"Contemptible" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the dissimilarity in the mode of election, as fatal to this argument in the mouth of an English High Churchman, I was told that "the Crown now represents the Laity!" Such a fiction may be satisfactory to a pettifogging lawyer, but as the basis of a spiritual system is indeed supremely contemptible. ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... tried to terrify them: but they found to their astonishment that the Christians would not change their minds for any terror. Then their hatred became rage and fury. They could not understand how such poor ignorant contemptible people as the Christians seemed to be, dared to have an opinion of their own, and to stand to it; how they dared to think themselves right, and all the world wrong; and in their fury they inflicted on them tortures to read of which should make the blood run cold. And ...
— Discipline and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... some of their sentimental ideas about it; shake them loose from some of the schoolmasters' niggling rules about it; make them write it themselves; show 'em the big shapes of it; make a piano keyboard something they knew their way about in. That wouldn't be a contemptible job for anybody.—Oh, well, we can talk that out later. But you needn't be afraid for me, ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... thoughts took this turn she would cry piteously; but not for long. She would dry her eyes, and burn with wrath all round; she would still hate her rival, but call her lover a coward—a contemptible coward. ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... one of these grubstake sharks. He came to Nevada after the Tonopah excitement with a flunkey they call Flip Flappum. That's another dirty dog that I'm going to put my mark on when I get him in the door—one of the most low-down, contemptible curs that I know of—he makes his living by selling bum life insurance. Phillip F. Lapham is his name but we all call him Flip Flappum—he's the black-leg lawyer that drew up that contract that made me lose my ...
— Wunpost • Dane Coolidge
... execrably bad taste our modern managers show in the extravagant and ridiculous announcement of the splendour of the star you come to contemplate! If Mr. Brooke have great merit, he needs not all this sound of trumpets; if he have it not, he is only rendered the more contemptible by it. I have some of the play-bills of John Kemble's last performances before me, and there is none of this fustian: the fact, the performance, and the name are simply announced. If our taste improves in some respects, it does not in this; it is a retrogression—a royal theatre sinking back into ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 206, October 8, 1853 • Various
... knowledge that I would find some 'low' person, girl or man, whom I knew I could get at, who would strip himself or herself bare to me in a spiritual sense, and would be revealed disinterestedly, would have no axe to grind and no contemptible small ends to gain, and no tradesman's commercial morality and no grafting conventionality, no moral cant based on self-interest—some being so near the 'limit' that he was intellectually and morally fearless and did not need to pose, from whom some truth could be derived, whose ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood
... with a view of prosecuting my studies in a country retreat: and there I laid that plan of life which I have steadily and successfully pursued. I resolved to make a very rigid frugality supply my deficiency of fortune, to maintain unimpaired my independency, and to regard every object as contemptible except the improvement of ...
— Hume - (English Men of Letters Series) • T.H. Huxley
... Piero de' Medici, who had lately succeeded his father as chief magistrate of Florence, and pretended to the same power. The death of his friend Lorenzo had been sincerely deplored by Lodovico, who, before many months had passed, began to discover how weak and contemptible a character his son possessed, and had already consulted his astrologer as to the influence which this young man would have upon his own fortunes. Now the vain and foolish youth refused to join in the proposed embassy to the ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright
... great justice. At all events, the effect it produced was deep and memorable, and no wonder that the exulting typographer's one bumper more to Jedediah Cleishbotham preceded his parting stave, which was uniformly The Last Words of Marmion, executed certainly with no contemptible rivalry of Braham. ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... suspicion was too trifling, no person on whom it rested too contemptible, to throw him into a panic, and induce him to take precautions for his safety, and meditate revenge. A man engaged in a litigation before his tribunal, having saluted him, drew him aside, and told him he had dreamt that he saw him murdered; and shortly afterwards, when his adversary came to deliver ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... you like. Often I felt what he was thinking, almost as if each thought of his were a hand laid upon me—a hand from which I shrank with an almost trembling repugnance. Sometimes when he thought something contemptible or evil, I shrank as ...
— The Dweller on the Threshold • Robert Smythe Hichens
... estimation than he was before, by showing him infinite things and his own abasement, till he falls into the frame of mind that leads to the catastrophe, from mere internal irritation, not premeditation, or envy of Abel (which would have made him contemptible), but from the rage and fury against the inadequacy of his state to his conceptions, and which discharges itself rather against life, and the Author of life, ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... That you, the most effeminate of men, should threaten any man with death at your hand! Your hand! What hand! The hand of Philomela or Medea or Clytemnestra? Why, when you dance in those characters you show such contemptible timidity, you are so frightened at the sight of steel, that you will not even carry a property sword? But I am digressing. Pudentilla, seeing to her astonishment that her son had fallen lower than she ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... serious effect of the way in which the necessity of winning or "making records" is constantly held up as the raison d'etre of athletic sports is that it suggests to the ordinary student, who has no hopes of brilliant success in athletics, that moderate exercise is contemptible, and that he need do nothing to keep up his bodily vigour. Thus, Dr. Birkbeck Hill found that the proportion of students who took part in some athletic sport was distinctly less at Harvard than at Oxford. ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... explanation at all. This is a mode of writing very acceptable to the multitude who have always been accustomed to make gods and daemons out of men very little better or worse than themselves; but it appears contemptible to all who have watched the changes of human character—to all who have observed the influence of time, of circumstances, and of associates, on mankind—to all who have seen a hero in the gout, a ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... and say whether they are willing to sacrifice all this liberty, all this greatness, and all this hope, because they have not intelligence, wisdom, and virtue enough to adjust a controversy so frivolous and contemptible."[706] ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... curious how rapidly one turns from good to bad in this book. How clever the descriptions are! how neatly some of the minor events and personalities are hit off! and yet, how astonishingly vile and contemptible the chief part of it is!—that part, we mean, which contains the adventures of the hero, and, of course, the choice reflections ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... unexpected wives. They had regarded him as a poor unfortunate, driven to crime by adversity, and after a fashion the victim of an arrogant and soulless police system, aided and abetted by the District Attorney's minions, a contemptible robber in the person of a dealer in women's hats, and a bejeweled snob who insulted their intelligence by trying to convince them that her confidence had been misplaced. But the two wives settled it. Smilk was a rascal. He ought to ...
— Yollop • George Barr McCutcheon
... forbid you to do it! You despise me, perhaps, and think I'm feeble. But you're mistaken. You are ungrateful and impertinent and contemptible, but I will save you in order to save Irma and our name. There is going to be such a row in this town that you and he'll be sorry you came to it. I shall shrink from nothing, for my blood is up. It is unwise of you to laugh. I forbid you to marry ...
— Where Angels Fear to Tread • E. M. Forster
... tortured, nor did the virtuous Trajan change the policy of the government. Hadrian and Antoninus Pius permitted the laws to be enforced against the Christians, and Marcus Aurelius saw no reason to alter them. But to the mind of the Stoic on the throne, says Arnold, the Christians were "philosophically contemptible, politically subversive, and morally abominable." They were regarded as statesmen looked upon the Jesuits in the reign of Louis XV., as we look upon the Mormons,—as dangerous to free institutions. Moreover, the Christians were ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV • John Lord
... be impressed with the idea that a high moral character is absolutely essential to the highest development of every race, white quite as much as black. There is no creature so low and contemptible as he who does not seek first the approval of his own conscience and his God; for, after all, how poor is human recognition when you and your God are aware of your inward integrity of soul! If the Negro will keep clean hands and a pure heart, he can stand up before all the world and ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... said to me. "The hue and cry! Contemptible! How I hate it! But you wouldn't understand—!" he broke off, and slowly regained his usual air of self-obliteration; he even seemed ashamed, and began trying to brush his moustaches higher than ever, as if aware that his heat had robbed ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... to protect me! Even as (thy son) Pradyumna, they are, O Krishna, mighty warriors all! They are foremost of bowmen, and invincible in battle by any foe! Why do they bear the wrongs inflicted (on me) by the sons of Dhritarashtra of such contemptible strength? Deprived of their kingdom by deception, the Pandavas were made bondsmen and I myself was dragged to the assembly while in my season, and having only a single cloth on! Fie on that Gandiva which none else can string save Arjuna and Bhima and thyself, O slayer of Madhu! Fie ...
— Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 1 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... than he would have done though the honours of graduation had never been conferred upon him. Stage-doctors, I must observe, do not much excite the indignation of the faculty; more reputable quacks do. The former are too contemptible to be considered as rivals; they only poison the poor people; and the copper pence which are thrown up to them in handkerchiefs could never find their way to the pocket of a regular physician. It is otherwise with the latter: they sometimes intercept ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... you will," she said. "And go as soon as you like. You are a contemptible, cold-hearted ingrate. You have grudged me every minute of your company, everywhere—and every second you have given me here. If I have been foolish it is over now, and there shall be nothing to record my folly." She stepped to the easel and hurled the canvas to the ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... bishopric to teach me but to be taught by me. In truth I do not understand what could be your Lordship's thought in discussing a matter so foreign to your profession; and it did not seem at all well to me, unless your Lordship regards me as so contemptible a person that I am not equal to this. Although humility is well in all, and particularly in bishops, it is not humility for the sheep to teach the shepherd; nor would it be considered well in me, and still less so in your Lordship, if it were known ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume VIII (of 55), 1591-1593 • Emma Helen Blair
... reconciled her to life. Pascal was now everything to her—her present and her future; and she solemnly vowed that she would make a noble man of him. But alas! misfortunes never come singly. One of her husband's friends, who acted as administrator to the estate, took a contemptible advantage of her inexperience. She went to sleep one night possessing an income of fifteen thousand francs, but she awoke to find herself ruined—so completely ruined that she did not know where to obtain ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... thin. Why, the children have penetrated it. So has poor Yarra. They love you! You are brave—you rescued Mr. Macdougal from the Bushrangers. You are generous—you do not try to make him appear contemptible because of his afflictions, as some of the others have done. You are gentle—I see it in your bearing towards the little ones. You are kind, and Yarra is devoted ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... to say, in this connection, and after a longer experience of the world, that many schoolmasters, "armed with a little brief authority," are the most contemptible of petty tyrants. Their arrogance and oppression are intolerable; and I have often wondered, that where such men have been planted, they have not produced more of the evil fruit of strife and rebellion. Mr. Parasyte was one of this class; and the fact that ...
— Breaking Away - or The Fortunes of a Student • Oliver Optic
... slanderous prate of servants; I am careful, whenever it intrudes itself, to discourage and rebuke it; but just at this time I felt some resentment against this lady, and hardly supposed it possible for any slanderer to exaggerate her contemptible qualities. I suffered her therefore to run on in a tedious and minute detail of the capricious, peevish, and captious ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... downwards would turn and rend her, should she dare declare herself. Nay, she was ashamed of herself for the mischief she had wrought. No one in the world cared for her; she was quite alone. The only man in whose breast she could excite love or the semblance of it was a contemptible cad. And who was she, that she should venture to hope for love? She figured herself as an item in a catalogue; "a little, ugly, low-spirited, absolutely penniless young woman, subject to nervous headaches." Her sobs were interrupted by a ghastly burst of self-mockery. Yes, Levi was right. ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... rarer than is the love of Dupris and Bolingbroke. These sentiments proceed from an unknown cause. But you have brought me thus to consider love as a passion. Yes, indeed, it is the last of them all and the most contemptible. It promises everything, and fulfils nothing. It comes, like love, as a need, the last, and dies away the first. Ah, talk to me of revenge, hatred, avarice, of gaming, of ambition, of fanaticism. These passions have something virile in ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... it's a popular fallacy, an exploded idea, a contemptible humbug, to live merely for your neighbors, the rabble world at large. Thousands do it, my dear, and I've no objection to their doing it; it's their own business, and none of mine. I have moved up town because I thought it ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... believed the other things they say of you if I hadn't this to break down my faith. I heard this with my own ears. It was too contemptible to forget in a lifetime. I did not come here to discuss it with you. The thing is done. I came here to tell you that I am going to leave Chicago. You WON'T go, so I will." Bansemer still glared at him, but there was amazement mingling with rage in his eyes. "I can't look a soul in the face. I am ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... acquainted with the whole of the design: but now that I knew my man, and could see my way, I at once resolved to appear the dupe they purposed to make me. Specie too, for the payment of the garrison! This was no contemptible prize with which to commence my career. Besides the boat was well manned, and although without cannon, still in point of military equipment quite able to cope with my crew, which did not ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... commissioners, and bring them before the Revolutionary Tribunal, whose verdict could not be doubtful."—Buchez et Roux, XXXIII., 431, 436, 441. Speech by Robespierre, Thermidor 8, year II... ". Machiavellian designs against the small fund-holders of the State.. .. A contemptible financial system, wasteful, irritating, devouring, absolutely independent of your supreme oversight.... Anti-revolution exists in the financial department.... Who are its head administrators? Brissotins, Feuillants, aristocrats and well-known knaves—the ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... make my bow at the Horse Guards; and my noble brother lost as little time in making me put my hand to a paper, in which, for prompt payment, I relinquished one half of my legacy. But what cared I for money? I had obtained a profession in which money was contemptible, the only purse the military chest, and the only prize, like Nelson's, a peerage or Westminster Abbey. The ferment did not cool within the week, and within that period I had taken leave of half the county, been wished ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... is the result that they should mainly be judged by, and to which they should appeal. But amongst all classes, the working itself, incessant working, is the thing deified. Now what is the end and object of most work? To provide for animal wants. Not a contemptible thing by any means, but still it is not all in all with man. Moreover, in those cases where the pressure of bread-getting is fairly past, we do not often find men's exertions lessened on that account. There enter into their ...
— Friends in Council (First Series) • Sir Arthur Helps
... force a resort to common sense. Racial prejudice and ignorant, contemptible intolerance, must disappear under, and before the presence of the renewal of business activity in the South, and the necessity for Negro labor. Each soldier returning from Europe is a more enlightened man than when he went away. He has had the broadening effect of travel, the chance to ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney
... idiot enough to believe such a contemptible slander, when I brought her here and established her as my honored wife? Did I ever treat her with anything but reverence and respect?" thundered Sir William, ...
— Virgie's Inheritance • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... Gower, he was a student of municipal law, having attended Chester's Inn, which stood on the site of the present Somerset House; but although he trod in the footsteps of his celebrated predecessors, it was with far feebler powers. His original pieces are contemptible, both in subject and in execution. His best production is a translation of 'Egidius De Regimine Principum.' Warton, alluding to the period at which these writers appeared, has the following oft-quoted observations: —'I consider Chaucer as a genial day in an English spring. ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... to me. He could "bark" a squirrel in the top of the tallest tree, or kill it by a bullet through its eye. He used to boast, in a quiet way, that he never spoilt a skin, though it was only that of a "contemptible squir'l." ...
— Our Young Folks—Vol. I, No. II, February 1865 - An Illustrated Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... unquestionably have brought him and the sharpest particles of a birch-broom into close acquaintance in the present imperfect state of existence, could they also suppose a mere poor human being, such as I was, capable by those contemptible means of counteracting and limiting the powers of the disembodied spirits of the dead, or of any spirits?—I say I would become emphatic and cogent, not to say rather complacent, in such an address, when it would all go for nothing by reason of the Odd Girl's ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... should have been quicker. He begged my pardon. His cold voice really maddened me, and I burst out into some foolish, contemptible diatribe, called him a machine, taunted him, then—as I felt that loathsome thing nestling once more to me,—begged him to assist me, to stay with me, not to leave me alone—I meant in the company of my tormentor. Whether he was frightened, or whether he was angry ...
— Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens
... his friend that a question of so great magnitude to him had been decided by the last sting which he had received from an insect so contemptible as Mr. Bonteen, but he expressed the feeling as well as he knew how to express it. "Oh, I shall be with you. I know what you are going to say, and I know how good you are. But I could not stand it. Men are beginning already to say things which ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... politicians. They canvas the civil and criminal laws of their country, and learn the value of political liberty. They talk over measures of state, judge of the intentions, sagacity and sincerity of public men, and are likely in time to become in no contemptible degree capable of estimating what modes of conducting national affairs, whether for the preservation of the rights of all, or for the vindication and assertion of justice between man and man, may be expected to be crowned with the greatest ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... say," she admitted; "but the Californian's highest duty is loyalty to his country. Ours is a double duty, isolated as we are on this far strip of land, away from all other civilization. We should be more contemptible than Indians if we were not ...
— The Doomswoman - An Historical Romance of Old California • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... worth of Nature's womb—there have been evolved intelligence and love, sacrifice, ideals; splendours which no splendour to come can utterly dim. These things are in the power of Nature. This is what "dead matter" can mother. So much the worse for our contemptible conceptions of matter, and That of which matter is the manifestation. But if it be that from the slime, by natural processes, there can grow a St. Francis, surely our dim notions of the potencies of Nature must be exalted. The forces ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... to make things come right for you. I told Miss Wharton all about myself and tried to make her understand that you weren't in the least to blame for my misdeeds. But I only made matters worse. She is contemptible." Jean's ...
— Grace Harlowe's Problem • Jessie Graham Flower
... incomprehensible subjects of space, eternity, life and death. I think I have fairly heard and fairly weighed the evidence on both sides, and I remain an utter disbeliever in almost all that you consider the most sacred truths. I will pass over as utterly contemptible the oft-repeated accusation that sceptics shut out evidence because they will not be governed by the morality of Christianity. You I know will not believe that in my case, and I know its falsehood as a general rule. I only ask, Do you think I can change the self-formed convictions ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Marchant
... of the Athenaeum and a merited punishment for "that unscrupulous critic and contemptible mathematical twaddler, ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... outward form, and since my own beauty has been slighted by his comparison, ye two shall be punished, she for her beauty, and thou for thy insolence, and through the means of that very beauty, on account of which my father and I have become contemptible. See, O thou who despisest a suitor, whether thou canst easily procure another. This shall be the condition of thy daughter's marriage. Whatever suitor shall lay claim to her, thou shalt send up to this terrace alone at flight. And if he ...
— An Essence Of The Dusk, 5th Edition • F. W. Bain
... to meet new consequences than to heed those higher feelings that were tardily struggling for expression. She did pity Wharton, however, for it seemed to her that he was the injured party. When he was himself he was a very decent fellow, and it was a contemptible trick thus to cheat him. It would have been less ignoble to sell herself outright to a man she detested— for the transaction would then have been one of dollars and cents, purely, a sacrifice prompted by necessity, so she reasoned— whereas to ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... had faded from his face, had died upon his lips. Once more he was a soul in torments of despair and degradation; and yet once more did the absence of the abject in man and manner redeem him from the depths of either. In these moments of reaction he was pitiful, but not contemptible, much less unlovable. Indeed, I could see the qualities that had won the heart of Raffles as I had never seen them before. There is a native nobility not to be destroyed by a single descent into the ignoble, an essential honesty too bright and brilliant to be ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung
... attachment of Rous to the house of Beauchamp, and the dedication of his work to Henry, Would make his testimony most suspicious, even if he had guarded his work within the rules of probability, and not rendered it a contemptible legend. ...
— Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of King Richard the Third • Horace Walpole
... now," was the reply. "You had better give me up to the soldiers at once. I suppose they will give me something to eat. My pride's all gone now, and I only want to get it over and bring it to an end. It's very contemptible, I know, but it is ...
— The New Forest Spy • George Manville Fenn
... expression of Richard's face was changed when he had finished speaking, while he was conscious of feeling much as he did that night when he denounced Ethie so terribly to her face. "Had it been a man, or half a man, or anybody besides that contemptible puppy, it would not seem so bad; but to forsake me for him!" Richard said, while the great ridges deepened in his forehead, and a hard, black look crept into his eyes, and about the corners of his mouth. He was terrible in his anger, which grew upon ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... 'barracking' that was carried on at football matches was a mean and contemptible system, and was getting worse and worse every day. Actually people were afraid to go to them on account of the conduct of the crowd of 'barrackers.' It took all the interest out of the game to see young men acting like ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... Augustus, an inquiry was made after the author; and Virgil not declaring himself, the verses were claimed by Bathyllus, a contemptible poet, but who was liberally rewarded on the occasion. Virgil, provoked at the falsehood of the impostor, again wrote the verses on some conspicuous part of the palace, and ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... him beyond his means. Yes, she is socially very ambitious, not here in America, but abroad. To tell the truth, I do not believe her first husband is dead. She is leading a double life. She may not be so much to blame, for I have heard that her first husband was, or is, a contemptible fellow. She once had money in her own right, but the baron squandered it all. Her son has lived most of his time in Germany, and fortunately there is no family resemblance to betray the relationship. The son resembles the father; is essentially German in appearance, but he inherits from ...
— A Successful Shadow - A Detective's Successful Quest • Harlan Page Halsey
... an addition, by no means contemptible, to the influence exercised by these institutions on the course of events, in the Book Clubs, or Printing Clubs as they are otherwise termed, of the present day. They have within a few years added a department to literature. The collector who has been a member ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... habits—that Mr. Scully himself had only for three months mingled among the aristocracy—that his young friend Perkins was violently angry—and finally, and to conclude, that the proud vulgarity of the great Sir George Gorgon and his family was infinitely more odious and contemptible than the mean vulgarity of the ...
— The Bedford-Row Conspiracy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... literature, nor philosophy reached their full development till a later era. It is enough for our purpose to say that, before the Persian wars, civilization was by no means contemptible, in all those departments which subsequently made Greece the teacher and ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... with a vengeance why we should turn to truth—truth saves us from a world of that complexion. What wonder that its very name awakens loyal feeling! In particular what wonder that all little provisional fool's paradises of belief should appear contemptible in comparison with its bare pursuit! When absolutists reject humanism because they feel it to be untrue, that means that the whole habit of their mental needs is wedded already to a different view of reality, in comparison with which the humanistic world seems but the ...
— The Meaning of Truth • William James
... were not an inspiring spectacle. A soldier, stripped of his arms and held by his foes, becomes of a sudden a pitiable, almost a contemptible object. You think instinctively of an adder that has lost its fangs, or of a wild cat that, being shorn of teeth to bite with and claws to tear with, is now a more helpless, more impotent thing than if it had been created without teeth and claws in the first place. These similes are poor ones, I'm ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... unguarded confidence, will insensibly acquire over a feeble mind that ascendant which harsh wisdom and uncomplying virtue can seldom obtain. The degenerate grandsons of Theodosius, who were invisible to their subjects, and contemptible to their enemies, exalted the praefects of their bed-chamber above the heads of all the ministers of the palace; and even his deputy, the first of the splendid train of slaves who waited in the presence, was thought worthy to rank before the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... The cardinal, however contemptible might be the triumph gained over so vulgar a being as Bonacieux, did not the less enjoy it for an instant; then, almost immediately, as if a fresh thought has occurred, a smile played upon his lips, and he said, offering ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... hazarded upon these subjects, may to some appear too slight, and to others too abstruse and tedious. To those who have explored the vast mines of human knowledge, small specimens appear trifling and contemptible, whilst the less accustomed eye is somewhat dazzled and confused by the appearance even of a small collection: but to the most enlightened minds, new combinations may be suggested by a new arrangement of materials, and the curiosity and enthusiasm of the inexperienced may be ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... while that contemptible print, the Chicago Times, was instilling treason into the minds of its readers, and doing all that it could to embarrass the Government, discourage patriotism, and to give aid and comfort to the rebels; our victories, with that sheet, were always unimportant; our cause ...
— The Great North-Western Conspiracy In All Its Startling Details • I. Windslow Ayer
... these mountains, from whence they pay neighborly visits to the chicken-roosts of the ranchers in the Truckee meadows near by. Toward night a pair of these animals are observed following behind at the respectful distance of five hundred yards. One need not be apprehensive of danger from these contemptible animals, however; they are simply following behind in a frame of mind similar to that of a hungry school-boy's when gazing longingly into a confectioner's window. Still, night is gathering around, and it begins to look as though I will have to pillow my head on the soft side of ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... and easily led, puerile in his gusts of passion and his complete abandonment of himself to them—selfish, fickle, boastful, cruel, superstitious, licentious—he exhibits to us the Oriental despot in the most contemptible of all his aspects—that wherein the moral and the intellectual qualities are equally in defect, and the career is one unvarying course of vice and folly. From Xerxes we have to date at once the decline of the Empire in respect of territorial ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson
... &c. of the Virginians are much the same as about London, which they esteem their Home; and for the most Part have contemptible Notions of England, and wrong Sentiments of Bristol, and the other Out-Ports, which they entertain from seeing and hearing the common Dealers, Sailors, and Servants that come from those Towns, and the Country Places in England ...
— The Present State of Virginia • Hugh Jones
... will have seen by Sir James' speech, the very complete triumph his firmness and energy have obtained over the factious cabal of their most contemptible assembly. Bedard will be shortly released—that fellow alone of the whole gang has nerve, and does not want ability or inclination to do mischief whenever opportunity offers; the rest, old Papineau and the blustering B——, ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper
... them contain. This made me reflect how vain an attempt it is for a man to endeavor doing himself honor among those who are out of all degree of equality or comparison with him. And yet I have seen the moral of my own behavior very frequent in England since my return; where a little, contemptible varlet, without the least title to birth, person, wit, or common sense, shall presume to look with importance, and put himself upon a foot with the ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... is hard to believe that a man of your intelligence and supposed progressive ideas would be guilty of such a contemptible act. Yet facts are facts and the facts leave little room for doubt that you were to a large extent, if not almost entirely, responsible. The persistent series of bitter and abusive articles published by your newspaper, El Universal, ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto
... know of this world only yesterday? Then every way seemed clear and open for me, my friends abundant, and love profuse; to-day I am in awful doubts, and yet I must not lose my will and drift with every passing fear and confusion into the fickleness which makes woman contemptible after she has given her hand. I will never give up two persons—my father, and ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... he says (De Lib. Arb. i, 5): "How are they free from sin in sight of Divine providence, who are guilty of taking a man's life for the sake of these contemptible things?" Now among contemptible things he reckons "those which men may forfeit unwillingly," as appears from the context (De Lib. Arb. i, 5): and the chief of these is the life of the body. Therefore it is unlawful for ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... you young scamp!" he continued to mutter, "taking advantage of your contemptible botany to bring your two heads together in a way that Milly would never have permitted but for that ridiculous science. Ha! they've let the whole concern fall—serves 'em right—and—no! dropped it on purpose. What! Do you dare to grip my niece's hand, and—and—she lets you! Eh! your arm ...
— The Eagle Cliff • R.M. Ballantyne
... that if their intellectual uncle would condescend to demean himself by waiting on such idiotic monkeys, they would at once admit his glorious body to their ridiculous and contemptible presence. ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... didn't mind what she said. She wouldn't be saying it to Robin, but to the contemptible thing that had taken Robin's place. She still saw Robin as a young man, with young, shining eyes, who came rushing to give himself up at once, to make himself known. She had no affection for this selfish ...
— Life and Death of Harriett Frean • May Sinclair
... first time in fifteen years Mrs. Archibald lost her temper. She turned pale with anger. "You contemptible scoundrel! Go! ...
— The Associate Hermits • Frank R. Stockton
... punishment. Hospitality was formerly the virtue of the Romans; and every stranger who could plead either merit or misfortune was relieved or rewarded by their generosity. At present, if a foreigner, perhaps of no contemptible rank, is introduced to one of the proud and wealthy senators, he is welcomed indeed in the first audience with such warm professions and such kind inquiries that he retires enchanted with the affability of his illustrious friend, and full of regret that he had so long delayed his journey to ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... from the joy of putting the crown on his beloved measure; however, his must be the honor, though another may complete it; and for my part, I feel that, if I were to believe that my exertions ought to detract the millionth part from his merits, I should be one of the most unprincipled and contemptible of mankind. Ask the question simply, Who has borne the real evil, who has encountered the real opposition, who roused the sluggish public to sentiments of honor and pity? Why, Mr. Sadler; and I come in (supposing I succeed) to terminate ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... have harassed me and my men at every opportunity. I mean that you drove that bunch of my cattle off the cliff last September. I mean that within twenty-four hours another fence has been cut, and that you know who did it. I mean that your attempt to buy my horse was only another of the contemptible and cowardly tricks you have played on me. I mean, Huntington, that you are a bully, a liar and ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham
... in an ugly and windowless house because his father and grandfather had done so before him, not because it was necessary. It was odd to see girls tall as Dian, and as fair, bending their pretty bodies to come out of the contemptible little apertures in ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... of contemptible people only, when I say so. I am not thinking of the fellow who is pulled up in court in an action for breach of promise of marriage, and who in one letter makes vows of unalterable affection, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... I deliberated about writing, it was with a view to write you sense—grave sense. What a dull thing is sense. How it mars half the pleasure of life, and yet how contemptible is all that has it not. Too much sense, by which I mean only a great deal, is very troublesome to the possessor and to the world. It is like one carrying a huge pack through a crowd. He is constantly hitting and annoying ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... about the room and coming back to her sat down in a chair at her side. A mocking hand seemed to dash the words from his lips. There was nothing on earth that he could say to her that wasn't foolish or cruel or contemptible... ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... the blame on her beauty—lamented that he had not resolution enough to resist the charm of it. When did that commonplace compliment ever fail to produce its effect? Regina smiled with the weakly complacent good-nature, which was only saved from being contemptible by its association with her personal attractions. "Will you promise to behave?" she stipulated. And Amelius, ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... to this day,—he lived a hundred years ago,—dealt with men and women; that is why all are as impressive to-day as they were when originally composed. Men and women like reading about men and women, and it is becoming understood, nowadays, that the truth about men and women can never be contemptible." ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore
... of being conceited of eating their dinner as of doing their duty. What honest boy would pride himself on not picking pockets? A thief who was trying to reform would. To be conceited of doing one's duty is then a sign of how little one does it, and how little one sees what a contemptible thing it is not to do it. Could any but a low creature be conceited of not being contemptible? Until our duty becomes to us common as breathing, we are ...
— A Double Story • George MacDonald
... left, heard his words in the distance, and notwithstanding she had made a show of boldness, she was really alarmed, and greatly dreaded the future. She knew that an evil-minded man, however contemptible, was capable of doing infinite harm to a fellow-being, when determinedly set thereon. Thus, between hope and ...
— Ellen Walton - The Villain and His Victims • Alvin Addison
... the time of Cicero. Aristocracy may have been based on birth, as in England, but it was sustained by wealth, as in that country. A very rich man gained, ultimately, admission to the noble class, as Rothschild has in London. Without wealth to uphold distinctions, any aristocracy soon becomes contemptible. That organization of society is most aristocratic which confers great political and social privileges on a few men, and retains these privileges from generation to generation, as in France during the reign of Louis XV. The state of society ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... myself. They never seemed to forget that they had promised Aleck should be as my brother, therefore every arrangement took us equally into account. And although the meanness of envy was held by them to be not only sinful, but contemptible, they were quite alive to the keen sense of justice which is born with most children, and would never violate it by the exercise of a partiality too common amongst those who have the charge of the young, either ...
— The Story of the White-Rock Cove • Anonymous
... Lord Palmerston, five Radicals had addressed the House. Without exception they had denounced the action of the Lords, and more than one had savagely attacked the Opposition for supporting the proceedings of the Upper House. They had contended that the Commons were becoming contemptible in the eyes of the nation by their failure to take a manly position in defence of their rights. To a man, they had assailed the resolutions of the Premier as falling far short of the dignity of the occasion and the importance ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... This is, of course, not an original utterance, but derived from one of Napoleon's great Generals; but at all events it shows the estimate placed upon our fighting capacity by an enemy who at one time styled us as 'that contemptible little army.' There is sometimes a weird sense of disproportion revealed, as in the case of a Highlander who was visited by a brother chaplain at a Base hospital some two or three months ago, and who remarked to the patient, 'Well, Jock, what do you think of Jack Johnsons? ...
— With The Immortal Seventh Division • E. J. Kennedy and the Lord Bishop of Winchester
... her hand, as if to check his words. What right had a man who was guilty of such conduct to begin proffering a repentance that was unavailing, nay, contemptible? Did he think that a few halting words could atone for his cruelty, could dispel the ...
— The Peace of Roaring River • George van Schaick
... thought ye dead ere now, but its scotched and not killed ye must hae been by that forest fire twa year back. But now I'll see to it that ye do no mair harm in this section. I hae got ye whar I want ye at last, ye contemptible dog," exclaimed the factor, unconsciously in his excitement reverting back in some degree ...
— Canoe Mates in Canada - Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan • St. George Rathborne
... God, without merit on my part, of His pure and free mercy, has given to me, an unworthy, condemned, and contemptible creature all the riches of justification and salvation in Christ, so that I no longer am in want of anything, except of faith to believe that this is so. For such a Father, then, who has overwhelmed me with these inestimable riches of His, why should I not freely, cheerfully, ...
— Concerning Christian Liberty - With Letter Of Martin Luther To Pope Leo X. • Martin Luther
... Wrayson answered, "if possible, a more contemptible little cur than the man himself was. His only interest is to discover the source of his brother's income. He wants money! Nothing but money. The other is a much more dangerous person. His name is Heneage, and he is an acquaintance of ...
— The Avenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... sided with his mother as against the Dutchman. The more contemptible a man is, the more he contemns a man for not belonging to his race or nation. And Norman felt that he would be eternally disgraced by any alliance with a German. He threw himself into the fight with a great deal of vigor. It helped him to ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston
... custom to render full justice to the founder of the Tudor dynasty. His reign is stamped with a character sordid and unattractive. There is no romance in it, no clashing of arms, no valiant deeds, no suggestion of the heroic. The King's enemies are, for the most part, contemptible persons; the King himself is a cold-blooded, long-headed ruler, merciful indeed, but from policy, not from generosity, and of a meanness in money matters very far from royal. Yet he was not without virtues. He was not unjust; he was ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... following the bent of his own corrupt mind, and countenancing his neighbour in the pursuit of sensual gratifications. Here iniquity abounds, and those outward gross sins which in Europe would render a person contemptible in the public eye, and obnoxious to the civil law, are become fashionable and familiar—adultery, fornication, theft, drunkenness, extortion, violence, and uncleanness of every kind, the natural concomitants of deism and infidelity, ...
— The Naval Pioneers of Australia • Louis Becke and Walter Jeffery
... have been bitterly mistaken!... I thought, fool that I was, that these epaulettes, at least, would give me the right to hope... No, it would have been better for me to have remained for ever in that contemptible soldier's cloak, to which, probably, I was indebted ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov
... at this somewhat contemptible trick fate had played her that Hodder smiled in spite ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... great philosopher, "poor Richard," or "the old lightning rod." Franklin, whose researches in philosophy have placed him preeminent among the first characters in this country, or in Europe: is it possible then that such a contemptible wretch as Peter Porcupine, (who never gave any specimen of his philosophy, but in bearing with Christian patience a severe whipping at the public post) can injure the exalted reputation of this great philosopher? The folly of the Editor ...
— Priestley in America - 1794-1804 • Edgar F. Smith
... stroking me gently with the other, after a hearty fit of laughing, asked me, whether I was a whig or a tory? Then turning to his first minister, who waited behind him with a white staff, near as tall as the mainmast of the "Royal Sovereign[60]," he observed how contemptible a thing was human grandeur, which could be mimicked by such diminutive insects as I: and yet, says he, I dare engage these creatures have their titles and distinctions of honor; they contrive little nests and burrows, ...
— Gulliver's Travels - Into Several Remote Regions of the World • Jonathan Swift
... you mean?" says she, stopping short before Miss Knollys, and speaking with ill-suppressed rage. "Who is she, that she should refuse him? That little, contemptible child! That nobody! I tell you, she would not dare refuse him if she asked her! It would be too great ...
— The Hoyden • Mrs. Hungerford
... the Oriental display. The French consul followed in a barouche and pair, with his attaches and attendants in carriages; but the whole were mean-looking. The French court-dress, or any court-dress, must appear contemptible in its contrast with the stateliness of this people of silks and shawls, jewelled ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... however is an abuse, the offspring of most sordid and contemptible motives. It is the unmistakable brand of the plebeian, and compromises the one who favors it, beyond amendment. It is well to mention it, however, for there are persons of limited observation, and there must needs be persons of a limited experience at all times who, for want of knowing the whole ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... disdainfully amused at Alec's letter, still the thought of Algie Thynne, moonlight nights on the yacht, topping weather, and his own neglect, gave him some cause for alarm. Algie Thynne was crible with debts, and probably keen on marrying for money. Contemptible young ass! Why didn't he work? Harry ...
— The Limit • Ada Leverson
... more or less parts of science. He should be above them all, save in so far as he can without effort reap renown from the labours of others. It is a lache in him that he should write music or books, or paint pictures at all; but if he must do so, his work should be at best contemptible. Much as we must condemn Marcus Aurelius, we condemn James I. ever ...
— Life and Habit • Samuel Butler
... realized her heart's desire. Heigh-ho! I believe I am making you my confessor." He turned his face toward her now, and his smile was rather sad. "When I recall the worry I have given my poor old aunt, who loves me so, I feel like a contemptible scoundrel. How many countless sacrifices has she made for me, in the days when we had nothing! But she shall have all the comforts now, and all the love and kindness I am capable of giving her. I shall never ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... people then tried to do, but, have now quite ceased trying "by the Wolf-method:"—Immortal Wolf, somewhat of a stiff, reserved humor, inwardly a little proud, and not wanting in private contempt of the contemptible, had been accused of heterodoxy by the Halle Theologians. Immortal Wolf, croakily satirical withal, had of course defended himself; and of course got into a shoreless sea of controversy with the Halle Theologians; pestering ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume V. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... nor of public morality; that he insults himself when he can find no one else to insult.—None but the son of a provincial citizen imported from Sancerre to become a poet, but who is only the bravo of some contemptible magazine, could ever have sent out such a circular letter, as you must allow, monsieur. This is a document indispensable to the archives of the age.—To-day Lousteau flatters me, to-morrow he may ask for my head.—Excuse me, I forgot you ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... Now this gentleman's state of mind is far more common than he supposes; only few people care to confess even to their bosom-friends that they do not accept public opinion—or rather the opinions of authority. The age has grown contemptible from cant, and traditions which are perhaps highly respectable in their place are thrust upon us in season and out of season. Regarding matters of fact there is no room for differences of opinion when once the ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... time to chastise the Pope for his support of the enemies of France. The Papalini proved to be contemptible as soldiers. They fled before the republicans, and a military promenade brought the invaders to Ancona, and then inland to Tolentino, where Pius VI. sued for peace. The resulting treaty signed at that place (February 19th) condemned the Holy ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... even invented for its own use the right of the strongest—a divine right which quiets its conscience in the face of the conquered and the oppressed; we have outlawed all that lives except ourselves. Revolting and manifest abuse; notorious and contemptible breach of the law of justice! The bad faith and hypocrisy of it are renewed on a small scale by all successful usurpers. We are always making God our accomplice, that so we may legalize our own iniquities. Every successful massacre is consecrated by a Te ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... but known it, the face was that of Lord Wynchgate, one of the most contemptible of the greater nobility of Britain, and the figure was ...
— Winsome Winnie and other New Nonsense Novels • Stephen Leacock
... of such treatment of our fathers is too manifest. It creates and lets loose upon their institutions the vandal spirit of innovation and overthrow; for, after the memory of our fathers shall have been rendered contemptible, who will uphold and sustain their institutions? The memory of our fathers should be the watch-word of liberty throughout the land; for, imperfect as they were, the world before had not seen their like, nor will it soon, we fear, behold their like again. Such models ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... I have this to say to you here and now. You came here to bring shame and distress on an honest girl,—you, an old soldier and an Irishman,—the first soldier and the first Irishman I ever knew to be guilty of so low and contemptible a piece of persecution. When I write to Major Cranston of this, and ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King
... or a Bernard who'll decide a la Bernard, for I believe I'm a contemptible Bernard myself," said ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... Homeric phrase), and thrust down into an inferior position in the world, is a mournful spectacle indeed. And the book which sets before us, so impartially yet so eloquently, the innumerable petty misunderstandings and contemptible jealousies which brought about this direful result, is one of ...
— American Political Ideas Viewed From The Standpoint Of Universal History • John Fiske
... exaggerates things— The men who wear the red badge of courage, I don't feel sorry for, they have their reward in their bloody bandages and the little cross on their tunic but those you meet coming back sick and dying with fever are the ones that make fighting contemptible—poor little farmers, poor little children with no interest in Cuba or Spain's right to hold it, who have been sent out to die like ants before they have learned to hold a mauser, and who are going back again with the beards that have grown in the field hospitals on ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis
... intended her to believe he loved her, and suspicious as gossips had made her with reference to his conduct, she could not suppose he was guilty of heartless and contemptible trifling. She trusted his honor; yet the discovery of his affection brought a sensation of regret—of vague self-reproach, and she felt that in future he would prove a source of endless disquiet. Hitherto she had enjoyed his ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... didn't care even to understand, because I thought you generous and nice to me—and I was so confident of you that I came with you and told you I had had some champagne which made my head swim.... And you—did this! It—it was contemptible." ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... used to get his salary and put it away, but now a hundred roubles a day is not enough for him. In old days he was afraid to talk before schoolboys for fear of saying something silly, and now he is overfamiliar even with princes . . . wretched, contemptible little creature!" ...
— Love and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... never went to mass—that he was denounced by the priest, and feeling that his carrying into execution the heartless and oppressive proceedings of M'Clutchy had, taken together, certainly made him as unpopular a man as any individual of his contemptible standing in life could be, resolved, in the first place, to carry arms for his own protection, and, in the next, to take a step which he knew would vex the curate sorely. Accordingly, he lost no time in circulating, ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... middle-aged gentleman of sunburned appearance, looks unmistakably delighted at the prospect of a change in the game. He is married; has a large family of promising young Lisles, and a fervent passion for tennis. Mrs. Talbot having proved a very contemptible adversary, he is charmed at this chance of getting rid ...
— The Haunted Chamber - A Novel • "The Duchess"
... she must be stained and marked forever, she would remain away from him. Never should any circumstance connected with him be made small or contemptible by any act of hers. I read the motive, and, reading ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill |
