"Offensive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... point," said Dunne. "It is a question of legal and moral right against what I think—and I don't want to be offensive—but what I think is an attempt to read into a clause of an old charter a meaning which it ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... being whose presence is energetic enough to turn the current of thought into a healthier direction. And so, by the evening he has got the little offence into the point of view in which it looks most offensive: he is in a rage at being asked to do his best in writing anything for a six-shilling publication. Why on earth not do so? Is not the mind unsoundly sensitive that finds an offence in a request like that? My brilliant ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... East, South and West, in doings that would have disgraced so many ward heelers or oyster-shuckers—shady financial transactions, gross sexual irregularities, all sorts of minor crimes. The publication of this evidence from day to day gave the chronicler the advantage of the offensive, and so got him out of a tight place. In the end, as if tickled by his assault, the hierarchy of heaven came to his aid. That is to say, the Lord God Jehovah arranged it that one of the leading Methodist clergymen ...
— The American Credo - A Contribution Toward the Interpretation of the National Mind • George Jean Nathan
... man and the family into which his daughter has married. Sometimes he will accept no food or even water in his son-in-law's village. The word sala, signifying wife's brother, when addressed to a man, is also a common and extremely offensive term of abuse. The meaning is now perhaps supposed to be that one has violated the sister of the person spoken to, but this can hardly have been the original significance as sasur or father-in-law is also considered in a minor degree ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell
... a selection of his less offensive stories, and found ready applause. The gayety was loud and forced. Every one attempted to keep it at fever-heat. Jest followed jest with increasing rapidity. Laughter rang out on the smallest provocation. It was a competition ...
— The Crooked House • Brandon Fleming
... The most disagreeable man about the establishment to persons like you, who perhaps goes out of his way to insult you, and yet should be respected for his age, may be one who can be of greatest use to you. Cultivate his acquaintance. A kind word will generally be the best response to an offensive remark, though gentlemanly words of resentment may be necessary when others are present. Sometimes it will be sufficient to say, "I wish a little talk with you by yourself," which will put the bystanders at a distance and enable you ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 623, December 10, 1887 • Various
... of me, then quietly climbed over a dwarf wall and disappeared under a small outhouse, in search of chickens, as the landlord afterwards told me. This animal possesses, as is well known, a most offensive secretion, which it has the power of ejecting over its enemies, and which effectually protects it from attack. The odour of this substance is so penetrating that it taints, and renders useless, everything it touches, or in its vicinity. Provisions near it become uneatable, and clothes saturated ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... the autumn set in, the offensive operations of the French had resulted in complete failure though there had been no important engagement: and in the meantime, the temporary nature of the reverse at Ancram Moor had been demonstrated by renewed ravages in Scotland directed ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... that other companies were organized and seemed on the highroad to fortune, when a sudden reverse came. For the heat of summer melted wagon-covers, caps and coats to sticky masses with an odor so offensive that they had to be buried. So the business collapsed, the various companies went into bankruptcy, and the very name of India-rubber came to be detested by producers and ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson
... Colonel with that contradictory uplook of her faded blue eyes which was pathetic, and that tilt of her nose which was offensive, with her lips primped tight after the manner of a woman who is getting ready to wash behind the ears of a small boy. She always put the Colonel in this class when she looked at him, and he resented it. He resented it now by removing his Kentucky Colonel straw hat and glaring his bow at her, as ...
— The Co-Citizens • Corra Harris
... the toss of the head with which she quoted Charlie's offensive words, then offered to take the letter, saying, as he looked at his watch: "I'll post that for you in time for the early mail. I ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... towards that human millennium of which he dreams. He is even willing to help the many to ascend the ladder a little, though he knows, as they come up towards him, he must go down to meet them. What is really in his mind is,—I will not say equality, for the word is offensive, and presents to the imagination of men ideas of communism, of ruin, and insane democracy,—but a tendency towards equality. In following that, however, he knows that he must be hemmed in by safeguards, lest he be tempted to travel too quickly; ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope
... for defence, rarely quit it promptly for an attack," replied Waldron. "There is not one chance in ten that these gentlemen will make a considerable forward movement early in the fight. Only the greatest geniuses jump from the defensive to the offensive. Besides, we must hold the wood. So long as we hold the wood in front of their centre ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... rehearsed in an hour or in a day. But it is not to my aunt alone that my presence is offensive. Cousin Tristan also chafes at the sight of his dependent relative. I have seen it when I took my seat at table; I have seen it when room was made for me in the carriage; I have seen it on numberless occasions. His glances, his accents, his whole demeanor, have ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... my best friend. I did not mean to be offensive; you have misunderstood my meaning. I will give you five hundred pounds, though I know I will have to pay one hundred out of my own purse. It ...
— Looking Seaward Again • Walter Runciman
... manners," said the Earl. "He will be in no one's way. Children are usually idiots or bores,—mine were both,—but he can actually answer when he's spoken to, and be silent when he is not. He is never offensive." ...
— Little Lord Fauntleroy • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... fever, his eyes deep sunken, with a moribund and yellowish face, his tongue dry and parched, and the whole body much wasted and lean, the voice low as of a man very near death: and I found his thigh much inflamed, suppurating, and ulcerated, discharging a greenish and very offensive sanies. I probed it with a silver probe, wherewith I found a large cavity in the middle of the thigh, and others round the knee, sanious and cuniculate: also several scales of bone, some loose, others not. The ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... felt herself disdained and slighted. Marriage had not changed Camors's habits: he dined at home, instead of at his club, that was all. She believed herself loved, however, but with a lightness that was almost offensive. Yet, though she was sometimes sad and nearly in tears, she did not despair; this valiant little heart attached itself with intrepid confidence to all the happy chances the future might have in ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet
... their pride. This is the quality which draws forth the sternest denunciations of Scripture, and is expressly declared to have called down the Divine judgments upon the race. Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Zephaniah alike dwell upon it. It pervades the inscriptions. Without being so rampant or offensive as the pride of some Orientals—as, for instance, the Chinese, it is of a marked and decided color: the Assyrian feels himself infinitely superior to all the nations with whom he is brought into contact; he ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... of complexion, a perpetual worsening of clothes. Only Powson bore a permanent yoke of prosperity. It lay round his thick brown neck with the low clean line of his blue cotton smock, and he carried it without offensive consciousness, looking up and down by no means in search of customers, rather in the exercise of the opaque, inscrutable philosophy tied up in ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... Bengal, the saree, though rather too scanty, is a graceful costume, and at a little distance appears to be a modest covering. Here it is worn very differently, and without the slightest attempt at delicacy or grace, the drapery being in itself insufficient, and rendered more offensive by the method of ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts
... sentiment: but it is also equally true that the same thing will be either approved or rejected, according as it is this or that way expressed. In all cases, therefore, we cannot be too careful in examining the how far? for though every thing has it's proper mean, yet an excess is always more offensive and disgusting than a proportionable defect. Apelles, therefore, justly censures some of his cotemporary artists, because they never knew when ...
— Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... known to thee, we have been expecting Tiridates here; meanwhile Vologeses has written an offensive letter. Because he has conquered Armenia, he asks that it be left to him for Tiridates; if not, he will not yield it in any case. Pure comedy! So we have decided on war. Corbulo will receive power such as Pompeius Magnus received in the ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... Professor Blackie was as offensive to the boy as the dirty face of the boy to Professor Blackie. One had been schooled to short-haired men, the ...
— Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures • George W. Bain
... for fast ships of very large size, the battleships—intended to act in squadrons—possessing the maximum of offensive and defensive power; the cruisers—intended for scouting and similar purposes—possessing a high rate of speed, heavy armament, and a certain amount of protection; and, as the travelling speed of a fleet is limited ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston
... barbarity, to all the usages of war. On the Rhine, Custine had taken Treves, Spires, and Mayence. In the Alps, general Montesquiou had invaded Savoy, and general Anselme the territory of Nice. Our armies, victorious in all directions, had everywhere assumed the offensive, and the revolution ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet
... a curling lip. "You'll disinherit me?" quoth he in mockery. "And of what, pray? If report speaks true, you'll be needing to inherit something yourself to bear you through your present straitness." He shrugged and produced his snuff-box with an offensive simulation of nonchalance. "Ye cannot cut the entail," he reminded his almost apoplectic sire, and took snuff ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... some time ago. Since then Swami Dayanand's countenance has changed completely toward us. He is, now, an enemy of the Theosophical Society and its two founders—Colonel Olcott and the author of these letters. It appeared that, on entering into an offensive and defensive alliance with the Society, Dayanand nourished the hope that all its members, Christians, Brahmans and Buddhists, would acknowledge His supremacy, and become members ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... Italian kind which has no English name—Germans call them Zornnatter, in allusion to their choleric disposition. Most of them are quite ready to snap at the least provocation; maybe they find it pays, as it does with other folks, to assume the offensive and be first in the field, demanding your place in the sun with an air of wrathful determination. Some of the big fellows can draw blood with their teeth. Yet the jawbones are weak and one can force them asunder ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... BASKET-BEARERS[22], waited upon their beautiful enemy with an ultimatum and manifesto in one, importing first a requisition to surrender; then, in case of refusal to capitulate, the announcement that HYMEN having found in CUPID an inefficient ally, he was about associating with himself, in league offensive, the god MARS, with intent of carrying the Maiden-fortress by storm, and reducing the aforesaid wild occupants of the stronghold ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... cabin, in contrast with the bright light of sun shining on new-fallen snow, was dark and so utterly cheerless and chill that he shrugged shoulders impatiently at its atmosphere, which was as intangibly offensive as had been the ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower
... seem So eager to pass o'er, as I discern Through the blear light?" He thus to me in few: "This shalt thou know, soon as our steps arrive Beside the woeful tide of Acheron." Then with eyes downward cast and fill'd with shame, Fearing my words offensive to his ear, Till we had reach'd the river, I from speech Abstain'd. And lo! toward us in a bark Comes on an old man hoary white with eld, Crying, "Woe to you wicked spirits! hope not Ever to see the ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... duties by deputy, and a Commission then sitting ultimately abolished the office altogether, with a retiring allowance of about half the salary. Certain Whig peers took this up as a job, and Lord Lauderdale, supported by Lord Holland, made in the House of Lords very offensive charges against Scott personally for having appointed his brother to a place which he knew would be abolished,[13] and against Thomas for claiming compensation in respect of duties which he had never performed. The ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury
... to say or do nothing that may seem to others degrading or unworthy. The man who has consideration for the feelings of others will be equally careful to do or say nothing that may give them pain, or be offensive ...
— Life and Conduct • J. Cameron Lees
... Somehow, the worse Mr. Boffin treated his secretary, the more Bella felt drawn to the man whose offer of marriage she had refused. The crisis came one morning when the Golden Dustman's bearing towards Rokesmith was even more arrogant and offensive than it had been before. Mrs. Boffin was seated on a sofa, and Mr. Boffin ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... Russia in those days were the most charming and cultivated people in the world, whereas the Prussian as a diplomatist was the same Prussian whom, even as an ally of ours in 1815, Croker found "very insolent, and hardly less offensive to the English than to the French."[1] The Russians felt those humiliations as a gentleman would feel the bullying ...
— The Mirrors of Downing Street - Some Political Reflections by a Gentleman with a Duster • Harold Begbie
... out of the ordinary, being really quite within common lines: the dissembler is in some respect beyond the ordinary, but wishes not to show himself otherwise than as an ordinary mortal with ordinary knowledge. The pretender is on the offensive, challenging attention: the dissembler is on his defence against notice. "Simulation," says Bolingbroke, "is a stiletto, not only an offensive but an unlawful weapon, and the use of it may be rarely, very rarely, excused, ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... sketched with fossil sepia, or india ink, from their own ink sacs. In the belemnites and their descendants, the squids and cuttlefish, the cephalopods made the radical change from external to the internal shell. They abandoned the defensive system of warfare and boldly took up the offensive. No doubt, like their descendants, the belemnites were ...
— The Elements of Geology • William Harmon Norton
... to a stout-built yeoman of the guard, who was standing within the doorway, Nicholas Clamp demanded admittance to the kitchen, and the man having detained them for a few moments, during which he regarded Mabel with a very offensive stare, ushered them into a small hall, and from thence into a narrow passage connected with it. Lighted by narrow loopholes pierced through the walls, which were of immense thickness, this passage described the outer side of the whole upper quadrangle, and communicated with many other lateral ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... complaints about her food and to helplessness where she should be helpful, possessing an extraordinary capacity for fancying herself slighted, or not regarded as the superior being she knows herself to be, morbidly anxious lest the servants should, by some mistake, treat her with offensive cordiality, pettish if the patient gives more trouble than she had expected, intensely injured and disagreeable if he is made so courageous by his wretchedness as to wake her during the night—an act of ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp
... 'Don't you realize the explosive stuff that is lying about? Ivery knows enough to make the next German peace offensive really deadly—not the blundering thing which it has been up to now, but something which gets our weak spots on the raw. He knows enough to wreck our campaign in the field. And the awful thing is that we don't know just what he knows or what he is aiming ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan
... was to put myself in his hands and there was to be some shooting if, as he thought likely, a caretaker was left on the premises to be entered. I told him flat—we were sitting on Wandsworth Common at the time—that he could leave me out, and that is where we became mutually offensive." ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace
... reserve resolution not to let anybody get ahead of me. I had all the assurance of a man double my years and an easy way of making acquaintances that was destined to stand me in good stead, but I do not wish to be understood as admitting that my manners were offensive or that I was in any degree supercilious. I was simply a good fellow who had always enjoyed the comradeship of other good fellows, and as a result felt reasonably sure that the rest of the world would treat him kindly. Moreover, ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train
... sportsmen thought they had caught him; but a minute afterwards away went the waving tail amongst the pools and the marshy grass, the zorillo, no doubt, accompanying it, though we could not see him, and fortunately without resorting to any offensive or defensive measures. While they were chasing the zorillo, and we had rode a little way off, that we might not be accidentally shot in the fog, an immense wolf came looming by in the mist, with its stealthy gallop, close to our horses, ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... removing the wire from the cork, discharged the missile at the ceiling. The shoemaker took the glass from him and looked round with offensive slyness. ...
— Light Freights • W. W. Jacobs
... together," said the son. "She's a sufficiently offensive person, I fancy; or might be. But she sometimes struck me as a person that one might be easily unjust to, for that very reason; I suppose she has the fascination that a proud girl has for a girl ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... contrived. How such rusty, battered, old-fashioned, rough-and-ready machinery can be got to work at all, it is hard to say; but it does. Of course the engines are continually breaking down, or bursting, or doing something or other offensive. But whatever may happen, the Pirate and his two aids consider themselves equal to the emergency, and make shift to tinker up the mishap somehow. Such unlooked for examples of misapplied force are constantly ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... this is a projecting and valued gland, which secretes the musk, and is used medicinally by the Cingalese, on which account it is valued at about six shillings a pod. The smell is very powerful, and in my opinion very offensive, when the animal is alive; but when a pod of musk is extracted and dried, it has nothing more than the well-known scent of that used by perfumers. The latter is more frequently the production of the musk-deer, although the scent is possessed by many animals, and also insects, ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... beach is bordered by a dense mass of great trees, with paths leading from them to the shore. It seemed to serve as a wall, the better to carry on defensive or offensive operations against other natives coming to make war. All the rest is a level plain, with hills on either side. Those on the W. side run southward, becoming more elevated and more massive as their distances increase. As for the ...
— The First Discovery of Australia and New Guinea • George Collingridge
... doubt. They have every reason to strike before the Army of the Potomac can come. Besides, it is in accord with the character of their generals. Both Lee and Jackson are always for the swift offensive, and Early, Longstreet and the Hills are the same way. Hear that booming ahead! They're attacking one ...
— The Sword of Antietam • Joseph A. Altsheler
... basis of these qualities in the production of serious fiction is less certain, if he may be judged by the tone of such minor pieces as Civilization without Delusion, Beaconsfield's Novels, and Democratic Snobbery. There is a certain violence in these which is more offensive than their undoubted cleverness is admirable or their satire entertaining. They show that the writer retained some of the impetuosity and prejudices which were marked ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne
... in hand-to-hand encounters, entered the formidable Kriemhilde line, where the enemy had hoped to check us indefinitely. Later the Fifth Corps penetrated further the Kriemhilde line, and the First Corps took Champigneulles and the important town of Grandpre. Our dogged offensive was wearing down the enemy, who continued desperately to throw his best troops against us, thus weakening his line in front of our Allies and making their advance ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... regarded Covenanted union as the normal relation existing between God and man, God and the Church, God and all the nations. Any thing less than this was, in their estimation, sub-normal, imperfect, unworthy, dangerous, disastrous to man, and offensive to God. They loved their Covenant, flew to it in times of danger as doves to the clefts of the rock, and reproached themselves for ...
— Sketches of the Covenanters • J. C. McFeeters
... public statues that would have been voted under the old system, were not ordered, when it was known that they would be almost certainly broken up after fifty years, and in the second, public sculptors knowing their work to be so ephemeral, scamped it to an extent that made it offensive even to the most uncultured eye. Hence before long subscribers took to paying the sculptor for the statue of their dead statesmen, on condition that he did not make it. The tribute of respect was thus paid to the deceased, the public sculptors were ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... busiest of the two; But ah, methinks you'd tell a diff'rent tale If two whole days beyond the garden pale You were to leave the mattock and the spade And all at once take up the poet's trade: To give a manuscript a fairer face, And all the beauty of poetic grace; Or give the most offensive flower that blows Carnation's sweets, and colours of the rose; And change the homely language of the clown To suit the courtly readers of the town— Just such a work, in fact, I mean to say, As well might please the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 382, July 25, 1829 • Various
... family are not put into the servants' beds," John Hunter replied. The unexplained statement was offensive to a man accustomed ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... her smile, her immaculate clothes—all were dazzling. She carried her splendor with an air of complete sureness as if she was accustomed to the supremacy it won for her and expected it. Yet the audacity of her pose had in it a certain fitness and was piquant rather than offensive. ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... me that nothing can be in worse taste than the assumption that a body of English gentlemen can, by any possibility, desire that immunity from criticism which the Duke of Argyll claims for them. Nothing would be more personally offensive to me than the supposition that I shirked criticism, just or unjust, of any lecture I ever gave. I should be utterly ashamed of myself if, when I stood up as an instructor of others, I had not taken every pains to assure myself of the truth of that which I was about to say; and I ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... idol in the North as well as in the South. Opposition to it was not only offensive, but dangerous. It ...
— The Abolitionists - Together With Personal Memories Of The Struggle For Human Rights • John F. Hume
... described in reference to some foolish appearance in the House of Commons, as having maintained a contradiction in terminis, in the face of three hundred persons. Neither does Dryden neglect to hold up to ridicule the slips in Latin and English grammar, which marked the offensive Preface to the "Duke of Lerma." And although he concludes, that he honoured his adversary's parts and person as much as any man living, and had so many particular obligations to him, that he should be very ungrateful not to acknowledge them to the world, yet the personal and contemptuous severity ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... do anything in the slightest degree that may seem offensive to you or to Mrs. Godwin, but when a general rule is fixed on, you know how odious in a case of this sort it is to make exceptions; I assure you I have given up more than one friendship in stickling for this point. It would be unfair to those from whom I have parted with regret to make ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... cries of his young. He hurries backward and forward, with hanging wings, open mouth, calling out louder and faster, and actually screaming with distress, until he appears hoarse with his exertions. He attempts no offensive means, but he wails, he implores, in the most pathetic terms with which nature has supplied him, and with an agony of feeling which is truly affecting. At any other season the most perfect imitations have ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography [May, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... circumstances, to disarm. The first events of the contest proved how much more France was prepared for war than Austria, and afford a strong confirmation of the proposition which I maintain—that no offensive intention was entertained on the part of the ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... for I have witnessed scenes equally wretched; and it is only necessary to go into Crosby-street, Freemason's row, and many cross streets out of Vauxhall-road, to find hordes of poor creatures living in cellars, which are almost as bad and offensive as charnel houses. In Freemason's-row I found, about two years ago, a court of houses, the floors of which were below the public street, and the area of the whole court was a floating mass of putrefied animal and vegetable matter, ...
— The Claims of Labour - an essay on the duties of the employers to the employed • Arthur Helps
... innocent, good-natured kind. He was as tolerant of your criticism as of your praise. Selfishness, in any unworthy sense, he had none. Offensive arrogance and self-assertion, in his life ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs
... chamber in the morning, saw her lady's two feet distant from the bed, a heap of ashes, and two legs with the stockings on. Between the latter was part of the head, but the brains, half the skull, and the chin, were burnt to ashes, which, when taken up in the hand, left a greasy and offensive moisture. The bed received no damage, and the clothes were elevated on one side, as by a person rising from beneath them. She appears to have been burnt standing, from the skull being found between her legs; the back was damaged more than the front of the head, partly because of the hair, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 569 - Volume XX., No. 569. Saturday, October 6, 1832 • Various
... for injuries and indignities which he knew not how to describe. Stevens had neither done nor said anything which might be construed into an offence. And yet, nobody knew better than Stevens that he had been offensive. The worthy John Cross, in the simplicity of his nature, never dreamed of this, but, on the contrary, when our adventurer dilated in the fatherly manner already adverted to, be looked upon himself as particularly favored ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... this preacher do with his final consonants? This slovenly dropping of essential sounds is as offensive as the common habit of running words together so that they lose their individuality and distinctness. Lighten dark, uppen down, doncher know, partic'lar, zamination, are all too common to ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... perfection," remarked Lawrence. "Profanity and disobedience, even in their least offensive form, he was never guilty of. And here is still another rule having reference to our higher obligations, which he has observed with ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... calling now, and they were not their own but those of their enemies. Early had not been caught napping. The dark lines of his infantry were advancing to retake the little fort. The cavalry was reduced in an instant from the offensive to the defensive, and dismounting and sending their horses to the rear, where they were held by every tenth man, they waited with carbines ready, the masses of men in gray bearing down upon them. Dick wondered if the Invincibles were ...
— The Tree of Appomattox • Joseph A. Altsheler
... saturate his hair, his breath and clothing, with vile, stale odors, than for a woman? What right have men to suppose that they can perfume themselves with stenches,—for whatever may be the fragrance of a burning cigar, the after smell is a stench,—and be any less offensive to a cleanly woman than a woman similarly perfumed is to them? I have never heard that the female sense of smell is less acute than the male. How dare men so presume on womanly sufferance? They dare, because they know they are safe. I can think of ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... it without me, my dear fellow," returned Overtop, tossing back his head from force of habit, the offensive cowlick being then suppressed by his hat. "Nothing on earth could induce me to speak to that ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... has been applied to the problem of increasing our offensive ability. This in the end is still a question of manpower and raw resources. We do not have enough. Our small improvements in effectiveness have been progressively offset by increasing casualties and loss of territory. In the ...
— Greylorn • John Keith Laumer
... violent longing to tear out his beard and scratch his face. In his voice and manner she felt that he was asserting his position as master. Although she had nothing to say by way of reply, she tried to assume the offensive by saying something unpleasant. "I suppose you have ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... It has got it all over us for size and speed and potential offensive action. Who made it? Who mans it? Red Russia? Japan? That's what the brass hats will be wondering; that's what they will want ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various
... had almost been a complete rupture between the two households, as I have mentioned incidentally already. The reason of this rupture was still a mystery to Varvara Petrovna, which made it all the more offensive; but the chief cause of offence was that Praskovya Ivanovna had succeeded in taking up an extraordinarily supercilious attitude towards Varvara Petrovna. Varvara Petrovna was wounded of course, and meanwhile some strange rumours had reached ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... know thee by thy voice alone, and thy lovely name; for what a glorious name, what a noble thing, is an orderly and sober life! as, on the contrary, the bare mention of disorder and intemperance is offensive to our ears. Nay, there is the same difference between the mentioning these two things, as between the uttering of ...
— Discourses on a Sober and Temperate Life • Lewis Cornaro
... me that he was really trying to keep Europe at peace and that the responsibility for what was going to happen would be on France. The German is so skilful at intrigue that he seeks even in advance of an expected offensive to lay the foundation ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... that a taste so evidently revolting to all our natural associations, should be still persevered in. To leave unmentioned more odious devices, I can never pass without a sense of the disagreeable and the offensive, even those lions or leopards, whichever they may be, in the Piazza del Popolo, who are abundantly supplying the inhabitants with water through their mouths. And where the fountain is made to play over the statue, what a discoloured and lamentable appearance it necessarily gives to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... you, too, for otherwise the style would be horribly offensive. For my part I must admit I never could believe in witches or spirits, not to ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... folk were not only so purblind and thick-witted as not to realize the immeasurable supremacy of the city of Florence for learning, statesmanship, and bravery over all the other cities of Italy put together, but had carried the bad taste of their opinions into the still worse taste of offensive action. For a long time past Arezzo had pitted itself in covert snares and small enterprises against the integrity and well-being of the Republic. Were Florence in any political difficulty or commercial ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... long in dying. An unfortunate husband was bothered each morning by repeated calls from children, who were sent by busy mothers to find out "Just how Miss Blake was feeling this morning." At last this became offensive, and he said: "Well, she's just the same—she ain't no better and she ain't no worse—she keeps just about so—she's just about dead, you ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... France almost immediately after we had made the most offensive invasion of her territory that can well be imagined, yet, despite the feelings which lengthened years of war must have engendered, it was the fashion to admire every thing English. I suppose family quarrels ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... Isle. From which time they began to consider by what wayes and means they might expel the Spaniards out of their Countrey, and immediately took up Arms. But, good God, what Arms, do you imagin? Namely such, both Offensive and Defensive, as resemble Reeds wherewith Boys sport with one another, more ...
— A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies • Bartolome de las Casas
... done, you say that the women carried banners with "offensive" inscriptions on them. You refer to the fact that they have addressed the President as "Kaiser Wilson." As a matter of fact not an arrest you have made-and the arrests now number more than sixty-has been for carrying one of those "offensive" banners. The women were ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens
... or needed; but this were only by conquering abroad, to be poor at home; and the examples of our neighbours teach us, that they are not always the happiest subjects, whose kings extend their dominions farthest. Since therefore we cannot win by an offensive war, at least a land war, the model of our government seems naturally contrived for the defensive part; and the consent of a people is easily obtained to contribute to that power which must protect it. Felices nimium, bona si sua norint, ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... no holiday affair, no dress parade. You are to fight against principalities and powers. So take the whole armor of God." And then he puts it into their hands. There is, however, one curious thing about this armor. It has but one offensive weapon. The soldier of Jesus Christ is given, to defend himself from his enemies, the shield of faith, the tunic of truth, the helmet of salvation; but to fight, to overcome, to disarm, he has but one weapon,—the {88} sword of the spirit. Is it possible, then, that the ...
— Mornings in the College Chapel - Short Addresses to Young Men on Personal Religion • Francis Greenwood Peabody
... preclude the possibility of your obtaining what you wanted—it is an absurd hypothesis, of course: but let us use it for the sake of argument. We will say you had done your best to live down that offensive 'something' done, and were still doing all that lay in your power to atone for it; that nobody but one person shared the knowledge of that 'something' with you, and upon his silence you could rely. Now tell me: would you feel justified in accepting ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... 11): "When thou shalt demand of thy neighbor anything that he oweth thee, thou shalt not go into his house to take away a pledge, but thou shalt stand without, and he shall bring out to thee what he hath": both because a man's house is his surest refuge, wherefore it is offensive to a man to be set upon in his own house; and because the Law does not allow the creditor to take away whatever he likes in security, but rather permits the debtor to give what he needs least. Fourthly, ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... they were equally quick to tell him when he gave them something of which they did not approve. An illustration of this occurred during the dance-craze that preceded the Great War. In 1914, America was dance-mad, and the character of the dances rapidly grew more and more offensive. Bok's readers, by the hundreds, urged him to ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok
... can, at any time, without hinderance, even in spite of contrary winds, at their pleasure, enter or leave the harbor—such is the experience and boldness of their sailors—and carry over either troops or anything else for warfare, offensive and defensive, without giving rise to jealousy and suspicion; and thus they are enabled, as Calais is not more than ten miles from Ardres, the frontier of the French, nor farther from Gravelines, the frontier of the imperialists, to join either the one or the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... untidy, messy, uncleanly. [of people] unkempt, sluttish, dowdy, draggle-tailed; uncombed. unscoured[obs3], unswept[obs3], unwiped[obs3], unwashed, unstrained, unpurified[obs3]; squalid; lutose[obs3], slammocky[obs3], slummocky[obs3], sozzly[obs3]. nasty, coarse, foul, offensive, abominable, beastly, reeky, reechy[obs3]; fetid &c. 401. [of rotting living matter] decayed, moldy, musty, mildewed, rusty, moth-eaten, mucid[obs3], rancid, weak, bad, gone bad, etercoral[obs3], lentiginous[obs3], touched, fusty, effete, reasty[obs3], rotten, corrupt, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... by the name of Elias Hicks, made himself more offensive than others in this respect. He appears to have been a very just and conscientious man, with great reverence for God, and exceedingly little for human authority. Everywhere, in public and in private, he lifted up his voice against the sin of ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... the British public vague talk of some future offensive. It goes without saying that we hear nothing of any plans here. If there were any, it would be in London that they would first become common knowledge. But if such an offensive ever does happen, ...
— Letters from France • C. E. W. Bean
... counsel sixthly: although among men pass offensive tipsy talk, never while drunken quarrel with men of war: wine steals ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson
... except the last one on each side, may, if he thinks best, give an outline of the argument to follow. In making these summaries, a debater must always avoid stating them in so bald and crude a form as to make them monotonous and offensive. He ought rather to use all the ingenuity at his command in an attempt to make this repetition ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee
... of the stubborn resistance offered to the performance of 'Hernani' will naturally suppose that there must have been something about it contrary to public policy—some immorality, or some political references, at least, offensive to the government; and he will have a difficulty in understanding that the trouble was all about affairs purely literary. "Hernani" was fought because it violated the unities of place and time; because its hero was a Spanish bandit; because in the dialogue ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... between France and Venice was signed at Blois. It was a defensive and offensive alliance directed against all, with the sole exception of the reigning Pontiff, who should have the faculty to enter into it if he so elected. This was the first decisive step against the House of Sforza, and so secretly were ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... enjoyed a relation to it in which the odd twists and turns of history must have been more frequent than any dull avenue or easy sequence. Lady Sandgate was shiningly modern, and perhaps at no point more so than by the effect of her express repudiation of a mundane future certain to be more and more offensive to women of real quality and of formed taste. Clearly, at any rate, in her hands, the clue to the antique confidence had lost itself, and repose, however founded, had given way to curiosity—that is to speculation—however disguised. She ...
— The Outcry • Henry James
... charming neck, and her beautiful arms up to the very shoulders. The physiognomy of these three young women was laughter loving and happy. On their features there was no expression of that bitter sullenness, willing and hated obedience, or offensive familiarity, or base and degraded deference, which are the ordinary results of a state of servitude. In the zealous eagerness of the cares and attentions which they lavished upon Adrienne, there seemed to be at least as much of affection as of deference and respect. They appeared to ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... phase of his operation was outside of the home zone, and he was actually vulnerable to attack, even this early. He had assumed that Buron would be too busy developing his own pieces to spend any time on an offensive move at this stage. Of course, direct intervention was a little unethical, but ...
— The Players • Everett B. Cole
... will be down, etc. All that a well-bred servant should say to such questions is, "I do not know, madam." A mistress should inform her servant after breakfast what he is to say to all comers. It is very offensive to a visitor to be let in, and then be told that she cannot see the lady of the house. She feels personally insulted, and as if, had she been some other person, the lady of the house would perhaps have ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... seeming to promote the Roman interest, with a view, it was thought, to obtaining absolute power in his own country for himself. Knowing how welcome these reports would be to the multitude, and how offensive to the army and the abettors of the war, he was afraid to stand a trial, but, having a considerable body of friends and allies to assist him, raised a tumult amongst the Sabines, which delayed the war. Neither was Poplicola wanting, not only to understand the grounds of the sedition, but ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... the author's sins. The extent to which this law may be applied can easily be understood. To a gentleman the law itself is an instinct. Personal rights are frequently violated by praise as well as by censure, and sometimes applause is not in any degree less offensive than denunciation, though commonly men will forgive even the most unskilful and injudicious commendation. In both ways the writers of this country are apt ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... of harmony among classes is presumably not to allow any class to have vital interests which are exclusively its own, since to have an exclusive vital interest means of course to live defensively or to carry on offensive strategy. The chief interest of the great working class at the present time is plainly to secure a living, and it is the sense of isolation in this struggle which in part at least is the cause of many unfavorable conditions in our present social order. Ought not education to prepare the way for ...
— The Psychology of Nations - A Contribution to the Philosophy of History • G.E. Partridge
... was met, particularly on the part of Bertha, with such an evident and—to him—quite inexplicable resentment that he dropped the subject. Later, when we men were by ourselves, he inquired what the ladies found so offensive in the idea of giving to marriage some kind of protection against the changing fancies of the wedded pair? It was easy to see that the conversation had left upon him the impression that the women of Freeland held views upon this subject which were ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... care for flowers so much as others do," she answered hurriedly. "I have even heard of persons to whom the perfume was offensive; especially in damp, warm weather. Odors are always strongest ...
— The Wrong Woman • Charles D. Stewart
... cannot avert our fate, we must submit to it," replied Frederick William in a hollow voice, "but that recourse ought to be had to every means to render it less offensive. For if I am compelled to sign these propositions, I sign the ruin ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... enthusiastic support. He had left heavy college bills, and he had quite made up his mind that he would not be a minister and that he would be a lawyer. He could scarcely have decided on two things more offensive to his father. Only for the hope of having a minister in the family had Peter submitted to his son's continued demands for money. For this end he had bought books, and paid for all kinds of teachers and tours, ...
— Winter Evening Tales • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... arguments be confuted by another member: but, if the whole house should be turned into a committee on any business, then any member may reply as often as he pleases, or as the chairman of the said committee may judge expedient. If it happen that any member of either House should utter words offensive to the King's majesty, or to the House itself, he is immediately called to the bar: in the House of Commons he sometimes, on his knees, receives a reprimand from the Speaker, and is obliged to apologize: if the offence be great, he may, by the Speaker's warrant, be sent to the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 576 - Vol. 20 No. 576., Saturday, November 17, 1832 • Various
... guiding them by the ropes which supplied the place of reins. On this ill-omened vehicle there stood three persons, the prisoner, and two of the armed wardens of the Bastile, the former ironed very heavily, and the latter bristling with offensive weapons. ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... and in the young advisers' answer in verse 10, of the obnoxious speech of the people. That may be accidental, but it sounds as if both he and they were keeping their anger warm by repeating the offensive complaint. ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... of the offensive of 1916, by which the French retook, in ten days, what it had cost the Germans many ...
— The Valley of Vision • Henry Van Dyke
... approach to intimacy those whom he found to be untruthful or not straightforward. Naturally he did not offer any unnecessary encouragement to bores and dullards, but in his intercourse with these undesirables and wasters of his time he adopted none of the "offensive-defensive" methods of, say, Dr. Johnson or Lord Westbury. He armed himself with a cold correctitude of politeness, and lowered the social temperature instead of ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley - A Character Sketch • Leonard Huxley
... craft—about $18,000,000—but while the Germans had later given as much attention to them as to any other sort of naval craft, the British authorities did not figure on employing the submarine as a separate offensive tactical unit being sufficiently equipped in large ships carrying large guns. And being weaker in capital ships Germany was compelled to rely upon underwater warfare in her campaign of attrition. Not only were the naval authorities of the rest of the world uninformed about the ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... placed upon the table; unhooked his sword-belt, which he laid close to his poniard; and, without affectation, opening his doublet as if to look for his handkerchief, showed beneath his fine cambric shirt his naked breast, without weapons either offensive or defensive. ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... says that Sir Edward Coke's arrogance to the whole Bar, and to all who approached him, now became almost insufferable, and that "his demeanour was particularly offensive to his rival"—Bacon. As to prisoners, "his brutal conduct ... brought permanent disgrace upon himself and upon the English Bar." When Sir Walter Raleigh was being tried for his life, but had not yet been found guilty, Coke said to him: "Thou art the most vile and execrable ...
— The Curious Case of Lady Purbeck - A Scandal of the XVIIth Century • Thomas Longueville
... a room as superior in comfort to the "parlor" of Babbitt's boyhood as his motor was superior to his father's buggy. Though there was nothing in the room that was interesting, there was nothing that was offensive. It was as neat, and as negative, as a block of artificial ice. The fireplace was unsoftened by downy ashes or by sooty brick; the brass fire-irons were of immaculate polish; and the grenadier andirons were like samples in a shop, desolate, unwanted, lifeless ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... offensive in my remark, but even repeated it with a nod of understanding. "As solemn as I am now. Judge Malcolm, your son has quite accurately described this man Blight's way of speaking—of saying one thing when he means quite another. ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... contemporaneous conversation with Calhoun, in which the latter took the ground that, if a dissolution of the Union should follow, the south would be compelled to form an alliance, offensive and defensive, with Great Britain, though he admitted that it would be returning pretty much to the colonial state. When Adams, with unconscious prophecy of Sherman's march through Georgia, pressed Calhoun with the question whether the north, ...
— Rise of the New West, 1819-1829 - Volume 14 in the series American Nation: A History • Frederick Jackson Turner
... most assimilated to his own. In fact, Sir Everard was far from being the ephemeral character he was often willing to appear. Under a semblance of affectation, and much assumed levity of manner, never, however, personally offensive, he concealed a brave, generous, warm, and manly heart, and talents becoming the rank he held in society, such as would not have reflected discredit on one numbering twice his years. He had entered the army, as most young ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... competitive or antagonistic, but complementary. Indeed, so little is it antagonistic that the very first spark that lit the fire of the largest strike of women that ever occurred in this country, the shirt-waist makers' strike, was kindled by an offensive injustice to ...
— Making Both Ends Meet • Sue Ainslie Clark and Edith Wyatt
... the nature of a rash and hasty move was wholly foreign to Psmith's tactics. He had the patience which is the chief quality of the successful general. He was content to secure his base before making any offensive movement. It was a fortnight before he turned his attention to the education of Mr Bickersdyke. During that fortnight he conversed attractively, in the intervals of work, on the subject of League football in general and Manchester United in particular. The subject is not hard to master ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse
... passions of the people were effectually roused, assassinations became frequent, and Peel's correspondence with Hardinge, then chief secretary, shows that he fully recognised the failure of his experiment, as a cure for Irish anarchy.[101] In the course of this new agitation, O'Connell used most offensive expressions for which Hardinge called him to account. The chief secretary's act may have been unjustifiable, but the shuffling and faint-hearted conduct of O'Connell in declining this and later challenges provoked by his foul language was ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... back a good six feet, and laughing openly. Joe had had insufficient time even to move one foot in retreat at the other's offensive. ...
— Frigid Fracas • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... irregular; not a neat, symmetrical, harmonious, unpretending knock, but a knock that seemed to set the whole house and street at defiance: it was a knock bullying—a knock ostentatious—a knock irritating and offensive—impiger and iracundus. ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... a standstill—which for the centre and south of our line had been already attained ten days after the storm broke—and knew the worst that had happened or could happen to them; when the Australians had recaptured Villers-Bretonneux; when the weeks passed and the offensive ceased; when all gaps in our ranks were filled by the rush of reinforcements from home, and the American Army poured steadily across the Atlantic, the tension and peril of the spring passed steadily into the confident strength and—expectation ...
— Fields of Victory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... affections. They can relish and taste that which delighteth them; yea, they can find soul-delight in an alehouse, a whorehouse, a playhouse. Ay, they find pleasure in the vilest things, in the things most offensive to God, and that are most destructive to themselves. This is evident to sense, and is proved by the daily practice of sinners. Nor is the Word barren as to this: They 'feed on ashes' (Isa 44:20). They 'spend their money for that which is not bread' (Isa 55:2). Yea, they ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... much piqued, on account of the freedom with which the Committee of merchants addressed him, who, by reason of his equivocal answer, accused him of being in the English interest, like the majority of the chief men here. It is said, that it is truth only which is offensive. ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various
... restoring the confidence of the English troops, which had been greatly shaken by the misfortunes caused by the incapacity of Munro and Baillie. But it had no other consequences, for want of carriage, and a deficiency of provisions and equipment, prevented Sir Eyre Coote from taking the offensive, and he was obliged to confine himself to capturing a few forts ...
— The Tiger of Mysore - A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib • G. A. Henty
... of the guests, and the danger arising from the feuds into which they were divided, few of the feasters wore any defensive armour, except the light goat-skin buckler, which hung behind each man's seat. On the other hand, they were well provided with offensive weapons; for the broad, sharp, short, two-edged sword was another legacy of the Romans. Most added a wood-knife or poniard; and there were store of javelins, darts, bows, and arrows, pikes, halberds, Danish axes, and Welsh hooks and bills; so, in case ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott |
