"Blasphemous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... This may sound blasphemous toward Theodore Roosevelt—if not toward the Almighty—but it is told, and it is believed, by hundreds and thousands of the faithful among the Mormon people. It is given to them as the secret explanation of President ...
— Under the Prophet in Utah - The National Menace of a Political Priestcraft • Frank J. Cannon and Harvey J. O'Higgins
... people in this world before. They put Him up on a Cross at last and crucified Him because they thought He was too hopeful about them, and about human nature or because, as they would have put it, He was blasphemous and said every man was a ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... designs. Indisputable historical facts, recorded in this invaluable book, were treated by them as hieroglyphical symbols of chemical processes: and the fundamental truths of the christian religion were applied, in a wanton and blasphemous manner, to the purposes of making gold, and ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... for an artist of the Renascence to look on a statuette of Leda and the Swan or Dana[:e] and the Descent of Jupiter as a shower of gold, as prefiguring the Incarnation. There was nothing blasphemous in this pagan symbolism of a pagan prophecy of the birth of a God from a virgin. It does not follow that Browning is not powerfully beautiful and essentially poetical, even when he reads modern meanings impossibly into the life ...
— Confessions of a Book-Lover • Maurice Francis Egan
... declared in public print, of the beautiful and chaste painting "September Morn," that it was "lewd, filthy, and suggestive of unclean things." This type of woman is intrusted with the task of teaching youthful minds; polluting them with the blasphemous affirmation that the Creation of the Father-Mother God of the universe is "lewd ...
— Sex=The Unknown Quantity - The Spiritual Function of Sex • Ali Nomad
... me to this Sachem," I said. "Well and good. I will outface this blasphemous liar, whoever he may be. If he makes big magic, I will make bigger. The only course is the bold course. If I can humble this prophet man, will you dissuade your nation from war and send them back ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... some improper, or blasphemous reason. Don't be a Soul—you had better be a Skate. I am a Skate. We wear a silver skate, don't you see" (and she showed him a model of an Acme Skate in silver), "with the motto, Celer ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 14, 1893 • Various
... passing year had brought Its baneful lesson, they had filled the world With their abominations; while its tribes, Trodden to earth, imbruted, and despoiled, Had knelt to them in worship; sacrifice Had smoked on many an altar, temple-roofs Had echoed with the blasphemous prayer and hymn: But thou, the great reformer of the world, Tak'st off the sons of violence and fraud In their green pupilage, their lore half learned— Ere guilt had quite o'errun the simple heart God gave them at their birth, and blotted out His image. ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... assented to by some wiser and better men; it is this: they argue against a fair discussion of popular prejudices, because, say they, though they would be found without any reasonable support, yet the discovery might be productive of the most dangerous consequences. Absurd and blasphemous notion! as if all happiness was not connected with the practice of virtue, which necessarily depends upon the knowledge of truth; that is, upon the knowledge of those unalterable relations which Providence has ordained that every thing should bear ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... intimate or alien, terrible or amusing, lovable or odious, which in some degree everyone possesses. This sense of the world's presence, appealing as it does to our peculiar individual temperament, makes us either strenuous or careless, devout or blasphemous, gloomy or exultant about life at large; and our reaction, involuntary and inarticulate and often half unconscious as it is, is the completest of all our answers to the question, 'What is the character of this universe in which ...
— The Approach to Philosophy • Ralph Barton Perry
... him, matters touched upon lightly, airily, by the deacons and elders of the Board of Missions when his appointment was made. He recalled hearing of a letter in which his predecessor had renounced that particular field and the ministry together, with what to Thompson had seemed the blasphemous statement that the North was no place for ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... chamberlain of the emperor, came on a visit to Trieste in company with an Abbe Casti, whose acquaintance I wished to make on account of some extremely blasphemous poems he had written. However, I was disappointed; and instead of a man of parts, I found the abbe to be an impudent worthless fellow, whose only merit was a knack ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... usually untroubled by what any mean other-person may say, at this cannot contain himself, but starting to his feet cries out a command for the blasphemous fool's annihilation! Before Alberich, however, has caught the words—his deafness perhaps it is which saves his life—Loge has called Wotan back to his reason. Practising on Alberich's not completely outlived simplicity, he by ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... that kind of joke. I don't like that kind of joke. It's blasphemous," exclaimed Jadwin. "Go, get it off on Crookes. He'd appreciate it, but I don't. But this ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... Lutheran confessions of faith, and especially to the 'Formula Concordiae,' and that I am not required to regard any of them, or permit others to regard any one of them, as a dishonourable, injurious, or blasphemous book." ...
— Paul Gerhardt's Spiritual Songs - Translated by John Kelly • Paul Gerhardt
... eternal welfare of his soul at issue on the throw of a stone. La Harpe, no correct writer, nor sound critic, affirms, that Rousseau undertook to decide the question of a Superintending Providence by throwing stones at a tree. That would have been not merely an imbecile but a blasphemous act. As the case stood, Jean Jacques must be acquitted of any charge worse than that of excessive and even ridiculous weakness. "Je m'en vais," he says to himself, "je m'en vais jeter cette pierre contre l'arbre qui est vis-a-vis de moi: si ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... however, to set down the extravagant and often blasphemous harangue in which, styling M. de Guise the martyr of God, he told the story now so familiar—the story of that dark wintry morning at Blois, when the king's messenger, knocking early at the duke's door, bade him hurry, for the ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... harm than a dozen wildcat stills. Then all at once, here about five years ago she turned good, 'lowed she'd heerd from God. It was blasphemous. Seems she hadn't went to church since she was a gal. I don't say she ain't behavin' herself and all that, but 'tain't orthodox for a person like that to jest set down before her do' in the grass and git religion without ever goin' nigh ...
— A Circuit Rider's Wife • Corra Harris
... kindness, the Supreme Being had provided all things necessary for the existence and happiness of his creatures. To suggest that it is not so is a blasphemous lie: it is to suggest that the Supreme Being is not good or even just. On every side there is an overflowing superfluity of the materials requisite for the production of all the necessaries of life: from these materials everything we need may be produced in abundance—by Work. ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... the idiot? According to special creation we cannot possibly explain him. It would be blasphemous to believe that God creates a mindless man. If one soul is given a mind and another is not, and for no reason whatever, it is the most monstrous injustice that ever forced itself upon the understanding of man! Think for a moment of ...
— Elementary Theosophy • L. W. Rogers
... over the open face and then crawled back into the water which, as usual, was already forming in the hollows that our hips made where we lay. Until noon there was little heard but the thick breathing of weary men. Occasionally one tossed and shouted blasphemous warnings anent imaginary and bursting shells; whereat those within hearing whined in a tired and hopeless anger, and, if close by, ...
— The Escape of a Princess Pat • George Pearson
... about being called Lady Newcome. To manage the great house of Hobson brothers and Newcome, to attend to the interests of the enslaved negro: to awaken the benighted Hottentot to a sense of the truth; to convert Jews, Turks, Infidels, and Papists; to arouse the indifferent and often blasphemous mariner; to guide the washerwoman in the right way; to head all the public charities of her sect, and do a thousand secret kindnesses that none knew of; to answer myriads of letters, pension, endless ministers, ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... we understood but the concluding phrase, and that was the bitter and blasphemous carajo! that hissed through his teeth with the energetic aspiration ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... Pennsylvania having issued a special call to prayer in order to ward off the cholera, this clergyman refused to respond to the call, declaring that to do so, in the filthy condition of the streets then prevailing in Philadelphia, would be blasphemous. ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... a rough, blasphemous-mouthed, and violent-tempered man, and his second officer had arisen over ...
— John Frewen, South Sea Whaler - 1904 • Louis Becke
... "Blasphemous wretch!" cried the infuriated Heselrigge; and in that moment he plunged his sword into her defenseless breast. Halbert, who had all this time been held back by the soldiers, could not believe that the fierce governor would perpetrate the horrid deed he threatened; but seeing it done, with a giant's ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... blasphemous performances in a public-house, on the words, "Are you Saved?" he was challenged to go to the Salvation Barracks. He went, and the Captain, who knew him well, at once made for him, to plead for his soul, but S. knocked him down, ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... more mildly as containing errors in faith; the fourth, as to her knowledge of future events, was characterised as "superstitious and presumptuous divination." The fifth, concerning her dress, declared her to be "blasphemous and contemptuous of God in His Sacraments." The sixth, by which she was accused of loving bloodshed, because she made war against those who did not obey the summons in her letters bearing the name Jhesus Maria, was declared to prove that she was cruel, "seeking the shedding of blood, seditious, ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... idea that, as I approach my Maker, I profess to believe all those mummeries that I have hitherto dared to disbelieve and dispute. You know that I never joined in Saint Athanasius's Creed. All such unchristian denunciations I ever held, and I still hold, to be blasphemous impositions. Many of the forms of the church also are superstitious and ridiculous; but the moral precepts of the Christian faith are wise and good. I have never meddled in religious discussions; I have always formed my own opinion to the best of my judgment and ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... whether it be decided that the ministers of quoad sacra parishes have what has been termed a legal right to sit in ecclesiastical courts or no. The devout and honest church member has a right to be protected from the blasphemous profanities of the wretched minister who is a thief or wretched swindler; the chaste and sober have a right to be protected from the ministrations of the drunken and the obscene wretch, whose preaching is but mockery, and his dispensations of the sacrament sacrilege. ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... influences represented by it. A clause of an Act of Parliament, with all its whereases, and be it enacteds, and hereby repealeds, creates, it is said, quite as much emotion in them as the most brilliant burst of the fashionable poet of the day. They will set you up a psalm or a blasphemous ditty with the same equanimity, not retaining in their minds any clear distinction between them. Your writing must be something very wonderful indeed, before they distinguish it from other "copy," except by the goodness or badness ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... he know anything? Joe Weir didn't know, so how can this fellow know? Don't get scared at a shadow." It was the bearded, rough-tongued Burkhardt who spoke, concluding his words with a blasphemous oath. ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd
... assembly broke up, I waylaid him at the door. I spoke to him seriously. I told him what anguish such announcement of blasphemous opinions would inflict on his pious mother. I told him I should deem it my duty to inform Mademoiselle Cicogna, and warn her against the union on which he had told us his heart was bent. He appeared sincerely moved by what I said; implored ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... care. How sacred the spot where lie the parents that tended us, the bosom that shielded our infancy, the hands that carried our weakness everywhither. Men will always deem the desecration of the body or the grave blasphemous. The physical house, standing, is the temple of God; falling, it must forever be sacred in ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis
... did that which my duty compelled me to do. Seizing the slate, I smashed it to pieces with a powerful blow. I thought that the artist would rush upon me furiously, but he did not. To his weak mind my act seemed so blasphemous, so supernaturally horrible, that his deathlike lips ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev
... church door, they had heard sounds of flutes and timbrels, and mocking songs filling the place; and that the devil, dressed in skins and garlands like a wild man of the woods, had cleft the roof with his head, and disappeared with many blasphemous yells ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... their love-feast, with many extravagant gestures, cried out that she was 'young King Jesus,' I bade her take her seat, and then publicly read her out of membership, stating that we would not have such wild fanatics among us, meantime letting them all know that such expressions were even blasphemous. Poor Aunt Katy felt it deeply, repented, and in a month I took her back again. The effect was beneficial, and she became a rational and consistent member of the church." Joseph Travis, Autobiography (Nashville, ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... the silence of the cell: The dull, numb pain of waking, Stillness ... Fear clutching oblivion; And then to hear The brazen, blasphemous tolling of the bell, A crash of doors, Loud-clanging tins, The swell of brutal voices nearer and more near, Bursts at the last about you. Clangour. Queer delight of movement. Then ... the door shuts. Hell darkens about you with the turning key, The silence burns and sears ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... This shocking and blasphemous belief had taken such deep hold of my mind, that looked upon all religious exercises as perfectly useless. I could not fancy myself one of the elect, and so went from that extreme to the other. If I were to be saved, I should be saved; if a vessel of wrath, ...
— The Monctons: A Novel, Volume I • Susanna Moodie
... that's why I'm a sacrilegious, blasphemous person who doesn't care much about hearing about God. I associate Him with thin lips that shut together tight-and people who make long prayers and break little dogs' hearts—and with boots—and souls—that squeak. I can't think of one single thing I ever heard ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell
... once, and then it was but the rancorous word "Renegade!" nor did I speak at all; but Clark was blasphemous, and Gabord, bleeding, fought with ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... gleamed like satin; his bare back was propped against the heel of the bowsprit, and he held a book at arm's length before his big, sunburnt face. With his spectacles and a venerable white beard, he resembled a learned and savage patriarch, the incarnation of barbarian wisdom serene in the blasphemous turmoil of the world. He was intensely absorbed, and as he turned the pages an expression of grave surprise would pass over his rugged features. He was reading "Pelham." The popularity of Bulwer Lytton in the forecastles of ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... widowed Queen, who was now Empress of India. His successor, William Ewart Gladstone, the great leader of the Liberal party, was content with a less showy field. He had in 1869 relieved Ireland from the unjust burden of supporting a Church the tenets of which she considered blasphemous; and one which her own, the Roman Catholic, had for three centuries been trying to overthrow. We cannot wonder that the memory of a tyranny so odious is not easily effaced; nor that there is less gratitude for its ...
— The Evolution of an Empire • Mary Parmele
... shows its worst deformity! At eight or nine o'clock the low saloons are not so ghastly. At nine o'clock the victims are only talkative. At ten o'clock they are much flushed. At eleven o'clock their tongue is thick, and their hat occasionally falls from the head. At twelve they are nauseated and blasphemous, and not able to rise. At one they fall to the floor, asking for more drink. At two o'clock, unconscious and breathing hard. They would not fly though the house took fire. Soaked, imbruted, dead drunk! They are strewn all over the city, in the drinking saloons,—fathers, ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage
... Song of Songs is the Shulamite's love of a shepherd and her persistent resistance to the advances of Solomon, was first advanced in 1771 by J.F. Jacobi, and is now universally accepted by the commentators, the overwhelming majority of whom have also given up the artificial and really blasphemous allegorical interpretation of this poem once in vogue, but ignored in the Revised Version, as well as the notion that Solomon wrote the poem. Apart from all other arguments, which are abundant, it is absurd to suppose that Solomon would have written a drama to ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... shall be turned unto fables." 2 Tim. 4:4, 5. The religious world has apostatized much more since Paul's day, even to the extent in this modern age that professors of Christianity are proclaiming the blasphemous "God ...
— The Deacon of Dobbinsville - A Story Based on Actual Happenings • John A. Morrison
... price. Was it strange that a century or so of this kind of work should produce a Luther? Was it unnatural that plain people, who loved the ancient Church, should rather desire to see her purged of such blasphemous abuses, than to hear of St. Peter's dome rising a little nearer to the clouds on these proceeds ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Rama and Krishna we have already spoken. The ninth Avatara was that of Buddha, in which the deity descended for the purpose of deceiving men, making them deny the gods, and leading them to destruction. So blasphemous an idea may seem hardly possible, even for the bewildered mind of India; but this is doubtless the Brahmanical explanation of the rise and progress of Buddhism. It was fatal error, but inculcated by a divine being. Even the sickening tales of ...
— Two Old Faiths - Essays on the Religions of the Hindus and the Mohammedans • J. Murray Mitchell and William Muir
... hire them that make their wafers or sacramentarie gods to minge them after the same sort, so in the zeale of their superstitious religion, shall they languish and droup like carrion. If there be euer a blasphemous coniurer, that can call the windes from their brazen caues, and make the cloudes trauell before their time, Ile giue him the other hundred pounds to disturbe the heauens a whole weeke together with thunder and lightning, if it bee for nothing but ...
— The Vnfortunate Traveller, or The Life Of Jack Wilton - With An Essay On The Life And Writings Of Thomas Nash By Edmund Gosse • Thomas Nash
... a delightful book the other day—I can't remember the author's name, but I think it begins with K or P. It explained so clearly that if the universe was created at all, it was created by the human mind. Then you can't call Him Father—it is quite blasphemous; and it is almost as bad to say He is merciful or loving, or anything of that kind, because mercy and love are only human attributes; and so is consciousness too, therefore we know He cannot be conscious; and I believe, according to the highest philosophical teaching, He has not any ...
— Cecilia de Noel • Lanoe Falconer
... fanatic, went to America, where he was greatly admired by the Red Indians, 'because of his much converse with the devil'. The pious of Wodrow's date distrusted these luminous appearances, as they might be angelical, but might also be diabolical temptations to spiritual pride. Thus the blasphemous followers of Gibb were surrounded by a bright light, no less than pious Mr. Welsh, a very distinguished Presbyterian minister. Indeed, this was taken advantage of by Mr. Welsh's enemies, who, says his biographer Kirkton, 'were so bold as to call him no less than a wizard'. When Mr. Shields and ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang
... haunting reflection, and to the unhappiness it implied, he thought it through to the end—this strange, unsought knowledge, which had lain unsuspected in him, and now became articulate. Once considered, however, it made many things clear. He could even account to himself now, for the blasphemous suggestions that had plagued him not twenty-four hours ago. If he had then not, all unconsciously, had the feeling that Louise had known too long and too well what love was, to be willing to live without it, such thoughts as those would ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... of Laurence de Budos, then abbess. It was probably from pride at a privilege of this nature, and from a confidence in their strength, that the nuns persisted in celebrating the ridiculous, or, it might almost be called, blasphemous Fete des Fous, for a hundred years after the Council of Basle had decreed the suppression of it throughout Christendom. In imitation too of the Boy-Bishops of Bayeux, Salisbury, and other churches, the nuns of the Holy Trinity had ...
— Architectural Antiquities of Normandy • John Sell Cotman
... invigorate his creed. Either he cries out upon blasphemy and indecency, and crouches the closer round that little idol of part-truths and part-conveniences which is the contemporary deity, or he is convinced by what is new, forgets what is old, and becomes truly blasphemous and indecent himself. New truth is only useful to supplement the old; rough truth is only wanted to expand, not to destroy, our civil and often elegant conventions. He who cannot judge had better stick to fiction and the daily papers. There he will ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... empty, so that the Philistines entered thereinto without any opposition. They defiled this city of blasphemous colors, then burned it as a sacrifice to their god Vel-Tyno, because the color of ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... heretic or an apostate. Therefore it must also be false, that it is a divine command to be in connection with the Roman Church.[28] For whosoever keepeth one divine command, keepeth them all, and none can be kept without keeping the others[30]. Therefore it is an open and blasphemous lie against the Holy Ghost to say that the external unity under Roman authority is the fulfilment of a divine commandment, since there are so many in that unity who neither regard nor fulfil any of the Divine commandments. Hence, to be in this ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... wilder things, they say, follow the blessed St. Francis. So there sat Brother Thomas at the cross-roads, footsore, hungry, and sullen, in the midst of us, who dared not speak, he twanging at the string of his arbalest. He called himself our Moses, in his blasphemous way, and the blind man having girded at him for not leading us into the land of plenty, he had struck the man till he bled, and ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... of the Jackal to hear this! He fairly foamed at the mouth. "You blasphemous beast!" screamed he, "I'll teach you to abuse a God!" And with that he jumped down off his seat, ...
— The Talking Thrush - and Other Tales from India • William Crooke
... a lighted river steamer with steam up lay at the north bank, they ran in at the Apshodel wells. The steamer was small, and the nearly two hundred Americans—men, women, and children—crowded her capacity. Blasphemous greetings of pure joy and geniality were exchanged between the men, and Habert learned that the steamboat was waiting for his Billy Boy, who, astride a horse, was rounding up isolated drilling gangs who had not yet learned that the United ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London
... the room one would have picked for great stamina and courage, yet playing one of the leading roles in this crisis; the merchant Truett, towering above all the rest; Farwell, direct, uncompromising, inspired with tremendous single-minded earnestness; James Dows, of the rough and ready, humorous, blasphemous, horse-sense type; Hossefross, of the Committee of '51; Dr. Beverly Cole, high-spirited, distinguished-looking, and courtly; Isaac Bluxome, whose signature of "33 Secretary" was to become terrible, and who also had served well in 1851. These and many more ...
— The Forty-Niners - A Chronicle of the California Trail and El Dorado • Stewart Edward White
... great impression in my youth Was made by Mrs. Adams, where she cries, "That Scriptures out of church are blasphemous." ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... the boating company. The work was not congenial. For one thing, although sea sickness has never troubled me on board ship, I was constantly ill when in a lighter. Moreover, the boatmen with whom I had constantly to associate were unintermittently foul-mouthed and blasphemous. I was not easily shocked; the men with whom I had for years foregathered were much given to realism of speech, as well as to picturesquely lurid verbal illustration. But this was different; the language of these men was crammed with filth for filth's sake, and flat, pointless profanity. I have ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully
... tell me that he heard another speak certain dangerous and seditious speeches, and I should immediately accuse him for speaking them himself; and so drop the only circumstance that made him innocent. This was the case of St Stephen. The false witness said, "This man ceaseth not to speak blasphemous words against this holy place and the law."[4] Whereas St Stephen said no such words; but only repeated some prophecies of Jeremiah or Malachi, which threatened Jerusalem with destruction if it did not repent. However, by the fury of the people, this innocent ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift
... vestry. His uncle, the curate, and Mr. Graves were still in their surplices. Mr. Carey gave him the remains of the consecrated bread and told him he might eat it. He had been accustomed to eat it himself, as it seemed blasphemous to throw it away, but Philip's keen appetite relieved him from the duty. Then they counted the money. It consisted of pennies, sixpences and threepenny bits. There were always two single shillings, one put in ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... Nothing remains the same except the names and dates. Each side chooses its own witnesses. Everything is credible which makes for what it calls the truth. Everything is made false which will not fit into its place. 'Blasphemous fables' is the usual expression in Protestant controversial books for the accounts given by Catholics. 'Protestant tradition,' says an eminent modern Catholic, 'is based on ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... we beseech thee, O master, for thine own sake refrain From the blasphemous madness of pride, from ...
— Twilight Stories • Various
... example of severity alluded to above, however, this practice is on the decline. Even Pigault-Lebrun, a popular but immoral novel writer, narrowly escaped lately a trip to Cayenne for one of his blasphemous publications, and owes to the protection of Madame Murat exclusively that he was not sent to keep Varennes and Beaujou company. Some years ago, when Madame Murat was neither so great nor so rich as at present, he presented her with a copy ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... but so complete was his abandonment, for the time being, to the enjoyment of evil, that he was constantly assailed with the temptation to make some public demonstration of his state of feeling. He secretly longed to shock people with blasphemous or imprudent expressions; to outrage all honor by stealing his host's spoons when he dined out; his fancy rioted in whimsical evil of which, of course, he gave no ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... Is it not blasphemous to assume that God would blame us and withhold his aid because we dared to use the faculties, capacities, and powers with which he has endowed us? You say, "Nobody is foolish enough to claim such things." But this is the teaching of a powerful healing-cult. Its members ...
— Nature Cure • Henry Lindlahr
... without performing; and so again, till you had clipt the whole tongue away from him,—and were delivered, you and he, from at least one miserable mockery: "There, eloquent friend, see now in silence if there be any redeeming deed in thee; of blasphemous wind-eloquence, at least, we shall have no more!" How many pretty men have gone this road, escorted by the beautifulest marching music from all the "public organs;" and have found at last that it ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle
... recorded experiences of two well-known historic characters. Islam honors David, King of Israel, and accords him a place among its accredited prophets. Both David and Mohammed were guilty of adultery under circumstances of peculiar aggravation. Mohammed covered his offence by a blasphemous pretence of special revelations from God, justifying his crime and chiding him for such qualms of conscience as he had. David lay in dust and ashes while he bemoaned not only the consequences of ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood
... the horror of the spectacle grew upon me: it presented itself no longer as a picture to my imagination, but as a fearful fact. The crowd of people who forced their way into the room—the blasphemous and terrible expressions—the coarse jokes—the vulgar, obscene language—the poor child, not fashioned tenderly, but lying like a confused mass of clothes and gore upon the floor, perfectly sickened my heart. And when I thought ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... an hour's running to and fro before the scattered flock could be herded once more. An hour of panting and blasphemous pursuit, at the very outset of an overbusy day. And all because of one ...
— His Dog • Albert Payson Terhune
... poor devil of a French tradesman who, like Captain Booth, had infringed the laws of strict chastity and virtue. He brooded on this till he became deranged, and thought that Satan had him. He was convulsed, anaesthetic, suicidal, involuntarily blasphemous. He was not 'exorcised' by a prayer or by a command, but after a long course of mental and physical treatment. His cure does not explain the cures in which Dr. Nevius believed. His case did not present the features of which Dr. Nevius asked science for ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... Rome fortunately cannot control thought!"—I said—"Not even the thoughts of its own children! And some of the beliefs of the Church of Rome are more blasphemous and barbarous than all the paganism of the ancient world! Tell me, what are my ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... he would expatiate on the beauty of the green downs over which he had just ridden, the wooded slopes in their glorious autumn colours, and the rich villages between; this would remind him of Malthus, that blasphemous monster who had dared to say that the increase in food production did not keep pace with increase of population; then a quieting down, a breathing-space, all about the turnip crop, the price of eggs at Weyhill Fair, and the delights of hare coursing, ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... more shaken, and in the memorandum of his early days, after enumerating the books treating upon religious subjects which he had read, he says: "All very tedious. I hate books treating of religious subjects; although I adore and love God, freed from all absurd and blasphemous notions." ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... authority of Sacred Scripture, that God commands the sinner to commit new iniquities and that the process of justification with its so-called dispositions consists in a series of sinful acts. Such an assumption would be manifestly absurd and blasphemous. ...
— Grace, Actual and Habitual • Joseph Pohle
... except it be come all redy, and secretly runne among them. But in the meane whyle, ther is come ouer a nother booke againste the blessed sacrament, a booke of that sorte, that Frythe's booke the brethren maye nowe forbeare. For more blasphemous and more bedelem rype then thys booke is were that booke harde to be, whyche is yet madde enough, as men say that haue ...
— Notes and Queries 1850.03.23 • Various
... Col. ii: 8-17, for the same point of time. How could Christ annul any law twice. First, at his preaching and second at his death, three and a half years apart. Your argument is groundless and futile; therefore the uncalled for blasphemous language of yours, that the Jews were right in killing him (the Son of God) as a notorious Sabbath breaker, will fall on your guilty head. Hear the proof: "They that forsake the law praise the wicked.—He that turneth away his ear from hearing the law, even ...
— A Vindication of the Seventh-Day Sabbath • Joseph Bates
... are strongly condemned by Socrates as sinful and blasphemous towards the god Love, and as worthy only of some haunt of sailors to which good manners were unknown. The meaning of this and other wild language to the same effect, which is introduced by way of contrast to the formality ...
— Phaedrus • Plato
... perceiveth, that partly through the malicious suggestion of our gostly enemy, partly by the yvell and perverse inclination and sedicious disposition of sundry persons, divers heresies and erronio[us] [o]pinions have ben late sowen and spredde amonge his subjectes of this his said realme, by blasphemous and pestiferous englishe bokes, printed in other regions and sent into this realme, to the entent as well to perverte and withdrawe the people from the catholike and true fayth of Christe, as also to stirre and incense them to sedition and disobedience ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 183, April 30, 1853 • Various
... surprised when old Ambrosia Moreno entered the church and, with Ysidria, knelt through the service. Madre Moreno had not been to service or confession since her father's death, indeed I had heard her once make a blasphemous jest about the most holy Mass, and good Padre Andreas at San Anselmo, in whose flock she was the blackest sheep, gave her up as lost here and hereafter; so there was much surprise at the Madre's action. Catalina was simply indignant at this ...
— The Beautiful Eyes of Ysidria • Charles A. Gunnison
... faces before my eyes; no longer rang in my ears those harsh voices—harsher from jests, ribald and blasphemous utterings. No; I saw only the jovial face of my companion; I heard only his cheerful voice—more cheerful because he too was in high spirits with the prospect ...
— Ran Away to Sea • Mayne Reid
... "blasphemous" article through, only pausing to point out heresies and perversions of the sacred truth as he went along. But when he reached the sentence in which the author calmly asserts the theory of monism, he actually gagged with indignation: "My child, do you know that this godless wretch claims that ...
— The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance • Paul Elmer More
... offense against the Second Commandment, the sin of profane swearing, the calling upon God to witness the truth of every second word we utter. It betrays in a man a very weak sense of his own honesty when he cannot let his words stand for themselves. It betokens a blasphemous disrespect for God Himself, represented by that name which is made a convenient tool to further every vulgar end. It is therefore criminal and degrading, and the guilt thereby incurred cannot be palliated by the plea of habit. A sin is none the less ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... penmen and the word of God? when it is as evident as demonstration can make truth appear, that the persons who ye say are the authors, are not the authors, and that ye know not who the authors are. What shadow of pretence have ye now to produce for continuing the blasphemous fraud? What have ye still to offer against the pure and moral religion of deism, in support of your system of falsehood, idolatry, and pretended revelation? Had the cruel and murdering orders, with which the Bible ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... passed through the heavens and during that time He has been rejected by the world. Every possible dishonor, insult and shame has been heaped upon His holy head through the instrumentality of the enemy, the devil. Never before has the rejection of the Man in Glory been so pronounced, so radical, so blasphemous as now. Those who love the Lord Jesus Christ are constantly seized by an unspeakable grief on account of these awful denials of the Christ of God and an horror as well. And still He patiently waits. But He will not always wait. His ...
— The Lord of Glory - Meditations on the person, the work and glory of our Lord Jesus Christ • Arno Gaebelein
... from under it, and the inscription stated: "By calling on Jesus, Mary and Joseph, the girl was happily rescued." Many of the shrines had images which the people no doubt, in their ignorance and simplicity, considered holy, but they were to us impious and almost blasphemous. ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... and petted him, and mourned in secret over his miserable upbringing, but who, having no store of words to tell her thoughts, could only be dumbly kind to him, and careful of his childish hurts and ailments; the boy ate and drank with the men, and aped their swaggering and blasphemous ways, which made them laugh and praise his cunning. The Lord Marmaduke had been nursed back into a sort of poor life, and sate all day in a fur gown in the solar, with a velvet cap on his head to hide his wound, which broke out afresh in the month of May, when ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... listened to the intemperate, the blasphemous, and almost obscene invective of that tirade with a detachment that afterwards, in retrospect, surprised him. He was so amazed by the man, by the reactions taking place in him between mind and body, and by his methods ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... nature's sanctuary, where the grandeur of God's works, without any of the disfigurement of man, is all that remains to you now. I welcome you, my poor fallen son;' and he stretched out his hand. But our hero simply gave the blasphemous vagabond a look of scorn ...
— The Four Canadian Highwaymen • Joseph Edmund Collins
... that a wrangling wit would elude these reasons which he had given, and he had no other reasons to give, therefore he resolves all into the church's practice,—enough of itself to suffice any that will be wise to sobriety. Ans. If any seem to be blasphemous, we have no such custom, neither the churches of God. What! shall a wrangling wit elude the reasons given by the Spirit of God, in such sort, that he must give some other more sufficient proof for that which he teacheth? Then the whole Scriptures of God must yet be better proved, ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... was to be made by the little horn of Dan. 7, and the man of sin of 2 Thess. 2; and the only change that has been made in it, is the change of the Sabbath. Now, if Christ made this change, he filled the office of the blasphemous power spoken of by both Daniel and Paul—a conclusion sufficiently hideous to drive any Christian from the view which ...
— The United States in the Light of Prophecy • Uriah Smith
... of the Sum of Theology," by Thomas Aquinas, question 94, p. 230, "Sums" up all the Romish system in this comprehensively blasphemous oracular adage. "By the command of God, it is lawful to murder the innocent, to rob, and to commit lewdness; and thus to fulfil his ...
— Awful Disclosures - Containing, Also, Many Incidents Never before Published • Maria Monk
... versatile Gervase Markham inscribed to Southampton, in a sonnet, his patriotic poem on Sir Richard Grenville's glorious fight off the Azores. Markham was not content to acknowledge with Barnes the inspiriting force of his patron's eyes, but with blasphemous temerity asserted that the sweetness of his lips, which stilled the music of the spheres, delighted the ear of Almighty God. Markham's ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... and to point out that there are mental troubles, much worse than mere worry, for which an absorbing object of thought may serve as a remedy. There are sceptical thoughts, which seem for the moment to uproot the firmest faith: there are blasphemous thoughts, which dart unbidden into the most reverent souls: there are unholy thoughts, which torture with their hateful presence the fancy that would fain be pure. Against all these some real mental work is a most helpful ally. That "unclean spirit" ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
... "boys," Tagalog cargadores, Lascar serangs, stalwart Sikh watchmen from the hemp and sugar godowns, squat Germans in white suits with pencils stuck in their sun helmets and wearing amber-coloured spectacles. British clerks with cargo lists, customs brokers, barking mates with blasphemous vocabularies, Scotch mechanics with parched throats, and all the underlings who have to do with ...
— Isle o' Dreams • Frederick F. Moore
... was unlike them, one adored of dead and living, one to be cherished even in her dreams, one whom "Heaven Above," together with those who had "gone below," built round with a wall of spells?—and more of such talk, which Thomas thought so horrible and blasphemous that he fled before ...
— Smith and the Pharaohs, and Other Tales • Henry Rider Haggard
... exonerating and excusing the Emperor: "Let no one tremble on account of this edict which they so shamefully invent and publish in the name of the pious Emperor. And should they not publish their lies in the name of a pious Emperor, when their entire blasphemous, abominable affair was begun and maintained for over six hundred years in the name of God and the Holy ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... child! You silly baby! You wicked, horrible, sacrilegious girl!" Brinnaria stormed. "You irreligious, atheistical, blasphemous wretch! To save your hide you'd desecrate the temple, pollute the Altar, anger Vesta, make all our prayers in vain, bring down curses without count on Rome and all of us. Be silent! Don't you dare to speak another word! Off to bed ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... now, and with the gathering dusk a damp mist descended on Montmartre. From the wall opposite, where the men sat playing cards, came occasional volleys of blasphemous oaths. Bibot was feeling much more like himself. He had half forgotten the incident of the six carriers, which had occurred nearly half an ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... of Borneo, and armless wonders, many of them well in their cups, all of them excited and happy and dazzled by the flow of light and color round them, and by the familiar faces, strangely unfamiliar under bizarre wigs and barbaric paint. The voluptuous chords of the wedding march done in blasphemous syncopation issued in a delirious blend from the trombones and saxophones—and the ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... this metropolis no Church official held a more prominent station than the "Superintendent," or Lutheran bishop, of the neighbouring Altmark. It was this dignitary, Andreas Celichius by name, who at Magdeburg, in 1578, gave to the press his Theological Reminder of the New Comet. After deprecating as blasphemous the attempt of Aristotle to explain the phenomenon otherwise than as a supernatural warning from God to sinful man, he assures his hearers that "whoever would know the comet's real source and nature must not merely gape and stare at the ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... yet; I with sorrow repeat, And O! that the number were less; 'Tis the blasphemous crew: What a pattern they'll shew To their ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous
... itched, and I could hardly keep from loudly applauding the acting priest or the preaching actor; but I did not forget that at least the place of comedy was really sacred, although profaned by a parcel of blasphemous roysterers, and so I held ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai
... trusted Christ. But their moral feet would get badly messed that night, mired and slimed by passionate betrayal and blasphemous denial and cowardly flight. The man going to the bath-house was clean on returning home except where his sandalled feet had gathered some soil from the road. These men were cleansed in heart through Christ. But the foot-soilings must be cleansed. These two ...
— Quiet Talks on John's Gospel • S. D. Gordon
... But her husband went on droning his commonplaces, phrases that meant nothing to her, that were strange to her, and that seemed blasphemous in the room ...
— The Inferno • Henri Barbusse
... "A bold idea! singularly blasphemous, arrogant, and—fortunately for us all—impracticable! Allow me to remark that you are overexcited, Mr. Alwyn; you talk as madmen may, but as reasonable men should not. Come," and he smiled,—a smile that was both grave ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... he prayed, "to touch yet the callous heart of this obdurate, incorrigible sinner, this wicked, perjured and blasphemous ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... the silver bridle has been saying that. If I said it—!" thought the little man. But people marvelled when the master was disobeyed even in the wildest things. This half-caste girl seemed to him, seemed to every one, mad—blasphemous almost. The little man, by way of comparison, reflected on the gaunt rider with the scarred lip, as stalwart as his master, as brave and, indeed, perhaps braver, and yet for him there was obedience, nothing but to give obedience ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells
... was still before the courts of justice it was condemned by the House of Commons as a "false, scandalous, and seditious libel." The House of Lords at the same time voted a pamphlet found among Wilkes's papers to be blasphemous, and advised a prosecution. Though Pitt at once denounced the course of the two Houses as unconstitutional, his protest, like that of Shelburne in the Lords, proved utterly ineffectual; and Wilkes, who fled in terror to France, was expelled at the opening of 1764 from the House of Commons. ...
— History of the English People, Volume VII (of 8) - The Revolution, 1683-1760; Modern England, 1760-1767 • John Richard Green
... our ephemeral philosophers. This nation suffers a good deal from lack of humour in high places: our Great Pachyderms have all Won their Way to the Top by a Resolute Struggle. But Don has just chuckled and gone on refusing to answer letters or fill out Mr. Purinton's blasphemous efficiency charts or join the Poetry Society or attend community masques. And somehow all these things seem to melt away, and you look round the map and see Don Marquis taking up all the scenery.... He has such an oecumenical ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley
... and wits were ever busier than in any other part of Greece, I find but only two sorts of writings which the magistrate cared to take notice of; those either blasphemous and atheistical, or libelous. Thus the books of Protagoras were by the judges of Areopagus commanded to be burnt, and himself banished the territory for a discourse begun with his confessing not to know "whether there ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume III (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland I • Francis W. Halsey
... What he had before regarded with reluctance and terror, this book taught him to admire and love. The writer has the art of the grand deceiver; the fatal art of carrying the worst poison under the name and appearance of wholesome food; of disguising all that is impious, or blasphemous, or licentious, under the ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... before him in graver terms than he had ever done before the weight of the judgment of an offended God, and the fearful retribution that would certainly overtake the ungodly. Reuben lighted his cigar with the letter, not unfeelingly, but indifferently, and ventured even upon a blasphemous joke with his companions. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... the matter with you! Some of Flossie's relatives have heard about that, and they've been teasing her mother to try it. I'm sure I'd try anything that wasn't blasphemous." ...
— Jewel's Story Book • Clara Louise Burnham
... tyranny of his reign. But the ordinary doings of a tyrant were not the worst things about William Rufus. Effeminate fashions, vices horrible and unheard-of in England, flourished at his court and threatened to corrupt the nation. The fearful profanity of the king, his open and blasphemous defiance of God, made men tremble, and those who were nearest to him testified "that he every morning got up a worse man than he lay down, and every evening lay down a worse man than ...
— The History of England From the Norman Conquest - to the Death of John (1066-1216) • George Burton Adams
... strict accountability for all the deeds done in the body. To deny this, is to deny the whole doctrine of freewill agency, and with it that of all human responsibility, unless we go to the other and blasphemous extreme of branding with cruelty and injustice the entire system of revealed religion. In consequence, then, of this independent action of spirit, we see the soul of man constantly departing from its normal state, effecting evil as well ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 5, November, 1863 • Various
... Part, we have been considering customs practised chiefly in houses, streets, and fields. We must now turn to certain festivities following hard upon Christmas Day, which, though pagan in origin and sometimes even blasphemous, found their way in the Middle Ages within the ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles
... will, sir, and those of your accomplices here (indicating Burgoyne and Swindon): I see little divinity about them or you. You talk to me of Christianity when you are in the act of hanging your enemies. Was there ever such blasphemous nonsense! (To Swindon, more rudely) You've got up the solemnity of the occasion, as you call it, to impress the people with your own dignity—Handel's music and a clergyman to make murder look like piety! Do you suppose I am going to help you? You've ...
— The Devil's Disciple • George Bernard Shaw
... as a general testimony to the same point, may be produced what was said by one of the bishops of the council of Carthage, which was holden a little before this time:—"I am of opinion that blasphemous and wicked heretics, who pervert the sacred and adorable words of the Scripture, should be execrated." Undoubtedly, what they perverted they received. ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley
... dreadful, blasphemous and abominable things that Tom is probably thinking about me as I climb on to his car. He is visibly disgusted with his orders. That he, a Red Cross Field Ambulance chauffeur, should be told to drive four—or is it all five?—women to look at the massing of the French troops ...
— A Journal of Impressions in Belgium • May Sinclair
... a born orator, a prolific author, a scientific ecclesiastic, a strong democratic leader of men, an admirable organizer, and perhaps the most brilliant journalist in Holland; but beyond this, he is a staunch Protestant of the strictest Calvinistic type, to whom the Roman Catholic Church is a blasphemous and idolatrous institution. In 1879 he created the 'Society for Higher Education on a Reformed Basis,' and in 1880 his 'Free University' was consecrated in the 'Nieuwe Kerk' (the New Church) at Amsterdam, Dr. Kuyper ever since the opening acting as one ...
— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough
... so that she cannot err in faith or morals. If the Church made us pray to persons who are not saints, she would fall into the worst of errors, and Our Lord would have failed to keep His promise—a saying that would be blasphemous, for Christ, being God, is infinitely true and could not deceive or be deceived. To canonize, therefore, does not mean to make a saint, but to declare to the whole world that such a one was a saint while upon earth. After death we cannot merit, so our reward in Heaven will be just what ...
— Baltimore Catechism No. 4 (of 4) - An Explanation Of The Baltimore Catechism of Christian Doctrine • Thomas L. Kinkead
... fragments of Ablard's writings to judge from, which have been collected by M. Cousin—Ouvrages indits d'Ablard—and therefore cannot speak with certain knowledge of his opinions. At least they were judged to be blasphemous and heretical by the Council of Soissons, when he was condemned to commit his books to the flames and to retire to the Convent of St. Denys. Some years later, when he had recovered from the horrible mutilation to which he had been subjected ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield
... of Gabriel fought, And with fierce Ensigns pierc'd the deep array Of Moloc, furious King, who him defy'd, And at his chariot wheels to drag him bound Threatened, nor from the Holy one of Heavn Refrain'd his tongue blasphemous; but anon Down cloven to the waste, with shatter'd arms And uncouth ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele |
