"Abase" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... difficulty in keeping his footsteps from Marcia's threshold. After the first grief of the conviction that she did not love him, pride came to his rescue. Should he, the head of the noblest house of the noble Sergian gens, should he abase himself and submit to scornful words even from a daughter of Torquatus? or, yet, should he, as a man, desire to bear the torch before an unwilling bride? These were simple questions, and there was but one word that could answer them; so Sergius struggled to put Marcia from his heart, ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... wants of these wild people, and their darkness and misery, that he had by no means done all his duty towards them. He said also, that whenever he was in danger of being puffed up with the praise of men, or the vanity of his own heart, the Lord had seen meet to abase and humble him, by the falling back of some of his people to their old heathenish practices. The war, moreover, was a sore evil to the Indian churches, as some few of their number were enticed by Philip to join him in his burnings and slaughterings, and this did cause even the peaceful ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... passing of time had become weaker, some remained quite as strong as before. Most Englishmen and women knew now that Spain had clay feet; and that Rome, though she might threaten, could not always perform what she threatened. To abase the pride of Spain, to make harbors of refuge for the angel of the Reformation—these wishes, though they had not vanished, though no man could know how long the peace with Spain would last, were less fervid than they had been in the days of Drake. But the old ...
— Pioneers of the Old South - A Chronicle of English Colonial Beginnings, Volume 5 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Mary Johnston
... it—said that word—said 'fool,' and I am in danger of hell fire, if I do belong to the church. Yes, hell fire—oh-oh—oh, hell fire. I wish mother was here. I know what I will do. I will write a confession, and send it to my brother to-morrow. I will abase myself before him. Yes, I will. Oh, oh, hell fire! What will become of me!' Hiram prayed, a good portion of the night, for a remission of the awful sentence; the bare possibility of its being carried out filled ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... bulk of his mighty frame, the rugged power of his countenance, and the unconscious authority of his words he was easily master of them all; but though he had the voice of Mars and a head like Olympian Zeus he must needs abase his proud spirit to the demands of the occasion, for the jealousy of mortal man is a proverb. Where the punchers that he hired for thirty dollars a month were decked out in shaps and handkerchiefs he sat in his shirt-sleeves and overalls, with only his high-heeled boots and the enormous ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... was then called tolerance, and from practical regard for the necessities of the State. To permit the old worship, not from a sense of justice but as an article of bargain with a foreign power, was not only to abase the government of the States but to convert every sincere Catholic throughout the republic into a grateful adherent of Philip and the archdukes. It was deliberately to place a lever, to be used in all future time, for the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... XVII.! How inscrutable are the ways of providence—for what great and mysterious purpose has it pleased heaven to abase the man once so elevated, and raise up him who ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... friend—a very dear friend," he continued, in a tone of deep pathos—"confined within the Fleet Prison by a decree of the Star-Chamber. He was to me as a brother, and to see him gradually pining away cut me to the soul. Proud by nature, he refused to abase himself to his oppressor, and could not be brought to acknowledge wrongs he had never committed. Pardon, therefore, was denied him—not pardon merely, but all mitigation of suffering. My friend had been wealthy; but heavy fines ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... a God in heaven? I who ne'er knelt Until this hour to any man on earth, Tyrant, before thee I abase myself. If one red drop of human blood still flow In thy congealed veins, if thou e'er have known Touch of affection, the blind natural instinct Of common kindred, even beasts partake, Thou man of frozen stone, ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus
... themselves clean, that are yet in their filthiness, and that think themselves rich for the next world, and yet are poor, and miserable, and wretched, and blind, and naked. Thus the poor, blind, naked, hypocritical Pharisee thought of himself, when God threatened to abase him: yea, he thought himself thus, and joyed therein, when indeed he was going down to the chambers ...
— The Pharisee And The Publican • John Bunyan
... am made wretched by trifles that most women put up with; inexorable thoughts—from my heart, not yours—would poison our existence and destroy my life. If a man, after ten years' happiness, were not as respectful and as delicate as he was to me at first, I should resent the change; it would abase me in my own eyes! Such a lover could not believe in the Amadis and the Cyrus of my dreams. To-day true love is but a dream, not a reality. I see in yours only the joy of a desire the end of which is, as yet, ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... the stage Live on publicity, Yet to the world they pretend to dislike it, Though wildly to me they plead for it, cry for it, Ofttimes do that for it Which must make the God Notoriety Grin at the weakness of mortals. I hold a terrible power And sometimes my own moderation Amazes me, For I can abase as well as elevate, Tear down as well as build up. I know all the ways of fair speaking And can lead my favorites To fame and golden rewards. There are a thousand channels Through which press agency can exploit Its star or its movement Never obvious but like the submarine Submersible ...
— The Broadway Anthology • Edward L. Bernays, Samuel Hoffenstein, Walter J. Kingsley, Murdock Pemberton
... this Accursed's promises to work my welfare, and by the great show of affection which he manifested to us. Learn, O my mother, that this fellow is a sorcerer, a Moorman, an accursed, a liar, a traitor, a hypocrite;[FN105] nor deem I that the devils under the earth are damnable as he. Allah abase him in his every book! Hear then, O my mother, what this abominable one did, and all I shall tell thee will be soothfast and certain. See how the damned villain brake every promise he made, certifying that he ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... which superstition, united with politics, exert their efforts to pervert, abuse, and poison the heart of man; the generality of human institutions appear to have only for their object to abase the human character, to render it more flagitiously wicked. Do not then let us be at all astonished if morality is almost every where a barren speculation, from which every one is obliged to deviate in practice, if he will not risk ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach
... glory and unobtained renown: for who are you to hope for these; who are you to go forth proudly against the pride of the sun, with your secret sin and your haunting shame and your real fear? First lie down and abase yourself; strike your back with hard stripes; cut deep with a sharp knife, as if you would eradicate the consciousness; cry aloud; put ashes on your head; bruise yourself with stones,—then perhaps God may pardon you. Or, better still (so runs the incoherent feeling), ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... wishes to unite men together and nourish them; a small state only wishes to be received by, and to serve, the other. Each gets what it desires, but the great state must learn to abase itself. ...
— Tao Teh King • Lao-Tze
... he pleaded. "Would'st that I abase myself? Then here—here behold me at thy feet, fearing thee because of my unworthiness. But O believe—believe, for every base doubt of thee this heart hath known, now doth it grieve remorseful. For ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... and frankness. Bear led me towards her. I trembled a little, bowed profoundly, and kissed ma chere mere's hand. She kissed my forehead, and for a while regarded me with such a keen glance, that I was compelled to abase my eyes, on which she again kissed me most cordially on lips and forehead, and embraced me almost as lustily as Bear had. Now it was Bear's turn; he kissed the hand of ma chere mere right respectfully; she however offered him her cheek, and they ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... intention of the batsman must be plainly manifest; and to judge of this the circumstances of the case must be taken into consideration. For instance, if the batsman bunts a ball foul when a runner is on abase, it is evident that he does so unintentionally, for no point of play is to be gained by such a foul hit. Then, too, the hitting of a foul ball must be repeatedly done before such hitting can be adjudged ...
— Spalding's Baseball Guide and Official League Book for 1889 • edited by Henry Chadwick
... be his great duty, and might yet prove the means of saving him—despair would be his very heinous and destroying sin. If yet he would be stirred up to consider his case, whence he is fallen, and whither he is falling, and set himself to serious seekings of God, cast down himself before Him, abase himself, cry for mercy as for his life, there is yet hope in his case. God may make here an instance what He can obtain of Himself to do for a perishing wretch. But if with any that have lived under the gospel, their day is quite expired, and the things of their peace now forever hid from ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Vol. 2 (of 10) • Grenville Kleiser
... appointed to be kept as those ordinary times set apart for divine service on the week-days, nay, moreover, let it be observed whether or not they keep the festival days more carefully, and urge the keeping of them more earnestly than the Lord's own day. Those prelates that will not abase themselves to preach upon ordinary Sabbaths, think the high holidays worthy of their sermons. They have been also often seen to travel upon the Lord's day, whereas they hold it irreligion to travel ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... smoke that his fingers will quickly be scorched in the flame. Moreover, had the Roman kept quiet, even had he refrained from threats, it becomes our honour, of our own choice, to enter on this war, to avenge the wrongs of our fathers, and to abase his pride. The Romans' logic is that they are entitled to receive tribute at our hands, by reason that their fathers, in their day, took truage of our ancestors. If this be so, it was no free-will offering of our fathers, but was wrenched ...
— Arthurian Chronicles: Roman de Brut • Wace
... unto my Lord who am but dust and ashes. If I count myself more, behold Thou standest against me, and my iniquities bear true testimony, and I cannot gainsay it. But if I abase myself, and bring myself to nought, and shrink from all self-esteem, and grind myself to dust, which I am, Thy grace will be favourable unto me, and Thy light will be near unto my heart; and all self-esteem, ...
— The Imitation of Christ • Thomas a Kempis
... of Essex; but where Blenheim was, and what the victory was all about, the rustics knew as little as "Old Kaspar" of the immortal ballad of later days. The squires were little less vague in their ideas as to the scope and purpose of the war. It was to abase the power of France—so much they knew, and was unpopular with the Tories of Jacobite leanings, for the reason that the French king was sheltering the dethroned monarch of the Stuart line. But then the great Duke who was winning all these victories was said to be a stanch Tory himself; ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green
... the frank of members of Congress and otherwise. The press put forth its whole power on the side of anti-slavery submission and peace, while the Executive and Judicial departments of the Government made haste to abase themselves by their super-serviceable zeal in the enforcement of the new Fugitive Slave law. The tables seemed to be completely turned, and the time-honored rule of our slave-masters impregnably re-established. ...
— Political Recollections - 1840 to 1872 • George W. Julian
... lies. If the Pope were indeed nothing more than a magnified Borough Councillor, we should hardly have heard so much of him. It is not because he satisfies the reason, but because he astounds it, that men abase themselves before ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey
... the words he spoke rang hollow, awkward, even impertinent. He could say nothing which did not seem hideously supercilious; and yet he wanted to abase himself! He knew that Mary's humiliation ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham
... not altogether to abase and lower nature, as if she had no strength or stability against fortune; but on the contrary, knowing that the rotten and perishable part of man, wherein alone he lies open to fortune, is small, while we ourselves ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... shall eat up all. Your chiming towers proud and tall He shall most utterly abase, And set a desert in ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson, an Elegy; And Other Poems • Richard Le Gallienne
... sick man's bed Watched, noting down each prayer he made, Were your unerring roll displayed, His pride of health to abase; Or, when, soft showers in season fall Answering a famished nation's call, Should unseen fingers on the wall Our ...
— The Christian Year • Rev. John Keble
... honour or policy can move vs to imitate the barbarous and beastly maneres of the wilde, Godlesse and slavish Indians, especially in so vile and stinking a custome? Shall wee that disdaine to imitate the manners of our neighbour France.... Shall wee, I say without blushing abase ourselves so farre as to imitate these beastly Indians, slaves to the Spaniards, refuse to the world, and as yet aliens from the Holy Covenant of God? Why doe wee not as well imitate them in walking naked as they doe? in preferring glasses, feathers, and such toyes to gold and precious stones, as ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... and said, 'Sell that thou hast and give to the poor, and come follow me'! Nay," and the passion of righteousness tore his frame and thralled his listeners, "though he inhabit the Vatican, though a hundred gorgeous bishops abase themselves to kiss his toe, yet I proclaim here that he is a lie, a snare, a whited sepulchre, no protector of the poor, no loving father to the fatherless, no spiritual Emperor, no Vicar of ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... nobleness of life attuning itself to the highest good, and battling on toward the highest right; and when it shows us how self, under a form which does not seem self, may steal in to sap its strength and to abase its nobleness. ...
— The Ethics of George Eliot's Works • John Crombie Brown
... accomplished in despite of them, by sword and fire, as Bismarck said, that is to say, by the wars of 1866 and 1870. Care was taken, however, not to abase them more than was strictly necessary, for it was intended to maintain the hierarchy. What was wanted was a monarchical unity, made from above down, and not a democratic unity brought about ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... Walking or standing, is not my face toward thee? Do I not inquire the counsels of thy mouth? Do I not seek for thy mighty counsels, O thou great lord of Egypt, at whose approach the oppressors of the land are scattered? What now is the hope of these Aamou? Amen shall abase those who know not god. Have I not made for thee many and great buildings of stone? have I not filled thy temple with my spoils, building for thee a temple to last myriads of years? ... The whole earth unites ...
— Egyptian Literature
... through His Son, for gospel truth; had thought He really meant what He said, about rewarding those who were faithful to Him. Her companions—the companions on whom, from the heights of her piety, she had looked pityingly down—were wiser than she. They did not abase themselves before Him, and vow a lifelong devotion; but neither did they make any but the most approved demands on Him. They satisfied their consciences by paying Him lip-homage, by confessing their sins, and by asking for a vague, far-distant mercy, to which ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson
... not in a voice from the void, neither is there help in empty breath. Come up, for I am weary of my perch; and verily, if the mountain come not to Mahomet, the prophet must abase himself to the mountain. In short, my man, I am ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... "unpleasant to recognize the truth that it is in the minds of some to exalt the Executive Department of the Government into a despotic power and to abase the representative portion of our Government into the mere tools of despotism. Learning that this is the case, we now, as heretofore, know our duty, and knowing, dare maintain it. The citizen soldiery of the United States recognize the Congress ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... injured me deeply; and it was to controvert it that I wanted to speak to you freely. Henceforth you will justify me, I hope; for I can clear myself of the charge of ingratitude and treason, which would abase me in my own eyes if I had been ...
— Hortense, Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... vice by which one takes advantage of another's defects. In the above fable children laugh at the crow, but they all love the fox. In the next fable you expect them to follow the example of the grasshopper. Not so, they will choose the ant. They do not care to abase themselves, they will always choose the principal part—this is the choice of self-love, a very natural choice. But what a dreadful lesson for children! There could be no monster more detestable than ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... that the apostles of matter and the worshippers of humanity harangue him in turn to explain to him his own existence. Man is too great to be the child of the dust; man is too miserable to be the divine summit of the universe. "If he exalts himself, I abase him; if he abases himself, I exalt him; and I contradict him continually, until he understands at last that ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville
... that the young Queen looked kindly upon this Count Rames with whom she had been nursed, and who, like herself, was beautiful to behold. Therefore, to abase him in her eyes he had been commanded to appear walking in the train of Amathel and given charge over his sacred person at ...
— Morning Star • H. Rider Haggard
... has been so denied by democracy that he will abase himself to a complete effacement, as under the great ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... letter was not destined to be sent to its address, but to abase the pontifical dignity, or at least the person of the Pope, in the eyes of the French public. The spirit of the people must have been greatly changed if this end could be thus attained by a means which formerly would have drawn universal indignation on ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... face, Vntill thy head be circled with the same. Put forth thy hand, reach at the glorious Gold. What, is't too short? Ile lengthen it with mine, And hauing both together heau'd it vp, Wee'l both together lift our heads to heauen, And neuer more abase our sight so low, As to vouchsafe one glance vnto ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... is not employed when anything of moment is to be put into execution. The notion that intelligence was put in man only to be shattered, a will given him only to be forthwith distorted by passion or blinded by ignorance, and that "there is no health in us" unless we abase ourselves to the dust and proclaim our utter worthlessness, is to men and women of this time wholly inconceivable. That nothing ethically valuable can be accomplished except after instant prayer, or after copious outpourings ...
— Morality as a Religion - An exposition of some first principles • W. R. Washington Sullivan
... tribe" of the Gold Coast Hinterland. Instead of finding the bully as willing to fight as Cuff was willing to face dear old Dobbin, B.-P. found a cowering, cringing enemy, willing to lick the dust and abase himself in any manner the ingenious white man might suggest. So it was with no feelings of elation that the man who had received the pink flimsy ordering him on active service, who had raised and organised the Native Levy, who had cut ...
— The Story of Baden-Powell - 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps' • Harold Begbie
... the son forgat his parents' piteous ashes. 400 Lightly the son's young grave his father pray'd for, an unwed Maiden, a step-dame fair in freer luxury clasping. Then did mother unholy to son that knew not abase her, Shamefully, fear'd not unholy the blessed dead to dishonour. Human, inhuman alike, in wayward infamy blending, 405 Turned far from us away that righteous counsel of heaven. Therefore proudly the Gods such sinful company view not, Bear not ...
— The Poems and Fragments of Catullus • Catullus
... the moon from giving her light? Can you count the number of the stars, or stay the bottles of heaven? Can you call for the waters of the sea, and cause them to cover the face of the ground? Can you behold every one that is proud, and abase him, and bind their faces in secret? Yet these are some of the works of our King, in whose name this day we come up unto you, that you may be brought under his authority. In his name, therefore, I summon you again to yield up yourselves to ...
— The Holy War • John Bunyan
... lashes. You have no right to accuse me. Haven't I always been honest with you? Haven't I warned you more than once? Didn't I love you with all my heart, even passionately, and did I conceal the fact from you, that it was dangerous to give yourself into my power, to abase yourself before me, and that I want to be dominated? But you wished to be my plaything, my slave! You found the highest pleasure in feeling the foot, the whip of an arrogant, cruel woman. What do you ...
— Venus in Furs • Leopold von Sacher-Masoch
... that which beseems a daughter of St. Bennet, of an ancient and royal foundation! The saving of the soul is so much harder to the worldly life, specially to a queen, that it is no marvel if she has to abase herself more—even to the washing of lepers—than is needful to a vowed ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge
... he said, "on any terms—anyhow. I came to beg for your sympathy, for some measure of your affection, to beg you to come back to Charles Street. Is it too late for me to abase myself?" ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... there had appeared in Dublin an erratic genius in the medical craft, a young surgeon, 'Black Dillon,' they called him, the glory and disgrace of his calling; such as are from time to time raised up to abase the pride of intellect, and terrify the dabblers in vice. A prodigious mind, illuminating darkness, and shivering obstacles at a blow, with an electric force—possessing the power of a demigod, and the lusts of a swine. Without order, without industry; defying all usages ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... people who have sufficient of the divine ferment in their heads to be called alive: they are almost always men. We fly to them as to our own people. We abase ourselves before them in happy humility. We crave to be allowed to live near them in order that we may be assured that everything in the world is not nonsense and machinery—and then, ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... cleaved unto Him; I felt love to Him as hot as fire; and now, as Job said, I thought I should die in my nest; but I did quickly find, that my great love was but little; and that I, who had, as I thought, such burning love to Jesus Christ, could let Him go again for a very trifle,—God can tell how to abase us, and can hide pride from man. Quickly after this my love was ...
— Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners • John Bunyan
... laws, lewdness was thus punished. Grimm, 679, 711. Sternhook, 19, 326. Ducange, iii. 52. Michelet, Origines, 386, 389. By and by, the same rough usage is dealt out to honest women, to citizen's wives, whose pride the nobles seek to abase. We know the kind of ambush into which the tyrant Hagenbach drew the honourable ladies of the chief burghers in Alsace, probably in scorn of their rich and royal costume, all silks and gold. In my Origines I have also related ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... refers to Zedekiah, whom Ezekiel calls the "wicked prince of Israel, whose day is come, iniquity shall have an end. Thus saith the Lord God, Remove the diadem and take off the crown, this shall not be the same; exalt him that is low, and abase him that is high. I will overturn, overturn, overturn it, and it shall be no more until He comes whose right it is; and I will ...
— The Lost Ten Tribes, and 1882 • Joseph Wild
... I have watched thee long Still ever first to rise against the wrong; To check the usurper in his giant stride, And brave his terrors and abase his pride; Foresee the insidious danger ere it rise, And warn the heedless and inform the wise; Scorning the lure, the bribe, the selfish game, Which, through the office, still becomes the shame; Thou stood'st aloof—superior ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... agreed in the great Christian essential of acceptance in the Beloved. Deeply did she deplore the conceit, the bigotry, and the bitterness of sect. O that her spirit were more prevalent in the churches; that we could labor to abase our crown of pride; to offer up with one consent upon the altar of evangelical charity, those petty jealousies, animosities, and strifes which are our common reproach; and walk together as children of the same Father, brethren of the ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham
... families, and the needy from the pavements of the city, great artists, and vile scrapings of talent, thronged to the palace to sate their dazzled eyes with a splendor almost surpassing human estimate, and to approach the giver of every favor, wealth, and property,—whose single glance might abase, it is true, but ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... question me; our languages are different. For a moment I have used yours to cast, if it be possible, a ray of faith into your soul; to give you, as it were, the hem of my garment and draw you up into the regions of Prayer. Can God abase Himself to you? Is it not for you to rise to Him? If human reason finds the ladder of its own strength too weak to bring God down to it, is it not evident that you must find some other path to reach Him? That Path ...
— Seraphita • Honore de Balzac
... perhaps a deliberate deception. 'I deceived them all. I lied to everybody,' she said. The young man stiffened himself with chill comfortless pride, and made no effort to seek her out. He loved her, he told himself, but was no whimpering fool to abase himself at the feet of a woman who was careless, or ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... [The priests abase themselves and the acolytes bow. The AMBASSADOR stands with almost Mongolian calm by the door from which he has ...
— Plays of Near & Far • Lord Dunsany
... usurped. I showed him a copy of the order issued by his confidential servant, Abid Allee, to all commanders of troops in the district, which had been obtained for me for the occasion of the Minister's visit to my camp; and he seemed much ashamed to see that his subordinates should so abase the confidence he placed in them. The order was ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... written of God's right over creatures appear to have conceded to him an unrestricted right, an arbitrary and despotic power. They thought that would be placing divinity on the most exalted level that may be imagined for it, and that it would abase the creature before the Creator to such an extent that the Creator is bound by no laws of any kind with respect to the creature. There are passages from Twiss, Rutherford and some other Supralapsarians which imply that God cannot sin whatever he may do, because he is subject ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... annual children by chaste wives (disallowed them half the year), and to rear them not over-well, to study the Law and the Prophets and to reverence the Rabbinical tradition and the chaos of commentaries expounding it, to abase themselves before the "Life of Man" and Joseph Cam's "Prepared Table" as though the authors had presided at the foundation of the earth, to wear phylacteries and fringes, to keep the beard unshaven, and the corners of the hair uncut, to know ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... of the feeble hand! Strength of the strong! to whom the nations kneel! Stay and destroyer, at whose just command Earth's kingdoms tremble and her empires reel! Who dost the low uplift, the small make great, And dost abase the ignorantly proud, Of our scant people mould a mighty state, To the strong, stern,—to Thee in meekness bowed! Father of unity, make this people one! Weld, interfuse them in the patriot's flame,— Whose forging on thine anvil was ...
— In Divers Tones • Charles G. D. Roberts
... out, for they were so closely assailed that nearly three quarters of the city were at this assault. When Artevelde saw the efforts a-making, and how hotly he was pressed, he came to a window over the street, and began to abase himself, and say with much fine language, 'Good folks, what want ye? What is it that doth move ye? Wherefore are ye so vexed at me? In what way can I have angered ye? Tell me, and I will mend it according to your wishes.' Then all those who had heard him answered with one voice, 'We would have ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... end, our prophet, priest and king; 'Twas He that nerved Severus' arm,—His praise let Decius sing. 'Jehovah rules the battle-field ye call the field of Mars, 'He only grants a glorious peace, 'tis He guides all our wars. 'He casts the mighty from his seat, He doth the proud abase,— 'They only peace and blessing know who love and seek His face. 'His sword alone is strong to strike, His shield our only guard. 'He will His bleeding saints avenge, He is their sure reward. 'In vain to Jove and feeble Mars your full libations pour— 'Oh, kneel before ...
— Polyuecte • Pierre Corneille
... truth, the whole gloom and sadness of which the Roman had not yet experienced. However august be the object we propose to ourselves, every less worthy path we take to insure it distorts the mental sight of our ambition; and the means, by degrees, abase the end to their own standard. This is the true misfortune of a man nobler than his age—that the instruments he must use soil himself: half he reforms his times; but half, too, the times will corrupt the reformer. His own craft undermines his safety;—the people, whom he himself accustoms to a ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... nobles acted not at all as subjects, that the governors of the provinces took on themselves the airs of sovereigns, and that the foreign alliances of France were despised. I promised your majesty to use all my industry, all the authority you gave me, to ruin the Huguenot party, to abase the pride of the high nobles, and to raise your name among foreign nations to the place where it ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... of law, cool the raging fever of the passions, and abate the lofty pretensions of mad ambition. In prosperity, let us bring out our thank-offering, and present it with cheerful hearts in orderly, virtuous, and religious conduct. In adversity, let us consider, confess our sins, and abase ourselves before the throne of God. In danger, let us go to Him, whose prerogative it is to deliver; let us go to Him, with the humility and confidence which a deep conviction that the battle is not to the strong nor the race to the ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... fearful of their own position as to feel anxiety that it should be immediately recognized. And the effect of the painter's conscious deference, and of the equally conscious pride of the boys, as they stood to be painted, has been somewhat to shorten the power of the one, and to abase the dignity of the other. And thus, in the midst of my admiration of the youths' beautiful faces, and natural quality of majesty, set off by all splendors of dress and courtesies of art, I could not forbear questioning with ...
— Love's Meinie - Three Lectures on Greek and English Birds • John Ruskin
... answer'd him with all the Resentment becoming one of my high Character and unspotted Virtue. I had always heard say, that Heav'n bestow'd on Persons of my Rank, such a peculiar Mark of Majesty and Grandeur, that with a bare Word, or the Glance of an angry Eye, they could bring down, and abase the Pride of those audacious Creatures that durst to thwart their Inclinations. I talk'd as big as a Queen; but I was treated like the most servile Domestic. The saucy Hyrcanian, without so much as vouchsafing me one Single Word, turn'd ...
— Zadig - Or, The Book of Fate • Voltaire
... it," interrupted Mike. "That absolutely tears it. In the past three minutes I have been apologized to by a woman, a robot, and a cop. The next thing, a penguin will walk in here, tip his top hat, and abase himself while he mutters obsequiously in penguinese. Just what the devil is going ...
— Unwise Child • Gordon Randall Garrett
... Servia for her peevish and unsisterly jealousy. Under his lead the Bulgarians had covered themselves with glory, and had leaped at a bound from political youth to manhood. Why should he risk their new-found unity merely in order to abase Servia? The Prince never acted more prudently than when he decided not to bring into the field the Power which, as he believed, had pushed on Servia ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... of Mrs. Brookenham's amiability that, with her sudden sense of the importance of this new light, she should be quite ready to abase herself. "There are so many things in one's life. One follows false scents. One doesn't make out everything at once. If you're right you must help me. We must see more ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... penance I will not do. I will prostrate myself at her feet. I will abase myself before her. I will make confession in the proper spirit of contrition, and Heaven helping me, I'll keep to my purpose of amendment for her sweet sake." He ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... aboue all crea- tures, dooeth leese the excellent giftes. A beaste will not take excesse in feedyng, but man often tymes is without reason, and hauyng a pure mynde and soule giuen of God, and a face to beholde the heauens, yet he doeth abase hymself to yearth- [Sidenote: Greshopper.] lie thynges, as concernyng the Greshopper: as the Philoso- phers doe saie, is made altogether of dewe, and sone perisheth[.] [Fol. xj.r] The Greshopper maie well resemble, ...
— A booke called the Foundacion of Rhetorike • Richard Rainolde
... plebeians, who sweat and struggle to maintain the appearance of gentlemen; and, on the other hand, there are gentlemen of rank who seem industrious to appear mean and degenerate; the one sort raise themselves either by ambition or virtue, while the other abase themselves by viciousness or sloth; so that we must avail ourselves of our understanding and discernment in distinguishing those persons, who, though they bear the same appellation, are yet so different in point of character. All the genealogies in the world may be reduced to four kinds. The first ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... favouring me with it;—the more so as there is no prospect of seeing any large proportion of it in print. It is I think about as melancholy an exhibition as I ever contemplated. Why was such a sad phenomenon to come in sight on earth? Was it to abase the pride of ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... apology. In one skilled at reading human nature, an apology becomes a weapon. When you are not the one who should apologize first, when you are less to blame than he, be you the one to apologize first, and see how quickly his noble nature will abase itself, and rush to meet you, and how sure and glorious and complete ...
— From a Girl's Point of View • Lilian Bell
... have most swiftly and suddenly broken their enemies in pieces have been the religious armies—the Moslem Armies, for instance, or the Puritan Armies. And a religious army may, by its nature, be defined as an army in which every man is taught not to exalt but to abase himself. Many modern Englishmen talk of themselves as the sturdy descendants of their sturdy Puritan fathers. As a fact, they would run away from a cow. If you asked one of their Puritan fathers, if you asked Bunyan, for instance, whether he was sturdy, he would have answered, with tears, that ...
— Heretics • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... speaking for your sake! These fifteen years, we, to you whole-devoted, Have sought for Liberty—to give it thee? To make our interests your huckster gains? The king a lion slain that you may flay, And wear the robe—well, worthily—I say't, For I will not abase my brother! No! I would keep him in the realm serene, My own ideal of heroes! loved o'er Israel, And higher placed by me than all the others! And such, for tinkling titles, hollow haloes Like that around yon painted ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... disposed to think himself obliged to abase himself in return for service rendered, nor—what amounted to the same thing—to surrender his liberty. He did not lend his own benefactions at so much per cent.: he gave them. His benefactors, however, were of a very different way of thinking. Their lofty ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... my fairest flower, My sweetest Rose, a space, And cross the seas to famous France, Proud rebelles to abase. ...
— Book of Old Ballads • Selected by Beverly Nichols
... Machiavelli no better example of his lucid scientific method than this passage. There is neither excuse nor hypocrisy. It is merely a matter of business calculation. Mankind is the raw material, the State is the finished work. Further you are to conciliate your neighbours who are weak and abase the strong, and you must not let the stranger within your gates. Above all look before as well as after and think not to leave it to time, godere li benefici del tempo, but, as did the Romans, strike and strike at once. ...
— Machiavelli, Volume I - The Art of War; and The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... thy strangerhood and thy separation from me." Then he complained to her of his case, saying, "O my mother, go to her and speak with her; haply she will vouchsafe me her sight to see and dispel from me this despondency." Replied his mother, "Idle desires abase men's necks; so put away from thee this thought that can only vex; for I will not wend to her nor go in to her with such message.' Now when he heard his mother's words he told her what said the horse-thief concerning Zat al-Dawahi, how the old ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... strike Man, elephant, and steed alike: At one shall many an arrow fly, And many a foe with one shall die. This day the world my power shall see, That none in arms can rival me: My strength the monarch shall abase, And set thee, lord, in lordliest place. These arms which breathe the sandal's scent, Which golden bracelets ornament, These hands which precious gifts bestow, Which guard the friend and smite the foe, A nobler ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... look of the treasure that had been exposed, they must lose, not only that, but any of their own money that might remain. What could it profit them to gather what they must straightway disgorge? But if they refuse to abase themselves before money, they would doubtless abase the foe. Thus it was better for them to stand erect in valour than be grovelling in greed; with their souls not sinking into covetousness, but up and doing for ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... the design of the Gospel, to reclaim us from our natural pride and selfishness, and their fatal consequences; to bring us to a just sense of our weakness and depravity; and to dispose us, with unfeigned humiliation, to abase ourselves, and give glory to God. "No flesh may glory in his presence; he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord"—"The lofty looks of man shall be humbled, and the haughtiness of men shall be bowed down, and the Lord alone ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... raise himself by means of self, and not abase self, Self is his own friend, is also his own enemy. To him is his self his own friend, who through self conquers self, Yet if it battle with the external world, then self becomes enemy ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer
... daughter's room, to throw herself upon her daughter's bed, and once again to beg for mercy and grace. She listened, and she knew that her daughter slept. Then she went silently down to the dark room and the old desk. Of what use would it be to abase herself? Her daughter was the only thing that she could love; but her daughter's heart was filled with the image ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope
... where our innate knowledge leads us. If it be not true, there is no truth in man; and if it be true, he finds therein great cause for humiliation, being compelled to abase himself in one way or another. And since he cannot exist without this knowledge, I wish that, before entering on deeper researches into nature, he would consider her both seriously and at leisure, that he would reflect upon himself also, and knowing what proportion there is....] Let ...
— Pascal's Pensees • Blaise Pascal
... to her breast when young and still aware of her empire,—would not such action be contemptibly poor spirited? She was no child to be humbled into confession by the rod, frightened into submission by the dark. To abase herself, in the hope of receiving spiritual consolation, appeared to her as an act of disloyalty to her dead love and her maimed and crippled son. She turned away with a rather superb lift of her beautiful head, and went back to her own bedchamber again. She hardened ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... childhood and the golden age of love exercise a remarkable influence upon language. Mantegazza, discussing "the desire to merge oneself into another, to abase oneself, to aggrandize the beloved," etc., observes: "We see it in the use of diminutives which lovers and sometimes friends use towards each other, and which mothers use to their children; we lessen ourselves thus in a delicate and generous manner in order ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... that in derdoing, armes And honours suit my vowd daies do spend, Unto thy bounteous baytes and pleasing charmes, With which weake men thou witchest, to attend; Regard of worldly mucke{19} doth fowly blend, And low abase the high heroicke spright,{20} That joyes for crownes and kingdomes to contend: Faire shields, gay steedes, bright armes be my delight; Those be the riches fit for an ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin
... have introduced still other and more numerous innovations, had not Attus Navius prevented him, when he desired to rearrange the tribes: this man was an augur whose equal has never been seen. Tarquinius, angry at his opposition, took measures to abase him and to bring his art into contempt. So, putting into his bosom a whetstone and a razor, he went among the populace having in his mind that the whetstone should be cut by the razor,—a thing that is impossible. He said all that he wished, and when Attus vehemently opposed him, he said, ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume 1 (of 6) • Cassius Dio
... he may therefore strengthen and refresh himself, may rejoice and revel in conceptions of the goodness of God, drawn from the tenderest human images of fatherly care and love, or he may chasten and abase himself by consideration of the awful holiness and unapproachable majesty of the Divinity derived from analogous sources, knowing that no thought of man can ever be true enough, can ever attain the incomprehensible reality, which nevertheless really is all that can be conceived, ...
— On the Genesis of Species • St. George Mivart
... England has generally maintained over France is the true explanation. Certainly never were there stouter ships than those which France sent forth to fight her battles at the Nile and Trafalgar. Never braver men trod the deck than there laid down their lives rather than abase their country's flag. Yet they were beaten. The very nation which, on land, fighting against banded Europe, kept the balance for more than a generation at equipoise, on the water was beaten by the ships of one little isle of the sea. In the statement ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... evidence which was said to inculpate Dr Pendle in the murder of Jentham. The ex-sailor accepted the common ground of argument, and in his turn abandoned theology for the business of everyday life. Common sense was needed to expose and abase and overturn those criminals whose talents enabled them to conceal their wickedness; proselytism could follow in due course. There was the germ of a new sect in Baltic's conception of Christianity as a ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... cherished but thee among men And ceased not thine honour to guard and keep it unsullied and bright, Till tidings of fashions full foul I heard, as reported of thee, And saw with mine eyes what thou didst, to harm me and work me despite. Shall I then abase my estate, that thine may exalted become? By God, hadst thou generous been, the like should thy conduct requite! So now unto solace I'll turn my heart, with forgetting, from thee And washing my hands of thy thought, blot despair for thee out of ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume IV • Anonymous
... body, and a race Subject by law, and dutiful by choice, Whose hand is never to be holden fast Within the closing cleft of gnarled creeds; No easy prey for these vile mitred Moors. I, who received thy homage, may retort Thy threats, vain prelate, and abase thy pride. ...
— Count Julian • Walter Savage Landor
... discovered that his ideal requirement was out of tune with the facts. To represent Fiesco as a would-be liberator of his country was impossible without a violent perversion of history for which he was not prepared. Out of deference to history he was led to abase his hero into something like a Catilinarian conspirator. But he could not give up the idea of a republican tragedy; so he tried to save it by depicting his hero as a man who had it in him to become a noble liberator, but ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... glory displayed—one man is with the Lord as a thousand worlds, and a thousand worlds as one man. There is room, brother, for the whole kingdom of God "within you." In one sense, it is most true, we ought to abase, but in another we ought to exalt ourselves. We should reverence ourselves as the most wonderful work of God within the sphere of our observation. The King, as well as the kingdom, finds room in a regenerated man. Here the Lord of glory best ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... Abbaser.] But if ye abase your thing or matter by ignorance or errour in the choise of your word, then is it by vicious maner of speach called Tapinosis, whereof ye shall haue examples in the ...
— The Arte of English Poesie • George Puttenham
... shortcomings of theology. He reproached himself stoutly, in thoroughly monkish fashion, and ended by resolving that obedience was a duty; that the errand on which he was sent was one which would abase his sinful pride and must be executed for the benefiting of ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... being unlearned and unskilful to supply the place of dignity, charge, and trouble, to speak before so many Phocions as here be? yea, which is the greatest, before the unspeakable majesty and sacred personage of our dread and dear sovereign; the terror of whose countenance will appal and abase even the stoutest hearts; yea, whose very name will pull down the greatest courage? for how mightily do the estate and name of a prince deject the haughtiest stomach even of their ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... personages, to a seignior of medium rank, on his square league of ground, amidst the thousand inhabitants who were formerly his villeins or his serfs, within reach of the monastery, or chapter, or bishop whose rights intermingle with his rights. Whatever may have been done to abase him his position is still very high. He is yet, as the intendants say, "the first inhabitant;" a prince whom they have half despoiled of his public functions and consigned to his honorary and available rights, but who nevertheless remains a prince.[1224]—He ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... for to reverence God in all works, within and without, is the first and most delightful work of humility, the sweetest work of charity, and the most suitable work of justice. For the humble and loving heart cannot pay honours to God and His noble humanity, nor abase himself so deeply as to satisfy his desire. That is why it seems to the humble man that he always does too little in honour of God and in his humble service. And he is humble, and venerates Holy Church and the sacraments, and he is temperate in meat and drink, in his words, and ...
— Light, Life, and Love • W. R. Inge
... ABASE, TO. An old word signifying to lower a flag or sail. Abaisser is in use in the French marine, and both may be derived from the still older abeigh. Abase literally means ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... Thy children dear who please Thee! Would I have life? Then first must I E'en down to death abase me. In honour who'd be raised on high, He self-abas'd on earth must lie As worthless ...
— Paul Gerhardt's Spiritual Songs - Translated by John Kelly • Paul Gerhardt
... to understand, accordingly, what could have caused him to abase himself at this later date. Presumably he had been given the elbow by his better self, ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... "Thou, thou art glorious among the great gods, thy will is second to none, thy bidding is Anu; Marduk (Merodach), thou art glorious among the great gods, thy will is second to none,* thy bidding is Anu.** From this day, that which thou orderest may not be changed, the power to raise or to abase shall be in thy hand, the word of thy mouth shall endure, and thy commandment shall not meet with opposition. None of the gods shall transgress thy law; but wheresoever a sanctuary of the gods is decorated, the place where they shall give their oracles shall be thy place.*** Marduk, it is thou ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 3 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... Benteen, that will never be. I am this man's wife. He has vowed himself to me before the sacred altar of Holy Church. Think you that I, a lady born of France, would abase myself to beseech his loyalty? Not though life or death hung upon the issue! If he can cast me aside for the caresses of this savage harlot, he may forever go his way; never will my hand halt him, or my voice claim his allegiance. ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... evermore Must be the sceptre of Britain, the steel trident Of ocean-sovereignty. That mighty fleet Invincible, impregnable, omnipotent, Must here and now be shattered, never be joined With Parma, never abase the wind-swept sea, With oaken roads for thundering legions To trample in the splendour of the sun From Europe to our island. As for food, In yonder enemy's fleet there is food enough To feed a nation; ay, and powder enough To split an empire. I will ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... an outcast from his kingdom. But at the end of that time his eyes were lifted to heaven and his reason returned, and his kingdom was restored to him, for he had learned that God alone is great, and "Those that walk in pride He is able to abase." ...
— Child's Story of the Bible • Mary A. Lathbury
... me to breathe into him the desire that spurns the valleys of life, and ascends its steeps. If the humble are given to me, let there be amongst them one whom I may lead on the mission that shall abase the proud; for, behold, O Appointer of the Stars, as I have sat for uncounted years upon my solitary throne, brooding over the things beneath, my spirit hath gathered wisdom from the changes that shift below. Looking upon the tribes of earth, ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... you mean," interposed Mr. Lenox. "Dick, you young fool, the ideal woman is the goal toward which the rest of humanity must run; and the sooner you bend all your practical faculties in that direction, and there abase the knee, the ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... it!'" repeated Ibarra, thoughtful. "The dilemma is hard. Is it impossible to reconcile love of my country and love of Spain? Must one abase himself to be a good Christian; prostitute his conscience to achieve a good work? I love my country; I love Spain; I am a Catholic, and keep pure the faith of my fathers; but I see in all this no reason for delivering myself into the hands ...
— An Eagle Flight - A Filipino Novel Adapted from Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... one and the look of the other made me wishful to know their names, and I made request for it, mixed with prayers. Wherefore the spirit which first had spoken to me began again, "Thou wishest that I abase myself in doing that for thee which thou wilt not do for me; but since God wills that such great grace of His shine through in thee, I will not be chary to thee; therefore know that I am Guido del Duca. My blood was so inflamed with envy, that had I seen ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 2, Purgatory [Purgatorio] • Dante Alighieri
... Alas for the weakness of the royal egotist! In an hour his boasting was at an end, and, reduced by the chastening judgment of the Almighty to the level of the brute creation, he was compelled to learn that "those who walk in pride the King of heaven is able to abase." Similar the lesson taught us by the overthrow of Belshazzar when, congratulating himself on the stability of his throne, and in his excess of arrogance, he insulted the sacred vessels which his father ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 8 - Talmage to Knox Little • Grenville Kleiser |
