Free TranslationFree Translation
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'



Pollute   Listen
verb
Pollute  v. t.  (past & past part. polluted; pres. part. polluting)  
1.
To make foul, impure, or unclean; to defile; to taint; to soil; to desecrate; used of physical or moral defilement. "The land was polluted with blood." "Wickedness... hath polluted the whole earth."
2.
To violate sexually; to debauch; to dishonor.
3.
(Jewish Law) To render ceremonially unclean; to disqualify or unfit for sacred use or service, or for social intercourse. "Neither shall ye pollute the holy things of the children of Israel, lest ye die." "They have polluted themselves with blood."
Synonyms: To defile; soil; contaminate; corrupt; taint; vitiate; debauch; dishonor; ravish.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Pollute" Quotes from Famous Books



... Sherman army enter Cheraw, town full of sojers. Take way from white people and give horses colored people! Didn't kill none the horses. (On Sunnyside on Waccamaw) Cheraw Yankee kill horses! (Indeed—YES! It is history in Marlboro, near Cheraw they were killed and thrown in the wells to pollute ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration

... not," replied the young man. "But before me she is as a holy saint of heaven, at whose shrine we may bow down and pray, but whom we cannot pollute ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various

... guilty thoughts,—of which guilty deeds are no more than shadows,— will these draw down the full weight of a condemning sentence, in the supreme court of eternity? In the solitude of a midnight chamber, or in a desert, afar from men, or in a church, while the body is kneeling, the soul may pollute itself even with those crimes, which we are accustomed to deem altogether carnal. If this be true, it ...
— Fancy's Show-Box (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... to eat the flesh of the pig, and of fowls, and a variety of fish, cocoanuts, and plantains, and whatever was presented as an offering to the gods; these the females, on pain of death, were forbidden to touch, as it was supposed they would pollute them. The fires at which the men's food was cooked were also sacred, and were forbidden to be used by the females. The baskets in which their provision was kept, and the house in which the men ate, were also sacred, and prohibited ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck

... reverenced. Sacrifice was offered to rivers, lakes, and fountains, the victim being brought near to them and then slain, while great care was taken that no drop of their blood should touch the water and pollute it. No refuse was allowed to be cast into a river, nor was it even lawful to wash one's hands in one. Reverence for earth was shown by sacrifice, and by abstention from the usual mode of burying ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 3. (of 7): Media • George Rawlinson

... out of the pit,' Or Psalms XXXVII:20: 'The wicked shall perish ... into smoke shall they consume away,' Then there is a passage in Jeremiah VII:30: 'They have set their abominations in the house which is called by my name to pollute it,' With these I think we have a good ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton

... with speeches fair She woos the gentle air To hide her guilty front with innocent snow; And on her naked shame, Pollute with sinful blame, The saintly veil of maiden white to throw; Confounded, that her Maker's eyes Should look so near upon ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various

... high-caste man you may not only refuse to eat with or touch a low-caste man, your equal perhaps in {229} intelligence and in morals, but in some cases you may even demand that the low-caste man shall not pollute you by coming too near you on the road. On page 540 of the 1901 "Census of India Report" will be found a table showing at what distances the presence of certain inferior classes become contaminating to a Brahmin! Moreover, the low-caste man, offensive to men, is taught that he ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe

... amiable enthusiast, a worshiper of nature after the manner of Rousseau, who, being melted into feelings of universal philanthropy by the softness and serenity of a spring morning, resolved, that for that day, at least, no injured animal should pollute his board; and having recorded his vow, walked six miles to gain a hamlet, famous for fish dinners, where, without an idea of breaking his sentimental engagement, he regaled himself on a small matter of crimped cod and oyster ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 346, December 13, 1828 • Various

... mine, where myself and my interests were nothing—and I thought of this woman, to whom I was all the world. My daughter Olive, if ever you be a wife, and would keep your husband's love, never let these thoughts enter and pollute his mind. Give him your whole heart, and he will ask no other. Make his home sweet and pleasant to him, and he will not stray from it. Bind him round with cords of love—fast—fast. Oh, that my wife had had ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)

... that not with warring Rome Barbarians may grapple. Then arose Immeasurable carnage: here the sword, There stood the victim, and the victor's arm Wearied of slaughter. Oh, that to thy plains, Pharsalia, might suffice the crimson stream From hosts barbarian, nor other blood Pollute thy fountains' sources! these alone Shall clothe thy pastures with the bones of men! Or if thy fields must run with Roman blood Then spare the nations who in times to ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan

... of its own to be exposed to sale." So that these say, 'tis the will they undertake and they have reason. 'Tis indeed the will that we are to serve and gain by wooing. I abhor to imagine mine, a body without affection: and this madness is, methinks, cousin-german to that of the boy who would needs pollute the beautiful statue of Venus made by Praxiteles; or that of the furious Egyptian, who violated the dead carcase of a woman he was embalming: which was the occasion of the law then made in Egypt, that the corpses of beautiful young women, of those of good quality, should ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... the wisdom from above is "first pure." Had he encountered those who take the precious name of Jesus upon lips defiled by tobacco, those whose breath and person are contaminated by its foul odor, and who pollute the air of heaven, and force all about them to inhale the poison,—had the apostle come in contact with a practice so opposed to the purity of the gospel, would he not have denounced it as "earthly, sensual, devilish"? Slaves of tobacco, claiming ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White

... not go abroad. There are papers in New York that long ago came to perfection of shamelessness, and there is no more power in venom and mud and slime to pollute them. They have dashed their iniquities into the face of everything decent and holy. And their work will be seen in the crime and debauchery and the hell of innumerable victims. Their columns are not long and broad enough to record ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage

... hear. I am not going to pollute your ears," says he, with a curl of his lip. "Pray be reassured. What I only wish to say is that if you condemn me for a few past sins you should condemn also half your acquaintances. That, however, you do not do. For me alone, for your husband, you ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford

... worked strenuously, lovingly, honestly.... And honest hearts turn from him in disgust; honest faces burn with indignation at his name. 'Be gone! Away with you!' honest young voices scream at him. 'We have no need of you, nor of your work. You pollute our dwelling-places. You know us not and understand us not.... You ...
— Dream Tales and Prose Poems • Ivan Turgenev

... Poor Pal, coming up hot and thirsty, was sure to find it full of leaves, twigs and earth. He bore this affront for some time but at last his patience was exhausted. There-after he did his drinking at the spring, approaching it always by a round-about way lest the raccoon discover it and pollute its clear water. The Hermit watched the two animals with amusement, but he did not interfere. Gradually the feud was forgotten. Indeed, before many weeks had passed, the two had become firm friends, though Ringtail still ...
— Followers of the Trail • Zoe Meyer

... eye, and my ear, and my mouth, as if in all that I were opening Christ's eye and Christ's ear and Christ's mouth; and let me thrust in nothing on Him as He dwells within me that will make Him ashamed or angry, or that will defile and pollute Him. That thought, O God, I feel that it will often arrest me in time to come in the very act of sin. It will make me start back before I make Christ cruel or false, a wine-bibber, a glutton, or unclean. I feel at this moment as if I shall yet come to ask ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte

... watched for the carcass of the beast to rise. He felt now that his problem was to get rid of it so that it would not pollute the water, but it did ...
— Omega, the Man • Lowell Howard Morrow

... house being carefully secluded in the more inner apartments of the extensive building, under the immediate eye of a grim old nun, or, as the conventual rule designed her, an ancient, sad, and virtuous person, termed Mistress of the Novices, were not permitted to pollute their eyes by looking on waving plumes and rustling mantles. A few sisters, indeed, of the Abbess's own standing, were left at liberty, being such goods as it was thought could not, in shopman's phrase, take harm from the air, and which are therefore ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott

... from your sight To Allah therefore rather I impute, In sign that he will let no foreign rite Of superstition his pure place pollute: Spells and enchantments may Ismeno suit, Leave him to use such weapons at his will; But shall we warriors by a wand dispute? No! no! our talisman, our hope, our skill, Lie in our swords alone, and ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb

... to pollute the land, which God had laitlie plagued; for yitt thare iniquitie was nott come to so full rypnes, as that God wold that thei should be manifested to this hole realme, (as this day thei ar,) to be faggottis prepared for the ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox

... act is alike both in the man and in the woman. Now they commit adultery, not only who pollute their flesh, but who also make an image. If therefore a woman perseveres in any thing of this kind, and repents not, depart from her; and live not with her, otherwise thou also shalt be ...
— The Forbidden Gospels and Epistles, Complete • Archbishop Wake

... by the repeal of the Missouri Compromise was quickly rekindled when the South approved the murderous methods intended to make it a slave State. A journal published in the pro-slavery interest threatened "to lynch and hang, tar and feather, and drown every white-livered Abolitionist who dares to pollute our soil," and secret societies, organised for the purpose of keeping out Northern immigrants, resolved "that we recognise the institution of slavery as already existing in this territory, and advise slave-holders to introduce their property ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... Berry. "We regard you rather less than the dust beneath our detachable wheels. You pollute the road with your hoghood. I suppose it's no use asking ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates

... trouser-makers, and such like—begin to troop in—and they gravitate towards the gin-shop. The darkness deepens; the bleared lamps blare in the dirty mist; the hoarse roar from the public-house comes forth accompanied by choking wafts of reek; the abominable tramps move towards the lodging-house and pollute the polluted air further with the foulness of their language; the drink mounts into unstable heads; and presently—especially on Saturday nights—there are hoarse growls as from rough-throated beasts, shrill shrieks, and a running chorus of indescribable grossness. ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman

... iniustlie possesseth thesame, is detestable, with all seuerite to be punished. The [Sidenote: The adul- terer. The harlot.] adulterer and the harlotte, who by brutishe behauiour, leude affection, not godlines leadyng thereto: who by their vnchast behauior, and wanton life doe pollute, and co[n]taminate their bodie, in whom a pure minde ought to be reposed. Who tho- rowe beastly affeccion, are by euill maners transformed to beastes: and as moche as in theim lieth, multipliyng a bru- [Sidenote: The homi- cide.] tishe societie. ...
— A booke called the Foundacion of Rhetorike • Richard Rainolde

... with whom he converses by his superiority; and whatever be the native spirit of a mind, it is evident that this perpetual adaptation of itself to others, this watchfulness against its own rising feelings, this studied sympathy with mediocrity, must pollute and impoverish the sources ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... Assyrians nor Egyptians nor Persians had so ruthlessly swept away religious institutions. Those conquerors were contented with conquest and its political results,—namely, the enslavement and spoliation of the people; they did not pollute the sacred places like the Syrian persecutor. By the rivers of Babylon the Jews had sat down and wept when they remembered Zion, but their sad wailing was over the fact that they were captives in a strange land. Ground down to the dust by Antiochus, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume II • John Lord

... her, but 'tis his home most pure; Her daily virtues blend with native grace; Her noiseless movements speak, though she is mute: Such power her eyes, they can the day obscure, Illume the night,—the honey's sweetness chase, And wake its stream, where gall doth oft pollute. ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch

... and yet what would he have been if he had not lived in a city, and come under the stimulative influence of such men as Edward Taylor, of Norwich? It is idle to complain of cities, however they sully the air, and deface the land, and pollute the water, and rear the weak and vicious and the wicked—to remind us how low and depraved human nature can become when it is cut off from communion with Nature and Nature's God. Borrow owed much to cities, and was best ...
— East Anglia - Personal Recollections and Historical Associations • J. Ewing Ritchie

... of burial is entirely unique, so far as known, and but from the well-known probity of the relator might well be questioned, especially when it is remembered that in the country spoken of water is quite scarce and Indians are careful not to pollute the streams or springs near which they live. Conjecture seems useless to establish a reason for ...
— An introduction to the mortuary customs of the North American Indians • H. C. Yarrow

... built this house to my name. For behold, I have accepted this house, and my name shall be here, and I will manifest myself to my people in mercy in this house, Yea, I will appear unto my servants, and speak unto them with mine own voice, if my people will keep my commandments, and do not pollute this holy house, Yea the hearts of thousands and tens of thousands shall greatly rejoice in consequence of the blessings which shall be poured out, and the endowment with which my servants have been endowed in this house; and the fame of this house shall spread to foreign lands, and this ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage

... necessary to inform the reader, that in Ireland many of the church-yards are exclusively appropriated to the interment of Roman Catholics, and, consequently, the corpse of no one who had been a Protestant would be permitted to pollute or desecrate them. This was one of them: but it appears that by some means or other, the body of a Protestant had been interred in it—and hear the consequence! The next morning heaven marked its disapprobation of this awful visitation by a miracle; for, ere ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton

... a leg to the residencer, their learning a chapter, for they learn it commonly before they read it; yet the old Hebrew names are little beholden to them, for they mis-call them worse than one another. Though they never expound the scripture, they handle it much, and pollute the gospel with two things, their conversation and their thumbs. Upon worky-days, they behave themselves at prayers as at their pots, for they swallow them down in an instant. Their gowns are laced commonly with streamings of ale, the superfluities of a cup or throat ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle

... hand away, as though something loathsome had dared to pollute her; and the bright red fever spot on either cheek deepened into ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie

... to reestablish the Napoleonic dynasty in France. But that was a small evil compared with the moral mischief which many of Beranger's songs are calculated to produce; for, circulating freely as they do in French households, they exhibit pictures of nastiness and vice, which are enough to pollute ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles

... whore you may; And that's no breach of any vow to heaven: Pollute the nuptial bed with michall sin." Dilke's Old English Plays, vol. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 180, April 9, 1853 • Various

... declined, and when he insisted I told him that it was contrary to the customs of good society in our country for ladies to use tobacco in any form. He laughed heartily, and said, "Did you suppose I would ask a lady to pollute her fragrant breath and dewy lips with so foul a thing as vile tobacco? Taste and see." He brought his splendid hookah, which I found filled with the "fragrant spices of Araby" perfumed with attar of roses, while a long slender tube rested in a vessel of rose-water at my feet; and the fumes were ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various

... repentance. But some who had so deeply involved themselves that no remedy could assist them have been subjected to the laws, in accordance with the constitutions of our Christian princes, and lest they should pollute the holy flock by their contagion, have been banished into perpetual exile by the public judges. And all the profane and disgraceful things which are found, as well in their writings as in their secret traditions, we have disclosed and clearly proved to the eyes ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.

... misery is too deep for irritation, or excitement. I am an Oxford man, sir, a prize man, an Ireland scholar. But, unfortunately for me, my mother left me ten thousand pounds, and a heart. I love a lady whose name I will not pollute by mentioning it in this den of thieves. My father is the well-known banker, bankrupt, and cheat, of Barkington. He has wasted his own money, and now covets his neighbour's and his son's. He had me entrapped here on my wedding-day, to get hold ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade

... is evident that there is here a profitable source of economy. So far as I am aware, no work in this country saves its washings. The water all goes to pollute the nearest river. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 447, July 26, 1884 • Various

... purge the terrestrial atmosphere from the poisons that infect it; that he may preserve the bodies of men from the corrupt influences that surround, and the maladies that afflict them; still more, that he may keep their souls pure from the malignant insinuations which pollute, and the gloomy images that obscure them; that he may restore its serenity to the Word, which false words of men fill with mourning and sadness; that he may satisfy the desires of the angels, who await from him the ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... likely that Illinois will be agitated by the exertions of unreflecting men, and possibly without timely and energetic efforts to counteract their schemes, they may be enabled to persuade a majority of her people to violate their early vows on this subject, and pollute your soil with the blood and tears ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various

... grateful if allowed to enjoy the privilege of hiding my sore heart for a while from the gaze of a world that has cruelly wronged me. I want to rest where wicked men and women do not pollute the air, where I can try to forget the horrors of convict life; and the rest I need is not idleness, it is labor of some kind that will so fully employ my hands and brain, that when I lie down at ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... austere: For so Actaeon, by presuming far, Did, to our grief, incur a fatal doom; And so, swoln Niobe, comparing more Than he presumed, was trophaeed into stone. But are we therefore judged too extreme? Seems it no crime to enter sacred bowers, And hallowed places, with impure aspect, Most lewdly to pollute? Seems it no crime To brave a deity? Let mortals learn To make religion of offending heaven. And not at all to censure powers divine. To men this argument should stand for firm, A goddess did it, therefore it was good: We are not cruel, nor delight in blood.— But what have ...
— Cynthia's Revels • Ben Jonson

... an epistle of St. Boniface, archbishop of Mentz, to Ethelbald, king of England, we learn that among the Saxons the women themselves inflicted the punishment for violated chastity; "In ancient Saxony (now Westphalia), if a virgin pollute her father's house, or a married woman prove false to her vows, sometimes she is forced to put an end to her own life by the halter, and over the ashes of her burned body her seducer is hanged: sometimes a troop of females assembling lead her through the circumjacent villages, lacerating her body, ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus

... Laielohelohe's reason for setting sail to seek her husband, then he said to the palace guard, "If Kaonohiokala returns again, and asks for Laielohelohe, tell him she is ill, then he will not come back, for she would pollute Kaonohiokala and our parents; when the uncleanness is over, then the deeds of Venus may ...
— The Hawaiian Romance Of Laieikawai • Anonymous

... find him declaring that just as the executioner, however repulsive he may be, occupies a necessary place in society, so the prostitute and her like, however sordid and ugly and wicked they may be, are equally necessary; remove prostitutes from human affairs and you would pollute the world with lust: "Aufer meretrices de rebus humanis, turbaveris omnia libidinibus."[194] Aquinas, the only theological thinker of Christendom who can be named with Augustine, was of the same mind with him on this question of prostitution. He maintained the ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... lower in shamelessness than the women of ancient times? Here we see them veiling their faces with the flimsy gauze of artifice, and befouling the pure waters of life with the turbulent stream of their own vanity. They pollute the purity of real beauty by the foul arts of beautifying, and cry out in loud rude voices in every assembly and gathering. They strut about in vain-glorious conceit, and flaunt their gaudy apparel ...
— The Women of the Arabs • Henry Harris Jessup

... permitted, but on cultivated ground and on consecrated wilds he shall not be permitted; and any one who meets him may stop him. As to the hunter in waters, he may hunt anywhere except in harbours or sacred streams or marshes or pools, provided only that he do not pollute the water with poisonous juices. And now we may say that all our enactments ...
— Laws • Plato

... Frederic issued peremptory orders that no one, on pain of death, should give lodging or food to any fugitive. He likewise forbade to the dead all that could now be forbidden them—a grave. Three weeks long did these unburied bodies pollute the streets, nor could the few wretched women who still cowered within such houses as had escaped the flames ever wave from their lurking-places without treading upon the festering remains of what had been ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... the duel. The unhappy boy, rendered desperate by our unreasoning fury, hugged each of us tightly by the knee, and in tears he humbly begged that this wretched lodging-house should not witness a Theban duel, and that we would not pollute—with mutual bloodshed the sacred rites of a friendship that was, as yet, unstained. "If a crime must be committed," he wailed, "here is my naked throat, turn your swords this way and press home the points. I ought to be the one to die, I broke the sacred pledge ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter

... self-centred, exclusive, introspective, was brought into the modern world; compelled, one might say, by these great spans to admit the modern world and its conveniences, in spite of protest that the railway bridge would pollute the sacred stream. Crossing the bridge, our eyes are fixed on the outstanding feature of Benares—city of hundreds of Hindu temples. What is it? Not a Hindu temple, but a splendid Mahomedan mosque whose minarets overlook the ...
— New Ideas in India During the Nineteenth Century - A Study of Social, Political, and Religious Developments • John Morrison

... bespatter, debase, deprave, soil, stain, taint, besmear, contaminate, defile, pollute, spoil, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald

... ch. x.:—"And let us not pollute ourselves with fornication, as some of them were polluted, and fell in one day to the number of twenty-three thousand." Here is a blunder, for it is written " ...
— The Grounds of Christianity Examined by Comparing The New Testament with the Old • George Bethune English

... if you grow up into middle life not Christians, then should you ever become so, you will have habits to fight with, and remembrances that will smart and sting; and some of you, perhaps, remembrances that will pollute, even though you are conscious that you are forgiven. It is a better thing not to know the depths of evil than to know them and to have been raised from them. You will escape infinite sorrows by an early cleaving to ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren

... Bellerstown to offer this high behest to the poor parson, whose ready compliance was expected, as a matter of course. But he calmly and peremptorily refused the proffered vote, and intimated that he held it derogatory to the sacred nature of his office to pollute himself with such politics, and inconsistent with every principle of honour, morality, and religion, to take an oath, as required by law, that he was possessed of a landed estate, while, in truth, ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various

... with him by baptism into death, that we should walk in newness of life. And so our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin, Rom. vi. 3, 4, 6. And for our daily infirmities and escapes, whereby we pollute ourselves, his blood "is a fountain opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for uncleanness," Zech. xiii. 1; and to this fountain he bringeth by the spirit of repentance, which he, as an exalted ...
— Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life • John Brown (of Wamphray)

... rest while I am ignorant of the accusations in that letter. There must be something terrible, some fearful wickedness against me, which you will not tell me, but which, like poison thrown into a well, will pollute each thought of me in your mind, till at length your love of me and your trust will die. Whereas, if I know of what I am accused, I can wrench out this poisonous root with the sword of Truth, for oh! love of mine, I am innocent, save for the sin of ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay

... sovereign remedy and end of all evils is non-existence. Its mythology is often as revolting as the rigidity of its caste laws, which condemn millions of human beings to such social abasement that their very touch—the very shadow thrown by their body—is held to pollute the privileged mortals who are born into the higher castes. Nevertheless, Hinduism has for more than thirty centuries responded to the social and religious aspirations of a considerable fraction of the human race. ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol

... understand, that sancte, in the Japonian language, signified something too dishonest to be spoken. The Father declared, that the word in Latin had only a pure and pious meaning. Nevertheless, that it might not give scandal, nor pollute the imagination of the Japonians by an equivocal sound, he ordered the new Christians, from thenceforward, to use the word beate instead of it; and to say, Beate Petre, Beate Pauls, in the room of Sancte Petre, Sancte Paule. ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden

... with his rapid sparkling eyes. "More still! O villain, doubly damned! Here, after our friend's flight, here is Peschiera's avowal of guilty passion; here, he swears that he had intrigued to ruin his benefactor, in order to pollute the home that had sheltered him. Ah, see how she answers! thank Heaven her own eyes were opened at last, and she scorned him before she died! She was innocent! I said so. Violante's mother was pure. Poor lady, this moves me! Has your emperor ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... it to wanton with a Christ-cursed Jewess, Defy thy father and pollute thy name, And fling to ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus

... the constellation of thy intellectual powers!—As for thee, thy thoughts are pure, and thy lips are holy. Never did the unhallowed breath of the powers of darkness, and the pleasures of darkness, pollute the sacred flame of thy sky-descended and heaven-bound desires: never did the vapours of impurity stain the unclouded serene of thy cerulean imagination. O that like thine were the tenor of my life, like thine the tenor of my conversation! ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... on account of thy merits, it has pleased God to shelter and save this little, wild hare, I, on my part, herewith present thee with this land, to be for the service of God and an asylum for all men and women, who seek thy protection. So long as they do not pollute this sanctuary, let none, not even prince or ...
— Welsh Fairy Tales • William Elliot Griffis

... poured water into a cloth previously secured round their necks and shoulders, until suffocation ensued; others were tortured with lighted matches, and torches applied to the most tender and sensible parts of the body. But I will not pollute my page with this monstrous and disgusting detail. Upon confessions, inconsistent with each other, with common sense and ordinary probability, extorted also by torments of the mind or body, or both, Captain Gabriel Towerson, and nine other English merchants of consideration, were executed; ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden

... Justice, and Truth, and Mercy, that forever Had hovered around His throne—and thus He spoke; "Shall we make man?" Then stern Justice replied: "Create him not, for he will trample on Thy holy law;" and Truth, too, answering, said, "Create him not, O God! he will pollute Thy sanctuary!" When forth Mercy came, And dropping on her knees, exclaimed: "O God! Create him! I will watch his wandering steps, And tender guide thro' all the darksome paths That he may tread." Then forthwith God made man, And said: "Thou art the child of Mercy; go: ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson

... utterly destroyed, precisely as the Israelites thought that Jehovah had commanded them to destroy the Canaanites. But they were too numerous, and hence they were regarded as impure and made to live apart, so that they should not pollute the places of sacrifice, which among the Aryans included their dwelling-houses. It does not seem to have been the case that the Aryans had any regard for the preservation of the purity of their blood or colour. From an early ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell

... want to pollute my well unless I have to, but that's the only way you'll get out of there," ...
— The Dude Wrangler • Caroline Lockhart

... of attention is given to sanitation. Sewage is carried off by public sewers. Householders are required to place garbage in sanitary cans, whence it is collected and disposed of in such a way as not to pollute the soil. Ashes and refuse are carried away from homes and shops, and the streets are cleaned daily. In rural communities such matters are left ...
— Community Civics and Rural Life • Arthur W. Dunn

... God bless you!" she said. "I will try not to breathe on you, for I know what you think." And she sat down meekly on the floor, in a dark corner, not daring to offer any help, lest they should imagine that she would pollute anything she touched. Avice threw her a cake of bread, as she might have done to a dog; and Hester knew that it was a kinder act than she would have received from most of ...
— Our Little Lady - Six Hundred Years Ago • Emily Sarah Holt

... replied, 'O handsome one, strive duly this very day to gratify our wishes. Fortunate one, summon thou the god of justice. He is the most virtuous of the celestials. The god of justice and virtue will never be able to pollute us with sin. The world also, O beautiful princess, will then think that what we do can never be unholy. The son also that we shall obtain from him shall in virtue be certainly the foremost among the Kurus. Begotten by the god of justice and morality, he would never set ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)

... incorrupt; the rest (They noise it unashamed) are stuff gone sour; The world has meddled with them. They have broacht The wine that had pleas'd God to flocking thirst Of flies and wasps, to fears and worldly sorrows. Nay, they are poured out into the dung of the world, And drench, pollute, the fortune of their state, When they should have no fortune but themselves And the God in them, and be sealed therein. Ah, my sweet soul, that knoweth its own sweetness, Where only love may drink, ...
— Emblems Of Love • Lascelles Abercrombie

... the kindest mother still, Though always changing in her aspect mild; From her bare bosom let me take my fill, Her never-weaned, though not her favoured child. O she is fairest in her features wild, Where nothing polished dares pollute her path; To me by day or night she ever smiled, Though I have marked her when none other hath, And sought her more and more, and loved her most ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney

... all day long, and sicken'd every meal; Could you behold our kitchen (and to you A scene so shocking must indeed be new), A mind like yours, with true refinement graced, Would let no vulgar scenes pollute your taste: And yet, in truth, from such a polish'd mind All base ideas must resistance find, And sordid pictures from the fancy pass, As the breath startles from the polish'd glass. "Here you enjoy a sweet romantic scene, Without so pleasant, and within so clean; These twining jess'mines, ...
— Tales • George Crabbe

... against me, to the gate of the pucca house wherein my look-out is, I watch with interest the frequent eddies occasioned by the clear-steerings of caste,—Brahmin, Warrior, and Merchant keeping severely to the Parsee side, so that the foul shadow of Soodra or Pariah may not pollute their sacred persons. It is as though my window were a tower of Allahabad, and below me, in Cossitollah, were the shy meeting of the waters. Thus, looking up or down, I mark how the limpid Jumna of high caste holds its way in a common ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... society. I have heard the youth who was barely in his teens indulge in this sin, as though it had been a part of his parental or day-school education. I have heard the young gentleman, so-called, recently returned from the walks of a University, pollute his lips and character with this shameful vice. I have heard the man who laid claim to wealth, to intelligence, to respectability, and to honour, pour forth his swearing words. I have heard the man who has stood in official relation to the state, and who considered himself a "justice of ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate

... their contents covered over every evening with at least a foot of fresh earth. A certain bulk and thickness of earth are required to absorb the putrescent gas, otherwise it will disperse itself and pollute the air to a considerable distance round. 3. When the latrine is filled to within 2 ft. 6 in. or 3 ft. of the surface, earth should be thrown into it, and heaped over it like a grave to mark its site. 4. Great care should be taken not to place latrines near existing ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 421, January 26, 1884 • Various

... scholar!" cried the old man. "None such shall pollute the Church with my will. They are beguiled by such baubles as the holy Saint Gregory denounced, poetarum figmenta sive deliramenta. If your grandson, madame, is to enter the service of God he must renounce ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan

... never liked; and I fully understand now why I did not like it. Of course, Mrs Stuart, this story is told to you in strict confidence. I would not for the world have dear Mrs Cheney know of it, nor would I pollute sweet Alice with such a tale. Indeed, Alice would not understand it if she were told, for she is as ignorant and innocent as a child in arms of such matters. We have kept her absolutely unspotted from the world. But I knew it was my duty to ...
— An Ambitious Man • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... no Church should claim them. And this arrangement suited the good folk who were alarmed at the possibility of hearing the piper in church, for as old Willie Henderson said, "Even though the lad did a great deed, that was no reason why the people of the village should pollute the House o' God." ...
— In Orchard Glen • Marian Keith

... of that fine old city are proud of her, and offer up prayers for her prosperity? I, myself, who was not born within her walls, offer up prayers for her prosperity, that want may never visit her cottages, vice her palaces, and that the abomination of idolatry may never pollute her temples." ...
— George Borrow in East Anglia • William A. Dutt

... Ernest's heart hardened a little, and he felt as near an approach to an instinct to turn as one so defenceless could be expected to feel; his father quickly perceived this and continued, "who was turned out of this house in circumstances which I will not pollute your ears by ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler

... food upon them; after which they lay aside their [white] garments, and betake themselves to their labors again till the evening; then they return home to supper, after the same manner; and if there be any strangers there, they sit down with them. Nor is there ever any clamor or disturbance to pollute their house, but they give every one leave to speak in their turn; which silence thus kept in their house appears to foreigners like some tremendous mystery; the cause of which is that perpetual sobriety they exercise, ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus

... war that any soldier has to bear. She saw her faithful friends fall around her wasted by hunger or decimated by sickness. When all food was exhausted, dead and decomposed bodies were thrown into the castle that they might pollute the air she breathed. Otho with his troops was kept at Aversa; Louis of Anjou, the brother of the King of France whom she had named as her successor when she disinherited her nephew, never appeared to help her, and the Provencal ships from Clement VII were not due to arrive until ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - JOAN OF NAPLES—1343-1382 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... me in 2675 words: what have I done that, since thou broughtest thy possessions into this country among us, Abraham, thou hast thus bitterly contrived a plot against me? Thou, a foreigner, wouldst deceive us in this country 2680 with evil and pollute us with sin: thou saidest in plain words that Sarra was thy sister, thy blood relation; through that woman thou wouldst have foully put upon me sin, measureless evil! We received thee honorably, 2685 and in friendship gave thee a dwelling-place among this ...
— Genesis A - Translated from the Old English • Anonymous

... Henry; that he was a renegade, whose treachery had occasioned the loss of Acre; and he concluded by a solemn oath, that he would cause him to be drawn to pieces by wild horses, if he should ever venture to pollute the Christian camp by his presence. Philip attempted to intercede in favour of the Marquis, and throwing down his glove, offered to become a pledge for his fidelity to the Christians; but his offer was rejected, and he was obliged to give way ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott

... her deep, somber eyes seeming to pass through and through the mountain of flesh she was addressing. "I take small comfort in the thought that he had no time to suffer bodily pain. You will suffer—later." Bill gazed at her wonderingly. "Liar!—cheat!—you pollute the earth. You thought to cozen that poor, harmless old man out of his property—out of me. You thought to ruin him as you have ruined others. Your efforts will avail you nothing. From the moment Bill discovered the use of your memorandum pad"—Lablache started—"your fate was sealed. ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum

... the half-educated,' he was called by an academic Philosopher who was not worthy to pollute the atmosphere he breathed. I don't think you have read ten pages of Spencer, but there have been critics, assumably more intelligent than you, who have read no more than you of Spencer, who publicly challenged his followers to adduce one single idea from all his writings—from Herbert ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London

... were devoted by God to unconditional extermination, to have employed them in the erection of the temple,—what was it but the climax of impiety? As well might they pollute its altars with swine's flesh, or make their sons pass through ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... the Delta, the epizootie, had done its dread work. Annually this plague among the beasts plays havoc with the Nile, its surroundings and inhabitants. As the animals die of the disease, they are either left lying about on the banks to rot, decay, and pollute the air with devastating microbes, or are thrown into the water. It is then the hot sun does its work, and both the atmosphere and ...
— Under the Rebel's Reign • Charles Neufeld

... condemnation that it is certainly an irreverence, and probably a quibble, and meant to be broken. It must be fully admitted that there is little in common between such pieces of senseless profanity as these oaths, or the modern equivalents which pollute so many lips to-day, and the oath administered in a court of justice, and it may further be allowed weight that Jesus does not specifically prohibit the oath 'by the Lord,' but it is difficult to see how the principles on which He condemns are to be kept from touching even judicial oaths. ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren

... them a look that should have annihilated all three, but they weren't noticing the Boy. He could have throttled them! How dared such lips as these pollute his darling's name! And yet these were society men—they could dance with her, clasp her to them, and look into those "witch eyes"—oh, the ...
— One Day - A sequel to 'Three Weeks' • Anonymous

... and crimes, thou foulest traitor, deep in the depths of hell!" cried the prince, starting away with a tremendous gesture! "Out of my sight forever, that I may not pollute these hands with thy monstrous blood!" Till this moment Bruce was ignorant that Badenoch had been the instigator in the murder of Wallace; and forgetting all his own person wrongs in this more mighty injury, with tumultuous horror, he turned from the coward to avoid the self-blame of stabbing ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter

... said he. "Here's that Count Florian waiting for him in the ante-room. Now that's a man I can't abide. If anybody told me he was the devil, I'd believe him soon enough. A bad 'un, James, or I don't know the breed. An evil man who seems to pollute ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors

... that name, but it merits it not. I was impelled by a sentiment that does you honor; a sentiment, that would sanctify my deed; but, whatever it be, you are safe. Be this chimera still worshipped; I will do nothing to pollute ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown

... may be their personal cleanliness in appearance, their moral impurity, according to all accounts, is most gross and detestable. We shall not pollute our page by the slightest mention of the abominable gratifications in which they are said to indulge, contrary to the most palpable enactments ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr

... thy dells;—permits the dark-red gleams, From umber'd fires on all thy hills, the beams, Solar and pure, to shroud with columns large Of black sulphureous smoke, that spread their veils Like funeral crape upon the sylvan robe Of thy romantic rocks, pollute thy gales, And stain thy glassy floods;—while o'er the globe To spread thy stores metallic, this rude yell Drowns the wild woodland song, and ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward

... miserable than I, What mortal could you find more god-abhorred? Wretch whom no sojourner, no citizen May harbor or address, whom all are bound To harry from their homes. And this same curse Was laid on me, and laid by none but me. Yea with these hands all gory I pollute The bed of him I slew. Say, am I vile? Am I not utterly unclean, a wretch Doomed to be banished, and in banishment Forgo the sight of all my dearest ones, And never tread again my native earth; Or else to wed my mother and slay my sire, ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles

... known that infectious diseases are caused by tainted air. Everything, therefore, which tends to pollute the air, or spread the infection, ought with the utmost care to ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous

... as applying to a deity. Neither must our government any longer wink at such monstrous practices as that of children ejecting their dying parents, in their last struggles, from the shelter of their own roofs, on the plea that death would pollute their dwellings. Such compliances with Paganism, make Pagans of ourselves. Nor, again, ought the professed worship of devils to be tolerated, more than the Fetish worship, or the African witchcraft, was tolerated in the West Indies. Having, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various

... what you say is true, and you have won to blessedness by mysterious ways, if it is true—however absurd—that you are a Saint, how comes it you house in your tomb with these phantoms which know not to praise God, and which pollute with their indecencies the temple of the Lord? ...
— The Well of Saint Clare • Anatole France

... beastly, and filled with tobacco. His mustache was irregular, and dyed almost to the roots by tobacco juice. His breath was odoriferous with fumes of whiskey, cigarettes, and foul stomach disorders, causing a poisonous stench to pollute the surrounding atmosphere. One could not look upon him without a feeling of sickening disgust. He was a twentieth century American civilized Christian. He was not, of course, the highest type of a civilized Christian, but nevertheless he was of a high enough order for a Christian community ...
— Born Again • Alfred Lawson

... the new Enfield rifle had just been introduced, and the cartridges were greased for use in order not to foul the gun. The rumor spread among the Sepoys that there was a trick played upon them,—that this was but a device to pollute them and destroy their caste, and the first step toward a general and forcible conversion of the soldiers to Christianity. The groundlessness of the idea upon which this alarm was founded afforded no hindrance to its ready reception, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various

... his nasty work. What little conscience—and most men have some stored away—he possessed revolted at his intentions toward Jane Thrush—not that they were entirely dishonorable, but he knew a man with such a past and present as his had no right to pollute the life of any bright, happy, innocent woman. To be troubled with scruples was new to him; he had sent innocent men to death without a tremor, had even seen men and women go to long terms of imprisonment through his instrumentality, and thought nothing of their misery; and ...
— The Rider in Khaki - A Novel • Nat Gould

... nor curses of the vanquished, follow acts of compassion and of charity, but a sincere pleasure and serenity of mind, in him who performs an action of mercy, which cannot suffer the misfortunes of another without redress, lest they should bring a kind of contagion along with them, and pollute the ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden

... because an action produces an overbalance of pleasure or pain to the greatest number of sentient beings, and not merely because its consequences are beneficial or injurious to the author of that action, that it is good or evil. Nay, this latter consideration has a tendency to pollute the purity of virtue, inasmuch as it consists in the motive rather than in the consequences of an action. A person who should labour for the happiness of mankind lest he should be tormented eternally in Hell, would, ...
— A Defence of Poetry and Other Essays • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... And when our fathers were toiling at the breastwork on Bunker's Hill, all through that night the old warrior walked his rounds. Long, long may it be, ere he comes again! His hour is one of darkness, and adversity, and peril. But should domestic tyranny oppress us, or the invader's step pollute our soil, still may the Gray Champion come, for he is the type of New England's hereditary spirit; and his shadowy march, on the eve of danger, must ever be the pledge, that New England's ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie

... speeches fair She woos the gentle air To hide her guilty front with innocent snow, And on her naked shame Pollute with sinful blame The saintly veil of maiden white to throw; Confounded that her Maker's eyes Should look so near ...
— The Evidence in the Case • James M. Beck

... its correct sense? Remember that we hold the English tongue in trust—it belongs to the nation and not to us—and we have no more right to profane England's language by the introduction of coined words and slang expressions than we have to disendow her institutions or to pollute ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler

... do not pollute young ears with blasphemy. And you the son of a bishop—the curate of a parish! Remember what is to be the portion of mockers, sir. What happened to the men ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume

... "that I shall bestow the last, the most precious treasures of my heart upon the first base impostor who can play the comedy of passion? That I would pollute my life for a moment of doubtful pleasure? No; the flame which shall consume my soul shall be love, and nothing but love. All men, monsieur, have the senses of their sex, but not all have the man's soul which satisfies all the requirements of our ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac

... Even in Hesse I saw a great stone torn out of the side-walk of a church by the might of the floods, as though done by the contrivances of art. Still other signs happen. Christ defend us!" and to another: "Rather would I die, than live to see this Zwinglian affair pollute our just cause." Luther spoke thus against the landgrave himself: "I know well what the devil is after. God grant I may be no prophet; for if it were not a false trick, but a real purpose among them to seek peace, they would not attempt it in such ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger

... Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, I come! But ere I leave my home forever, let me have the blessing of my mother Rachael. Stand thou beyond the threshold lest thy presence pollute the air." ...
— The Coming of the King • Bernie Babcock

... that the children of that fine old city are proud of her, and offer up prayers for her prosperity? I, myself, who was not born within her walls, offer up prayers for her prosperity, that want may never visit her cottages, vice her palaces, and that the abomination of idolatry may never pollute her temples. Ha, idolatry! the reign of idolatry has been over there for many a long year, never more, let us hope, to return; brave hearts in that old town have borne witness against it, and sealed their testimony with their hearts' ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow

... unless she submits to a rigid examination of her actions, and whenever she submits it will be because she is forced to submit, and whenever she is forced to do so, these monasteries and convents will be closed up, as Protestant America will not allow nor permit these plague spots to exist to pollute the fair name of America when she learns of their ...
— Thirty Years In Hell - Or, From Darkness to Light • Bernard Fresenborg

... and unsafe position. Their characters were not the same,—were not similar: they differed in thought and word; but the difference, in as far as their answers were concerned, indicated only varieties of sin. Legion is the name of the spirits that possess and pollute the fallen; but all the legion do not dwell in every man. Different temptations tinge different persons with different hues of guilt. At the time when the father uttered his command, the character of ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot

... with feelings of indignation and scorn that I proceed once more to pollute my pen with the chronicles of a mercenary rabble. It had been thought that the remonstrances of the pure and high-minded among your readers would have sufficed to overcome the resolution of an infatuated, but not Criminal Editor. There was a time when the claims of ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 24, September 10, 1870 • Various

... had parted, but as the latter came out of the water it held in its iron grasp the horns and a portion of the skull of the dying beef. Several of us rode out to the victim, whose brain lay bare, still throbbing and twitching with life. Rather than allow his remains to pollute the river, we made a last pull at an angle, and the dead ...
— Reed Anthony, Cowman • Andy Adams

... the affair. And, as he soon received from him a true account of all that had taken place, he prepared to repair thither himself with all speed, in order to overwhelm with the first crash of his arms (such was his idea) the barbarians who had dared to pollute ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus

... pleased, and would resent a wife's interference with their right to be loose in their talk in their own home. I replied that the home is not the man's nor the woman's alone; it is theirs jointly; that each has a right to demand that the other shall not pollute or poison the air, the food, the water or the moral atmosphere; and the wife who allows contamination of the thought-atmosphere of the home is as culpable as if she were to permit poison to ...
— What a Young Woman Ought to Know • Mary Wood-Allen

... wouldst thou shake with puny hand Mount Mandar,(501) towering o'er the land, Put poison to thy lips and think The deadly cup a harmless drink? With pointed needle touch thine eye, A razor to thy tongue apply, Who wouldst pollute with impious touch The wife whom Rama loves so much? Be round thy neck a millstone tied, And swim the sea from side to side; Or raising both thy hands on high Pluck sun and moon from yonder sky; Or let the kindled flame be pressed, Wrapt in thy garment, to thy breast; More wild the thought ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI

... they spared no pains to change the eagle of the human intellect into a bat of darkness. To accomplish this infamous purpose, to drive the love of truth from the human heart; to prevent the advancement of mankind to shut out from the world every ray of intellectual light to pollute every mind with superstition, the power of kings, the cunning and cruelty of priests, and the wealth of ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I • Robert Green Ingersoll

... illustrious noblemen can wait on the Emperor at table. They have cloths of silk and gold wound over their mouths and noses that their breath may not pollute the dishes and cups presented to His Majesty. And every time the Emperor drinks, a powerful band of music strikes up, and all who are present fall ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin

... Those farmers are a credit to the country. They furnish the towns with good milk and butter and vegetables, and they also help to keep the towns clean and sanitary by hauling out the animal excrements, and other waste and garbage that tend to pollute the air and water of ...
— The Story of the Soil • Cyril G. Hopkins

... Circumstances it is not the Thing, but the Mind that distinguishes us from Jews; they held their Hands from certain Meats, as from unclean Things, that would pollute the Mind; but we, understanding that to the Pure, all Things are pure, yet take away Food from the wanton Flesh, as we do Hay from a pamper'd Horse, that it may be more ready to hearken to the Spirit. We sometimes chastise the immoderate ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus

... and let him enlist their sympathies on behalf of the slave. Let him inspire them with abhorrence of the man-stealer—the slaveholder. No slaveholding American shall ever my cross my door. No slaveholding or slavery-supporting minister shall ever pollute my pulpit. While I have a tongue to speak, or a hand to write, I will, to the utmost of my power, oppose these slaveholding men. We must have Douglass amongst us to aid in ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass

... sundown or retire in the dark. Whatever water was needed had to be carried from the nearest well and even after the mains had been restored to normal efficiency this practice was continued for fear that the possibly broken sewers might contaminate or pollute the water. No fires nor cooking were permitted in any building until every chimney and flue had been ...
— The Spirit of 1906 • George W. Brooks

... priest doth her maintayne, But suffer her prophaned for to bee 566 Of the base vulgar, that with hands uncleane Dares to pollute her hidden mysterie; And treadeth under foote hir holie things, Which was the care of kesars* and of kings. 570 [* ...
— The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, Volume 5 • Edmund Spenser

... intermediate between the demon and the angel, a sort of satyr or faun, such as were revered in the time of paganism, a sort of imp, such as were exorcised in the Middle Ages. Sinistrari adds that they do not need to pollute a sleeping man, since they possess genitals and are endowed ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans

... Examples are introduced and concluded by Fielding's own denunciation of this, "the blackest sin, which can contaminate the hands, or pollute the soul of man." And from these pages we may learn his own solemnly declared belief in a peculiarly "immediate interposition of the Divine providence" in the detection of this crime; and also his faith in "the ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden

... of the country. But a more doubtful title was preferred, as better adapted to the purposes of extortion and peculation. This miserable succession was sold, and the eldest of the issue of Munny Begum, an harlot, brought in to pollute the harem of the seraglio, of whom you will hear much hereafter, was chosen. He soon succeeded to the grave. Another son of the same prostitute succeeded to the same unhappy throne, and followed to the same untimely grave. Every succession was sold; and between ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... comic muse, And made her delicate mouth pronounce such things As would disgust a Wilmot in full blood, Or shock an Atheist roaring o'er his cups[13] O shameful profligate abuse of powers, Indulg'd to you for higher, nobler purposes, Than to pollute the sacred fount of virtue, Which, plac'd by heaven, ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various

... again," he remarked, "make allusions to the words going to school, you'll make even me blush to death with shame! My advice to you is that you should after all go your own way and play; that's the best thing for you; and mind you don't pollute with dirt this floor by standing here, and soil this door of mine by ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... correspondent," or descriptive writer. He had never entered one of those fetid slums of a great city in which, too often, murder is done, never sickened with the physical nausea of death in its most revolting aspect, when some unhappy wretch's foul body serves only to further pollute air already vile. ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy

... tongue pollute mine ear With that foul menace? Tyrant! dread'st thou not Th' all-seeing eye of heav'n, its lifted thunder, And all the red'ning vengeance which it stores For crimes like thine?—Yet know, Zaphira scorns thee. [crosses to R. Though robb'd by thee of ev'ry dear support, No tyrant's ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various

... propitious. "What greater evil," cries Lactantius, "could they inflict in their most violent displeasure, than thus to deprive their adorers of all sense of humanity, to make them cut the throats of their own children, and pollute their sacrilegious hands ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin

... uses no language so strong as that of those Southern statesmen from whom it gains so much information, and whose views, to a great extent, it conscientiously accepts. We desire only to confine it within its present limits; we ask that it shall not pollute territory now free; we know the utter folly of appealing to the morality or humanity of a pro-slavery party, where the rights of a black man are involved; but when you insist on taking slaves into a free Territory, and smiting ...
— Slavery: What it was, what it has done, what it intends to do - Speech of Hon. Cydnor B. Tompkins, of Ohio • Cydnor Bailey Tompkins

... first suppose. In thinking of the evils endured by society from malevolent passions of individuals, we are apt to enumerate only the more dreadful instances of crime: but what are the few murders which unhappily pollute the soil of this Christian land—what, we ask, is the suffering they occasion, what their demoralizing tendency—when compared with the daily effusions of ill-humour which sadden, may we not fear, many thousand homes? We believe that an incalculably greater number are hurried to the ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous

... "Go forth and say to the watchers of heaven who have sent thee hither to intercede for them: Verily, it is you who ought to plead in behalf of men, not men in behalf of you I Why did ye forsake the high, holy, and eternal heavens, to pollute yourselves with the daughters of men, taking wives unto yourselves, doing like the races of the earth, and begetting giant sons? Giants begotten by flesh and spirits will be called evil spirits ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg

... Our brave forefathers' honest fame, We swear—no foe shall sever Her children from their parent's side; Though parted by the wave, In weal or woe, whate'er betide, We swear to die, or save Her honour from the rebel band Whose crimes pollute ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie

... firmament doth shake, & Hell so neere Through the earths large chinks, which gapeth doth appear: The shatt'red world now falls on's impious head, Goe, Tyrant with thy death unpardoned, Even Hell it selfe pollute, possesse, alone, ...
— The Odes of Casimire, Translated by G. Hils • Mathias Casimire Sarbiewski

... your confidence, forever to establish credit with your highness, I will first of all reveal the name of that murderer who this night dared to pollute your palace with an old man's blood. Prince, bend your ear a little ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey

... is one topic peremptorily forbidden to all well-bred, to all rational mortals, namely, their distempers. If you have not slept, or if you have slept, or if you have headache, or sciatica, or leprosy, or thunder-stroke, I beseech you, by all angels, to hold your peace, and not pollute the morning, to which all the housemates bring serene and pleasant thoughts, by corruption and groans. Come out in the azure. Love the day. Do not leave the sky out of your landscape. The oldest and the most deserving person should come very modestly into any newly ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)

... been proved that the painter, by attending to the invariable and general ideas of nature, produces beauty, he must, by regarding minute particularities and accidental discrimination, deviate from the universal rule, and pollute his ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt

... I should leave it, like other misrepresentations, unnoticed, but it concerns the hard earned reputation of the regiment I commanded. It affects the fame of Mississippi, and propagates an error which may pollute the ...
— Speeches of the Honorable Jefferson Davis 1858 • Hon. Jefferson Davis

... into these furnaces, where they perished in the most horrible convulsions. Their famished companions regarded them undismayed; there were even some who drew out these bodies, disfigured and broiled by the flames, and it is but too true, that they ventured to pollute their ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur

... outcasts, contact with whom may cause the loss of caste to a Hindu. He should not touch any cooking or water holding utensil belonging to a Hindu, nor disturb Hindus when at their meals; he should not molest cows, nor shoot any sacred animal, and should not pollute holy places by his presence if any objection is made. The most sacred of all animals is the cow, then the serpent, and then the monkey. The eagle is the attendant of Vishnu, the bull of Siva, the goose of Brahma, the elephant of Indra, the ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis

... is she? Can you eat her? can you drink her? Who has ever seen her? Your birds were real: all could hear them sing! Oh, fool! vile reptile! atheist!" they cried, "you pollute the air." ...
— Dreams • Olive Schreiner

... otherwise good crop will be lowered in value, because the black grain will, when ground, darken the flour. Is it not so with these men of unclean lips? The filthy allusions and improper stories which pollute their conversation make their life infectious, and their companionship dangerous. Let us reprove them, or at least avoid them, ...
— Broken Bread - from an Evangelist's Wallet • Thomas Champness

... Motherhood of the dust, the mystery of the Demeter from whose bosom we came, and to whose bosom we return, surrounds and inspires, everywhere, the local awe of field and fountain; the sacredness of landmark that none may remove, and of wave that none may pollute; while records of proud days, and of dear persons, make every rock monumental with ghostly inscription, and every path ...
— Lectures on Art - Delivered before the University of Oxford in Hilary term, 1870 • John Ruskin

... slighted maid Dared to suspend her unregarded aid; Then with that grief we form in spirits divine, Pleads for her own neglect, and thus reproaches mine. Once highly honoured! false is the pretence You make to truth, retreat, and innocence! Who, to pollute my shades, bring'st with thee down The most ungenerous vices of the town; Ne'er sprung a youth from out this isle before I once esteem'd, and loved, and favour'd more, Nor ever maid endured such courtlike scorn, So much in mode, so very city-born; ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift

... that name any longer. We may say to such as the Prophet spake to their like, to wit, to the rebellious that were in the house of Israel. Goe ye, serve every man his Idols:- If ye will not hearken to the Law and Testament of God, to lead your lives thereafter: but pollute Gods holy name no more with your Gifts, and ...
— The Life and Death of Mr. Badman • John Bunyan

... springs of courage, invariably at the wrong time and place, which merely served to lead his friends into inextricable difficulties. When old, he was loathsome and contemptible to both friend and foe. His wife loathed him, and for the most terrible of reasons; she did not pollute his couch, for to do that was impossible—he had made it so vile; but she betrayed it, inviting to it not only Alfieri the Filthy, but the coarsest grooms. Dr. King, the warmest and almost last adherent of his family, said that ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow

... room, and provision for the supply of refreshments. If the bath be the property of a company, a board room may be required. As on entering a bath the visitor must immediately divest himself of his boots and shoes, in order that he may not pollute apartments that are devoted to the attainment of that cleanliness which is next to godliness, a raised step must be provided at the entrance to the apodyterium to warn him to enter unshod, or a portion of the combined cooling and dressing room may be divided off by similar ...
— The Turkish Bath - Its Design and Construction • Robert Owen Allsop

... most important counsels in the entire volume of Revelation, is the direction of the wise man: "Keep thy heart with all diligence." This is the fountain whence issue the streams which are to fertilize and gladden, or to pollute and destroy. No one was ever wicked in speech or action who was not first wicked in heart. The deeds of atrocity which shock us in execution were first performed in heart—in thought. Had this been "kept," had the early idea been restrained, the result so fearful in development ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous

... road in these days; you know the rules by which a man of blood should guide his life, and the things it were a shame for him to do, even to the man he may have to meet on the battle ground. Is it fitting, Scourie, to slander a fellow-officer to his commander, and so to pollute his fountain of influence that he shall not receive his just place? You have asked what I have against you; now I tell you, and I am ashamed to bring so foul an ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren

... works to the farm and the farmer. But that the accumulation of the manure in the stable is a hurt to the horse, no sensibly reasoning person can doubt. Its fermentation gives off obnoxious gases which pollute and poison the air the horse is compelled to breathe, and thus in turn poison the animal's blood. This is a more fruitful cause of disease than is generally supposed. The gases prove injurious to the eye, and when we consider the accumulation of manure and the exclusion of light, we ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 3, January 19, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various

... indeed given arms, such as are fit to be works of immortals, nor that a mortal man could make. Truly now will I arm myself; but I very much fear lest, in the meantime, the flies, having entered the gallant son of Menoetius, by his spear-inflicted wounds, create maggots, and pollute the corse, (for life in it is destroyed,) and all the parts of the ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer

... winds their quarrel try, Contending for the kingdom of the sky, South, east, and west, on airy coursers borne; The whirlwind gathers, and the woods are torn: Then Nereus strikes the deep; the billows rise, And, mix'd with ooze and sand, pollute the skies. The troops we squander'd first again appear From several quarters, and enclose the rear. They first observe, and to the rest betray, Our diff'rent speech; our borrow'd arms survey. Oppress'd with ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil

... him with the just wrath of a great nature outraged. "Take them up!" she cried fiercely. "Don't pollute my table!" Then, as often happens to all of us in moments of deep emotion, a Scripture phrase, long hallowed by childish familiarity, rose spontaneous to her lips. "Take them up!" she cried again. "Thy money ...
— The Woman Who Did • Grant Allen



Words linked to "Pollute" :   colly, pollutant, pollution, contaminate, taint, begrime



Copyright © 2024 e-Free Translation.com