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adjective
Evil  adj.  
1.
Having qualities tending to injury and mischief; having a nature or properties which tend to badness; mischievous; not good; worthless or deleterious; poor; as, an evil beast; and evil plant; an evil crop. "A good tree can not bring forth evil fruit."
2.
Having or exhibiting bad moral qualities; morally corrupt; wicked; wrong; vicious; as, evil conduct, thoughts, heart, words, and the like. "Ah, what a sign it is of evil life, When death's approach is seen so terrible."
3.
Producing or threatening sorrow, distress, injury, or calamity; unpropitious; calamitous; as, evil tidings; evil arrows; evil days. "Because he hath brought up an evil name upon a virgin of Israel." "The owl shrieked at thy birth an evil sign." "Evil news rides post, while good news baits."
Evil eye, an eye which inflicts injury by some magical or fascinating influence. It is still believed by the ignorant and superstitious that some persons have the supernatural power of injuring by a look. "It almost led him to believe in the evil eye."
Evil speaking, speaking ill of others; calumny; censoriousness.
The evil one, the Devil; Satan. Note: Evil is sometimes written as the first part of a compound (with or without a hyphen). In many cases the compounding need not be insisted on. Examples: Evil doer or evildoer, evil speaking or evil-speaking, evil worker, evil wishing, evil-hearted, evil-minded.
Synonyms: Mischieveous; pernicious; injurious; hurtful; destructive; wicked; sinful; bad; corrupt; perverse; wrong; vicious; calamitous.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Evil" Quotes from Famous Books



... hardly any more difficult to support; yet it is certain imagination has a great share in the pain of it, and it is more in our power than it is commonly believed to soften whatever ills are founded or augmented by fancy. Strictly speaking, there is but one real evil—I mean, acute pain; all other complaints are so considerably diminished by time, that it is plain the grief is owing to our passion, since the sensation of it vanishes when that ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville

... respectful and affectionate to her parents; kind and forbearing to her brothers and sisters; not easily ruffled in temper; if her mind be prone to cheerfulness and to hopeful aspiration, instead of to the display of a morbid anxiety and dread of coming evil; if her pleasures and enjoyments be those which chiefly centre in home; if her words be characterised by benevolence, goodwill, and charity: then we say, let him not hesitate, but hasten to enshrine so precious a gem in the casket of his affections. But if, on the other hand, he ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge

... sat in the corner a sergeant old, Two notaries and a dragoon bold, Who cried 'Down with him! The cobbler is right! Poland earns the meeds of her evil might!' From behind the stove came An old squint-eyed dame, And flung at the harp Glass broken and sharp; But the cobbler—pling plingeli plang— Made a terrible hole in my neck—that long! There hast thou the ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner

... console Don Diego by telling him that he was a surgeon, and that if he could only obtain a pair of pincers he would soon remedy that evil; but the Spaniard shook his head and assured him that there was a miserable man in the town calling himself a vendor of physic, who had already nearly driven him mad by attempting several times to pull the tooth, but ...
— Lost in the Forest - Wandering Will's Adventures in South America • R.M. Ballantyne

... Alice. "It is a shame that any trifles should worry much those whose sins are forgiven them, and who are the children of the great King. Poor Miss Fortune never knew the sweetness of those words. We ought to be sorry for her, and pray for her, Ellen; and never, never, even in thought, return evil for evil. It is not like Christ to ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner

... at any moment in those twenty years have proved disastrous. He was hated and feared; more than once he was in imminent danger of his life, but he did his duty in his post. Had his authority fallen, it is impossible to say what evil might have ensued to the city and its inhabitants—evils vastly more to be feared than the entrance of an orderly Italian army through the Porta Pia. For the recollections of Count Rossi's murder, and of the short and lawless Republic of 1848, were fresh in the minds of the people, and before they ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford

... trees; gentle sounds from bird and beast told of joyous life everywhere, and the blessed sun threw a golden haze over wood and lake and hill. It was as though Paradise had been restored to man, and our loving Creator had swept away every trace of evil and misery ...
— The Crew of the Water Wagtail • R.M. Ballantyne

... ever aimed at great ends; friend and comrade of great lords and nobles; a man too of many friends and great fame throughout all Italy. Foe he was of the people and its leaders; the darling of soldiers, full of evil ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green

... Miriam. "It was one of my mad freaks—an evil wish to torment him. I have been a nightmare to him ever since my first appearance. I hardly know whether he hates or fears me most. But that is all past and gone. I will never torment him again in this world. Give me more ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming

... posterity in her memory, is Sophia, the mother of the present usurper of Hungary—she who had the ambitious dream to raise the power of a child upon the ruins of liberty, and on the neck of prostrate nations. It was her ambition—the evil genius of the House of Hapsburg in the present day—which brought desolation upon us. I need only mention one fact to characterize what kind of a heart was in that woman. On the anniversary of the day ...
— Select Speeches of Kossuth • Kossuth

... should pray that he would then spring upon me, for I could never face his highness again. Hark! That is six times I have heard one cry these last few days. And there are budmashes, too, journeying about, evil men who have been robbing and murdering after the fights. If they saw my lord's white face, they would fall upon him, and then when his highness came and said, 'Where is my lord?' how could ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn

... man gets to be eighty, he learns that he is compassed by limitations, and that there has been a natural boundary set to his individual powers. As he goes on in life, he begins to doubt his ability to destroy all evil and to reform all abuses, and to suspect that there will be much left to do after he has done. I stepped into my garden in the spring, not doubting that I should be easily master of the weeds. I have simply learned that an institution which is at least ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... the island. As likely as not he is in the old chateau down there in the valley. No honest man has set his foot across the threshold since the de Vasselots left it thirty years ago—only Jean is there, who has the evil eye. But there are plenty of Perucca's people up at Olmeta who would risk Jean's eye, and break down the doors of the chateau at a word from the Casa Perucca. But the girl there who is the head of the clan will not say the word. She does not understand ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman

... by the fearful drought which lasted from May to the middle of July. Some lawless and selfish youths frequently stole corn before it was ripe and, although public whipping was the punishment, the evil persisted. These conditions were met with the same courage and determination which ever characterized the leaders; a rationing of the colony was made which would have done credit to a "Hoover." They escaped famine, but the worn, thin faces and "the low condition, both in respect ...
— The Women Who Came in the Mayflower • Annie Russell Marble

... it. In the other case the whole fault probably was with the husband. He was an ill-tempered, bad-hearted man, clever enough, but without principle; and he was continually guilty of the great sin of speaking evil of the woman whose name he should have been anxious to protect. In both cases our friend, Mrs. Talboys, took a warm interest, and in each of them she sympathised with the present husband against ...
— Stories By English Authors: Italy • Various

... that people seem frightened as if fearing arrest when we come to their doors," he said in a kindly tone. "They should look upon us as protectors against thieves and other evil-doers, yet they seem to look upon us ...
— Pixy's Holiday Journey • George Lang

... a long, long summer, full of sunshine and bird-music, and the meadow was like a garden, and the old oak-tree looked down upon the grass and flowers and saw that no evil befell them. A long, long play-day it was to the little vine, the daisy, and the violet. The crickets and the grasshoppers and the bumblebees joined in the sport, and romped and made music till it seemed like an endless carnival. Only every now and then the vine and ...
— A Little Book of Profitable Tales • Eugene Field

... fascinating smile said: "Ah, I think I now know the reason of your coming, gentlemen! Your loyal and faithful hearts yearn for a sight of your young emperor. It is true, his faithful subjects have not seen him for a long time! Even a sovereign is not guaranteed against the evil influences of the weather, which has lately been very rough, and for that reason the young czar has been unable to show himself to his people. Ah, it pleases me that you have come, and I am obliged to my husband for bringing you to me so unexpectedly. You may now satisfy yourselves that the ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach

... to put off the evil day. The discovery of Don John's intentions again set the whole of the Provinces against him, but they were divided on the question of leadership. The Catholics of the south, disliking the sovereignty of Elizabeth or the dictatorship of Orange, turned to the Catholic Archduke ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes

... his call, a great event took place in the little room at Glasgow. The student appeared for the first time before his mother in his ministerial clothes. He wore the black silk hat, that was destined to become a terror to evil-doers in Thrums, and I dare say he was rather puffed up about himself that day. You would probably have smiled ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie

... have done you gentleman's service, and peradventure better service yet will I do or I depart from you. Alas, she said, fair Beaumains, forgive me all that I have missaid or done against thee. With all my heart, said he, I forgive it you, for ye did nothing but as ye should do, for all your evil words pleased me; and damosel, said Beaumains, since it liketh you to say thus fair unto me, wit ye well it gladdeth my heart greatly, and now meseemeth there is no knight living but I am able ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume I (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory

... that the extreme punctuality in well-ordered hospitals, the rule that nothing shall be done in the ward while the patients are having their meals, go far to counterbalance what unavoidable evil there is in having patients together. I have often seen the private nurse go on dusting or fidgeting about in a sick room all the while the patient is eating, or trying ...
— Notes on Nursing - What It Is, and What It Is Not • Florence Nightingale

... have enjoyed those moments without the undercurrent of his troubled fears. That Mahr was rebelliously angry at the situation was evident. Gard had seen the look in his eyes on more than one occasion, and it boded evil to someone. What had he meant when he spoke of his son's probable absence of a year or more "to study the lumber business"? Gard approached the young man and found him quite innocent ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford

... Weather conditions were phenomenal—and perfect. All up and down the river the work went with that vim and dash that is in itself an assurance of success. The Heinzman affair, which under auspices of evil augury might have become a serious menace to the success of the young undertaking, now served merely to add a spice of humour to the situation. Among the men gained currency a ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White

... leave the estate. But some of the boys had been seen in the village of Tunbrook after eight in the evening; and all efforts to discover who they were had been unavailing. The prohibition had been made to correct this evil. ...
— In School and Out - or, The Conquest of Richard Grant. • Oliver Optic

... for evil is extremely limited. The very opposite is the ordinary estimate. When we mark the career of a conqueror like Napoleon, or the withering effects of an organization like that of Rome, and compare these with the feeble results of a preacher like Savonarola, ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie

... trench about four or five feet deep, a little below the upper side of the bog, where the wetness began to make its appearance; and, after proceeding with it in this direction and at this depth, he found it did not reach the principal body of subjacent water from which the evil arose. On perceiving this, he was at a loss how to proceed, when one of his servants came to the field with an iron crow, or bar, for the purpose of making holes for fixing sheep hurdles in an adjoining part of ...
— Farm drainage • Henry Flagg French

... brothers wrangling in mid hall, And am not moved; and my son chiding them, And these things nowise move me, but I know Foolish and wise men must be to the end, And feed myself with patience; but this most, This moves me, that for wise men as for fools Love is one thing, an evil thing, and turns Choice words and wisdom into fire and air. And in the end shall no joy come, but grief, Sharp words and soul's division and fresh tears Flower-wise upon the old root of tears brought forth, Fruit-wise upon the old flower of tears sprung up, Pitiful sighs, ...
— Atalanta in Calydon • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... establish a tradition at this early stage of the country's history that it was the duty of the States always to consider the Union first and themselves as grateful assistants to a hard-working and paternal central power, we might do much to counteract an evil which, if coddled, is bound to result in a ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton

... Indiana, Illinois, and the other States to be formed from the Northwest Territory; they showed the treaty with France did not profess to perpetuate slavery in the ceded Territory; they denounced slavery as an evil, unnatural, cruel, opposed to the principles of the Declaration of Independence, and that it had only been tolerated, not approved, by the Constitution; and Mr. Talmadge closed the debate by characterizing slavery ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer

... is absolutely essential," wrote he, "never to mourn over the past, or mope over the future. 'Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof,' is a maxim of incomparable wisdom. Never think of the failures of yesterday, but to avoid them to-morrow, and never speculate on the failures of to-morrow, but to remember that you have outlived the failures ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various

... with two other Indians, having established themselves in the porch of the building as sentinels, to protect the family from any evil that the young men might be excited to commit, all remained tranquil for a short ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie

... open every dark retreat of human conduct. We are told, "there is nothing hid which shall not be revealed;" that "God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil;" that he "will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make ...
— The National Preacher, Vol. 2 No. 7 Dec. 1827 • Aaron W. Leland and Elihu W. Baldwin

... "The novelty" of the new itinerant life, says Mr. Thomas Seccombe, {96} "graved every incident in the most vivid possible manner upon the writer's recollection." After walking for four days northwest from Salisbury he met an author, a rich man who was continually touching things to avert the evil chance, and with him he stayed the night. On the next day he bought a pony and cart from the tinker, Jack Slingsby, with the purpose of working on the tinker's beat and making horse-shoes. After some days he was visited down in a Shropshire dingle ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas

... Winthrop, who ordered him to quit Massachusetts. He was, I think, the purest if not the best statesman of his time;[102] he was too good a man to cherish resentment against Winthrop or against the colony, but returned good for evil in regard to both in after years. Sir Henry Vane wrote to Governor Winthrop, in regard to these persecutions, ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson

... and their victuals failing, they left their ship and wandered up and down without any certain purpose, simply as in great distresses people shun the present as the greatest evil, and rely upon the hopes of uncertainties. For the land and sea were both equally unsafe for them; it was dangerous to meet with people, and it was no less so to meet with none, on account of their want of necessaries. At length, though late, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... its ears and began to listen eagerly, for Beaupere began to touch upon Joan's Voices, a matter of consuming interest and curiosity to everybody. His purpose was to trick her into heedless sayings that could indicate that the Voices had sometimes given her evil advice—hence that they had come from Satan, you see. To have dealing with the devil—well, that would send her to the stake in brief order, and that was the deliberate end and aim ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Volume 2 • Mark Twain

... own pride, but to that of his people; and they became clamorous to have the insult avenged, for which purpose Mahng demanded that Major Hester be delivered to them, to do with as they pleased. This demand was refused with such indignant scorn that Mahng's evil face became black with fury; and, though he strode from Pontiac's presence in silence, his heart was filled with rage. This was intensified a few days later when the Ottawa chief upbraided him, and charged ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore

... acquainted with, as I think you will concede when you call to mind my letter written immediately after I had received intelligence that he was on the way to Andalusia. He has up to the present moment been the 'Evil Genius' of the Bible cause in Spain and of myself, and has so chosen his means and moments of operation that he has been almost invariably successful in shaking to the ground every feasible plan which my friends and myself have devised for the propagation of the ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow

... Anna-Hoots—precious old rascal that he was—was so grateful that he made the Doctor chief medicine man over all the tribes and a tribal chief of one of the subordinate tribes. And now we are coming to the point of our story. Old Hoots, later on, let the Doctor into a great secret. Having driven the evil spirits out of Anna and set him on his feet almost as good as new, the patient evidently was of the opinion that the medicine man was entitled to something more than the ordinary fee for such a service. ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Alaska - The Gold Diggers of Taku Pass • Frank Gee Patchin

... / 'twixt morn and eventide Unto Brunhild's castle / many a knight to ride. "God wot, God wot," quoth Hagen, / "we do an evil thing, To tarry here while Brunhild / doth thus her ...
— The Nibelungenlied - Translated into Rhymed English Verse in the Metre of the Original • trans. by George Henry Needler

... caught sight of a monkey. He fixed the last arrow to the string and took as he thought a steady aim, but the monkey gave a nimble skip, and went chattering away to a distance, as if fully aware of the evil intended him, while the bow, as it sprang back again, gave a crack, and to Lord Reginald's dismay he found that it was broken. He dashed ...
— The Rival Crusoes • W.H.G. Kingston

... the last of the Boundary Gang," said Sir Stafford to Maisie. "It is the one happy ending that has emerged from so much misery and evil." ...
— Jack O' Judgment • Edgar Wallace

... was one of evil omen. We went to Gorizia, that pretty Austrian spa that was taken by the Italians last year, and has suffered from the war as much as Udine, its neighbor across the old frontier, has prospered. In the heart ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various

... other, where She would never be heard of more. Holy St. Paul! How He stormed on finding that She had escaped him, had joined her Husband, and that they had embarked together for the Indies. He swore at us all, as if the Evil Spirit had possessed him; He threw my Father into prison, as honest a painstaking Shoe-maker as any in Cordova; and when He went away, He had the cruelty to take from us my Sister's little Boy, then scarcely ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis

... their fall. Bubble-characters have burst, and high-sounding phrases have been exploded. Men whose education and antecedents should have made them brave and true, have shown themselves false and cowardly—impotent for good, and active only for evil. Unconsidered nobodies have meanwhile sprung forth from the mass of the people, and equally astonished themselves and others by the power, wisdom and courage they have displayed. In cabinet and camp, in army ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various

... and gain a fictitious respectability by courting compliments from Christian teachers, is that they are playing with fire. Let them ponder the lessons of history, and remember Clifford's bitter word about the evil superstition which destroyed one civilisation and nearly succeeded in destroying another. Fortunately, however, the logic of things is against them. Broad currents of thought go on their way without being deflected by backwashes, ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote

... setting at naught and speaking Evil of all our Civil Rulers, Congress, Continental and Provincial, of all our Courts, Legislative and Executive, are not only subversive of good Order: But we apprehend come under Predicament of those spoken of in 2 Pet. II. 10, who ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume I. No. VI. June, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various

... he is not a real pirate anyway, being but a country gentleman tiring of his rural life and liking better to rob, burn, and murder on the high seas. He has already done so much damage, that if his evil career be not soon put an end to good people will be afraid to voyage in these waters. So I am to sail in haste after this fellow ...
— Kate Bonnet - The Romance of a Pirate's Daughter • Frank R. Stockton

... dart. Hermod rode down to the kingdom of Hela, or Death, to ransom the lost one. Meantime his body was set adrift on a floating funeral pyre. Hermod would have succeeded in his mission, had not Lok, the Spirit of Evil, interposed to thwart him. For this, Lok was bound in prison, with cords made of the twisted intestines of one of his own sons; and he will remain imprisoned until the Twilight of the Gods, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various

... seize upon the oak and the light gleams from the castle windows, a lusty procession of wayfarers passes through, each one raising his hat as he passes the fire which burns all the evil out of the hearts of men, and up to the rafters there rings a stern old ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed

... Brahims; and so it goes ever around the world. The soul of that girl will weigh as heavily as ours in the judgment that is final; but, in the meantime, why teach it and others to admire all that allurement of evil showing in her eyes as she ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan

... Hands in this Mill; so many hundred horse Steam Power. It is known, to the force of a single pound weight, what the engine will do; but, not all the calculators of the National Debt can tell me the capacity for good or evil, for love or hatred, for patriotism or discontent, for the decomposition of virtue into vice, or the reverse, at any single moment in the soul of one of these its quiet servants, with the composed faces and the regulated actions. There is no mystery in it; there ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*

... offerings. The gifts are chiefly little trinkets of gold, silver, and ivory—rings, miniature hands, axes, swords, or crescents—which are to be strung across the baby's breast. The original purpose of all these objects was to act as charms against the blighting of the child by evil powers, or, more definitely, by the "evil eye," that malignant influence which still troubles so many good Italians, both ignorant and learned. With the same intention the father hangs upon the child's ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker

... zest never degenerates into the fussiness of many modern travellers. He can talk of sausages and silkworms, and forestry and agriculture and sheep-grazing, and how they catch porcupines and cure warts and manufacture manna; he knows about the evil eye and witches and the fata morgana and the tarantula spider, about figs in ancient and modern times and the fig-pecker bird—that bird you eat bones and all, the focetola or beccafico (garden warbler). In fact, he has multifarious interests and seems to have known several languages ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas

... I answered coldly, and got up to go. Everything in that moment seemed turned to stone. I owed Henry an immense debt of gratitude according to this account, but not an atom of it could I show or feel. On the contrary, ail the evil in my nature was stirred up, and I felt more than I had ever done before, as if I hated him. Perhaps it was that he had proved to me what I had hitherto never in reality believed, though I had often said ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton

... was still flourishing at the time that the constitution was framed. There is every reason to believe that the most eminent and enlightened even of Southern statesmen, in the very infancy of the Republic, regarded African bondage as not only a moral, but, in many regards, a material evil. Washington and Jefferson especially uttered, in no doubtful accents, their dislike of the system; while such northern statesmen as Franklin, Adams, and Roger Sherman protested in yet sterner ...
— The Nation in a Nutshell • George Makepeace Towle

... among them, the Rill from the Town Pump, in perhaps a greater degree than any other, had a pretty wide newspaper circulation; as for the rest, he has no grounds for supposing that on their first appearance they met with the good or evil fortune to be read by any body. Throughout the time above specified he had no incitement to literary effort in a reasonable prospect of reputation or profit; nothing but the pleasure itself of composition—an enjoyment not at all amiss in its way, ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various

... was crushed with the knowledge of the wrong and cruelty in the world, it was through love alone that he saw the way to better and lovelier things. "To purify life of its misery and evil was the ruling passion of his soul,"* said one who loved him and knew him perhaps better than any living being. And it was through love and the beauty of love that he hoped for the triumph of ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall

... not exhibit the highest type of social response in the recognition of impersonal evil, in the quest of knowledge, or in free discussion. Almost two centuries of dogma-worship, with its contemplation of selected facts, has made it now impossible to secure from one thoroughly socialized in the spirit of the place the exact truth upon any matter. It seems to ...
— Quaker Hill - A Sociological Study • Warren H. Wilson

... because officers have per contra done other portions of their duties well. According to his creed, a wrong cannot be palliated into a right, but must be reformed thereto; he has no tolerance for that evil whose cure is obvious and possible, and he treats boldly and severely the subjects of which the timid scarcely ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various

... to escape notice; but their connexion with Frankfort I am not antiquary enough to trace. Frankfort cannot be considered as a fortified place. Its bastions are planted with shrubs, and form a pleasant walk for the citizens. Hamburg has recently afforded a melancholy example of the evil which walls may bring upon a commercial city; and the people of Frankfort cannot regret the use to which their bastions are applied. I was, by the favour of a merchant, to whom I had an introduction, admitted as a temporary member of the Casino, or Public ...
— A tour through some parts of France, Switzerland, Savoy, Germany and Belgium • Richard Boyle Bernard

... in his life, scruples dominated him. I do not say that he always did what he thought to be right. A man who doubts much can never do that. The thing that was right to him in the thinking became wrong to him in the doing. That from which he has shrunk as evil when it was within his grasp, takes the color of good when it has been beyond his reach. Cicero had not the stuff in him to rule the Rome and the Romans of his period; but he was a man whose hands were free from all stain, either of blood or money; and for ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope

... as you ask me," he said simply, taking the only course that was open to him unless he had wished to banish himself entirely. But as he walked slowly on beside her again the evil look came into his downcast eyes, and the shadow darted out in his thoughts ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2 • Various

... old, is the lesson of Good Will and Good Hope. I believe that to-day is better than yesterday, and that to-morrow will be better than to- day. I believe that in spite of so many errors and wrongs and even crimes, my countrymen of all classes desire what is good, and not what is evil. I repeat what I said to the State Convention of Massachusetts after ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar

... question to attempt the passage of such a vortex in canoes, except at half flood or half ebb tide, at which periods the waters became quiet. On arriving at the mouth of the gulf, the travellers found the tide out and the entrance to it curling and rolling in massive volumes, as if all the evil water-spirits of the north were holding their orgies there. Oostesimow and Ma-Istequan, being by nature and education intensely superstitious, told Stanley—after they had landed to await the flow of the tide—that it was absolutely ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne

... The evil spirit in him was plainly subdued—for the time, at least. Crayford took his hand in silence; and then (followed by Bateson) left him ...
— The Frozen Deep • Wilkie Collins

... and without explanation to the country or to himself was deprived of his command. A large part of the people and of the public press and an overwhelming majority in the army were dissatisfied with the act, and believed that it would entail evil consequences. ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... all explained she said in a low tone: 'It is that pernicious, evil man Dare—yet why is it he?—what can he have meant by it! Justice before generosity, even on one's wedding-day. Before I become any man's wife this morning I'll see that wretch in jail! The affair must be sifted.... O, it was a wicked thing to serve anybody ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy

... in reply to Mr. Theodore Stanton's question why he opposed suffrage, said, "I cannot give you all the reasons for the view I take, but I act from the belief that to introduce women into the strife of political life would be a great evil to them, and that to our own sex no possible good could arise. When women are not safe under the charge or care of fathers, husbands, brothers, and sons, it is the fault of our non-civilization, and not of our laws. As civilization ...
— Woman and the Republic • Helen Kendrick Johnson

... Mon Dieu! How often I have wept here, setting your room straight, and grieving for your poverty and my own. I would have sold myself to the evil one to spare you one vexation! You are MY Raphael to-day, really my own Raphael, with that handsome head of yours, and your heart is mine too; yes, that above all, your heart—O wealth inexhaustible! Well, where was I?" she went on after a ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac

... though erroneous as some may suppose, and do not think that censuring the dealers will cover the true ground of complaint, or at all tend to remove the existing difficulty. Their agency is, if I may use the term—but in no offensive sense—a kind of necessary evil; for the importer will not retail, and it suits but few of the consumers comparatively, to club together, and purchase in large quantities. The price of guano is owing mainly, if not entirely, to this monopoly in the import trade; and it would be ...
— Guano - A Treatise of Practical Information for Farmers • Solon Robinson

... and the tutor broke into laughter, but the marshal continued to smile his terrible smile of determinate evil. ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett

... Edward, we have another group, where 'Edouard (in extremis) parle aux hommes de sa cour;' evidently an after-thought, or a mistake in taking up the designs to work in their proper order. Harold is crowned, but with an ill omen (from the Norman point of view), as represented in the tapestry by an evil star—a comet of extravagant size, upon which the people gaze with most comical ...
— Normandy Picturesque • Henry Blackburn

... such a place as to be king of such a kirk, the sincerest kirk of the world. The kirk of Geneva keep Pasch and Yule; what have they for them? They have no institution. As for our neighbour kirk in England their service is an evil sad mass in English, they want nothing of the mass but the liftings." (Speech of King James VI, to the Central Assembly of the Church of Scotland, at Edinburgh, August 1590. Calderwood's Hist. of the Ch. of Scot. ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning

... readiness with which they could expound any passage of Scripture. It is recorded of a certain elder that as he read and commented on the thirty-fourth Psalm, he misread the sentence, "Keep thy tongue from evil, and thy lips from speaking guile." He carelessly read the last two words: "squeaking girls." But the astonishing phrase did not dismay him in the least, or cause him to hesitate in his exegesis. ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous

... county had had an evil record in the matter of crime, and they were so accustomed to outrages of almost weekly occurrence around them that it was not easy to shock them. There was an inoffensive family sitting round the fireside with a couple ...
— Is Ulster Right? • Anonymous

... immovable in all that concerned his duty. On one occasion, when it was proposed at a public meeting that the Legitimists should follow the example of their political opponents and should stoop to evil doings, he refused decidedly, saying: "The cause of the life of man is superhuman. It is God who judges; His judgment does not hinge on our passions."[*] In his eyes, Religion and the Monarchy were twin sisters, and he speaks sadly ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars

... "An evil omen!" on his side, said D'Artagnan to himself, making up for lost time. "I could not smile upon them. ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... hard-hearted, enterprising woman, "mindful only of gain." The chronicle says her husband, named Thorvald, was "weak-minded," and that she married him because he was rich. During the voyage she contrived to destroy her husband's brothers and seize their ship, for which evil deed she was made to feel her brother Leif's anger on her return. The same chronicle gives an account of a voyage northward, up Baffin's Bay, and through what is now called Wellington Channel. There is also a romantic story of Thorstein's widow, Gudrid, an ...
— Ancient America, in Notes on American Archaeology • John D. Baldwin

... Periods of evil thinking came very regularly to Peter and to Rags and to the visitors within their gates. At such times Anna would be very busy and scold hard, and then too she always took great care to seclude the bad dogs from each ...
— Three Lives - Stories of The Good Anna, Melanctha and The Gentle Lena • Gertrude Stein

... almost martyrdom with slip-shod, thriftless, good-for-nothing "help," as we Americans, with such delicate consideration, term our serving maids, I had come to the conclusion that indifferent "help" was an unavoidable evil, and that the best must be made of the poor, miserable instruments of assistance vouchsafed unto the race of ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various

... Montgomery's disappearance his deserted wife fell upon evil times indeed. In spite of her bravest efforts the rent fell hopelessly in arrears. For a time her pride kept her away from the Shrimplins, who might have helped her. To go to the little lamplighter's was to hear bitter truths about her husband; Mr. Shrimplin's denunciations ...
— The Just and the Unjust • Vaughan Kester

... succeeded in getting the red men to listen to the Gospel, they insisted upon the suppression of the sinful feasts; especially as they were more or less associated with their ideas of worship. Even the dog feast was considered "good medicine" to propitiate the evil spirits: for the dogs were prized by the Indian next to his children, and sacrificing them was making a ...
— On the Indian Trail - Stories of Missionary Work among Cree and Salteaux Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young

... her—his existence was pure indifference to her. I answer for it! They tried his father for the atrocity. Even a French jury could not find extenuating circumstances for that kind of cold-blooded assassin who slays in the small hours the wife of his bosom—after having cast her off and driven her to evil ways, poor, spotless angel! They brought him in guilty of a foul murder and he was guillotined—gentleman and artist of merit though he was. They were kind to his young son; his friends made up a purse and sent him afar to be educated and reared in ignorance. ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas

... of this rule was, in Pitcairn as elsewhere, unrecognised by ignorance, or rendered hazy and involved by stupidity. Adams had his own difficulties in combating the effects of evil in the hearts of his children, for, as we have said before, they were by no means perfect, though ...
— The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne

... inaccessible mountains within a reasonable distance; another a photographic apparatus for taking likenesses of the natives and securing fac-similes of the wild beasts; while a third was provided with a brass thief-defender for running under doors and keeping them shut against persons of evil character. They had bags, boxes, and bales of crackers, preserved meats, vegetables, and pickles; jellies and sweet-cake; concentrated coffee, and a small apparatus for the manufacture of ice-cream. In addition to all these, they had patent overcoats and undercoats, patent ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne

... Evil-doing, however, was not entirely absent, and occasional cases of robbery of gold, or pilfering of tents occurred; the offenders in such cases were usually ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie

... well to repeat to the parents faithfully and truly the defects they observe in the dispositions of very young children. If properly checked in time, evil propensities may be eradicated; but this should not extend to anything but serious defects; otherwise, the intuitive perceptions which all children possess will construe the act into "spying" and "informing," which should never be resorted to in the case of children, nor, indeed, ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton

... was fifty years ago. It is not by any means so bad an article as it has a bad name; for when of good quality, and moderately indulged in, it is perfectly wholesome; only when the quality is bad, or the indulgence excessive, do evil results follow. And indeed such are its merits when good, that it is said dealers sometimes export it to France and other parts, from which it is imported again to this country, transfused into splendidly labelled brandy bottles, and sold ...
— Lectures on Popular and Scientific Subjects • John Sutherland Sinclair, Earl of Caithness

... well-directed flattery, for which surely none will blame her, obtained a little ease for herself, and, at least, put off the evil day. And now we have seen our heroine in a better situation than she hath been for a long time before, we will look a little after Mr Jones, whom we left in the most deplorable situation ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding

... Pillans, Charles Maclaren (editor of the Scotsman), and Robert Chambers. We had a long dander together through the Old Town, our talk being in broad Scotch. Pillans was one of the fine old Edinburgh Liberals, who stuck to his principles through good report and through evil. In his position as Rector of the High School, he had given rare evidence of his excellence as a classical scholar. He was afterwards promoted to be a Professor in the University. He had as his pupils some of the most excellent men of my time. Amongst his intimate ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth

... is terrible for the priests of her time," the monk went on. "She insists on their misdeeds, reproaches them roundly with selling the Holy Spirit, with practising sortilege, and with using the Sacrament to compose evil charms." ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans

... there must be lots of selfishness in the world, for certainly there is plenty of happiness, all evil things notwithstanding. I should have said that happiness springs from goodness and a ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard

... all that." answered Peabody, quickly. "It would only be delaying the evil hour. You wouldn't be able to move that old codger away from the Senate chamber with a team of oxen—once he gets to his seat. His secretary, Raines—another oversight of yours, Stevens"—the latter winced—"will warn him. Langdon ...
— A Gentleman from Mississippi • Thomas A. Wise

... may be briefly summarized here. In 1900 Mr Hays's five-year contract as general manager expired. At the same juncture a vacancy occurred in the presidency of the Southern Pacific, which had fallen on evil days, and Hays was offered and accepted the post at four times his salary with the Grand Trunk of $25,000 a year. A year later he was back again in Canada. There was not room in the {202} Southern Pacific for both Hays and Harriman, then in financial control, and ...
— The Railway Builders - A Chronicle of Overland Highways • Oscar D. Skelton

... following expressions among others: 'Had I known a person more highly endowed than yourself with all that it becomes a man to possess, I had solicited for this work the ornament of his name. One more gentle, honourable, innocent, and brave; one of more exalted toleration for all who do and think evil, and yet himself more free from evil; one who knows better how to receive and how to confer a benefit, though he must ever confer far more than he can receive; one of simpler and (in the highest sense of the ...
— Adonais • Shelley

... hear each other speak." After their arrival at St. John, two of the party very nearly died in consequence of eating too heartily, but Gyles had had such ample experience of fasting in his Indian life that he had learned wisdom, and by careful dieting suffered no evil consequences. ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond

... scrapes by trying to get other people out of them, he stood in great danger of being spoiled, and probably would have been, like many another promising boy, if he had not possessed a talisman against evil in the memory of the kind old man who was bound up in his success, the motherly friend who watched over him as if he were her son, and last, but not least by any means, the knowledge that four innocent girls loved, admired, and believed in him with ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott

... quoting! But if I admit that there is something in what you say, is it not always the case? Have we ever unmixed good, or unmixed evil? And I contend that the same advantages derivable from a School-Board education entirely compensate for ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, November 28, 1891 • Various

... continued to exhaustion. Some cut their bodies and tear their hair, and the women paint their faces with broad white bands. The body is watched by night, and the appearance of the first falling-star is hailed with loud shouts and waving of fire-brands, to drive off the yumburbar, an evil spirit which is the cause of all deaths and other calamities, and feeds on the entrails of the newly dead. When decomposition has gone on sufficiently far, the bones are carefully removed, painted red, wrapped ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray

... dared to ride." Brynhild said: "Let us not contend: I bear no good will to Grimhild." Gudrun said: "Blame her not; for she is towards thee as to her own daughter." Brynhild said: "She is the cause of all the evil which gnaws me. She presented to Sigurd the pernicious drink, so that he no more remembered me." Gudrun said: "Many an unjust word thou utterest, and this is a great falsehood." Brynhild said: "So enjoy Sigurd as thou hast not deceived me, and may it go with thee as I imagine." Gudrun ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson

... horse shoes oer my door to keep the Evil Spirits away. My Mammy always wore and ole petticoat full gather at de waist band wid long pockets in dem and den to keep peace in de house she would turn de pocket wrong side out jes as she would go to ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Kentucky Narratives • Works Projects Administration

... ought to have had sealed orders to meet off the Canary Islands. The damages should have been repaired en route. A few topmasts carried away, some casualties in a gale of wind, were every-day occurrences. But the great evil of our Navy is, that the men who command it are unused to all the risks ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan

... Drene with an evil stare at him, "I may postpone it—to find out how much you can stand." He dropped his right hand into the sagging pocket, looking intently at Graylock ...
— Between Friends • Robert W. Chambers

... with another prisoner, and I was usually best pleased when I happened to be put into the same crib with one who had been a convict before. It was during these daily rounds that I witnessed with sadness the evil effects of sending boys or lads to prison for a few days or weeks for some petty theft, and placing them in constant contact and association with the habitual and reputed scoundrel and ruffian. These ...
— Six Years in the Prisons of England • A Merchant - Anonymous

... son, who is pursuing his studies, in order that, if by chance I should fall into poverty, he may restore the loan to me, just as I am now doing to his grandfather. Again, I lose two pennies on my wife, who is a scold and has an evil temper. On account of her bad disposition I consider whatever I give her entirely lost. Lastly, two other pennies I spend on myself for meat and drink. I cannot do all this without working every day. You now know the truth, and, I pray ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott

... all-powerful now since the death of his rival Colbert, discussing a question of military organisation with two officers, the one a tall and stately soldier, the other a strange little figure, undersized and misshapen, but bearing the insignia of a marshal of France, and owning a name which was of evil omen over the Dutch frontier, for Luxembourg was looked upon already as the successor of Conde, even as his companion Vauban was of Turenne. Beside them, a small white-haired clerical with a kindly face, Pere la Chaise, confessor to the king, was whispering ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle

... was up. Lights glowed from hovel ways like evil red eyes. Peter released the rope and the bridge sprang down to the road with a boom that shook the solid walls. Bobbie's mule nosed toward them, and Peter all but shot the friendly ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts

... was more; it was the understanding of—the unwritten law of creation, the law by which the flowers grow, and wither; the law by which the animal springs upon its prey, and, unerring, seeks its mate; the law of the song of the waters, and the song of the morning stars; the law that permits evil and pain and dumb, incomprehensible suffering; the law that floods at sunset the mountain lands with colour and the soul with light; and the law that rends the branches in the blue storm. Of what avail was anger against it, or the puny rage of man? Hilary Vane, not recognizing it, had spent his ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... as this implied that the Regent and Ministry were an extreme evil, and the scene in the Chamber grew animated as the speech grew more and more personal. Antonio Carlos de Andrada, one of the younger men of that great family, as fiery tempered as he was patriotic, led the attack, accusing the Regent and Ministry of usurpation ...
— South America • W. H. Koebel

... she might be calm and happy; and she heard no more. That heart where self has found no place and raised no throne, is slow to recognize its ugly presence when it looks upon it. As one possessed of an evil spirit was held in old time to be alone conscious of the lurking demon in the breasts of other men, so kindred vices know each other in their hiding-places every day, when Virtue is incredulous ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens

... which he worked his devilish will, his life presents a total picture of sordid vice, differing only from pot-house dissipation and schoolboy cruelty in point of size. And this of a truth is the Nemesis of evil. After a time, mere tyrannous caprice must become commonplace and cloying, tedious to the tyrant, and uninteresting to the student of humanity: nor can I believe that Caligula failed to perceive this to his own ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds

... you manage tomorrow? With a book, plodding all through the night, if necessary, you might scrape up something resembling a lesson, just enough to fill the dread hour more or less. Then you could see about the next: sufficient for the day is the evil thereof. But you haven't the book. And it's no use running out to the bookshop. Algebraical treatises are not current wares. You'll have to send for one, which will take a fortnight at least. And I've promised for tomorrow, for tomorrow ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre

... talking to you. I don't suppose I've opened my mouth to anyone about it, not for years—except to one dear friend I've got—her who persuaded me to be a church member. But what I've always said and what I will always say is this, that I don't believe any evil of Father, I don't believe, I won't ever believe he took his life. I won't even believe he was in drink. I don't know how he got in the river, but I'm certain it wasn't so. He was a weak man, was Father, I've never denied ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

... about the time when Oliver Cromwell was at his zenith—in 1652, to be pedantically accurate—that the Dutch made their first lodgment at the Cape of Good Hope. The Portuguese had been there before them, but, repelled by the evil weather, and lured forward by rumours of gold, they had passed the true seat of empire, and had voyaged farther, to settle along the eastern coast. But the Dutchmen at the Cape prospered and grew stronger in that robust climate. They did not penetrate ...
— The War in South Africa - Its Cause and Conduct • Arthur Conan Doyle

... for relief from the evils of trusts has failed to accomplish fully that object. This is probably due to a great extent to the fact that different States take different views as to the proper way to discriminate between evil and injurious combinations and those associations which are beneficial and necessary to the business prosperity of the country. The great diversity of treatment in different States arising from this cause and the intimate relations of all parts of the country to each other without regarding ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... Webster, who murdered Parkmaan, and others. But they were writers, not readers And they did not write novels. Mr. Aram wrote scientific and school books, as did Prof. Webster, and Dr. Wainwright wrote beautiful sermons. We never do sufficiently consider the evil that lies behind writing sermons. The nearest you can come to a writer of fiction who has been steeped in crime is in Benvenuto Cellini, whose marvelous autobiographical memoir certainly contains some fiction, though it is classed under ...
— The Delicious Vice • Young E. Allison

... young and pretty, a nursemaid pushing a baby-cart into which a young man of two was strapped. While far more likely to take him than the stout old party still skipping the greensward like a mountain roe, she would be much less plausible as a reason for going to the evil one. But a vow was a vow, and ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King

... with flashing eyes. "I shall be here," he said simply. "I shall be here, I shall answer when she calls, but in the meantime shall it be said that in Poland, even in her darkest hour, children were stolen for such evil purposes? Never, never!" He turned to Warren. "For a year now," he said, "we have been organizing these Boy Scouts that you have so many of in America. Let us pass the word to them. If little Elinor and the stranger are to be found, surely they will find them. My rank has always hampered me, ...
— The Boy Scouts in Front of Warsaw • Colonel George Durston

... facilitation—to do things more quickly and easily—and thus to minimize exertion became his great objective. Less and less he relied upon the initiative of his own brain and muscle, and more and more he put his faith in the power of machinery to relieve him of labour. The evil of our age is that its values are all false. It overrates speed, it underrates sureness; it overrates the new, it underrates the old; it overrates automatic efficiency, it underrates individual craftsmanship; it overrates rights, it underrates duties; it overrates political ...
— The Constitution of the United States - A Brief Study of the Genesis, Formulation and Political Philosophy of the Constitution • James M. Beck



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