"Sacrilegious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... centre has given its flame, the appropriation of private property for public purposes caused to disappear numerous ancient dwellings bearing armorial devices, torn down in the interest of the public good, to the equalizing level of a line of tramways. In the midst of this sacrilegious upheaval, the Hotel de Montgeron, one of the largest in the Rue St. Dominique, had the good fortune to be hardly touched by the surveyor's line; in exchange for a few yards sliced obliquely from the garden, it received a generous addition of air and light on that ...
— Zibeline, Complete • Phillipe de Massa
... not!" rejoined Caderousse quickly; "no more do I, and that was what I was observing to this gentleman just now. I said I looked upon it as a sacrilegious profanation to reward treachery, ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... in the church, I cannot guess; unless he means to bring back the large silver candlesticks which my grandsire gave to be placed on the altar at Martindale Moultrassie; and which his crop-eared friends, like sacrilegious villains as they are, stole and melted down. And in like manner, the only breaking I know of, was when they pulled down the rails of the communion table (for which some of their fingers are hot enough by this time), and when the brass ornaments ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... cooking something nice for breakfast?" (Our usual meal is Quaker oats, with milk; and tea, of course; Phil would think it sacrilegious to begin the day ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... to meet one than it is to find a man! But do not think that I was actuated by any desire for revenge when I came here: I am more moved by your age than I am by my own injury, for it is my belief that youthful imprudence led you into committing a sacrilegious crime. That very night, I tossed so violently in the throes of a dangerous chill that I was afraid I had contracted a tertian ague, and in my dreams I prayed for a medicine. I was ordered to seek you out, and to arrest ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... cursed him, and gazes into its searing glow until her sight is again dead. Moral: it is sinful to love the loveliness of outward things; from the soul must come salvation. As if she had never learned the truth, she returns to her wifely love for Arcesius. The story is as false to nature as it is sacrilegious; its trumpery theatricalism is as great a hindrance to a possible return of Biblical opera as the disgusting celebration of necrophilism in Richard ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... the sole of one of Mohammed's sandals. Putting away this venerable relic of the great founder of Islam, the old Mussulman assumes a look of profound importance and mystery. One would think, from his expression and manners, that he was about to reveal to the sacrilegious gaze of an infidel nothing less than the Prophet's fifth rib or the parings from his pet corn. Instead of these he exhibits a flat piece of rock bearing marks resembling the shape of a man's foot—the imprint of Mohammed's foot, miraculously ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... the eighteenth century. There were difficulties in the way; and among others this, that, in the first fervour of the Crusades, the men who took the Cross, after receiving communion, heartily devoted the day to the extermination of Jews. To judge them by a fixed standard, to call them sacrilegious fanatics or furious hypocrites, was to yield a gratuitous victory to Voltaire. It became a rule of policy to praise the spirit when you could not defend the deed. So that we have no common code; our moral notions are always fluid; and you must consider the times, ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... landowners to that of "mere annuitants". Melbourne complained of his protest somewhat angrily as premature, and provoked a vehement reply from Blomfield, bishop of London, who, though a member of the ecclesiastical commission, denounced any such diversion of revenues as "a sacrilegious act of spoliation". In the elaborate debates on the resolutions moved by Spring Rice in the house of commons Peel took his stand partly on financial objections and partly on the injustice of taking away from the Church a fund belonging to it by immemorial usage, and in the main ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... asked Ike Hoe, extending his finger which faintly brushed the rosy cheek, and was instantly snatched away as if he felt he had done a sacrilegious thing. ...
— A Waif of the Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... described as "roving distraught in every vale" and whose motto in Horatian vein was, "To day we shall drink, to-morrow be sober, wine this day, that day work." Regularly once a year, during the three peaceful months when war and even blood revenge were held sacrilegious, the tribes met at Ukadh (Ocaz) and other fairsteads, where they held high festival and the bards strave in song and prided themselves upon doing honour to women and to the successful warriors of their tribe. Brief, the object of Arab life was to ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... first rose to speak he had been coldly received—no more than a cheer of encouragement from his immediate friends. As he made his points the applause grew. When he finished one half of the audience burst into a storm of cheers; the other was thunderstruck by the sacrilegious recoil of the Bishop's weapon upon his own head: a lady fainted, and had to be carried out. As soon as calm was restored Hooker leapt to his feet, though he hated public speaking yet more than his friend, and drove home the main scientific ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley - A Character Sketch • Leonard Huxley
... has pass'd away, Every house must have its day; So in antiquarian rank Up sprung here the Pryor's Bank, Full of glorious tapestry,— Full as well as house can be: And of carvings old and quaint, Relics of some mitr'd saint, 'Tis—I hate to be perfidious— 'Tis a house most sacrilegious. ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker
... which I pursued what were described as studies did not in any very marked degree differ from its sister schools throughout the country. How was science encouraged there? One hour per week, exactly one-fifth of the time devoted weekly, not to Greek and Latin (that would have been almost sacrilegious), but to the writing of Greek and Latin prose and alleged Greek and Latin verse—that was the amount of time which was devoted to what was called science. I suppose I had an ingrained vocation for science, for it was the only subject, except ...
— Science and Morals and Other Essays • Bertram Coghill Alan Windle
... padre I suppose you are," said the doctor. "I highly approve of your patriotic principles and resolutions; and should a sacrilegious bullet enter your body, I promise you that I will do my best to extract it and set you on your legs again, should I ...
— The Young Llanero - A Story of War and Wild Life in Venezuela • W.H.G. Kingston
... lady's habit and using her actions; we dislike and scorn such representations which made the ancient philosophers ever think laughter unfitting in a wise man. And this induced Plato to esteem of Homer as a sacrilegious person, because he presented the gods sometimes laughing. As also it is divinely said of Aristotle, that to seen ridiculous is a ...
— Discoveries and Some Poems • Ben Jonson
... they were branded as rebels, who were too happy if they obtained a pardon. Praise and favour fell only to the share of the army of Conde, the Vendeans, and the Chouans. The triumphal arches destined to eternize the exploits of our armies were menaced with sacrilegious ruin; and it was solemnly proposed to erect a monument to the memory of the Vendeans and the emigrants ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... moral side of his nature has been sufficiently developed to stand the strain which it imposes. A perception of the amount of evil karma that may be generated by such action in a very short time changes one's disgust into pity for the unhappy perpetrator of that sacrilegious folly. ...
— Clairvoyance • Charles Webster Leadbeater
... Fashion Editor killed it because she thought 'See-Ann' was a girl's name, and it might be sacrilegious." ...
— The Circuit Riders • R. C. FitzPatrick
... of the States of the Church by Cavour and Victor Emmanuel. Newman referred to the Piedmontese as 'sacrilegious robbers,' but his advocacy of the temporal power was not strong enough to please the Vatican, while the strength of Manning's language left nothing to be desired. Newman became more unpopular than ever. His reputation suffered by his former connection with the Rambler ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge
... they came within sight of Fayal, when a new terror seized the minds of the two Jesuits. Might not the Englishmen fear that their prisoners would denounce them to the fervent Catholics of that island as pirates and sacrilegious kidnappers of priests? From such hazard the escape was obvious. What more simple than to drop the priests into the sea? In truth, the English had no little dread of the results of conference between the Jesuits and the Portuguese authorities of ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... still held in many churches on Christmas Eve; and I think they are called Oiel Verree, but the true Oiel Verree, the real, pure, savage, ridiculous, sacrilegious old Oiel Verree, is gone. I myself just came in time for it; I saw the last of it, nevertheless I saw it at its prime, for I saw it when it was so strong that it could not live any longer. Let me tell ...
— The Little Manx Nation - 1891 • Hall Caine
... robberies, one night, being admitted by the servants into the house of an opulent priest, my mother took an opportunity, whilst the servants were dancing to my tunes, to convey away a silver vessel; this she did without the least sacrilegious intention; but it seems the cup, which was a pretty large one, was dedicated to holy uses, and only borrowed by the priest on an entertainment which he made for some of his brethren. We were immediately pursued upon this robbery (the cup being taken in our possession), and carried before ...
— From This World to the Next • Henry Fielding
... vain, foolish, even sacrilegious, so little could he convey to her of what he believed to be the truth, and they walked in silence through the fragrance of the soft night, thinking of the colour of the sky, in which the sunset was not yet quite dead. His memory ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... his own peculiar purposes out of his mind. That William Hinkley should have cowskinned Stevens would have been much more gratifying to him could he have been present; and he was almost disposed to join with the rest in their outcry against this sacrilegious proceeding, for the simple reason, that it somewhat anticipated his own rigorous intentions to the same effect. He was not less dissatisfied with the next ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... independence being withheld, commercial intercourse for procuring arms abroad was impossible,—the gloomy feeling of entire forsakedness spread over our tired ranks, and prepared the field for the secret action of treachery; until the most sacrilegious violation of those common laws of nations was achieved, and. the code of "nature and of nature's God" was drowned in Hungary's blood. And I who on the 15th of March, 1848, saw the principle of full civil and religious ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... horrible whispers about brushing up the external walls with a coat of paint,—a purpose as little to my taste as might be that of rouging the venerable cheeks of one's grandmother. But the hand that renovates is always more sacrilegious than that which destroys. In fine, we gathered up our household goods, drank a farewell cup of tea in our pleasant little breakfast-room,—delicately fragrant tea, an unpurchasable luxury, one of the many angel gifts that had fallen like ...
— The Old Manse (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... some, and the want of virtue, of charity, and of knowledge, of others. I, on the contrary, pictured him to myself handsome, loving, forgetting God for me, consecrating his life to me, giving me his soul, becoming my stay, my support, my sweet companion. I longed to commit a sacrilegious theft: I dreamed of stealing him from God and from his temple, like the thief who, proclaiming himself the enemy of Heaven, robs the sacred monstrance of its most precious jewel. To commit this theft I have put off the mourning garments ...
— Pepita Ximenez • Juan Valera
... of the intrusion on Emerson in Concord borders on the sacrilegious. Here was the venerable philosopher, five months before his death, when his great mind had already gone on before him, being visited by a strange lad with a passion for autographs, who sat and watched for those lucid moments when then sun would break through the ...
— Love Conquers All • Robert C. Benchley
... and I saw her sleeping peacefully as a little girl who was tired with playing, with parted lips and disheveled hair, and measured the full extent of the stupidity of my hatred and the sacrilegious madness of my jealousy, my heart softened and I fell into such a state of profound and absolute distress that I thought I should have died of it, and large drops of cold perspiration ran down my cheeks and tears fell from my eyes, and I got up, so that my sobs might ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... following October. For some days there was carried on a profanation even more sacrilegious than the demolition of the tombs. The coffins containing the remains of kings and queens, princes and princesses, were violated. On Wednesday, the 16th of October, 1798, at the very hour that Marie Antoinette ...
— The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Charles X • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... And it was because of this and because of my last promise to him that your offer shocked me; I ask your pardon for my rudeness. You have been so like a brother for the past years that marriage seems sacrilegious. Come, let us be friends—we have been trusty comrades. 'The Iron Virgin' is a success"—"Yes," he whispered, "the iron virgin is always a success." "—and why should our friendship merely be an echo of the past? ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... and finally compelling a man lo ascend a tree, he stabbed him among the branches. The regent decided that he must be dethroned, and a council of State was convened to consider the matter. There had never been an example of an act so sacrilegious as the deposition of an Emperor at the dictate of his subjects. The ministers hesitated. Then one of the Fujiwara magnates (Morokuzu) loudly proclaimed that anyone dissenting from the chancellor's proposal ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... redemption of soap and water. Sick at heart, the master returned to the schoolhouse. As he lit his lamp and seated himself at his desk, he found a note lying before him addressed to himself, in Mliss's handwriting. It seemed to be written on a leaf torn from some old memorandum book, and, to prevent sacrilegious trifling, had been sealed with six broken wafers. Opening it almost tenderly, ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... sacrilegious enough to steal a skull in order to get the teeth, which he wanted as souvenirs. I was chagrined and shocked at Pat's lack of religious propriety. However, I was enticed into accepting one of the teeth after Pat had knocked ...
— Flash-lights from the Seven Seas • William L. Stidger
... "is thy servant to blame that he believed the rumour that declared thy death? These men are of our holy faith, whom I have snatched from the violence of the sacrilegious and maddened mob. No spot but this seemed safe from the popular frenzy." "Are ye Jews?" said Almamen. "Ah, yes! I know ye now—things of the market-place and bazaar'. Oh, ye are Jews, indeed! ...
— Leila or, The Siege of Granada, Book V. • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... the quarrel between the Dervishes and the Abyssinians. For some time a harassing and desultory warfare disturbed the border. At length in 1885 a Dervish—half-trader, half brigand—sacked an Abyssinian church. Bas Adal, the Governor of the Amhara province, demanded that this sacrilegious robber should be surrendered to justice. The Arabs haughtily refused. The response was swift. Collecting an army which may have amounted to 30,000 men, the Abyssinians invaded the district of Gallabat and marched on the town. Against this host the Emir Wad Arbab could ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... are concerned with two broad aims beyond the winning of the war; and their thinking and their opinion coincide with what most Americans here back home are mulling over. They know, and we know, that it would be inconceivable—it would, indeed, be sacrilegious—if this Nation and the world did not attain some real, lasting good out of all these efforts and sufferings ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... His holy passion in a manner altogether mysterious, men, the false imitators, or rather base corrupters of the works of God, have found means to renew this same passion, not only in a profane, but in a criminal, sacrilegious, and ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Vol. 2 (of 10) • Grenville Kleiser
... common to all the Polynesian races, has the primary effect of isolating the "tabooed" person and preventing the use of "tabooed" things. According to the Maori doctrine, anyone who laid sacrilegious hands on what had been declared "taboo," would be punished with death by the insulted deity, and even if the god delayed the vindication of his power, the priests took care to accelerate ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... wrote, soon after, from the heart of Germany, "Without the patronage of the prince of the Franks, without his order and the fear of his power, I could not guide the people, or defend the priests, deacons, monks, or handmaids of God, or forbid in this country the rites of the Pagans and their sacrilegious worship of idols." ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... railway station being experimented upon by Irish patriots. At Milan one day a fire-ball of this description walked down one of the streets so slowly that a small crowd walked after it admiringly, to see where it was going. It made straight for a church steeple, after the common but sacrilegious fashion of all lightning, struck the gilded cross on the topmost pinnacle, and then immediately vanished, like a Virgilian apparition, into ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... "Sacrilegious wretch! I have thy name Upon my tablets. Thy official head Comes off at once. Call up, ye midnight hags, Another of ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 11, June 11, 1870 • Various
... cats, for puss had all the appearance of being desirous of dining, and, after poking her nose into the basket several times, seized upon a sausage, and proceeded to pull it out. The poor woman cast a discomfited glance at the robber, but before the devout Catholic could finish her beads, sacrilegious pussy had carried off and finished ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux
... flourished forth in singularly fashionable garments for a season, while William made a splendid appearance in the cast-off dinner suit of a certain rich but wicked Congressman. The swaggering cut of the coat, however, gave almost a sacrilegious grace to his ...
— A Circuit Rider's Wife • Corra Harris
... Lysia's Oration against Andocides is this passage: To expiate this pollution (the mutilation of the {592} Herm), the priestesses and priests turning towards the setting sun, the dwelling of the infernal gods, devoted with curses the sacrilegious wretch, and shook their purple robes, in the manner prescribed by that law, which has been transmitted from the earliest times."—Mitford, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 216, December 17, 1853 • Various
... needlework; and the stitch (as I am assured by ladies conversant with such mysteries) gives evidence of a now forgotten art, not to be recovered even by the process of picking out the threads. This rag of scarlet cloth,—for time and wear and a sacrilegious moth had reduced it to little other than a rag,—on careful examination, assumed the shape of a letter. It was the capital letter A. By an accurate measurement, each limb proved to be precisely three inches and a ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the saintly colleagues. This time, apparently in consequence of Deusdona's opposition to any further resurrectionist doings, he took counsel with a Greek monk, one Basil, and, accompanied by Hunus, but saying nothing to Deusdona, they committed another sacrilegious burglary, securing this time, not only the body of the blessed Petrus, but a quantity of dust, which they agreed the priest should take, and tell his employer that it was the remains of the blessed Tiburtius. How ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... pagans; not, however, in leading to the acceptance of their authority. For as great as is the difference between the prediction of the coming of Christ by the angels and the confession of the devils, so great a difference is there between the authority of the prophets and the curiosity of the sacrilegious. ...
— Readings in the History of Education - Mediaeval Universities • Arthur O. Norton
... was one who took a different view of the matter. Mr. Verne looked on in grave disquietude. It may be sacrilegious but we cannot refrain from intruding upon his inmost thoughts and with heartfelt sympathy grieve for the indulgent parent who sees his fair first-born sacrificed to the world and mammon. The man of far-seeing ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... to record the muttered soliloquy of the gentleman,—Jaspar Dumont, who had reached Vicksburg that day, from the wood-yard where we left him. It was too profane, too sacrilegious, to stain our page. ...
— Hatchie, the Guardian Slave; or, The Heiress of Bellevue • Warren T. Ashton
... in the eyes of the sacrilegious murderer. Madness which helped him not only to carry his grim task to the end, but, having accomplished it, to see that it ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... he cross himself, or on his good saint call, Before the sacrilegious flood o'erleaped the churchyard wall; And, ere a pater half was said, mid smoke and crackling glare, His island tower scarce juts its head above the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... of a heart above all price. Leonora, why did you not reproach me more bitterly? I desire, I implore to be crushed, to be annihilated by your vengeance! Most admirable, most virtuous, most estimable of women, best of wives, I have with sacrilegious love profaned a soul consecrated to you and conjugal virtue. I acknowledge my crime; trample upon me as you will, I am humbled in the dust. More than all your bitterest reproaches, do I feel the remorse of having, for a moment, ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... afflicted today by extreme and unheard of wickedness, for our adversaries condemn from sheer caprice the truth they know and profess. They try to get at our throats and shed the blood of the righteous with a satanic fury. Such blasphemous, sacrilegious and parricidal doings against the kingdom and name of God, manifest as such beyond possibility of denial, they defend as the acme of justice. While contending for the maintenance of their tyrannical position they go so far as to arrogate ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther
... because of their harshness and the excessive punishments which they awarded. For death was the punishment for almost every offence, so that even men convicted of idleness were executed, and those who stole pot-herbs or fruits suffered just like sacrilegious robbers and murderers. So that Demades afterwards made the joke that Drakon's laws were not written with ink, but with blood. It is said that Drakon himself, when asked why he had fixed the punishment of death for most offences, answered that ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... sanctuary (held sacred by our troops of Spain!) had been invaded by the impiety of the German or Burgundian legions!—As usual, the chief ladies of the town had placed themselves under the protection of the high altar. But there, even there, had they been seized by sacrilegious hands!—The fame of the rare beauty of the daughter of the governor of Dalem, had attracted, among the rest, two daring ruffians of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... to infer an influence from an analogy. Preconceived notions are always the most serious obstacles to an exact knowledge of the past. Some modern writers, like the ancient Church Fathers, are fain to see a sacrilegious parody inspired by the spirit of lies in the resemblance between the mysteries and the church ceremonies. Other historians seem disposed to agree with the Oriental priests, who claimed priority for ...
— The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism • Franz Cumont
... of common-sense, I ask you not to appeal to a just God in such a sacrilegious manner. You who, in the midst of peace and prosperity, have plunged a nation into war—dark and cruel war—who dared and badgered us to battle, insulted our flag, seized our arsenals and forts that were left ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... New York Nation, of May 21, 1878, in which we read: "Is it sacrilegious to ask whether it is wholly impossible to verify the supposition that the Stratford bust is from a death-mask? Would not the present age permit a tender and reverential scientific examination of the ...
— Shakespeare's Bones • C. M. Ingleby
... house. How crumbled by sea-wind were the old walls, and the aspect altogether full of a dreary haughtiness, suiting with the whole of the stories connected with its name, from the time when it was said the very dogs crouched and fled from the presence of the sacrilegious murderer of the Archbishop, to the evening when the heir of the line lay stretched a corpse before ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the sacrilege and punishment of King John, who in the seventeenth year of his reign, among other churches, rifled the abbeys of {572} Peterborough and Croyland, and after attempts to carry his sacrilegious wealth from Lynn to Lincoln; but, passing the Washes, the earth in the midst of the waters opens her mouth (as for Korah and his company), and at once swallows up both carts, carriage, and horses, all his treasure, all his regalities, all his church spoil, and all the church spoilers; not one ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 189, June 11, 1853 • Various
... marks were the only penalty imposed for the life of a man, and death for death when the property of the rich was touched?—when—I blush to discover the depravity of our nature—a deer was killed! Are these the laws that it is natural to love, and sacrilegious to invade? Were the rights of men understood when the law authorized or tolerated murder?—or is power and ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... associations, and it is a color that can safely be warranted to wash. Whenever we have been furnished with a tar baby ostensibly stuffed with jewels, and warned that it will be dishonorable and irreverent to disembowel it and test the jewels, we keep our sacrilegious hands off it. We submit, not reluctantly, but rather gladly, for we are privately afraid we should find, upon examination, that the jewels are of the sort that are ...
— Is Shakespeare Dead? - from my Autobiography • Mark Twain
... discovering a light to testify to a human presence—mile after mile and league after league the vast bends were guarded by unbroken walls of forest that had never been disturbed by the voice or the foot-fall of man or felt the edge of his sacrilegious axe. ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 1. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... come and the party was preparing to mount and start back home, a crowd of villagers, led by their old priest, bore down upon them. Learning that Frank was the slayer of the sacrilegious crocodile the holy man hung a garland of marigolds round his neck and through the interpreter offered him the thanks of gods and men for his good deed. And to a chorus of blessings and compliments he rode away ...
— The Jungle Girl • Gordon Casserly
... the mysterious abyss—Death. And he was tortured not by the fact that Death was visible, but that both Life and Death were visible at the same time. The curtain which through eternity has hidden the mystery of life and the mystery of death was pushed aside by a sacrilegious hand, and the mysteries ceased to be mysteries—yet they remained incomprehensible, like the Truth written in a foreign tongue. There were no conceptions in his human mind, no words in his human language that could define what he saw. And the words "I am afraid" were uttered by him ...
— The Seven who were Hanged • Leonid Andreyev
... his sacred person, but my heart beats, my blood runs cold about me, and my eyes overflow with tears of joy, while an awful confusion seizes me all over; and I am certain should the most harden'd of your bloody rebels look him in the face, the devilish instrument of death would drop from his sacrilegious hand, and leave him confounded at the feet of the royal forgiving sufferer; his eyes have in them something so fierce, so majestic, commanding, and yet so good and merciful, as would soften rebellion itself into repenting loyalty; and like Caius Marius, seem to say,—'Who ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... Should one of these ghostly creatures die or be killed, its spirit turns either into an insect or into an ant-hill. Children who would destroy such an ant-hill or throw little darts at it, are warned by their elders not to indulge in such sacrilegious sport. When the insect also dies, the series of spiritual transformations ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... last cases the animal whose slaughter has to be atoned for is sacred, that is, it is one whose life is commonly spared from motives of superstition. Yet the treatment of the sacrilegious slayer seems to resemble so closely the treatment of hunters and fishermen who have killed animals for food in the ordinary course of business, that the ideas on which both sets of customs are based may be ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... need they might be ready to support each other.—"This better befits me," he thought, "than to be here like a child, frightening myself with the old woman's legend, which I have laughed at when a boy. What although old Victor Lee was a sacrilegious man, as common report goes, and brewed ale in the font which he brought from the ancient palace of Holyrood, while church and building were in flames? And what although his eldest son was when ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... had led my mother to despair, constantly offending her pride and her strict, unbribable truthfulness. But at that time I did not understand it; the death of my mother seemed to me one of the most cruel manifestations of universal injustice, and called forth a new stream of useless and sacrilegious curses. ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev
... man,' cried his father, with quick reproof, on hearing this sacrilegious uproar. 'Mr. Larkin never hurt anyone; tut, tut; sit down, ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... token of reconciliation would be forthcoming; otherwise, although with the acutest reluctance, it would be necessary to carry the claim to the court of the chief District Mandarin, and (Cheng Lin trembled at the sacrilegious thought) it would be impossible to conceal the fact that Shen Heng employed persons of inauspicious omen, and the high repute of coffin cloths from the Golden Abacus would be lost. The hint arrested Shen Heng's fingers in the act of tearing out a handful of ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah
... to do a lot of tacking," said Artois. "Mon Dieu! That boy is smoking one of my cigarettes! You sacrilegious little creature! You have ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... views had become sobered and settled, he is said, in an eager desire to atone for the desecration of which he had been guilty, to have purchased the crosses from the person who was then in possession of them, and to have been at the cost of re-erecting them on their present site, from which no sacrilegious hand will, I trust, ever again remove them. It is further said, that Webster's favourite and regular walk, in the latter part of his life, till his infirmities rendered him unable to take exercise of any kind, was ...
— Discovery of Witches - The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster • Thomas Potts
... was something of consequence amongst the papers—something, at least, which I should have held it sacrilegious to consign to Molly, the housemaid—the wrapper of the box containing the diamonds; the paper wrapper, directed in the dear hand I loved, the hand of ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... confiscated metal was shipped for St. Malo, where it was expected to bring a high price, but the vessel foundered in leaving the harbour, to the triumph of all good Catholics, who regarded the disaster as a special manifestation of divine wrath at the sacrilegious spoliation. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 395, Saturday, October 24, 1829. • Various
... this volume is to exalt true Christianity to her proper plane and reveal her true character by relating to the reader the teachings of Christ—her beloved consort—and the experience and teachings of his inspired followers, and thus tear off the sacrilegious robes of the harlot of false religions and expose her shame to the gaze ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr
... homelessness of men, and even of inanimate vessels, cast away upon strange shores, came strongly in upon my mind. To make a profit of such pitiful misadventures seemed an unmanly and a sordid act; and I began to think of my then quest as of something sacrilegious in its nature. But when I remembered Mary I took heart again. My uncle would never consent to an imprudent marriage, nor would she, as I was persuaded, wed without his full approval. It behoved me, then, to be up and doing for my wife; and I thought with ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... celibacy, and the Apostle's injunction: "Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband." (I Cor. 7:2.) But the teachings of my childhood caused me to believe that it would be sacrilegious upon my part to even allow myself to believe that the Pope of Rome could possibly make a mistake, therefore I did as all true Catholics are expected to do, and forced myself to believe that all of the abominations practiced by ...
— Thirty Years In Hell - Or, From Darkness to Light • Bernard Fresenborg
... bent to kiss her, his heart filled with compunction at the thought of the promise he was about to break. It seemed to him almost more than sacrilegious to make of this dear and honoured ornament of old age a vehicle for the satisfaction of the vulgar ambitions and disagreeable curiosity of the couple who dwelt ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens
... friends, 'tis sorrow's crown of sorrow to remember That this sacrilegious reptile owed me nought but gratitude, For I bought him from a showman twenty years since come November, And I dropped him in the river for his own ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... bones. Round the enclosure stood a number of mortuary chapels, gloomy and ugly. An exception to this dull magnificence in death was a marble slab, newly set against the wall, in memory of a Lucifero—one of that family, still eminent, to which belonged the sacrilegious bishop. The design was a good imitation of those noble sepulchral tablets which abound in the museum at Athens; a figure taking leave of others as if going on a journey. The Lucifers had shown good taste in their choice of the old Greek symbol; no better ...
— By the Ionian Sea - Notes of a Ramble in Southern Italy • George Gissing
... go now?' she said, hurriedly covering her precious work up from those sacrilegious fingers ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... didn't know," she said. "I thought I'd like to ask you some questions about him if you were. We have had a good deal about him at Sunday-school lately. I'm studying my lessons nowadays for a prize; they are going to give a sacrilegious picture to the child that knows her verses the best by Easter, and I think maybe I'll get it, for I'm only about ...
— What Two Children Did • Charlotte E. Chittenden
... thought that though all classes might possess equally good sense, yet that a woman of noble birth would be more ashamed of doing wrong, and therefore more likely to encourage her husband to do right. He used to say that a man who beat his wife or his children laid sacrilegious hands on the holiest of things. He also said that he had rather be a good husband than a great statesman, and that what he especially admired in Sokrates the Philosopher was his patience and kindness in bearing with his ill-tempered wife ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... proved by the reaction which set in at Josiah's death. Indeed the country people would look on the destruction of the high places with their Asheras and Mazzebas as sacrilege and would consider Josiah's death in battle as a divine punishment for his sacrilegious deeds. On the other hand, the destruction of Jerusalem and the exile of the people would appear to those who had obeyed D's instructions as a well-merited ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 3 - "Destructors" to "Diameter" • Various
... only Versailles, but all Paris was in a ferment, in consequence of a revolting, and all but sacrilegious practical joke, played of on the ...
— The Room in the Dragon Volant • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... body. At another time, the Indians had dared to take a friar from his convent, and they dragged him to the place where I was. I commenced to try the case, and gave a verdict against the Indians, as it was doubly sacrilegious to take the friar from his convent, and to place hands on an ecclesiastic. This case came to the Audiencia by way of appeal, and it still remains there, with the records. A beneficed priest, who was performing the duties of his office, was refused its dues by the encomendero, and came ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, V7, 1588-1591 • Emma Helen Blair
... that he should kill his victims by his testimonies no more than by his poignards. He an accuser! he a witness! No, never will I consent to see this monster rise, in the presence of magistrates, to take a sacrilegious oath, his hand still reeking with blood.' These words were repeated out of doors; the witness trembled; the factious also trembled; the factious who guided the tongue of Truphemy as they had directed ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... "the Bishop has put out his hand to touch the sanctuary. But our noble Olympius would not suffer the sacrilegious host to approach, and they had to retire with broken heads. Serapis will not be mocked; he will stand though all else perish. 'Eternity,' the priest tells us, 'is to him but as an instant, and while millions of generations bloom and fade, he is ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... of temperament—there's no variety about us. And oh, Lucia, I tell you honestly, I get so tired of keeping forever in the straight and narrow path merely because it's easiest for me to walk that way. I don't mean to be sacrilegious, but I think that all the rejoicing in Heaven over the hundredth man who has sinned and repented was not because he had behaved well at last, but because he was so much more interesting than all the other ninety-nine put together. ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... that a rabble Of money-changers bought and sold, Filling with sacrilegious babble This temple-court of ...
— English Poems • Richard Le Gallienne
... mutilating the statues of the Vatican and Capitol; turning a Minerva into an image of the Faith by putting a cross in her hand; surmounting the columns of Trajan and Antonine with figures of Peter and Paul; destroying the Septizonium of Severus, and wishing to lay sacrilegious hands on Caecilia Metella's tomb. To mediaeval relics he was hardly less indifferent. The old buildings of the Lateran were thrown down to make room for the heavy modern palace. But, to atone in some measure for ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... nothing, in fact, but politeness. The flow of affection had been too long interrupted. It was diverted to other channels now, and was too deeply imbedded in them to be coaxed back in the old direction. Love is a sacred stream which withdraws itself from the sacrilegious who ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... righteous altogether,'" Derues promptly replied. This exchange of quotations from Scripture might have lasted for hours without his being at a loss, had the abbe thought fit to continue in this strain; but such a style of conversation, garnished with grave and solemn words, seemed almost sacrilegious in the mouth of a man of such ridiculous appearance—a profanation at once sad and grotesque. Derues seemed to comprehend the impression it produced, and tuning again to ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - DERUES • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... Eunapius, in the Lives of Antoninus and Aedesius, execrates the sacrilegious rapine of Theophilus. Tillemont (Mem. Eccles. tom. xiii. p. 453) quotes an epistle of Isidore of Pelusium, which reproaches the primate with the idolatrous worship of gold, the auri ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... I stand alone, I shall be faithful to thee. I shall not take my place at the sacrilegious communion of blood. I shall not eat my share of the ...
— The Forerunners • Romain Rolland
... temples raised to worship and to prayer, Sacred from ruin in all eyes but thine, Are laid as level, and are left as bare, As spots with no pretensions to resign; Nor lives one relic that was deemed divine. By thee, great sacrilegious Shade, all, all Are swept away, and common weeds enshrine That place of tombs and memories prodigal— Itself a tomb at last, ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry
... we think them very nutritious and palatable, notwithstanding the maxim, 'Abstincto a fabis.' Possibly you may be a disciple of Pythagoras, and believe that the souls of the dead are encased in beans, and so think it almost sacrilegious for us to ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... upon his mind was that, on the verge of returning to his former state of worldly prosperity, he had been inspired to issue that Second Revelation regarding warm-blooded beasts. He ought to have known about the Grand Dukes, and what a sacrilegious hot-tempered clique they were! "This comes," he would say, "of placing the service of God above that of my earthly masters." It kept him in exile on this island—the deadlock in the matter of that Second Revelation. The expiatory period was not yet ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... the inhabitants and those who came to consult the oracle. As a further provision for the efficacy of the federal powers, they took an oath mutually to defend and protect the united cities, to punish the violators of this oath, and to inflict vengeance on sacrilegious despoilers of the temple. In theory, and upon paper, this apparatus of powers seems amply sufficient for all general purposes. In several material instances, they exceed the powers enumerated in the articles of confederation. The Amphictyons had in their hands the superstition ...
— The Federalist Papers
... to the story. The people understood this awful visitation to be the judgment of heaven against Laocoon for his sacrilegious presumption in daring to thrust his spear into the side of the image before them, and which they were now very sure they were to consider as something supernatural and divine. They determined with one accord to ...
— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... found itself in the days of Isaiah. One of the most profligate monarchs that ever disgraced the page of sacred history, sat upon the throne of Judah. His court was filled with men who recommended themselves chiefly by their licentiousness. The altar was forsaken. Sacrilegious hands had placed the abominations of heathenism in the Holy Place; and Piety, banished from the State, the Church, and the Royal court, was once more as she had been before, and will be again, a wanderer on the face of ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson
... chastity, and contravening all rights, human and divine. He evidently held Priscillian responsible for all these teachings. That is why he rejoices in the fact that "the secular princes, horrified at this sacrilegious folly, executed the author of these errors with several of his followers." He even declares that this action of the State is helpful to the Church. He writes: "the Church, in the spirit of Christ, ...
— The Inquisition - A Critical and Historical Study of the Coercive Power of the Church • E. Vacandard
... backward shade, Whilst there is still the broad sun on before." Weary and steep the path through cloud and mist, Piercing the darkness on an unknown way; But still she onward trod, and near'd the top, Whence voices louder, fiercer ever came, "Back, fool! intruder! sacrilegious wretch! Slay the mad climber! crush her to the dust!" Once stood she half irresolute, her hands Press'd hotly on her too oppressed heart; But still she thirsted for the golden spring, And with her soul made strength to ...
— Poems • Walter R. Cassels
... firmly denounced. This was an intolerable abuse. St. Celsus, the Archbishop of Armagh, though himself a member of the family who had usurped this office, made a special provision in his will that he should be succeeded by St. Malachy. This saint obtained a final victory over the sacrilegious innovators, but not without much ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... an empty flagon was observed lying on the ground inside, and a great concourse of people came up and discussed the matter. And one of the company said, "If you will allow me, I will tell you what I think about this flagon. I cannot help being of opinion that these sacrilegious wretches drank hemlock, and brought wine with them, before commencing their nefarious and dangerous work: that so, if they should fail to be detected, they might depart in safety, drinking the wine neat as an antidote to the hemlock: ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... mediaeval genius, was it easy to Christianise the story in any other way. It is perhaps almost surprising that, so far as I know or remember, no version exists representing Cassandra as a holy and injured nun, making Our Lady play the part of Venus to AEneas, and even punishing the sacrilegious Diomed for wounding her. But I do not think I have heard of such a version (though Sir Walter has gone near to representing something parallel in Ivanhoe), and it would have been a somewhat violent escapade for even a ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... sought sanctuary in Bow Church. Crepyn's friends, hearing of the matter, followed and having killed Duket, disposed of their victim's body in such a way as to suggest suicide. It so happened, however, that the sacrilegious murder had been witnessed by a boy who informed against the culprits and no less than sixteen persons were hanged for the part they had taken in it. Alice, herself, was condemned to be burnt alive as being the chief instigator of the murder; others, including ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe
... troubled, sacrilegious times, the clergy think it best not to display the wealth of ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... those of each of the chief piers that support the dome of Saint Peter's. As he wished to be accurate, he had taken a tape-line, and began stretching it from the altar to the door. The astonished priests at first stood paralyzed by his sacrilegious impudence, but finally, after a consultation, they came to him and ordered him to be gone. Dick looked up with mild wonder. ...
— The Dodge Club - or, Italy in 1859 • James De Mille
... what he has ordained. It is incredible that we should be without power to obey him except through his free grace, and yet be held responsible for our failures when that grace has been withheld. And it is idle to call a philosopher sacrilegious who has but systematised the faith which so many believe, and cleared it of its ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... which he charged Rant with insulting; he regretted that a false humanity had repealed some of those stringent but wholesome laws that had been enacted for the preservation of holy things, and was truly sorry that this sacrilegious old wretch could not be brought to the stake. He did not envy his learned, friend the sneering contempt for religion that ran through his ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... society event museum penal recess superior feline nausea precedence resource theater frequent negro precise sacrilegious theology mechanic ...
— Orthography - As Outlined in the State Course of Study for Illinois • Elmer W. Cavins
... extortion, had been induced from Rome to resign his abbacy, and to promise a pilgrimage to the Holy Land; but soon afterwards he fell upon the monastery with an armed force, and ruled there like a robber chieftain. This scandalous outrage was soon reported at Rome, and the sacrilegious usurper was excommunicated and banished. Bernard seized the moment when laxity of observance of the rule had produced its bitterest fruit to break out in remonstrances and warnings, as well to his own Cistercians as to the Cluniacs, on the decline of the genuine monastic spirit. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... fish that are held sacred by the few inhabitants of the adjoining hamlets, and which are daily fed by an aged fanatic, who for many years has devoted himself to their protection. As it would be deemed in the highest degree sacrilegious to eat any of these monsters, they are never molested, and are so tame as to come readily to the hand when offered food. Of course, my necessary compliance with the prejudices of the guardian of the fish prevented the exercise ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem
... but when, with his dreadful treasure, he was scrambling up, when the stones crumbling noisily under his feet, and he, covered with sand, fell backwards on Verkhoffsky's corpse, then presence of mind left the sacrilegious. It seemed as if a flame had seized him, and spirits of hell, dancing and grinning, had surrounded him. With a heavy groan he tore himself away, crawled half senseless out of the suffocating grave, and hurried off, dreading to look back. Leaping on his ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... the handle it would give to the blasphemies of their foes. Even my grandfather was smitten with consternation and grief; for he could not but think that such a temporal outrage would be followed by a terrible temporal revenge as ruthless and complete. Sober minds shuddered at the sudden and sacrilegious overthrow of such venerable structures; and many that stood on the threshold of the house of papistical bondage, and were on the point of leaving it, retired in again, and barred the doors against the light, and hugged their errors as blameless compared with such enormities. ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... Why did Ahab not dare to arrest Elijah at the door of Naboth's vineyard? Because sin is weakness; because there is in the world nothing so abject as a guilty conscience, nothing so invincible as the sweeping tide of a Godlike indignation against all that is base and wrong. How could these paltry sacrilegious buyers and sellers, conscious of wrongdoing, oppose that scathing rebuke, or face the lightnings of those eyes that were enkindled by an outraged holiness? When Phinehas the priest was zealous for ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... useless to reason with the brigand against the spoliation of the convent, which he had more than hinted at; for it was not likely that the robbers would incur so great a risk as that involved in the sacrilegious invasion of the sacred establishment, unless it were with the hope of reaping ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... cry arose from all sides. At first beakers, flasks and bowls flew back and forth. Then one sacrilegious monster grabbed the oblations from the neighboring apartments. Another tore down the lamp which burned over the table, while still another fought with a sacrificial deer which had hung on one side of the grotto. ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various
... invade, Manors by your possession sacred made, From feasts you deign'd to grace, you wip'd his name, And gave him o'er to infamy and shame: And when, tho' late, he made a bold appeal To arms, from frowning Peers and fawning zeal, And dar'd attempt with sacrilegious sword, To offer equal combat to a LORD, Sudden your noble limbs your coursers bore, From Berkshire's hills to Avon's distant shore: And eager to preserve from foul disgrace, Th' unsullied honors of a noble race, Rather ...
— An Heroic Epistle to the Right Honourable the Lord Craven (3rd Ed.) • William Combe
... jumping-off place into a sea of jewelled colour. Yet they say it's only three or four hours in a fast train from New York! I don't want to believe that, and I shall never know by experience, for I shan't be so sacrilegious as to take a train while motors run on roads and aeroplanes ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)
... sound in bad taste to some of you, or even sacrilegious, I am sorry. Perhaps the impression may be mitigated by what I have to say in ...
— A Pluralistic Universe - Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the - Present Situation in Philosophy • William James
... remote periods concerned—though in safer keeping than in that of the turbulent races occupied in Europe with the development of civilisation in brief intervals of leisure from warfare, and hard pressed by the fanaticism that so long treated science as sacrilegious during ...
— The Story of Atlantis and the Lost Lemuria • W. Scott-Elliot |
