"Contemn" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in Deronda's nature usually to contemn the feeble, fastidious sympathy which shrinks from the broad life of mankind; but now, with Mirah before him as a living reality, whose experience he had to care for, he saw every common Jew and Jewess in the light of a comparison with her, and had a presentiment ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... sense. But not so with us. We survey the heavens and admire Him that made them; for we do not believe them to be a god, but a work of God. I look on the whole creation, and am led by it to the Creator. He looks on wealth, and longs for it with earnest desire; I look on wealth, and contemn it. He sees poverty, and laments; I see poverty, and rejoice. I see things in one light; he in another. Just so in regard to death. He sees a corpse, and thinks of it as a corpse; I see a corpse, and behold sleep rather than death. And as in regard to books, both ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume I - Basil to Calvin • Various
... interrupter, he prophesied:—"You and your posterity will be for ever contemptible among the tribes." Blessing the king he promised him prosperity here and heaven hereafter and assured him:—"If any one of your posterity contemn my successors refusing me my lawful dues he will never reign over the kingdom of Kerry." This prophecy has ...
— The Life of St. Mochuda of Lismore • Saint Mochuda
... might point him to an unending struggle with adverse conditions, but how was heroism possible without faith? Absolute faith he had none; he was essentially a negativist, guided by the mere relations of phenomena. Nothing easier than to contemn the mode of life represented by this wealthy middle class; but compare it with other existences conceivable by a thinking man, and it was emphatically good. It aimed at placidity, at benevolence, at supreme ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... what good of fashion we can,—it rests on reality, and hates nothing so much as pretenders;—to exclude and mystify pretenders, and send them into everlasting "Coventry,"[410] is its delight. We contemn, in turn, every other gift of men of the world; but the habit, even in little and the least matters, of not appealing to any but our own sense of propriety, constitutes the foundation of all chivalry. There is almost no kind of self-reliance, so it be sane and proportioned, which fashion does ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... of difficulties; to get out of a present inconvenience with any risk of future ruin; to follow and to bow to fortune; to admire successful, though wicked enterprise, and to imitate what we admire; to contemn the government which announces danger from sacrilege and regicide whilst they are only in their infancy and their struggle, but which finds nothing that can alarm in their adult state, and in the power and ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... am lost in the admiration of it. I contemn the world when I think on it, and myself when I ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden
... you, or six hundred pound— expect no lower price, for, by the banner of my front, I will not bate a bagatine, that I will have, only, a pledge of your loves, to carry something from amongst you, to shew I am not contemn'd by you. Therefore, now, toss your handkerchiefs, cheerfully, cheerfully; and be advertised, that the first heroic spirit that deignes to grace me with a handkerchief, I will give it a little remembrance of something, beside, ...
— Volpone; Or, The Fox • Ben Jonson
... fugitives from neighb'ring lands, Have here a certain sanctuary found: The eternal refuge of the vagabond, Where in but half a common age of time, Borrowing new blood and manners from the clime, Proudly they learn all mankind to contemn, And all their ...
— The True-Born Englishman - A Satire • Daniel Defoe
... roses from thy brow— Grey hairs but poorly wreathe with them; Youth's garlands misbecome thee now, More than thy very diadem,[nh] Where thou hast tarnished every gem:— Then throw the worthless bauble by, Which, worn by thee, ev'n slaves contemn; And learn like better men ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... I will him entertain, Yet must he take it all in good part; And though his diet be small, he may not disdain, Nor yet contemn the kindness of my heart: For though I lack instruments to put him to smart, Yet shall he abide in a hellish black dungeon: As for blocks, stocks, and irons, I warrant ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley
... thy fortunes; for in them[hz] Ambition steeled thee on too far to show That just habitual scorn, which could contemn Men and their thoughts; 'twas wise to feel, not so To wear it ever on thy lip and brow, And spurn the instruments thou wert to use Till they were turned unto thine overthrow: 'Tis but a worthless world to win or ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... possible means to live a full, harmonious life, united, and it is found an impossibility, the two continue to live together despite the decree of God, made manifest in their nature, that it is sinful for them to do so. This all is within the province of that 'higher law' which many profess to contemn, but to which all must sooner ...
— Dawn • Mrs. Harriet A. Adams
... governments for local purposes, and a general government for general purposes, still, thank God! may survive it. To be sure, we may be beaten and enslaved, The rascals, renegades, and liberticides may gain their object. This object we shall ever contemn. But if they gain it fairly, under the forms of the Constitution, it is the duty of all good citizens to submit. Our Southern opponents, we acknowledge, committed some "irregularities"; but nobody can assert, that, in dealing with ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... Subjects, which shall sail into Hudson's Bay, or inhabit in any of the Countries, Islands or Territories hereby granted to the said Governor and Company, without their Leave and License in that Behalf first had and obtained, or that shall contemn or disobey their Orders, and send them to England; and that all and every Person or Persons, being Our Subjects, any ways employed by the said Governor and Company, within any of the Parts, Places, and Limits aforesaid, shall be liable unto and ...
— Charter and supplemental charter of the Hudson's Bay Company • Hudson's Bay Company
... rational creature is that it should be under God and above other creatures. Hence, just as it is an evil for a rational creature to submit, by love, to a lower creature, so too is it an evil for it, if it submit not to God, but presumptuously revolt against Him or contemn Him. Now this evil is possible to a rational creature considered as to its nature on account of the natural flexibility of the free-will; whereas in the blessed, it becomes impossible, by reason of the perfection of glory. Therefore the avoidance of this evil that consists in non-subjection ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... courteous Gallant, You that scorn all I can bestow, that laugh at The afflictions, and the groans I suffer for you, That slight and jeer my love, contemn the fortune My favours can fling on you, have I caught you? Have I now found the cause? ye fool my wishes; Is mine own slave, my bane? I nourish that That sucks up my content. I'le pray no more, Nor wooe no more; thou shalt see ...
— Beaumont & Fletcher's Works (1 of 10) - The Custom of the Country • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... so win upon others, as to bring glory to my Jesus, whom I have this day taken to be my Master and Governor; and I am so proud of his service, that I will always observe, and obey, and do his will; and always call him, Jesus my Master; and I will always contemn my birth, or any title or dignity that can be conferred upon me, when I shall compare them with my title of being a Priest, and serving at the ...
— Lives of John Donne, Henry Wotton, Rich'd Hooker, George Herbert, - &C, Volume Two • Izaak Walton
... day by day at "the trivial round, the common task," just earning enough to scrape up a livelihood, but enjoying few of the amenities of life. The village parsons—good, pious men—share in the quiet, uneventful life of their flock. And who shall contemn their lot? ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... disregarded this command.] and accustomed by 20 years' almost uninterrupted success to regard the British arms as invincible, was apt to laugh at all manoeuvring, [Footnote: Lord Howard Douglass, "Naval Gunnery," states this in various places.—"Accustomed to contemn all manoeuvring."] and scorned to prepare too carefully for a fight, trusting to the old British "pluck and luck" to carry him through. So, gradually he forgot how to manoeuvre or to prepare. The Java had been at sea six weeks before she was captured, ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... proper distinction between selfish quacks who seek publicity 'to line the pocket,' and those 'who, prompted by some mysterious power,' come forward against their interest, and at the risk of their reputation. 'Rather than to contemn and ridicule, it were better to study the manifestations of that mysterious power.' They do not consider that the truth thus brought to light, while they fail to acknowledge it, is affording 'to selfish quackery' a capital to ...
— Theory of Circulation by Respiration - Synopsis of its Principles and History • Emma Willard
... into the Abyss of Darkness, effect any thing to purpose, in Natural things, especially when his Wisdome in this natural Philosophick Study is barren and sophisticate? It is, for the most part, proper to these Fools and unapt men, presently to contemn a thing, not knowing, that more are yet to be sought by them, than they have the possession of. Therefore, rightly saith Seneca, in lib. de Moribus: Thou art not yet happy, if the Rout deride thee not. But I matter not, whether they believe, or contradict what I write, touching ...
— The Golden Calf, Which the World Adores, and Desires • John Frederick Helvetius
... priests have kneaded into the very souls of the Scottish peasantry. I do not command thee to abstain from them—that would be only to lay a snare for thy folly, or to teach thee falsehood; but enjoy these vanities with moderation, and mark them as something thou must soon learn to renounce and contemn. Our chamberlain at Kinross, Luke Lundin,—Doctor, as he foolishly calleth himself,—will acquaint thee what is to be done in the matter about which thou goest. Remember thou art trusted—show thyself, therefore, worthy ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... the shade of immortality, And in itself a shadow; soon as caught Contemn'd, it shrinks to nothing ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... was Nicholas Cruger's bookkeeper at the age of twelve he wrote to an American friend: 'I contemn the groveling condition of a clerk to which my fortunes condemn me, and I would willingly risk my life, though not my character, to exalt my station.... My youth excludes me from any hope of immediate preferment, but I mean to prepare the way for futurity.' You see the yeast was stirring, ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... their abstracted and invariable state; he must disregard present laws and opinions, and rise to general and transcendental truths, which will always be the same; he must therefore content himself with the slow progress of his name; contemn the applause of his own time, and commit his claims to the justice of posterity. He must write as the interpreter of nature and the legislator of mankind, and consider himself as presiding over the thoughts and manners of future generations, as a being superior ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... which they were formed, have been ascertained. To pronounce a condemnatory sentence upon that wisdom which assigned them their places, merely on account of our incapacity to discover their precise destination, would be presumptuous and impious in the extreme; nor would it be less so to contemn the unsearchable mysteries of Providence, whose arrangements surpass the comprehension and ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... consciousness of lessened prestige, and a painful impression that their political, perhaps even their military place in Europe, as the heirs of Richelieu, Louis XIV., and Napoleon, had been suddenly occupied by a power which they had taught themselves to contemn as an inferior. Until the summer of 1866 the emperor Napoleon fancied that he was strong enough to play with Bismarck a game of ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... such a vintage: 'tis the same With life, which simply must be understood A black negation, if it be not good. But if 'tis wretched all—as men decline And loath the sour lees of corrupted wine— 'Tis so to be contemn'd. Merely TO BE Is not a boon to seek, nor ill to flee, Seeing that every vilest little Thing Has it in common, from a gnat's small wing, A creeping worm, down to the moveless stone, And crumbling bark from trees. ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... "I contemn your threats," said Morton; "I pity you, and leave you." But as he turned to retire, Burley stept before him, pushed the oak-trunk from its resting place, and as it fell thundering and crashing into the abyss beneath, drew his sword, and ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... Madam, what cheer? Q. Isab. Ah, good Sir John of Hainault, Never so cheerless nor so far distrest! Sir J. I hear, sweet lady, of the king's unkindness: But droop not, madam; noble minds contemn Despair. Will your grace with me to Hainault, And there stay time's advantage with your son?— How say you, my lord! will you go with your friends, And shake off all our fortunes equally? P. Edw. So pleaseth the queen my mother, me it likes: The king of England, ...
— Edward II. - Marlowe's Plays • Christopher Marlowe
... disposeth to laudable actions, such as please them whose judgement they value; for of these men whom we contemn, we contemn also the Praises. Desire of Fame after death does the same. And though after death, there be no sense of the praise given us on Earth, as being joyes, that are either swallowed up in the unspeakable ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes
... from one camp to another, have always been condemned by honour as well as duty, civil or military, and denominated treason. Individuals, nations, or armies, men under the influence of a controlling passion, may contemn, at the first moment, or perhaps do not feel the moral impression which naturally attaches itself to their deeds; but it never fails to present itself, and, when seconded by the warnings of prudence or the blows of misfortune, it soon ...
— Memoirs To Illustrate The History Of My Time - Volume 1 • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... him, to a degree unusual even in the irritable race; and when they spoke ill he was, again like Pope, essentially vindictive. The Bards and Reviewers beats about, where the lines to Atticus transfix with Philoctetes' arrows; but they are due to a like impulse. Byron affected to contemn the world; but, say what he would, he cared too much for it. He had a genuine love of solitude as an alterative; but he could not subsist without society, and, Shelley tells us, wherever he went, became the ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... The. I do contemn thee now, and dare come near, And gaze upon thee; for me thinks that grace, Austeritie, which sate upon that face Is gone, and thou like others: false maid see, This is the gain of foul ...
— The Faithful Shepherdess - The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher (Vol. 2 of 10). • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... New Exchange stairs, I to Sir W. Coventry: and there he read over to me the Prince's and the Duke of Albemarle's Narratives; wherein they are very severe against him and our Office. But [Sir] W. Coventry do contemn them; only that their persons and qualities are great, and so I do perceive [he] is afeard of them, though he will not confess it. But he do say that, if he can get out of these briars, he will never trouble himself with Princes nor Dukes again. He finds several ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... hate them that imagine evil things, but thy law do I love," and will show therewith that we ought diligently to regard the strength of the Word of God, and not to contemn it, as the enthusiasts do, for God will deal with us by such means, and by the same will also work in us. Therefore the ancient Fathers say well touching this point, namely, that we ought not to look ...
— Selections from the Table Talk of Martin Luther • Martin Luther
... mankind, though I believe in the long run it will not do so; but in adding to the labour of man has it added, so far, to his pain? There always have been people who would at once say yes to that question; so that there have been and are two sets of people who dislike and contemn art as an embarrassing folly. Besides the pious ascetics, who look upon it as a worldly entanglement which prevents men from keeping their minds fixed on the chances of their individual happiness or misery in the next world; who, in short, ...
— Signs of Change • William Morris
... This psalm begins by asking: 'Lord, who shall abide in thy tabernacle? who shall dwell in thy holy hill?' In enumerating the qualifications of such person, the psalmist says: 'He that contemneth the evil man, but he honoreth them that fear the Lord,' Now that word 'contemn,' for the first time, attracted my special attention. I had read it scores of times, but had never realized how strong a term was here used. No stronger is to be found in the language. It means to despise, detest, spurn, etc. I was startled, but I was at the same time glad. I could ...
— Doctor Jones' Picnic • S. E. Chapman
... immediately he came forth at one command of the Lord. The Lord every day invites us by Scripture to confession, exhorts us to amendment, promises the life which is prepared for us by him who willeth not the death of a sinner. We neglect his call, we despise his invitation, we contemn his promise. Placed between God and the devil, as between a father and a foe, we prefer the enticement of the enemy to a father's warning. "We are not ignorant," says the Apostle, "of the devices of Satan,"—the devices, I say, by which he induces us to sin, ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... priesthood; if I have, I am only to ask pardon of good priests, and am afraid his part of the reparation will come to little. Let him be satisfied that he shall not be able to force himself upon me for an adversary. I contemn him too much to enter into competition with him. His own translations of Virgil have answered his criticisms on mine. If (as they say he has declared in print) he prefers the version of Ogilby to mine, the world has made him the same compliment, for it is agreed on all hands ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... seasonable advantage, like a true friend (though far unworthy to be counted so) to show your shape in a glass.... Yet of this resolve yourself, it proceedeth from love and a true desire to do you good, that you, knowing what the general opinion is may not altogether neglect or contemn it, but mend what you may find amiss in yourself.... First, therefore, behold your Errors: In discourse you delight to speak too much.... Your affections are entangled with a love of your own arguments, though they be the weaker.... Secondly, you cloy your auditory: when ...
— The Curious Case of Lady Purbeck - A Scandal of the XVIIth Century • Thomas Longueville
... yourself down, you blame not the precipice, but your giddiness; and if you are wise you avoid precipices in future. You do not rail against steep places because you have a bad circulation. So it is with women: you should not contemn women because they rouse ...
— The Soul of a People • H. Fielding
... of debasement she found more to admire than to contemn, and won the confidence of the fallen by manifesting her real respect. "There was in my family," writes a friend, "a very handsome young girl, who had been vicious in her habits, and so enamored of one of her lovers, that when he deserted her, she attempted ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... they perceive his intent; he will require them As if he did contemn what they requested Should be in their ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... from that which bids us be content with the approbation "of Him who seeth in secret." These commands were intended for different stations, one suited the affluent, the other the needy, and they were, beside, limitations and comments on each other, teaching us neither to contemn praise, nor to pursue it too ardently. He spoke much of the passive virtues, patience, returning good for evil (which the most indigent might do by remembering their enemies in their prayers), self-denial, self-examination, and aspirations after a better world. Few, he said, ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... eyes of light, And feel that all besides is night; I press that snowy hand in mine, And but contemn my art divine. Oh Viviana! I am lost; A life's renown thy smile hath cost. A stone no ages can remove Will be my monument of love; A nation's wail shall mourn my fate, My country will ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... studies is sloth; to use them too much for ornament is affectation; to make judgment wholly by their rules is the humor of a scholar: they perfect nature, and are perfected by experience.... Crafty men contemn studies, simple men admire them, and wise ...
— The Pleasures of Life • Sir John Lubbock
... that surrounded. Fear on Achilleus fell, and he turn'd to her, instantly knowing Pallas Athena, for awful the eyes of the goddess apparent— And he address'd her, and these were the air-wing'd words that he utter'd. "Why hast thou come, O child of the AEgis-bearing Kronion? Is it to see me contemn'd by the insolent pride of Atreides? This do I promise beside, and thine eyes shall behold it accomplish'd, Here where he sits Agamemnon shall pay for his scorn with his life-blood." This was the answer to him of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... should violate my own arm rather than a church; nor willingly deface the name of saint or martyr. At the sight of a cross, or crucifix, I can dispense with my hat, but scarce with the thought or memory of my Saviour. I cannot laugh at, but rather pity, the fruitless journeys of pilgrims, or contemn the miserable condition of friars; for, though misplaced in circumstances, there is something in it of devotion. I could never hear the ...
— Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a Friend • Sir Thomas Browne
... disgrac'd. "But ask of Pallas;—she, though much enrag'd "Will yet my truth confirm. A regal maid "Was I,—of facts to all well-known I speak: "Coroneus noble, of the Phocian lands "As sire I claim. Me wealthy suitors sought— "Contemn me not,—my beauty was my bane. "While careless on the sandy shore I roam'd, "With gentle pace as wont, the ocean's god "Saw me and lov'd: persuasive words in vain "Long trying, force prepar'd, and me pursu'd. "I fled; the firm shore left, and tir'd my limbs ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... wild scenes of anarchy were sweeping away all restraint of law and order. Doubtless the judge of this court made grave mistakes; but the law allows the chancellor great latitude, not only in punishing those who contemn his orders and injunctions, but in preventing the consummation of the wrong which he has judicially forbidden. Whatever may be said or thought of those matters, it was only made known to me that process of the United States court was resisted, and as ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Ulysses S. Grant • James D. Richardson
... give very short specimens of Bacon's two styles. In 1597, he wrote thus: "Crafty men contemn studies; simple men admire them; and wise men use them; for they teach not their own use: that is a wisdom without them, and won by observation. Read not to contradict, nor to believe, but to weigh and consider. ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... on giving his daughter to a Lutheran, and the widow remained undecided; but under their influence, Christopher and Hubert learned to contemn each other's choice, and dispute over creeds which neither acknowledged. Thus the controversies of the age, with all their bigotry and uncharitableness, found entrance to their home. Christopher lost no opportunity of throwing ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 432 - Volume 17, New Series, April 10, 1852 • Various
... a noble Elm,—though I feel no disposition to contemn the studies of those who examine its flowers and fruit with the scrutinizing eye of science, or the calculations of those who consider only its practical use—it is to me an object of pleasing veneration. I look upon it as the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... 'Fore the woolsack arise, like a sack full of wool! You rise on each Anti-Grenvillian Member, Short, thick and blustrous, like a day in November![343:1] 60 Short in person, I mean: for the length of your speeches Fame herself, that most famous reporter, ne'er reaches. Lo! Patience beholds you contemn her brief reign, And Time, that all-panting toil'd after in vain, (Like the Beldam who raced for a smock with her grand-child) 65 Drops and cries: 'Were such lungs e'er assign'd to a man-child?' Your strokes at her vitals pale Truth has confess'd, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... were consecrated unto God, that to all it might be seen how deeply could the prayer or the preaching of the saint penetrate even stony hearts. And hereby may we understand that they who, for the love of Christ, contemn the world, should continue in the hard way, that they might attain Him unto whom they have approved themselves. And the place wherein these virgins were consecrated is called Tedna; and for the servants of the Lord is there builded ...
— The Most Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick - Including the Life by Jocelin, Hitherto Unpublished in America, and His Extant Writings • Various
... cups again, The crystal I contemn, Which, though enchased with pearls, contain A deadly ...
— A Selection From The Lyrical Poems Of Robert Herrick • Robert Herrick
... are distinguished from little men by this—they scorn and contemn all which flatters their vanity, or seems to them for the moment desirable, or even useful, if it is not compatible with the laws which they recognize, or conducive to some great end which they have set before them; ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the body of the book. But though the idle deserve no crutches (let not a staff be used by them, but on them), pity it is the weary should be denied the benefit thereof, and industrious scholars prohibited the accommodation of an index, most used by those who most pretend to contemn it." ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... had been held in former times a point of great ability and circumspection, as if the principal requisite in the captain of a ship had been to come home safe again. He was the first man who brought ships to contemn castles on shore, which had been thought ever very formidable.... He was the first that infused that proportion of courage into the seamen by making them see what mighty things they could do if they were resolved, and ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... compulsory, such as thirst; some are natural but not compulsory, as the desire for dainties; some are neither natural nor compulsory, such as the desire for crowns or statues. The last of these the wise man will contemn, the second he will admit, but so as to retain his freedom. For independence of such things is desirable, not necessarily that we may reduce our wants to a minimum, but in order that if we cannot enjoy many things, we may be content with few. "For ...
— A Short History of Greek Philosophy • John Marshall
... well enough for those who think that 'life is a jest,' (and a bitter, sarcastic one it must be to them,) to mock at all nobler feelings and sentiments of the heart. None do they more contemn than friendship. I would not 'sit in the seat' of these 'scornful,' however they may have found false friends. Yet every man capable of a genuine friendship himself, will in this world find at least one true friend. Oxygen, which ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... imperfection, disfigurement, blemish, flaw. Delay, defer, postpone, procrastinate. Demoralize, deprave, debase, corrupt, vitiate. Deportment, demeanor, bearing, port, mien. Deprive, divest, dispossess, strip, despoil. Despise, contemn, scorn, disdain. Despondency, despair, desperation. Detach, separate, sunder, sever, disconnect, disjoin, disunite. Determined, persistent, dogged. Devout, religious, pious, godly, saintly. Difficulty, hindrance, obstacle, impediment, encumbrance, handicap. Difficulty, predicament, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... daughter of a Berenger, my lord," answered the Abbess, "and it is our custom to punish a breach of faith or to contemn it—never to grieve over it. What my niece may do in this case, I know not. I am a woman of religion, sequestered from the world, and would advise peace and Christian forgiveness, with a proper sense of contempt for the unworthy treatment which she has received. She has followers and vassals, ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... of Charity, And moulded to the height contemn his maker, Curb the free hand that fram'd him? This ...
— Rule a Wife, and Have a Wife - Beaumont & Fletcher's Works (3 of 10) • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... decline to reckon Sectaries among the enemies of the Covenant, from whom danger is to be apprehended, And (though we disallow the abusing and Idolizing of learning to the patrocinie of Errour or prejudice of piety) if any contemn literature as needlesse at best, if not also hurtfull to ...
— The Acts Of The General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland
... pot, of every caricaturist on a comic paper who can draw a fat man falling off a bucking horse; of every pushing professional politician who can talk about the superstitions of the Middle Ages. Great men and small have agreed to contemn them; they were renounced by their children and refuted by their biographers; they were exposed, they were exploded, they were ridiculed and they ...
— The New Jerusalem • G. K. Chesterton
... naught; nothing I deny, Admit, reject, contemn: and what know you, Except, perhaps, that ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... there are great tempests, the angels oftentimes have a hand therein,... yea, and sometimes evil angels." He gives several cases of blasphemers struck by lightning, and says, "Nothing can be more dangerous for mortals than to contemn dreadful providences, and, ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... had many shapes; and for a time she put aside the dominant fact to think of her too free conduct towards Giles. His love-making had been brief as it was sweet; but would he on reflection contemn her for forwardness? How could she have been so simple as to suppose she was in a position to behave as she had done! Thus she mentally blamed her ignorance; and yet in the centre of her heart she blessed it a little for what ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... child was safe and well cared for, she turned her eyes upon the life of the world, and wished to take some part in it—not the part she had been wont to picture for herself before reality supplanted dreams. Horace's example on the one hand, and that of Jessica Morgan on the other, helped her to contemn mere social excitement and the idle vanity which formerly she styled pursuit of culture. Must there not be discoverable, in the world to which she had, or could obtain, access, some honest, strenuous occupation, ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... Reformation—is one with all good literature, and indeed with civilisation. Antiquam exquirite matrem: all three come from the Mediterranean basin or from around it, and it is only the ill-born who contemn descent." ...
— Brother Copas • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the great English masterpieces. Indeed, I think that our own tendency in England to reverence, our constant appeal to classical standards, is an obstacle to our intellectual and artistic progress. We are like elderly writers who tend to repeat their own beloved mannerisms, and who contemn and decry the work of younger men, despairing of the future. A nation may reach a point, like an ancient and noble dynasty of princes, where it is overshadowed and overweighted by its own past glories, and where it learns ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... harmony with the real or supposed wants of mankind. And it is remarkable that these searching inquiries are not so much forced on institutions from without, as developed from within. Consummate scholars question the value of learning; priests contemn dogma; and women turn their backs upon man's ideal of perfect womanhood, and seek satisfaction in apocalyptic visions of some, as yet, ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley
... experience: for natural abilities are like natural plants, that need pruning by study: and studies themselves do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience. Crafty men contemn studies; simple men admire them; and wise men use them: for they teach not their own use; but that is a wisdom without them, and above them, won by observation. Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock
... child's service, where the ability of a giant clearly exists. Achilles would spurn the light offices of Adonis. So will that woman, who regards her sex as co-equal in every part of their nature, with the opposite sex, contemn the ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey
... hearts, which now complaining Feel the wounds of thy disdaining, Shall contemn thy ...
— Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age • Various
... swimming in tears of affection when she spoke. "And is there not, dear sister," said I, "more pleasure in the possession of such a man than in all the little impertinencies of balls, assemblies, and equipage, which it cost me so much pains to make you contemn?" ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... this hour, drawn from the printing-press in an endless web of paper, is powerless here; the indistinguishable noise echoed from the smoke-shadowed walls despises the whole. A thousand footsteps, a thousand hoofs, a thousand wheels roll over and utterly contemn them in complete annihilation. Mere illusions of heart or mind, they are tested and thrust aside by the irresistible push of a ...
— The Story of My Heart • Richard Jefferies
... that the highly-cultivated man tends to find himself mentally hampered by his cultivation, to wade in a sea of glue, as Tennyson said. It is partly that highly-cultivated minds grow to be subservient to authority, and to contemn experiment as rash and obstreperous. Partly also the least movement of the mind dislodges such a pile of precedents and phrases and aphorisms, stored and amassed by diligent reading, that the mind is encumbered by the thought that most ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson
... the water, a dozen men all told, and all had bows and good store of shafts. And as they went, Osberne spake to those about him and said: "Spread out, and make little show of force, and show not your bows to the foemen, so that they may contemn us and venture the nearer to the bank. But shoot not till they defy us, lest we smite a peaceful man." Now they were presently nigh enough to see the going of men on the further shore, and they were all riders. It was clear to see that they were aliens, men upon big horses ...
— The Sundering Flood • William Morris
... early known the pomps of state, (For things unknown, 'tis ignorance to condemn;) And after having viewed the gaudy bait, Can boldly say, the trifle I contemn; With such a one contented could I live, Contented could ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... be grac'd by him: Hee's our old enemie and still maligns us. 'Twill have an end, nay it shall have an end. Why, I have bin too pittifull, too remisse; My easinesse is laught at and contemn'd. But I will change it; not as heretofore By singling out them one by one to death: Each common man can such revenges have; A Princes anger must lay desolate Citties, Kingdomes consume, Roote up mankind. O could I live ...
— Old English Plays, Vol. I - A Collection of Old English Plays • Various
... who had found his way to New York. In this remarkable letter, the boy seems to have written with prophetic instinct. "To confess my weakness, Ned," he says, "my ambition is prevalent, so that I contemn the grovelling condition of a clerk or the like, to which my fortune condemns me, and would willingly risk my life, though not my character, to exalt my station.... I mean to prepare the way for futurity.... I shall conclude by saying, ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various
... I am in love with thee. Though our wise ones call thee madness, Let me never taste of gladness, If I love not thy maddest fits More than all their greatest wits. And though some, too seeming holy, Do account thy raptures folly, Thou dost teach me to contemn What makes ...
— Pastoral Poems by Nicholas Breton, - Selected Poetry by George Wither, and - Pastoral Poetry by William Browne (of Tavistock) • Nicholas Breton, George Wither, William Browne (of Tavistock)
... narrow, like a low-roofed dungeon, And only keeps one image there confined— The image of self—the heart soon yields its truth, And makes this self its idol, aim, and end. Such is the Haman pride that mars the man, And makes the wise contemn and hate him too— Hate and contemn the ...
— Godey's Lady's Book, Vol. 42, January, 1851 • Various
... heart's not mine. 'Tis now three moons that I have sued in vain; Her casement closed by night, her door by day. O woman, woman! thy mysterious power Chains the whole world, and men are nought but slaves Unto the potent talisman— If man prove false and treach'rous, he is spurn'd, Contemn'd, and punish'd with resentment just. To woman faithless still we kneel and sue, For that return our reason holds as worthless. Well! this shall be my last—for, by yon moon, So oft a witness to my fervent ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... social claims and ecclesiastical rights; and even as such had so little respect for it that they talked of it themselves as the cloth? How could such a man as Mr Cairns, looking down from the height of his great soberness and the dignity of possessing the oracles and the ordinances, do other than contemn the enthusiasms and excitements of ignorant repentance? How could such as he recognize in the babble of babes the slightest indication of the revealing of truths hid from the wise and prudent; especially since their rejoicing also was that of babes, hence carnal, and accompanied ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... bowl with rosy wine! Around our temples roses twine! And let us cheerfully awhile, Like the wine and roses, smile. Crowned with roses, we contemn Gyges' wealthy diadem. To-day is ours, what do we fear? To-day is ours; we have it here: Let's treat it kindly, that it may Wish, at least, with us to stay. Let's banish business, banish sorrow; To the gods ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... cannot regard with feelings other than those of lively disapproval. It is not that the woman-for this person is a mature female—ever did us any harm, or is likely to; that is not our grievance. What we seriously object to and actively contemn-yea, bitterly denounce-is the nose of her. So mighty a nose we have never beheld-so spacious, and open, and roomy a human snout the unaided imagination is impotent to picture. It rises from her face like a rock from a troubled sea-grand, serene, majestic! It turns up at an angle that fills the ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile
... you, as the eldest son, would begin to write your name in the proper way. I contemn, absolutely, this altering our fine old language into that jargon of Anglo-Saxon, Danish, Norman, ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... general change of its policy. Within the city of Yedo are now the representatives of three powerful nations, England, France, and the United States; others are seeking admission; and the period when Japan shall mingle freely with the world it has so long affected to contemn can hardly be ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... the main causes of discontent which led to this convention, that which had the strongest influence in overcoming our veneration for the work of our fathers, which taught us to contemn the sentiments of Henry and Mason and Pendleton, which weaned us from our reverence for the constituted authorities of the State, was an overweening passion for internal improvement. I say this with perfect knowledge, for it has been avowed ...
— The Frontier in American History • Frederick Jackson Turner
... [50]with a book on his knees, busy at his study, sometimes writing, sometimes walking. The subject of his book was melancholy and madness; about him lay the carcases of many several beasts, newly by him cut up and anatomised; not that he did contemn God's creatures, as he told Hippocrates, but to find out the seat of this atra bilis, or melancholy, whence it proceeds, and how it was engendered in men's bodies, to the intent he might better cure it in himself, and by his writings and observation [51]teach others ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... compelled to be. A fine horse made to carry burdens becomes a mere cart-horse as soon as it ceases to hold up its head and lift its feet freely. Klea is proud because she must be proud; and if you are just you will not contemn the girl, who perhaps has cast a kindly glance at you—since the gods have so made you that you cannot fail to please any woman—and yet who must repel your approaches because she feels herself above being trifled with, even by one of the Cornelia gens, and yet too lowly to dare to hope ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... religion of Europe and America, under whose guardianship we have grown to a prominent place among the people of earth, and may arrive at a better prominence among the nations of the saved, has been secured by that Revolution. We could scarcely know whether most to pity or contemn the man who should labor to persuade us that such a Revolution had never occurred, or that the facts had been ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... and by their counsels and just dooms do safeguard the bulwarks of the city. Such are wise Triptolemus, Diocles, Polyxenus, and noble Eumolpus, and Dolichus, and our lordly father. All their wives keep their houses, and not one of them would at first sight contemn thee and thrust thee from their halls, but gladly they will receive thee: for thine aspect is divine. So, if thou wilt, abide here, that we may go to the house of my father, and tell out all this tale to my mother, the ...
— The Homeric Hymns - A New Prose Translation; and Essays, Literary and Mythological • Andrew Lang
... author, and foist them in, to amuse the reader with, that those who understand them may be tickled with the happiness of being acquainted with them: and those who understand them not, the less they know the more they may admire; whereas it has been always a custom to those of our side to contemn and undervalue whatever is strange and unusual, while those that are better conceited of themselves will nod and smile, and prick up their ears, that they may be thought easily to apprehend that, of which perhaps they do not understand one word. And so much for this; pardon ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus
... young Prince, the moral lay And in these tales mankind survey; With early virtues plant your breast, The specious arts of vice detest. Princes, like beauties, from their youth Are strangers to the voice of truth; Learn to contemn all praise betimes; For flattery's the nurse of crimes; Friendship by sweet reproof is shown, (A virtue never near a throne); 10 In courts such freedom must offend, There none presumes to be a friend. To those of your exalted ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... country lads are not more shambling and slovenly than those of the ordinary British; but the latter from his youth up, has imbibed certain ideas of subordination to superiors, which make him yield more pliantly and implicitly to after discipline. Now, the American is taught to contemn all such old-world ideas as respect of persons. Even the All-mighty Dollar cannot command deference, though it may enforce obedience. The volunteer carries with him into the ranks, an ostentatious spirit of self-assertion and independence. He has always mixed on terms of as ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... heats to Zegzeg's stunted pines! View him, ye craven few, ye living-dead! Wrecks of a being whence the soul has fled! Ye Goths and Vandals of his plundered coast! Ye Christian Bondous, who of feeling boast,[7] Who quickly kindling to historic fire Contemn a Marius' or a Scylla's ire,[8] Or kindly lulled to sympathetic glow, Lament the martyrs of some far-off woe, And tender grown, with sorrow hugely great Weep o'er an Agis' or Jugurtha's fate![9] View him, ye ...
— Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 (of 2) (1854) • Various
... barren people's cold abuse; Summons her sister, who forbears to smile, And leaves to rats the desecrated pile, Which dogs and nags already had begun, Unless by blows and hunger driv'n, to shun: For well-bred curs and steeds genteel contemn A stage which Taste had sunk too low for them; Whereon the town had seen, without remorse, A herd of bisons ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... and passions, mistress of necessity, shame, poverty, and all the other injuries of fortune. Let us, therefore, as many of us as can, get this advantage; 'tis the true and sovereign liberty here on earth, that fortifies us wherewithal to defy violence and injustice, and to contemn ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... have told me, yond' is heaven, This earth, these men, and all had moved alike. — Do not I know the time's condition? Yes, Mitis, and their souls; and who they be That either will or can except against me. None but a sort of fools, so sick in taste, That they contemn all physic of the mind, And like gall'd camels, kick at every touch. Good men, and virtuous spirits, that loath their vices, Will cherish my free labours, love my lines, And with the fervour of their shining grace Make my brain fruitful, to bring forth more objects, Worthy their ...
— Every Man Out Of His Humour • Ben Jonson
... eminent persons with some particular kinds of wood. Neither vestments nor perfumes are heaped upon the pile: [147] the arms of the deceased, and sometimes his horse, [148] are given to the flames. The tomb is a mound of turf. They contemn the elaborate and costly honours of monumental structures, as mere burthens to the dead. They soon dismiss tears and lamentations; slowly, sorrow and regret. They think it the women's part to bewail their friends, the ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus
... spirit of the Middle Ages, to whom heaven and the life of the next world was such a reality, that it became to them a part of the life upon the earth; which accordingly they loved and adorned, in spite of the ascetic doctrines of their formal creed, which bade them contemn it. ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris
... contemn her mother so? Her father was not a fool. That she was quite submissive to life, that it was unthinkable that she could rebel against society or persons, was not because she was foolish, but because she ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... to fall into the Annals of Cicely or no, this must I needs say—and Jack may flout me an' he will (but that he doth never)— that I do hate, and contemn, and full utterly despise, this manner of dealing. If I love a man, maybe I shall be bashful to tell him so: but if I love him not, never will I make lout nor leg afore him for to win of him some manner of advantage. I would speak a man civilly, whether I loved him or no; that 'longeth ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... peasant to that of the red man of North America, who, with his hatchet and gun and bearskin, and soft mocassins, and flashy feathers, and spacious wigwam (lined with warm furs, and hung about with dried deer and buffalo), may well contemn the advantages of our poor countryman's civilization. The Irishman has neither the pleasure of savage liberty, nor the profit of English civilization."[120] "I think," adds Mr. Gibson, "the present the proper time for noticing the panegyric passed by Lord Monteagle on the gentry of ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... But can we, with all our boasted advantages of wealth, power, and knowledge, truly say that all our aims are as high, all our desires as pure, our words as true, and our deeds as noble, as those whose opinions we feel this tendency to contemn? If not, or if indeed they have anything whatsoever to teach us in these respects, let us remember that we shall never learn the lesson wholly, perhaps not learn it at all, unless, casting aside this first impulse to despise, ...
— Elizabethan Demonology • Thomas Alfred Spalding
... apply in selecting a pilot or a flute-player or in any similar case, where a mistake would be far less disastrous than in matters political. Words like these, according to the accuser, tended to incite the young to contemn the established constitution, rendering them violent and headstrong. But for myself I think that those who cultivate wisdom and believe themselves able to instruct their fellow-citizens as to their interests are least likely to become partisans of violence. They are ...
— The Memorabilia - Recollections of Socrates • Xenophon
... Precepts of the Gospel to find that they have an exact correspondence with, and conformity to the Nature of Things: So also those who are not influenc'd by, as not being yet thorowly perswaded of this Divine Revelation, will sooner be induced to imbrace Vertue, and contemn the allurements of Vice, when they see These to have the very same reality, in Nature as their Happiness and Misery have; than when (tho' ever so pompously set out) Vertue appears founded only upon nice, or subtle Speculations. But some Men there are so far from approving of any Notion or Theorem ...
— Occasional Thoughts in Reference to a Vertuous or Christian life • Lady Damaris Masham
... satisfied, that the less frighted and timorous their Passengers are, the more cautious and careful the Watermen are, and the least apt to run into Danger. Whereas, if their Passengers appear frighted, then the Watermen grow saucy and audacious, show themselves venturous, and contemn the Dangers ...
— The Tricks of the Town: or, Ways and Means of getting Money • John Thomson
... but which is a revelation from God of justice, of fair dealing, of scorn of mean advantages; which contemns the selling of stock which one KNOWS is going to fall, to a man who BELIEVES it is going to rise, as much as it would contemn any other form of rascality or of injustice or of meanness; — it is this which must in these latter days organize its insurrections and burn up every one of the cunning moral castles from which Trade sends out its forays upon the conscience of modern society. — This ...
— Select Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... protectress thought him not sufficiently secured against rejection by his piety or bravery, but decorated him for the interview with preternatural beauty. Whoever desires, for his writings or himself, what none can reasonably contemn, the favour of mankind, must add grace to strength, and make his thoughts agreeable as well as useful. Many complain of neglect who never tried to attract regard. It cannot be expected that the patrons of science or ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... rules, is the humor of a scholar; they perfect nature and are perfected by experience— for natural abilities are like natural plants, that need pruning by study; and studies themselves do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience. Crafty men contemn studies, simple men admire them, and wise men use them, for they teach not their own use; but that is a wisdom without them, and above ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... this there is none: you must strive with might to contemn them, And with horror perform then what the law ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes
... nor to picture to myself without emotion the situation of brave men compelled by the British army to obey rulers whose moral claim to allegiance they justly deny and whose power unaided by British arms they contemn. Civil warfare created by English policy and despotism maintained by English arms must surely be to any Englishman objects of ...
— A Leap in the Dark - A Criticism of the Principles of Home Rule as Illustrated by the - Bill of 1893 • A.V. Dicey
... him. No; but praise is not to be the entertainment of every moment. He that hopes for it must be able to suspend the possession of it till proper periods of life or death itself. If you would not rather be commended than be praiseworthy, contemn little merits, and allow no man to be so free with you as to praise you to your face. Your vanity by this means will want its food. At the same time your passion for esteem will be more fully gratified; men will praise you in their actions: where you now receive one compliment, you will ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... valuable, so he prizes much which the world contemns; he sees that many things which the world admires are contemptible, so he despises much which the world does not; but when the world prizes what is really excellent, he does not contemn it, because the world regards it. If he learns Irish, which all the world scoffs at, he likewise learns Italian, which all the world melts at. If he learns Gypsy, the language of the tattered tent, he likewise learns Greek, the language of the college hall. ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... the actual literary artists in any line are inferior to the men of the past, and never cease to contemn the impudent talk of those who shake their heads and allude to the giants who are supposed to have lived in some unspecified era of our history. Lord Salisbury is greater than Dean Swift as a political writer; the author of "John Inglesant" ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... drives them back to reason, in despite of those prejudices which appear to lead them on to certain destruction. Superstition, leagued with tyranny, for the waste of the human species, are themselves frequently obliged to implore the assistance of a reason which they contemn; of a nature which they disdain; which they debase; which they endeavour to crush under the ponderous bulk of artificial theories. Superstition, in all times so fatal to mortals, when attacked by reason, ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach
... treat a subject of such overwhelming majesty and fearful consequences," with lightness and ribaldry, was declared by worldly men to be "not merely to sport with the feelings of its propagators and advocates," but "to make a jest of the day of judgment, to scoff at the Deity Himself, and contemn ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... clerical celibacy in England best illustrates the mores. In the sixteenth century the rule and usage of the church had inculcated, as a deep popular prejudice, the notion that a priest could not be married. Cranmer, in ordering a visitation, directed investigation "whether any do contemn married priests, and for that they be married will not receive the communion or other sacrament at their hands."[502] This prejudice very slowly died out, but it did die out and the popular judgment favored and required clerical marriage. ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... God, goes ——'' Because the phrase might as well be used in contemplation of John D. Rockefeller or Augustus John or Charlie Chaplin or a man with a wooden leg. I do not ask that you should pity these women with whom I have to deal, still less that you should contemn them. Something between the two will serve. I write the book because I am interested in crime myself, and in the hope that you'll like the reading as much as I like the ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure
... chin, Carmela De Sylva did not contemn the meretricious aid of dress. Iris looked fresh and cool in soft muslin, whereas the newcomer was travel-stained and disheveled. The pack-mules were lagging on the road, but a wash and general tidying of dust-covered ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... treachery, his black dishonor, words of wrath and hate, and blind deluded passion arose between us, and the spirit of evil at work within me urged my rash sword to strike. Subjects and friends, I plead no temptation as excuse, I make no defence; I deplore, I contemn the deed. If ye deem me worthy of death, if ye believe the sentence of our holy father in God, his holiness the Pope, be just, that it is wholly free from the machinations of England, who, deeming force of arms not ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... learned,[4] may at least have some standard to refer to; and if a grammarian's rules be based upon this authority, it must be considered the exclusive privilege of the unlearned to despise them—as it is of the unbred, to contemn the rules of civility. But who shall determine whether the doctrines contained in any given treatise are, or are not, based upon such authority? Who shall decide whether the contributions which any individual may make to our grammatical ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... I assented, "I have always had an affection for him, though we have never been able to agree. I cannot contemn him, even now; though he has hurt me sorely, and ...
— The Home and the World • Rabindranath Tagore
... despisal^, despiciency^; despisement^; vilipendency^, contumely; slight, sneer, spurn, by-word; despect^. contemptuousness &c adj.; scornful eye; smile of contempt; derision &c (disrespect) 929. despisedness [State of being despised]. V. despise, contemn, scorn, disdain, feel contempt for, view with a scornful eye; disregard, slight, not mind; pass by &c (neglect) 460. look down upon; hold cheap, hold in contempt, hold in disrespect; think nothing of, think small beer of; make light of; underestimate &c 483; esteem slightly, esteem of small ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... ignominious, whereas death to avoid what Heaven has in store is cowardly indeed! In that quaint book of Sir Thomas Browne's, Religio Medici there is an exact English equivalent for what is repeatedly taught in our Precepts. Let me quote it: "It is a brave act of valor to contemn death, but where life is more terrible than death, it is then the truest valor to dare to live." A renowned priest of the seventeenth century satirically observed—"Talk as he may, a samurai who ne'er has died is apt in decisive moments to flee or hide." Again—Him who once ...
— Bushido, the Soul of Japan • Inazo Nitobe
... whole time was consumed in wars and voyages, yet he makes his father Laertes a gardener all that while, and seeking his consolation for the absence of his son in the pleasure of planting and even dunging his own grounds. Yet, see, he did not contemn us peasants; nay, so far was he from that insolence, that he always styles Eumaeus, who kept the hogs with wonderful respect, [Greek text which cannot be reproduced], the divine swine-herd; he could have done no more for Menelaus or Agamemnon. And Theocritus (a very ancient poet, but he was ...
— Cowley's Essays • Abraham Cowley
... By my soul, a better play Ne'er came upon a stage; but, since you dare Contemn me thus, I'll dedicate my play To Ignorance, and call her Common Sense: Yes, I will dress her in your pomp, and swear That Ignorance knows more than all the ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... disciplined and perfected by suffering—to prove how much of possible good may exist in things evil and perverted—how much hope there is for those who despair—how much comfort for those whom a heartless world has taught to contemn both others and themselves, and so put barriers to the hard, cold, selfish, mocking, and levelling spirit of the day—O would I ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... born to create a new era in the history of their nation. The first English author who may be regarded as the founder of our prose style was Roger Ascham, the venerable parent of our native literature. At a time when our scholars affected to contemn the vernacular idiom, and in their Latin works were losing their better fame, that of being understood by all their countrymen, Ascham boldly avowed the design of setting an example, in his own words, TO SPEAK AS THE COMMON PEOPLE, TO THINK AS WISE MEN. ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... sounded so rich and splendid, were lavished upon a small quarto volume—with a stare, and then turning again to Mary Avenel, the only person whom he thought worthy to address, he proceeded in his strain of high-flown oratory, "Even thus," said he, "do hogs contemn the splendour of Oriental pearls; even thus are the delicacies of a choice repast in vain offered to the long-eared grazer of the common, who turneth from them to devour a thistle. Surely as idle is it to pour forth the treasures of oratory before the eyes of the ignorant, ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... discern The temper of a man, his mind and will, Till he be proved by exercise of power; And in my case, if one who reigns supreme Swerve from the highest policy, tongue-tied By fear of consequence, that man I hold, And ever held, the basest of the base. And I contemn the man who sets his friend Before his country. For myself, I call To witness Zeus, whose eyes are everywhere, If I perceive some mischievous design To sap the State, I will not hold my tongue; Nor would I reckon as my private friend A public foe, ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles
... hers, and could meet with no sympathy from others. But then she remembered that it had met with sympathy already—not much in words, but in tone and look and action—from the one unfailing friend of her whole life. Maurice knew—Maurice did not contemn her—there was a little humiliation in the thought, but more sweetness. She went over the whole scene in the chapel, and for the first time there came into her mind a sense of the inexpressible tenderness which had soothed her as she ...
— A Canadian Heroine - A Novel, Volume 3 (of 3) • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... rigorous self-examination upon all their actions, every evening, was a practice which he strongly inculcated.[26] In an excellent sermon which he made to his disciples, recorded by St. Athanasius,[27] he pathetically exhorts them to contemn the whole world for heaven, to spend every day as if they knew it to be the last of their lives, having death always before their eyes, continually to advance in fervor, and to be always armed against the assaults of Satan, whose ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... malice, and listened to with equally malicious avidity,—all these, in my days of health and happiness, had power to surprise, or amuse, or provoke me. I could mingle then in the conflict of minds; and hear my part with smiles in the social circle; though the next moment, perhaps, I might contemn myself and others: and the personal scandal, the characteristic tale, the amusing folly, or the malignant wit, were effaced from ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... is written (Ecclus. 19:1): "He that contemneth small things shall fall by little and little." Now he that sins venially seems to contemn small things. Therefore by little and little he is disposed to fall away ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... avenged," he announced with kingly dignity, then smiled with satisfaction when they brought him the shield and helmet of Leonidas, the madman, who had dared to contemn his power. But all the generals who stood by were grim and sad. One more such victory would bring the army close ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... idea of them, is it? But I believe it is what you will always strive to do, Harry." Bessie spoke with pretty eagerness. She feared that she might have seemed to contemn Harry's vocation, and she hastened to make amends. Harry understood her perfectly, and had the impudence to laugh at her quite in his old boyish way. A little confused—also in the old way—she ran on: "I have seen ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... win our love. Such was the fire that was kindled in the soul of this fair youth also, noble in body, but most noble and kingly in soul, that led him to despise all earthly things alike, to trample on all bodily pleasures, and to contemn riches and glory and the praise of men, to lay aside diadem and purple, as of less worth than cobwebs, and to surrender himself to all the hard and irksome toils of the ascetic life, crying, ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus
... fame, Doomed to exhaust the dregs of life in shame! The sole sad refuge of thy baffled art To act a stateman's dull, exploded part, Renounce the praise no longer in thy power, Display thy virtue, though without a dower, Contemn the giddy crowd, the vulgar wind, And shut thy eyes ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... of my last hope is shivered, And its fragments are sunk in the wave; Though I feel that my soul is delivered To pain, it shall not be its slave. There is many a pang to pursue me; They may crush, but they shall not contemn; They may torture, but shall not subdue me; 'Tis of thee that I think, not ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... silver Ice that glisters, and some in gawdy Green come in like Masquers. The Silk-worm spins her own suit and lodging, and has no aid nor partner in her labours. Why should we care for any thing but knowledge, or look upon the World but to contemn it? ...
— The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher - Vol. 2 of 10: Introduction to The Elder Brother • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... their unformed conceptions of the Beautiful, their unsystematized experiments upon the Sublime. We scorn their velocity; for it is without direction: we reject their decision; for it is without grounds: we contemn their composition; for it is without materials: we reprobate their choice; for it is without comparison. Their duty is neither to choose, nor compose, nor imagine, nor experimentalize; but to be humble and earnest in following ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... and those accustomed to serve this rite we forbid to enter any private house, or under the pretence of friendship to cross the threshold of another, under the penalty established against them if they contemn the law.(96) But those of you who regard this rite, approach the public altars and shrines and celebrate the solemnities of your custom; for we do not indeed prohibit the duties of the old usage to be performed in ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... unites all the persecuted: and Ximen loved them, because he could not envy their happiness. The power—the knowledge—the lofty, though wild designs of his master, stung and humbled him—he secretly hated, because he could not compassionate or contemn him. But the bowed frame, and slavish voice, and timid nerves of his crushed brotherhood presented to the old man the likeness of things that could not exult over him. Debased and aged, and solitary as he was, he felt a kind ...
— Leila, Complete - The Siege of Granada • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... frugality is quite out of fashion, and he that goes about to set up for the practice of it, must mortify every thing about him that has the least tincture of frugality; it is the mode to live high, to spend more than we get, to neglect trade, contemn care and concern, and go on without forecast, or without consideration; and, in consequence, it is the mode to go on to extremity, to break, become bankrupt and beggars, and so going off the trading stage, leave it open for others to come after us, ...
— The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.) • Daniel Defoe
... set down as an axiom, without further trouble of demonstration, that a woman is a bad dinner-caterer; either too great and simple for it, or too mean—I don't know which it is; and gentlemen, according as they admire or contemn the sex, may settle that matter their own way. In brief, the mental constitution of lovely woman is such that she cannot give a great dinner. It must be done by a man. It can't be done by an ordinary man, because he does not understand it. Vain fool! and he sends off to the pastry-cook in Great ...
— The Fitz-Boodle Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... determining to marry a man with whom I fear I have little chance to be happy, or of breaking with him in a manner that would have subjected one or both of us to the censures of a prying impertinent world, whose censures the most steady temper cannot always contemn. ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke
... dark crag rose behind it, and, exposed to the north, the snow lay in its crevices the summer through. Before dawn I led my flock to the sheep-walks, and guarded them through the day. It was a life of toil; for rain and cold were more frequent than sunshine; but it was my pride to contemn the elements. My trusty dog watched the sheep as I slipped away to the rendezvous of my comrades, and thence to the accomplishment of our schemes. At noon we met again, and we threw away in contempt our peasant ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... misdeem not then, If such affront I labour to avert From thee alone, which on us both at once The Enemie, though bold, will hardly dare, Or daring, first on mee th' assault shall light. Nor thou his malice and false guile contemn; Suttle he needs must be, who could seduce Angels, nor think superfluous others aid. I from the influence of thy looks receave Access in every Vertue, in thy sight 310 More wise, more watchful, stronger, if need were Of outward strength; while shame, thou looking on, Shame to be overcome or over-reacht ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... our sides it neuer shall be broken. And Noble Dolphin, albeit we sweare A voluntary zeale, and an vn-urg'd Faith To your proceedings: yet beleeue me Prince, I am not glad that such a sore of Time Should seeke a plaster by contemn'd reuolt, And heale the inueterate Canker of one wound, By making many: Oh it grieues my soule, That I must draw this mettle from my side To be a widdow-maker: oh, and there Where honourable rescue, and defence Cries out vpon the name of Salisbury. But such ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... 'I am not child enough to say more than prudence tells me ought to say; this cowardly distrust of my firmness I should and will contemn. Besides, why should I commit myself? It is possible the girl may not care for me. No, no; I need not shrink from this interview. I have no reason to doubt my firmness—none—none. I must cease to be governed by impulse. I am involved in rocks and quicksands; and a collected ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume II. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... opportunely furnished them with spear-pennons and fringes for their leggings. The testimony of so many dead men, with the tracks of so many horses—horses with large hoofs, evidently not ridden by Mexicans, whom they contemn, but Texans they terribly fear; these evidences make the Apaches cautious, and, keeping on towards the Pecos, they go not as pursuers, but men trying to shun the party that ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid |
