"Profane" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... her and walked to the rock he had pointed out, she slipped from her saddle and followed him. But she still held fast to her bridle rein and the pony offered no resistance to the leading, though the big brute of the profane name remained in the middle of the road, his forefeet pointed forward, his hind ones backward, his whole ...
— Dorothy on a Ranch • Evelyn Raymond
... arousing the suspicion of belated persons who might meet it. It went along on the shingle at the foot of the cliff, and having dumped its contents on the beach the three Indian servants began to build a funeral pile, a little longer than it was wide. They worked alone, for no profane hand must aid in ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... except that they rather outdo the men in shrieks and noise. Our cacique, who had been reclaimed from these abominations by the Spaniards, and just knew the exterior form of crossing himself, pretended to be much offended at these profane ceremonies, and that he would have died sooner than have partaken of them. Among other expressions of his disapprobation, he declared, that whilst the savages solemnized these horrid rites, he never failed to hear strange and uncommon noises in the woods, and to see frightful visions, and assured ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... ever alone with the boy without asking—not from forgetfulness, but from the desire to keep the boy's remembrance of her fresh, and for the pure pleasure of talking of her to the only one with whom it did not seem profane to ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... man has had the sole and whole regulation of the matter. He has spoken in Scripture, he has spoken in law. As an individual, he has decided the time and cause for putting away a wife, and as a judge and legislator, he still holds the entire control. In all history, sacred and profane, the woman is regarded and spoken of simply as the toy of man—made for his special use—to meet his most gross and sensuous desires. She is taken or put away, given or received, bought or sold, just as the interest of the parties might dictate. But the woman has been no more recognized ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... vain hope of repairing a course of dissolute living. As a writer, his style was at once forcible and lively; as a companion, he was wildly vivacious: madly, perilously, did he outrage decency, insult virtue, profane religion. Charles II. liked him on first acquaintance, for Rochester was a man of the most finished and fascinating manners; but at length there came a coolness, and the witty courtier was banished from Whitehall. ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... literature, whether sacred or profane, teaches the attainment of godhood by Man. This can not mean other than the attainment of realization of godhood, by the individual and the retention of this realization to the end that reincarnation shall cease and identity with the cosmic, principle, ...
— Cosmic Consciousness • Ali Nomad
... not only come to pass that a special provision of them has to be made for the godly, but that the provision so made must now include books which a few years since the godly would have thought to be profane. It was this necessity which, a few years since, induced the editor of Good Words to apply to me for a novel,—which, indeed, when supplied was rejected, but which now, probably, owing to further change in the same direction, would have ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope
... rescued her and took her home. I suppose we must have an air of intelligence which successfully masks our colossal ignorance of occult facts and defunct dates, because they rely on us to inform them off-hand concerning everything social, political, historical, sacred and profane, spirituous and spiritual, from the protoplasm of the cliff-dwellers to the details of the Dingley bill, not skipping accurate information on the process of whiskey-making in Kentucky, a crocodile-hunt in Florida, suffrage in Wyoming, a lynching-bee ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell
... Evelyn wrapt in peaceful unobserving slumber, carried the body to this desolate spot, and placed it in those caves of ice beneath the glacier, which rive and split with the slightest sound, and bring destruction on those within the clefts—no bird or beast of prey could here profane the frozen form. So, with hushed steps and in silence, we placed the dead on a bier of ice, and then, departing, stood on the rocky platform beside the river springs. All hushed as we had been, the very striking of the air with our persons had sufficed to ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... the secular, pagan spirit, breathes in every bar of Purcell's music. Mid-Victorian critics and historians deplored the resemblance between the profane style of the stage pieces and the sacred style of the anthems and services. Not resemblance, but identity, is the word to use. There is no distinguishing between the two styles. There are not two styles: there is one style—the secular style, Purcell's style. Let us pause a moment, and ask ...
— Purcell • John F. Runciman
... than the "Chanson de Roland" in pictures of coloured glass, set in a border worth comparing at leisure with the twelfth-century borders of the western lancets. Even at Chartres, the artists could not risk displeasing the Virgin and the Church by following a wholly profane work like the "Chanson" itself, and Roland had no place in religion. He could be introduced only through Charlemagne, who had almost as little right there as he. The twelfth century had made persistent ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams
... auntie," interposed Kate, quite alarmed, "you are really worse than a coachman. You are growing very profane indeed." ...
— Malbone - An Oldport Romance • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... face hereupon would have been interesting, would have been distinctly touching to other eyes; but Nanda's were not heedful of it. "Oh," he returned after an instant and without profane mirth, "that seems to me the best ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... by profane protest, by muttered and comprehensive curses I knew that my companion on the ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... doors. (There is an emergency exit—a hole in the roof which is used by the wise ones.) You wiggle your body in with more or less grace, and then you stand up. Then, if it is the first time, you are usually profane. For you have banged your head most unmercifully against the steel roof and you learn, once and for all, that it is impossible to stand upright in a tank. Each one of us received our baptism in this way. Seven of us, crouched in uncomfortable positions, ruefully rubbed our heads, to Rigden's ...
— Life in a Tank • Richard Haigh
... to call the spirit of the queen, if a profane touch should violate her tomb," Fenton said, dreamily. He was beginning to look like a man hypnotized. Perhaps it was the close air, with its lingering perfume of two thousand years ago. Perhaps it was something else, more subtile; something else that we could all feel, ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... economists of our day sometimes utilize envelopes and handbills. But in the dark ages, when classical literature was under a cloud and a ban, and when the scanty demand for writing materials made the supply both scanty and precarious, such manuscripts of profane authors as fell into the hands of ecclesiastical copyists were not unusually employed for transcribing the works of the Christian Fathers or the lives of saints. In such cases the erasion was so clumsily performed as often to leave distinct traces of the ...
— De Amicitia, Scipio's Dream • Marcus Tullius Ciceronis
... with his ladder in the second act!—there is a gas lamp of old design in the middle of the enclosure, up near the footlights, as it were. From the stoops the main comedy might proceed, with certain business at the upper windows—the profane Admiral with the timber leg popping his head out of one, the mysterious fat man—in some sort the villain of the piece—putting his head out of another to woo the buxom widow at a third. And then the ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks
... Terry, questioning, commenting, incredulous over the Major's marriage, overjoyed that the quinine he had given Terry had been a factor in his recovery. After lunch Terry borrowed Sears' best pony and rode away with the planter's profane benedictions ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... private is entitled to the use of the institute except when excluded for profane or other improper language, for intoxication or other misconduct, for such time as the committee in charge shall deem advisable. The management of the institute is entrusted to several committees of ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... end this ridiculous opposition between religious education and profane science, between the spiritual and the temporal, between reason and faith, between altar and throne, old rubrics henceforth meaningless, but with which they still impose upon the good nature of the public, until ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... that she could hold her own in any of the unskilled employments which she was capable of taking up. And so it turned out. She could carry as heavy a load as any of the men with whom she had to compete, and she was so civil and so well-behaved and so free from the use of profane language, that employers unaware of her sex used to pick her out in preference to others ...
— Chinese Folk-Lore Tales • J. Macgowan
... sweats gold now that men have started to buy from it its dignity and its soul—is become a place of rendezvous and holiday for the idlers and upstarts of the whole world. The modern spirit encompasses the old desert of the Sphinx on every side. It is true that up to the present no one has dared to profane it by building in the immediate neighbourhood of the great statue. Its fixity and calm disdain still hold some sway, perhaps. But little more than a mile away there ends a road travelled by hackney carriages ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti
... comparison might be employed to the ensemble of the effect produced by these idioms upon foreigners. Many words occur in Polish which imitate the sound of the thing designated by them. The frequent repetition of CH, (h aspirated,) of SZ, (CH in French,) of RZ, of CZ, so frightful to a profane eye, have however nothing barbaric in their sounds, being pronounced nearly like GEAI, and TCHE, and greatly facilitate imitations of the sense by the sound. The word DZWIEK, (read DZWIINQUE,) meaning sound, offers a characteristic example ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt
... to our own times, the insecurity of great prosperity has been the theme of poets and philosophers. Scripture points out to our warning in opposite ways the fortunes of Sennacherib, Nabuchodonosor, and Antiochus. Profane history tells us of Solon, the Athenian sage, coming to the court of Croesus, the prosperous King of Lydia, whom in his fallen state I have already had occasion to mention; and, when he had seen his treasures and was asked by the exulting monarch who was the happiest of men, making answer ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... stopped before reaching the brow of the hill, and, panting heavily, muttered an oath which Frederick heard. Though it was no more profane than those which had just escaped his own lips in the forest, it produced an effect upon him which was only second in intensity to the terror of the discovery that the money he had so safely hidden ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green
... eight million loyal, affectionate, docile negroes, all American-born citizens—we are to make of them a bulwark which shall resist the oncoming tide of socialism, anarchism and of atheism, which is trying to overwhelm our American institutions, rob us of our public-school system, profane our Sabbath and snatch the ...
— The American Missionary - Volume 50, No. 1, January, 1896 • Various
... Bishop of London's AEschylus. 'We find,' he says, 'a great arbitrariness of proceeding, and much boldness of innovation, guided by no sure principle'; here it is: qualis ab incepto. He begins with AEschylus, and ends with the Church of England; begins with profane, and ends with holy innovations—scratching out old readings which every commentator had sanctioned; abolishing ecclesiastical dignities which every reformer had spared; thrusting an anapaeest into a verse, which ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... man,—'one of nature's noblemen,' as Miss Prue once said,—but, listen, Morton! It wasn't because he was a fisherman, but in spite of it; for, though it is a life that makes men brave, sturdy, fearless, and honest, it makes them also rough, profane, and careless in life and death; in fact, it develops their bodies, but ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... We accuse Lingua of high treason and sacrilege against the most honourable commonwealth of letters; for, under pretence of profiting the people with translations, she hath most vilely prostituted the hard mysteries of unknown languages to the profane ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... war,' this 'brave Morgan, who never knew fear,' was, in camp, often wicked and very profane, but never a disbeliever in religion. He testified that himself. In his latter years General Morgan professed religion, and united himself with the Presbyterian church in Winchester, Va., under the pastoral care of the Rev. Dr. Hill, who preached ...
— The Yankee Tea-party - Or, Boston in 1773 • Henry C. Watson
... certainty of war in the Soudan at any moment. The Nilghai said so, and it was well to be in readiness. The Keneu had telegraphed to Cairo for horses; Cassavetti had stolen a perfectly inaccurate list of troops that would be ordered forward, and was reading it out amid profane interruptions, and the Keneu introduced to Dick some man unknown who would be employed as war artist by the Central Southern Syndicate. "It's his first outing," said the Keneu. "Give him ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... drew a cigar from his pocket, and stuck it unlighted between his teeth. The large front room upstairs was ablaze with lights, every game in full operation and surrounded by crowds of devotees. Tobacco smoke in clouds circled to the low ceiling, and many of the players were noisy and profane, while the various calls of faro, roulette, keno, and high-ball added to the confusion and to the din of shuffling feet and excited exclamations. Hampton glanced about superciliously, shrugging his shoulders in open contempt—all ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... yards or so down the slope beyond Rock City he pulled up short with a "What the hell!" that did not sound profane, but merely amazed. In the sodden road were the unmistakable footprints of a woman. Lone did not hesitate in naming the sex, for the wet sand held the imprint cleanly, daintily. Too shapely for a boy, too small for any one ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... Rothes, was son to that famous reformer the Earl of Rothes. He at first set out that way. But, after the Restoration, being one of a profane wicked life, he exactly answered the taste of king and court. So he was made president of the council, and on Middleton's fall, commissioner, with many other places of power and trust heaped upon him, all which titles, &c. ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... more: Luster and Pride shall hem his radiant Brow; All Knees shall fall, and prostrate Nations bow. By Heav'ns, he is, he will, he must, he shall Be Israels Heroe, Friend, Saint, Idol, all. What though provok'd with all the crying sins Of Murmuring Slaves, excluding Sanedrins: By profane Crowds in dirt his Prophets spurn'd, And ev'n his Gods in mock Processions burn'd: Himself from Israel into Hebron sent, And doom'd to little less than Banishment. In spight of all his Scrowls to Babylon; } And all the promis'd Wonders to be done, } When Egypts Frogs should croak on ...
— Anti-Achitophel (1682) - Three Verse Replies to Absalom and Achitophel by John Dryden • Elkanah Settle et al.
... as a copy of 'Dred' was through the press, I sent it to her, saying that I had been reproved by some excellent people for representing too faithfully the profane language of some of the wicked characters. To this she sent the ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... earn it until the ship had neared the Yangtse-Kiang. Marked for the officers' attentions by his initial profane and irreverent comment on his transferral by the tug-captain, he was assaulted on the slightest provocation by the mates—no bigger than he or more skillful of fist, but justified by the law—and, though easily the best sailorman of the mixed crew, was put at distasteful tasks while ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... in the dark, Growling some profane remark, Would not know which way to go While you're ...
— Mr. Punch Awheel - The Humours of Motoring and Cycling • J. A. Hammerton
... and precious merchandise in the marvellous boutiques; the groups which sat around the cafe beneath with sorbets and glaces, and sparkling wines; the old women in Normandie caps and green aprons, who flitted here and there to take the hire of chairs, and break the hum of couples, talking profane and sacred love; around and above all, the Cardinal's grand palace lifting its multitudinous pilasters, and seeming to prop ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend
... of Harding, in Illinois, experienced "a revival of religion," as the people called it. It would have been more accurate and less profane to term it a revival of Rampageanism, for the craze originated in, and was disseminated by, the sect which I will call the Rampagean communion; and most of the leaping and howling was done in that interest. Amongst ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... respects nothing could be more exemplary. "Not a chicken has been stolen," says William Smith, of New York; while, on the other hand, Colonel Ephraim Williams writes to Colonel Israel Williams, then commanding on the Massachusetts frontier: "We are a wicked, profane army, especially the New York and Rhode Island troops. Nothing to be heard among a great part of them but the language of Hell. If Crown Point is taken, it will not be for our sakes, but for those good people left behind."[299] There was edifying regularity in respect to form. Sermons twice ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... influenced by any considerations of a moral nature, as connected with language. Exceedingly exasperated at this interference with our comfort, I did not hesitate to tell the mate my opinion of his order. Warming with my own complaints, I soon became fearfully profane and denunciatory. I called down curses on the brig, and all that belonged to her, not hesitating about wishing that she might founder at sea, and carry all hands of us to the bottom of the ocean. In a word, I indulged in all that looseness and profanity of the tongue, which is common enough ...
— Ned Myers • James Fenimore Cooper
... who called himself Peter Cox, claimed to be a relation of Esther's, and said he had been in ghost land about forty years; he was a quiet old fellow, and did all he could to prevent Bob Nickle and Maggie Fisher from breaking the articles which they threw, and from using profane language, a habit in which they ...
— The Haunted House - A True Ghost Story • Walter Hubbell
... barrels of their rifles and hammered home more bullets and patches. Three hundred and eighty-four of them, they showed a spirit that made their conduct the bright, heroic episode of that black day. Forgotten are their mutinies, their profane disregard of the Articles of War, their jeers at generals and such. They finished in style and covered the multitude of their sins. Unclothed, unfed, uncared for, dirty, and wretched, they proved themselves worthy to be called American soldiers. They fought ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine
... replied Robert, "and it seems all the more strange to me that we should profane it by war. But here comes Mrs. Markham. Let us see how she will ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... in partaking of the abundant repast, upon which the delighted Solomon had expended all due care and anxiety, there were few words spoken, and neither healths nor toasts passed round—the Puritans holding all such observances as profane things; nor was there any allusion made to the unfortunate occurrences of the past days, except as regarded the disappearance of the Preacher Fleetword, a circumstance which weighed heavily ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... me things which I could not tell you—and would not." Then, reflecting upon how profane and out of character it was for these ministers of God to be prying into matters which had proceeded from His hands under the awful seal of His secrecy, she added, with a warning note in her tone, "If you were well informed concerning me ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Volume 2 • Mark Twain
... objectionable in point of significance and of grammar. It was a frequent termination of certain adjectives among the Romans,—as of those designating a person following the sea, or given to rural pursuits. It is classed by custom among the profane words; why, it is hard to say,—but it is largely used in the street by those who speak of their fellows in ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... characteristics,"—mathematically formed under alleged Divine inspiration as a measure of capacity (and, according to M. Jomard, probably of length also) for all men and all nations, for all time,—and particularly for these latter profane times,—is, in simple truth, nothing more and nothing less than—an old ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson
... dress-fabrics. Although somewhat grave and formal in his discourse to strangers, at his genial board his formality soon disappeared, and Jack Deane, as has been said, passed a pleasanter evening than he had enjoyed for some time. Although profane music was not indulged in, Mistress Gournay and Madame de Mertens sang some very sweet and touching hymns, which went more to Jack's heart than any ...
— John Deane of Nottingham - Historic Adventures by Land and Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... women spectators are likely to attend five years from now. To encourage their attendance every effort should be made to eliminate all disgraceful conversation on the field. Wherever it may be ascertained that an umpire has used profane or vulgar language on the field the editor of the GUIDE believes that he should be fined and punished as sternly ...
— Spalding's Official Baseball Guide - 1913 • John B. Foster
... to observe the rule, "vedere e non toccare." It go in force while I am present, not so in my absence. Those that made proverbs, their names ought to be immortal. Here for one, "When the cat is gone, the rats dance." How much true is in the Say. Every visitor like the place profane or not profane ...
— The Smiling Hill-Top - And Other California Sketches • Julia M. Sloane
... consider their task too sacred to profane it by assassination. They wish to rid Europe of the unhallowed yoke which weighs upon it in the person of the Emperor Napoleon. They are convinced that they are summoned to the work; that they shall thereby render the world and mankind a service ...
— A Conspiracy of the Carbonari • Louise Muhlbach
... come, from praying and fasting and Psalm-singing, to extreme impiety? Alas! my backsliding had cost me no travail of spirit. Always weak in my faith, playing at sanctity as I played at soldiers, just as I was in the mood or not, I had neglected my books of devotion and given myself up to profane literature at the first opportunity, in Vitebsk; and I never took up my prayer book again. On my return to Polotzk, America loomed so near that my imagination was fully occupied, and I did not revive the secret experiments with which I used to test the nature and intention of Deity. It was more ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... the temple with head veiled and garments unbound, and cast behind you the bones of your mother." They heard the words with astonishment. Pyrrha first broke silence: "We cannot obey; we dare not profane the remains of our parents." They sought the thickest shades of the wood, and revolved the oracle in their minds. At length Deucalion spoke: "Either my sagacity deceives me, or the command is one we may obey without impiety. The earth is the great parent ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... it. There was but little for the eye. There was much noise in the room. They were getting ready to come to church,—brushing their hair, shaving, and making themselves clean, amid talk occasionally profane and ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... whilst in reality they have but few. Ifound this on my journey through the 'Christian Mountain,' the Tr el' 'Abedn, where I visited many places and monasteries but little known. Ionly saw Bibles in Estrangelo character, which were of value, nowhere profane books; but the people are so fanatical, and watch their books so closely, that it is very difficult to get sight of anything; and one has to keep them in good humor. Unless after a long sojourn, and with the aid of bribery, ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... lovers of Greek literature did not have it all their own way. Tatian, Hermas, Theophilus, and Tertullian savagely attacked profane poetry, and in defending it Basil, Athenagoras, Clement, and Origen were forced not unwillingly to rely more and more on the traditional moralistic theory of poetry which was so familiar to them. St. Chrysostom records that ...
— Rhetoric and Poetry in the Renaissance - A Study of Rhetorical Terms in English Renaissance Literary Criticism • Donald Lemen Clark
... he would always be found in the meeting-house at the Green, where he was a regular attendant. It is related that at one of the evening meetings one of his fellow worshipers aroused him, by expressing his own conviction that any person who had ever used profane language could hardly be considered a model Christian. Old Put at once accepted the reproof as intended, for it was well known that in moments of excitement, when carried away by the furore of battle, he had often used words which he would not care to review in print. He detested ...
— "Old Put" The Patriot • Frederick A. Ober
... while seated in my lonely chamber, ventured—not, I hope, with profane hands—to draw one inappreciable gem from out of the carcanet of each of the two unrivalled masters of the poetry of our language. I was curious to see the effect to be produced by a close juxtaposition of these two exquisite specimens of the soul's light; of the revealment of its original ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various
... tiara. He found the patronage of the Church the mere desecrated spoil and merchandise of princes: he reduced it within the dominion of the supreme pontiff. He is celebrated as the reformer of the impure and profane abuses of his age: he is more justly entitled to the praise of having left the impress of his own gigantic character on the history of all the ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... listened to with much interest, and we found that if Nancy was rough, she possessed a true heart and a Christian spirit, and was never backward in extending aid to the sick, or giving good advice to the profane. ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... in his "Treatise on Magic Incantations," remarked that the ancient origin of written spells is attested alike by sacred and profane literature. According to tradition, Ham, the son of Noah, inscribed mystic sentences on flinty rocks and metals at the time of the Deluge, in order to preserve them, "being influenced perhaps by the ...
— Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery • Robert Means Lawrence
... to think that there are some sins for which I have no natural taste, such as strong drink, profane language, etc., so that I need not fear temptation to such sins. This is a lie,—a proud, presumptuous lie. The seeds of all sins, are in my heart, and perhaps all the more dangerously that ...
— The Biography of Robert Murray M'Cheyne • Andrew A. Bonar
... forceless, their servise casheired, their ceremonies uselese and despised; their plots for popery prevented, and all their superstitions discarded & returned to Roome from whence they came, and y^e monuments of idolatrie rooted out of y^e land. And the proud and profane suporters, and cruell defenders of these (as bloody papists & wicked athists, and their malignante consorts) marvelously over throwne. And are not these greate things? Who can ...
— Bradford's History of 'Plimoth Plantation' • William Bradford
... Morocco may be canonized some future day in Lapland? I asked, of course, how in the name of miracles they came hither; but found no story of a supernatural conveyance. It seems the holy Empress Helena, as great a collectress of relics as the D—-s of P. is of profane curiosities, first routed them out: then they were packed off to Rome. King Alaric, having no grace, bundled them down to Milan; where they remained till it pleased God to inspire an ancient archbishop with the fervent wish of depositing them at Cologne. ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... language profane and energetic. He didn't stop at Durden. Holt came in for a share of it, also ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine
... who carried out pukes and slop-buckets from a field hospital" —such a one should not even call him "Jacob." This disrespectful allusion to his calling ruffled the temper of the hospital attendant, and, growing profane, he insisted that he was as good as Smith, and better, and at once challenged "the bloviating mule scrubber to get down off his perch and stand up before him like a man." "Jake" was unmoved by this counter-assault, ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... was, apparently, talking to himself—at least, there was no other human being to be seen. He held in his hand a battered pair of marine glasses and occasionally he peered through them. Each time he did so his soliloquy became more animated and profane. ...
— The Woman-Haters • Joseph C. Lincoln
... a clumsy cart with solid wheels, and laden with all kinds of market produce. The roadway, be it said, is not good, and all carters have their troubles; therefore, there is a deal of gesticulating and profane invocation of Hermes and all other gods of traffic; for, early as it is, the market place is already filling, and every delay promises a loss. There are still other companions bound toward the city: countrymen bearing cages of poultry; others engaged in the uncertain calling of driving ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... its defence. For religion is to be defended, not by putting to death, but by dying; not by cruelty but by patient endurance; not by crime but by faith.... If you wish to defend religion by bloodshed, by tortures and by crime, you no longer defend it, but pollute and profane it. For nothing is so much a matter of free ...
— The Inquisition - A Critical and Historical Study of the Coercive Power of the Church • E. Vacandard
... little world to which he belonged. His son Richard was a quick-sighted youth, clear and vigorous in intellect, not deep but acute. He was high church, because he had lived among the low church party. He was a Tory, because his surroundings were mostly Liberal. He was inclined to be profane, because his father's friends bored him by their solemnity. He was flippant, because they were dull; careless, because they were cautious; and fast, because they were slow. He had an eye for the weak ...
— Interludes - being Two Essays, a Story, and Some Verses • Horace Smith
... bus a half-hour. A large, well-dressed man near by said, with a laugh, "Rather neat, that," and, turning, tried to pull up a window-sash. In the effort something happened, and he broke the glass, cutting his hand in half a dozen places. While he was using several quite profane phrases, I caught his hand and said, "I am a surgeon," and tied my handkerchief ...
— The Autobiography of a Quack And The Case Of George Dedlow • S. Weir Mitchell
... Beelzebub made this world, are not a class of gentlemen I can get profit from. Let them keep at a distance, lest mischief fall out between us. They are of the set deserving to be called—and this not in the way of profane swearing, but of solemn wrath and pity, I say of virtuous anger and inexorable reprobation—the damned set. For, in very deed, they are doomed and damned, by Nature's oldest Act of Parliament, they, and whatsoever thing they do or say or think; unless they can escape from that devil-element. ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. III. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Hohenzollerns In Brandenburg—1412-1718 • Thomas Carlyle
... a profane desire to know, provided the man at the key was Peter Moore, how in Hades he was, where in Tophet he had been keeping himself, and why in Gehenna he had so mysteriously vanished from the face ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... Bilbao, in Spain) were first occupied by the man who had made them, as the court decided that his charge for the work was excessive! There were wooden cages in which criminals were confined and exposed to public view; whipping-posts; cleft sticks for profane tongues. Drunkenness was punished by disfranchisement; the blasphemer and the heretics were branded with a ...
— The Old Coast Road - From Boston to Plymouth • Agnes Rothery
... Nothing could surpass the beauty of the spar crystals with which its walls were encrusted. At the entrance stood a white figure, which might easily be supposed to be an angel, guarding the entrance with a glittering sword, threatening all who should venture with profane hands into his sanctuary. ...
— The Mines and its Wonders • W.H.G. Kingston
... was, If perhaps, Emmanuel, the Son of Shaddai their king, by seeing the horrible and profane doings of the town of Mansoul, might repent, though entered into a covenant of redeeming them, of pursuing that covenant of their redemption; for he knew that Shaddai was holy, and that his Son Emmanuel was holy; yea, he knew it by woeful experience; ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... barren acres, and the stone that bears my last word, my message to those who should come after me. Keep the faith for which my fair wife faded and died, far away from home and friends! Let no piping or jigging or profane sound be in thy house, but let it be the house of fasting and of prayer, even as my house was. Keep faith! If thy right hand offend thee, cut it off ...
— Marie • Laura E. Richards
... is mentioned as a king of Persia, to whom the enemies of the Jews sent representations opposing the rebuilding of the temple at Jerusalem. Here the sequence of the reigns in the Biblical writer and in the profane historians— in the one, Cyrus, Ahasuerus, Artaxerxes, Darius; in the other, Cyrus, Cambyses, Smerdis, Darius—led in the past (Ewald, &c.) to the identification of Ahasuerus with Cambyses (529—522 B.C.), son of Cyrus. The name Khshayarsha, however, has been ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... went moping into the field, but, God knows, with as heavy a heart as mortal man, I think, could bear. Where, for the space of two hours, I was like a man bereft of life, and as now past all recovery, and bound over to eternal punishment. And withal, that scripture did seize upon my soul, 'O profane person, as Esau, who, for one morsel of meat, sold his birth-right; for ye know how that afterwards, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected; for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears.' These words were to ...
— Life of Bunyan • Rev. James Hamilton
... Yorke had that notion, and grave as Saturn she was, morning, noon, and, night; and hard things she thought if any unhappy wight—especially of the female sex—who dared in her presence to show the light of a gay heart on a sunny countenance. In her estimation, to be mirthful was to be profane, to be cheerful was to be frivolous. She drew no distinctions. Yet she was a very good wife, a very careful mother, looked after her children unceasingly, was sincerely attached to her husband; only ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... distinguished authors. I, however, never approach it without due preparation and humility, so crowded is it with scientific instruments, telescopes, chronometers, barometers, gasometers, etc., none of which may be touched by hands profane. On three sides, the batteries are dashed against by the waves; on the fourth is a splendid land view. The hills are covered to the top with what we should call wood, but is here called bush. This dense mass of green is varied by some large, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... buried dust;—the midnight train, Of silent stars,—the rolling spheres, Each God, that list'ning bows, With thee it prospers, false-One! to profane. The Nymphs attend;—gay Venus hears, And all deride thy vows; And Cupid whets afresh his burning darts On the stone, moist with blood, that dropt from ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... roused himself and said, "And the second reason, dear child, is this. There comes a time to all that make—whether it be books or music or pictures—when they can make no new thing, but go on in the old manner, working with the fingers of age the dreams of youth. And to me this seems as it were a profane and unholy thing, that a man should use so divine an art thus unworthily; it is as though a host should set stale wine before his guests, and put into it some drug which should deceive their taste; and I think that those who do this do it for two reasons: either they hanker for the praise ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... called Laya. The more important of these is the Tembi, and the wood from which it springs is reputed sacred, and is the subject of innumerable legends and superstitions. Access to it is denied to the profane by the high priests and lesser priests, who represent the diety to mortals. The neighbouring kinglets refer to them before undertaking a war, or other act of importance, and the common herd consult ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various
... time the smoke cloud became articulate, rumbling forth chucklings and Elizabethan oaths, mingling with musings idiomatic and profane. "By God, I believe she thought she was fooling me—I do, for a fact! But it's too thin. Of course, she wants to make the women kow-tow, but that ain't all there is to it—not by a jugful. But it's all right: she plays her own hand, and she's bully good and able to play ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... 1. Though this book contain in it many things dogmatical, that is, divers doctrines of the apostles, yet it is not styled the book of the doctrine, but of the Acts of the Apostles, that we may learn to act as they acted. This being one main difference between profane and sacred histories; those are for speculation, these also for admonition and imitation, 1 Cor. x. 11. The history, therefore, of the Acts propounds examples admonitory and obligatory upon us, that we should express ...
— The Divine Right of Church Government • Sundry Ministers Of Christ Within The City Of London
... of learning. One of our class purchased a second-hand copy of Euripides, in town, and we had it in college all of six months; though it was never my good fortune to see it, as the young man who owned it, was not much disposed to let profane eyes view his treasure. Nevertheless, I am certain the copy of the work was in college; and we took good care to let the Yale men hear of it more than once. I do not believe they ever saw even the outside of an Euripides. As for the ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... dear child. Sit down, Prissie. I will forgive your profane words about Cicero, for I see you are excited. What is ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... profane speech, is awe-inspiring; death-like, as though every living creature in the forest had been suddenly ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... superior young person without other quiet attentions. "Profane Bill," driver of the Slumgullion Stage, widely known in the newspapers for his "gallantry" in invariably offering the box seat to the fair sex, had excepted Miss Mary from this attention, on the ground that he had a habit of "cussin' on upgrades," and gave her half the coach to herself. Jack ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... and mortar to tricksy cottages marshalled with the plumb-line, or sprinkled over "farmy fields" facing Macadamized roads, and collecting more dust in one month than would have ransomed all the captive kings of history, sacred or profane. There we love to trace the ramifications of art from the steam and gas chimneys of the metropolis to the quiet dell, in whose seclusion you might imagine yourself a hundred miles from town, were it not for the hum of the great tun that is fretting and working at a distance. On the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 13, No. 363, Saturday, March 28, 1829 • Various
... times, at best a dualism and often an open warfare.... The opposition of Church and State expresses an opposition between two sides of human nature which we must not too easily label as good and evil, the heavenly and the earthly, the sacred and the profane. For the State, too, is divine as well as the Church, and may have its own ideals and sacramental duties and its own prophets, even its own martyrs. The opposition of Church and State is to be regarded rather as the pursuit of one great aim, pursued ...
— Progress and History • Various
... epitaph to be irreverent, because in a list of Barker's many blessings occurs the profane word "trout:" but those trout, and the custom which they brought him, had made the old man's life comfortable, and enabled him to leave a competence for his children; and why should not a man honestly thank Heaven for that which he knows has ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... sentences on his return, out of breath with his run back up the three flights of stairs, were not complimentary. They began by impeaching Jack's intelligence in terms more profane than polite, and ended in the fervent hope that he make an instantaneous visit to ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... woman thus praises God, the one who believes that through woman's status in the Bible and in the Christian Church this perfect equality is being worked out day by day need not take up controversial cudgels. Ribaldry in woman seems more gross than in man, and this is woman's ribaldry. It is profane to speak of the "feminine element in the Godhead." God is a spirit. There is no more a feminine than a masculine element in the Godhead. Sex belongs to mortal life and its conditions. It begins and ...
— Woman and the Republic • Helen Kendrick Johnson
... trousers that boasted the rigidity of a week's pressing. Not only had I been guilty of cutting family prayers; I was convicted, also of disrespect on another count. My blue serge and bright tie were almost profane in those surroundings. The thought of how I had spent the night convicted me as a ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford
... indignity touches His body. The Jews with their wearisome insistence on empty technicalities would have added further indignity to crucifixion. But that body is sacredly guarded from their profane hand by unseen restraint. John with solemn simplicity points to the unmistakable physical evidence, in the separation of blood and water, that Jesus had actually died; no swooning, but death. And reverently he finds ...
— Quiet Talks on John's Gospel • S. D. Gordon
... earthiness of a dying corpse; so this bird of prey [the evil spirit which personated Samuel, 1 Sam. xxviii. 41] resented a worse than earthly savor in the soul of Saul, as evidence of his death at hand". (Fuller, The Profane State, b. 5, ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... embonpoint of the French Princesses. They said that their nieces, by the exercise of religious principles, obtained the advantage of solid flesh, while the Austrian Archduchesses, by wasting themselves in idleness and profane pursuits, grew thin and meagre, and were equally exhausted in their minds and bodies! At this the Abbe Vermond, as the tutor of Marie Antoinette, felt himself highly offended, and called on Comte de Mercy, then the Imperial Ambassador, to apprise him of the insult the ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... of the ceremony terminated, the church assumed, in some measure, the appearance of a profane temple. The congregation displayed more devotion to the Emperor than towards the God of the Christians,—more enthusiasm than fervour. The mass had been heard with little attention; but when M. de Lacepede, Grand ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... all, of the external symbols, whether of dress or ceremonial pageantry, exhibited by the Roman Catholic priesthood, were adopted from the Pagans, under the plea of being "indifferent in themselves, and applicable as symbolical in their own rites and usages" (Marangoni, Delle cose gentili e profane trasportate nel uso ed ornamento delle chiesi); in the same manner as many Romish customs were retained at the Reformation for the purpose of inducing the Papists to "come in," and conform to the other changes then made (Southey, History ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 69, February 22, 1851 • Various
... sweet friend, though I will not say that I much regard, the contempt with which the profane will be likely to assail us. For you do not understand the nature of their complaint, and you fancy that they rush into impiety only from a love ...
— Laws • Plato |
