"Guilt" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... come forward either to oppose or to accuse in the matter of Mitylene; indeed, the question before us as sensible men is not their guilt, but our interests. Though I prove them ever so guilty, I shall not, therefore, advise their death, unless it be expedient; nor though they should have claims to indulgence, shall I recommend it, unless it be dearly for the good of the country. I consider that we are deliberating ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... the end of the sixteen days no proof of their guilt had been found, their captors, recognising and appreciating their staunch fidelity and unswerving loyalty, removed them from their cells in the dreary jail to the Rest Camp, where they were able to enjoy the privileges of the ordinary prisoners of war, and refreshing intercourse with their brothers ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt
... convinced that the man was a thief, bade them take him away and hang him, which was done, but not before he had confessed his guilt and the place in which he had hidden Ali Cogia's money. The Caliph ordered the Cadi to learn how to deal out justice from the mouth of a child, and sent the boy home, with a purse containing a hundred pieces of gold as a mark of ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Andrew Lang.
... and it was not till he passed an act for that purpose, that they were called by the appellation of parliament. All judicial proceedings, transacted in the name of the commonwealth or protector, were ratified by a new law. And both houses, acknowledging the guilt of the former rebellion, gratefully received, in their own name, and in that of all the subjects, his majesty's gracious pardon ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume
... have given any cause for his wife's failure in her duty, or (being careless or negligent) have had it in his power to prevent his dishonour, nevertheless is stigmatised by a vile and reproachful name, and in a manner regarded with eyes of contempt instead of pity by all who know of his wife's guilt, though they see that he is unfortunate not by his own fault, but by the lust of a vicious consort. But I will tell thee why with good reason dishonour attaches to the husband of the unchaste wife, though he know not that she is so, nor be to blame, nor have done anything, or ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... to be endowed with the gift of unfading youth and beauty; but only because he has at home a sedulously concealed portrait of magical properties. In this the vices plough their furrows; in this the features are gradually contorted into a grisly image of guilt; until the day of judgment—the day of self-judgment.—PROF. U. v. WILAMOWITZ-MOeLLENDORF, R., pt. ...
— Gems (?) of German Thought • Various
... plunderers when detected can find a haven of refuge in any foreign land and avoid punishment, just so long encouragement is given them to continue their practices. If we fail to do all that in us lies to stamp out corruption we can not escape our share of responsibility for the guilt. The first requisite of successful self-government is unflinching enforcement of the law and ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... his throbbing temples between his clenched fists. Somehow, on his slender evidence, that was no evidence in fact, he was convinced of the truth of Mahr's perfidy; convinced that the lady rated A1 by the keenest detective bureau in the country had obtained the proofs of guilt and used them with the same perfect business sagacity she had used in his own case. It sickened him. Somehow he could forgive her handling such a case as his. It was purely commercial; but this other was uglier stuff. His soul rebelled. He would not have it so; he would not believe—and ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford
... grew worse as time went on. He absorbed like a sponge every word of Jardin's boastful tales; he learned a thousand new ways in which to gain his own ends; he learned to cheat; he learned to lie without the feeling of guilt and distress that used to bother him when he slipped from the truth. And most of all, he was made to feel that there was nothing so necessary as money, money and still more money. Every letter from Mr. Jardin brought Horace ...
— Battling the Clouds - or, For a Comrade's Honor • Captain Frank Cobb
... itself did not contain any intelligence of importance, but the discovery that one, until then so high in the esteem of his countrymen, was engaged in a clandestine correspondence with the enemy was deemed sufficient evidence of guilt. Church was therefore arrested at once, and confined in a chamber looking upon Brattle Street. Some of his leisure, while here imprisoned, he employed in cutting on the ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford
... convention, as the good and safety of society may require. If society should disfranchise individuals convicted of infamous crimes, would this be an invasion of natural right? Yet this would not be justified on the score of their moral guilt, but that the good of society required or would be promoted by it. We admit the existence of a moral law, binding on societies as on individuals. Society must act in good faith. No man, or body of men, has a right to inflict pain or privation on others, unless with a view, after full and ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... bough, which stood upon the Argo's prow, "For your guilt, you must sail a weary way to where Circe, Medeia's sister, dwells among the islands of the West; she shall cleanse ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... all met to celebrate the marriage, and Claudio and Hero were standing before the priest, and the priest, or friar, as he was called, was proceeding to pronounce the marriage ceremony, Claudio, in the most passionate language, proclaimed the guilt of the blameless Hero, who, amazed at the strange words he uttered, said meekly: 'Is my lord well, that ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... shows, may help towards the treatment of disturbances in the central equilibrium. Suggestions and bromides together may secure an effect which neither of them alone will bring about. It is most unfortunate that not without some guilt on the part of the physicians themselves, the large public has begun to believe that orthodox psychotherapy has to mean a rejection of drugs and a contempt for ...
— Psychotherapy • Hugo Muensterberg
... straw-hatted proprietor came and went, bearing beefsteak hammered flat to make it tender. The girl seemed the one happy person among us; for supper was going forward with the invariable alkali etiquette, all faces brooding and feeding amid a disheartening silence as of guilt or bereavement that springs from I have never been quite sure what—perhaps reversion to the native animal absorbed in his meat, perhaps a little from every guest's uneasiness lest he drink his coffee wrong or stumble in the accepted uses of the fork. ...
— Lin McLean • Owen Wister
... her brown roguish eyes to his face: but, ah! the consciousness of guilt weighed down her eyelids like lead. She could not look at her teacher: she only shook her ...
— The Nursery, Volume 17, No. 101, May, 1875 • Various
... weighed, in solving the problem of a deviation from the intended voyage of the MAYFLOWER." Although not aware of these suggestions, either of Mr. Davis or of Dr. Neill, till his own labors had satisfied him of Gorges's guilt, and his conclusions were formed, the author cheerfully recognizes the priority to his own demonstration, of the suggestions of both these gentlemen. No thing appears of record, however, to indicate that John Pierce was in any way a party to Gorges's plot. On the contrary, as his interest ...
— The Mayflower and Her Log, Complete • Azel Ames
... amazement of all, Catherine rose in her place, and addressed the court to the following purpose:—"And now ye have done your utmost, and I am innocent, in as far as your evidence has gone; but I am NOT INNOCENT—I am deeply guilty, if guilt ye deem it, in this matter. 'Twas I that first awakened poor William's conscience to a sense of his danger, in serving an emissary of Satan; 'twas I that spoke to him of the blood that cries day and night under the Altar; 'twas I that made him tremble—ay, as an aspen ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... sermon of the curate, he, being a good Christian, became afraid that his own soul might be lost too; for was he not an accomplice? So he confessed then and there his own and his master's guilt, much to the shame and anger of Don Quixote. The Princess was quick to sense the danger, and she calmed our hero before his anger had risen to any great height, by reminding him of his promise, and how he had sworn to engage ...
— The Story of Don Quixote • Arvid Paulson, Clayton Edwards, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... was called disgraceful, wrong, guilty, she shrunk with mingled pride and terror; and even apart from shame, her feeling would have made her place any deliberate injury of another in the region of guilt. ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... parties should be found out and punished, 'of what condition soever the same should be.' In writing to the lord deputy she assumed that Smith had been committed to prison and would be brought to condign punishment. That person, after many denials, at length confessed his guilt, and said that his object was to rid his country of a dangerous enemy. This motive was so good in the eye of the Government that it saved the life of the culprit. Sir Thomas Cusack, writing to Cecil, ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... years of age, was burned for the alleged assault and murder of a young woman; and in this case the word "alleged" is used advisedly, for the whole matter of the fixing of the blame for the crime and the fact that the man was denied a legal trial left grave doubt as to the extent of his guilt. On Sunday, December 2, 1917, at Dyersburg, immediately after the adjournment of services in the churches of the town, Lation Scott, guilty of criminal assault, was burned; his eyes were put out with red-hot irons, a hot ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... to him. He had gone to Paris, and there, as in his native country, he had drawn the eyes of the authorities upon himself; but neither in Paris nor in Rome was he, the pupil of Rene and of Trophana, convicted of guilt. All the same, though proof was wanting, his enormities were so well accredited that there was no scruple as to having him arrested. A warrant was out against him: Exili was taken up, and was lodged in the ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... to Westchester for a week or so." His dull eyes rested upon the picture that she made as she stood uneasily before him, with an appearance of guilt, her figure like a shaft of flame springing upward from the hearth, her brown head aureoled by the tempestuous canvas of Bronzino. "Besides," he concluded, "keeping you here ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman
... conscience, and it whispered to him in deep and thrilling tones-guilty, guilty! He would have given everything he possessed, ay, life itself, to have been able to recall the whole transaction; but alas! it was now too late, and the consciousness of his guilt drove him ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray
... whole nation that he had fallen a prey to the malice of the priests and the treachery of the emperor. He was declared to have been a faithful teacher of the truth, and the council that decreed his death was charged with the guilt of murder. His doctrines now attracted greater attention than ever before. By the papal edicts the writings of Wycliffe had been condemned to the flames. But those that had escaped destruction were now brought out from their hiding-places, and studied in connection with the Bible, or such parts ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... as they watched Harlan's approach, knowing that for them the incident was not closed—their guilt plain ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer
... passages in the Bible and showed them to another boy. It was an awful moment when the bushy-headed tithing-man approached a boy in sermon-time. The eyes of the whole congregation were on him, and he could feel the guilt ooze out of ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... firmer footing By nature incapable of asking pardon Cajoled like a twenty-year-old yahoo at college Careful not to smell of his office Challenged him to lead up to her desired stormy scene Chose to conceive that he thought abstractedly Consciousness of some guilt when vowing itself innocent Consign discussion to silence with the cynical closure Convictions we store—wherewith to shape our destinies Convincing themselves that they impersonate sagacity Could ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... can be drawn from the confession of some of the poor wretches who have suffered upon such charges is, that they had attempted to commit the crime, and thereby incurred the guilt and deserved the punishment. Of this indeed there have been recent instances; and in one atrocious case the criminal escaped because the statute against the imaginary offence is obsolete, and there exists no law which ...
— Colloquies on Society • Robert Southey
... the excuses, which have been hitherto made by the receivers, force a relation of such circumstances, as makes their conduct totally inexcusable, and, instead of diminishing at all, highly aggravates their guilt. ...
— An Essay on the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species, Particularly the African • Thomas Clarkson
... give assistance, if need were, for carrying it into execution, this would have amounted to murder in him, and in every person present and joining with him." "If the fact was committed in prosecution of the original purpose which was unlawful, the whole party will be involved in the guilt of him who gave the blow. For in combinations of this kind, the mortal stroke, though given by one of the party, is considered in the eye of the law, and of sound reason too, as given by every individual present ...
— The Making of Arguments • J. H. Gardiner
... in guilt, Splendid in scorn, rapt in a cloudy dream, He paused at last upon the Stygian silt, And raised calm eyes above the angry stream.... Hand in his breast, he stood till Charon came, While Hades hummed with ...
— Ships in Harbour • David Morton
... from giving his assent to so illegal a demand, or condemning noblemen who were accused of no crime, nor had any opportunity afforded them of making answer.[*] Equity and reason were but a feeble opposition to men who had arms in their hands, and who, being already involved in guilt, saw no safety but in success and victory. They entered London with their troops; and giving in to the parliament, which was then sitting, a charge against the Spensers, of which they attempted not to prove one article, they procured, by menaces and violence, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... with a certain sense of guilt upon him, for depriving her of all the creature comforts she had known, sought by tenderness and love to make her forget the insults her father heaped ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... rejoined, "that she would not bless you for the act? Can you think that when she hears that the child of her adoption, the child of her love, has saved from anguish, from despair, from guilt, the brother whom she nursed in his cradle, whose mother she was, as she has been yours,—can you think that she will not pronounce a secret but fervent blessing on your head? She obeys her husband's stern commands, Ellen, but her heart aches for us. Oh! for ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... as well as maimed and halt and lame, What sometimes makes it see? Oppressed with guilt and gnawed upon of shame, What comes upon it so, Faster and faster stealing, Flooding it like an air or sea Of warm and golden feeling? What makes it melt, Dissolving from the earthiness that made it hard and heavy? What makes it melt ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... pledges of the interest which she possessed in her husband's affections. The blundering reverence which he made, rather AT than TO the Countess, had confession in it. It was like the reverence which the criminal makes to the judge, when he at once owns his guilt and implores mercy—which is at the same time an impudent and embarrassed attempt at defence or extenuation, a confession of a fault, and ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... feature in the guilt of calumny is its uncontrollable character: "the tongue can no man tame." You cannot arrest a calumnious tongue, you cannot arrest the calumny itself; you may refute a slanderer, you may trace home a slander to its source, you may expose the author of it, you may by that exposure give ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson
... of a common responsibility for the system as a whole. It was the newly developed trade quite as much as the system of slavery itself which furnished the ground for the later anti-slavery appeal. The consciousness of a common guilt for the sin of slavery grew with the increase of actual ...
— The Anti-Slavery Crusade - Volume 28 In The Chronicles Of America Series • Jesse Macy
... How I so found it full of pleasing charms? Some drops of joy with draughts of ill between: Some gleams of sunshine 'mid renewing storms: Is it departing pangs my soul alarms? Or Death's unlovely, dreary, dark abode? For guilt, for guilt, my terrors are in arms; I tremble to approach an angry God, And justly smart beneath his ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... formal notice was sent to me of the birth of a brother; but as, when my father's will was opened, he there had inserted his confession, or the substance of it, in which he stated, that aware of my mother's guilt, and supposing that consequences might ensue, he solemnly declared before God that he had for years lived apart, I cared little for this communication. I contented myself with replying that as the child belonged to the ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat
... to inveigle the lost client back, but while Win was hastily replacing dolls in boxes before taking another customer, Mr. Tobias pounced. "Why did you let that lady go without showing her any of our best dolls?" he inquired, angling for guilt in her soul's depths with a ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... therefore, that the powers of the painter principally consists; in the representation, not of simple character, but of character influenced or subdued by emotion. It is the representation of the joy of youth, or the repose of age; of the sorrow of innocence, or the penitence of guilt; of the tenderness of parental affection, or the gratitude of filial love. In these, and a thousand other instances, the expression of the emotion constitutes the beauty of the picture; it is that which ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... exclusion; he had had no idea that the case against him was so strong. How had the boy got to the room so soon after he himself had left, and why had he gone there? And why, why had he cleaned the shotgun? The grand jury must believe in his guilt. And when the case came to trial, what could Jim say to clear himself? It was going hard, ...
— The Calico Cat • Charles Miner Thompson
... bereavement, sat down to table together, shared the long evenings, and grew daily better friends; until it seemed to him of a sudden that she was prying about dangerous matters, that she had conceived a notion of his guilt, that she watched him and tried him with questions. He drew back from her company as men draw back from a precipice suddenly discovered; and yet so strong was the attraction that he would drift again and again into the old intimacy, and again and again be startled back by some suggestive question ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson
... followed the murder of his grand-uncle, Julius Caesar. The triumvirs, Mark Antony, Octavian, and Lepidus, had avenged the assassination by a wholesale proscription of their political opponents, all of whom indiscriminately they charged with the guilt of the deed; and had defeated Brutus and Cassius on the plains of Philippi. They had parcelled out the Empire among them, and then quarrelled over the spoil. Octavian, the dictator of the West, had expelled Lepidus ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale
... plan of insurrection. Not caring to wait for the springing of the mine, he surrounded the place of meeting with his soldiers and made prisoners of the suspected chieftains. According to one authority, they confessed their guilt. *24 This is by no means certain. Nor is it certain that they meditated an insurrection. Yet the fact is not improbable in itself; though it derives little additional probability from the assertion of the hostile interpreters. It is certain, however, that Pizarro was satisfied ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... guilt is sunk out of sight," said Effi, "in which connection it occurs to me, by the way, that in former times poor unfortunate women are said to have been thrown overboard thus from a ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... Guilt was in David's heart, but there was no sting of venom in St. Pierre's words, and he was laughing at them now, as though what he saw were a pretty ...
— The Flaming Forest • James Oliver Curwood
... no less an authority than Sir William Blackstone, who says (Bl. Commentaries, book iv. p. 21): 'Another species of compulsion or necessity is what our law calls duress per minias, or threats and menaces which induce fear of death or other bodily harm, and which take away, for that reason, the guilt of many crimes and misdemeanors, at least before the human tribunal. Therefore, in time of war or rebellion, a man may be justified in doing many treasonable acts by compulsion of the enemy or REBELS, which would admit of no excuse ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... alluded, parenthetically, to the possible guilt of capillary attraction, but I am prepared to maintain against the attraction of gravitation the charge of total depravity. Indeed, I should say of it, as did the worthy exhorter of the Dominie's old parish in regard to slavery,—"It's the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... had accomplished her mission, but apparently no one else knew it. True, she had been accused, and had been subjected to a most rigid examination by the Newport police and the New York Central Office, but no proof of any kind establishing her guilt could be adduced, and after a week of suspicion she was to all intents and ...
— Mrs. Raffles - Being the Adventures of an Amateur Crackswoman • John Kendrick Bangs
... which no human soul can grasp, that more than one being should sink into the depths of this misery,—that the first, in its writhing death-agony under the eyes of the Eternal Forgiver, did not expiate the guilt of all others! The misery of this single one pierces to the very marrow of my life; and thou art calmly grinning at the ...
— Faust • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... darkening still; Folly for wisdom, guilt for innocence; Anguish for rapture, and ...
— Studies in Occultism; A Series of Reprints from the Writings of H. P. Blavatsky • H. P. Blavatsky
... protection of our south-has made no end of money by selling a monstrous deal of very bad liquor to customers of all grades,—niggers excepted. And, although his hair is well mixed with the grey of many years, he declares the guilt of selling liquor to niggers is not on his shoulders. It is owing to this clean state of his character, that he has been able to maintain his aristocratic position. "Yes, indeed," said one of his patrons, who, having fallen in arrears, found ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... This culprit did not seem to quail before vague accusation, as he had expected him to do. He was faced by a young man whose face was lighted by wrath, curiosity, and kindred emotions that were obviously not those of guilt. ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... round scolding into one corner and Susy into another, with no light thrown upon the point in dispute, no principle settled as a guide in future difficulties, and little discrimination as to the relative guilt of the offenders. But there is no court of appeal before which Harry and Susy can lay their case in these ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... wife, every sigh she uttered, every tear she shed, even the unconscious mutterings of her dreams, were spied upon by another woman, who hated him as well as his wife, and certainly would hasten to make both miserable, if a shadow of guilt could be found on the ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... God! thy starry smile Still bless us from above! Keep pure our souls from passion's guile, Our hearts from earthly love! Still save each soul from guilt apart As stainless as each sword, And guard undimmed in every heart The image ...
— Pike County Ballads and Other Poems • John Hay
... (my cautious rhymes Always except the present times) A greedy Vulture, skill'd in game, Inured to guilt, unawed by shame, Approach'd the throne in evil hour, And, step by step, intrudes to power. When at the royal eagle's ear. He longs to ease the monarch's care. The monarch grants. With proud elate, ...
— Life And Letters Of John Gay (1685-1732) • Lewis Melville
... learning, not to ensure a conviction,—for the circumstances were such that a conviction was inevitable,— but to deprive the unhappy prisoner of all those excuses which, though legally of no value, yet tended to diminish the moral guilt of the crime, and which, therefore, though they could not justify the peers in pronouncing an acquittal, might incline the Queen to grant a pardon. The Earl urged as a palliation of his frantic acts that he was surrounded by powerful and inveterate enemies, that they ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... which was a gold watch, which was no sooner shown than a gentleman who was standing nearby claimed it as his own, saying that the house where they were standing was the residence of his family. He then proceeded to identify clearly the property. The crowd, convinced of the thief's guilt, wanted to lynch him, but after an exciting scene Captain Jones pacified them. The man was escorted out of town by officers, released and ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... chaplain, after some thought, said: "I now understand why, six years ago, Biorn confessed his guilt to me in general words, and consented that his wife should take the veil. Some faint compunction must then have stirred within him, and perhaps may stir him yet. At any rate it was impossible that ...
— Sintram and His Companions • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... will own I merit the reproach; And for those foolish days of wanton pride, My soul is justly humbled to the dust: All tongues, like yours, are licens'd to upbraid me, Still to repeat my guilt; and urge my infamy, And treat me like that abject ...
— Jane Shore - A Tragedy • Nicholas Rowe
... COUN. Is't guilt, that I thus tremble? Why should I Feel like a sinner? I'll not dare to meet His flashing eye. O, with what scorn, what hate His lightning glance will wither me. Away, I will away. I care not whom he meets. What if he love me not, ...
— Count Alarcos - A Tragedy • Benjamin Disraeli
... settlers, who made the outrage known to the trappers. They all regarded the crime with the utmost abhorrence, and felt mortified that any of their party should be guilty of conduct so revolting. The culprits were arrested, and they at once admitted their guilt. A council was called in the presence of the settlers, and the men were offered their choice of two punishments: either to be hanged to the nearest tree, or to receive one hundred lashes each on the bare back. They chose the latter, which was immediately inflicted ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... led them to the corner for prayer, and poured forth a confession of sin for them and for herself, such as left little that could have been added by her own profligate son, had he joined in the prayer. Either there are no degrees in guilt, or the Scotch language was equal only to the confession of children and holy women, and could provide no more awful words for the contrition of the prodigal or the hypocrite. But the words did little harm, for Robert's mind was full of the kite ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... moral training, and the dishonesty which was the natural result of the old system of labor, the negro could not be expected to observe all the rules prescribed for his guidance, but which were never explained. Like ignorant and degraded people everywhere, many of the negroes believed that guilt lay mainly in detection. There was little wickedness in stealing a pig or a chicken, if the theft were never discovered, and there was no occasion for allowing twinges of ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox
... would be happy, however, for mankind, were princes taught to believe that there is really an omnipotent and all-judging power, that will exact a severe account of their conduct, and punish them for their guilt, with out any respect to their persons; that pillaging a whole people is more cruel than robbing a single person; and that the massacre of thousands is, at least, as criminal ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... with them one and all, And each calm pillow spread— But Guilt was my grim chamberlain That lighted me to bed, And drew my midnight curtains round, With ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 340, Supplementary Number (1828) • Various
... that they are not more in the current of social forms? On that account one ought to overlook the fact that they do not know more, as is done with an honored artist or farmer. But other is the motive for this accusation of guilt. It is said that on the arrival of a Spaniard at a village the friars do not offer him lodging, and they often will not drink his health in a glass of water—or, at least, do not go to receive him; while everything is open for a ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various
... passion, was also gifted with brains, and with a certain largeness of temperament and clearness of insight which Lady Rens lacked. Even when she was still quivering under the shock and shame of her mother's guilt and her own solitude, Domini was unable to share her father's intensely egoistic view of the religion of the culprit. She could not be persuaded that the faith in which she had been brought up was proved to be a sham because one of its professors, whom she had above all ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... remains perfectly motionless until he perceives himself discovered, when he makes one desperate and final effort to escape, but ceases all struggling as you come up, and behaves in a manner that stamps him a very timid warrior,—cowering to the earth with a mingled look of shame, guilt, and humiliation. A young farmer told me of tracing one with his trap to the border of a wood, where he discovered the cunning rogue trying to hide by embracing a small tree. Most animals, when taken in a trap, show fight; but Reynard has more faith in the nimbleness ...
— Squirrels and Other Fur-Bearers • John Burroughs
... he had committed, whatever they might be; and whenever they heard of the commission of any great crimes by potentates or rulers, they would seize upon the occasion to urge the guilty persons to go and fight for the cross in Palestine, as a means of wiping away their guilt. ...
— Richard I - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... 1853, when I first visited the Queen Charlotte Islands in command of H.M.S. Virago. An American schooner had been plundered and destroyed by the Islanders; my object was to punish the offenders, but, after a searching enquiry, I was not able to fix the guilt upon any particular tribe. Some portion of the property was restored, and no lives being lost, I was obliged to be satisfied by assembling together all the chiefs, and reminding them of the power I held to punish the guilty. In my own mind, I believe Edensaw was the guilty person. From ...
— Metlakahtla and the North Pacific Mission • Eugene Stock
... was this that had befallen him who, but a moment before, had been so entirely innocent of the guilt of blood? What was he now to do in such an extremity as this, with his victim lying dead at his feet, a poniard in his heart? Who would believe him to be guiltless of crime with such a dreadful evidence as this presented against him? How was he, a stranger ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... is pure, and no contact of deadly food has polluted his lips, yet his conscience is nevertheless polluted, weeps when he hears us, and laments, and is now admonished for the things wherein he has sinned, and having been deceived, not so much by guilt as by error, bears witness that for another time he ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... carry, he slips noiselessly away, leaving no trace of his identity. No one has seen him enter or depart; his position is far above the reach of suspicion; every clue has been destroyed in the fire-place, and no witness to his guilt can possibly be raised up. So he thinks; and as month after month passes, as detective after detective abandons the case in despair, as the excitement dies out in the public mind, and as the friends of the deceased apparently ...
— The Somnambulist and the Detective - The Murderer and the Fortune Teller • Allan Pinkerton
... giving the letter which he had finished to the primate. "It purports to be the copy of a letter addressed to me three years ago, when I was at Oxenford, but which never reached me. Oh, what a story of damnable guilt! Tell me, man, where ...
— The Rival Heirs being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... said the philosopher; "the race is numerous as the sands of the sea, neither are they altogether unhappy in discharging the duties which their fate has allotted them. Those who are of worse character suffer even in this life the penance due to their guilt; they become the slaves of the cruel and tyrannical, are beaten, starved, and mutilated. To those whose moral characters are better, better masters are provided, who share with their slaves, as with their children, food and raiment, and the other ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... bloodshed. When a single murder is committed, it shall be deemed perhaps a crime; but that crime shall commence a virtue, when committed under the shelter of public authority, so that punishment is not rated by the measure of guilt, but the more enormous the size of the wickedness is, so much the greater is the chance for impunity." These are the sentiments of Cyprian, and that they were the result of his views of Christianity, ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... trial the petitioner failed to produce any legal evidence whatever of the guilt of Sir Charles Dilke; in the second the Queen's Proctor failed to prove his innocence. [Footnote: Technically the verdict, by dismissing the Queen's Proctor's intervention, confirmed the original judgment, which dismissed Sir Charles from ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... be possible to obtain purification from crimes and exemption from punishment by means of money or other frivolous practices; as long as kings and great men shall suppose that building temples or instituting foundations, will absolve them from the guilt of oppression and homicide; as long as individuals shall imagine that they may rob and cheat, provided they observe fast during Lent, go to confession, and receive extreme unction, it is impossible there should ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney
... must have A more potential draught of guilt than this With more of wormwood in it! ... ... Courage, Firmilian! for the hour has come When thou canst know atrocity indeed, By smiting him that was thy dearest friend. And think not that he dies a vulgar death— ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... hanged out of hand for about a hundred years. After that time they may come down and move about under a cloud. After about 2000 years they may do what they like. If Nero murdered his mother—well, he murdered his mother and there's an end. The moral guilt of an action varies inversely as the squares of its distances in time and space, social, psychological, physiological or topographical, from ourselves. Not so its moral merit: this loses no lustre ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... in Vanity Fair—mutes who could not write. If you are guilty, tremble. That fellow behind your chair may be a Janissary with a bow-string in his plush breeches pocket. If you are not guilty, have a care of appearances, which are as ruinous as guilt. ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... biographers have done before, to tell the story of Sextus Roscius of Ameria at some length, because it is in itself a tale of powerful romance, mysterious, grim, betraying guilt of the deepest dye, misery most profound, and audacity unparalleled; because, in a word, it is as interesting as any novel that modern fiction has produced; and also, I will tell it, because it lets in a flood of light upon the condition ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope
... to the fear that lay hidden in Miss Quincey's heart. A sensitive culprit caught in humiliating guilt could not look more cowed with self-consciousness than Miss Quincey at that word. Criminal and crime, Miss Quincey and her blouse, seemed linked in an awful bond of mutual abhorrence. The blouse shivered ...
— Superseded • May Sinclair
... smoke a cigar!" he proposed in hearty ringing tones. Allan thanked him and came in, but the puzzled expression was still on his face, and through the first moments of their talk he was very absent-minded. Roger's feeling of guilt increased, and he cursed himself for ...
— His Family • Ernest Poole
... reply," said the page, "that if I have offended my only mistress, friend, and benefactress, it includes the sum of my guilt, and deserves the sum of my penitence—Sir Halbert Glendinning calls me not servant, nor do I call him master—he is not entitled to blame me for chastising an insolent groom—nor do I fear the wrath of ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... you show them, mother, that you are frightened, they will think there must be something in this house because you tremble. And we have done nothing as yet, nothing! You know that we don't want anything bad; on our side is truth, and we will work for it all our lives. This is our entire guilt. Why, ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... expostulate in a rougher manner, till at length he charged the King in plain terms with injustice and perjury, but no men are found to endure reproaches with less temper than those who most deserve them, the King, at the same time filled with indignation, and stung with guilt, invaded Normandy a second time, resolving to reduce his brother to such terms as might stop all further complaints. He had already taken several strong holds, by force either of arms or of money, and intending entirely to subdue the ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... from a mysterious foreigner who had declared knowledge of his innocence and of half the truth, aroused his curiosity, if no more. That one person, at all events, had discovered, and was apparently pursuing, an alternative to his own guilt was interesting, if a slender encouragement to build on. He was not disposed to cling to flimsy hopes. He accepted his position with perfect calmness. Since the confession of his identity to Inspector Fay a load seemed to have been ...
— The Crooked House • Brandon Fleming
... directions with an air of guilt; but there was no face at any of the windows, and he ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... to England, the British Government acknowledged its guilt and paid L90,000 for the richest diamond fields in the world, a sum which scarcely represents the daily output of ...
— A Century of Wrong • F. W. Reitz
... darkness. She was going to George; but George was dying, and while he had been lying there in his lonely suffering, she had been forgetting him, and betraying him. The recollection of Farrell's embrace overwhelmed her with a crushing sense of guilt. George indeed should never know. But that made no difference to ...
— Missing • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... government. If a man was accused of crime, the judges appointed by the government that he had offended were not to be allowed to decide whether he was guilty or not. They would be likely not to be impartial. The question of his guilt or innocence was to be left to twelve men, taken at hazard from the ordinary walks of life, and who, consequently, would be likely to sympathize with the accused, if they saw any disposition to oppress him, rather than to join against him with ...
— Charles I - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... queen, to deprecate her anger, and to represent that faction had been so busy of late years in their unhappy town, that there was scarcely a family to be found in it, some of whose members were not more or less involved in the guilt. Isabella, who was naturally of a benign disposition, considering that enough had probably been done to strike a salutary terror into the remaining delinquents, was willing to temper justice with mercy, and accordingly granted an amnesty for all past offences, save ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... my sins to myself, and atone for them by the pangs of a wounded conscience. That is too easy a religion which shifts the burden of guilt on to the shoulders of a stipendiary priest, and walks away from the confessional absolved by the payment of a few ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... was thought, had been in collusion with him. A curious feature of the robbery had been revealed by the discovery of the mail sack. It was unopened, its contents undisturbed, its rusty padlock still in place. The perpetrator of the crime had not soiled his person with any visible evidence of guilt and so ...
— A Man for the Ages - A Story of the Builders of Democracy • Irving Bacheller
... be a great help, won't it? The rent can be paid and you can have something warm to wear and—and—" then he interrupted himself to stir up the fire, a wave of guilt causing him to withdraw from the ordeal imposed by her trusting blue eyes. "By the way, Kate, we must be quite merry tonight—isn't that so, Nell? Pop's got a job!" And with forced gaiety he juggled the laughing child ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon
... boy, his father; the girl, her mother; later as the driver of the car, and later still, leadership roles of various kinds. The struggles in the process are accompanied by feelings of anxiety, of inadequacy, and of guilt. Feelings of inadequacy in relation to the size and powers of the adult can be considerable; and the feelings of guilt, in response to the daydreams about replacing Daddy, for instance, are crucial, and too often are unrecognized by many parents ...
— Herein is Love • Reuel L. Howe
... round to see if the door was shut and all safe—she felt herself a criminal, but the sense of guilt had an exhilarating rather than ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... of Mildred is the remorse of innocence, the anguish of one wholly unlearned in the dark colours of guilt. This tragedy of Mildred and Mertoun is the Romeo and Juliet of Browning's cycle of dramas. But Mildred's cousin Guendolen, by virtue of her swift, womanly penetration and her brave protectiveness of distressed girlhood, is a kinswoman of Beatrice who supported the injured daughter ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... men went away without another word, passing quickly through the barnyard and up the path that led into the woods. The mother arose and knelt by the bedside in the corner so long that Scotty could bear his burden of guilt no longer. He crept up to her, and when she put her arms about him he sobbed out his dreadful secret; how he and Isabel and Danny had carried a letter to Nancy, and another one back to Callum; and perhaps that was what made Callum ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith
... and since the authorities had prepared in advance for the explosion, it is only fair to conclude that the Iron Heel did know. Furthermore, we charge that the Iron Heel was guilty of the outrage, and that the Iron Heel planned and perpetrated the outrage for the purpose of foisting the guilt on our shoulders and so bringing about ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London
... Ludgate, there was no hope for him; the proofs of his guilt were manifest and incontrovertible. The forged note, which his wife had taken from his desk and given to the milliner, was one which had not gone through certain mysterious preparations. It was a bungling forgery. The plate would doubtless have been retouched, had not this bill ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... Row, and stopped before the cell in which stood the man waiting his new trial. He poured out his story again, and as Gordon looked sadly through the bars at his face the certainty of his guilt gave the lie ...
— The One Woman • Thomas Dixon
... the mantle-piece, and his game-bag dropped at his feet. Marian's heart bounded, and her cheek and eye kindled when she saw him, and, for the instant, all her doubts vanished—she could not believe that guilt lurked behind a countenance so frank, noble and calm as his. He stepped forward to meet her, extending his hand. She placed her ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... by which the Government hoped to introduce the principle of individual statements and pleas—that is to say each one to excuse himself at the expense of his neighbour, and thus enable the authorities to establish by the prisoners' own confessions the extent of the guilt and complicity which they ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... Guilt of him who delivered Christ to Pilate. John xix. 10, 11.—"Then saith Pilate unto him, 'Speakest thou not ...
— Sermons on Various Important Subjects • Andrew Lee
... court proceeds with a pessimistic bias. The prisoner is held guilty until he is proved innocent. In England and the United States there is an optimistic presumption that the accused is innocent until it is no longer possible to deny his guilt. Under our system, it is said, many criminals are acquitted; but it is surely better so than that many innocent persons should suffer. The pessimist cries, "There is no enduring good in man! The tendency of all things is through perpetual loss to chaos in the end. If there was ever an ...
— Optimism - An Essay • Helen Keller |
