"Graven image" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... himself alone in some strange crypt before a basin, shell-shaped and shallow, bearing in its centre a rounded column of less than human height, whose smooth and spherical summit was wreathed with flowers. Lamps similarly formed, and fed with oil of palm, hung above it. There was no other graven image, no visible divinity. Flowers of countless varieties lay heaped upon the pavement; they covered its surface like a carpet, thick, soft; they exhaled their ghosts beneath his feet. The perfume seemed to penetrate his brain,—a perfume sensuous, intoxicating, unholy; an ...
— Some Chinese Ghosts • Lafcadio Hearn
... deeply. "If you desire to freshen yourself a bit after your profound slumbers, you will find here some of the finest water in the universe and a towel warranted to produce a blush upon the cheek of a graven image." ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... talkative person, sat close, but as dumb as a graven image; no house near, and only the twinkling lights of several the other side of the valley visible. On a knoll just below them she knew were a few score of white headstones, among them her mother's, and when there was a moon she could see ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn
... have been penned by Albrecht Durer or William Morris. The commandment, "Thou shalt not make unto thyself any graven image," was unmistakably made merely to correct a local evil: the tendency to worship the image instead of the thing it symbolized. People who do not contribute to the creation of an object fall easy victims to this error. With all the stern good sense that Moses revealed, it is but fair to assume ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... don't know what—something to keep me from coming into that money. I'm afraid a tree will fall on me—I'm afraid a cab will run over me, or a stone drop on me from a housetop, or something. I never was afraid before. I've sat in this park a hundred nights as calm as a graven image without knowing where my breakfast was to come from. But now it's different. I love money, Dawson—I'm happy as a god when it's trickling through my fingers, and people are bowing to me, with the music and the flowers ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... externals of worship, the tendency to take the type for the reality is sternly repressed. It is only when we think of the bulls and the hawks, of the deified cats and sacred ichneumons of Egypt, that we realize the full meaning of the command—"Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven image!" ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... nor the other. Scripture supports our view, as in Deuteronomy 4, 15: "Take ye therefore good heed of yourselves; for ye saw no manner of form on the day that the Lord spake unto you in Horeb out of the midst of the fire: lest ye corrupt yourselves, and make you a graven image in the form of any figure, the likeness of male or female, the likeness of any beast that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged fowl that flieth in the heaven; the likeness of anything that creepeth on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the water under the earth: ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik
... commandment is, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me;" and that Pharaoh indignantly asks, "Who is Jehovah that I should obey his voice? I know not God:" and that the second is, "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image," etc., and would have paused before alleging that these commands were engraved on the very temples of idols, and by the priests of the birds, and beasts, and images of creeping things which they adored. It is very doubtful if they believed in the existence of one supreme God, as most of the ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... I have made a discovery for which all prose writers ought to feel much indebted to me. Poets can invoke Apollo, the Muses, the seasons, and all sorts and varieties of gods and goddesses, naked or clothed, besides virtues and vices, and if none of them suit, they may make their own graven image, and fall down before it; but we prose writers have hitherto had no such advantage, no protecting deity to appeal to in our trouble, as we bite our pens, or to call upon to deliver us from a congestion of the brain. Now being aware that there were upwards of three hundred and fifty thousand ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... found that the interiors of no less than thirty churches inside the walls had been utterly destroyed. Not a graven image, scarcely a picture, remained in ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston
... a pretty good spur to a weary man. But what we need is a more general application of the same thing for public and not for private use, until people understand that a graven thought is as beautiful an ornament as any graven image, striking through the eye right deep ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle
... shall be saved in the Lord with an everlasting salvation: ye shall not be ashamed nor confounded world without end: I am the Lord, and there is none else. I said not unto the seed of Jacob, Seek ye me in vain. They have no knowledge that set up the wood of their graven image, and pray unto a god that cannot save. There is no god beside me; a just God and a Saviour; there is none beside me. Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is ...
— Primitive Christian Worship • James Endell Tyler
... latter struck a tree above his head and severed a leafy twig. It came floating down, touched his shoulder like an accolade and rested on the pine needles by his foot. He gave it no attention, sitting like a graven image with clasped hands, listening to the South Carolinian's report. Hampton ceased to speak and waited. It was the height of the afternoon. He stood three minutes in silence, perhaps, then glanced toward the man on the log. Jackson's eyes were closed, his head slightly lifted. "Praying?" ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... God, which liberated thee from the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage. Ye shall have no other gods. Ye shall not make to yourselves any graven image, nor any likeness that is in heaven above or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the waters under the earth. Ye shall not bow down to them nor serve them. I am God, your God. Sanctify ... ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 401, September 8, 1883 • Various
... I don't know what your mother said to Olaf over the telephone, but he came back looking as if he'd seen a ghost, and he didn't go to bed until a dreadful hour—ten o'clock, I should think. He sat out on the porch in the dark like a graven image. It had been one of his talkative days, too." They both laughed, easily and lightly, like people who have laughed a great deal together; but they ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... and—flattered—Joseph entered into conversation with him, resisting, however, the sculptor's repeated invitation that Joseph should come to sit to him—if not for a statue, for a bust at least. But a bust is a graven image, Joseph answered, and as the point was being debated a rich merchant came by, riding a white horse that curveted splendidly, and Joseph, who was interested in the horse, referred the difficulty they were engaged in to the merchant. ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... voice, and in complete neglect of the use of strong potions—he was the absolute antithesis of his companions. Yet his path was not an easy one to tread, for over him he had the misfortune to have placed in authority a Chief Clerk who was a graven image of elderly insensibility and inertia. Always the same, always unapproachable, this functionary could never in his life have smiled or asked civilly after an acquaintance's health. Nor had any one ever seen ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... that and more too. I told her it showed he'd make a good provider. She looked at me solemn as a graven image all the time I was talkin' and not a word out of her. But that's Ruth Mary. I never said the child was sullen, but she is just like your sister Ruth—the more she feels, the ...
— In Exile and Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... well. Nor had he neglected to give thought to the religion of his times. Every day he went into the temple to bow down in devout worship of the heathen gods, to take part in the rites and ceremonies of his faith, and even to offer sacrifice to Thor and Odin. The graven image of Odin was to him, as to most of the Norsemen, a sacred and a holy thing. When he took oath it was by the sign of Thor's hammer that he swore; he knew the names and the special powers of all the gods in Asgard, ...
— Olaf the Glorious - A Story of the Viking Age • Robert Leighton
... have, and thus to do, Antichrist has attempted. But how? In that he has been so bold as to prescribe and impose a worship besides, and without reverence of that which God has prescribed and imposed: For to do this, is, to make one's self a God. 'Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or the likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them': For he that thus doth, is an idolater; and he that these things doth impose, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... shy animals, and the slightest movement will frighten them away. Therefore the seal hunter must stand perfectly still, like a graven image, with harpoon poised, and that is pretty cold work in zero weather. If luck is with him he will after a time see a small movement in the water, and a moment later a seal's nose will appear. Then like a flash of lightning, he casts the harpoon, and if his aim is good, as it usually is, ...
— The Story of Grenfell of the Labrador - A Boy's Life of Wilfred T. Grenfell • Dillon Wallace
... wife. They were 'any graven image, or the likeness of any thing that is in Heaven above, or in the earth beneath, or in the waters under the earth.' Not a word touching false gods ...
— All's Well - Alice's Victory • Emily Sarah Holt
... have in my mind. As you know, then, it amounted almost to a declaration of war against England—almost, but not quite. It was a case of saying too much or of not saying enough; however, it was not followed up, and the Premier has been as dumb as a graven image ever since. England has many enemies in different parts of the world, but I must confess that this speech by the Austrian Premier came as a surprise. There must have been something hidden, which is not visible from the outside. ...
— Jennie Baxter, Journalist • Robert Barr
... startle you, but there are things I absolutely have to know, and this is my one chance. I am entirely determined not to let it slip. Talk to me, please, not to them. As you have doubtless noticed, though excellent people where the things not flatly of this world are concerned, my uncle is a graven image and my aunt is a deaf mute. As for me, I am just unbalanced enough to understand anything." He was aware of the rustle of consternation behind him and hurried on, ignoring that and whatever else might be happening there. "That's what ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... But, like a graven image, Black Auster kept his place, And ever wistfully he looked Into his master's face. The raven-mane that daily, With pats and fond caresses, The young Herminia washed and combed, And twined in even ...
— Lays of Ancient Rome • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... my dear, but done in wood; and she wasn't the graven image that makes her out to be. That's as most people saw her; as the fellow that painted her saw her; but she had another side to her. She disapproved of me rather, because I was squeezing the orange dry, and trying to find yesterday's ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... that," commanded Jerry. "Of course it's hard—but that's the punishment of it. I could eat a graven image this very minute, but am I complaining? Let's think of something else. We've just got ...
— Rainbow Valley • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... and Winterbotham, the Town Clerk, remained. Then Lady Fenimore joined us. We were about a score, myself perched on the edge and corner of the platform, the rest standing on the floor of the hall in a sector round me, Marigold, of course, in the middle of them by my side, like an ill-graven image. As soon as she could Lady Fenimore ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... few minutes she disappeared and the next thing the professor saw was Kit trying to embrace a stout old squaw. But the two years separation from Indian Mary had made Kit a stranger to her, at least one would judge so by the graven image attitude she ...
— The Merriweather Girls in Quest of Treasure • Lizette M. Edholm
... material out of which to manufacture faith for the future. My own judgment is that for the Democrats, McDonald is as strong a man as they can get. He is a man of most excellent sense and would be regarded as a safe man. Tilden? He is dead, and he occupies no stronger place in the general heart than a graven image. With no magnetism, he has nothing save ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... fellow!' cried Ralston, the fun rioting in his eyes by this time, though his features were as still as those of a graven image. ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... was thin and pale, she decided at once that she needed a health talk. Pearl sat like a graven image while Mrs. Francis conscientiously tried to stir up in her the seeds ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung
... confidence, that Twiggs can re-dye his reputation, or any deep-sea-soundings fish up Maury's drowned honor. But the influence of the States is gone with that of their representatives. They may worship the graven image of President Lincoln in Mobile; they may do homage to the ample stuffed regimentals of General Butler in Charleston; but it will not make the nation forget. Could their whole delegation resume its seat in Congress ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... all the life it has," replied Fitz, solemn as a graven image, blowing a cloud of smoke ...
— Colonel Carter of Cartersville • F. Hopkinson Smith
... something modest and manly about not attempting to express our greatest poet in the plastic arts in which we do not excel. We honour Shakspere as the Jews honour God—by not daring to make of him a graven image. Our sculpture, our statues, are good enough for bankers and philanthropists, who are our curse: not good enough for him, who is our benediction. Why should we celebrate the very art in which we triumph by the very art in which ...
— All Things Considered • G. K. Chesterton
... Arethusa's absence and was now engaged in climbing first into one big chair and then another, and bounding out. It was a charming pastime, but one in which Helen Louise had refused to join. She still sat just as at first, like a small graven image, with stiff little flaxen plaits sticking out from each side of her head, and staring straight before her, with unblinking pale blue eyes, at the log fire. Her small hands were clasped between her rigid little knees, and her feet, owing to the fact ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox
... there's Harry Lauder coming, is there? And he's the funniest wee man in the halls, is he? He'd make a graven image laugh, would he? Well, I'll be seeing! Maybe he can make me laugh— maybe no. ...
— Between You and Me • Sir Harry Lauder
... part thereof in the fire; with part thereof he eateth flesh; he roasteth roast, and is satisfied: yea, he warmeth himself, and saith, Aha, I am warm, I have seen the fire: And the residue thereof he maketh a god, even his graven image: he falleth down unto it, and worshippeth it, and prayeth unto it, and saith, Deliver me, for thou art ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote
... wife, however. She was deeply wounded, as well as humiliated. She recognized that her god and the rector's were not the same. Hers was self. He had made peace with his Master; but her heart was still hard; and her god was only a graven image. ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... addressed to him. One night, some days after her arrival, she developed a skittishness of manner which has since disappeared, and tried to be playful with him; but you might as well try to be playful with a graven image. The wife of one of the servants had just produced a boy, the first after a series of five daughters, and at dinner we drank the health of all parties concerned, the Man of Wrath making the happy father drink a glass off at one gulp, his heels well together in military fashion. ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp
... no orator has pronounced a panegyric; no poet has embalmed their memory in song, and no novelist has taken their record for a fanciful story. Since their mission was a failure their memory is doomed to rest without marble monument or graven image. To the merciful and the just they will be honored as heroes ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... like a graven image, but vouchsafed no reply. Stane lay there wondering if it had anything to do with Miskodeed, and finally, recalling the girl's dramatic appearance at the very moment when he had been stricken ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns
... she goes! White foam on green water, and the steamer slewing round. How good that looks! I'll sketch it. No, I can't. I'm afflicted with ophthalmia. That was one of the ten plagues of Egypt, and it extends up the Nile in the shape of cataract. Ha! that's a joke, Torp. Laugh, you graven image, and stand clear of the hawser. . . . It'll knock you into the water and make your dress all ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... somewhere, whooping-cough or no whooping-cough, in order to get to Heaven; so Mark took them to the Chapel of Ease at Ilford, where the Virgin Mary in a blue dress stood on a sort of step over the door. Mamma said you were not to worship her, though you might look at her. She was a graven image. Only Roman Catholics worshipped graven images; they were heretics; that meant that they were shut outside the Church of England, which was God's Church, and couldn't get in. And they had only half a Sunday. ...
— Mary Olivier: A Life • May Sinclair
... rights, Mrs. Hunter, I love the girl; you do not. As remorselessly as a graven image you would sacrifice her on the ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... yesterday by the Sitt Jane. He held this treasure up before his patient's eyes, opening the blades one by one to display the glory of it. But Iskender still sat on composedly, smiling into distance, like a graven image. Finding he could elicit ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall
... other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee a graven image. Thou shalt not take the name of Jehovah thy God in vain. Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Honor thy father and thy mother. Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt ...
— The Making of a Nation - The Beginnings of Israel's History • Charles Foster Kent and Jeremiah Whipple Jenks
... I left Hastings I got in a passion with an ink bottle, which I flung out of the window one night with a vengeance;—and what then? Why, next morning I was horrified by seeing that it had struck, and split upon, the petticoat of Euterpe's graven image in the garden, and grimed her as if it were on purpose[45]. Only think of my distress,—and the epigrams that might be engendered on the Muse and ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... of art in comparison with the demands of religion. The Minerva of Phidias or Praxiteles was no safer from the iconoclastic frenzy of the new convert from heathenism than the rude idol of a less cultivated age. The command, "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image," had not excepted from its prohibition the marvellous ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... LORD hath given commandment concerning thee, that no more of thy name be sown; out of the house of thy gods will I cut off the graven image and the molten image; I will make thy grave; ...
— Select Masterpieces of Biblical Literature • Various
... expressed by hundreds of visitors to his marble Giant: but he had never known Hercules occasion emotion before, as in the case of the young stranger; who, after staring a while at the statue, dashed his hand across his forehead with a groan, and walked away from before the graven image of the huge Strongman, who had himself been made such a fool ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray |
