Free TranslationFree Translation
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Demoralize   Listen
verb
Demoralize  v. t.  (past & past part. demoralized; pres. part. demoralizing)  To corrupt or undermine in morals; to destroy or lessen the effect of moral principles on; to render corrupt or untrustworthy in morals, in discipline, in courage, spirit, etc.; to weaken in spirit or efficiency. "The demoralizing example of profligate power and prosperous crime." "The vices of the nobility had demoralized the army."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Demoralize" Quotes from Famous Books



... social investigators told us that alcohol taken into the system at such a time would cause sunstroke. If beer was fatal, most of us figured that we had been dead for years and didn't know it. The effect of constant complaints was to demoralize us and make our work harder. I thought at first that these investigators were our friends and I gave them all the help I could. But instead of helping us, they only hurt us, and then I soured on their misapplied zeal. They were a species new to me that seemed to have sprung up in the hard times, ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis

... loyalty, was preventable and unnecessary. Ethics and honour apart, where was the common sense of the legislative Union? Would it have been possible to design a system better calculated to embitter, impoverish, and demoralize a ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers

... hand and a Bible in the other, are even worse than certain objectionable literary celebrities, whose novels reek of the 'new journalism' and the Sermon on the Mount—the ridiculous and sublime in tasteless combination. You missionaries, I say, sap the primitive strength of Art; you demoralize her. To dare to make Art pander to a passing creed is vile—worse than the spectacle of the Salvation Army trying to convert Buddhists. That I saw in India, and laughed. But we won't quarrel. You paint Faith's jewelry; I'll amuse myself with Truth's drabs and duns. The point of view is all. I ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts

... of promoting the social efficiency of the Negro, tend to degrade and demoralize him. The argument that the deprivation of the Negro's political and social rights in the South tends to crush his ambition, warp his aspirations and distort his judgment, is unsound, because his self-reliance, ambition and independence in the South can be ...
— Twenty-Five Years in the Black Belt • William James Edwards

... declaration of war, in some measure justified this notion. They were, many of them, idle, intemperate men, void of character and good constitutions. The high flying federal clergy, among other nonsense, told their flocks that the war would demoralize the people; whereas it had the contrary effect, as it regarded the towns an hundred miles from the sea coast. It absolutely picked all the rags, dirt, and vice, from our towns and villages, and transported them into Canada, where they were either captured, ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse

... of July and August, 1862, except a brief visit home, were spent at Harrison's Landing, amid the scenes of distress, disease, wounds and suffering, which abounded there. The malaria of the Chickahominy swamps had done much to demoralize the finest army ever put into the field; tens of thousands were ill with it, and these, with the hosts of wounded accumulated more rapidly than the transports, numerous as they were, could carry them away. Their condition at Harrison's Landing was pitiable; the medical ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett

... in a room. They monopolize the space on the floor and wall that should be free for pictures and large articles of furniture, and otherwise completely demoralize the apartment. To do away with this inconvenience substitute heavy curtains whenever an impassable barrier is unnecessary; closet doors, for instance, and those between parlors. Again, doors that are much open may be made to slide into the walls. Then, for ornament and as a screen, the ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke

... adversary's position, being answered by almost as many of his guns. There has never been such a war of artillery on the American continent. Surely this was an exhibition of the "Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious War." It was hoped that so terrible a bombardment would demoralize the enemy and thus prepare the way for a successful onslaught of the infantry. During its continuance we lay among the guns, and as soon as their clamor hushed sprang to our feet and began rushing toward the enemy. We had to descend the slope of Seminary Ridge, cross ...
— Reminiscences of a Rebel • Wayland Fuller Dunaway

... people. And I give, at my own selection, to poor men who have gone astray from the path of life, a ruble, or ten rubles, or a hundred; and I grasp hundreds from people who have not yet left the path, and thereby I render them poor also, and demoralize them ...
— The Moscow Census - From "What to do?" • Lyof N. Tolstoi

... and the end of the matter was that he ran away that afternoon. That is not the worst of it,—for the children all know the facts, and since they find that Stanley Owen can run away and be sustained in his disobedience, of course it tends to demoralize them. So I say that if I do my duty I am lashed by the tongues of people who know nothing of the circumstances; and if I fail to perform my duty I am lashed by my own conscience,—and between the two I have a sorrowful time; for I declare to you, miss, that Stephen's martyrdom was a small affair ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson

... destroyed, [4] and the slaves everywhere liberated to swell the conquering force. Spartacus is said to have sought to moderate the fury of his followers, and we can believe that he did so without supposing that he was much above his age in humane sentiment. He saw that excesses were likely to demoralize his army, and so render it unfit to meet the legions which it must sooner or ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... anglicize apologize apostrophize apprize (to value) authorize baptize brutalize canonize catechize catholicize cauterize centralize characterize christianize civilize colonize criticize crystallize demoralize dogmatize economize emphasize epitomize equalize eulogize evangelize extemporize familiarize fertilize fossilize fraternize galvanize generalize gormandize harmonize immortalize italicize jeopardize legalize liberalize localize magnetize memorialize mesmerize metamorphize methodize minimize ...
— Division of Words • Frederick W. Hamilton

... up information from the minds and conversation of the men it encountered. In a fairly short time, it learned enough to understand what was planned by the criminals; and it arrived at precisely your own conclusion ... that it might be possible to reduce and demoralize the gangs to the extent that they would no longer be able to carry out their plan. It began a systematic series of attacks on them ...
— Lion Loose • James H. Schmitz

... liquor in camp is going to be stopped, sir," Tom insisted. "A keg of liquor will demoralize a whole campful of men like these. They are an excitable lot, and they go crazy when there's any liquor around. If we don't put a stop to it, then there'll be fights, and then a few murders are most likely ...
— The Young Engineers on the Gulf - The Dread Mystery of the Million Dollar Breakwater • H. Irving Hancock

... therefore useless in forest fighting, while if, as must generally be the case in any body, there were a number of cowards in the ranks, the total lack of discipline not only permitted them to flinch from their work with impunity, but also allowed them, by their example, to infect and demoralize their braver companions. ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt

... more to win the money of a man on a salary, especially if he has a family, than to lose his own, and as he does not care to be a loser he keeps these people away as far as possible. In plain English, he wishes to demoralize only the higher classes of society. His visitors are chiefly men who are wealthy and who can afford to lose, or whose high social or political stations make them welcome guests. You may see at his table ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe

... In writing her, relative to this meeting, Frederick Douglass said: "I rejoice not in the death of any one, yet I can not but feel that, in the death of Stephen A. Douglas, a most dangerous person has been removed. No man of his time has done more than he to intensify hatred of the negro and to demoralize northern sentiment. Since Henry Clay he has been the King of Compromise. Yours for the freedom of ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper

... these convictions, riding over them as if to demoralize any coherence and logic that might go with the evidence he was building up, came question after question, pounding at him one after the other, until his mind became more than ever a whirling chaos of uncertainty. If St. Pierre was Black Roger, why would he confess to that fact ...
— The Flaming Forest • James Oliver Curwood

... any more risks than if we were firing bullets, too," said Bud. "And I think with them having to guide their horses in the water, look out for quicksands and drive the frightened sheep over, we can demoralize 'em with ...
— The Boy Ranchers at Spur Creek - or Fighting the Sheep Herders • Willard F. Baker

... grimly. "It is a comfort to think that we are going to get rid of him, O'Connor; he is enough to demoralize a whole brigade, to say nothing of a battalion, and the worst of it is he respects no one. I am as convinced as can be that it was he who fastened that baste of a bird in my shako the other day, ...
— With Moore At Corunna • G. A. Henty

... fellows, to help to emancipate them from ignorance and drudgery; what shall we think of this man, so divinely endowed, so superbly equipped, who, instead of using his education to lift his fellow men, uses it to demoralize, to drag them down; who employs his talents in the book he writes, in the picture he paints, in his business, whatever it may be, to mislead, to demoralize, to debauch; who uses his light as a decoy to lure his fellows on the rocks and ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden

... by the enemy, the superior weight and intensity of its fire will shake the enemy and so demoralize him that, in all probability, a return counter-charge will ...
— The Gatlings at Santiago • John H. Parker

... spying would be of any use. You should have seen the terror caused in 1887 among British employers when a few agitators started preaching the "go-canny" theory—"Bad pay, bad work"; "Take it easy, do not overwork yourselves, and waste all you can."—"They demoralize the worker, they want to kill our industry!" cried those same people who the day before inveighed against the immorality of the worker and the bad quality of his work. But if the workers were what they are represented ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin

... be found that a catcher is a poor thrower, or a pitcher slow in his movements, every fair runner reaching first should immediately attempt to steal second, and even third. This style of play will demoralize an opposing team quicker than anything else, and even if unsuccessful at first, and the first few runners be caught, it should still be kept up for a couple of innings, because it will, at least, affect the nerves of some of the opposing players, and if a break does come, ...
— Base-Ball - How to Become a Player • John M. Ward

... temper returning, and gazing in comic dismay at his favorite sister, much as he would at a dove who had ruffled its plumes. "This from you, Pamela? If Betty be allowed to demoralize the family in this wise, I think it were well my father takes you all ...
— An Unwilling Maid • Jeanie Gould Lincoln

... of provisions at this time, supplies not having been sent forward as Washington expected. His men were very much tried, and many of them were exasperated. Adding hunger and needless suffering to their pittance of pay was quite enough to demoralize the rank and file. Washington could not blame them much, in the circumstances, although the discontent added to his trials. He wrote to Governor Dinwiddie in ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer

... of Paris are totally different to-day from what they were in 1870. Of course the intention of these aeroplane bomb-throwers, of whose exploits we shall probably hear a great deal, was to create a panic and demoralize the inhabitants, and especially to terrify women and children. This utterly failed. After dropping the three bombs and his carte de visite, the German aeroplane vanished towards the east. It seems strange that the flotillas of air-craft at Buc were thus ...
— Paris War Days - Diary of an American • Charles Inman Barnard

... will not accomplish this end. Only as people are truly cultured do they cease to be tools of politicians. Then their intelligence, not their passions, must be addressed. When the masses are thus cultured they will refine instead of demoralize our public men. ...
— Autobiography of Frank G. Allen, Minister of the Gospel - and Selections from his Writings • Frank G. Allen

... an ex-Secretary of the Territory, at one time acting Governor, and a member of the Constitutional Convention, who had dwelt much on the superior prerogatives of the Anglo-Saxon race, was saying, "You go for political equality with the negro; we Democrats won't stand that, it would demoralize the white man." On my way to lecture in the evening, a friend forewarned me that the ex-Secretary, with two or three of his political stripe, had engaged a shrewd Democratic lawyer, by getting him half drunk, to reply to me. So when in my concluding ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... present plan of the Commander in Chief to invest New York and pen up the British there. "I would rather fight than see the gayety of the last winter repeated," Andrew wrote. "And I am much afraid our officers have not learned wisdom by the experience of their enemies. For surely so much pleasure will demoralize them. And though I am sorry not to see thee, partings are sad at the best, and I have a strong belief that I shall return well and sound. Dear Primrose, if so be thou could get word to my mother without too great an effort, tell her I keep her in ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... will not get more ships, he fears, but less, for they will not work if they have wages in four days, equal to seven days' needs. I advised for standardization. He said the Navy wouldn't hear of it, as it would demoralize their yards. ... ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane

... leader did not demoralize the Greeks—it only made them more reckless and more desperate. At length they saw that the end was close at hand; the "Immortals," who had come in the night over the mountain, had arrived, and were ready to fall upon ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester

... convince me more than ever of your innocence. But that sort of thing would scarcely convince anybody else. Now take my advice, and think as little about the case as possible. You cannot do any good—you will only demoralize yourself still more. Everything depends on how the judge and jury may be disposed to regard our story. I shall give a brief to the best man that can be had, and then we shall have done all that lies in ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... thinking of asking you to retire, as your plebeian conduct with the men is apt to injure discipline, and so demoralize the ...
— The Hero of Ticonderoga - or Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys • John de Morgan

... 28th. The tidings brought were joyfully received by everybody at Camp Supply, and they were particularly agreeable tome, for, besides being greatly worried about the safety of the command in the extreme cold and deep snows, I knew that the immediate effect a victory would be to demoralize the rest of the hostiles, which of course would greatly facilitate and expedite our ultimate success. Toward evening the day after Joe arrived the head of Custer's column made its appearance on the distant hills, the friendly Osage scouts and the Indian prisoners ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. II., Part 6 • P. H. Sheridan

... mule should thus demoralize a man, has always been a puzzle to me, for while the mule, as Col. Ingersoll has remarked, is an animal without pride of ancestry or hope of posterity, he is still not a coward by any means. It is beyond dispute ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy

... demoralize mankind; it tends to break all the ligaments of society, to dissolve that mysterious charm which attracts individuals to the nation, and to inspire in its stead a repulsive sense of shame ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various

... demoralize the Turkish infantry, but Mahmoud's guns were in the rear, far out of reach. Bursting shells did more destruction as he shepherded the squadrons back again than bullet, bayonet and slippery clay combined to do in the actual charge itself. Monty gave orders to throw ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy

... foremost rank of the causes which demoralize the urban and mining population, we must place the frequency of those strikes which unhappily have now become so common as to be of more frequent occurrence than a wet season, even in our humid climate. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various

... They appear, during their leisure hours, in filthy dresses, and unwashed hands. No matter how skilled the workman may be, he is ready to sink his mind and character to the lowest level of his co-workers. Even the extra money which he earns by his greater skill, often contributes to demoralize and degrade him. And yet he might dress as well, live as well, and be surrounded by the physical comforts and intellectual luxuries of professional men. But no! From week to week his earnings are wasted. He does not save a farthing; he is a public-house victim; and when work becomes ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles

... man against his own will. He has then no one to blame but himself. And that, Mr. Bob, is a great comfort. When, having got into a scrape, we blame others, we unconsciously become unjust, spiteful, uncharitable, malignant, perhaps revengeful. We indulge in feelings which tend to demoralize the whole character. But when we only blame ourselves, we become modest and penitent. We make allowances for others. And indeed self-blame is a salutary exercise of conscience, which a really good man performs every ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... by the rout of the Eleventh Corps. An occurrence of this kind always has a tendency to demoralize an army and render it less trustworthy; for the real strength of an armed force is much more in opinion than it is in numbers. A small body of men, if made to believe the enemy are giving way, will do and dare anything; but when ...
— Chancellorsville and Gettysburg - Campaigns of the Civil War - VI • Abner Doubleday

... theater, the wine-cup, the race-course, the idle frivolity and luxury of summer watering places, all have a tendency to demoralize ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis

... I ever get into better society again, I shall hardly know how to behave myself. I have become a boor, and the comrades in Berlin or Hanover would treat me with perfect disdain if I should venture to approach them on a footing of equality. The tone prevalent in our Casino is enough to demoralize almost anybody ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg

... serve to annoy the troops we are about to attack, by the incessant sharp buzzing of their deadly bullets among them, like so many bees, killing some and disabling others; and this, sometimes, to such a degree as to demoralize them. ...
— A Treatise on the Tactical Use of the Three Arms: Infantry, Artillery, and Cavalry • Francis J. Lippitt

... forgets. Then my old mother—my dear young lady, even I, old as I am, have a mother—what does she do but draw a prize in the Austro-Hungarian lottery—a huge prize—enough to demoralize one for life—five thousand florins. More remarkable still, the money is paid. Not so remarkable, my good mother declares she will give half of it to an undutiful son, who has never done very well with money in this world. ...
— Sunrise • William Black

... peaceful working, wars of this sort, in the world's long history, are scarce evils at all, and, even in the day of their wrath, bring compensative blessings. They may be fierce and terrible, they may bring wretchedness and ruin, they may 'demoralize' armies and people, they may be dreadful evils, and leave long trails of desolation, but they are none the less wars for victories in which men will return thanks while the world shall stand. The men who fall in such wars, receive the benedictions of their kind. The people that, with patient ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... though that body at the time had a Democratic majority. The measure was killed by one convincing speech from Mr. Badger of North Carolina. The senators knew Colonel Benton's temper and temperament, and understood how completely unfitted he was for military command, and how his appointment would demoralize and practically destroy the army. To the end of his life, however, Colonel Benton himself believed a serious mistake had been made. He had been commissioned colonel in the war of 1812, but though of unquestioned bravery, and deeply read in military science, it had never been ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... you wanted a new uniform," he said. "You must have had an awfully rough time of it. If only for the sake of policy, we ought to get you into a new one as soon as possible, for the very sight of yours would be likely to demoralize the whole division by affording a painful example of what they might expect ...
— With Moore At Corunna • G. A. Henty

... wages of the workman, and you invite him to idleness, humiliate his dignity, and demoralize his conscience; take away from him the legitimate price of his efforts, and you either excite his anger or exalt his pride. In either case you damage his fraternal feelings. On the contrary, make enjoyment conditional ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon

... to their interest to demoralize the market early, so they can buy cheaply, and later proclaim a scarcity so the market will advance to profitable levels. They seem fully alive to their interests. At the opening of the past season one very ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Twenty-Fifth Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association

... hat with pink streamers, at whose feet Steve O'Valley offered some surprise gift worth months of Mary Faithful's salary while he said: "I ran away from work to play with you, Gorgeous Girl! See how you demoralize me? Even your father frowned when I said I was coming. How are you, darling? I don't give a hang if I make poor Miss Faithful run the shop for a year as long as you want me to ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley

... convey their finer and esoteric meanings to the human understanding. The fundamental purpose of religion and science is the same—namely, the discovery of truth." "New Thought does not teach the moral depravity of man. Such thoughts demoralize and weaken the individual. Miracles, in the accepted sense, New Thought does not conceive as possible in a universe of law. The only miracles are phenomena not understood, but nevertheless the result ...
— Modern Religious Cults and Movements • Gaius Glenn Atkins

... tolerant than the great majority of his contemporaries, and the penal code was chiefly enacted under his successors. It required, indeed, four or five reigns to elaborate a system so ingeniously contrived to demoralize, to degrade, and to impoverish the people of Ireland. By this code the Roman Catholics were absolutely excluded from the Parliament, from the magistracy, from the corporations, from the bench, and from the bar. They could not vote at Parliamentary elections or at vestries; they could not act ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.

... were as children, innocent of all the crimes now committed there daily and nightly. True morality is more easily maintained in connection with the simple life. You must accept the truth that you demoralize any race whom you ...
— Indian Heroes and Great Chieftains • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman

... to pity the poor tune. Stories, cards, wrestling, boxing, racing, all these and a thousand other things enter into a day in camp. The roving, uncertain life of a soldier has a tendency to harden and demoralize most men. The restraints of home, family, and society are not felt. The fact that a few hours may put them in battle, where their lives will not be worth a fig, is forgotten. They think a hundred times less of the perils by which they may ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty

... every year who suffer actual and real misery from this falsity, and many of whom die of it; that is the tragedy of the farce. And the fact that this falsity, prison, exists among us and has legal standing and warrant, tends to demoralize every one connected with it, and, more or less, the entire community. If its misery and evil were confined within the circuit of its walls we might endure it; but it spreads outward like a pestilence. It creates little jails in our minds and hearts, though we never ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne

... desires into action in 1915, when the anxieties of the New England tobacco planters were felt in the New York labor market. These planters at first rushed to New York and promiscuously gathered up 200 girls of the worst type, who straightway proceeded to demoralize Hartford. The blunder was speedily detected and the employers came back to New York, seeking some agency which might assist them in the solution of their problem. Importuned for help, the National ...
— Negro Migration during the War • Emmett J. Scott

... maintaining the right of free discussion. At a time when every power the nation can summon is needed to ward off the blows aimed at its life, and turn their force upon its foes,—when a false traitor at home may lose us a battle by a word, and a lying newspaper may demoralize an army by its daily or weekly stillicidium of poison, they insist with loud acclaim upon the liberty of speech and of the press; liberty, nay license, to deal with government, with leaders, with every ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... Our proselytizing missionary enterprises are thus flatly contrary to his advice; and their results appear to bear him out in his view that if you convert a man brought up in another creed, you inevitably demoralize him. He acts on this view himself, and does not convert his disciples from Judaism to Christianity. To this day a Christian would be in religion a Jew initiated by baptism instead of circumcision, and accepting Jesus as the Messiah, and his teachings as of higher ...
— Preface to Androcles and the Lion - On the Prospects of Christianity • George Bernard Shaw

... demoralize, frighten and overawe judges, witnesses and jurors. I do not pretend to say who was responsible, possibly I am not an impartial judge. I was deeply interested at the time, and felt all of these things, rather ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll

... the crowd again; "go it, little un! Let 'im 'ave it! The long un's showing the white feather," etc., and finally I gave him a slight backhander that made his nose bleed and seemed to demoralize him completely. "Yah!" shouted the crowd; "'it ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al

... her arteries, keyed her will to the very highest pitch, quickened her brain, made her feel in some inexplicable way, confident and irresistible, laid on this girl a paralyzing hand. It wasn't her fault that she didn't meet her difficulties half-way with a vicious, driving offensive—rout them, demoralize them. It ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster

... put over him? Three commanders in two hours' time, three great numskulls, none of whom knew what was the right thing to do, and all of them giving different orders! Demoralized, were they? Good Heavens, it was enough to demoralize God Almighty himself, and all His angels!" And the inevitable accusation of treason was again made to do duty; Ducrot and de Wimpffen wanted to get three millions apiece out of Bismarck, as ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola

... a new style belt, denotes you are soon to meet and make engagements with a stranger, which will demoralize your prosperity. If it is out of date, you will be meritedly ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller

... attributes, Pasqual Morales had borne a name for desperate courage that seemed justified in this supreme moment of surprise and stampede. What he saw as he leaned out of the bounding vehicle was certainly enough to disgust a bandit and demoralize many a leader. Scattering like chaff before the gale his followers were scudding out across the desert, every man for himself, as though the very devil were in pursuit of each individual member of the gang. Eight ...
— Foes in Ambush • Charles King

... doubt. The author was a child when the plague was raging—a child of two years' old, toddling about the butcher's shop. The plague of 1665 did not travel far; out of London its incidence was comparatively trifling. The cholera has visited us again and again, but never on a scale to demoralize the people at large. Only once in our history has the destroyer passed over England, leaving probably no shire unvisited by his awful presence, and no parish in which there was not one dead. It is never fair to draw inferences from the silence of ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp

... he thought that," cried Bessie. "No doubt everybody thought that, but it wasn't entirely Teddy's fault. If there is anything in the world that is well calculated to demoralize an active-minded, able-bodied child, it is hotel life. Teddy was egged on to all sorts of indiscretions by everybody in the hotel, from the bell-boys up. If he'd stand on his head on the cashier's desk, ...
— Paste Jewels • John Kendrick Bangs

... dreaded would be the introduction of wild, heathen, and ignorant barbarians among the sober, orderly, and quiet slaves whose ancestors have been on the soil for several generations. This might tend to barbarize, demoralize, and exasperate the whole mass and ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... free civilization. The Dutch system attempts to supply this missing link, and to bring the people on by gradual steps to that higher civilization, which we (the English) try to force upon them at once. Our system has always failed. We demoralize and we extirpate, but we never really civilize. Whether the Dutch system can permanently succeed is but doubtful, since it may not be possible to compress the work of ten centuries into one; but at all events it takes nature as a guide, and ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume I. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace

... the sunshine when she put the apple in Adam's hand; and Adam, with the only woman in the world beside him, and the first free lunch before him, forgot all about God and His commands and "did eat," and the results prove that free lunches always did demoralize men—and always will. And modesty blushed rosy red when Adam put the apple to his lips, and invention and ingenuity, new-born, rushed to the rescue, and they gathered ...
— Fair to Look Upon • Mary Belle Freeley

... everywhere exercised; that healthy pleasures stimulated no inordinate desires; that the people, if poor, had enough to eat and drink; that service was not held to be degrading; that churches were not deserted; that books, what few there were, did not enervate or demoralize; that science did not attempt to ignore the moral government of God; that laws were a terror to evil-doers; that philanthropists did not seek to reform the world by mechanical inventions, or elevate society by upholding the majesty of man rather than ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord

... with the eye of an eagle, but without straining; I played with the precision of a man with an unerring system, though my selections were really made quite at random; and I handled my bets with the sureness and swift dexterity with which a chess-master places his pawn or piece in position to demoralize his opponent. ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout

... governor has been warned, but he gives no heed, or treats it all lightly, pointing out how few the Maroons are. He forgets that a few determined men can demoralize a whole state, can fight and murder and fly to dark coverts in the tropical woods, where they cannot be tracked down and destroyed; and, if they have made supporters of the slaves, what ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... rob, pillage, ravage, depredate, despoil devastate, sack; corrupt, vitiate, debase, mar, demoralize, deprave, sophisticate, infect, defile, contaminate; disfigure, deface, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming

... at Longstreet's headquarters, and the plan of attack was formed. It is said that the level-headed Longstreet opposed the plan, and if so it was but in keeping with his remarkable generalship. The attack was to be opened with artillery fire to demoralize and batter the Federal line, and was to be opened by a signal of two shots from the Washington Artillery. At half-past one the report of the first gun rang out on the still, summer air, followed a minute later by the second, ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 6 • Various

... heard the gay strains of "The girl I left behind me," which the trumpeters were playing with all their might. "You see," said Jack, "it would not do for the soldiers to be sad when one of them dies. Why, it would demoralize the whole command. So they play these gay things to cheer ...
— Vanished Arizona - Recollections of the Army Life by a New England Woman • Martha Summerhayes

... of the King, or on the next floor, is the sitting room of the Queen, covered chairs, clean curtains, nice carpets, books on the table, canary birds at the window, everything tidy, neat and beautiful, and according to your programme the occupants of this room will so demoralize the occupants of the other as to completely ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... wrong in alarming ourselves; his absence will, doubtless, be of short duration; therefore, let us beware, lest by a pusillanimity which the general would consider a crime, of making his absence public, and by that means demoralize the army. The general gives a striking proof of his confidence in us; let us show ourselves worthy of it. Gentlemen, let the most profound silence cover all this with an impenetrable veil; we will detain this gentleman, ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... some of the arts of civilized life; but it must be added, that, denying him the inalienable rights of manhood, denying him the right to the product of his labor, it left him no noble incentive to labor at these arts, and thus tended to render him improvident, careless, shiftless, in short, to demoralize his ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various

... the fault of my having had too much excitement and freedom. It spoils me to make sacrifices that other men can make. Whichever way it comes out I shall be sorry and feel I did not do the right thing. Lying around this hotel is enough to demoralize anybody. We are much more out of it than you are, and one gets cynical and loses interest. On the other hand I would be miserable to go back and have done nothing. It is a question of character entirely and I don't feel I've played the part at all. It's all ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis

... small number in every community who believe in legislative control have always been reenforced by the efforts of trades-unionists rather than by the efforts of employers. Partly because the employment of workingmen in the factories brings them in contact with the children who tend to lower wages and demoralize their trades, and partly because workingmen have no money nor time to spend in alleviating philanthropy, and must perforce seize upon agitation and legal enactment as the only channel of redress which is ...
— Democracy and Social Ethics • Jane Addams

... fastest ocean-going steamers we could find in the world, to patrol the Pacific from San Diego to Sitka, as we did have to patrol the Atlantic from Key West to Bar Harbor. Palpably this was to go the longest way around to do a task that had to be done in any event, as well as to demoralize our forces at the opening of the war with a manoeuver in which our Navy has never been expert—that of avoiding a contest and sailing away from the enemy! The alternative was properly taken. Dewey went to Manila and sank the Spanish fleet. We thus broke down Spanish ...
— Problems of Expansion - As Considered In Papers and Addresses • Whitelaw Reid

... particularly cheap operation. When a carrier's facilities are partially unused—when a ship carries a cargo in one direction and returns in ballast, or when it sails on both trips with its hold only half full—it is ready to carry additional goods at a low rate provided that this policy will not demoralize its existing business. In our illustration we have assumed that some merchandise is made at A and consumed at B, but it may well be that goods of some sort are produced at B and consumed at A. There may be stone quarries at B and there may be need of stone for paving or building ...
— Essentials of Economic Theory - As Applied to Modern Problems of Industry and Public Policy • John Bates Clark

... troops engaged at Shiloh none felt their defeat more keenly than the Kentucky brigade under the command of Colonel Trabue. They had fought as only brave men can fight; they left one-third of their number on the field, killed and wounded. Defeat could not demoralize them, and it fell to their lot to cover the retreat of Beauregard. They had stood like a wall of adamant between their fleeing army and the victorious Federals. No charge could pierce that line of heroes. With faces to the foe, they slowly fell back, contesting every ...
— Raiding with Morgan • Byron A. Dunn

... raising the age at which children may leave school, from ten or twelve up to fourteen and sixteen, schools everywhere have come to contain many children who, having no natural aptitude for study, would at once, unless specially handled, become a nuisance in the school and tend to demoralize schoolroom procedure. These laws have thrown upon the school a new burden in the form of public expectancy for results, whereas a compulsory- education law cannot create capacity to profit from education. Under the earlier educational conditions the school, unable ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY

... been banished to the farthest frontier by relatives who regarded California as beyond the reach of gossip, and almost beyond the reach of letters. Checks, small but regular, arrived quarterly for these gentry, who had only to drink, sleep, play cards, and demoralize the girls of the country. Here and there among them, to be sure, were pink-skinned boys as fresh and sweet as the apple-blossoms under which they rode their horses, but for the most part the emigrants were dissipated, disenchanted, clinging ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris

... Punishments as understood in England, and Penal Reformation, [Footnote: Corporal Punishments and Penal Reformation, Francis Newman, 1865.] he owns that "it has hitherto been most difficult to discover what due punishment of felony will not demoralize the felon." And of course, undoubtedly, that is the crux of the whole matter. But there is no one in England to-day but will agree that some change in our prison system is imperatively needed. Only the other day a woman, thoroughly qualified to judge, declared ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking

... character—such as the privacies of the family and business firms, the temporary concealment of public negotiations at critical stages, the occasional withdrawal of scandals which could only disturb and demoralize communities, and the secrecy of military combinations; nor are we prepared totally to condemn all private plans and arrangements between good and true citizens, in great emergencies, to resist the machinations ...
— Secret Societies • David MacDill, Jonathan Blanchard, and Edward Beecher

... Grizel would have ventured ere now, had it not been for her mistaken conviction that he was a hard man, who would only flout her. It had once come to her ears that he had said a woman like her mamma could demoralize a whole town, with other harsh remarks, doubtless exaggerated in the repetition, and so he was the last man she dared think of going to for help, when he should have been the first. Nevertheless she had come now, and a soft word from ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie

... movement "has embarked upon a policy of 'breaking the law' or using 'any weapons which will win the fight,' whether such policy was styled 'terrorism,' 'propaganda of the deed,' 'direct action,' 'sabotage,' or 'anarchism,' it has invariably served to demoralize and destroy the movement, by attracting to it professional criminals, infesting it with spies, leading the workers to needless and senseless slaughter, and ultimately engendering a spirit of disgust ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter

... misgovernment, were the piety and stern morality of the Puritans, Nonconformists, and the small classes of virtuous citizens of other denominations; and therefore every effort was made by allurements and intimidation to debauch and demoralize their minds. Well does Bunyan say that 'wickedness like a flood is like to drown our English world. It has almost swallowed up all our youth, our middle age, old age, and all are almost carried away of this ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... glad the heart of man," and although a moderate and prudent indulgence in it can never excite reprobation, or cause mischief, still the sin of drunkenness is an extensive and a filthy evil. Not only does it demoralize, debase, and finally destroy its unhappy victim, but it renders him incapable of performing the ordinary duties of his station; constituting him an object of disgust to others, and of pitiable misery to himself. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 377, June 27, 1829 • Various

... attack embraced a heavy bombardment to demoralize their enemy and prevent reenforcement. This was to be followed by an infantry attack. It was expected that the Germans would be surprised to such an extent it would be impossible for them to make much resistance. Units of the First Army were to make ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various

... customary mail-coach passenger, too, gets abominably selfish, schemes successfully for the best seat, the freshest egg, the right cut of the sirloin. The mode of travelling is death to all the courtesies and kindnesses of life, and goes a great way to demoralize the character, and cause it to retrograde to barbarism. You allow us excellent dinners, but only twenty minutes to eat them. And what is the consequence? Bashful beauty sits on the one side of us, ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott

... ruthless, squandering. A system in which what each holds in view as the crowning ideal is to do nothing himself, to squander without measure or care, and to have as many as possible work for his own personal profit, without asking who they are and how they live. A system that slowly but surely must demoralize and impoverish every nation to the core, even the richest and the strongest. A system that gives peace to none and can bring none to the highest possible grade of development and happiness. A system by which at ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden

... developments were in some degree a surprise to Abolitionists, as well as to pro-slavery prophets. They compelled the admission, either that slavery was less demoralizing than had been supposed, or else that this particular type of human nature was less easy to demoralize. It is but a few years since anti-slavery advocates indignantly rejected the assertion that the English peasantry were more degraded than the slaves of South Carolina. Yet no dweller on the Sea Islands can now read a book like Kay's "Social Condition of the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various

... tactics was to press swiftly ahead even if they left behind them machine-gun nests and strong enemy positions. These could be cleaned up later one by one, while in front the swift advance was intended to demoralize the opposing army and throw it out of formation by the ...
— Army Boys on the Firing Line - or, Holding Back the German Drive • Homer Randall

... much of his precious time in sailing her. It would cost money as well as time to keep her; for boats are always in need of paint, spars, sails, rigging, and other repairs. He was resolute in his purpose to dispose of the Juno, lest the possession of her should demoralize him, and interfere ...
— The Yacht Club - or The Young Boat-Builder • Oliver Optic

... players to abandon the use of signals for the time being, and to bat and run bases wholly as their judgment might dictate, and this sudden change threatened totally to demoralize ...
— Rival Pitchers of Oakdale • Morgan Scott

... emphatically opposed to the location of the government there. It would ruin the trade, the morals and the reputation of the town. Dowagers had avowed their belief that the continuance of the Congress there for one year would render the city as perfect a Sodom as Washington—would demoralize the ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon

... adds Martha Yeardley, is increased by the dissipation of the greater part of the English. The military have great influence here, and their practices tend greatly to demoralize the unhappy people. We have just heard that they have obtained leave of the Senate to hold a ball in the new school-rooms, and to break down the partition-wall between them for this purpose, which will prevent the school from being opened ...
— Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel • John Yeardley

... always been an economical little body, but it was only since her great winning in the lottery that she had become especially penurious. No doubt, in her fear lest their great good luck should demoralize them and lead to habits of extravagance, she had recoiled too far in the other direction. Never, never, never should a penny of that miraculous fortune be spent; rather should it be added to. It was a nest egg, a monstrous, roc-like ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris

... a vast difference in the value of boys' work and usefulness; one may easily be worth double another, yet no difference is allowable by the new law; or one may demoralize another, so that two are less effective than one. A good old saying puts the matter very plainly: "One boy's a boy, two boys are half a boy, and three boys ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory

... pursue their original track. Sandal-wood had a purely adventitious value, though it brought, particularly in that age, a most enormous profit; one so large, indeed, as to have a direct and quick tendency to demoralize those embarked in the trade. The whaling business, on the other hand, while it made large returns, demanded industry, courage, perseverance, and a fair amount of capital. Of vessels, the colonists ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper

... 1903, a million and a half of deaths were caused by the bubonic plague alone, and that the mortality from that pestilence was small in comparison with that caused by cholera, fever and famine. The effects of those epidemics had been to hamper trade, to alarm and demoralize the people, to obstruct foreign commerce, prevent investments and the development of material resources. Yet during the years 1902 and 1903 throughout all India there was abundant prosperity. This restoration of prosperity is most noticeable ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis

... the night seemed to be darkest the skirmishers made another attack, rushing forward in a body, firing with great vigour and shouting, though hitherto they had fought chiefly in silence. Talbot considered it an attempt to demoralize him and was ready for it. He retreated a little, sheltered himself behind a tree and opened fire, skipping between shots from one tree to another in order that he might protect the whole of his battle line and keep his apparent ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler

... no title to property except in those who professed the faith of Christ, and the power to commit injustice with practical impunity tended still further to demoralize the people. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various

... you two, flirting on the bridge is strictly forbidden. You will demoralize the whole crew. Even the pilot cannot keep his ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy

... from the Salpetriere; at least we had no cause to fear that we should fall in love with them. Huh! Even that didn't last long; pirate folk are not used to joking; when they are angered, instead of beating, they kill. At the end of a month, not more than two of the women were alive. Such feelings demoralize pirates." ...
— The Corsair King • Mor Jokai

... performing deeds of valor, which in any other war would have brought the highest decorations, without receiving even so much as an honorable mention. Exposure to fire such as theorists had told us would demoralize any army is merely a part of the day's work. Troops go in and out of the trenches, often under artillery fire that, according to our books, ought to annihilate them, and they do it without thinking it anything unusual or worthy of comment ...
— The Emma Gees • Herbert Wes McBride

... and gay apparel; the Lord's day was not so well kept as formerly; and the drinking of spirits and frequenting of ordinaries and places of public resort vastly increased. Mr. Saltonstall said the war did not a little demoralize the people, and that since the soldiers cause back, there had been much trouble in Church and State. The General Court, two years ago, had made severe laws against the provoking evils of the times: profaneness, Sabbath-breaking, drinking, and revelling ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... this game was to be played through successfully it must be played with some daring. Toujours de l'audace! I thought, and let breakfast go hang. Moreover, my sudden disappearance would help to demoralize my rivals. I stuck my head into the breakfast-room where Priapus was just dishing out the bacon and eggs. In that instant it struck me again that the Goblin was not there. I cried "Ye Gods!" in a loud voice, and slammed the ...
— Kathleen • Christopher Morley

... the Doctor to his wife; "how's this? You know I never trade at any of those abominable department stores! You know what I think of them: they demoralize trade; they take the bread out of the mouth of the small dealer; they pay sinfully low wages to the poor girls ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller

... his generals for their failure to support his sorry tactics, and even went so far as to demand their dismissal from the army. There was undoubtedly some ground for his complaints, but such obviously incompetent leadership was enough to demoralize any army, and not long after his crippled battalions retreated behind the Rappahannock he was relieved of his command, which was given to General Joseph Hooker, one of the officers he ...
— On the Trail of Grant and Lee • Frederick Trevor Hill

... by German cities in the east, by Slavonian cities in the far northeast. Mercenary armies began to be kept for colonial wars, and soon for local defence as well. Loans were contacted to such an extent as to totally demoralize the citizens; and internal contests grew worse and worse at each election, during which the colonial politics in the interest of a few families was at stake. The division into rich and poor grew deeper, and in the sixteenth century, in each city, the royal authority found ready allies and support ...
— Mutual Aid • P. Kropotkin

... But what the net result will be in a specific case, depends on the individual's equipment to start with, an equipment that is fixed before the environment has had a chance to act at all. The kindliness and indulgence that save some children demoralize others. In some people a soft answer turneth away wrath; in others it will kindle it. Andrew Carnegie starts as a bobbin boy, and becomes a millionaire; but there were many other bobbin boys. The sunset that stirs in one man a lyric, leaves another cold. The ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman

... opportunities of training in the Art of Sight Recognition, so as to enfeeble their intellects by depriving them of their pure and colourless homes. Once subjected to the chromatic taint, every parental and every childish Circle would demoralize each other. Only in discerning between the Father and the Mother would the Circular infant find problems for the exercise of his understanding—problems too often likely to be corrupted by maternal impostures with the result ...
— Flatland • Edwin A. Abbott

... Warren. I set my heart on the match, helped it in every, way, and until now nothing but sorrow has come of it. But my point—is this,—I see so clearly, now that it is too late, that two excellent persons may demoralize each other if they are ill-mated. It may be possible that I had the germs of false ambition in me when I was a girl, yet I was conscious only of the ideal which is in most women's hearts . ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... the Allied Force "A." Passing through Seletskoe he left the Russian volunteers to oppose the Reds in Kodish, and guard his rear. But these uncertain troops fled upon approach of the Bolos and about the first of September Col. Hazelden instead of being in a position to demoralize the Reds on the railroad by a swift blow from behind, found himself in desperate defense, both front and rear, and beleagured in the woods and swamps some ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore

... stream between them, throwing grape into the bushes to disperse the Indians. Major Appling waited until the British were close up, when his riflemen opened with so destructive a volley as to completely demoralize and "stampede" them, and their whole force was captured with hardly any resistance, the American having only one man slightly wounded. The British loss was severe,—18 killed and 50 dangerously wounded, according to Captain Popham's report, as quoted by James; or "14 killed and 28 wounded," according ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt

... second alleged cause of the increase of crime, namely, the jury laws, your Committee need hardly repeat, that the well-proven effect of transportation is to demoralize, not to reform an offender; therefore, in a community like New South Wales, wherein so large a proportion of the population are persons who have been convicts, to permit such persons generally to sit upon juries must ...
— A Source Book Of Australian History • Compiled by Gwendolen H. Swinburne

... vague, as for example in the case of the American law against obscenity, that it makes the magistrate virtually a censor. But in the main a citizen can ascertain what he may do and what he may not do; and, though no one knows better than a magistrate that a single ill-conducted family may demoralize a whole street, no magistrate can imprison or otherwise restrain its members on the ground that their immorality may corrupt their neighbors. He can prevent any citizen from carrying certain specified weapons, but not from handling pokers, table-knives, ...
— The Shewing-up of Blanco Posnet • George Bernard Shaw

... one, will expose them, if it takes the hide off. Here are our Colonels confined just for no offence at all,—for doing their duty, in fact,—and this man, after having Court-martialed all that he could of his command, trying to demoralize the rest by whiskey. Now, sir, the higher the rank the more severe the punishment should be. Just before we started Burney had an order read that we were about to meet the enemy, and that every man must do his duty. And here is a General of Division, in command of nine thousand men, ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong

... this tyrannical enactment. All history, and all experience, show it to be an immutable law of God, that whosoever injures another, injures himself in the process. These frequent scuffles between despotism and freedom, with despotism shielded by law, cannot otherwise than demoralize our people. They unsettle the popular mind concerning eternal principles of justice. They harden the heart by familiarity with violence. They accustom people to the idea that it is right for Capital to own Labor; and thus the reverence for Liberty, ...
— The Duty of Disobedience to the Fugitive Slave Act - Anti-Slavery Tracts No. 9, An Appeal To The Legislators Of Massachusetts • Lydia Maria Child

... went on, quick as thought, with her reckless, devil-may-care gayety. "One thing! Your Corporal will demoralize the army of ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]

... consider it as essentially an emotional experience, we destroy its moral character; for emotion is both passive and blind, while the definition of morality is the freely choosing what we see to be right. Ecclesiasticism and Emotionalism both tend to demoralize Christianity. They remove from it the element of moral freedom in the interest either of Church authority or of mystical piety. Then Christianity must come anew, in the form of truth, to purify the air, and renew ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke

... general, not to say universal, institution of allotment grounds. Now, gentlemen, when I find that this has been the course of affairs in our very considerable and strictly agricultural portion of the country, where there have been no exceptional circumstances, like smuggling, to degrade and demoralize the race, I cannot resist the conviction that the condition of the agricultural laborers, instead of being stationary, as we are constantly told by those not acquainted with them, has been one ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various

... Great Britain, it is not surprising that the government has failed, in this country, with its sparse population, to collect a duty of 1000 per cent, or that the experiment has cost the nation more than fifty millions. Such excessive duties may well be styled over-taxation, and tend to demoralize and corrupt our revenue officers, to encourage fraud, and to enrich illicit traders. The Commission believe that the reduction of the duty will restore alcohol to the arts, diminish fraud, and give us a revenue of at least $40,000,000 annually,—a sum ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various

... favour of extempore preaching, and was unwilling to listen to the delivery of a written sermon." (Indeed, if we had more people like him in this day, we would hear far more of the gospel and far less of politics and jokes which so demoralize the pulpit and take away all sacredness. The King was right, as all mankind will agree, in his idea of preaching.) "Patrick excused himself from a chaplaincy, 'finding it very difficult to get a sermon without book.' On one occasion the King asked the famous Stillingfleet ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne

... happens anywhere," he said one night in the office to Bolles, puffing a cigar. "I've seen a troop of cavalry demoralize itself by a sort of contagion from ...
— The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories • Owen Wister

... unfolding mind of the child they will assist greatly in evolving a character of joy, confidence, and courage. On the other hand, if fear-thoughts are continuously sown in the young mind they will eventually distort the emotions, deform the conceptions, and wholly demoralize the health and life activities of the growing child. Within the limitations of the possibilities of hereditary endowment, and in view of this wonderful imitative nature, we are able to make of a child almost anything we desire; not "an angel," in the ordinary ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler

... inevitable. A successful military advance would have united the middle class and the bourgeoisie in their common chauvinistic tendencies, thus isolating the revolutionary proletariat. An unsuccessful drive was likely to demoralize the army completely, to involve a general retreat and the loss of much additional territory, and to bring disgust and disappointment to the people. Events took the latter course. The news of victory did not last long. It was soon replaced by gloomy ...
— From October to Brest-Litovsk • Leon Trotzky

... offensive is contemplated, and the business of violence has become a routine, the object of the commander is to keep the enemy on the qui-vive, demoralize him by killing and wounding his soldiers, and prevent him from strengthening his first lines. Relations take on the character of an exchange; one day the French throw a thousand mines (high-explosive ...
— A Volunteer Poilu • Henry Sheahan

... trouble, but everybody must have made the necessary application of the home-truths he uttered. I question if another voice has been raised, far and near, on the subject, although I have heard Mr. Warren say the movement threatens more to demoralize New York than anything that has happened in ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper

... obliged to defend itself against criminals, has invented no more fearful suffering than what is called "close confinement." There is nothing that will sooner demoralize a man, crush his will, and utterly conquer the most powerful energy. There is no struggle more distressing than the struggle between an innocent man accused of some crime, and the magistrate,—a helpless being in the hands of a man armed ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau

... on his box. Greg did the same. Plebes are not allowed campstools in the summer encampment—probably on the theory that so much luxury would be certain to demoralize them. ...
— Dick Prescott's First Year at West Point • H. Irving Hancock

... law of God, separated from its spirit, tends to demoralize mortals, and must be corrected by a diviner sense of liberty and light. The spirit of Truth extinguishes false thinking, feeling, and acting; and falsity must thus decay, ere spiritual sense, affectional ...
— Retrospection and Introspection • Mary Baker Eddy

... down a certain street. Such were his orders. The coachman drove on, and the officer was sent to the castle of St. Angelo, for having done his duty. A single instance of this sort is quite enough to demoralize an army. But the King of Naples shows the Pope his mistake. He had a sentry mentioned in the order of the day, for giving a bishop's coachman a cut with his sword. You are scandalized because certain military ...
— The Roman Question • Edmond About

... with this function of controlling the arms trade is another great necessity of Africa under "tutelage," and that is the necessity of a common collective agreement not to demoralize the native population. That demoralization, physical and moral, has already gone far. The whole negro population of Africa is now rotten with diseases introduced by Arabs and Europeans during the last century, and such African statesmen as Sir ...
— In The Fourth Year - Anticipations of a World Peace (1918) • H.G. Wells

... industrial department grew so rapidly and became so absorbing that it was found necessary to make a separate "mission" of it. It has flourished as a commercial enterprise and is self-supporting. But the leader of that mission informs me that its blessings are questionable, in that it tends to demoralize the people and renders little or no ...
— India's Problem Krishna or Christ • John P. Jones

... the slight changes which had been made had been improvements. If they had been in the direction of increased liberality to the poor man who needed parish relief, and had to some extent lessened his discomforts, they had at the same time tended greatly to demoralize both him and his employer, by introducing a system of out-door relief, which, coupled with the practice of regarding such relief as a legitimate addition to wages, led the former to feel no shame at underpaying his workmen, ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge

... had been so adjusted as to balance a weight of forty pounds above her own. The result was that after some general attempts to make the chair move the lever clicked, showing that a lifting force exceeding forty pounds was being exerted by the young woman on the platform. The click seemed to demoralize the operator, who became unable to ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb

... away quickly. I had to tell him, but anything terrifying could demoralize Harry and make him throw his arm before his face in blind panic. But I couldn't keep it locked up ...
— The Man the Martians Made • Frank Belknap Long

... go about with little daughters on their arms, as proud and pleased as a European father could be. Slavery and concubinage exist in China, and the husband has absolute power over his wife, even of life and death. These customs tend to demoralize the Chinese, and are a source of great evil. Woman is the slave of man. The exception to this is in the case of a mother. She is absolute in her household, and mothers, in China, command universal reverence. If an officer asks leave of ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke

... impressive manner, "I say there, what does this mean?" The man took his hand and quietly said, "We have surrendered." "I don't believe it, sir!" replied McRae, strutting around as mad as a hornet. "You mustn't talk so, sir! you will demoralize my men!" He was soon convinced, however, by seeing Yankee cavalrymen walking their horses around as composedly as though the Army of Northern Virginia had never existed. To say that McRae was surprised, disgusted, ...
— Detailed Minutiae of Soldier life in the Army of Northern Virginia, 1861-1865 • Carlton McCarthy

... go further than these limits in either expenditures, taxes, or borrowing will destroy confidence, denude commerce and industry of its resources, jeopardize the financial system, and actually extend unemployment and demoralize ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... the moral faculties and the physical health; that nothing so exhausts vitality and vitiates the quality of work and ideals, so takes the edge off of one's ambition, dulls the brain and aspiration, as impurity of thought and life. It seems to blight all the faculties and to demoralize the whole man, so that his efficiency is very much lessened. He does not speak with the same authority. The air of the conqueror disappears from his manner. He does not think so clearly; he does not ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden

... the comparative view of convictions contained therein, you will observe that two classes of offences against the laws constitute nearly two-thirds of the whole number of convictions. The inevitable effect of these offences is to demoralize and destroy the people, and I would designate as well worthy of your careful consideration and adoption, the recommendations of the Chief Justice in relation to such amendments or alterations of the existing laws as will tend to eradicate ...
— Speeches of His Majesty Kamehameha IV. To the Hawaiian Legislature • Kamehameha IV

... and he finds that to be correct you must deluge the neighborhood with those articles. They are not at all what the people want, as far as I can make out. But that doesn't matter. It pleases papa to demoralize the neighborhood; so we're doing it. And mamma helps him. She dates from the prehistoric period when a wife really swore to obey her husband; so she does it through thick and thin. Of course, she knows better all the time. She could always set papa right if ...
— The Wharf by the Docks - A Novel • Florence Warden

... train, and in the fore was the cow alone. It was evident that she was distressed and angry, for it took two men to keep her in the trail. And another thing plain to me was the fact that she was going to demoralize the pack horses. We were not across the wide range of this flat mountain when one of the pack animals, a lean and lanky sorrel, appeared suddenly to go mad, and began to buck off a pack. He succeeded. This inspired a black horse, very appropriately christened Nigger, to try ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey



Words linked to "Demoralize" :   suborn, debauch, discourage, bedevil, modify, fox, demoralise, misdirect, chill, poison, debase, vitiate, lead off, corrupt, lead astray, throw, bastardize, demoralization, confound, deject, deprave, carnalize, bastardise, carnalise, sensualize, sensualise, infect, pervert, befuddle



Copyright © 2024 e-Free Translation.com