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Badness   /bˈædnəs/   Listen
Badness

noun
1.
That which is below standard or expectations as of ethics or decency.  Synonym: bad.
2.
Used of the degree of something undesirable e.g. pain or weather.  Synonyms: severeness, severity.
3.
An attribute of mischievous children.  Synonyms: mischievousness, naughtiness.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Badness" Quotes from Famous Books



... marvelled that a man could engrave so much and so well as he did while showing so little perseverance. Gamelin made up his mind to wait a while for his return and the woman offered him a chair. She was in a black mood and began to grumble at the badness of trade, though she had always been told that the Revolution, by breaking windows, was making ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France

... alongside him, doing cordial justice to the badness of the meal, muttered that it wouldn't do to eat by idees in Minnesoty. And with the freedom that belongs to the frontier, the company begun to discuss dietetics, the fat gentleman roundly abusing the food for the ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston

... except symbolically. When we die, we do not sink or soar to the realm of spirits, but are in it, at once, everywhere; and the resulting experience will depend on the prevailing elements of our moral being. If we are bad, our badness is our banishment from God; if we are good, our goodness is our union with God. In every world the true nature and law of retribution lie in the recoil of conduct on character, and the assimilated results ensuing. Take a soul that is saturated with the rottenness of depravity into the core of ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... nigh. The lightning had become more faint and rare. We heard the rustling of trees, and occasionally the barking of dogs, which last sound, however, soon ceased, and we were in the midst of night and silence. My horse, either from weariness, or the badness of the road, frequently stumbled; whereupon I dismounted, and leading him by the bridle, soon left Antonio far ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow

... neither wiser nor duller, stronger nor weaker than his school companions pleased Frau Schimmel, for as she loved to say: "Those people over whom one exclaims when one meets them, either because of their exceptional goodness or badness, are destined to ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... frankness in explaining our need, Mr. Blake. We thought it was ill fate when, seven days ago, our schooner was wrecked upon the rocks that guard this mountain. Even though we had searched with diligence for this very spot, we regarded it as fortune of much badness to be compelled to land on the Fire Mountain from an open boat, with but half our company, and without provisions. During days of hunger we cursed Fate. And all the while Fate was preparing our succor. So—if we are wise we accept ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer

... Masters! Italy hears no more such exquisite Voices as in Times past, particularly among the Women, and to the Shame of the Guilty I'll tell the Reason: The Ignorance of the Parents does not let them perceive the Badness of the Voice of their Children, as their Necessity makes them believe, that to sing and grow rich is one and the same Thing, and to learn Musick, it is enough to have a pretty Face: "Can you ...
— Observations on the Florid Song - or Sentiments on the Ancient and Modern Singers • Pier Francesco Tosi

... in the twinkling of an eye our path was a rushing mountain torrent. Dry under my tarpaulin I could enjoy the scene, splendid masses of blue-black clouds shot with vivid flashes of lightning that served only to show the badness of the way and the emptiness of the country. I will say for Ivan, the tarantass driver, that he knew his business and kept the horses on their feet and in the road better than most men could ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall

... fact, the method of sending individual ships for water, because of the long absence thus entailed. When water could not be brought in transports, or rather could not easily be transhipped owing to the badness of the season, he thought it better to take the whole fleet to the nearest watering-place than to divide its strength. Fresh provisions, absolutely indispensable to the health of the ships' companies, constituted the greatest of difficulties. ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan

... early as the Monday after the fatal Saturday night. Yet in old age he seems to have persuaded himself that the tale came later to his knowledge. Some irrelevant, late, and fourth-hand versions will be found in 'Notes and Queries,' but they merely illustrate the badness of ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang

... his party proceeded to a high and remarkable hill called BROOKS'S BLUFF: following the strait to the northward, they passed the remains of many Esquimaux habitations; and, though their short journey had been unsatisfactory on account of the badness of the weather, there was still sufficient to cause the most lively interest, and give strong hopes of the existence of some passage to the northeast of the ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry

... her to take this course. Prudence may seem to dictate it. The reckless mismanagement of European governments, the wild unsettlement of peoples, the badness of the peace, are, indeed, strong arguments for America cleaving ...
— Morals of Economic Internationalism • John A. Hobson

... without the least compunction of gratitude for his former favors, intended not to receive him, till a thought immediately suggested itself to me how I might convert him to my advantage, I pretended to recollect him; and, blaming the shortness of my memory and badness of my eyes, I sprung forward and embraced him ...
— From This World to the Next • Henry Fielding

... tell you how I find the Mexican servants. Hitherto I had avoided the ungrateful theme, from very weariness of it. The badness of the servants, is an unfailing source of complaint even amongst Mexicans; much more so amongst foreigners, especially on their first arrival. We hear of their addiction to stealing, their laziness, drunkenness, dirtiness, with a host of other vices. ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca

... our abilities in themselves. A man who can leap five yards may think that he can leap six; yet he may try and fail. A man who can write prose may only learn that he cannot write poetry from the badness of the verses which he produces. To the appeal to consciousness of power there is always an answer:—that we may believe ourselves to possess it, but that experience proves that ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude

... some such way that God's goodness in forgiving freely for Christ's sake our sins, impels us to forgive from the heart those that have trespassed against us. The power is all from above; yet, though we by our goodness do not set the beneficent machinery in motion, we may by our badness cause it all to stand still. It is not our forgiveness accorded to an evil-doer that procures forgiveness to ourselves from God; the opposite is the truth: yet our refusal of forgiveness to a brother prevents the flow of pardon down from ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot

... predicated as of these their productions. But the encouragement with which these lucubrations are read may seem most strange and more difficult to be accounted for. And here I cannot agree with my bookseller that their eminent badness recommends them. The true reason is, I believe, the same which I once heard an economist assign for the content and satisfaction with which his family drank water-cider—viz., because they could procure no better liquor. Indeed, I make no doubt but that the understanding ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... with the presupposition of original sin, they quietly assert that the soul of man is inherently bound up in the Life and Nature of God, and that goodness is at least as "original" as badness. They fly in the face of the age-long view that the doctrine of Grace makes freewill impossible and reduces salvation wholly to a work of God, and they assert as the ineradicable testimony of their own consciousness that human choices ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones

... who had been assigned to us we sauntered back to the hotel. The man abounded in compassion for me. He said it was the worst case he had ever heard of—to rob a man so manifestly good and amiable of so great a sum. Alas! the badness of some people. It put ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall

... work to build up his new constitution. It is commonly represented that in order to gain over the people to his side he cynically bribed them by his Lex Frumentaria. Now if this were true, and Caius were as clear-sighted as the same writers who insist on the badness of the law describe him to have been, it is hard to see how they can in the same breath eulogise his goodness and nobleness. To gain his ends he would have been using vile means, and would have been a vile man. [Sidenote: The common criticism ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley

... have never trusted any one in my life," answered the silversmith promptly. "I don't for a moment suppose that Luke Tulliver would be honest if I gave him an opportunity to cheat me. As to the badness of his countenance, that is so much the better. I like to deal with an obvious rogue. The really dangerous subject is your honest fool, who goes on straight enough till he has lulled one into a false security, ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon

... Elsie and had to descend that steep at any pace. At Dolceacqua he learned that the carriage was little more than half an hour ahead, on the road to Islabona. He was pleased to hear that, for all the badness of the road, he had gained upon it: plainly the horses ...
— The Admirable Tinker - Child of the World • Edgar Jepson

... bad . . . NEVER. I see that now, when I've learned what real badness is. You were always getting into terrible scrapes, I'll admit, but your motive was always good. Davy is just bad from sheer ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... father, and would find herself praying for him, careless of what she had been taught. She could not blind herself to what she knew. He had not been a bad man, as men count badness, but could she in common sense think him a glorified saint, shining in white robes? The polite, kind old man! her own father!—could she, on the other hand, believe him in flames forever? If so, what a religion was that which required her to believe it, and at the same ...
— The Elect Lady • George MacDonald

... be scanned, within the proper limits, according to the strictest rules of classical prosody: and while all good English metre comes out scatheless from the application of those rules, nothing exhibits the badness of bad English metre so well as that application. It is, alongside of their great merits, the distinguishing fault of Wyatt eminently, of Surrey to a less degree, and of all the new school up ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury

... long vacant upon Account of the badness of the Tobacco, which gives Room for Dissenters, especially Quakers, as in Nansemond County; but this might be remedied, either by making the Payments of equal Value in the other Commodities produced there, or else by a standing Order, which ...
— The Present State of Virginia • Hugh Jones

... scored him for not doing his best, he parted company with the Colonel and the Monte Carlo. More and more strongly two passions ruled his life. One was love for Jane Reed; the love of a man conscious of his own utter badness for that holy life he secretly envies and outwardly scorns. The other was hatred for Job Malden, who, ever since he came upon the stage in the long ago, had stood between Daniel Dean ...
— The Transformation of Job - A Tale of the High Sierras • Frederick Vining Fisher

... shortcoming; but, as a matter of fact, no more frightful misfortune could threaten us than a general spread of fanaticism. What people call goodness has to be kept in check just as carefully as what they call badness; for the human constitution will not stand very much of either without serious psychological mischief, ending in insanity or crime. The fact that the insanity may be privileged, as Savonarola's was ...
— Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw

... stories. But the choosing must be his own. He must select the beginning that seems best adapted to his story. As an inspiration to reporters who are trying to write human interest stories, a few beginnings clipped from daily papers are given here. Some are good and some are bad; the goodness or badness in each case depends upon individual taste. They can hardly be classified in more than a general way for originality is opposed to all classifications. ...
— Newspaper Reporting and Correspondence - A Manual for Reporters, Correspondents, and Students of - Newspaper Writing • Grant Milnor Hyde

... one whit, if only they leave us alone. But they began wrong, you see, when they told us to get off the earth. That riled me. I never did like to be sat on by anybody. It just seems like something inside gets to workin' overtime, and all my badness begins to rise up, like mom's yeast in a batch of dough. Count my vote ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren

... the home and the school use this method of education, brutality will be developed in the child himself at the cost of humanity. The child uses on animals, on his young brothers and sisters, on his comrades, the methods applied to himself. He puts in practice the same argument, that "badness" must be cured with blows. Only children accustomed to be treated mildly, learn to see that influence can be gained without using force. To see this is one of man's privileges, sacrificed by man through descending to the methods of the brute. Only by the child seeing his teacher always and ...
— The Education of the Child • Ellen Key

... at the beginning of his Royal and Noble Authors, has mottoed his book with the Cardinal's address to Ariosto, "Dove diavolo, Messer Ludovico, avete pigliato tante coglionerie?"[271] Walter Scott says you could hardly pick out, on any principle of selection—except badness itself, he means of course—the same number of plebeian authors whose works are so bad. But his implied satire on aristocratic writing forgets two points. First, during a large period of our history, when persons of rank condescended to write, they veiled ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan

... conclusions are greatly modified by the state of civilization and that of society. Where the laboring classes are despised and paid in a manner unworthy of human beings, the badness of their work will be in keeping with the estimation in which it is held. The reverse of this, also, is usually true under different circumstances. ( 173.) Thus, it has been noticed in France, that native workmen, provided with as substantial food as English ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher

... complain of the coldness an' hardness of the world; by 'the world,' always meanin' the folks that live in it, I suppose. To my way of thinkin' there's a deal more kindness in the world than there is selfishness an' badness, an' the people on that steamer proved me right in one case anyway. They made up a purse among 'em an' give a share to each of us that had been picked out of the sea, as you might say. So, when we landed, we each had a little money to start in with. I soon found ...
— The Alchemist's Secret • Isabel Cecilia Williams

... see Article x. The doctrine of our Church is that although man has a perfectly free will to choose good or evil, yet we prefer the animal life to the spiritual life, and, through the badness of our perverse will, shall continue to prefer it until prevented by ...
— The Church Handy Dictionary • Anonymous

... themselves, into the land of the Chaldeans, and formed there the nucleus for the Kingdom of God, in its impending new form, Jer. xxiv. Nothing now seemed to stand in the way of the divine judgment upon the wicked mass that had been left behind, like bad figs that no one can eat for badness,—they whom the Lord had threatened that He would give them over to hurt and calamity in all the kingdoms of the earth, to reproach, and a proverb, and a taunt, and a curse, in all places whither He would ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions. Vol. 2 • Ernst Hengstenberg

... difficulty, in consequence of the badness of the road; and having occupied five hours in travelling only twelve miles, Mr. Weld arrived at Skenesborough. This is a little town, which stands near the southern extremity of Lake Champlain. It consisted, ...
— Travels in North America, From Modern Writers • William Bingley

... mind, but I felt that she was more dangerous, perhaps, than a person of critical intelligence. Being one of those always-was, always-will-be women—wife-women, mother-women she might by instinct see the badness of my heart as I was reading the simple goodness ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... use to think about badness or goodness now," said Willy, flinging another handful of grass into the road. "What'll I ...
— Little Grandfather • Sophie May

... our sincerity," she said. "You are sincere in your goodness, and I, paradoxical as it sounds, in my badness." ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie

... could tell him, that whatsoever is imposed as a part of God's worship, is judged by a better rule than his, both as to its goodness and badness, neither can we account any thing indifferent that is a part thereof. Besides, whatsoever is reputed a part of God's worship, layeth hold on the conscience of the godly: although a ranting Latitudinarian may say, 'If the devil should preach, I would hear him, before I would suffer ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... you are fond of me," he said, "and that is why it's so unreasonable in you not to marry me. I don't ask— impossibilities. But you do like me; and I love you, you dear, good, foolish woman;—so good that you couldn't see badness when it lived next door ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland

... suffering! I tell you, Lady Clementina," continued Malcolm, rising, and approaching her a step or two, "if I. had not the hope of one day being good like God himself, if I thought there was no escape out of the wrong and badness I feel within me and know I am not able to rid myself of without supreme help, not all the wealth and honours of the world could reconcile ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald

... two (Hussey's and McCormick's) from America, and an English one which was declared on all hands a mere imitation of Hussey's. Neither the original nor the copy, however, appear to have operated to the satisfaction of the assembly, perhaps owing to the badness of the weather and its effects on the draggled, unripe grain. With McCormick's a very different result was obtained. This machine is so well known in our Wheat-growing districts that I need only remark that it is the same lately ridiculed by one of the ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley

... age, I had got the following maxim by heart: "Whenever J. is particularly quiet, look out for squalls." He was sure to be in some mischief. And I must say there was a novelty, an unexpectedness, an ingenuity, in his badness that constantly astonished me. The crimes he committed could be arranged alphabetically. He never repeated himself. His evil resources were inexhaustible. He never did the thing I expected he would. He never failed to do the thing I was unprepared for. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various

... with us be, Let us not fall to badness; Make us from all sinning free, And help us die in gladness. 'Gainst the devil well us ware, And keep our faith from failing, Our hope in thee from quailing. Our hearts upon thee staying, Make us wholly trust thy care! Us, with good Christians sharing, Save from ...
— Rampolli • George MacDonald

... landlord may require the department to which he applies (called in the Bill the State Authority) to pay him the statutory price of his estate, not in cash, but in consols valued at par. This price, except in certain unusual cases of great goodness or of great badness of the land, is twenty years' purchase of the net rental. The net rental is the gross rental after deducting from that rent tithe rent-charge, the average percentage for expenses in respect of bad debts, any rates paid by the landlord, ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.

... midsummer flower, Gentle as falcon Or hawk of the tower: With solace and gladness, Much mirth and no madness, All good and no badness; So joyously, So maidenly, So womanly Her demeaning In every thing, Far, far passing That I can indite, Or suffice to write Of Merry Margaret As midsummer flower, Gentle as falcon Or hawk of the tower. As patient and still And as full of good will ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy

... hope and madness, It's the tangle of good and badness, It's the lunacy linked with sanity, Makes ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer

... seized upon and recast all images of beauty, to make them more perfectly beautiful, so, to vent his infinite horror of evil, he seized on all the worst images of crime or torture that he could find, and recast them so as to reach the quintessence of distilled badness. His pictures of war, famine, lust, and cruelty are, or seem, forced, although perhaps, as in the Cenci, he might urge that he had historical warrant for his descriptions, far better historical warrant, no doubt, than the beauty and happiness actually to be found in the world ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana

... from the intensity of approval or disapproval which it arouses in the individual. Actions are not moral or immoral in themselves, but in their consequences or relations, which are only discoverable in experience. The goodness or badness of an act is measurable in terms of its consequences, and the consequences of action are discoverable only in experience. This does not imply that we calculate the results of every action before performing it, or measure the consequences of the acts of other ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman

... from one of his domestics, tells me, that his tenants hate him: and that he never had a servant who spoke well of him. Vilely suspicious of their wronging him (probably from the badness of his own heart) he ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson

... he said, had nothing to do with their demands, and by their conduct they showed that they had forgotten the law of Christ. For by the Divine law it was forbidden to extort anything from the authorities by force: the badness of the latter was no excuse for violence and rebellion. Respecting the substance of their demands, their first article, claiming to elect their own pastor, if the civil authority refused to provide one, was right enough and Christian; but in that case they ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin

... Tom Lorrigan, feared of his kind for his badness. His tone was hushed with amazement, all aglow with ...
— Rim o' the World • B. M. Bower

... you any more, child. Go to bed, and forget all about it. You hear bad things enough in the street, and it 'ud only put badness into your head to hear talk ...
— Fan • Henry Harford

... the reason," he agreed, quite as serious as she. "We always are happiest when we are unselfish. Now, let's forget all about the badness and just remember the goodness. I have some of the most splendid plans for what we shall do when I have my six girls at home with me. What beautiful ...
— At the Little Brown House • Ruth Alberta Brown

... three nights at the town, which was about four miles off, in order to provide some horses, which they wanted, several of the horses having been lamed and jaded with the badness of the way, and our long march over the last desert; so we had some leisure here to put my design in execution. I communicated my project to the Scots merchant, of Moscow, of whose courage I had had ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe

... badness of quality ... especially malice, ill-will, spite, malevolence, artfulness, cunning, craft."—Riddle and Arnold, ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero

... the one to the town prison at Norwich, the other to the county prison there, for obstinate papistry; and seven more gentlemen of worship were committed to several houses in Norwich as prisoners....for badness of belief. This Rookwood is a papist of kind, newly crept out of his late wardship. Her majesty, by some means I know not, was lodged at his house, Euston, far unmeet for her highness, but fitter for the black guard; nevertheless, ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin

... Or is it that we seem to be happier to-day than heretofore? Is cowardice, then, an adjunct of happiness? Or is it simply because we have slaves and must punish them if they do wrong? But by what right can a man, who is bad himself, punish others for badness or stupidity? [84] Remember, too, that we have arranged for the maintenance of a whole multitude, to guard our persons and our houses, and it would be shameful for us to depend for safety on the weapons of others and refuse to carry weapons ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon

... deepless deep— Ah, the seas of loneliness. The silence-waving waters, ever shoreless, bottomless, colorless, have no shadow of my passing soul. I, without wisdom, without foolishness, without goodness, without badness—am like God, ...
— Cosmic Consciousness • Ali Nomad

... growth, that the regulation of elementary or any other grade of education by a uniform syllabus is to be deprecated. It is also because a uniform syllabus is, in the nature of things, a bad syllabus, and because the degree of its badness varies directly with the area of the sphere of educational activity that comes under its control. It is easy for us of the Twentieth Century to laugh at the syllabuses which the Department issued, without ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes

... classes there; on the other three one of the ushers came up to Larue for a couple of hours of private tuition. At the school itself I did not learn very much, except that boys everywhere are pretty similar, especially in the badness of their manners. I also learnt that shrugging the shoulders while exhibiting the palms of the hands, and smiting oneself vehemently on the chest, are indispensable elements of the French idiom. The indiscriminate use of the word 'parfaitement' I also noticed to be essential ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke

... kine, fatfleshed and well favoured; and they fed in the reed-grass: and, behold, seven other kine came up after them, poor and very ill favoured and leanfleshed, such as I never saw in all the land of Egypt for badness: and the lean and ill favoured kine did eat up the first seven fat kine: and when they had eaten them up, it could not be known that they had eaten them; but they were still ill favoured, as at the beginning. So I awoke. And I saw ...
— Select Masterpieces of Biblical Literature • Various

... human ills. A period of purification was appointed after the birth of every child; but, by a very significant provision, it was twice as long in the case of a female as of a male child (Levit. xii. 1-5). The badness of men, a Jewish writer emphatically declared, is better than the goodness of women (Ecclesiasticus xlii. 14). The types of female excellence exhibited in the early period of Jewish history are in general of a low order, and certainly far inferior to those of Roman history ...
— Men, Women, and Gods - And Other Lectures • Helen H. Gardener

... suffering that are its consequences. This is, I say, a taking of the indication for the thing indicated. An act is bad in itself and by itself, as being a violation of the rational nature of the doer (c. vi., s. i.), and being bad, it breeds bad consequences. But the badness of the act is moral; the badness of the consequences, physical. There is an evident intrinsic irrationality, and thereby moral evil, in such sins as intemperance, peevishness, and vanity. But let us take an instance of an act, apparently harmless in itself, and evil solely because of ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.

... 3. And the Lord said to me, What art thou seeing, Jeremiah? And I said, Figs, the good figs very good, and the bad very bad, which for their(487) badness cannot be eaten. 4. And the Word of the Lord came unto me, [5] saying, Thus saith the Lord, the ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith

... are constantly borrowing small sums from their friends, which they never restore. If you should ever be thrown into the society of such, your right course will be to take care to have no money in your pocket. People are disagreeable who are given to talking of the badness of their servants, the undutifulness of their children, the smokiness of their chimneys, and the deficiency of their digestive organs. And though, with a true and close friend, it is a great relief, and a special tie, to have spoken out your heart about your burdens and sorrows, it is expedient, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various

... uneducated believers in a polytheistic religion regularly take the image for the deity himself, at first scarcely conceiving of the one apart from the other. Thus some Bharewas or brass-workers say that they dare not make metal images of the gods, because they are afraid that the badness of their handiwork might arouse the wrath of the gods and move them to take revenge. The surmise might in fact be almost justifiable that the end to which figures of men and animals were first drawn or painted, or modelled in clay or metal was that they might ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell

... Roberts A has been pretty exhaustively figured and described in various aeronautical publications. The unforeseen defect was the badness of the work in the silk netting. It tore aft as soon as I began to contract the balloon, and the last two segments immediately bulged through the hole, exactly as an inner tube will bulge through the ruptured ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells

... subjects of art; he began to have doubts of his impression of the trotting-match, its value, its possibility of importance. The senseless ugliness of the things really hurt him: his worship of beauty was a sort of religion, and their badness was a sort of blasphemy. He could not laugh at them; he wished he could; and his first impulse was to turn and escape from the Fine Arts Department, and keep what little faith in the artistic future ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells

... puts a small quantity of the silver upon trial in the fire, and then, taking it out again, he, with his exact scales that will turn with the weight of the hundredth part of a grain, computes and reports the goodness or badness ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... ought to be truthful. There's no such thing, you know, as picking out the best woman; it's only a question of comparative badness, brother. ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius

... dream of Elinor? Are we so utterly separated that even in visions I may not behold her face? What have I done, that God refuses me all joy? I don't know of being so bad. But I suppose this not knowing is the very badness itself. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various

... days' march of it, both very disgusting; horrible, or rather no roads at all; nothing but dust and sand under our feet, which the wind blew into our eyes every minute; add to which, small halts every five minutes, on account of the artillery in our front, who could not get on through the badness of the way: this perpetual halting is the most wearisome thing possible to a soldier when once fairly under weigh. Well; we arrived here on the day before yes-day; our front is now completely changed, being towards the river, and not turned from it, or ...
— Campaign of the Indus • T.W.E. Holdsworth

... as difficult to win over an enthusiast by force of reasoning, as to persuade a lover of his mistress's faults; or to convince a man who is at law of the badness of his cause. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 540, Saturday, March 31, 1832 • Various

... year from compensating the scarcity of another, to raise the price in the home market. The scarcity which prevailed in England, from 1693 to 1699, both inclusive, though no doubt principally owing to the badness of the seasons, and, therefore, extending through a considerable part of Europe, must have been somewhat enhanced by the bounty. In 1699, accordingly, the further exportation of corn ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith

... I was obliged to dwell very plainly on the irregularity and the too frequent vanity and meanness of his relations to women. Hence, in the eyes of many, my study was a step towards the demonstration of Burns's radical badness. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... deep interest he has felt in all boys ever since," Hugh was saying reflectively; "especially those who seem to have a streak of badness in them." ...
— The Chums of Scranton High at Ice Hockey • Donald Ferguson

... November, 1743, is to me," said the doctor, "a most flagrant instance not only of the prevalency of power and money, when employed, as in the present case, against an unfortunate helpless man, disabled, as he is, of the means of ascertaining his right, but of the badness of a cause that hath recourse to so many ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... appointment, a position which brought her into constant personal contact with the Queen. She was, in fact, the last of the Queen's women contemporaries who were also close friends. This fact was common knowledge, and Mr. Mudford in one of his notes, which were written in a calligraphy the badness of which it is almost impossible to describe without the aid of a lithographic print, wrote to me shortly, telling me of the death and asking me to write that night a leader on Lady Ely. He pointed out how great the loss ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey

... badness of his fare that has put him out of humour," said the Countess Isabelle. "Cheer up, Seignior Quentin, and should we ever visit my ancient Castle of Bracquemont together, if I myself should stand your ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott

... pestilent season in this land. Such a sickness came on men, that full nigh every other man was in the worst disorder, that is, in the diarrhoea; and that so dreadfully, that many men died in the disorder. Afterwards came, through the badness of the weather as we before mentioned, so great a famine over all England, that many hundreds of men died a miserable death through hunger. Alas! how wretched and how rueful a time was there! When the poor wretches lay full nigh driven to death prematurely, ...
— The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle • Unknown

... annoyed with her, but glad to have discovered the badness of her heart. In spite of my longing to see my daughter I determined not to take any steps to meet her till the ensuing Sunday, when I was invited ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... pupil of Sir Godfrey Kneller, and met with plentiful employment in portrait painting. His abilities were very inferior, but, says Walpole, "Such was the badness of the age's taste, and the dearth of good masters, that Jervas sat at the head of his profession, although he was defective in drawing, coloring, composition, and likeness. In general, his pictures are a light flimsy kind of fan-painting as large as life. Yet I have ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner

... How dreadful that there are no people who enjoy the self-denials and the cares which they dislike, that there are no people who rejoice in carrying that burden of duties which they do not wish to touch with one of their fingers! The outcry about the badness of servants means just this: that everybody is tired of self-helpfulness,—the servants as thoroughly as the masters and mistresses. All want the cream of life, without even the trouble of skimming; and the great fight now is, who shall drink ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... that they FEEL good or bad; there can be no dispute about it. This is the bottom fact of ethics. Different experiences have different intrinsic worth as they pass. There is a chiaroscuro of consciousness, a light and shade of immediate goodness and badness over all our variegated moments. The good moments are their own excuse for being, a part of the brightness and worth of life. They need nothing ulterior to justify them. The bad moments feel bad, and that is the end of it; they are bad-feeling moments, and no sophistication ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake

... friend. Mrs. Gifford at length, remembering that Hunt was a guest, forced a momentary, ghastly smile. Annie was looking melancholy enough before, but a slight compression of the lips indicated that she had received the full effect. Certain degrees of badness in jokes stamp the joker as a natural inferior in the eyes of even the most rabid of social levelers. Scarcely any possible exhibition of depravity gives quite the sickening sense of disappointment in the perpetrator imparted by a genuinely bad or stale joke. Two or more similar ...
— Potts's Painless Cure - 1898 • Edward Bellamy

... that I am, and they that level At my abuses reckon up their own: I may be straight though they themselves be bevel; By their rank thoughts, my deeds must not be shown; Unless this general evil they maintain, All men are bad and in their badness reign. ...
— Shakespeare's Sonnets • William Shakespeare

... Towns Manchester; Leeds; Sheffield Birmingham Liverpool Watering-places; Cheltenham; Brighton; Buxton; Tunbridge Wells Bath London The City Fashionable Part of the Capital Lighting of London Police of London Whitefriars; The Court The Coffee Houses Difficulty of Travelling Badness of the Roads Stage Coaches Highwaymen Inns Post Office Newspapers News-letters The Observator Scarcity of Books in Country Places; Female Education Literary Attainments of Gentlemen Influence of French Literature Immorality of the Polite Literature of England State of Science in England State ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Complete Contents of the Five Volumes • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... some idea for getting even with me sooner or later. If she hadn't that to keep her up, Sally thinks she couldn't have resisted answering my letter with a tirade. Fortunately she can't claw me away from the Trowbridges and make me marry Potter—even if he would have me now, after all my badness—otherwise she would perhaps have tried to act at once. And she can't have me put in prison on bread and water and solitary confinement, as no doubt she would like to do. Still, I don't feel quite easy in my mind about her silence, lest Sally may be right about ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... like this—a chance to make up for some of the devilment he's done to folks—and some he's made me help at. You know who I am, but none of the rest do—and they sha'n't. I'm a new girl now. I want to make up for some of the badness that has been. It's all over; but sometimes I hate the blood in my veins because—you know! And if I can only do ...
— That Girl Montana • Marah Ellis Ryan

... Browning does not think so. It is possible, he says, that the reason why these poor outcasts abandoned life, was because their aspirations were so tremendously high that dull reality overpowered their spirits. Goodness is better than badness: meekness better than ferocity: calm sense than mad ravings. But, after all, these poor fellows were God's creatures. His sun will eventually pierce the darkest cloud earth can stretch. Somewhere, after many ages in the next life, these men will develop ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps

... breathing, and only about one-tenth for smelling; so that by far the greater part of the nose is built on breathing lines. But the smelling part of it, though small, is very important, because it now has to decide, not merely upon the goodness or badness of the food, but also upon the purity or foulness of the air we breathe. The nostrils lie, as you can see, side by side, separated from each other by a thin, straight plate of gristle and bone known as the septum. This should be perfectly straight and flat; but very often ...
— A Handbook of Health • Woods Hutchinson

... 18 my judgment should be worth something. I am firmly convinced that if the Government could have provided all despatch riders with Blackburnes, the percentage—at all times small—of messages undelivered owing to mechanical breakdowns or the badness of the roads would have been reduced to zero. I have no interest in the Blackburne Company beyond a sincere admiration of the machine ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson

... precious hours, and which Honora could not eat! The Lord, when he had made Mrs. Mayo, had mercifully withheld the gift of imagination. One topic filled her, she lived to one end: her Alpha and Omega were husband and children, and she talked continually of their goodness and badness, of their illnesses, of their health, of their likes and dislikes, of their accomplishments and defects, until one day a surprising thing happened. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... biscuits with a paddle. She cooked over at Strum's. I lived over at Jenkins. Grandma Kizzy done my cooking. Master's girl cooked us biscuits. Master Jenkins loose his hat, his stick, his specks, and call us to find 'em. He could see. He called us to keep us outer badness. We had a big business of throwing at things. He threatened to whoop us. We slacked up on it. I never heard them say but I believe from what I seen it was agreed to divide the children. Pa would take me over to see mama every Sunday morning. We leave soon as I could get my clean long shirt and a ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves, Arkansas Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration

... Laxart sat up there and droned out the most tedious and empty tale one ever heard, and neither he nor Papa D'Arc ever gave a thought to the badness of the etiquette of it, or ever suspected that that foolish tale was anything but dignified and valuable history. There was not an atom of value in it; and whilst they thought it distressing and pathetic, it was in fact ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Volume 2 • Mark Twain

... but I must venture it now. So home, and by night home, and so to my office, and there set down my journal, with the help of my left eye through my tube, for fourteen days' past; which is so much, as, I hope, I shall not run in arrear again, but the badness of my eyes do force me to it. So home to ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... to prudence; but a good deal of it to contempt. For of all the rubbish that time shoots into the wallet of oblivion, contemporary criticism runs about the least chance of being rescued from the forgetfulness into which it has been thrust. This is a result entirely independent of its goodness or badness. If the criticism is both destructive and just, the very death of the subject against which it is directed causes it to perish in the ruin it has brought about. If it is unjust, it is certain to be speedily forgotten, unless ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury

... the University Museum. Numerous pictures, far beyond the ordinary degree of badness, occupy the upper rooms, where the only object of interest is a very fine and well-preserved bronze of Hercules and the Pompeian Fawn, half life-size. But far beyond all else in artistic importance are the metopes from Selinuntium, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various

... the end of next week; I shall be in town to take leave of him; but after the 15th, that is, this day se'nnight, I shall be quite unengaged and the sooner I see you after the 15th, the better, for I should be sorry to drag you across the country in the badness of November roads. ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole

... me by his insolence." To aggravate is to augment the disagreeableness of something already disagreeable, or the badness of something bad. But a person cannot be aggravated, even if disagreeable or bad. Women are singularly prone to misuse ...
— Write It Right - A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults • Ambrose Bierce

... with what was becoming so clear to her, that an honest man might save her from it, might give her his name and his faith and help her to traverse the bad place. She exaggerates the badness of it, the stigma of her relationship. Good heavens, at that rate where would some of us be? But those are her ideas, they are absolutely sincere, and they had possession of her at the opera. She had a sense of being lost ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James

... done you dirt. You pass that over. You could have fired him, but you let him stay and keep his job. That's goodness. And badness is resultin' from it, ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister

... Not that I ever mean to look for gratitude again. I mean to try, not to care for anybody but Frank. 'Govern men by outward force,' says Mr. Henry. He is an uncommonly clever man, and he says, the longer he lives, the more he is convinced of the badness of men. He always looks for it now, even in those who are the ...
— The Moorland Cottage • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... Delaware and Schuylkill. Then might be seen a quaint and marvellous sight of men and boys of all ages and conditions, with firearms of every faculty and form, followed by dogs of every degree of badness, in all kinds of boats, among which the bateau of boards predominated, intermingled with an occasional Maryland dug-out or poplar canoe. Many, however, crept on foot along the shore, and this could be seen below the Navy Yard even within the city ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland

... badness occurred to him. Had she not ruined his chances in that country? The old antagonism was there, the readiness to believe ill of the other sex that is born of mutual fear. She had become the immemorial siren in Sam's eyes, and he was fighting to save his soul. But ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner

... you," said he, "because it is about the Macdonalds; and I want to show you that we had not all the badness of those times. It was Donald Gorm Mor; and his nephew Hugh Macdonald, who was the heir to the chieftainship, he got a number of men to join him in a conspiracy to have his uncle murdered. The chief found it ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black

... entertained by Artemus, he wished to have one of great artistic merit. Finding considerable difficulty in procuring one, and also discovering that the expense of a real work of art would be beyond his means, he resolved on having a very bad one or one so bad in parts that its very badness would give him scope for jest. In the small towns of the Western States, it passed very well for a first-class picture, but what it was really worth in an artistic point of view its owner was ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 6 • Charles Farrar Browne

... them to Rugby, whither they travelled across country by Wallingford and Oxford. The second day took them to Lichfield. Lord Maulevrier was out of health and feeble, and grumbled a good deal about the fatigue of the journey, the badness of the weather, which was dull and cold, east winds all day, and a light frost morning and night. As they progressed northward the sky looked grayer, the air became more biting. His lordship insisted upon the stages being shortened. He lay in bed at his hotel till noon, and was seldom ready ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... woke full of mischief. It was a bracing November day, cool as an ice-cream and clear as a whistle. The air sparkled like a fountain of golden sands, and was as full of oxygen as it could hold; and oxygen, you must know, is at the bottom of a great deal of the happiness and misery, goodness and badness, of this world. ...
— Gypsy's Cousin Joy • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

... was a hanging, and that, of all hangings within the memory of the oldest man, that of Friend and Parkyns excited the greatest interest. The multitude had been incensed against Friend by reports touching the exceeding badness of the beer which he brewed. It was even rumoured that he had, in his zeal for the Jacobite cause, poisoned all the casks which he had furnished to the navy. An innumerable crowd accordingly assembled at Tyburn. Scaffolding had been put up which formed an immense amphitheatre round ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... family, on my father's side, the two best wine-tasters that have been known in La Mancha for many a long year, and to prove it I'll tell you now a thing that happened them. They gave the two of them some wine out of a cask, to try, asking their opinion as to the condition, quality, goodness or badness of the wine. One of them tried it with the tip of his tongue, the other did no more than bring it to his nose. The first said the wine had a flavour of iron, the second said it had a stronger flavour of cordovan. The owner said the cask was clean, and ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... very rude. Notwithstanding they had made up their minds to go, yet I could see that they were not offended at the homely way (as my father called it) in which I enforced my suit. I enlarged upon the darkness of the evening, the badness of the roads, and a thousand other obstacles which I presented to their view; but when I found that all was in vain; I seized an occasion to withdraw, while they were at tea, and taking off one of the wheels of the chaise I conveyed it ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt

... wicked'st caitiff on the ground, May seem as shy, as grave, as just, as absolute As Angelo; even so may Angelo, 55 In all his dressings, characts, titles, forms, Be an arch-villain; believe it, royal prince: If he be less, he's nothing; but he's more, Had I more name for badness. ...
— Measure for Measure - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare

... they all looked appalling, abandoned, the last cry in "badness." She was not afraid. The street was too brilliant and the great juggernauts of trolley cars lumbered by every few moments. Moreover, she could make herself look as cold and remote as the stars above the fog, and she had drawn herself up to ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton

... of a shilling by the good fellow whose conversation I bought one afternoon when I found him, sitting up in his turfy bed, and mending his coat with needle and thread. I asked him of the times and their badness, and I hope I left him with the conviction that I believed him an artisan out of work, taking his misfortune bravely. He was certainly cheerful, and we had some agreeable moments, which I could not prolong, because ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells

... case of the elder, who was called Sebastian. He was a strong intelligent lad, and having an inclination to follow his father's trade, promised to make a good clever carpenter. He had, however, a certain refractoriness of disposition, which at times seemed to border closely upon badness, as well as being somewhat rude in his manners, and even often wild and untamable; but these ill qualities Wacht hoped to conquer by wise training. The younger boy, Jonathan by name, was exactly the opposite of his elder brother; he was a very pretty little ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann

... epochs of our life are at the points when we gain courage to rebaptize our badness ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche

... see it was just his way of saving his soul, the only way open to him. You mustn't think of it as a bad way. Or a good way. It wasn't even his way. It was the way of something bigger than he was, bigger than anything he could ever be. Bigger than badness ...
— The Romantic • May Sinclair



Words linked to "Badness" :   inadvisability, disobedience, severity, intensity, undesirability, evil, raininess, quality, good, worse, roguishness, unsoundness, prankishness, foulness, distressfulness, severeness, unworthiness, intensiveness, rascality, seriousness, liability, goodness



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