"Blasphemy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... The blasphemy shocked him into his senses, which had wandered. Now he knew that from some hidden place the Dark Master was watching him and listening for his ravings, and upon that Brian sternly caught his lips together and said no more, though he prayed hard within himself. A cloak had been ...
— Nuala O'Malley • H. Bedford-Jones
... said it was fearful!—beyond blasphemy! and that she looked like a Bible witch, sitting up drinking and swearing and glaring in her nightclothes and nightcap. She was on a journey into Hungary, and claimed the hospitality of the castle on her ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... have doubts of his impression of the trotting-match, its value, its possibility of importance. The senseless ugliness of the things really hurt him: his worship of beauty was a sort of religion, and their badness was a sort of blasphemy. He could not laugh at them; he wished he could; and his first impulse was to turn and escape from the Fine Arts Department, and keep what little faith in the artistic future of the country he had been able to get together during his long sojourn out of it. Since his return ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells
... who at that time was Inquisitor General and President of the Council of the Indies, "to abstain from proceedings against Indians, because of their stupidity and incapacity, as well as scant instruction in the Holy Catholic faith, for the crimes of heresy, apostasy, heretical blasphemy, ...
— Nagualism - A Study in Native American Folk-lore and History • Daniel G. Brinton
... ye can certify me that Bel devoureth them, then Daniel shall die: for he hath spoken blasphemy against Bel. And Daniel said unto the king, Let it be ...
— Deuteronomical Books of the Bible - Apocrypha • Anonymous
... Stevenson's spiritual and intellectual virtues have been partly frustrated by one additional virtue—that of artistic dexterity. If he had chalked up his great message on a wall, like Walt Whitman, in large and straggling letters, it would have startled men like a blasphemy. But he wrote his light-headed paradoxes in so flowing a copy-book hand that everyone supposed they must be copy-book sentiments. He suffered from his versatility, not, as is loosely said, by not doing every department well enough, but by doing every department too well. As child, cockney, ...
— Twelve Types • G.K. Chesterton
... good things and all good feelings,—religion, reverence, courtesy,—sane contentment, rational ambition,—the right sort of humility, the right sort of pride,—they all go down before it: whilst, in the ignorance which it disseminates, blasphemy, covetousness, bumptiousness, bad taste (and bad art and bad literature, to gratify it), every form of wrong-headedness and wrong-heartedness flourish like the seven plagues of Egypt. But it was all inevitable from the day that meddling German busybody invented printing—if not from ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... Perhaps, then, he had been warned, but he had not comprehended the warning. As he had looked at the stars he had thought of the coming of the most wonderful Child who had ever visited this earth. Perhaps then, too——He tried to snap off his thought, half confusedly accusing himself of some sort of blasphemy. At the top of the staircase he turned and looked ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... possible.[50] If not, they must in every way regard the master with respect—bowing to his authority, working his will, subserving his interests so far as might be consistent with Christian character.[51] And this, to prevent blasphemy—to prevent the pagan master from heaping profane reproaches upon the name of God and the doctrines of the gospel. They should beware of rousing his passions, which, as his helpless victims, they might be unable to allay ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... and blasphemy," said the mask, in a harsh voice. "The year in which the infamous Pope Clement XVI. condemned the holy order, and hurled his famous bull, Dominus redemptor noster. The holy order, condemned and disbanded by his infamous mouth, were changed into holy martyrs, ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... destruction. The Christians could consecrate the old temple to a new service, and give the names of saints to the statues of the gods; but to the Moslem every representation of the human form was worse than blasphemy. For this reason, the symbols of the most ancient faith, massive and unintelligible, have outlived the monuments ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... outrages the only sort of crime in which the spectator of Paris plays has permitted himself to indulge; he has recreated himself with a deal of blasphemy besides, and has passed many pleasant evenings in beholding ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Lord God, to assert that the poor are condemned to endless suffering in this world—and that the desire or the hope to suffer less is a crime in thine eyes—because the happiness of the few, and the misery of nearly the whole human race, is (O blasphemy!) according to thy will. Is not the very contrary of those murderous words alone ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... feel so strongly on everything that the war has brought into question for the Anglo-Saxon peoples that humorous detachment or any other thinness or tepidity of mind on the subject affects me as vulgar impiety, not to say as rank blasphemy; our whole race tension became for me a sublimely conscious thing from the moment Germany flung at us all her explanation of her pounce upon Belgium for massacre and ravage in the form of the most insolent, 'Because I choose to, damn ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... Solitaire, and as I read my amazement grew, and I did in "gaping wonderment abound," to think that fashion, like the insane root of old, had power to drive a whole city mad with nonsense; for such a tissue of abominable absurdities, bombast and blasphemy, bad taste and bad language, was never surely indited by any madman, in or out of Bedlam: not Maturin ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness; and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet colored beast, full of names of blasphemy, having ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... flaming fire, swelling water, and even what the Bible tells us of the draught which agrees well with the innocent, but puffs up and bursts the guilty,—all this pictured itself to my imagination, and formed itself into the most frightful combinations; since false vows, hypocrisy, perjury, blasphemy, all seemed to weigh down the unworthy person at this most holy act, which was so much the more horrible, as no one could dare to pronounce himself worthy: and the forgiveness of sins, by which every thing was to be at last; done away, was found limited by so many ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... Loredano, The brave, the chivalrous, how little deemed Thy father, wedding thee unto his friend, That he was linking thee to shame!—Alas! Shame without sin, for thou art faultless. Hadst thou But had a different husband, any husband In Venice save the Doge, this blight, this brand, This blasphemy had never fallen upon thee. So young, so beautiful, so good, so pure, To suffer this, and yet ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... Ursulines of Loudun in the seventeenth century.[404] She was clever, beautiful, ambitious, fond of pleasure, still more of power. With this, as sometimes happens, she was highly hysterical, and in the early years of her religious life was possessed by various demons of unchastity and blasphemy with whom for many years she was in constant struggle. She fell in love with a priest of Loudun, Grandier, a man whom she had never even seen, only knowing of him as a powerful and fascinating personality at ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... "Treason and blasphemy as an outburst of Anarchism all but broke up a meeting held last night in the Masonic Temple under the auspices of the Spencer-Whitman Center, at which the subject of "Crime in Chicago" was discussed ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 4, June 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various
... here now but the Archduke's murder. It's the impudence of the Servians that chiefly makes them gasp. That they should dare! Dr. Krummlaut says they never would have dared if they hadn't been instigated to this deed of atrocious blasphemy by Russia,—Russia bursting with envy of the Germanic powers and encouraging every affront to them. The whole table, except the Swede who eats steadily on, sees red at the word affront. Frau Berg reiterates that the world needs blood-letting before there can be any real calm again, but it ...
— Christine • Alice Cholmondeley
... saying one time (as it rained when he was ahawking), "if there be a God, a pox on that God which sendeth such weather to mar our sport," or such like? or do you know or have heard of any that hath broken forth into any other words of blasphemy, ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... sin and sickness, nor acknowledged God in all His ways. Blasphemy rebukes not the godless lie that denies Him as All-in-all, nor does it ascribe to Him all presence, power, and glory. Christian Science does this. If Science lacked the proof of its origin in God, it would be self-destructive, for it rests ...
— No and Yes • Mary Baker Eddy
... grace not to remain here, subjected to the insolence of this mad woman, whose every second word is treason or blasphemy, or worse, if anything can be worse. Leave me to deal with her. A very little more, and I shall arrest her on ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... while the preparations were being made; but when Spotted Dog brought down the end of the rope he had rove through the block at the end of the gaff, and stood grinning anticipatively before Dolores, Rufe's tongue came loose, and he burst into a torrent of futile, raving blasphemy. ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... of humour of the Germans often amuses me. I think it was Palmerston who described Germany as "that land of damned Professors." They are all so desperately in earnest, and their "Kultur" is so serious, that jokes and fun seem like blasphemy. My penury has again been relieved by Mr. S——'s kind loan of L1. Lady M—— came in to tell me that the American Vice-Consul had telegraphed to Mr. W—— the good news that we are all to go on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday next. I have heard this story so often ...
— A War-time Journal, Germany 1914 and German Travel Notes • Harriet Julia Jephson
... express the hope that we may all henceforth find our happiness in taking Him for our teacher, guide, and model who never shrank from duty, even when to perform it wrung from him tears of agony and a bloody sweat, and who held on his course through evil report and good report, spite of blasphemy, persecution, and a bitter and shameful death, till he had finished the work which his Father had given him to do, and had won for us the victory over sin and death, and an imperishable ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson
... singer of eld, 'They may bear her from my presence, but they can never untie the knot which unites my heart to her; for that heart, so tender and so constant, God alone divides with my lady, and the portion which God possesses He holds but as a part of her domain, and as her vassal.'" "This is blasphemy," Prince Edward now retorted, "and for such observations alone you merit death. Will you always talk and talk and talk? I perceive that the devil is far more subtle than you, messire, and leads you, like a pig with a ring in his nose, ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell
... the centre of this pervasive illusion of her own. It amazed him. It was like blasphemy from the mouth of ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... unphilosophical attempt to alter the established course of Nature, or the preordained sequences of events. The supposition of its "efficacy" has been represented as a flagrant instance of superstitious ignorance, worthy only of the dark ages, and even as a presumptuous blasphemy, derogatory to the unchangeable character of the Supreme. Some have held, indeed, that while prayer can have no real efficacy either in averting evil or procuring good, it may nevertheless be both legitimate and useful, by ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan
... at all. And once I heard a tumult in the street, as of the cries of men and boys commingled, and the clashing of arms and staves. Seeking to know the cause thereof, I saw that one was being driven to execution,—one that had said he was the Son of God and the King of the Jews, for which blasphemy and crime against our people he was to die upon the cross. Overcome by the weight of this cross, which he bore upon his shoulders, the victim tottered in the street and swayed this way and that, as though each moment he were like to fall, and he groaned in sore agony. Meanwhile about him pressed ...
— The Holy Cross and Other Tales • Eugene Field
... falsely, to be witty. And then they come in hobbling with their lame submission, and with their "reverence be it spoken": as if it were not much better to leave out what they foresee is likely to be interpreted for blasphemy, or at least great extravagancy; than to utter that, for which their own reason and conscience tell them, they are bound to lay in beforehand ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... employment, and even then the conditions under which they worked were, if possible, worse than those obtaining at most other firms. The men were treated like so many convicts, and every job was a hell where driving and bullying reigned supreme, and obscene curses and blasphemy polluted the air from morning till night. The resentment of those who were out of work was directed, not only against the heads of the firm, but also against the miserable, half-starved drudges in ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... of their peasant-brethren. And not one of them but had felt, to some degree, the same, deep, passionless, revulsive anger that was working in him, and turning him from the old, secret habits of spiritual meditation and high thought, into passions of blasphemy and atheism which burned ever deeper ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... Peter, zealous still, but with a holy zeal. I heard him ask, 'How long shall those precious souls, redeemed by thy blood, be led astray? May I not fly on the wings of love, and destroy that city of blasphemy on the seven hills, that the glory may be thine?' But Jesus looked on him with an eye of love, and said, 'Simon, son of Jonas, the time is not yet come.' Then Peter only replied, 'Lord, thou knowest. Thy will ...
— Woman And Her Saviour In Persia • A Returned Missionary
... Lord died for can't afford to keep his birthday; it is the rich that he's going to cast into outer darkness, that keep it for their own ends, and it's a blasphemy and a mockery," proclaimed Nahum Beals. He was very excited that night, and would often spring to his feet and stride across the room. There was another man there that night, a cousin of Joseph Atkins, John Sargent by name. He had recently moved to Rowe, since he ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... company, and say that they have no Pharisaic exclusiveness, and even sometimes defend themselves by Christ's example, who received sinners and ate with them. The comparison borders on blasphemy. It depends on the purpose, for which sinners are received. Christ never joined in their sin, but went to save them from their sin; and wickedness could not lift its head in His presence. Some seek to be initiated ...
— Friendship • Hugh Black
... BLASPHEMY, defined by Ruskin as the opposite of euphemy, and as wishing ill to anything, culminating in wishing ill to God, as the height ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... regulations to write one letter, did not write to any of his old pals in London or elsewhere, but to Mr. Eden. He told him that he regretted his quiet cell where his ears were never invaded with blasphemy and indecency, things he never took pleasure in even at his worst—and missed his reverence's talk sadly. He concluded by asking for some good books by ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... not stripped of every thing? Are we not actually starving for want of the daily bread that I have toiled so hard for, and prayed unceasingly to heaven to afford us; whilst those who never use their Maker's name except in terms of blasphemy, have loads of affluence heaped into their laps. Oh! it's enough to make ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... the Son of the Blessed? And Jesus said, I am; and ye shall see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven. Then the high priest rent his clothes, and saith, What need we any further witnesses? ye have heard the blasphemy: what think ye? And they all condemned him to be guilty of death. And some began to spit on him, and to cover his face, and to buffet him, and to say unto him, Prophesy: and the servants did strike him with the palms of their hands. ...
— The Book of Common Prayer - and The Scottish Liturgy • Church of England
... say: All is good which comes from God. Yet that likewise is false; for, if God exists, then all things come from Him, even blasphemy." ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... thyself down,' the tempter saith, 'And angels shall thy feet upbear.' He bids thee make a lie of faith, And blasphemy ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... Rebecca, for shame!" cried Miss Sedley; for this was the greatest blasphemy Rebecca had as yet uttered; and in those days, in England, to say, "Long live Bonaparte!" was as much as to say, "Long live Lucifer!" "How can you—how dare you have such wicked, ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... you no comfort for my sore heart? Am I for ever to hope? Grant me at least despair!'—and so on she went, heedless of my presence. Her prayers grew wilder and wilder, till they seemed to me to touch on the borders of madness and blasphemy. Almost involuntarily, I spoke as if to ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... peculiarly gross scandal, in which Prince and one of his female followers were involved, led to the secession of some of his most faithful friends, who were unable any longer to endure what they regarded as the amazing mixture of blasphemy and immorality offered for their acceptance. The most prominent of those who remained received such titles as the "Anointed Ones,'' the "Angel of the Last Trumpet,'' the "Seven Witnesses'' and so forth. In 1862 "Brother Prince'' sent "to the kings and people of the earth'' letters ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... permitted himself one minute in which to establish the fruitlessness of spurs, whip and blasphemy in this emergency, and then, descending to his own legs, he climbed over the fence into the road and ran as fast as boots and tops would let him towards the point whence the cry of the hounds was coming, ever more and more faintly. ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... Sing-Sing. I had no objection to any man attempting the role of Judas Iscariot. That was entirely within the limitations of stage art. Seth Low was Mayor of Brooklyn, and Mr. Grace was Mayor of New York—a Protestant and a Catholic—and yet they were of one opinion on this proposed blasphemy. ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... uninform'd Beau turn Atheist, and make wise Speeches against that Being, which made him a Fool, if the Devil had not sold him some Wit in exchange for that Trifle of his, call'd Soul? Had he not barter'd his Inside with that Son of the Morning, to have his Tongue tip'd with Blasphemy, he that knew nothing of a God, but only to swear by him, could never have set up for a Wit, to burlesque his Providence and ridicule his ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe
... and unless it be one or two persons of very strong intellect, or whose spirits and good-humour amuse me, I wish neither to see the high, the low, nor the middling class of society. This is a feeling without the least tinge of misanthropy, which I always consider as a kind of blasphemy of a shocking description. If God bears with the very worst of us, we may surely endure each other. If thrown into society, I always have, and always will endeavour to bring pleasure with me, at least to show willingness to please. But for all this "I had rather live alone," and I wish ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... convict, after one long stare of amazement at the distant hut, began to comment freely and with much recondite blasphemy upon the transaction recorded by Margery. Luiz Sebastian only smiled amiably, like a lazy and well-disposed catamount, and the boy whistled long and thoughtfully. But the countenance of Master Win-Grace Porringer wore ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... the University and some of their professors still showed a desire for bold and independent action, the merchants caught eagerly at the sympathy of the Archduke Francis Charles, while the booksellers addressed to the Emperor a petition in which servility passes into blasphemy. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... met the Notable Nut (Lieutenant Nottinger Nutt, an ornament of the Royal Horse Artillery), and they talked evil of Dignitaries and Institutions amounting to high treason if not blasphemy, while watching the class in progress, with ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... you step out of a sleeping house and are alone, you are apt to hold your breath; and if you are not, you are apt to whisper. There is an expectancy in the air, a fatefulness—a loud word would be blasphemy that offends the ear and the feeling of decency It is the hour of all still things, the silent things that pass like dreams through the night. You seem to stand hushed. Stark and bare, stripped of all accidentals, the ...
— Over Prairie Trails • Frederick Philip Grove
... extinguish (just as prolonged absence will) all its vividness. So impossible is it for the full sympathies of the heart to coexist with absolute antipathy of the intellect! Nay, I shall, perhaps, have to listen to the language which I cannot but consider as "impiety" and "blasphemy," and yet keep my temper. I half feel, however, that I am doing him injustice in much of this; and I will not "judge before the time." It cannot be that he will ever cease to regard me with affection, though, perhaps, no longer with reverence; ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... alone at last, and able to speak for sobbing, those gentle youths exchanged their sentiments; and these were of the nature of blasphemy and rebellion against God. They had learned at one fell blow the hideous lesson of human depravity. People lied—grown people—religious people—they lied! You couldn't trust them! They had been deceived, ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... rows... (No sign of the abject life— Not even a blasphemy...) But the spindle legs keep time To a limping rhythm, And the shadows twitch upon the snow Convulsively— As though death played ...
— The Ghetto and Other Poems • Lola Ridge
... the stories respecting Lord Kenyon's historical allusions and quotations are surely greatly exaggerated, or are pure inventions. In addressing a jury in a blasphemy case, he is reported to have said that the Emperor Julian "was so celebrated for the practice of every Christian virtue that he was called 'Julian the Apostle'"; and to have concluded an elaborate address ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... horse-thief!" he snickered. "Will you look at that?" Now the Mocha Kid was a ribald character, profanity was a part of him, and blasphemy embellished his casual speech. The mildness of his exclamation showed that he was deeply moved. He continued in the same admiring undertone: "I seen a dame once that could deal a bank, but she couldn't pay and take. This gal ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... periods curate at Yardley and at St. Paul's in this town. He had been educated for the Church, and matriculated well, but adopted such Deistical opinions that he was ultimately expelled the Church, and more than once after leaving here was imprisoned for blasphemy. ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... become the very sink of sin and seat of hypocrisy, and gulf where true religion was drowned. Here also now reigned presumption, and groundless confidence in God, which is the bane of souls. Amongst its rulers, doctors, and leaders, envy, malice, and blasphemy vented itself against the power of godliness, in all places where it was espied; as also against the promoters of it; yea, their Lord and Maker could not ...
— The Jerusalem Sinner Saved • John Bunyan
... socialistic politics who had sworn to overturn as far as they could the authority of society, to despise the rights of property, and to trample on the laws of order. There was no city in the world guilty of more blasphemy than this beautiful Geneva; and even to this day, as the sins of fathers descend to their children, the teachings of Calvin, of Bayle, and of Servetus hang like a chronic curse over the city to warp every noble ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly
... Elston, Bedfordshire, in 1628. The son of a tinker, his childhood and early manhood were idle and vicious. A sudden and sharp rebuke from a woman not much better than himself, for his blasphemy, set him to thinking, and he soon became a changed man. In 1653 he joined the Baptists, and soon, without preparation, began to preach. For this he was thrown into jail, where he remained for more than twelve years. It was ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... were fashioned after the image of the Church; authority was founded on a mystery. Rights came to it from on high, and power, like faith, was reputed divine. The obedience of the people was consecrated to it, and from that very reason inquiry was a blasphemy, and servitude a virtue. The spirit of philosophy, which had silently revolted against this for three centuries, as a doctrine which the scandals, tyrannies, and crimes of the two powers belied daily, refused any longer to recognise ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... taken from him and with fierce resentment he saw himself as merely a pawn in the game of life; a puppet to fulfil, not his own will, but the will of a greater power than his. In the black despair that came over him he cursed that greater power until, shuddering, he realised his own blasphemy, and a broken prayer burst from his lips. He had come to the end of all things, he was fighting through abysmal darkness. His need was overwhelming—alone he could not go forward, and desperately, he turned to the Divine Mercy and prayed ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... surprise, dismay, ridicule, and indignation. But they also at once called forth a response of eager sympathy from numbers to whom they brought unhoped-for relief and light in a day of gloom, of rebuke and blasphemy. Mr. Keble, in the preface to his famous assize sermon, had hazarded the belief that there were "hundreds, nay, thousands of Christians, and that there soon will be tens of thousands, unaffectedly anxious to be rightly guided" in regard to subjects that concern ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... be so,' answered the priest, 'unless it's a sign of a lottery office, or a caution against blasphemy up and down the pavement. Those are the only signs we have in the country, except the government salt and cigar shops.' ... He took a snuff-box from a pocket in his sleeve, and with a bow offered a pinch ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... much of this people that they pervert the right way of God, and keep not the law of Moses which is the right way; and convert the law of Moses into the worship of a being which ye say shall come many hundred years hence. And now behold, I, Sherem, declare unto you that this is blasphemy; for no man knoweth of such things; for he cannot tell of things to come. And after this manner ...
— The Book Of Mormon - An Account Written By The Hand Of Mormon Upon Plates Taken - From The Plates Of Nephi • Anonymous
... with warnings:—what more wouldst thou have?—Shall we keep chasing this murdeous fish till he swamps the last man? Shall we be dragged by him to the bottom of the sea? Shall we be towed by him to the infernal world? Oh, oh,—Impiety and blasphemy ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... blasphemy three days afterwards, reading in the papers the letter of Bishop Guilbert, burst into print with this incredible but most instructive effusion, addressed to his ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... not knowledge of law, whose end is to even and right all things, being abused, grow the crooked fosterer of horrible injuries? Doth not (to go to the highest) God's word, abused, breed heresy? and His name abused, become blasphemy? Truly a needle cannot do much hurt, and as truly (with leave of ladies be it spoken) it cannot do much good. With a sword thou mayest kill thy father, and with a sword thou mayest defend thy prince and ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... towards an unimaginable perfection—it behooves the man of science to put his hand upon his mouth, lest in his efforts to be true, in the absence of knowledge, he find himself uttering, in his ignorance, words of lamentable folly or blasphemy. ...
— Life and Matter - A Criticism of Professor Haeckel's 'Riddle of the Universe' • Oliver Lodge
... person of Solon, he has these words: "Thou, O Croesus, askest me concerning human affairs, who know that every one of the deities envious and tumultuous." (Ibid, i. 32.) Thus attributing to Solon what himself thinks of the gods, he joins malice to blasphemy. Having made use also of Pittacus in some trivial matters, not worth the mentioning, he has passed over the greatest and gallantest action that was ever done by him. For when the Athenians and Mitylenaeans were at war about Sigaeum, Phrynon, the Athenian ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... blasphemy, Dorian!" he cried. "You must not say things like that. They are horrible, and they ...
— The Picture of Dorian Gray • Oscar Wilde
... is prevented from coarsely and brutally insulting his neighbours' honest beliefs. And this apart from the question of bad policy, inasmuch as abuse stultifies argument. But if prosecutions for blasphemy are permitted, it would be but just to penalize some of the anti-scientific blasphemers for their coarse and unmannerly attacks on ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley - A Character Sketch • Leonard Huxley
... very well, what to do, in this uncommon emergency; for Miss Nancy's hysterics were usually of that violent kind which the patient fights and struggles out of, without much assistance; Mr. Sikes tried a little blasphemy: and finding that mode of treatment wholly ineffectual, ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... young man's attention. "What's the reason you didn't sell this old ship long ago, take a decent house in the town, and bring up your daughter like a lady?" he asked with a sudden blunt good humor. But even this implied blasphemy against the habitation he worshiped did not prevent Mr. Nott from his usual ...
— By Shore and Sedge • Bret Harte
... misrule sent Seized on Lionel and bore His chained limbs to a dreary tower, For he, they said, from his mind had bent Against their gods keen blasphemy. ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... stolid-faced miners in red flannel shirts and clay-stained boots. On the first a dead man lay grinning up at the sun, his teeth just showing under his bushy mustache, a trickle of red running down from his temple. On the next a man groaned and mumbled blasphemy ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... valiant doctor sipped, and sipped again, and said with great blasphemy that it was the real stuff, and only needed henbane to make it perfect. Then, taking from his pocket a good-sized leathern-covered flask, with a silver lip fastened on the muzzle, he offered it to Septimius, who declined, ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... got rid of the canvas suit and slouch hat. Next day he went home to Rodchurch Post Office, and, speaking to Mavis of Mr. Barradine's death, uttered that terrific blasphemy. "It is the ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... much given to the sin of blasphemy, [191] because of their natural vileness, their pride, and their presumption. Hence it is quite usual for them to complain of God, whom they call Paghihinanaquit, asking why He does not give them this or that, and health or wealth, as He does to other ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin
... impiety; sin &c. 945; irreverence; profaneness &c. adj.; profanity, profanation; blasphemy, desecration, sacrilege; scoffing &c.v. [feigned piety] hypocrisy &c. (falsehood) 544; pietism, cant, pious fraud; lip devotion, lip service, lip reverence; misdevotion[obs3], formalism, austerity; sanctimony, sanctimoniousness ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... gambling places for which the vicinity was noted, that the worst passions of the human heart had been exhibited here, and that betimes amid the laughter of the merry throng in midnight revelry and above the strains of the "harp and viol" one could have heard the voices of blasphemy and the sharp, loud reports of pistols in the hands of careless characters, whose deadly bullets had sent many a poor unfortunate wayfarer or unwary miner from the gold ...
— By the Golden Gate • Joseph Carey
... as brutal as a blasphemy, there came a thunder of footsteps on the stairs; and a man burst into the room, with ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson
... put His adamantine fate Between my sullen heart and its desire, I swore that I would burst the Iron Gate, Rise up, and curse Him on His throne of fire. Earth shuddered at my crown of blasphemy, But Love was as a flame about my feet; Proud up the Golden Stair I strode; and beat Thrice on the Gate, and entered with ...
— The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke • Rupert Brooke
... who say the same from ignorance and ill-will. To such I would reply that the objection comes ill from them, and that the real presumption, I may almost say the real blasphemy, in this matter, is in the attempt to limit that inquiry into the causes of phenomena which is the source of all human blessings, and from which has sprung all human prosperity and progress; for, after all, we can accomplish comparatively ...
— The Method By Which The Causes Of The Present And Past Conditions Of Organic Nature Are To Be Discovered.—The Origination Of Living Beings • Thomas H. Huxley
... to prick out the other, but he slid from her hands and escaped, blind of an eye, to Jerusalem, bringing with him great sums of money in the hope that he may purchase a miracle, which is a great blasphemy in itself, and shows what the man really is ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... the window, listened to the passing and repassing of the jailers, and the wild song of a number of the unhappy inmates. A century ago, I reflected, and this was a monastery; little then thought the pious, penitent recluses that their cells would now re-echo only to the sounds of blasphemy and licentious song, instead of holy hymn and lamentation from woman's lips; that it would become a dwelling for the wicked of every class- -the most part destined to perpetual labour or to the gallows. And in one century to come, what ...
— My Ten Years' Imprisonment • Silvio Pellico
... when applied to the reproduction of the species, is the most hateful blasphemy which modern manners have taught us to utter. Nature, in raising us above the beasts by the divine gift of thought, had rendered us very sensitive to bodily sensations, emotional sentiment, cravings of appetite and passions. This double nature of ours ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... was rendered necessary by the satirical shrewdness of the one, or the assumed superiority of the other. Under Isabella's mild influence, the wrongs of Queen Mary were forgotten by her father, and Mr. Oldbuck forgave the blasphemy which reviled the memory of King William. However, as she used in general to take her father's part playfully in these disputes, Oldbuck was wont to call Isabella his fair enemy, though in fact he made more account of ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... complaint. Witnesses had seen the transaction. He first shouted, in an unseemly way, to frighten my palfry. I wheeled round, rode up to the window, and asked him what he meant. He grinned, and said some foolery, which produced him an immediate slap in the face, to his utter discomfiture. Much blasphemy ensued, and some menace, which I stopped by dismounting and opening the carriage door, and intimating an intention of mending the road with his immediate remains, if he did not hold his ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... were not especially high, and in the reaction from Puritan control and strict religious observances the great mass of the people degenerated into positive irreligion and gross immorality. Drunkenness, rowdyism, robbery, blasphemy, brutality, lewdness, and prostitution became very common. This moral decline of the people the Church of England ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... It is not blasphemy to hope that Heaven More perfectly will give those nameless joys Which throb within the pulses of the blood And sweeten all that bitterness which Earth Infuses in the heaven-born soul. O thou 5 Whose dear love gleamed upon the gloomy path Which this lone spirit ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... little faith. The very fact of his Messiahship constituted him a claimant to the Jewish throne, and as such a pretender with whom Pilate could deal. Moreover—and here was the point—to claim divinity was to attack the unity of God. Of impious blasphemy there was ...
— Mary Magdalen • Edgar Saltus
... way from the castle brig to the "arches cursing with great eloquence. A soldier picks up many tricks of blasphemy in a career about the world with foreign legions, and John had the reddings of three or four languages at his command, so that he had no need to repeat himself much in his choice of terms aboat his chief. To do him justice he had plenty ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... Victuals! O horrible blasphemy! Hinder me not of my prayer, nor drive me not into a choler. Victuals? why heardest thou not the sentence, thou shalt take no food, but ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... rightly!" cried he, "nor will I abate one jot or tittle from that I have set before me. As it is atheism and blasphemy to dispute what is in God's power, so it is presumption and high contempt for a subject to question a king's will; nor should a king abate even the breadth of a hair from that right which his ...
— The Fifth of November - A Romance of the Stuarts • Charles S. Bentley
... his ambassadorial privileges, Philip had him arrested and imprisoned as a French subject, on a charge of treason, heresy, and blasphemy, and sent his chancellor, Peter Flotte, and William de Nogaret, to the Pope, to demand the prelate's degradation and deprivation of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... himself before the Great White Throne, worthless, sin-stricken. What was he that dared to enter such a holy calling as the ministry? He who was as the dust of the earth, a priest of the Most High God! He beat his brow at the blasphemy of the thought. It was Nadab or Abihu he was or a son of Eli, and the Ark would depart forever from God's people, did he dare to raise his profaning hands in its ministry. And so, partly to escape his sister's reproaches, ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... the oldest and the most numerous sect of Christians are incapable of fulfilling the common duties and relations of life: though I do differ from them in many particulars, God forbid I should give such a handle to infidelity, and subscribe to such blasphemy ...
— Peter Plymley's Letters and Selected Essays • Sydney Smith
... that they have chosen to go in, which will lead them to the worst end, if, in convenient time, they repent them not, verily forsaking and revoking openly the slander that they have put, and every day yet put to CHRIST's Church. For, certain, so open blasphemy and slander, as they have spoken and done in their revoking and forsaking of the Truth, ought not, nor may not, privily be amended duly. Wherefore, Sirs, I pray you that ye busy you not for to move me to follow these ...
— Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse • Various
... lifelong welfare of a person to the acquisition of material things. It introduces fraud and injustice into the inmost center of one's life, and makes respect of self, happiness in marriage, faith in human nature forever impossible. The deliberate formation of a loveless marriage is a blasphemy against God, a crime against society, a wrong to a fellow being, and a bitter and lasting curse to one's ...
— Practical Ethics • William DeWitt Hyde
... words were as blasphemy, for they contradicted the whole spirit of the teaching which she had received. But she did not dare to contradict her mother's opinions. She looked down, and reflected dumbly that her mother knew more about the subject than she could possibly do. The good Sisters had talked to her about heavenly ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... to the serious and earnest attention of our readers as one of unusual interest, and as discovering the active existence, in our very midst, of a system of idolatry and blasphemy as gross as any recorded in the History ...
— Emilie the Peacemaker • Mrs. Thomas Geldart
... the hands of the Swedish Minister of Foreign Affairs. NANSEN (page 49 and following.) The artfulness of this legal construction becomes immediately obvious. It is exceedingly remarkable also to find that Norwegian parliamentarism can commit such a blasphemy towards the Constitution, that it has confered a position of ...
— The Swedish-Norwegian Union Crisis - A History with Documents • Karl Nordlund
... causes the unbeliever to blaspheme. It is to him every whit as monstrous as the old stories of the witches riding on broomsticks. But the question is not to be settled by blasphemy on one side or credulity on the other. There is something behind these phantasmal apparitions; there is a real substratum of truth, if we could but get at it. There seems to be some faculty latent ...
— Real Ghost Stories • William T. Stead
... English scholars of that time. If it had so happened that the Reverend Mr. Pemble had thought fit to tell his audience only of the first two articles of this creed, it would have been difficult to resist the suggestion that they presented us merely with an example of stupid, or, perhaps, impudent, blasphemy caused by the events of the day. But the negative nature of the first two items of the creed is counterbalanced by the positive nature of the second two items; and thus this example shows us the importance of considering evidence as to all ...
— Folklore as an Historical Science • George Laurence Gomme
... feel I am in God's hands, sir, and he knows best what is good for us. People talk about dying before their time, but no man ever did or ever will or ever can do so, and it is blasphemy to think of it. Then which of us can prolong our lives by one day or hour or minute? But God can do everything. And what a grand inspiration to trust yourself absolutely to him, to raise the arms heavenward which the world ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... statement showed it to be false and revolting." This argument then of Nebridius sufficed against those who deserved wholly to be vomited out of the overcharged stomach; for they had no escape, without horrible blasphemy of heart and tongue, thus ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... happen, and I should lose my husband. Think that thou venturest Heaven, Fiesco; and though a million chances were in thy favor, wouldst thou dare tempt the Almighty by risking on a cast thy hopes of everlasting happiness? No, my husband! When thy whole being is at stake each throw is blasphemy. ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... country of truth. She wanders unknown amongst men. God has covered her with a veil, which leaves her unrecognised by those who do not hear her voice. Room is opened for blasphemy, even against the truths that are at least very likely. If the truths of the Gospel are published, the contrary is published too, and the questions are obscured, so that the people cannot distinguish. And they ask, "What have you to ...
— Pascal's Pensees • Blaise Pascal
... the party, as having been the first to resist the tyranny of the oldsters, and especially of the tyrant Murphy. I was let into all the secrets of the mess in which the youngsters were placed by the captain to be instructed and kept in order. Alas! what instruction did we get but blasphemy? What order were we kept in, except that of paying our mess, and being forbidden to partake of those articles which our money had purchased? My blood boiled when they related all they had suffered, and I vowed I would sooner die ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... incident is that Christ's claim to forgive sins is either blasphemy or the manifest token of divinity. These Pharisees scented heresy at once. They were blind to the pathos of the story, and hard as millstones towards the poor sufferer's wistful looks. But they pounced at once gleefully ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... should repent it. I said M. le Prince was not King of France, and I trusted that he never would be, so that I did not see why I should be bound to obey his will and pleasure. At which he looked so much as if I were uttering blasphemy that I could not help laughing. I really believe, poor fellow, that M. le Prince was more than a king to him, the god of his idolatry, and that all his faults might be traced to ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... different colours, they tell us that on sea Titus tauntingly observed, in a great storm, that the God of the Jews was only powerful on the water, and that, therefore, he had succeeded in drowning Pharaoh and Sisera. "Had he been strong, he would have waged war with me in Jerusalem." On uttering this blasphemy, a voice from heaven said, "Wicked man! I have a little creature in the world which shall wage war with thee!" When Titus landed, a gnat entered his nostrils, and for seven years together made holes in his brains. When his skull was opened, the gnat was found to be as large as a pigeon: the mouth ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... come into this county and do what he has done and get out again? We know all about him. He sneaked in here and gave out he was here to turn the niggers white—that he was some kind of a new-fangled Jesus sent especially to niggers, which is blasphemy in itself—and he's got 'em stirred up. They're boilin' and festerin' with notions of equality till we're lucky if we don't have to lynch a dozen of 'em, like they did in Atlanta last summer, to get 'em back into their ...
— Danny's Own Story • Don Marquis
... others, but too heavy in all. I had no idea, however, that in Pennsylvania, the cradle of toleration and freedom of religion, it could have arisen to the height you describe. This must be owing to the growth of Presbyterianism. The blasphemy and absurdity of the five points of Calvin, and the impossibility of defending them, render their advocates impatient of reasoning, irritable, and prone to denunciation. In Boston, however, and its neighborhood, Unitarianism has advanced to so great strength, as now ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... Blasphemy, cry you, good reader? Are you sure you understand it? The first line I gave you was easy Byron—almost shallow Byron—these are of the man in his depth, and you will not fathom them, like a tarn,—nor in ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... and I did him the honour of playing truant—"playing wag" we called it. I felt that the occasion demanded it. To have the god of my idolatry in my own little town and not to pay him my devotions—why, the idea was almost like blasphemy. A half-dozen, or even a dozen, from my easily infuriated master would be a small price to pay. I should take the stripes as a homage to the hero. He would never know, but I should be proud to suffer in his honour. Unfortunately there was a canvas round the field ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... we speak, and we tell your Majesty, in His sacred name, not to sanction this law, which will be the source of a thousand disorders. We also beg your Majesty to put a check to the press which is constantly vomiting forth blasphemy and immorality. Your Majesty complains of the clergy. But these last years the clergy have been persistently outraged, mocked, calumniated, reviled and derided by almost all ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... you what I said but now, to wit, that the gates are called twelve, to answer the twelve tribes, for their names are written thereon. This must therefore, without all doubt, be a very great encouragement to this despised people; I say great encouragement, that notwithstanding all their rebellion, blasphemy, and contempt of the glorious gospel, their names should be yet found recorded and engraved upon the very gates of New Jerusalem. Thus then shall the Jews be comforted in the latter days; and truly they will have but need hereof; for doubtless, at their return, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... "If it's rank blasphemy to sing the praise o' God, not only better than some folks in the choir, but like an angel o' light, I wish you'd do a little o' that ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... combatants and the dying, to create such a din as might well have given the impression that the chains of Pandemonium were unloosed and all the lost replying to the thunders of heaven with screams of blasphemy and desperation. ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... and make channels for the fructifying waters, and Egypt became the land of corn. Shall man, whose soul is set in the royalty of discernment and resolve, deny his rank and say, I am an onlooker, ask no choice or purpose of me? That is the blasphemy of this time. The divine principle of our race is action, choice, resolved memory. Let us contradict the blasphemy, and help to will our own better future and the better future of the world—not renounce ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... extraordinary promptitude wrapped the best tablecloth about Uncle Jim's arms and head. Mr. Polly grasped his purpose instantly, the man in checks was scarcely slower, and in another moment Uncle Jim was no more than a bundle of smothered blasphemy and a pair of ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... men and women, not only of the lower but even the middling class, are of a nature exceedingly natural, and plainly point to Bacchic and Phallic sources. The bestemmia of the Romans is viler than the blasphemy of ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various
... and error, light and darkness. We went together into the lowest slums of the district; walked arm in arm over the ground where misery tells its sad and awful tale, where poverty shelters its shivering frame, and where blasphemy howls its curse. We found out haunts of vice and sin, terrible in their character, and distressing in their consequences. I found he had not hitherto been accustomed to this kind of mission. Once on my entering a den of dangerous characters and lecturing them on their sinful course and warning them ...
— General Gordon - Saint and Soldier • J. Wardle
... has blessed you above all men in this part of the country; that he has given you wealth, a beautiful Christian wife, and seven lovely children. I do not know whether it is true, but I hear that all he gets in return is cursing and blasphemy." ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... offend critical ears: to so wonderful an extent has our piety discredited Providence, so many tricks have been played by means of this dogma or fiction by charlatans of every stamp! I have seen the theists of my time, and blasphemy has played over my lips; I have studied the belief of the people,—this people that Brydaine called the best friend of God,—and have shuddered at the negation which was about to escape me. Tormented by conflicting feelings, ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... much respect as those of the angelic hierarchy: the "Dominations" might, or might not be as "good" as the "Powers," but they were certainly different, by Divine decree. It would be a species of human blasphemy, therefore, for himself not to stand up in Lord Talgarth's presence, or for a laborer not to touch his hat to Miss Jenny. This is sometimes called snobbishness, but it is nothing of the kind. It is merely a marked ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... Quaker, who claimed to be the Messiah, as part of his punishment for blasphemy, was condemned to have his tongue bored through and his forehead branded with a hot iron with the letter B, signifying that ...
— Bygone Punishments • William Andrews
... I should dismiss such a thought as treason, not to say blasphemy," Don Carlos responded gallantly. "Even when you are ungracious, if ever, you are always the most adorable and beautiful ...
— Bandit Love • Juanita Savage
... to God, man or beast of the learned Rabbonim, who sat shaking themselves all day in the Beth Hamidrash, and said they would be better occupied in supporting their families, a view which, though mere surface blasphemy on the part of the good woman and primarily intended as a hint to Moses to study less and work longer, did not fail to excite lively passages of arms between the two women. But death ended these bickerings and the Bube, who had ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... them, and well; but each intrenched himself behind his own personal views, in virtue of the adage "One cannot argue about tastes." I protested in vain against this false principle, saying that it was inadmissible, and that the classic Brillat-Savarin would have been shocked at such blasphemy. Even his name had no weight, and the guests separated gayly, after uttering heresies that made you shiver. Among the eminent men present there was one, however, who seemed somewhat mortified that he had not the most elementary idea of art; ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... James the First had a habit of swearing,—expletives in conversation, which, in truth, only expressed the warmth of his feelings; but in that age, when Puritanism had already possessed half the nation, an oath was considered as nothing short of blasphemy. Henry once made a keen allusion to this verbal frailty of his father's; for when he was told that some hawks were to be sent to him, but it was thought that the king would intercept some of them, he replied, "He may do as he pleases, for he shall not be put to ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... answered by a stream of blasphemy that came from Leith himself. The big ruffian had fallen into a bunch of ribbon-grass, but now, with the assistance of One Eye, he got to his feet and staggered toward us. From the actions of his white partner, I surmised that Holman's bullet ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer
... but he did not put his case in so many plain words as these; every argument he clothed with doubtful words, so as to make falsehood look like truth, and blasphemy like worship. He was an educated and intelligent man, gifted with that dangerous power of preaching the doctrine of devils in the guise of an angel of light, and handling deadly sophistry with as firm a grasp as if it were ...
— Life in London • Edwin Hodder
... Mother get up. Her Bible is taken from her. Her pencil and paper are taken from her. She is made to stand on the hearthrug, with her hands behind her, while Mother and Father lecture her on Blasphemy. The bell is then rung, and Nurse is sent for. She is handed over to Nurse, with pitiless instructions. Nurse then takes her to her room, where she is undressed, put to ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... and his pots and his pipes, and the tavern-chorus which he and his friends are singing. Such a man as Charles should have had an Ostade or Mieris to paint him. Your Knellers and Le Bruns only deal in clumsy and impossible allegories: and it hath always seemed to me blasphemy to claim Olympus for such a wine-drabbled divinity ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... dispossessed of his holding. They tried the case at Lewes, but he got no change out of William de Warrenne on the bench. William de Warrenne fined Aluric eight and fourpence for treason, and the Abbot of Wilton excommunicated him for blasphemy. Aluric was no sportsman. Then the Abbot's brother married ... I've forgotten her name, but she was a charmin' little woman. The Lady Philippa was her daughter. That was after the barony was conferred. She rode devilish straight to hounds. They were ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... an Englishman, the instant he was at liberty; whereat the parties then and there assembled laughed very heartily, with the single exception of Mr. Grummer, who seemed to consider that any slight cast upon the divine right of magistrates was a species of blasphemy ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... composure by this blasphemy, the Cluniac fell to crossing himself and mumbling invocations. The diplomat had vanished and only the frightened monk remained. He would fain have left the room had he dared, but the spell of her masterful spirit held him. After that ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... an autocratic prophet to whom something like worship was offered even to the last. He was far advanced in his eighty-ninth year when he died. He was far on towards seventy when he was brought before Jeffreys, then Common Serjeant, and other justices, on a charge of blasphemy. Jeffreys was as yet a novice in those arts of which he became the acknowledged master a few years after, but already he quite equalled his future self in his savage brutality to the poor monomaniac. "He was a man," says Muggleton, ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp
... Hear not the blasphemy, O Lord!" cried the excited woman, raising up her hands to heaven. "Thou, miserable wretch! who, for the favour of the Amtmann or the priest, for the pittance bestowed on thee in reward of thy discovery of the supposed foul ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... old game is being pursued as busily as ever. Since Wagner's death the world has been carefully and persistently taught that only Bayreuth can do justice to "Parsifal"; and since the world believes anything if it is said often enough, it has come to think it sheer blasphemy to dream of giving "Parsifal" elsewhere than at Bayreuth. "Parsifal" is not an opera—it is a sacred revelation; and just as the seed of Aaron alone could serve as priests in the sacred rites of the temple at Jerusalem, so only the seed of Wagner can serve as priests—that is to say, as chief directing ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... said the lawyer, "what I mean when I say that there hasn't been another minister here since, that I should have felt like telling this story to. They wouldn't have understood it at all. They would have thought it was blasphemy for me to say straight out that what I took for experiencing religion was really a girl. But you are different. I felt that at once, the first time I saw you. In a pulpit or out of it, what I like in a human being is that ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... steps, bang went the door, and ere long we were safely consigned to the "string" of carriages bound for the same destination as ourselves. After much "cutting-in," and shaving of wheels, and lashing of coach-horses, with not a little blasphemy, "Miss Horsingham" and "Miss Coventry" were announced in a stentorian voice, and we were struggling in a mass of silks and satins, blonde and broadcloth, up the swarming staircase. Everything happened exactly ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... and brought it home in triumph. But after a while he fell sick of a fever; and the blessed St. Trophimus appeared to him, and told him that it was a punishment for his blasphemy in the battle. So he repented, and vowed to serve the saint all his life. On which he was healed instantly, and fell to religion, and went back to Montmajeur; and there he was a hermit in the cave under the rock, and tended the ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... slander. If slaveholders are determined to hold slaves as long as they can, let them not dare to say that the God of mercy and of truth ever sanctioned such a system of cruelty and wrong. It is blasphemy against Him. ...
— An Appeal to the Christian Women of the South • Angelina Emily Grimke
... and the priests at once begin to exorcise it; it is all but done, when one word of the Queen's, who sweetly calls him "Assad", spoils everything. He is in her hands: falling on his knees before her, he prays to her as to his goddess. Wrathful at this blasphemy in the temple, the priests ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... be very fluent in that, for, inspired by love of Aurelia, I attacked it with extraordinary passion. All Italy, and above all Tuscany, took sacred air from her; there grew to be an aureole about everything which owned kinship with her. I was a severe ritualist, as every lover is: it became a blasphemy in me to think of Aurelia in any form of words but those of her own honey tongue. And that was of the purest in the land. She had very little Venetian at any time, and kept what she had for her husband and ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... human creatures. So that you see, though, for the present, we find ourselves utterly incapable of a rapture of gladness or thanksgiving, the dance which is presented as characteristic of modern civilization is still rapturous enough—but it is with rapture of blasphemy. ...
— Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne - Twenty-five Letters to a Working Man of Sunderland on the Laws of Work • John Ruskin
... Karl Marx starved in exile in a Soho lodging; Ruskin's articles were refused by the magazines (he was too rich to be otherwise persecuted); whilst mindless forgotten nonentities governed the land; sent men to the prison or the gallows for blasphemy and sedition (meaning the truth about Church and State); and sedulously stored up the social disease and corruption which explode from time to time in gigantic boils that have to be lanced by a million bayonets. This is the result of allopathic ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... be a question. If there be God? Or, how it may be known that there is a God? It were almost blasphemy to move such a question, if there were not so much Atheism in the hearts of men, which makes us either to doubt, or not firmly to believe and seriously to consider it. But what may convince souls of the Divine Majesty? Truly, I think, if it be not ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... round a magic stone and drunk water from the fountains where the nymphs dwell. If it be so, believe, O Penguins, that the Lord has sent this dragon to punish all for the crimes of some, and to lead you, O children of the Penguins, to exterminate blasphemy, superstition, and impiety from amongst you. For this reason I advise, as a remedy against the great evil from which you suffer, that you carefully search your dwellings for idolatry, and extirpate it from ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... on the stage. These wild paroxysms, half-pathetic, half-demoniac, tell splendidly with the public: a little dash of blasphemy now, and you are perfect. The best society would run wild about you—ladies, most of all, especially if they knew exactly who and what ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... make penal laws against swearing and blasphemy, why not as to rites and ceremonies of public worship? (39.) Devotion towards God is a virtue akin to gratitude to man; religion is a branch of morality. The Puritans' talk about grace is a mere imposture, (76) which extracts from Parker vehement language. What is there to ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... figures slowly walking in the trail. And holding her there firmly against his breast, it seemed a blasphemy to ask the question that had been upon ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte
... poet because he has the trick of a sonorous cadence and of words that fall with the measure of music, so that youths and maidens recite them for the vain charm of their mere empty sound? It is a lie—it is a blasphemy. A poet! A poet suffers for the meanest thing that lives; the feeblest creature dead in the dust is pain to him; his joy and his sorrow alike outweigh tenfold the joys and the sorrows of men; he looks on ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... day in intense anxiety, and at night had no thought of repose. At midnight sounds of indescribable horror began to issue from the Wanderer's apartment, shrieks of supplication, yells of blasphemy— they could not tell which. The sounds suddenly ceased. The two men hastened into the room. It ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... divines preaching, is a proof that their ministrations were not very successful, and that the lower order of Irish were not at all below the English of the same class in education or refinement. "The moans of the sick were drowned by the blasphemy and ribaldry of their companions. Sometimes, seated on the body of a wretch who had died in the morning, might be seen a wretch destined to die before night, cursing, singing loose songs, and swallowing usquebaugh to the health ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack |
