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adjective
Reprehensible  adj.  Worthy of reprehension; culpable; censurable; blamable.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Reprehensible" Quotes from Famous Books



... to think that in those reprehensible bygone times, many other people did their business in ...
— Frenzied Fiction • Stephen Leacock

... conversation. You see," he added, knocking the ashes from his pipe, and leaning carelessly back against the rock, "I live in a world, every member of which is more or less satisfied. I will be frank with you, and I will admit that I find satisfaction in either man or woman a most reprehensible state. I find a certain relief, therefore, in talking to a person who wants something he hasn't got, or who wants to be something ...
— The Moving Finger • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... "It was reprehensible, Mr. Stott, I am more distressed than I can tell you. I have no excuse to offer for Hicks' action, but the truth is, as he knows and has taken advantage of it, I cannot replace him and it is impossible to get along without a cook ...
— The Dude Wrangler • Caroline Lockhart

... son remain quiet! In attempting to slay the Pandavas in exile, he will only lose his own life. Thou art as honest as the wise Vidura, or Bhishma, or ourselves, or Kripa, or Drona. O thou of great wisdom, dissension with one's own kin are forbidden, sinful and reprehensible! Therefore, O king, it behoveth thee to desist from such acts! And, O Bharata, Duryodhana looketh with such jealousy towards the Pandavas that great harm would be the consequence, if thou didst not interfere. Or let this wicked son of thine, ...
— Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 1 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

... "It was, sir, that reprehensible as their father's conduct may be, common humanity, and a regard for your own character, will hardly warrant their being left thus destitute. They at least are your relations, and have neither offended nor deceived you; on the contrary, are, with you, joint victims ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat

... psychological proposition that belief is independent of the will. Though this or any other state of the understanding may be involuntary, the manifestation of such a state is not so, but is a voluntary act, and, 'being neutral in itself, may be commendable or reprehensible according to the circumstances in which it takes place.' (Bailey's Essay on Formation ...
— On Compromise • John Morley

... down hyar ter the Court House afore we start. An' while they'll all be a-foolin' away thar time a-ridin' round that thar ring, ye an' me will be a-gittin' married." Ten minutes ago Jacob Brice did not think riding around that ring was such a reprehensible waste of time. "What's ter hender? It don't make no ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock

... Zora, Sypher, Emmy, and himself, he had entangled his mind into a condition of intricate complication. He longed to continue to sun himself in the presence of his divinity. But being a married man (no matter how nominally), too much sunning appeared reprehensible. He had also arranged for the sunning of Clem Sypher, and was aware of the indelicacy of two going through this delicious process at the same time. He also dreaded the possible incredulity of Zora when he should ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke

... single-handed to fight any Government which violated Luxemburg. Although this gross disregard by the Germans of their solemn pledge did not entail the same consequences as the subsequent violation of Belgian neutrality, it is equally reprehensible from the point of view of international law, and the more cowardly in proportion as this state is weaker than Belgium. Against this intrusion Luxemburg protested, but, unlike Belgium, she did not appeal to ...
— Why We Are At War (2nd Edition, revised) • Members of the Oxford Faculty of Modern History

... the crinkled gold of her hair. He then gave himself up to that duplex act to which all unavowed lovers are prone—the simultaneous secret worship of one woman and open devotion to another. It never occurred to him that there was anything unfair in this, or that it would be as reprehensible to throw the name of Miss Dallas into the arena of gossip as that of Miss Belding. That was not his affair; there was only one person in the universe to be considered by him. And for Miss Dallas's part, she was the last person in the world to suspect any ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay

... thought and of science," He said in his positive way: "So weigh them, obey them, Display them, and lay them To heart in your infancy's day!" Jack made no reply, But he said on the sly An eloquent word, that had come From a quite indefensible, Most reprehensible, But ...
— Grimm Tales Made Gay • Guy Wetmore Carryl

... was most reprehensible on the part of that expansive youth, Geoffrey, to have acquainted Gladys—strictly between themselves of course—that his company had been "dished out with a brand-new, slap-up, experimental automatic rifle, that'll make Mr. ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell

... lawless murder of a good citizen, merely because he failed at first to grasp the meaning of the lesson placed before him to learn, is, to my way of thinking, not only unjustifiable but damnably weak and reprehensible." ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower

... burst of wrath, the girl appeared to be struggling for composure, and vainly endeavoring to articulate something, of which Miss Arthur could only catch the name, "Mr. Percy." Thereupon she fairly bounced out of her chair, demanding to know "what on earth" Mr. Percy had to do with her maid's reprehensible conduct. ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch

... portion. He took them all into a free State, emancipated them, and left himself without a dollar, but went to work and became the leader of political abolitionists, while Gerrit Smith devoted his splendid talents and immense wealth to the cause of the slave. When their mode of action was so reprehensible to Mr. Garrison, we may judge the strength of his opposition to that plan of action which resulted in the overthrow of slavery. His non-resistance covered ballots as well as bullets, and slavery, the creation of brute force and ballots, must not be attacked by ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm

... well be in a gale of wind, with the Foreland lights ahead and infinite possibilities all around. The captain drinks his whisky and hot water with a certain slow appreciation of the merits of that reprehensible solution, and glances at the aneroid barometer on the bulkhead of ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman

... previous to any submission on the part of America. It has even shot a good deal beyond that mark, and has admitted that the complaints of our former mode of exerting the right of taxation were not wholly unfounded. That right thus exerted is allowed to have had something reprehensible in it,—something unwise, or something grievous; since, in the midst of our heat and resentment, we, of ourselves, have proposed a capital alteration, and, in order to get rid of what seemed so very exceptionable, have instituted a mode that is altogether new,—one that is, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... soldiers fight any better, it certainly is not very much to be deprecated. To settle disbanded volunteers in the South so as to gradually drive away slave labor by the superior value of free labor on lands confiscated or public, is certainly not a very reprehensible proposition. But it originated, as all the more advanced political proposals of the day do, with men who favor Emancipation, present or prospective, and therefore it must be cried down! The worst possible construction is put upon it. It is 'a bribe for ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various

... were introduced to a small red-haired boy with a lisp, they refused to take him seriously. In England youth is an unpardonable thing. Lately, Curzon, Churchill, Edward Grey, Hugh Cecil, and others have made it less reprehensible. But, in spite of a vigorous campaign, in which Lady Randolph took an active part, Oldham decided it was not ready to accept young Churchill for a member. Later he was ...
— Real Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis

... convulsion of excitement, owing to Heriot's sending Boddy a challenge to fight a duel with pistols. Mr. Rippenger preached a sermon to the boys concerning the unChristian spirit and hideous moral perversity of one who would even consent to fight a duel. How much more reprehensible, then, was one that could bring himself to defy a fellow-creature to mortal combat! We were not of his opinion; and as these questions are carried by majorities, we decided that Boddy was a coward, and approved the idea that Heriot would have to shoot or scourge him when the holidays came. Mr. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... is highly reprehensible. I must report it to the captain as soon as we get back, after we have carried and brought out that French corvette, and covered ourselves with honour and glory; and I don't know what he'll say to you. And now, sir, after, as in duty bound, from being your ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston

... be long before we find out!" cried Robinson, in disgust. "If Yale has whiffled about at this late hour it will show reprehensible weakness and lack of policy. Harvard is bound to win. Then she will crow. They have won the annual debate right along, so that my old fogy uncle declares all the brains are in Harvard. If they win the spring race he'll decide that brawn is going to Harvard, ...
— Frank Merriwell's Races • Burt L. Standish

... belongs to mortal men is not fittingly offered to the immortals. Still less, then, can such things be fittingly offered to the True God Who is above all gods.[70] Therefore to worship God by means of bodily acts seems to be reprehensible. And consequently religion ...
— On Prayer and The Contemplative Life • St. Thomas Aquinas

... submission on the part of America. It has even shot a good deal beyond that mark, and has admitted that the complaints of our former mode of exerting the right of taxation were not wholly unfounded. That right, thus exerted, is allowed to have something reprehensible in it—something unwise, or something grievous: since in the midst of our heat and resentment we of ourselves have proposed a capital alteration, and in order to get rid of what seemed so very exceptionable ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various

... introduced by me at the meeting. But I wish not to exculpate myself where I feel I have been to blame. The sentiments thus expressed were not illegal or criminal; yet I will freely acknowledge that they were violent, intemperate, and reprehensible. For, by attempting to render the office contemptible, they tended to diminish that respect for the execution of the laws which is essential to the maintenance of a free government; but whilst I feel regret at the ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens

... at sea-going creatures from moving vessels, without any possibility of securing them if killed or wounded, is cruel, reprehensible, and criminal, and everywhere should be forbidden by ship captains, and also ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday

... than the Duchess of Kent's behaviour to the King, nothing more reprehensible; but his behaviour to her has always been as injudicious and undignified as possible, and this last sortie was monstrous. It was his duty and his right to send for her, and signify to her both his displeasure at the past and his ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville

... aiding and abetting. You have been acting, as I say, in ignorance, without realising the awful consequences of your folly and duplicity. But that you should have chosen this sacred place for such illicit and reprehensible behaviour; that by the grave of this worthy man who loved you, by the stones chosen and paid for by my fraternal affection, you should plot and scheme to deceive your family, and help to lead a confiding and beautiful creature to ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle

... on the 24th January, 1776.[3] His parents were very ill-assorted, and led such an unhappy life that they parted in young Ernst's third year. His father, who was in the legal profession, was a man of considerable talent and of acute intellect, but irregular and wild in his habits and given to reprehensible practices. His mother, on the contrary, the daughter of Consistorialrath Doerffer, had been trained up on the strictest moral principles, and to habits of orderliness and propriety; and to her regard for outward ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann

... polite conventions of the academic guild, and by many is identified with scientific thoroughness and profound learning.... If, in general, deadening, hide-bound caste methods, not seldom the cover for poverty of thought and lack of cleverness, are reprehensible, they are doubly reprehensible in history. The history of a people is not a mere mental discipline, like botany or mathematics, but a living science, a magistra vitae, leading straight to national self-knowledge, and acting to a certain degree upon ...
— Jewish History • S. M. Dubnow

... seemed now quite settled and fine, and as I had got into the trade-winds, I set about preparations for hoisting the topsails. This was a most arduous task, and my first attempts were complete failures, owing, in a great degree, to my reprehensible ignorance of mechanical forces. The first error I made was in applying my apparatus of blocks and pulleys to a rope which was too weak, so that the very first heave I made broke it in two, and sent me staggering against the after-hatch, over which I tripped, ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne

... was all said I had accomplished nothing. The man looked at me in blank amazement as though I had suddenly lost my mind. He had not the faintest idea that burning up that beautiful forest was reprehensible in the slightest degree. To him and all his kind, the only thing worth while was to clear that bit of land in the valley. If every tree on the mountain was destroyed in the process, what difference did it make? It would be done eventually, anyway. Land, whether ...
— Across Mongolian Plains - A Naturalist's Account of China's 'Great Northwest' • Roy Chapman Andrews

... no means made him unhappy. Across the Downs' shoulder there was Desdemona; and he was free, save for the ties of affection—stronger these than any dog-chain—which bound him to the Nuthill folk. And as for Desdemona; owing to what many fanciers would have regarded as the reprehensible eccentricity of the owner of Shaws, Desdemona was ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson

... cities of the civilized world, shops where skilled artisans are busily at work in the manufacture of "antiques"—antique furniture, antique rugs or brasses or clocks or violins. The ingenious persons engaged in this reprehensible activity have developed their skill to such a point that it seems probable that fully half their deceit never comes to light at all, and it is certain that their products rarely suffer much by contrast with the ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble

... solicited and obtained Abelard's absolution, i. 146; buried with Abelard, ib.; a fine lady, 147; Pope's reprehensible lines found ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... didn't disturb her, which proved at once that he was right. Linda regarded herself with interest as a supremely reprehensible person, perhaps a vampire. The latter, though, was a rather stout woman who, dressed in frightful lingerie, occupied couches with her arms caught about the neck of a man bending over her. Every detail ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer

... scale. He knows his own superiority, does not conceal it, and acts up to it. Self-glorification overrates its own capacities; self-depreciation underrates them and shuns its responsibilities, being the more reprehensible of ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various

... grasshopper. Doubtless each one of my readers has at some time taken a grasshopper into his hand, and, holding the tip of his finger against the insect's mouth, has promised the creature its freedom on condition that it disclosed its reprehensible habit of chewing tobacco. The grasshopper surely complied, and I trust the promiser was as good as his word. The grasshopper's head is so placed that, while it is at the front of its body, the mouth is directly ...
— The Meaning of Evolution • Samuel Christian Schmucker

... accurately defined; they consist in a simple fact without any complication, or in a principle without its application in detail. *x But the difficulty increases when it is not the obedience of the township, but that of the town officers which is to be enforced. All the reprehensible actions of which a public functionary may be guilty are ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville

... France, if the project of Northumberland had not been blasted in its infancy. That Elizabeth had a better claim than the Queen of Scotland was indisputable. To the part which Cranmer, and unfortunately some better men than Cranmer, took in this most reprehensible scheme, much of the severity with which the Protestants were afterwards treated must ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... experience, took good care to keep the Japanese well informed concerning the military measures of the government, and even discussed the organization of the army and the possibilities of the strategical advance in a way that seemed particularly reprehensible in the light of the fearful reverses of the last few months. The government warnings were disregarded especially by the large dailies, who seemed to find it absolutely impossible to regard the events of the day in any other light than that ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff

... I might that universal preference on the part of mankind to get something from nothing, and to acquire the largest return for the least possible expenditure, but I question my right to say that Roscommon was much more reprehensible than his fellows. ...
— The Story of a Mine • Bret Harte

... of the past were also floating through Grandpa's mind. The look of reprehensible mirth was still in his eyes, and he showed his teeth, which gleamed oddly white and strong in ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene

... for his fall the Christmas season of all times was reprehensible, a fact which Mary and Humpy impressed upon him in the strongest terms. The Hopper was fully aware of the inopportuneness of his transgressions, but not to the point of encouraging his wife to ...
— A Reversible Santa Claus • Meredith Nicholson

... Contempt is the lot of Christ's vicar because he seems to tolerate these actions. You, dear son, have charge of the bishopric of Valencia, the most important in Spain; you are a chancellor of the Church, and what renders your conduct all the more reprehensible is the fact that you have a seat among the cardinals, with the Pope, as advisors of the Holy See. We leave it to you whether it is becoming to your dignity to court young women, and to send those whom you love fruits ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius

... objection was made to Mr. C— on the same ground; and before the week was out, it was pretty widely known that the new preacher had indulged in reprehensible personalities. Some said this was an error in the preacher; others, that he was highly blamable; while others affirmed that there must be some mistake about ...
— Lessons in Life, For All Who Will Read Them • T. S. Arthur

... had an idea that all mourners ought to be roused; that much indulgence in grief for the dead was reprehensible. ...
— Vixen, Volume I. • M. E. Braddon

... the grave all restraints are taken off from the passions, free course given to every impulse. Chateaubriand says, bluntly, "There can be no morality if there be no future state." 5 With displeasing coarseness, and with most reprehensible recklessness of reasoning, Luther says, in contradiction to the essential nobleness of his loving, heroic nature, "If you believe in no future life, I would not give a mushroom for your God. Do, then, as you like. For if no God, so no devil, no hell: as with a ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... an able man, and loyal to the Union; but, unlike Seward, he was never loyal to the President personally, and was constantly plotting in his own interest to supplant Lincoln as the nominee of his party in 1864,—a most reprehensible course on the part of a cabinet officer. This did not give concern to Mr. Lincoln in the slightest degree. He cared very little what Mr. Chase said or thought of him personally, so long as he was doing his duty as Secretary ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom

... sometimes happens that unworthy men, by making insincere professions, enter the church and seek to use this connection to interfere with the ordinary course of law in China. We all agree that such conduct is entirely reprehensible, and we desire it to be known that we give no support ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN

... critical moments) in a bed that must have cost a million dollars. Some womanly, though welching, intuition led the bride to lock her door. Some manly intuition led the hero to enter the gardens and climb in through a window into the house. If he had not been a hero it would have been a rather reprehensible act. But to the heroes all things are pure. He prowled through the house heroically without attracting attention. Every step of his burglarious progress ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes

... ravings rantipole we hold are reprehensible, But of our kindly kinship we're affectionately sensible. A mother's proud to see her child learning to "run alone," you know; But does not wish to see her "run away" from home, she'll ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, VOL. 100. Feb. 28, 1891 • Various

... antic was inexcusable, all were equally agreed to pretend that it was a mere trifle of no importance; you cannot deprive a man of his prescriptive right for a mere trifle of no importance. Besides, nobody could be so foolish as to imagine that goosedriving, though reprehensible in a Mayor about to succeed an Earl, is an act of which official notice ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett

... drama there had been much that was reprehensible. But whoever compares even the least decorous plays of Fletcher with those contained in the volume before us will see how much the profligacy which follows a period of overstrained austerity goes beyond the profligacy which precedes ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... nail to the credit of his account, and departed from this El Dorado, this Bank of England of the Red Man in the wilderness. And when it was all over he went his way, thinking he had done a very reprehensible act, and one by no means ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming

... present day this would not be so reprehensible. We are comparatively an unbelieving generation; and what are called "spiritual circles" are common, though not always unattended with mischievous results. But at that time when it was considered a deadly sin ...
— Dulcibel - A Tale of Old Salem • Henry Peterson

... public affairs was, at this period, intrusted to five persons, and hence the famous combination, the united letters of which formed the word 'Cabal:'—Clifford, Arlington, Buckingham, Ashley, and Lauderdale. Their reprehensible schemes, their desperate characters, rendered them the opprobrium of their age, and the objects of censure to all posterity. Whilst matters were in this state a daring outrage, which spoke fearfully of the lawless state of the times, was ascribed, though wrongly, ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton

... husband's room at daybreak the next morning, and peered within the darkened chamber. At the "old" house they had shared a room, but the architect had chosen to separate them at the New, and they had not known how to formulate an objection, although to both of them something seemed vaguely reprehensible ...
— The Turmoil - A Novel • Booth Tarkington

... the verge of eternity—strange, doubtless, and reprehensible to Right Reverend persons, who never 'cast away' anything; to whom a religious profession has been a highway to pleasure and preferment, who live in the comfortable assurance that as it has been in this life so it will be in the next. ...
— Bunyan • James Anthony Froude

... apportioned it is difficult to say. Jackson laid it upon Hill. And that officer's conduct was undoubtedly reprehensible. The absence of Major Dabney, struck down by sickness, is a possible explanation of the faulty orders. But that Jackson would have done better to have accepted Lee's hint, to have confided his intentions to his divisional commanders, and to have ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson

... outrage at the hands of certain ruffians. Broken-hearted and disconsolate she determined to make her complaint to the king; but she was told that it would be all in vain, because so spiritless and faineant was he that he not only neglected to avenge affronts put upon others, but endured with a reprehensible tameness those which were offered to himself, insomuch that whoso had any ill-humour to vent, took occasion to vex or mortify him. The lady, hearing this report, despaired of redress, and by way of alleviation of her ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio

... won't." Wayne Wayland's voice hardened suddenly; his sound, white teeth snapped together. "You are getting exactly what you deserve. You betrayed me by spying upon me while you broke bread in my house. I see nothing reprehensible in Mr. Marsh's conduct; but even if I did, I would not censure him; any measures are ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach

... and damnation in the next, of accepting, in the strict and literal sense, every statement contained in the Protestant Bible. I was told to believe, and I did believe, that doubt about any of them was a sin, not less reprehensible than a moral delict. I suppose that, out of a thousand of my contemporaries, nine hundred, at least, had their minds systematically warped and poisoned, in the name of the God of truth, by like discipline. I am sure that, even a score of years later, those who ventured to question ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley

... He willed, therefore, the state—He willed its connection with the source and original archetype of all perfection. They who are convinced of His will, which is the law of laws, and the sovereign of sovereigns, cannot think it reprehensible that this, our corporate realty and homage, that this our recognition of a signiory paramount—I had almost said this oblation of the state itself—as a worthy offering on the high altar of universal praise, should be ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various

... hatched and schemes devised, the object of which is to disorganise and impede the consolidation of the empire. The conduct of Servia, as well as of greater and more important nations, has been most reprehensible, and with it the forbearance of Turkey, notwithstanding the corruptness of her government and the fanaticism of the Mussulman population, has contrasted most favourably. Little wonder, then, that ill-blood should have existed between ...
— Herzegovina - Or, Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels • George Arbuthnot

... that made one love her, and a few in spite of which one bore her affection. Her method of dealing with her native tongue came among the latter. It was reprehensible of her too, seeing the money her grandmother had spent in giving her a chance to be a lady—that is, the type of lady who affects a blindness concerning the stern, plain facts of existence, and who considers that to speak so that she cannot be heard ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin

... even amid the horrors of battle. However unseemly, they served to keep up the spirits of the men, to which end other spirits contained in canteens were also freely added. A most reprehensible practice this, for men should go into battle free from unnatural excitement, if they wish to serve the cause in which they are engaged; and moreover, the instances of cruelty which sometimes are perpetrated on the wounded and dying, are caused by the drunkenness of such ruffians ...
— Thirteen Months in the Rebel Army • William G. Stevenson

... traveler should start on his journey counting on a perpetually clear sky. On this point it remains to be said that the most conscientious moralists doubt greatly whether society can show as many good actions as bad ones; and in the picture I have painted of it there are more virtuous figures than reprehensible ones. Blameworthy actions, faults and crimes, from the lightest to the most atrocious, always meet with punishment, human or divine, signal or secret. I have done better than the historian, for I am free. Cromwell here on earth escaped all punishment but that inflicted ...
— The Human Comedy - Introductions and Appendix • Honore de Balzac

... it vanished so instantly? After such strong and reiterated professions for my sake never to have a second husband, not only to marry but to cool intirely toward me, and to be only anxious, in a poor selfish circumlocutory apology, for a conduct which she herself felt to be highly reprehensible! ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft

... Cossacks, and the like—and he feels perhaps inclined to complain that he has had no opportunity of mixing with what old-fashioned people call gentle-folk and persons of quality. By way of making amends to him for this reprehensible conduct on my part, I propose now to present him to the whole Noblesse* in a body, not only those at present living, but also their near and distant ancestors, right back to the foundation of the Russian ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace

... rankle in Anne's stormy bosom, Marilla descended to the kitchen, grievously troubled in mind and vexed in soul. She was as angry with herself as with Anne, because, whenever she recalled Mrs. Rachel's dumbfounded countenance her lips twitched with amusement and she felt a most reprehensible ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... other is due to their limiting adjuncts, i.e. the internal organ, the sense-organs, and the body. Brahman indeed is without parts and omnipresent; but through its adjuncts it becomes capable of division just as ether is divided by jars and the like. Nor must it be said that this leads to a reprehensible mutual dependence—Brahman in so far as divided entering into conjunction with its adjuncts, and again the division in Brahman being caused by its conjunction with its adjuncts; for these adjuncts and Brahman's connexion with them ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut

... the facts in reality. These meetings of Mr. Carlyle's and Barbara's, instead of episodes of love-making and tender speeches, were positively painful, especially to Barbara, from the unhappy nature of the subject to be discussed. Far from feeling a reprehensible pleasure at seeking the meetings with Mr. Carlyle, Barbara shrank from them; but that she was urged by dire necessity, in the interests of Richard, she would wholly have avoided such. Poor Barbara, in spite of that explosion of bottled-up excitement years back, ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood

... the time that I visited him, I never heard him utter a single word of contempt for the Christian religion. On the contrary, he used often to say, that nothing could be more reprehensible than to turn into ridicule those who believed in it, since in this strange world it is equally difficult to arrive at knowing what one is or is not to believe; and since many freethinkers teach doctrines which are ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli

... did the chores. It was inevitable then that the children when they first came along, should be allowed to grow wild, to associate with their inferiors, and to become confirmed in habits that were deplorable and reprehensible. I am entering upon no defense of my Uncle Cain. I do not excuse his misbehavior in the least, but when a censorious world holds up its hands in holy horror whenever he is mentioned, and uses his name as a synonym for evil, I would merely beg it to remember the lad's bringing ...
— The Autobiography of Methuselah • John Kendrick Bangs

... hero of the story, a German. Mr. Runge, in writing afterwards to the Ulster Observer, entirely exonerates Mr. Coxwell from any blame, attributing his mischances solely to the reprehensible conduct of his companions. On approaching the ground, Mr. Coxwell gave clear instructions. The passengers were to sit down in an unconstrained position facing each other, and be prepared for some heavy shocks. Above ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon

... humblest and poorest class of society. Anger does not make him forget that he speaks to a citizen, to a man. "I ask pardon," says the first magistrate of the capital, addressing himself to a rag-gatherer; "I ask your pardon, if I am angry; but your conduct is so reprehensible, that I cannot speak ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago

... with a hatred that made every inch of her tremble. And, perhaps because jealousy is a great awakener of the virtues, she had a perception of something in it worse than lack of dignity—something vaguely but outrageously reprehensible. Finally, when Penrod brushed by her, touched her with his elbow, and, did not even see her, Marjorie's state of mind (not unmingled with emotion!) became dangerous. In fact, a trained nurse, chancing to observe her at this juncture, would ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington

... moment her reserve with her lover in a matter so personal to herself seemed to her extremely reprehensible. ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston

... next morning in a late and leisurely fashion, as was his reprehensible habit; he had evidently no appetite for catching worms. But the other guests seemed to have felt a similar indifference, and they helped themselves to breakfast from the sideboard at intervals during the hours verging upon lunch. So that it was not many hours later when the first sensation of that ...
— The Man Who Knew Too Much • G.K. Chesterton

... subvert the constitution last framed by military power, and those who maintain the authority of that constitution. The antagonist parties each hold possession of different States of the Republic, and the fortunes of the war are constantly changing. Meanwhile the most reprehensible means have been employed by both parties to extort money from foreigners, as well as natives, to carry on this ruinous contest. The truth is that this fine country, blessed with a productive soil and a benign climate, has been reduced by civil dissension to a condition of almost hopeless anarchy ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 5: James Buchanan • James D. Richardson

... last-named colour is never to be admitted, unless as an outlaw, who is to be used by the Worthy Grand, and who is to be so educated that he will not dare to commit any daring act, without permission from the Worthy Grand; and it shall be highly reprehensible in any Brother to converse with any coloured Brother, upon any business pertaining to the Brotherhood; and all such shall lay themselves liable to a vote of censure—as the man of colour is not admitted for other purpose, than ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green

... practice, so common with some theological writers, of drawing dark pictures of heathenism, in which not one luminous spot is visible, in order to exalt the revelations given to the Jews, is exceedingly unfortunate, and highly reprehensible. It is unfortunate, because the skeptical scholar knows that there were some elements of truth and excellence, and even of grandeur, in the religion and civilization of the republics of Greece and Rome; and it is reprehensible, because it is a one-sided and unjust procedure, in so ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker

... offenders belong shall be held collectively responsible and punished with rigour. I call upon each and every one of the people of Korea to understand clearly what I have herewith said to you and avoid all reprehensible action." ...
— Korea's Fight for Freedom • F.A. McKenzie

... has given me Saint Vitus' dance, has kept Laura awake for nights, has reduced Angela to hysterics, and you actually have the face to tell me it is harmless! Judged by its effects, I consider it quite as reprehensible as a taste for cards or a fancy for a chorus girl. Those are vices at least that belong to our century and to civilisation, but a flute is nothing less than a relic ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow

... single mind to the consideration of this matter, but that will never do. This lady is a true and much-wronged wife; that is—let us hope so!—to whom our law has given its protection and remedy; but she is also, in its eyes, somewhat reprehensible for desiring to avail herself of that protection and remedy. For, though the law is now purely the affair of the State and has nothing to do with the Appointed, it still secretly believes in the religious maxim: 'Once married, always married,' and ...
— Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy

... was vehemently attacked, for example, in the "Times" for his "injudicious and even reprehensible tone" which "aggravated the difficulties his opponents might have in giving way to him." Was this, it was asked, the way to get Roman Catholic children to the Board schools? Was it not an abandonment of the ideal ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley

... would rather keep your love, your reprehensible love which never can be satisfied, and bear its slings and arrows, and die hugging a shadow to your heart, straining your eyes into the darkness of that beyond whither you shall go—murmuring with your pale lips ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard

... Since that time crime has been very much on the increase all along the border-country. The lawlessness that is rampant at the extremities of the kingdom shows a weakness in the Central Government which is very reprehensible. But for this laxity on the borders, the recent Szeckler conspiracy for making a raid on the Russian railway ...
— Round About the Carpathians • Andrew F. Crosse

... if he tries to write exactly as he speaks. There is no style of writing but should have a certain trace of kinship with the epigraphic or monumental style, which is, indeed, the ancestor of all styles. For an author to write as he speaks is just as reprehensible as the opposite fault, to speak as he writes; for this gives a pedantic effect to what he says, and at the same ...
— The Art of Literature • Arthur Schopenhauer

... was at least an excessive dose, even for one accustomed to the drug. For a moment his resolution failed; then the dominant-note of his nature—the unconscious, fundamental egotism on which his character was based—asserted itself beyond denial. It might be reprehensible, it might even be criminal to accede to such a request, made by a man in such a condition of body and mind; yet the laws of the universe demanded self-assertion—prompted every human mind to desire, to grasp, and to hold. With a perception swifter than ...
— The Masquerader • Katherine Cecil Thurston

... silly as it was reprehensible for a late celebrated novelist to pretend that he believed there was at place called Bloomsbury-square, but he really did not know; because that was merely done for the purpose of raising a silly laugh among persons who were neither ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest

... which are perplexed by everything and frightened at shadows. In conversation, and in mixing with others, a faulty word which they may hear or a reprehensible action they may witness, however much they may in their secret hearts detest it, is at once charged upon their own conscience as a partaking ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus

... PUNCH,—Of my two selections to supply the last Horse in the Derby—one—La Fleche, so far forgot what was due to my prophetic utterances as to finish second—and indeed, very nearly win! However, as such reprehensible conduct was mainly owing to the absurd wish of her jockey, BARRETT, to be first, my readers will see that no blame attaches to me—as the mare would doubtless not have hurried so much had she been left to her ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, June 11, 1892 • Various

... mingled with his feelings for Ledscha. If to avoid the fleeting censure of aristocratic friends he left in the lurch the simple barbarian maiden who loved him with ardent passion, it was no evidence of resolute strength of soul, but of pitiful, reprehensible weakness. No, no! He must take the nocturnal voyage in order not ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... affairs of the human race. These beings ruled the earth during seventy-two generations. The last monarch, named Jan bin Jan, conducted himself so ill, that God sent the angel Haris to chastise him. Haris however became intoxicated with power, and employed his prerogative in the most reprehensible manner. God therefore at length created Adam, the first of men, crowning him with glory and honour, and giving him dominion over all other earthly beings. He commanded the angels to obey him; but Haris refused, and the Dives followed his example. The rebels were for the most part sent to ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin

... affiliations—have in many instances suffered the same decline. Trivial meant three ways; it was what might be heard at the crossroads or on any route you chanced to be traveling, and its value was accordingly slight. Lewd meant belonging to the laity; it came to mean ignorant, and then morally reprehensible. Common may be used to signify ill-bred; vulgar may be and frequently is used to signify indecent. Sabotage, from a French term meaning wooden shoe, has come to be applied to the deliberate and systematic scamping of one's work in order to injure one's employer. ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor

... pass his evenings with her. The more she grieves, the more she scolds and the more diligently he keeps away from her. I don't think Jack Satan is conspicuously wise, but he is in the main a good entertainer, with a right pretty knack at making people come again; but the really reprehensible part of his performance is not the part that attracts them. The parsons might study his methods with great advantage to ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce

... time raised her hand to give a single blow to any servant-girl, she, however, when she accidentally discovered Chin Ch'uan-erh behave on this occasion in this barefaced manner, a manner which had all her lifetime been most reprehensible to her, was so overcome by passion that she gave Chin Ch'uan-erh just one slap and spoke to her a few sharp words. And albeit Chin Ch'uan-erh indulged in solicitous entreaties, she would not on any account keep her in her service. At length, Chin Ch'uan-erh's mother, Dame Pao, ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... but sat there in speechless terror, as, out of sheer obstinacy, and partly out of a desire to scare his new companion, Kenneth kept the sheet fast—the most reprehensible act of which a boatman can be guilty in a mountain loch—and the boat under far more pressure of sail than she ought ...
— Three Boys - or the Chiefs of the Clan Mackhai • George Manville Fenn

... inserted in the midst of the Life. There is one marked distinction between the two works. Most of the Tour was seen by Johnson in manuscript. It does not appear that he ever saw any part of the Life.' This is to say that Croker's action is reprehensible not because it is an offence against art but because Johnson on private and personal grounds might not have been disposed to accept the Life as representative and just, and might have refused to sanction its appearance on an equal footing with the Tour, which on private and personal ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley

... nerves, too, didn't they? Such layers upon layers of covers for everything! It brought me to such a pass that I went to the other extreme. I wouldn't protect ANYTHING—which was very reprehensible, of course. Well, now she has pretty dishes and solid silver—but she hides them in bags and boxes, and never uses them except for company. She doesn't take any more comfort with them than she did with the ingrain carpets and cheap chairs. Of course, that's ...
— Oh, Money! Money! • Eleanor Hodgman Porter

... minutes, it pleased this reprehensible Boy to make various marks and blots on my documents, toss them to a venerable creature of sixteen, who delivered them to me with such paternal directions, that it only needed a pat on the head and an encouraging—"Now run home to your Ma, ...
— Hospital Sketches • Louisa May Alcott

... was firm, sometimes gently bantering. He seized every opportunity for a little humorous by-play. One might almost say that he tactfully teased some of his patients, giving them an idea that their ailment was absurd, and a little unworthy; that to be ill was a quaint but reprehensible weakness, which they should quickly get rid of. Indeed, this denial of the dignity of disease is one of the characteristics of the place. No homage is paid to it as a Dread Monarch. It is gently ridiculed, its terrors are made to appear second-rate, and ...
— The Practice of Autosuggestion • C. Harry Brooks

... little girl once who telled lies," admitted Celia, her shocked accents indicating her full appreciation of the reprehensible character of the practise. "And she went to the ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith

... repulsive as to see a lady or gentleman, however well dressed they may otherwise be, with unclean nails. It always results from carelessness and inattention to the minor details of the toilet, which is most reprehensible. The nails should be cut about once a week—certainly not oftener. This should be accomplished just after washing, the nail being softer at such a time. Care should be taken not to cut them too short, though, if they ...
— Our Deportment - Or the Manners, Conduct and Dress of the Most Refined Society • John H. Young

... Habersham leaned across the table and addressed her clearly: "It seems to me that such imaginary and absurd behavior would be considered as reprehensible to-day as in the remote ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow

... Robert Basset was appointed in New Haven to drum "twice upon Lordes Dayes and Lecture Dayes upon the meeting house that soe those who live farr off may heare the more distinkly." Robert may have been a good drummer, but he proved to be a most reprehensible and disreputable citizen; in the local Court Records of August 1, 1648, we find a full report of an astounding occurrence in which he played an important part. Ten men, who Avere nearly all sea-faring men,—gay, ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle

... at such a division these two men had in view well-defined objects. Their aim in itself was not absolutely illegitimate, since it foreshadowed what would be an inevitable necessity in the course of time. What rendered their doings reprehensible and positively odious were the means employed to hasten events. Their object was nothing less than to expel a part of the people, for the ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier

... the powers wielded by the President. Jefferson sincerely wished to avoid what he termed the monarchical tendencies of his predecessors; and as an earnest of his intentions he abandoned not only levees but also the practice of addressing Congress in a speech, since Republicans held this custom a reprehensible imitation of the British speech from the throne. Yet with characteristic indirection, Jefferson assigned other reasons for substituting a written message for the usual personal address. "I have had principal regard," ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson

... twelve; we'll have lunch at the hospital," Alix added. "Wouldn't you think we'd have enough of each other, we three?" she said, amusedly, beginning, in the reprehensible manner of girlhood, to roll the black scarf that had been knotted about her rolled bluejacket's collar, and to remove the pins from her hair. "But I hate to be in town and not see you both! Good-night, beloveds. I'm dead. Don't sit out here mooning with Pete all ...
— Sisters • Kathleen Norris

... commented, "isn't it about time to drop sarcasm when you and I are together? I know I've been a most reprehensible offender, but haven't ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge

... for before that date Jewish and Pagan miracles are to be found in abundance. Why should Bible miracles be severed from their relations all over the world, so that belief in them is commendable faith, while belief in the rest is reprehensible credulity? "The fact is, however, that the Gospel miracles were preceded and accompanied by others of the same type; and we may here merely mention exorcism of demons, and the miraculous cure of disease, as popular instances; they were also followed by a long ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant

... self-assertiveness, which is a natural phase of the development of the sense of individuality, or selfishness and "bullying," which are exaggerated forms of the same tendency. Both may need repression and guidance, but only the latter are reprehensible. ...
— Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium • Jessie H. Bancroft

... themselves perversely refused to give them! Few Athenian women could read or write, nor had they much use for such accomplishments, being practically condemned to life-long imprisonment. The men indorsed the Oriental idea that educating a woman is an unwise and reprehensible thing.[312] ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck

... Druidical astronomical instruments; and in the last century some columnar rock arrangement in Orkney was gravely adduced by Toland as a Druidical pavement. It is this craving after the mysterious, this reprehensible irrationalism, that has brought, indeed, the whole subject of Druidism into much modern contempt with many archaeologists. No doubt Druidism is a most interesting and a most important subject for due and ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson

... bound to believe that she has acted from mere inadvertence, and should by no means suffer his pride to master his good temper. To cause a disagreeable scene in a private ball-room is to affront your host and hostess, and to make yourself absurd. In a public room it is no less reprehensible. Always remember that good breeding and good temper (or the appearance of good temper) are ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge

... them and this question at one and the same time. And, taking little things first, I am proud and happy to discover that the member for me was the only participator in the debate who, in the vulgar and reprehensible phrase, "threw a dead cat," or, in polite terms, displayed classical learning. My member said, "Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes," with a rather graceful compliment to the Labour Conference at Nottingham. "I could not help thinking to myself," ...
— In The Fourth Year - Anticipations of a World Peace (1918) • H.G. Wells

... sit with him thyself, and renounce the path of the gods. And mayest thou no more return on thy feet to Olympus: but always grieve beside him, and watch him, until he either make thee his consort, or he indeed [make thee] his handmaid. But there I will not go to adorn his couch, for it would be reprehensible: all the Trojan ladies henceforth will reproach me. But I shall have woes without ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer

... be competent; but as a rule, not without rare, striking exceptions, these proceedings are smitten with the same sterile and complacent artificiality that was so long the curse of woman's life. I deem it almost reprehensible that, save a few general statistics, the women's colleges have not only made no study themselves of the larger problems that impend, but have often maintained a repellent attitude toward others ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall

... that this nation had any religion, nor ought they on that account to be accounted worse than the Jews, or Moors, since these nations are much more reprehensible than the pagans or idolaters. We could not discover that they performed any sacrifices or sacred rites of any kind, neither had they any temples or other places for worship. Their way of living, which is exceedingly voluptuous, I consider as epicurean[6]. Their houses, which are common ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr

... that there was not even, as yet, a Society for its suppression. For what was this disquiet feeling, but the sense that he had had his day, would never again know the stir and fearful joy of falling in love, but only just hanker after what was past and gone! Could anything be more reprehensible in a ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... was expected of Marie. She was brought up to think that leisure was woman's natural estate. Work, for any girl, she regarded as an accident due to the unexpected and usually reprehensible collapse of the males of ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine

... outward part in the prayers except that of listening to them, Polly and I had nothing to do—and we could not even hear the old gentleman who usually "read prayers"—which led us into the very reprehensible habit of "playing at houses" in Uncle Ascott's gorgeously furnished pew. Not that we left our too tightly stuffed seats for one moment, but as we sat or stood, unable to see anything beyond the bombazine curtains (which, intervening between us and the distant parson, made our ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... for all that we possess. This corrupt proceeding appeared to the House of Commons, who are the natural guardians of the purity of parliament, and of the purity of every branch of judicature, a most reprehensible and dangerous practice, tending to shake the very foundation of the authority of the House of Peers: and they branded it as such ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke

... vain. Her plain, prominent features wore, from habit, a look of sullen martyrdom that belied her natural kindness of heart; and even her false brown front was arranged in little hard, flat curls, as though an artificial ugliness were less reprehensible in her ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow

... them as Colonel Buchanan's pronounced views on the ethics of warfare would permit. For Buchanan was a just man of independent character, a type not ostentatiously beloved by heads of departments. He had a reprehensible trick of thinking for himself and acting accordingly—a habit liable to create havoc among the card-houses of officialdom; and like all soldiers of the first grade, he was resolute against the cowardly method of striking at the ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver

... course of my studies and travels in various parts of the earth. I trust I may flatter myself with a hope that a treatise of this nature will justify the title I have ventured to adopt for my work, and exonerate me from the reproach of a presumption that would be doubly reprehensible in a ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt

... rank heresy. Jimmy laid down the razor from motives of prudence, and proceeded to lighten Spike's reprehensible darkness. ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse

... communities alike, he sought in the early part of his reign to replenish his depleted purse by the most shameless measures, in order that he might surround himself with luxury and indulge his autocratic proclivities. Among his most reprehensible violations of constitutional rights, were his bartering of privileges and offices and the selling of troops. These things Hoelderlin attacks in one of his youthful ...
— Types of Weltschmerz in German Poetry • Wilhelm Alfred Braun

... was easy to figure him as backing into position with a sweet and reasonable docility—a docility which saw no other course or career for a properly minded young horse, and which looked upon the juvenile antics of others in the herd as an unintelligible and rather reprehensible procedure. He knew what he was for, and ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller

... esse—i.e., the operation, the working of every being, must be the necessary result of its qualities which are themselves known only by the acts they bring forth. If these acts be praiseworthy, the qualities are good: if reprehensible, they are bad. But if the acts are to be free, they should be neither good nor bad. A being therefore to be perfectly free should have no qualities at all—i.e., should not be created. For it must be borne in mind that it is not the motives that impart to the will ...
— The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur • Emile Joseph Dillon

... replaced by Perrot whose conduct was, if possible, even more reprehensible than that of his predecessor. He was such a money making genius that he thought nothing of selling brandy to the Indians by the pint and half-pint before strangers and in his own house, a rather undignified occupation certainly for a ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond

... injunction to love one's enemies is equally in both. So is the very excellent suggestion that one should consider one's own faults before admonishing a brother concerning his defects. But the perhaps subtle intimation that the desire to commit adultery is as reprehensible as the act, and the rather extravagant statement that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven, these, originally, were perhaps uniquely Talmudic. Currently cited with multiple others they were all so many common sayings, ...
— The Lords of the Ghostland - A History of the Ideal • Edgar Saltus

... Elice! What a question to ask of probably America's foremost living writer!" The speaker was still smiling. "What reprehensible misgiving, suspicion even!" Sudden silence, wherein bit by bit the smile faded. Silence continued until in its place came a new expression, one that changed the boy's face absolutely, made it a man's face—and not ...
— The Dominant Dollar • Will Lillibridge

... know what you're dying to know. You want to know whether Mr. Snow is in the same depths of mourning as when our acquaintance first began. This, my dear child, is very reprehensible of you. Young girls with braids down their backs—and by the way, Linda, you did not tell me what happened "after the ball was over." Did you go to school the next morning with braids down your back, or ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter

... through the deceitfulness of the heart, the zeal which, in its proper exercise, is admirable, as inciting us to a grand enthusiasm in a cause believed to be true and holy, ofttimes degenerates into a blind and bitter bigotry, as unreasoning as reprehensible; the faith which pierces the unseen and eternal, and fixes its calm eye on One who sits changeless amid infinite series of changes, all-wise amid infinite follies and wickednesses of His creatures, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... in the "Barbier de Seville," he said, "Faith, gentlemen, I don't know who is deceived here; everybody is in the secret." They then came to the point, and begged him to tell the Queen positively that all which had been pronounced reprehensible in M. de Beaumarchais's play had been cut out. My father-in-law contented himself with replying that his situation at Court would not allow of his giving an opinion unless the Queen should first speak of the piece to him. ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan

... for some share of the San Tome silver. Sotillo did not despise him for that. The colonel's want of moral sense was of a profound and innocent character. It bordered upon stupidity, moral stupidity. Nothing that served his ends could appear to him really reprehensible. Nevertheless, he despised Dr. Monygham. He had for him an immense and satisfactory contempt. He despised him with all his heart because he did not mean to let the doctor have any reward at all. He despised him, not as a man without faith and honour, ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad

... a man; and yet that he should look at her because he disliked her, was still more strange. She could only imagine, however, at last that she drew his notice because there was something more wrong and reprehensible, according to his ideas of right, than in any other person present. The supposition did not pain her. She liked him too little ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... that of society, acts under the same necessity as the evil-doer; hence repentance and pangs of conscience, which increase the amount of pain in the world, but are incapable of effecting amendment, are useless and reprehensible: the criminal is an ill man, and must not be more harshly punished than the safety of society requires. Materialism humanizes and exercises a tranquilizing influence on the mind, as the religious view of the world, with its incitement to hatred, disturbs it; materialism ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg

... went on even to the fifth half-year—till he was turned sixteen—at King's Lorton, while Maggie was growing with a rapidity which her aunts considered highly reprehensible, at Miss Firniss's boarding-school in the ancient town of Laceham on the Floss, with cousin Lucy for her companion. In her early letters to Tom she had always sent her love to Philip, and asked many questions about him, which were answered by brief sentences about Tom's toothache, and a turf-house ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot

... circumstances might go on making demands, and she might have to do yet more reprehensible things—things that weren't merely almost like wrong-doing. Some day she might have to lie ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray

... owned by Rockefeller, and he made more money on them than he did on Standard oil, and the money that he gave away to schools and churches was from his rake-off on his slot machines. Pa said it would be a good thing if someone could break up the reprehensible practice by beating the blasted ...
— Peck's Bad Boy at the Circus • George W. Peck

... fount of wisdom and power—create so many fresh offences every week that it is difficult for the most timidly loyal of citizens to keep his innocency up to date. I have doubtless trespassed many times, for I have Dawson's assurance that my present freedom is due solely to his reprehensible softness towards me. Whenever I have showed independence of spirit—of which, God knows, I have little in these days—Dawson would pull out his terrible red volumes of ever-expanding Regulations and ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone

... idol of the French people, worked the same marvels as King Arthur did, only under another name. Every nation borrowed (or rather stole) from every other. It was not considered reprehensible to do so. Shakespeare worked over the Italian novelle of Boccaccio, weaving them into his great English dramas, and nobody censured him. It was this craving for romance that overcame the delight in mere display and ...
— Paul and the Printing Press • Sara Ware Bassett

... country because our own interests and our country's interests are one. Unable to view international affairs apart from national interests, we are handicapped in making those balanced judgments necessary to judicial arbitration. An act reprehensible under the Union Jack becomes patriotic under the Stars and Stripes. At both Hague Conferences all the powers were seemingly in favor of curtailing expenditures for armaments. The unprecedented increase in expenditures which followed bespeaks their sincerity, ...
— Prize Orations of the Intercollegiate Peace Association • Intercollegiate Peace Association

... I do not think it is so much a question of the amount. This payment of Government notes and requisition notes is, in my opinion, very reprehensible. I believe that in this respect I feel what the great majority of the British people feels, that it would rather expend a large sum after the war to improve the condition of the people that has fought against them, than pay a smaller amount towards ...
— The Peace Negotiations - Between the Governments of the South African Republic and - the Orange Free State, etc.... • J. D. Kestell

... the best judge. I have very much regretted of late to observe a tendency in this family (I say a tendency, for I hope it goes no further) to undervalue Mr. Flaps, and even (I hardly like to allude to such reprehensible and disgusting absurdity) to recall the memory of a vulgar red-haired impostor, who gained a brief entrance into our family circle. I am not consulted as I should be in these fluctuations of opinion, but there are occasions ...
— Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing

... Blackamoor had certain highly reprehensible traits. He was thievish, and we were obliged to keep an eye on him, or he would steal all our lead-pencils, pocket-handkerchiefs and other small objects. What he took he secreted, and was marvelously ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten

... kingdom.* No means proved too vile, no instrument unworthy, to be employed in the work of destroying the regent and advancing Tudor interests. The queen even condescended to use her truant husband, and the part played by Angus is scarcely less reprehensible than Margaret's own, for while he pretended to be loyal to Albany and to Scotland, he possessed himself of every important State secret and transmitted it to his wife, in the hope of appeasing her for his desertion. She, of course, passed ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone

... with a significance that left Bean in a tumultuous and pleasurable whirl of cowardice. Their hands flew apart rather self-consciously. Bean felt himself a scoundrel—"leading on" a young thing like that who was engaged to another. It was flirting of the most reprehensible sort. But there was his dual nature; a strain of the errant Corsican had ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson



Words linked to "Reprehensible" :   criminal, deplorable, reprehend, reprehensibility



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