"Unsavoury" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sat with unwearying patience on what we called the model throne, the one comfortless wooden arm-chair the studio possessed, while Paragot mounted guard near by on an empty box. Everything delighted her—the approach through the unsavoury court-yard, the dirty children, the crazy interior, Cazalet's ghastly and unappreciated masterpieces, even Cazalet himself, who now and then would slouch awkwardly about the place trying to hide his toes. She expressed simple-hearted wonder at the mysteries of my ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... statesman; and, while the Whigs of New York ably and uniformly opposed repeal, Democrats broke along the lines dividing the Hards and the Softs. Of twenty-one Democratic congressmen, nine favoured and twelve opposed it. Among the former was William M. Tweed, the unsavoury boss of later years; among the latter, Reuben E. Fenton, Rufus W. Peckham, and Russell Sage. The Democratic press separated along similar lines. Thirty-seven Hards supported the ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... loads his evening load of coals, Filled with respect for the cook's and butler's rank, Lo, the round cook half fills the hot retreat, Her kitchen, where the odours of the meat, The cabbage and sweets all merge as in a pall, The stale unsavoury remnants of the feast. Here, with abounding confluences of onion, Whose vastitudes of perfume tear the soul In wish of the not unpotatoed stew, They float and fade and flutter like morning dew. And all the copper pots and pans in line, A ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, June 4, 1892 • Various
... swallow. It devours whole quantities of cray-fish, until its stomach becomes crammed to such a degree as to distort the shape of its whole body. When this kind was drawn out, it was treated very rudely by the boys—because its flesh was known to be extremely unsavoury, and none of them cared to eat it. Marengo, however, had no such scruples, and he was wont to make several hearty meals each day upon ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... I know not—of that sort, that it was 'the heaviest fire insurance premium that had been paid in the memory of man.' 'The money does not stink,' said the Roman Emperor, about the proceeds of an unsavoury tax. But the money unfaithfully won does stink when it is thrown into God's treasury. 'The price of a dog shall not come into the sanctuary of the Lord.' Do not think that money doubtfully won is consecrated by being ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... Ouen, small, dirty, crowded and unsavoury as it is, has a place, like every other French village. When we drove into it, to look at the house, I confess to having laughed outright, at the idea of inhabiting such a hole. Two large portes-cocheres, however, opened from the square, and we were admitted, through the best-looking ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... Gethin in return, and as he made his way through the grimy, unsavoury street, he chuckled as ...
— Garthowen - A Story of a Welsh Homestead • Allen Raine
... projecting storeys, and perhaps there was no more unwholesome or insanitary plan possible than this, which effectually excluded daylight and fresh air, keeping the streets damp and muddy, and rendering the whole atmosphere unsavoury. Indeed, the constant visitations London received in the form of pestilence is to be referred to this source alone; and much as every one must regret the loss of the picturesque old houses, with their projecting ...
— Memorials of Old London - Volume I • Various
... dismissed the hansom and proceeded to walk to Ratcliffe Highway. Before reaching it I was appalled at the forbidding aspect of the neighbourhood. It was not merely that the unsavoury character of the streets offended and disgusted me, but the locality wore a sinister aspect which acted upon my imagination in the strangest, wildest way. Why was it that this aspect fairly cowed me, scared me? I felt that I was not frightened on my own account, and yet when I asked myself ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... in their vain minds the issue of the contest, and rioted in mirth at the expense of poor Irus, who they vowed should be forthwith embarked, and sent to king Echetus; and they bestowed thanks on Ulysses for ridding the court of that unsavoury morsel, as they called him; but in their inward souls they would not have cared if Irus had been victor, and Ulysses had taken the foil, but it was mirth to them to see the beggars fight. In such pastimes and light entertainments the day ...
— THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES • CHARLES LAMB
... miraculously translated into the heir, not only to an ancient title but to vast collateral wealth. He had been born and reared in France, and it was there that the heralds of this stupendous change in his affairs had found him out. There was a good deal more to the story, including numerous unsavoury legends about people now many years dead, and it was impossible to observe the young Duke and not seem to perceive signs that he was still nervously conscious of these legends. The story of his wife—a serene, ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... him narrowly, puzzled. He knew nothing of this man, beyond his reputation—something unsavoury enough, in all conscience!— had seen him only once, and then from a distance, before that conference in the rue Chaptal. And now he was becoming sensitive to a personality uncommonly insinuating: Wertheimer was displaying all the poise of an Englishman of the better caste More than ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... the dialogue, also indicates a comparatively early date. The imaginative element is still in full vigour; the Socrates of the Cratylus is the Socrates of the Apology and Symposium, not yet Platonized; and he describes, as in the Theaetetus, the philosophy of Heracleitus by 'unsavoury' similes—he cannot believe that the world is like 'a leaky vessel,' or 'a man who has a running at the nose'; he attributes the flux of the world to the swimming in some folks' heads. On the other hand, the relation of thought to language is omitted here, but is treated ...
— Cratylus • Plato
... The first letter which William unrolled seemed to contain only florid compliments: but a pan of charcoal was lighted: a liquor well known to the diplomatists of that age was applied to the paper: an unsavoury steam filled the closet; and lines full of grave ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... and lockers and hold of the unsavoury vessel, Trimble proposed that it would be best for the club to occupy seats on the floor of the barge, where, quite invisible to any one on shore or stream, we could hold our ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed
... as an experience, but already in retrospect he was thrilled by it. The fellows would surely envy him! When he was wet to the skin and chilled to numbness, he had longed again and again for the warmth of the mail boat, even with its unsavoury smells, and he had asked himself why he had been so foolish as to go ashore. Now that he was dry and warm, his regrets passed, and he ...
— Left on the Labrador - A Tale of Adventure Down North • Dillon Wallace
... captives, and probably proposed to himself an improving game of geography over a mug of cider in the kitchen, for he had risen and unlocked the door. Serlizer stood by it with a stout handkerchief in her hand, in the middle of which was knotted a somewhat soft and unsavoury potato. As Mr. Rigby slipped out, after a glance at his shackled charges, that potato went across his month, and was fastened in its place by the handkerchief, firmly, though quickly, knotted at ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... historic facts with him to Gradischtie, he would hardly be induced to search for tesselated pavements and relics of royalty amongst the piggeries of this dirty Wallack village. It is a literal fact that a very fine specimen of Roman pavement exists here in an unsavoury outhouse, not unknown to ...
— Round About the Carpathians • Andrew F. Crosse
... grow in time of our travelling in these North-Western lands (as has it not grown?), and the crosses, turmoils, and afflictions, both in the preparation and execution of the voyage, did correct the intemperate humours which before we noted to be in this gentleman, and made unsavoury and less delightful his ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... soon make off, the other six will have to be carried away. We have a good account to give of ourselves, but the watch would probably not trouble themselves to ask any questions, and I have no fancy for spending a night locked up in the cage with perhaps a dozen unsavoury malefactors. Which way does ...
— At Agincourt • G. A. Henty
... word of my Lord, which by the gospel is preached unto all, shall endure for ever. Why then dost thou thus madly cling to and embrace that glory, which, like spring flowers, fadeth and perisheth, and to beastly unsavoury wantonness, and to the abominable passions of the belly and the members thereunder, which for a season please the senses of fools, but afterwards make returns more bitter than gall, when the shadows and dreams of this vain life are passed ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus
... a stand on which are six large brown dishes with food for sale—salt shell-fish, in a black liquid, dried trout impaled on sticks, sea slugs in soy, a paste made of pounded roots, and green cakes made of the slimy river confervae, pressed and dried—all ill-favoured and unsavoury viands. This afternoon a man without clothes was treading flour paste on a mat, a traveller in a blue silk robe was lying on the floor smoking, and five women in loose attire, with elaborate chignons and ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... been doing to get yourself dragged into a mess like this?" "What could you expect me to do, prince, when I saw this unfortunate lion with the begging bowl in its teeth, humiliated, enslaved, ridiculed, serving as a laughing stock for this unsavoury rabble...?" "But you are mistaken my noble friend." Said the prince, "This lion on the contrary is an object of respect and adoration. It is a sacred beast, a member of a great convent of lions founded three centuries ago by Mahommed-ben-Aouda, a sort ...
— Tartarin de Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet
... premises they condemned a fellow-creature to a most unpleasant death in a far country, which had nothing whatever to do with the United States. They foregathered at the top of a tenement-house in Tehama Street, an unsavoury quarter of the city, and, there calling for certain drinks, they conspired because they were conspirators by trade, officially known as the Third Three of the I.A.A.—an institution for the propagation of pure light, not to be confounded with any others, though it is affiliated to many. ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... another volley of oaths and unsavoury exclamations, and all was bustle and confusion, and packing up of bundles, and settling ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... rap-rap-rap across the clear glass of the water, leaving a long trail of light behind it like a comet, and the sweet evening odours were mingled with the unsavoury scent of gasoline. Helen had often sped joyfully over the bay at home in just such a noisy little craft, quite unconscious of being obnoxious to any one else. It was not the first time she had found her view-point was changing. She seemed to have been drifted ashore ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... slum, on whose site stands the garish domed gallery of which the Neapolitans are so proud; gone in these latter days is classic Santa Lucia with its water-gate and its fountain, its vendors of medicated water and frutti di mare, those toothsome shell fish of the unsavoury beach; vanished for ever is many a landmark of old Naples, and new buildings, streets and squares, blank, dreary, pretentious and staring, have arisen in their places. This thorough sventramento ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... Levasseur. He was the girl's lover and Blood's associate on a venture. Blood coveted the girl, and killed Levasseur to win her. Pah! It's an unsavoury tale, I own. But men live by different codes out in ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... people here; the constant fatigue and inconvenience to which we have been subjected; the little arts we have practised; the forced laughter; the unnatural grin: the never-ending shaking of hands, &c. &c., besides the dismal noises and unsavoury smells to which our organs have been exposed, still, after all, some scoundrels are to be found hardened against us by hatred and prejudice, and so ungrateful for all our gifts and attentions, as to take a delight in poisoning the minds ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... aeronauts found the steerage still populous with queer figures, and the atmosphere seemed more unsavoury than ever after their sojourn among the upper airs. To their disappointment, however, the woman and her Signorina were nowhere to be seen. Blythe and Mr. Grey looked for them in every corner of the deck, ...
— A Bookful of Girls • Anna Fuller
... the light, and Malcolm Sage saw before him the puffy face of a man of about sixty, in the centre of which was a hideous purple splotch that had once been a nose. A moment later the handkerchief obscured the unsavoury sight. ...
— Malcolm Sage, Detective • Herbert George Jenkins
... with these surroundings,—of fairy palaces and stately mansions; in place whereof was nought but a wilderness of mean, low, squalid houses, with meandering, ill-paved alleys, and all past everything for unsavoury smells,—heaps of refuse lying before every door, stark naked brats of children screaming everywhere, and a pack of famished ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... would be prevailed upon to take; he rejected all suggestions of the kind, as if priestly celibacy were one of his articles of Church discipline. Doomed by his own choice, therefore, as Mr. Dimmesdale so evidently was, to eat his unsavoury morsel always at another's board, and endure the life-long chill which must be his lot who seeks to warm himself only at another's fireside, it truly seemed that this sagacious, experienced, benevolent old physician, with his concord of paternal and reverential love for the young pastor, was ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... musty air that distinctive but indescribable odour that clings to police vans and prison reception rooms; an odour that, in the present case, was pleasantly mingled with the suggestive aroma of disinfectants. Through the unsavoury throng we hurried, and up a staircase to a landing from which several passages diverged. Into one of these passages—a sort of "dark entry," furnished with a cage-like gate of iron bars—we passed to a black ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... of water arose at once. There was no general water supply at that time, and each unit had to solve its own problem. Our supply had to come from the creek, which was thick and turbid and contained a multitude of unsavoury things. At first it was sedimented with alum, which precipitated the suspended matter in a gelatinous mass, and the clear fluid was chlorinated with bleaching powder. There is only one consolation in drinking well chlorinated water. You know that it contains nothing except chlorine. With whisky ...
— In Mesopotamia • Martin Swayne
... were uneventful ones, the only incidents worthy of remark being a visit from the King on the 2nd December; a minor operation by the North Staffordshire Regiment on the 12th March, resulting in the inclusion in our line of the unsavoury Epinette Salient; the sudden move of the 16th Infantry Brigade to Vlamertinghe at the time of the enemy's attack at St. Eloi in the middle of March, and a little mining and counter-mining on the Frelinghien and Le Touquet fronts in May. The minor operation at l'Epinette was a very ...
— A Short History of the 6th Division - Aug. 1914-March 1919 • Thomas Owen Marden
... of some calculation of social harm; many, but not all and not even most. Many people think that paper money is a mistake and does much harm. But they do not shudder or snigger when they see a cheque-book. They do not whisper with unsavoury slyness that such and such a man was "seen" going into a bank. I am quite convinced that the English aristocracy is the curse of England, but I have not noticed either in myself or others any disposition to ostracise a man simply for accepting a peerage, as the modern ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... does our dissecting pen lay bare?" he continued. "Human nature? or merely some more or less unsavoury undergarment, disguising and disfiguring human nature? There is a story told of an elderly tramp, who, overtaken by misfortune, was compelled to retire for a while to the seclusion of Portland. His hosts, desiring to see as much as possible of their guest during his limited stay with ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... crank is a person who holds views which to us seem ridiculous. The man who first objected to cannibalism was a crank. The man who first thought lunatics should not be chained to walls or left naked on unsavoury beds of straw was a crank. Galileo was an intellectual crank of the shameless type. Shelley is the beautiful crank of all times, champion of forlorn causes, the inspired rebel ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby
... example of the cleverness that is so much more useful than either genius or industry. I doubt if he had any clear notion of what was meant by psychology, but he had intuitively divined an obscure flaw in our complicated mentality, a flaw searching back to some unsavoury interlude in our history. Of course, by lower-middle class he meant servants. This silent chap in black, with the hair growing low by his ears, would be of that class, the lower-middle. And—here I put the ivory-backed ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... became very pale at the sound of the unsavoury word for a moment, then flushed pink to the roots of his fair hair. "But you can't go out to fight; you are under arrest, you lunatic!" he objected, ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad |
