"Sordidness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... realize their significance, and then the recollection of my own engagement came swiftly back. At first the memory was a disgust; the very presence of the girl, and her tale of struggle, made me realize the sordidness of this plot in which I was involved. Somehow it struck me then as a dirty, underhanded scheme. Yet, as I reviewed the details, this conception largely vanished. We were defrauding no one, merely protecting a man helpless to protect ...
— Gordon Craig - Soldier of Fortune • Randall Parrish
... but only cried out, "Alas! what pity it is that so excellent a musician should perish in this manner!" His uncle Claudius spent half his time at playing at dice; that was the main fruit of his sovereignty. I omit the madnesses of Caligula's delights, and the execrable sordidness of those of Tiberius. Would one think that Augustus himself, the highest and most fortunate of mankind, a person endowed too with many excellent parts of nature, should be so hard put to it sometimes for want of recreations, as to be found playing at nuts and bounding-stones with little Syrian ...
— Cowley's Essays • Abraham Cowley
... vast Sums, or have expended them in a manner suitable to the Honour of the Prince, and the unbounded Zeal of his Subjects. But they were all in a short Time squandered away, among Foreigners, who made him their constant Dupe. Indeed, the best Schemes miscarried thro' his Sordidness, and yet with all these Faults, he maintain'd his Ascendency over the Prince, so that no Courtier dared utter ...
— The Amours of Zeokinizul, King of the Kofirans - Translated from the Arabic of the famous Traveller Krinelbol • Claude Prosper Jolyot de Crbillon
... the one lamp that showed the discomfort and sordidness of his abode, and approaching Zenobia held it up, so as to gain the more perfect view of her, from top to toe. So obscure was the chamber, that you could see the reflection of her diamonds thrown upon the dingy wall, and flickering with the rise and fall of Zenobia's ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... against the British officers, founded first on their sordidness, then, secondly, fed by their insolence, was, thirdly and lastly, matured by their cruelty. To see the heads of their first families, without even a charge of crime, dragged from their beds at midnight, and packed ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... Citizen.—It is important to enter into the spirit of the young people who prefer the streets and blocks of the town to the winding country roads, and are willing to sacrifice what there is of beauty and leisure in rural life for the ugliness, sordidness, and continuous drive of the city; to understand that a greater driving force, stirring in the soul of youth and thrusting upon him with every item of news from the city, is impelling him to disdain what the country can give him and to magnify the counter-attractions of the town. He has ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
... when at home M'Swat sat in the bosom of his family and speculated as to how much richer he was than his neighbours, what old Recce lived on, and who had the best breed of sheep and who was the smartest at counting these animals, until the sordidness of it turned me dizzy, and I would steal out under the stars to try and cool my heated spirit. This became a practice with me, and every night I would slip away out of hearing of the household to sing the songs ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... held her in his arms. The screaming medley of San Francisco, with its restless shipping, belching factories, and thundering traffic, did not confuse her; instead, she comprehended swiftly the pitiful sordidness of Twenty Mile and the skin- lodged Toyaat village. And she looked down at the boy that clutched her hand and wondered that she had borne him by such ...
— The Faith of Men • Jack London
... amazed when I entered, but scolded me not at all; and he gave me brandy to drink, until my head swam, and took me to sleep with him, for the only time in all my life. When I awoke 'twas to disgust with the bed and room in which I lay—with the smell and dirt of the place—the poverty and sordidness, to ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... ears. The Marquis of Carrara, as reported by Lionardo, wrote to Leo that "he had sought to do you honour, and had done so to his best ability. It was your fault if he had not done more—the fault of your sordidness, your quarrelsomeness, your eccentric conduct." When, then, a dispute arose between the Cardinal and the sculptor about the marbles, Leo may have felt that it was time to break off from an artist so impetuous and irritable. Still, whatever faults of ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... rich young man, since the conscientious and analytical young person by his side had returned an unfavorable answer to a certain matrimonial proposition on his part, alleging her inability to determine how far her affections were biased by sordidness. So Mr. Dilke shook his head and took a sidelong glance at his companion's pretty profile. "No, money cannot," he returned promptly in refutation of her statement, "all mine cannot give me the one thing that makes the rest seem ...
— The Angel of the Tenement • George Madden Martin |
