums, in which house Ford died, had been absent for some time, and returned, not knowing that Ford was dead. Going down to the cellar, according to ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... begin to wake From Love, like one from some delightful Dream, To reassume my wonted Cares and Shame. —I will not speak with him. [Exit Boy. Oh Hippolyta! thou poor lost thing, Hippolyta! How art thou fallen from Honour, and from Virtue, And liv'st in Whoredom with an impious Villain, Who in revenge to me has thus betray'd thee. Keep thy self closer than thou'st done thy Sin; For if I find thee out, by all that's good, Thou hadst more Mercy on thy slaughter'd Honour, Than I will have for thee. And thou, Antonio, that ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... only hate, but scorn. Hush! no response. You knew it long before I was forced to stand at the altar with you. I warned you not to unite yourself to me, and you had the impious audacity to defy me with your riches. The seed of hate which you then sowed, you may to-day reap the fruits of. You shall recognize now that money is miserable trash, and that when deprived of it you will never win sympathy from your so-called friends, ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... four were nearly akin to each other, but that the fifth, which was courage, differed greatly from the others. And of this he gave me the following proof. He said: You will find, Socrates, that some of the most impious, and unrighteous, and intemperate, and ignorant of men are among the most courageous; which proves that courage is very different from the other parts of virtue. I was surprised at his saying this at the time, and I am still ...
— Protagoras • Plato
... this page with even a description of the oaths and curses with which he mixed his language. Christy was disgusted with him; and while he still continued his impious ravings, he sent a midshipman with an order to Mr. Makepeace who was in charge of the hose pipe on board of the Raven. While Captain Bristler was pouring forth anathemas that made the blood of the loyal officers run cold in their veins, the man who held the hose pipe ...
— A Victorious Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... concluding. The congregation fall upon their knees, and are hushed into profound stillness as he delivers an extempore prayer, in which he calls upon the Sacred Founder of the Christian faith to bless his ministry, in terms of disgusting and impious familiarity not to be described. He begins his oration in a drawling tone, and his hearers listen with silent attention. He grows warmer as he proceeds with his subject, and his gesticulation becomes proportionately violent. ...
— Sunday Under Three Heads • Charles Dickens
... condemns[442] their pestilential teaching in respect of meats and drinks and concerning matrimony. In his Epistle to Timothy[443] he relates that Hymeneus and Philetus taught that the Resurrection was past already. What wonder if a flood of impious teaching broke loose on the Church when the last of the Apostles had been gathered in, and another generation of men had arisen, and the age of Miracles was found to be departing if it had not already departed, and ...
— The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels • John Burgon
... it innumerable "shalts" and "shalt nots," disagreeable to the natural man or woman, soon found her a tiring and trying companion. She asked him for what he could not give; she coquetted with questions he thought it impious to raise; the persons she made friends with were distasteful to him; and, without complaining, he soon grew to think it intolerable that a woman married to a soldier should care so little for his professional interests ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward |
