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adjective
Profane  adj.  
1.
Not sacred or holy; not possessing peculiar sanctity; unconsecrated; hence, relating to matters other than sacred; secular; opposed to sacred, religious, or inspired; as, a profane place. "Profane authors." "The profane wreath was suspended before the shrine."
2.
Unclean; impure; polluted; unholy. "Nothing is profane that serveth to holy things."
3.
Treating sacred things with contempt, disrespect, irreverence, or undue familiarity; irreverent; impious. Hence, specifically; Irreverent in language; taking the name of God in vain; given to swearing; blasphemous; as, a profane person, word, oath, or tongue.
Synonyms: Secular; temporal; worldly; unsanctified; unhallowed; unholy; irreligious; irreverent; ungodly; wicked; godless; impious. See Impious.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Profane" Quotes from Famous Books



... the boys who attended the same school with me, and whose father's residence was very near my father's, was, even at that early period, both vulgar and profane in his talk. He seemed destitute of all sense and propriety, caring nothing for what was due from him to others, and equally regardless of the good-will of his teacher and of his companions. When I returned to the place, after a few years' ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various

... boat. Looking as they were, into the dazzling eye of the bulb light, the men were uncertain of the number of their assailants: surrender was natural. Cleary's men made quick work of them. The boat from the yacht now hove to by this time, filled with excited and profane sailormen. The skipper of the "White Swan," revolver drawn, stood in its bow as it bumped against the stairway. Howard Van Cleft was unbound: dazed but happy he tried ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball

... perverts it in this manner: By not confining his expense within his income, he encroaches upon his capital. Like him who perverts the revenues of some pious foundation to profane purposes, he pays the wages of idleness with those funds which the frugality of his forefathers had, as it were, consecrated to the maintenance of industry. By diminishing the funds destined for the employment of productive labour, he necessarily ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith

... should front upon a sheltered and sunny aspect. It should be near the ground, in a clean and quiet spot, free from the intrusion of other creatures, either human or profane, and undisturbed by noisome smells, and uncouth sounds—for it loathes all these instinctively, and loves nothing so much as the wild beauty of nature itself. The plan here presented is of the plainest and least expensive kind. Nine posts, or crutches, are set into ...
— Rural Architecture - Being a Complete Description of Farm Houses, Cottages, and Out Buildings • Lewis Falley Allen

... Vitellius' soldiers scattered through all the boroughs and colonial towns, indulging in plunder, violence, and rape. Impelled by their greed or the promise of payment, they cared nothing for right and wrong: kept their hands off nothing sacred or profane. Even civilians put on uniform and seized the opportunity to murder their enemies. The soldiers themselves, knowing the countryside well, marked down the richest fields and wealthiest houses for plunder, determined to murder any one who offered resistance. Their generals were too much in ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus

... leaned to that belief, and perhaps had credible history for it. But if the trowel has slain its thousands, the whitewash swab has slain its ten thousands of innocents. Think of the furlongs of richly-wrought tapestry, full of sacred and profane history, and the furlongs of curiously-carved panels, wainscoting, and cornice that floppy, sloppy, vandal brush of pigs' bristles and pail of diluted lime have eclipsed and obliterated for ever, and not a retributive drop of the villainous mixture ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt

... harmonious hours profane! Whom Love refines, can barbarous tumults please? Shall rage of blood pollute the sylvan reign? Shall Leisure wanton in the ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]

... deal of laughter at this parody of Jane Taylor's Village Girl, though Mysie was inclined to be shocked as at something profane. ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge

... tenderness in his heart toward his old chum. Once in a while he would pat the Gray's neck, smoothing his ragged, half worn mane, addressing him all the while in words of endearment expressed in a slang positively profane and utterly without meaning except ...
— Tom Grogan • F. Hopkinson Smith

... distinguished by one peculiarity, which doubtless entered largely into their transcendent merit—they wrote in the infancy of civilization. Homer, as all the world knows, is the oldest profane author in existence. Dante flourished about the year 1300: he lived at a time when the English barons lived in rooms strewed with rushes, and few of them could sign their names. The long life of Michael Angelo, extending from 1474 to 1564, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various

... trod, And the pirate hordes that wander Shall never profane the sacred sod Of those beautiful isles ...
— Echoes from the Sabine Farm • Roswell Martin Field and Eugene Field

... utterly discarded, the whole system of evidence connected with spectres of the living or ghosts of the dead, the above definition rescued all but openly profane, abandoned, and God-defying people from being prosecuted for witchcraft. Mather transcribes, as a quotation, what seems to be the foregoing definition, but puts it thus: "A person that, having the free use of reason, doth knowingly and willingly seek and obtain of ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham

... gentle smile at Newton Bronson, his helper. Newton was seventeen, undersized, tobacco-stained, profane and proud of the fact that he had once beaten his way from Des Moines to Faribault on freight trains. A source of anxiety to his father, and the subject of many predictions that he would come to no good end, Newton was out on the road work because he was ...
— The Brown Mouse • Herbert Quick

... devised by the clergy to withdraw the minds of the people from the profane and immoral buffooneries to which they were accustomed, ecclesiastics did not hesitate to join in the performance, and even to permit the representation to take place in churches and chapels. Afterwards the ordering and arrangement of them ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton

... marvelled at our youth, and said in my heart, What should be the reason that they should be so generally at this day debauched as they are? For they are now profane to amazement; and sometimes I have thought one thing, and sometimes another; that is, why God should suffer it so to be? At last I have thought of this: How if the God, whose ways are past finding out, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... resoundingly against the rocky barrier of the island. To drift within reach of those frightful destroyers would mean the instant annihilation of the Halfmoon and all her company, yet this was precisely what the almost unmanageable hulk was doing at the wheel under the profane direction of Skipper Simms, while Ward and Theriere with a handful of men altered the meager sail from time to time in an effort to keep the ship off the rocks for ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... Lastly, with his wand, as with another divining rod, he calculates the depth of earth at which the bones of the dead man may rest, which he ordinarily contrives may be at such a distance from the surface of this earth, as may frustrate the profane attempts of such as would violate his repose, yet sufficiently on this side the centre to give his friends hopes of an easy and practicable resurrection. And here we leave him, casting in dust to dust, which is the last ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb

... may be too awful for "fiction"—but fiction is not the word here, any more than disputation was the word there. Substitute for it the word poetry; and then, reflecting on that of Isaiah and of David, conversant with the Holy of Holies, we feel that it need not profane those other sanctities, if it be, like its subject, indeed divine. True, that those bards were ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson

... Roman people first became habituated to licentiousness and intemperance, and began to admire statues, pictures, and sculptured vases; to seize such objects alike in public edifices and private dwellings; to spoil temples; and to cast off respect for everything, sacred and profane. Such troops, accordingly, when once they obtained the mastery, left nothing to the vanquished. Success unsettles the principles even of the wise, and scarcely would those of debauched habits use victory ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume II (of X) - Rome • Various

... appropriateness in the little picture of the Holy Child embracing His Cross, now that it hung as the solo ornament of the library, than when it was vis-a-vis to Venus blindfolding Cupid, and surrounded by a bewildering variety of subjects, profane and sacred, profanely treated. She could not help feeling that there was a following in those steps when she saw how many luxuries had been laid aside, and how the brother and sister, once living in an atmosphere of morbid refinement, were now toiling away, ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge

... the bystanders reverently laid the corpse of Apaecides on the ground, with the face upwards; and some of them went in search of some contrivance to bear the body, untouched by the profane. ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton

... confusion. The cause was as follows: a Dominican monk had dreamt that he passed the night with his penitent, the lovely Clara, who was a white nun, and a niece of the Archbishop. In the morning it was his turn to read mass; he did so, and, unabsolved from the night of sin, received the host in his profane hands. At eve-tide, after a cup or two of Rhenish, he related his dream to a young novice. The dream tickled the imagination of the novice: he told it with some additions to a monk; and in this manner the story, embellished with horrors and licentiousness, ran through the convent, until ...
— Faustus - his Life, Death, and Doom • Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger

... is with the story of Remus and Romulus' being nursed by a she wolf! And if not, these things are matters of total indifference; yea, as much so as the extraordinary, and, were it not for comparing things supposed to be sacred with profane, I would say, ridiculous stories in the heathen mythology. If it should be contended that the facts recorded in sacred history are necessary to prove the power and providence of God towards his children, it may be answered that those in profane history, if true, are equally conclusive. If ...
— A Series of Letters In Defence of Divine Revelation • Hosea Ballou

... replied Robert, "and it seems all the more strange to me that we should profane it by war. But here comes Mrs. Markham. Let us see how she will ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler

... well-dressed man near by said, with a laugh, "Rather neat, that," and, turning, tried to pull up a window-sash. In the effort something happened, and he broke the glass, cutting his hand in half a dozen places. While he was using several quite profane phrases, I caught his hand and said, "I am a surgeon," and tied my handkerchief ...
— The Autobiography of a Quack And The Case Of George Dedlow • S. Weir Mitchell

... sharpening intellects, it is difficult to say; but Popes Urban VIII., and Innocent waged quite a miniature crusade against snuff, anathematizing those who should use it in any church, and positively threatening with excommunication all impious persons who should provoke a profane sneeze within the sacred precincts of St. Peter's pile; Louis XIV., that good son of the Church, filially complied with the paternal injunction, but his courtiers were less yielding; and the ante-chamber of Versailles frequently resounded with the effects ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings

... almost apprehensively. He had paid no heed to Ma Werner's attempts at pacification. "Now, Pa!" she had said, over and over, her hand on his arm, though he shook it off again and again. "Now, Pa!—" But he stopped now, fist raised in a last profane period. Buzz stood regarding him ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber

... and more. There was not much chance for young people to meet in those days, especially where they were strictly brought up, as I was; for father and mother were both very pious, and at that time church-members thought it was sinful to join in the profane amusements of the world. So when an invitation came for me to a husking-frolic, or a paring-bee, or a dance, I was not allowed to go. I was shy, as I told you, but I had a girl's natural longing for company; and many were the bitter tears I shed up in my garret because I could not go with ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various

... this subject, "I do not doubt but that God revealed many things to Moses and the prophets, which were contained under the covert of the words of the law, which were not to be communicated to the profane vulgar: so for this art, which the Jews so much boast of, which I have with great labour and diligence searched into, I must acknowledge it to be a mere rhapsody of superstition, and nothing but a kind of theurgic magic before spoken of. For if, as the Jews contend, coming from God, ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian

... I— The thing came under the eye of the mother, And caused her a dreadful internal pother: The woman's scent is fine and strong; Snuffles over her prayer-book all day long, And knows, by the smell of an article, plain, Whether the thing is holy or profane; And as to the box she was soon aware There could not be much blessing there. "My child," she cried, "unrighteous gains Ensnare the soul, dry up the veins. We'll consecrate it to God's mother, She'll give us some heavenly ...
— Faust • Goethe

... carried to excess. True, there is a relief in emotional expression, a wiping out of sorrow by tears, an increase of the pleasure of joy in freely laughing, a discharge of anger in the blow or the hot word, even the profane word. There is a time and a place for these things, and to get so "controlled" that one rarely laughs or shows sadness or anger is to atrophy, to dry up. But the emotional expression makes it easy to become ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson

... Atlans!" cried Altorius, his face more Roman than ever. "Prithee tarry amongst us, Hero Nelson. Thou shalt be as my brother. A marble palace shalt thou have and twenty wives, each fair as those damsels which thou hast, by thy might, rescued from the profane ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various

... present fully confirmed; nor have any fossil bones of monkeys hitherto been found. Mr. Bakewell, however, observes, that the vast diluvial beds of gravel and clay, and the upper strata in Asia, have not yet been scientifically explored; and both sacred and profane writers agree in regarding the temperate regions of that continent as the cradle ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 13, No. 354, Saturday, January 31, 1829. • Various

... that he was on a man hunt. His questions, his movements, his changes of locality showed that; and Woodhull was one of those who cannot avoid asseverance, needing it for their courage sake. Now morose and brooding, now loudly profane, now laughing or now aloof, his errand in these unknown hills was plain. Well, he was not alone among men whose depths were loosed. Some time ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough

... Madonna, and see on the sharp edge of your threatened life, Ardour look back to maiden Reclusion, and on (with a pang of foreboding) to mockery and evil judgment. Never fear but I brave your story out to the world ere many days. And if any, with profane leer and tongue in the cheek, take your sorrow for reproach or your pitifulness for a shame, let them receive the lash of the whip from one who will trouble to wield it: non ragioniam di lor. For your honourable women I give you Ilaria, the slim Lucchesan, ...
— Earthwork Out Of Tuscany • Maurice Hewlett

... she likes, but if she begins to advocate more sanitary surroundings for them, with some respect for the common decencies of life, she will find herself again in that sacred realm of politics—-confronted by a factory act, on which no profane female hand ...
— In Times Like These • Nellie L. McClung

... appearance. imaginacin f. imagination, fancy, mind. imaginar imagine, fancy, believe, conceive. impaciente adj. impatient. impvid, -a undaunted. imperial adj. imperial. impetuoso, -a violent, fierce. impiedad f. impiety, impiousness. impo, -a impious, profane, wicked, godless. implacable adj. implacable, relentless. implorar implore. imponer impose. importar impers. matter, concern. importunar disturb, harass. importuno, -a troublesome, ill-timed, vexatious, importunate, unreasonable. imposible ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup

... Watteau's figures, and solicited the honor of being his master. In the studio of this worthy man, Watteau did not unlearn all that he had acquired, although he painted for pedlers, male and female saints by the dozen. From this studio he passed to another, which was more profane and more to his taste. Mythology was the great book of the place. Instead of St. Peter, with his eternal keys, or the Magdalen, with her infinite tears, he found a dance of fauns and naiads, Venus, issuing from the waves, or from the net of Vulcan. Watteau bowed amorously ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various

... peril, its predecessor; yet vital, bizarre, throbbing, unconsciously human, as no other period has ever been, as in all probability none will ever be again. Generous, spendthrift, murderous when crossed, chivalrous, fearless, profane, yet fundamentally religious, inebriate, wilful and docile by turns, ceaselessly active, eternally discontented, seeking they knew not what, they were their own evil genius; as certainly as nature surrounded them with Heaven, they supplied their own Hell and, impartial, ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge

... Wilkins's evil communications at meals—she did not listen, she avoided listening, yet it was evident she had heard—those communications which, in that they so often were at once vulgar, indelicate and profane, and always, she was sorry to say, laughed at by Lady Caroline, must be classed as evil, was spoiling her own mental manners. Soon she might not only think but say. How terrible that would be. If that were the form her ...
— The Enchanted April • Elizabeth von Arnim

... as far as my opportunities and observation go, from the frequent imputation of telling indelicate and ribald stories. I saw much of him during his whole Presidential term, with familiar friends and alone, when he talked without restraint; but I never heard him use a profane or indecent word, or tell a story that might not be repeated in the ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne

... abused me. They reviled me, for sending them to a comfortable home, and old Brandy was the worst of all. I used to go and visit him two or three times a day, and he always cursed me. Old Brandy did get awfully profane, that's a fact. The reason was his infernal pride. Look at me, now! I'm not proud. Put me in the alms-house, and would I curse ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille

... profane!—the warring winds exclude Unhallow'd throngs, that press with footstep rude; But court the Muse's train with milder skies, And call with softer voice the good and wise. —Charm'd at her touch the opening wall divides, And rocks of crystal form the ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin

... my charmer. Why beat about the bush? You frightened the old—that is, you alarmed both your cousins, with the joyful instrument known among the profane as a roarer. Tush! Why attempt concealment? Have I not roared, when time was? And a very pretty amusement, I could never deny; but I wouldn't try it again, that's all. You hear, young sir? I wouldn't ...
— Margaret Montfort • Laura E. Richards

... obsequious legislature to the men who had emigrated during the Revolution,—a generous thing to do, but a premium on cowardice and want of patriotism. A base concession was made to the sacerdotal party, by making it a capital offence to profane the sacred vessels of the churches or the consecrated wafer; thus putting the power of life and death into the hands of the clergy, not for crimes against society but for an insult to the religion of the ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord

... what I admire in him: It is that he allows profane persons, such as we are, to plague him, without ever growing angry. He is the only celebrated author who is so simple.... But he is better than an author; he is a ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget

... sites of their temples— the habitual ceremonies of their worship. It was to the east that the supplicator turned his face, and he was sprinkled, as a necessary purification, with the holy water often alluded to by sacred writers as well as profane—a typical rite entailed from Paganism on the greater proportion of existing Christendom. Nor was any oblation duly prepared until it was mingled with salt—that homely and immemorial offering, ordained not only by the priests of the heathen idols, but also prescribed ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... altogether the statement in the Gent. Mag. (xix. 85) that the Epilogue is 'by another hand.' Mr. Croker points out that the words 'as Johnson informed me' first appear in the second edition. The wonder is that Johnson accepted this Epilogue, which is a little coarse and a little profane. Yonge was Secretary at War in Walpole's ministry. Walpole said of him 'that nothing but Yonge's character could keep down his parts, and nothing but his parts support his character.' Horace Walpole's Letters, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell

... was on Eric's mind. How could he speak? was not his own language sometimes profane? How—how could he profess to reprove another boy on the ground of morality, when he himself said did things less ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar

... dreary, the prospect appalled even their stout hearts. How they yearned for the sight of some living thing there upon those high peaks. Silence supreme and dreadful, in which even their voices, hushed and tremulous, sounded profane, cowed them by its unending solemnity and the relentless grip. Gray and nude save for their pall of dust the mountains rose into the sky, eternal in their ghostly majesty. And the dark valleys between with their gray lips of death looked ...
— Omega, the Man • Lowell Howard Morrow

... Collier has laid other things to the Poet's Charge besides the Abuse of the Clergy; and that the profane Characters in the Play, has had an ill Effect on the Age, by promoting of Immorality and Vice. This I very much question; for I can't apprehend so much danger even in the present Stage as Mr. Collier wou'd suggest. ...
— A Letter to A.H. Esq.; Concerning the Stage (1698) and The - Occasional Paper No. IX (1698) • Anonymous

... took it. (Another told you there were 140 lusty stout fellows in it: for shame, gentlemen! conferre Notes!) That Colonel Norton at Rumsey took 200 prisoners. (I saw them counted: they were just two millions.) Then the Dove hath this sweet passage: O Aulicus, thou profane wretch, that darest scandalize GOD'S saints, darest thou call that loyal subject Master Pym a traitor? (Yes, pretty Pigeon,[334] he was charged with six articles by his Majesty's Atturney Generall.) Next he says, that Master ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli

... remained unmoved; he continued as before to look steadily downward, and pressing firmly with his hands the eagle-heads that tipped the arms of his chair, seemed, in thus assuming the fixity of a statue, to say, "I must submit to listen to all the profane things which it may please him to say ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various

... Evelyn wrapt in peaceful unobserving slumber, carried the body to this desolate spot, and placed it in those caves of ice beneath the glacier, which rive and split with the slightest sound, and bring destruction on those within the clefts—no bird or beast of prey could here profane the frozen form. So, with hushed steps and in silence, we placed the dead on a bier of ice, and then, departing, stood on the rocky platform beside the river springs. All hushed as we had been, the very striking of the air with our persons had sufficed to disturb the repose of this thawless ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley

... North Anna of the Five Towns Leonora A Great Man Sacred and Profane Love Whom God hath Joined Buried Alive The Old Wives' Tale The Glimpse Helen with the High Hand Clayhanger The Card ...
— The Author's Craft • Arnold Bennett

... being declared no sacrament, probably many chose to interpret the declaration to mean that it was no bond.[11] The elementary bread of the eucharist was expressed by base and indecent nicknames.[12] The alehouses were filled with profane disputants upon the mysteries of our faith, and the dissolute scoffers made songs upon them:[13] "Green Sleeves," "Maggy Lauder," and "John Anderson my Jo," with numbers more, were all of this class of compositions; and psalms (in ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19, No. 528, Saturday, January 7, 1832 • Various

... a Polynesia of rose-coloured islands that no ships might approach; while in this nether world the middle of the Calabro-Sicilian strait was occupied by a condensation of vapour, (one could never profane them by the term of sea-mist or fog,) the most subtile and attenuated which ever came from the realms of cloud-compelling Jove. This fleecy tissue pursued its deliberate progress from coast to coast, like a cortege of cobwebs carrying ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various

... the melody that the Germans were singing profane songs indeed. It could also be distinguished that the singers were not more than about a dozen, and that they all repeated only one burden which resounded far and wide in the forest, ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... outskirts of the camp for a stray bone, alone broke the silence, save when a vicious drop of rain detached itself meditatively from the ridge-pole of the tent, and fell upon the wick of our tallow candle, making it "cuss," as Ned Strong described it. The candle was in the midst of one of its most profane fits when Blakely, knocking the ashes from his pipe and addressing no one in particular, but giving breath, unconsciously as it were, to the result of his cogitations, observed that "it was ...
— Quite So • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... we adopt? What machine employ, or what reason consult by means of which we may contemplate this ineffable beauty; a beauty abiding in the most divine sanctuary without ever proceeding from its sacred retreats lest it should be beheld by the profane and vulgar eye? We must enter deep into ourselves, and, leaving behind the objects of corporeal sight, no longer look back after any of the accustomed spectacles of sense. For, it is necessary that whoever beholds this beauty, should withdraw his view from the ...
— An Essay on the Beautiful - From the Greek of Plotinus • Plotinus

... to the old controversy—Influence vs. Office—it appears to me that if Influence is good and Office bad for human morals and character, Man's present position is one of such hardship, as it is almost profane to contemplate; and if, on the contrary, Office is good and a life of Influence is bad, Woman has an instant right to claim that her position ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... Where still thy malice, most of all (Thy malice or thy lust) does on the fairest fall, And in them most assault the fairest place, The throne of empress beauty, ev'n the face. There was enough of that here to assuage, (One would have thought) either thy lust or rage; Was't not enough, when thou, profane disease, Didst on this glorious temple seize: Was't not enough, like a wild zealot, there, All the rich outward ornaments to tear, Deface the innocent pride of beauteous images? Was't not enough thus rudely to defile, But thou must quite destroy the goodly pile? ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber

... theirs is the laugh that turns to groanin'. O Lord, strengthen us to-night to speak what's in our hearts, without fear." ("A-men!") "To prophesy in Thy name! To bid the mockers and them that dare—dare to profane this sanctuary be careful. Hired singers and trumpets and vain shows we have not" ("Thank the Lord! Amen!"), "but the true faith and the joy of it we do have." ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln

... joynt desires and prayers of the godly in both Kingdomes, to whom it is more deare and precious then what is dearest to them in the world, the Reformation of Religion hath moved so slowly, and suffered so great interruption. They consider that not only Prelates, formall Professours, profane and worldly men, and all that are Popishly affected, are bad councellours and workers, and do abuse their power, and bend all their strength and policies against the Work of God; but the God of this world ...
— The Acts Of The General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland

... Pythia's Bath, and now choked up with mud, weeds, and stones. Among those weeds, I discerned one of familiar aspect, plucked and tasted it. Watercress, of remarkable size and flavor! We thought no more of Apollo and his shrine, but delving wrist-deep into Castalian mud, gathered huge handfuls of the profane herb, which we washed in the sacred front, and sent to Francois for ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Vol VIII - Italy and Greece, Part Two • Various

... elsewhere, the glow and splendour of the whole reveal a master of tone and colouring. Some good judges would give the work to the young Titian, but it appears too intimately "Giorgionesque" to be his, although I admit the extreme difficulty in drawing the line of division. Passages in the "Sacred and Profane Love" of the Borghese Gallery are curiously recalled, but the National Gallery picture is clearly the work of a mature and experienced hand, and not of any young artist. In my opinion it dates from about 1508, and illustrates the later ...
— Giorgione • Herbert Cook

... grace. I have often wondered as I have looked at this grand and celebrated work, what could be Michael Angelo's idea of Christ. He who was so good, so religious, so pure-minded, and so high-minded, was deficient in humility and sympathy; if his morals escaped, his imagination was corrupted by the profane and pagan influences of his time. His conception of Christ is here most unchristian, and his conception of the Virgin is not much better. She is grand in form, but the expression is too passive. ...
— Legends of the Madonna • Mrs. Jameson

... opposed its progress, and blended them with its current; and stretching away among regions tinted with etherial colours, was lost at airy distance in the horizon of fancy. Coleridge was sometimes induced to repeat portions of 'Christabel', then enshrined in manuscript from eyes profane, and gave a bewitching effect to its wizard lines. But more peculiar in its beauty than this was his recitation of 'Kubla Khan'. ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull

... enlightened. He was to obtain full emancipation from the thraldom of Rome in Rome itself. He was sent there to represent seven convents of his own order, who were at variance with the Vicar-general. He had always imagined Rome to be the abode of sanctity. Ignorance, levity, dissolute manners, a profane spirit, a contempt for all that is sacred, a scandalous traffic in divine things. Such was the spectacle afforded by this unhappy city. Even when performing their most sacred ceremonies, the priests derided them. Some of them boasted that when pretending to consecrate the elements, ...
— Count Ulrich of Lindburg - A Tale of the Reformation in Germany • W.H.G. Kingston

... Some misbelieving and profane in love, When I do speak of miracles by thee, May say that thou art flattered by me, Who only write my skill in verse to prove See miracles, ye unbelieving, see! A dumb-born Muse made to express the mind, A cripple hand to write, yet ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles - Idea, by Michael Drayton; Fidessa, by Bartholomew Griffin; Chloris, by William Smith • Michael Drayton, Bartholomew Griffin, and William Smith

... flock to the music and don't come to the service, and that the pieces played are profane, or mundane, or inane, or something—not what ought to be played on Sunday. Of course 'tis Lautmann who settles ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy

... trousers that boasted the rigidity of a week's pressing. Not only had I been guilty of cutting family prayers; I was convicted, also of disrespect on another count. My blue serge and bright tie were almost profane in those surroundings. The thought of how I had spent the night convicted ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford

... full-skirted plush coat, the velvet breeches, the black silk stockings, and the silver shoe-buckles of our grandfathers. He would have thought himself disgraced had he put on trousers; and to cut off his pigtail would have been a profane deed. ...
— The Man-Wolf and Other Tales • Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian

... of the Median people is at the present day scarcely a matter of doubt. The close connection which all history, sacred and profane, establishes between them and the Persians, the evidence of their proper names and of their language, so far as it is known to us, together with the express statements of Herodotus and Strabo, combine to prove that they belonged to that branch of the human family ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 3. (of 7): Media • George Rawlinson

... have I labored among you, and taught you, Not in word alone, but in deed, to love one another! Is this the fruit of my toils, of my vigils and prayers and privations? Have you so soon forgotten all lessons of love and forgiveness? This is the house of the Prince of Peace, and would you profane it Thus with violent deeds and hearts overflowing with hatred? Lo! where the crucified Christ from his cross is gazing upon you! See! in those sorrowful eyes what meekness and holy compassion! Hark! how those ...
— The Children's Own Longfellow • Henry W. Longfellow

... befits your rebellious life. Between us stretches a barrier wider and deeper than the Yellow Sea, and throughout all future time no sign shall pass from that distant shore to this. From every record of our race your name shall be cut out; no mention of it shall profane the Tablets, and both in this world and the next it shall be to us as though you have never been. As I break this bowl so are all ties broken, as I quench this candle so are all memories extinguished, and as, when ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah

... day does not seem wholly profane in which we have given heed to some natural object." If Emerson had stopped to qualify his remark, he would have added, if we give heed to it in the right spirit, if we give heed to it as a nature-lover ...
— Time and Change • John Burroughs

... possess every possible book, whilst in reality they have but few. Ifound this on my journey through the 'Christian Mountain,' the Tr el' 'Abedn, where I visited many places and monasteries but little known. Ionly saw Bibles in Estrangelo character, which were of value, nowhere profane books; but the people are so fanatical, and watch their books so closely, that it is very difficult to get sight of anything; and one has to keep them in good humor. Unless after a long sojourn, and with the aid of bribery, ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller

... heel! His muttered speech was profane, but inarticulate. He sprang into the hansom ...
— The Yellow Crayon • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... threads of fancy is weaving a pattern of life that no parent or teacher should ever wish to forbid or destroy. Day by day, he sees visions and dreams dreams, and so builds for himself a world in which he finds delight and profit. In this world he is king, and only profane hands would dare attempt ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson

... buss saw no one, was the only passenger, the chimneys were off the lamps from the jolting and there was danger. I tried to fix them. The driver had not made his appearance up to this time. A man rushed in at the door, cursing, took my head in his two hands, threw me out of the door, using profane and indecent language. He was reeking with the smell of liquor. I was surprised and terrified, not knowing any reason for this. The conductor, Mr. Knight, took me in his carriage up to Mrs. Martin's. My friends said ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation

... Straker with eyes where mischief danced a fling. It was clear that in that moment she saw Laurence Furnival the profane, Furnival the scorner of marriage, caught and tied: punished (she scented in ecstasy the delicate irony of it), so beautifully punished there where ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair

... private life of his beloved niece. The character of noble simplicity which had hitherto ruled their lives was lost during the first winter, when du Bousquier gave two balls every month. Oh, to hear violins and profane music at these worldly entertainments in the sacred old house! The abbe prayed on his knees while the revels lasted. Next the political system of the sober salon was slowly perverted. The abbe fathomed du ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac

... touches His body. The Jews with their wearisome insistence on empty technicalities would have added further indignity to crucifixion. But that body is sacredly guarded from their profane hand by unseen restraint. John with solemn simplicity points to the unmistakable physical evidence, in the separation of blood and water, that Jesus had actually died; no swooning, but death. And reverently he finds ...
— Quiet Talks on John's Gospel • S. D. Gordon

... know you can't. I don't say you've no imagination; but I do say you're deficient in a certain kind of profane fancy." ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair

... pass along, O'er the still choir with hideous laugh they move, 30 (Fiends yell below, and angels weep above!) Their impious march to God's high altar bend, With feet impure the sacred steps ascend; With wine unbless'd the holy chalice stain, Assume the mitre, and the cope profane; 35 To heaven their eyes in mock devotion throw, And to the cross with horrid mummery bow; Adjure by mimic rites the powers above, And ...
— The Botanic Garden. Part II. - Containing The Loves of the Plants. A Poem. - With Philosophical Notes. • Erasmus Darwin

... whoever it was, stopped before reaching the brow of the hill, and, panting heavily, muttered an oath which Frederick heard. Though it was no more profane than those which had just escaped his own lips in the forest, it produced an effect upon him which was only second in intensity to the terror of the discovery that the money he had so safely hidden ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green

... deputies sent by the people of Collatia to surrender yourselves and the people of Collatia?" "We are." "Are the people of Collatia their own masters?" "They are." "Do ye surrender yourselves and the people of Collatia, their city, lands, water, boundaries, temples, utensils, and every thing sacred or profane belonging to them, into my power, and that of the Roman people?" "We do." "Then I receive them." The Sabine war being ended, Tarquin returned in triumph to Rome. After that he made war upon the ancient Latins, where they came on no occasion ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius

... profane approach By mountains high and waters widely spread, Is that recess to which St. Herbert came In life's decline; a self-secluded Man, After long exercise in social cares And offices humane, intent to adore The Deity, with undistracted ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth

... buried dust;—the midnight train, Of silent stars,—the rolling spheres, Each God, that list'ning bows, With thee it prospers, false-One! to profane. The Nymphs attend;—gay Venus hears, And all deride thy vows; And Cupid whets afresh his burning darts On the stone, moist with blood, that ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward

... Miss Sharp was respectful and obedient. She used to consult him on passages of French which she could not understand, though her mother was a Frenchwoman, and which he would construe to her satisfaction: and, besides giving her his aid in profane literature, he was kind enough to select for her books of a more serious tendency, and address to her much of his conversation. She admired, beyond measure, his speech at the Quashimaboo-Aid Society; took an interest in his ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray

... keeping the window shutters always closed, admitting only so much light as could come in by a round hole at the top of the shutter; and it was only on occasions of extraordinary magnificence that the room was thrown open to profane eyes. ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... readjustment in its interpretation, if compelled to take in two other conditions under which the mysterious ways of that Providence are manifested, namely: first, that many ships on board which there have been no such profane doings have met with similar disaster; and second, that many ships on board which there has been more heinous sinning ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various

... unlike anything else; the Breton and Welsh airs alone resemble it in some degree, and in both those countries they pretend that they are of Celtic origin. Music is of very ancient origin in France: in 554 profane singing was forbidden on holy days; in 757, King Pepin received a present of an organ, from Constantin VI; a tremendous quarrel occurred between the Roman and Gallic musicians, in the time of Charlemagne, and two professors are cited, named Benedict and Theodore, who were pupils ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve

... And in the Council of Auxerre, in Burgundy, in 578, disguisings are again forbidden, and at another Council, in 614, it was found necessary to repeat the prohibitory canons in stronger terms, declaring it to be unlawful to make any indecent plays upon the Kalends of January, according to the profane practices of the pagans. But it is also recorded that the more devout Christians in these early times celebrated the festival without indulging in the ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson

... might imbibe the sweet tones which issued from the instrument, and return the heavenly vibration from her lovely mouth. Oh! who can express my sensations? I was quite overcome, and, bending down, pronounced this vow: "Beautiful lips, which the angels guard, never will I seek to profane your purity with ...
— Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism • F. V. N. Painter

... very sensible, middle-aged Indian, was conversing with me about their language, and the difficulty he found in understanding the books written in Indian for their use. Among other things, I asked him if his people ever swore, or used profane ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie

... the smoke cloud became articulate, rumbling forth chucklings and Elizabethan oaths, mingling with musings idiomatic and profane. "By God, I believe she thought she was fooling me—I do, for a fact! But it's too thin. Of course, she wants to make the women kow-tow, but that ain't all there is to it—not by a jugful. But it's all right: she plays her own hand, and she's bully good ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde

... inspired writers. Variety of testimony was no ground for the total overthrow of the thing testified. He retained the history of the resurrection in spite of the different versions of it. "Who," he asks, "has ever ventured to draw the same inference in profane history? If Livy, Polybius, Dionysius, and Tacitus relate the very same event, it may be the very same battle, the very same siege, each one differing so much in the details that those of the one completely give the lie to those of the other, has any one, for that reason, ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst

... failure to accomplish my object. The narrow space extending between rail and cabin never seemed entirely deserted, and my last attempt brought me face to face with Mapes, who very curtly ordered me below, accompanying his command with a profane request to remain there. To protest, and thus possibly arouse the mate's suspicion as to the purpose of my presence on board, would have resulted in greater damage to our cause than any probable peril of the coming night. So I obeyed without a word, deeming ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish

... Old Story,'" said Mr. Yocomb, in his warm, hearty way. Was I a profane wretch because the thought would come that if I could draw, in shy, hesitating admission, another story as old as the world it ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe

... basing his conduct not merely on the greatness and wisdom, but also on the manifest weaknesses and stupidities, of the Creator of all things. Then suddenly a thunderstorm breaks over Caliban's island, and the profane speculator falls flat ...
— Robert Browning • G. K. Chesterton

... persons, however, a reaction from the romantic is almost inevitable. The romantic temperament cannot long keep the pitch. Poe could indeed do it, although he hovered at times near the border of insanity. Hawthorne went for relief to his profane sea-captains and the carnal-minded superannuated employees of the Salem Custom House. "The weary weight of all this unintelligible world" presses too hard on most of those who stop to think about it. The simplest way of relief is to shrug one's shoulders and let the ...
— The American Mind - The E. T. Earl Lectures • Bliss Perry

... persuade him that it was useless to be impatient over such things," said he. "And I regret to say that the man allowed himself to become profane." ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger

... Perhaps he also wished to gain an insight into the characters of his companions before he allowed of any intimacy. Wherever he was, however he would allow of no light or frivolous conversation, and he did not hesitate to rebuke those who gave utterance to any profane or coarse expressions. Donald had heard him spoken of as an over religious man. That he was a strict one he had evidence, when one day, while several fellow-voyagers were indulging in unseemly conversation, Mr Skinner ...
— Janet McLaren - The Faithful Nurse • W.H.G. Kingston

... effort to attend. In the case of the Veal there was no effort at all. I defy you to help attending. But then you sat in pain. Every second sentence there was some outrageous offence against good taste; every third statement was absurd, or overdrawn, or almost profane. You felt occasional thrills of pure disgust and horror, and you were in terror what might come next. One thing which tended to carry all this off was the manifest confidence and earnestness of the speaker. He did not think it Veal that he was saying. And though ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various

... inconsistencies of his whole character and conduct! Why, with a thousandth part of Dr. Strauss's assumptions, it would be easy to reduce Swift to as fabulous a personage as his own Lemuel Gulliver. Any apparent discrepancy with either themselves or profane historians is usually sufficient to satisfy Dr. Strauss. He is ever ready to conclude that the discrepancy is real, and that the profane historians are right. In adducing some striking instances of the minute accuracy of Luke, only revealed by obscure collateral evidence (historic or numismatic) ...
— Reason and Faith; Their Claims and Conflicts • Henry Rogers

... around me, shield me from impending dangers, delight me with your presence, and enchant me with your eye; but claim me in the guise of a gentleman and a hero, that no envious tongue may probe the secrets of our love, nor any profane scoffer ridicule those sensitive pleasures that he is too unsentimental to enjoy." With these, and similar thoughts, did Julia occupy herself, until Charles pointed out to her the majestic entrance to the Highlands. Our heroine, who was truly alive to all the charms of nature, gazed with ...
— Tales for Fifteen: or, Imagination and Heart • James Fenimore Cooper

... train, with healing on its wings. Now "Hawthorne!" the conductor cries. My neighbor starts and rubs his eyes. He hurries yawning through the car And steps out where the houses are. This is the reason of our quest! Not wantonly we break the rest Of town and village, nor do we Lightly profane night's sanctity. What Love commands the train fulfills, And beautiful upon the hills Are these our feet of burnished steel. Subtly and certainly I feel That Glen Rock welcomes us to her And silent Ridgewood seems to ...
— Trees and Other Poems • Joyce Kilmer

... cease, And leave these classic tomes in peace! Of Roman and of Grecian lore Sure mortal brain can hold no more. These ancients, as Noll Bluff might say, "Were pretty fellows in their day;" But time and tide o'er all prevail - On Christmas eve a Christmas tale, Of wonder and of war—"Profane! What! leave the loftier Latian strain, Her stately prose, her verse's charms, To hear the clash of rusty arms: In Fairy Land or Limbo lost, To jostle conjuror and ghost, Goblin and witch!" Nay, Heber dear, Before you touch my charter, hear; Though Leyden aids, alas! no more, My ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott

... roughest tar on board. He was a sincere Christian too, and, what was more, was not ashamed of his Christianity. He exhibited his principles in his practice—in the daily duties of life,—till he taught the most profane and profligate to respect him, if not to adopt them. I wish there were more Basil Vernons in the service. Thank Heaven! there are some shining lights to lighten us in our darkness—leaven, which gradually, though slowly, may, by God's providence, ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston

... of the Hypocrite Of the Busybody Of the Superstitious Of the Profane Of the Malcontent Of the Inconstant Of the Flatterer Of the Slothful Of the Covetous Of the Vainglorious Of the Presumptuous Of the Distrustful Of the Ambitious Of the Unthrift Of ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various

... whole inspection of the situation, formation of the plot, and visual dialogue had really been so rapid as to make no long break after the lictor ceased speaking), "do you dare thus to do what even the most profane and impious have never dared before? Will you lay hands on two inviolate tribunes of the plebs, and those under their personal protection; and by your very act become a sacer—an outlaw devoted to the gods, whom it is a pious thing for any man ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis

... to. A glance around the doorpost showed that he was, apparently, talking to himself—at least, there was no other human being to be seen. He held in his hand a battered pair of marine glasses and occasionally he peered through them. Each time he did so his soliloquy became more animated and profane. ...
— The Woman-Haters • Joseph C. Lincoln

... seems to be one of those daring, even profane assaults on elemental questions by ways that are untrodden if not forbidden. It is a wonderful type of Romanticist poetry in the bold choice of subject and in the intense vigor and beauty of the verse. Coming with a shock upon the classic days of German poetry, it met with a stern rebuke from ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp

... coldly and thanklessly, and with vacant, unsatisfied eyes that I watched the slow coming and the gliding away of the waters. I tell myself now, as a profane fact, that I did stand by that river (Methley gathered some seeds from the bushes that grew there), but since that I am away from his banks, “divine Scamander” has recovered the proper mystery belonging to him as an unseen deity; a kind of indistinctness, ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake

... Waltzing is a profane and vicious dance. Always. When it is prosecuted in the centre of a great crowd, in a dusty hall, on a warm midsummer day, it is also a disgusting dance. Night is its only appropriate time. The blinding, dazzling gas-light throws ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... luxurious nursery at home. At her side was a little girl carrying as tenderly a large wax doll. A diamond necklace sparkled like a circlet of fire around the lady's neck. Her husband had gone to the south side, and she had had but time to snatch this and her children. A crowd of obscene and profane rowdies stood just behind them, and with brutal jest and coarse laughter they passed around a whiskey-bottle. One of these roughs caught a glimpse of the diamond necklace, and was putting forth his blackened hand to grasp it, when Dennis pointed the captured pistol ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe

... respectable man, the prosperous, life shows herself only in the world, decently attired: we know her at home in her nudity. For him she has manners, a good behaviour, a society smile; with us she is frankly herself—brutal, if you please, corrupt with disease and vice, sordid, profane, lascivious, but genuine. She is kind to him, but hypocritical, affecting scruples, modesties, pieties, a heart and conscience, attitudinising, blushing false blushes, weeping crocodile tears; she is cruel to us, but sincere. She is at her ease with us—unashamed. She shows us her thousand moods. ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland

... prophets in dreams and visions. But there is a very strong and clear line of distinction drawn on this subject in the 23d of Jeremiah, from the 25th to the 28th verses. "He that hath a dream, let him tell a dream, and he that hath my word let him speak my word." The sacred and the profane, or idle dream, are likened as "chaff" ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft

... rapidity of her screw was such that I could neither follow nor count its revolutions. When I reflected that this marvellous electric agent, after having afforded motion, heat, and light to the Nautilus, still protected her from outward attack, and transformed her into an ark of safety which no profane hand might touch without being thunderstricken, my admiration was unbounded, and from the structure it extended to the engineer who had ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne

... wisdom. There is, indeed, Solomon, but he fell off at the last; and as he belongs to sacred history, we must not take a liberty with his name. Who is there very, very wise, besides Solomon? Think, Sophy,—Profane History." ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... glorious work of resisting oppression, and defending their ancient privileges, endeared to them by as many ages as had passed since distinctions of colour were made by an Almighty hand. He invited them to pledge themselves with him to denounce and resist such profane, such blasphemous innovations, proposed by shallow enthusiasts, seconded by designing knaves, and destined to be wrought out by the agency of demons—demons in human form. He called upon all patriots to join him in his pledge; and in token of their faith, to drink ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau

... said he, "she loves a church much better than a playhouse, and she never laughs nor goes to sleep in church as I do. And she is breaking me of swearing—by degrees. She says that no fashion can justify what is profane, and that it must be vulgar as well as wicked. And she is frankness ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade

... race is the ideal King, the Brahmana in each race is the ideal Teacher; and we learn that when the Kalki Avatara shall come He shall call from the sacred village of Shamballa—the village known to the occultist though not to the profane—two Kings who have remained throughout the age in order to help the world in its evolution. And the name of the Manu who will be the King of the next Race, is said in the Purana to be Moru; and the name ...
— Avataras • Annie Besant

... period of youth it is the only means of preserving the virgin purity of the heart and of the body. Does anyone believe that young men who in good season have in their hearts a love strong and worthy of them would profane themselves, as they so often otherwise do, in vile affections, in those relations of a day, giving themselves a holocaust to beauty without soul, or ...
— What a Young Woman Ought to Know • Mary Wood-Allen

... of you—could you comprehend it, could you remember that you ought to love God with all your heart, and all your strength, so that a single desire that has not connection with Him defiles you—you would appear a monster in your own sight. How! you would exclaim. Duties so holy, and morals so profane! A vigilance so continual, and a life so careless and dissipated! A love of God so pure, so complete, so universal, and a heart the continual prey of a thousand impulses, either foreign or criminal! If thus it is, who, O my God! will be entitled to salvation? ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 3 - Massillon to Mason • Grenville Kleiser

... of his party for the Presidency was exceedingly obnoxious to him. Meeting the Colonel the morning after the adjournment of the convention I inquired, "Are you happy?" To this he replied, that he was somewhat in the condition of a very profane youth who had just got religion at a backwoods camp-meeting. Soon after his conversion, the preacher, taking him affectionately by the hand, inquired: "My young friend, are you very happy?" "Well, parson," replied the only half-converted ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson

... 'Don't be profane; don't parade your unbelieving notions to a poor old woman on her death-bed. You may want to leave your daughter a beggar, and your son little better, but you have no right to disturb my last moments with your ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever

... and terrible disease which devastated England some centuries ago, and from which by heredity of spirit we suffer now, Puritanism. That was a dreadful plague, the brutes held and taught that joy and laughter and merriment were evil: it was a doctrine the most profane and wicked. Why, what is the commonest crime one sees? A sullen face. That is the ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various

... Creator to revere Must sure become the creature; But still the preaching cant forbear, And ev'n the rigid feature: Yet ne'er with wits profane to range Be complaisance extended; An atheist-laugh's a poor exchange ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson

... is to us the most convincing proof of Falstaff's power of gaining over the good will of those he was familiar with, except indeed Bardolph's somewhat profane exclamation on hearing the account of his death, "Would I were with him, wheresoe'er he is, whether in ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin

... great pain and serious danger. Lawrence was a man full of the Holy Spirit and love to Jesus. Out of the fullness of his heart his mouth spoke when his friend appeared to desire such converse; but he never bored him with any subject—for it is possible to be a profane, as ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne

... Philip's own signature, is a tissue of invective and virulence. The illustrious object of its abuse is accused of having engaged the heretics to profane the churches and break the images; of having persecuted and massacred the Catholic priests; of hypocrisy, tyranny, and perjury; and, as the height of atrocity, of having introduced liberty of conscience into his country! For these causes, and many others, the king declares him "proscribed and banished ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan

... us in the only safe path. You cannot be a child of God if you do not his will; you cannot do it unless you know it, and it is by the Bible he is pleased to communicate that knowledge. Do you begin to see, Edward, that the Bible is more suitable to be an every-day book than your profane history?" ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous

... Luther's views on the Lord's Supper. At Marburg, 1529, he was still violently opposed to the Zwinglians and their "profane" teaching in an Opinion on Carlstadt's doctrine, of October 9, 1625, he affirms that Christ, both as God and man, i.e., with His body and blood is present in the Supper. (C. R. 1, 760.) In September of the following ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente

... suppose, their forebears—somewhere afar off in Asia, perhaps, in the dim, immemorial ages—had all passed through the various phases of the civilization of their time, and that they did not grow out of the tail of any gorilla. It is not for profane man to inquire what possible reason there could be for the perpetuation—let alone the creation—of such a useless, bootless race. There they are, occupiers of the soil for unknown centuries—before the white man ever saw their faces—many ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... well enough, will sound wild and chimerical to the profane herd of those vulgar and mechanical politicians who have no place among us—a sort of people who think that nothing exists but what is gross and material; and who, therefore, far from being qualified to be directors of the great movement of empire, are unfit to turn a ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton

... the original, only do so in secret and in a whisper. Expulsion from caste, without the smallest hope of re-entering it, would be the lightest punishment of a Brahman who exposed those books to the eyes of the profane." It would probably be unfair, however, to suppose that the Vedas were kept in the original Sanskrit simply from motives of policy. It was probably thought that the actual words of the sacred text had themselves a concrete force and potency which would be lost in a translation. ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell



Words linked to "Profane" :   carnalize, lead astray, sacred, laic, alter, dirty, unholy, secular, impious, sensualize, pervert, infect, unsanctified, demoralise, set on, desecrate, violate, misdirect, attack, sensualise, debauch, vitiate, debase, unconsecrated, profanation, suborn, unhallowed, carnalise, lead off



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