"Mean-spirited" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... anxious to leave the ship, as he had already succeeded in overcoming the prejudices of his messmates, and even the most ill-natured had to acknowledge that he was not a bad fellow, although he might be somewhat mean-spirited. John Langton had from the first stood his friend in a judicious way. He had not defended him in his presence when attacked, seeing how wisely Owen was conducting himself, but he had taken good care to speak in his favour when he was ...
— Owen Hartley; or, Ups and Downs - A Tale of Land and Sea • William H. G. Kingston
... bed. The thefts committed during these interregnums were amazing in their amount, and the jewels of the crown were to be replaced as fast as they were stolen. Poor Christy all this time was considered as a mean-spirited cratur, who had no notion of living like a prince; and whilst his wife and her relations were revelling in this unheard-of manner, he was scarcely considered as the master of the house: he lived by the fireside disregarded in winter, and in summer he spent ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... Italy was a happy hunting ground for her business enterprise, France had come near resignation on the score of Alsace-Lorraine. And then over and above the great outrage of the war come these incessant mean-spirited atrocities. A great and simple wickedness it is possible to forgive; the war itself, had it been fought greatly by Austria and Germany, would have made no such deep and enduring breach as these silly, futile assassinations have down between ...
— War and the Future • H. G. Wells
... deserve it? Nothing. He had spoken the truth, and declined to take his cousin's lapse upon his own shoulders about that letter; and then on getting home Sam had turned upon him, and any boy, Tom argued, would have done as he did, and struck back. He'd have been a mean-spirited ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn
... deserved all that had come to her. And bitterest of all was the thought that her own letter that should have righted everything with me, I must have taken from the rock. How could I ever care for a girl so mean-spirited and cruel as she had been to me? Lettie couldn't get letters out, O'mie had said; and in the face of what she had written, she had still refused to see me, had shown how jealous-hearted and narrow-minded she could be. What could I do but leave town? So ran the little girl's ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter
... mean-spirited to let our rights be taken from us," said Ransom. "It is worth anything to ...
— Daisy in the Field • Elizabeth Wetherell
... and that, as he has made an ample fortune already, the half of which he had told me was to be mine, I would be quite satisfied with my share, and did not want any more. But my father would never listen to my arguments. The last time we got on the subject he called me a mean-spirited fellow, and said he was sorry I had ever been born; whereupon I expressed regret that he had not been blessed with a more congenial and satisfactory son, and tried to point out that it was impossible to change my nature. Then I urged all the old arguments over again, and wound up by saying ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... refused to give their adherence to Hiram's almost unlimited sway. And as parties generally proceed to extremes, the girls who formed the opposition generally declared him to be a pusillanimous, mean-spirited fellow; they detested the very sight of his smooth, hypocritical face; he had better not come fooling around them—no, indeed! Let him attempt it once, they would soon teach him manners. It is to ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... cup of poison, implored him to save them from disgrace. The Count d'Horn turned away his head, and refused to take it. Montmorency pressed him once more; and losing all patience at his continued refusal, turned on his heel, and exclaiming, "Die, then, as thou wilt, mean-spirited wretch! thou art fit only to perish by the hands of the hangman!" left him ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... evidently appeared in all that Mr. Lowther said on the subject: and the bishop once intimated, that, be the event what it would, his journey to Italy should be made the most beneficial affair to him he had ever engaged in. Mr. Lowther replied, that as he was neither a necessitous nor a mean-spirited man, and had reason to be entirely satisfied with the terms I had already secured to him; he should take it unkindly, if any other reward were ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson
... basis of taxation. Ever since this Government was founded, taxation and representation have always gone hand in hand. If we shall exclude the principle in this amendment, we will be accused of a narrow, illiberal, mean-spirited, and money-grasping policy. More than that, we do not gain any thing by it. What kind of taxation, is distributed according to representation? Direct taxation. Now, we do not have any direct taxation. There has been ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... the more flaunting and luxurious licentiousness of the English Court. Of the fundamental aims of the nation, of the deep-seated traits of their character, he was profoundly ignorant. At once turbulent and mean-spirited, pharisaical and profligate; poverty-stricken and yet proud; bigoted in its beliefs, and yet careless of all the decencies of religion—such is the aspect which Scottish national character bore to Clarendon. To a superficial and distant observer there was not ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... came and went in a stated order. The first thing in the spring, as soon as the frost began to come out of the ground, they had marbles which they played till the weather began to be pleasant for the game, and then they left it off. There were some mean-spirited fellows who played for fun, but any boy who was anything played for keeps: that is, keeping all the marbles he won. As my boy was skilful at marbles, he was able to start out in the morning with his toy, or the marble he shot with, and a commy, or a brown marble ...
— Boy Life - Stories and Readings Selected From The Works of William Dean Howells • William Dean Howells
... "And such a mean-spirited, sordid wretch, you would infer that I am," replied Lord Glenvarloch; "one who fears the skilful, and preys upon the ignorant—who avoids playing with his equals, that he may make sure of pillaging his inferiors?—Is this what I am to understand has ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... stream, languid but not deep; the other a boisterous and overbearing torrent; but they joined at last; and long may they continue united, to the comfort of each other, and to the glory, honour, and happiness of this nation!" I hope you are not mean-spirited enough to dread an invasion, when the senatorial contests are reviving in the temple of Concord.-But will it make a party? Yes, truly: I never saw so promising a prospect. Would not it be cruel, at such a ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... would venture to say. Bill, who had not witnessed The Pilot's performance in the pitcher's box, but had only Hi's enthusiastic report to go upon, still preserved his judicial air. It is fair to say, however, that there was no mean-spirited jealousy in Bill's heart even though Hi had frankly assured him that The Pilot was "a demon," and could "give him points." Bill had great confidence in Hi's opinion upon baseball, but he was not prepared to surrender his right of private judgment in matters theological, so ...
— The Sky Pilot • Ralph Connor
... it forc'd me to reflect upon Affairs in our own Country; Well, said I, 'tis happy for England that our Dissenters have not this Spirit of Union and Largeness of Heart among them; for if they were not a Narrow, mean-Spirited, short-Sighted, self-Preserving, friend-Betraying, poor-Neglecting People, they might ha' been every way as Safe, as Considerable, as Regarded and as Numerous as the Crolians in the Moon; but it is not in their Souls ...
— The Consolidator • Daniel Defoe
... most anxious to mortify; while she herself, who had comparatively no power to wound them, sat pointedly slighted by both. But while she smiled at a graciousness so misapplied, she could not reflect on the mean-spirited folly from which it sprung, nor observe the studied attentions with which the Miss Steeles courted its continuance, without thoroughly despising them ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... would-be fashionable figure. Hit a man your own size, or bigger, by all means if you are game to take the consequences. But to smite a creature conspicuously your inferior in fortune—past, present, and prospective—is unchivalrous, not to say downright mean-spirited. So Damaris, swiftly repentant, put her arm round the heaving shoulders, bent her handsome young head and kissed the uninvitingly dabby cheek—a caress surely counting ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... enthusiasm, the whole thing would have fallen to pieces at the first stress of work; on the other hand, if she had never inspired more than respect, she would never have won the quality of service she succeeded in winning. The really mean-spirited were loyal just so long as she was present because she daunted them, and Dr. Inglis's disapproval was most certainly a thing to be avoided. But the great majority, whatever their personal views, were quickly ...
— Elsie Inglis - The Woman with the Torch • Eva Shaw McLaren
... they had the inclinations so to do. Of course I never see sich cases with my own eyes—ho no! He he he! Nor master neither—ho no! He he he! I HAVE heerd the neighbours make remark as some one as they was acquainted with, was a poor good-natur'd mean-spirited creetur, as went out fishing for a wife one day, and caught a Tartar. Of course I never to my knowledge see the poor person himself. Nor did you neither, mim—ho no. I wonder who it can be—don't you, mim? No doubt you do, mim. Ho yes. He ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... mean-spirited wench!" said the Abbess; "is that a speech worthy of the name of Seyton, or of the mouth of a sister of this house, treading the path of election—and to be spoken before a stranger youth, too?—Go to my oratory, minion—there read your Hours till I come thither, ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... Author has endeavoured to explain the tragic tale on this principle. Whatever resemblance Lady Ashton may be supposed to possess to the celebrated Dame Margaret Ross, the reader must not suppose that there was any idea of tracing the portrait of the first Lord Viscount Stair in the tricky and mean-spirited Sir William Ashton. Lord Stair, whatever might be his moral qualities, was certainly one of the first statesmen ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... more or less than the natural recourse of all mean-spirited and defeated tyrannies to rule or ruin, making of course a wide distinction between the will and the power, for the hanging of traitors is soon to begin before a month is over. The Nations of Europe may rest assured ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... a touch of stereotype in the chords and even in the pinch and clash of hostile motives. And there is not the distinctive melody,—final stamp and test of the shaft of inspiration. Yet in the enchantment of motion, sound and form, it seems mean-spirited to cavil at a want of something greater. One stands bewildered before such art and stunned of ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... just like yer!" Bessie flung at him at last in desperation. "You're allus the same—a mean-spirited feller, stannin' in your children's way! 'Ow do you know who old John's going to leave his money to? 'Ow do you know as he wouldn't leave it to them poor innercents"—she waved her hand tragically towards the children playing in the road—"if we was just a bit nice ...
— Bessie Costrell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... for our mischief, after it was all over; and poor Mistress Prudence is so sorely mortified, that she told Rebecca this morning not to mention Deacon Dole's name to her again, and that Widow Hepsy is welcome to him, since he is so mean-spirited as to let her rule him as ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... wishing that the eyes of my visitors may rest on that which is elegant and pleasant to the sight, I act in that matter with a becoming sense of hospitality; but if my object be to kill Mrs. Jones with envy at the sight of all my silver trinkets, I am a very mean-spirited fellow. This, in a broad way, will be acknowledged; but if we would bear in mind the same idea at all times,—on occasions when the way perhaps may not be so broad, when more thinking may be required to ascertain ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... who did not like the Irish, told her that what the girl wanted was a shilling or two. Servants in Europe were always beggars, and the Irish people especially. But she wouldn't give the girl a quarter if it were her hat. What was the use of making people so mean-spirited? ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... Newfoundland, which has simply remained outside the adjoining Dominion, and in their deadliest form in the case of the Transvaal, where "Home Rule" was given in 1881, as it would be given to Ireland to-day, if the Government succeeded, not from conviction and whole-heartedly, but as a mean-spirited concession, made to save trouble, and under the most disingenuous and least workable provisions. Lastly, it has been made clear that Home Rule cannot possibly assist, but can only obscure and confuse, the movement for the establishment ...
— Against Home Rule (1912) - The Case for the Union • Various
... mean-spirited things! I don't associate with them, of course, I am the Queen: they're only ...
— The Story of the Amulet • E. Nesbit
... "there you go, you vile American dog, you cowardly mean-spirited cur; take my parting curses with you; may you meet with nothing but ill-luck and perplexity; may misfortune follow you; may the very wind and the sea war against you; may the treachery which I have planned prevail over you; and may you die at last with the jeers of your enemies ringing in your ears. ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood
... repeated Harry. "Papa! you don't want us to like a horrid, sneaking, mean-spirited pair like those, that have used Norman ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... "By the Host, no! The man is bewitched by that plausible rogue, Francesco. Far from resenting the fellow's treatment of him, he follows and obeys his every word, like the mean-spirited dog that he is." ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... speak. It would be better that she should quarrel with him. That little snake, Lucy, would of course now tell him of the meeting between them in Hertford Street, after which anything but quarrelling would be impossible. What a fool the man must be, what an idiot, what a soft-hearted, mean-spirited fellow! Lucy, by her sly, quiet little stratagems, had got him once to speak the word, and now he had not courage enough to go back from it! He had less strength of will even than Lord Fawn! What she offered to him would be the making of him. With his position, his seat in Parliament, such a ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... all she could, poor thing!), begging "you would ware them at collidge, and think of her who"—married a public-house three weeks afterwards, and cares for you no more now than she does for the pot-boy. But why multiply instances, or seek to depict the agony of poor mean-spirited John Hayes? No mistake can be greater than that of fancying such great emotions of love are only felt by virtuous or exalted men: depend upon it, Love, like Death, plays havoc among the pauperum tabernas, and sports with rich and poor, wicked and virtuous, alike. I have often fancied, ...
— Catherine: A Story • William Makepeace Thackeray
... think of him if he knew what a mean-spirited coward he was? Well, it was impossible to tell him now. It would ...
— Steve and the Steam Engine • Sara Ware Bassett
... him at a house near the village, as free from hydrophobia as I am. To make sure, I traced the dog that bit him back to its owner's hut in the mountains, and found it there, sneaking around the lot and looking as vicious and mean-spirited as ever. Its master said the dog that was shot came from the other side of the mountains, and was worth a dozen ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... estates, must cut our coat according to our cloth." "Nay," says I, "every man knows his own circumstance best; you are in the right, if you haven't wherewithal." He looked very sour (for it is, you must know, the utmost vanity of a mean-spirited rich man to be contradicted, when he calls himself poor). But I was resolved to vex him, by consenting to all he said; the main design of which was, that he would have us find out, he was one of the wealthiest men in London, and lived like a beggar. We left him, and took a turn on the 'Change. ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... diminish even his strength and stature; so that he appeared to wither into the shadow of himself, now advancing one foot, now the other, now stooping and wriggling his shoulders, now fumbling with the buttons of his waistcoat, now clasping his hands together; in short, he was the picture of a mean-spirited, shuffling rascal in the very agonies of detection. To these appearances Bertram was totally inattentive, being dragged on as it were by the current of his own associations. Indeed, although he addressed Glossin, ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... sandwiching a slice of beef between two pieces of bread with great care and nicety, "who would be so mean-spirited as to sell that freedom which is the glorious prerogative of man (and which I beg you to notice is a not unpleasing phrase, sir) who, I demand, would surrender this for a base ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... yourself, will not be at the pains of practising them. Why do you scruple to begin to practise those methods? Is it because you are afraid that, should you begin with your brother, and first do him a kindness, you would appear to be of a mean-spirited and cringing disposition? Believe me, my friend, you will never, on that account, appear such. On the contrary, I take it to be the part of an heroic and generous soul to prevent our friends with kindness and our enemies with valour. ...
— The Memorable Thoughts of Socrates • Xenophon
... began, manners and deference to employer alike forgotten, "don't you say no more of that wicked foolishness to me. I'll leave the minute you're mean-spirited enough to let that child go and not afore. And when THAT happens I'll be GLAD to leave. Land sakes! there's somebody at the door; and I expect I'm a ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln
... give pleasure to himself. But this perpetual upstart Duty, this pedagogic tyranny, this peevishness, this futile discussion, this acrid, puerile quibbling, this ungraciousness, this charmless life, without politeness, without silence, this mean-spirited pessimism, which lets slip nothing that can make existence poorer than it is, this vainglorious unintelligence, which finds it easier to despise others than to understand them, all this middle-class morality, without greatness, without largeness, without happiness, without beauty, all these things ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... police for false imprisonment, even though he spent every shilling of his savings in doing so. And when his wife, in the presence of Phineas, begged that bygones might be bygones, reminding him that spilt milk could not be recovered, he called her a mean-spirited woman. Then Mrs. Bunce wept a flood of tears, and told her favourite lodger that for her all comfort in this world was over. "Drat the reformers, I say. And I wish there was no Parliament; so I do. What's the use of all the voting, when it means nothing but ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... men of old had this heavenly tree, yet they did not pluck from it any worthy fruit. They were mean-spirited. They simply begged it for some kind of wealth. And so they degraded themselves and the great tree too. But I will get from it the wish which is in ...
— Twenty-two Goblins • Unknown
... general meeting of the club is convened, for the purpose of considering the subject of properties. A grand demonstration, with a procession of the members, is resolved upon: it is to come off upon Whit-Monday. In spite of the remonstrance of a mean-spirited Mr Nobody—who proposes that, by way of distinguishing themselves from the rest of the thousand-and-one clubs who will promenade upon that occasion, with music, flags, banners, brass-bands, big drums, sashes, aprons, and white wands, they, the Charitable Chums, shall walk in procession ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 427 - Volume 17, New Series, March 6, 1852 • Various
... numerous enough to carry over into peace the taboos of war. Fortunately, the mass of men is too tolerant long to enjoy the professional inquisitors, as gradually, under the criticism of men not willing to be terrorized, they are revealed as mean-spirited creatures who nine-tenths of the time do not know what they are talking about. [Footnote: Cf. for example, the publications of the Lusk Committee in New York, and the public statements and prophecies of Mr. Mitchell Palmer, who was Attorney-General of the United States during the period ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... Alfred Thornton was snobbish and mean-spirited. She did not like him. She decided that on the night of the ball. She had seen him exchanging smiles with Miss Harris behind their backs before Tom Curtis had introduced him as his friend. This merely ...
— Madge Morton's Secret • Amy D. V. Chalmers
... set we are, in such a positive state of the world!" cried Barbara. "Except Ruth's music, there isn't a specialty among us; we haven't any views; we're on the mean-spirited side of the Woman Question; 'all woman, and no question,' as mother says; we shall never preach, nor speech, nor leech; we can't be magnificent, and we won't be common! I don't see what is to become of us, unless—and ...
— We Girls: A Home Story • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... friend, it contains not a word that ought to be objectionable to any set of readers. If the public of the North see fit to ostracize me for this, I can only say that I would gladly sacrifice a thousand or two of dollars rather than retain the good-will of such a herd of dolts and mean-spirited scoundrels. I enclose the rewritten paragraph, and shall wish to see a proof of that ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... Lerme was at least a great lord, and the army which he commanded may have warranted his extravagance; but what are we to think when we find the base and mean-spirited Fouquet giving himself the same princely airs? During certain festivities prepared for Louis XIV., Fouquet placed in the room of every courtier of the king's suite, a purse of gold for gambling, in case any of them should be short of ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... would." [They hear Fleury's voice.] "There's Fleury cursing Baudoyer. Hey, how well the thing has been managed! Baudoyer will get the appointment." [Confidentially] "After all, so much the better. Du Bruel, just keep your eye on the consequences. Rabourdin would be a mean-spirited creature to stay under Baudoyer; he will send in his registration, and that will give us two places. You can be head of the bureau and take me for under-head-clerk. We will make vaudevilles together, and I'll fag at your work ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac
... piously its broken ideals, and interpreting its momentary achievement. The spirit of liberty and co-operation was already dead. The private citizen, debauched by the largesses and petty quarrels of his city, had become indolent and mean-spirited. He had begun to question the utility of religion, of patriotism, and of justice. Having allowed the organ for the ideal to atrophy in his soul, he could dream of finding some sullen sort of happiness in unreason. He felt that the austere glories of his country, as a ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... not forgive me freely and fully, for past and future, your secondary will be a great deal worse than my original sin;—but you never would accuse me of "an arrogance that disdains docility," if you had seen the mean-spirited way in which I sit down by the side of an editor and let him ram-page over my manuscript. Out fly my best thoughts, my finest figures, my sharpest epigrams,—without chloroform,—and I give no sign. I have heard that successful authors can always have everything ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... hundred, and shut themselves up in S. Marco, and Baccio with them, on account of the great affection that he had for their party. It is true that, being a person of little courage, nay, even timorous and mean-spirited, and hearing an attack being made a little time after this on the convent, and men being wounded and killed, he began to have serious doubts about himself. For which reason he made a vow that if he were to escape from that turmoil, ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 04 (of 10), Filippino Lippi to Domenico Puligo • Giorgio Vasari
... in bed, and did not rise till ten o'clock. Then they commonly walked out; but always found themselves very soon tired; when they would often sit down under a shady tree, and grieve for the loss of their carriage and fine clothes, and say to each other, "What a mean-spirited poor stupid creature our young sister is, to be so content with our low way of life!" But their father thought in quite another way: he admired the patience of this sweet young creature; for her sisters not only left her to ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... acceded to this proposition, and repaired to the city of Treves to meet Charles and countenance his coronation. But the insolence and selfishness of the latter put an end to the project. He humiliated the emperor, who was of a niggardly and mean-spirited disposition, by appearing with a train so numerous and sumptuous as totally to eclipse the imperial retinue; and deeply offended him by wishing to postpone the marriage, from his jealousy of creating for himself a rival in a son-in-law who might embitter his old age ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan |
