"Flagitious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... case in the trial of the noted Major Weir, and his sister; where the following mummery interlards a criminal indictment, too infamously flagitious to be farther detailed: "9th April, 1670. Jean Weir, indicted of sorceries, committed by her when she lived and kept a school at Dalkeith: that she took employment from a woman, to speak in her behalf to the Queen of Fairii, meaning ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Vol. II (of 3) • Walter Scott
... themselves of it by force, and that, consequently, they had the same right? Is it lawful then to steal goods because they were stolen before? Surely not. The truth is, that the wickedness of many, and the weakness of more, in those ages of ignorance and superstition, concurred to form those flagitious conspiracies against the lives and properties of unoffending people. The Pope sanctified the villany, and annexed the pardon of sins to the perpetration of it. This gave rise to the Crusaders, and carried such swarms of people from ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... throw upon the fathers the most grievous imputations affecting their personal character as well as their doctrine. These men were reported to be heretics, Lutherans in disguise, seducers of youth, and men of flagitious life. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... of almost universal application—which bear so close an affinity to the most atrocious crimes that, even where it may be unjust to censure them, it is unsafe to praise them. It is not strange, therefore, that some flagitious instances of perfidy and cruelty should have been passed unchallenged in such company, that grave moralists, with no personal interest at stake, should have extolled, in the highest terms, deeds of which the atrocity ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... flagitious use of patronage, and long-practised skill in keeping majorities in the House of Commons by means that would not bear the light, made his support necessary to Pitt himself, and placed a fantastic political jobber ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... gentleman betrayed, by his zeal for the defence of this man, into some assertions not to be supported by law or reason. If it be innocent to print a paper once printed, will it not inevitably follow, that the most flagitious falsehoods, and the most enormous insults on the crown itself, the most seditious invectives, and most dangerous positions, may be dispersed through the whole empire, without any danger but to the original printer? And what reason, sir, can be assigned, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 10. - Parlimentary Debates I. • Samuel Johnson
... entered into the contest, therefore, with their usual vigour, and their usual cruelty. It was in vain that the Corsicans addressed a most affecting memorial to the court of Versailles; that remorseless government persisted in its flagitious project. They poured in troops; dressed a part of them like the people of the country, by which means they deceived and destroyed many of the patriots; cut down the standing corn, the vines, and the olives; set fire to the villages, and hung all the most able and active men ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... Constitutional Government, which assumes as its fundamental axiom, that Constitutions can be altered only in the way and according to the conditions prescribed in themselves. Such a proceeding would be a coup d'etat, not as flagitious certainly as that of Bonaparte, but to the full as revolutionary and illegal. And we may be sure that the arm of the United States Government would not be shortened so that it should not interpose and hinder such a defiance of itself and the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... things as they are, and not as they are said to be, in the speeches of governors, fourth of July orations, and electioneering addresses. I write warmly, I know, but I feel warmly; and I write like a man who sees that a most flagitious attempt to rob him is tampered with by some in power, instead of being met, as the boasted morals and intelligence of the country would require, by the stern opposition of all in authority. Curses—deep, deep curses—ere long, will fall on all who shrink from their duty in such a crisis. ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper
... honour, a sole and undivided right to, and in, his own productions—is so monstrous, that every editor imbued with those feelings, which through life, should be the rule of his conduct, is in duty bound to come forward and express his dissent from such a doctrine, and his abhorrence of a principle so flagitious. ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... man, who saluted them, and inquired their course; of which being informed, he begged to join in company, saying, that he also was going to pay his respects to the celebrated religious, in hopes that by her prayers he might obtain pardon of God for a most flagitious ingratitude; the remorse for which had rendered him a burthen to himself ever since the commission of the crime. The four pilgrims pursued their journey, and a few days afterwards overtook the master of a vessel, who told them he had some time back suffered shipwreck; since which ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... in the Old Testament are probably not historical. It may fairly be asked on what principle he is prepared to evade the plain sense and intention of a doctrinal test in two cases while stigmatising as morally flagitious any attempts to do the same in a third. For it is unquestionable that a general assent to the Articles does not mean that the man who gives that assent is free to repudiate any 'particular phrases or expressions' which do not please him. A witness who admitted having ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge
... slave-woman, and of a god, was made king through the devices of Tanaquil. He united the seven hills, and built the wall of Rome. He remodeled the constitution by the census and the division of the centuries. Under him Rome joined the Latin league. He was murdered by his flagitious son-in-law, Tarquinius Superbus (534-510 B.C.)—Tarquin the Proud. He ruled as a despot, surrounding himself with a bodyguard, and, upon false accusation, inflicting death on citizens whose property he coveted. By ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... your pardon,—I account for yours, if you really take for truth and life monsters so nefast and flagitious. For Heaven's sake, my dear fellow, don't suppose that any man could get on in England,—get anywhere but to the Old Bailey or Norfolk Island,—if he squared his conduct to such topsy-turvy notions of the world as ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the artillery of your covenant, lighted as it is by the flame of treason and civil commotion, can never overthrow.—The champions of these sects in the reign of Elizabeth, countenanced by that most flagitious courtier and tyrannical governor, the Earl of Leicester, accused Hooker, the great bulwark of the Protestant cause, of leaning towards popery, because he refused to consign the souls of our ancestors to perdition; and a most uncharitable outcry was raised against a Bishop for the same bias, ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... the only man that having committed a flagitious crime had been deluded by his own imagination, and the power of fancy, to think the Devil was come for him; whereas the Devil, to give him his due, is too honest to pretend to such things; 'tis his business to persuade men to offend, ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe
... reprehensible, blameworthy, uncommendable; discreditable, disreputable; Sadistic. base, sinister, scurvy, foul, gross, vile, black, grave, facinorous|, felonious, nefarious, shameful, scandalous, infamous, villainous, of a deep dye, heinous; flagrant, flagitious; atrocious, incarnate, accursed. Mephistophelian, satanic, diabolic, hellish, infernal, stygian, fiendlike[obs3], hell-born, demoniacal, devilish, fiendish. miscreated[obs3], misbegotten; demoralized, corrupt, depraved. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... fire 765 And slay her heroes; but your furious thirst Of battle shall hereafter meet a check. Oh, Father Jove! Thee wisest we account In heaven or earth, yet from thyself proceed All these calamities, who favor show'st 770 To this flagitious race the Trojans, strong In wickedness alone, and whose delight In war and bloodshed never can be cloy'd. All pleasures breed satiety, sweet sleep, Soft dalliance, music, and the graceful dance, 775 Though sought with keener appetite by ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... and acts imply that they are at liberty to treat their bodies as they please. Disorder entailed by disobedience to nature's dictates they regard as grievances, not as the effects of a conduct more or less flagitious. Though the evil consequences inflicted on their descendents and on future generations are often as great as those caused by crime, they do not think themselves in ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... minister's adherents, which highly excited my indignation. My heart exulted in the correction which I was determined to bestow on them all; and I made not the least doubt but that I should soon be able to write down the minister, load his partizans with contempt, and banish such flagitious proceedings from ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... that I should present another scene unto the reader's view, viz. a short index or memorial of the wicked, apostate, perfidious and flagitious lives, and miserable and lamentable deaths of some of the most particular persons that opposed and oppressed the church of Christ, and mal-treated and persecuted them. But previous to the opening of this tragical train of examples, (of the Lord's righteous justice and ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... I heard our dame in furtive murmurs o'er telling, When with her handmaids alone, these her flagitious deeds, Citing fore-cited names for that she never could fancy Ever a Door was endow'd either with earlet or tongue. Further she noted a wight whose name in public to mention 45 Nill I, lest he upraise eyebrows of carroty hue; Long is the loon and large the law-suit ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... subservient to that purpose. They therefore proceeded to attack, as proper objects of satire, those tenets, as absurd in politics as pernicious in morals, the visionary scheme of equality, and the baleful doctrine that sanctions the pursuit of a good end by the most flagitious means." ...
— Noah Webster - American Men of Letters • Horace E. Scudder
... the smallest desire to reciprocate it. That the Rebellion itself should be regarded with general reprobation throughout the Free States was inevitable, for, in the first place, it involves a most flagitious breach of faith. Republican liberty rests on an implied but essential compact that the result of a fair election shall be conclusive. If those who lose an election are thereupon to rush to arms for a reversal of the decision ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... kindle the great war in Europe. I do not propose to trace its history and consequences in detail. I propose only to show, by fuller proofs than have hitherto been available, that Germany must share the responsibility for this flagitious ...
— Fighting For Peace • Henry Van Dyke |
