"Contemptible" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... with the other, after a hearty fit of laughing, asked me, whether I was a whig or a tory? Then turning to his first minister, who waited behind him with a white staff, near as tall as the mainmast of the "Royal Sovereign[60]," he observed how contemptible a thing was human grandeur, which could be mimicked by such diminutive insects as I: and yet, says he, I dare engage these creatures have their titles and distinctions of honor; they contrive little nests and burrows, that they call houses ...
— Gulliver's Travels - Into Several Remote Regions of the World • Jonathan Swift
... remained gay. I wish for nothing, except for things that can't be purchased. Still, want is the great abomination which distresses me. I can understand that you should have felt everything crumbling when charity appeared to you so insufficient a remedy as to be contemptible. Yet it does bring relief; and, moreover, it is so sweet to be able to give. Some day, too, by dint of reason and toil, by the good and efficient working of life itself, the reign of justice will surely come. But now it's I that am preaching! Oh! ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... our contemptible ship was ready; to sea we went, bound for Honolulu and the letter-bag, on Christmas Day; and from then to now have experienced every sort of minor misfortune, squalls, calms, contrary winds and seas, pertinacious rains, declining stores, till we came ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... all happened before I received this," she said to herself, tearing up the letter. "At least I'm not so contemptible as I might have been had I done as Mamma ...
— How Ethel Hollister Became a Campfire Girl • Irene Elliott Benson
... a good name for them," jeered Elfreda. "I wouldn't call it 'odd,' I'd use a stronger word than that. It's contemptible. I'm sorry I asked her to go ...
— Grace Harlowe's Second Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... his lonely cell, he wept with a young man's boundless grief when reality contradicts his expectations, and he finds that all which he has learnt to prize is only contemptible ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg
... high valuation—the honest old man!—that he might be sure to err on the right side, he forced Theodore to go with him to the stand, and pay Matty for the stolen fruit. He endeavored, too, to make him apologize to Jim, both for the theft of his property, and also for his contemptible meanness in keeping silent on the occasion of Jim's attack on the playground. But here he was powerless: Theodore absolutely and doggedly refused to do it; and his grandfather was obliged to content himself with ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews
... It was only a little school, and the story of the new boy's "break" with old Jaegers had reached even the big louts who lingered on in Form VI. They made a rough half-circle round their intended victim, only partially malevolent in their intentions. The fact that he had bearded a contemptible old beast like Jaegers was rather in his favour than otherwise, but his assertion that he did not say his prayers and knew nothing about God smacked of superiority. He had to be taken down. And, anyhow, a new boy was an object of curiosity and his preliminary persecution a time-honoured ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... gospel remains! The little child, heedless of his trailing cloud of glory, and looking about him aghast in an unknown world, may yet see and run to the arms open to the children. How often has not some symbol employed in the New Testament been forced into the service of argument for one or another contemptible scheme of redemption, which were no redemption; while the truth for the sake of which the symbol was used, the thing meant to be conveyed by it, has lain unregarded beside the heap of rubbish! Had the wise and prudent been ...
— Hope of the Gospel • George MacDonald
... were forced to remain in their anchored boat, with the captain guarding them while the scouts went for the magistrate and constable. There was a feeling of satisfaction that this had been so successfully accomplished, as it would no doubt put an end to such contemptible ...
— Rod of the Lone Patrol • H. A. Cody
... committee, whose dictation should govern Congress in every measure brought before it for consideration. Is this wise, just, or reasonable? I hold that this resolution is too narrow to be of use and too weak to last. It will totter to an untimely grave, and hobble, a feeble and contemptible instrument, from this Congress to every State Legislature to which it may be submitted, to be rejected for its feebleness in a time like this, amid the overwhelming issues ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... race. At bottom, in all good faith, in foreign literature they only sought what their national instinct was willing to find in it; often they only took out of it what they themselves had unconsciously read into it. Mediocre as critics, and as psychologists contemptible, they were too single-minded, too full of themselves and their passions, even when they were the most enamored of truth. Italian idealism cannot forget itself: it is not interested in the impersonal ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... than ever to bear, for, presuming upon his patience, Sam Brandon was more tyrannical than ever. Words failing to sting sufficiently, he had often had recourse to blows, and these Tom had borne patiently, till, to his cousin's way of thinking, he was about as contemptible a ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn
... difficulties ten fold; and those who pursue these methods, get themselves so involved at length, that they can turn no way but their infamy becomes more exposed. It is of great importance to set a resolution, not to be shaken, never to tell an untruth. There is no vice so mean, so pitiful, so contemptible; and he who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and third time, till a length it becomes habitual; he tells lies without attending to it, and truths without the world's ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... might also have alluded to the old apology for every thing inane or contemptible—"It is a tale of the man in the moon." When that arch flatterer, John Lylie, published (in 1591) his "Endymion, or the man in the moon"—a court comedy, as it was afterwards called; in other words, intended for the gratification of Queen Elizabeth, and in which her personal ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker
... was the reply. "You had better give me up to the soldiers at once. I suppose they will give me something to eat. My pride's all gone now, and I only want to get it over and bring it to an end. It's very contemptible, I know, but it is very horrible, ...
— The New Forest Spy • George Manville Fenn
... is profoundly affected by works of art. Art, therefore, has to do with the spiritual life, to which it gives and from which, I feel sure, it takes. Indirectly, art has something to do with practical life, too; for those emotional experiences must be very faint and contemptible that leave quite untouched our characters. Through its influence on character and point of view art may affect practical life. But practical life and human sentiment can affect art only in so far as they can affect the ...
— Art • Clive Bell
... days of old," said Fakrash, "all men pursued wealth; nor could any amass enough to satisfy his desires. Have riches, then, become so contemptible in mortal eyes that thou findest them but an ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... Thersites is most contemptible in body and most evil in disposition, from his raising a disturbance, and his slanderous speech and boastfulness. Odysseus attacks him on this account and gives occasion to all to ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... Don't you know that at thousands of supper-tables to-night, working men who could afford to buy an evening paper read your name and cursed you before their wives and children? Nearly lost your life! Poor, miserable, contemptible scab." ...
— Snow on the Headlight - A Story of the Great Burlington Strike • Cy Warman
... holding myself ready to flee, "if poor Catherine had trusted you, and assumed the ridiculous, contemptible, degrading title of Mrs. Heathcliff, she would soon have presented a similar picture! She wouldn't have borne your abominable behaviour quietly: her detestation and disgust ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... men manage as they can! Woman, so feeble and crazy in body, fair enough sometimes, but full of infirmities; not strong, with nerves prone to every pain; ailing, full of little weaknesses, more contemptible than great ones!" ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... pathology of hernia. He appears, however, to have formed a tolerably just idea of the mode of cutting into the urinary bladder; and even his obstetrical instructions show that his knowledge of the uterus, vagina and appendages was not contemptible. It is in osteology, however, that the information of Celsus is chiefly conspicuous. He enumerates the sutures and several of the holes of the cranium, and describes at great length the superior and inferior maxillary bones and ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... and characteristic notion of modern society to associate goodness with dullness, and consequently, I suppose, to connect badness with all that is gay, interesting, and diverting. There is nothing more perverted, absurd, and contemptible than that notion in the ...
— An American Politician • F. Marion Crawford
... be cured must be endured," is the very worst and most dangerous maxim for a nurse which ever was made. Patience and resignation in her are but other words for carelessness or indifference—contemptible, if in regard to herself; culpable, if in ...
— Notes on Nursing - What It Is, and What It Is Not • Florence Nightingale
... soliloquizing, though all the time Felix stood before him, "who has learned that lesson of contentment which the generality never learn. Rich in his poverty here, an inheritor of the skies, I have only insulted him by so contemptible an offer." His head sunk upon his breast, his eyes fell upon the ground, his pocket-book dropped from his unconscious hand, and he resumed his walk. The negro stooped and picked it ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... liberties of the noblest, always most obnoxious to them, under their heel—the fact that this power resides after all, not in these persons themselves,—that they are utterly helpless, pitiful, contemptible, in themselves; but that it exists in the 'thewes and limbs' of those who are content to be absorbed in their personality, who are content to make muscles for them, in those who are content to he mere ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... "I know it is all my fault, Miss Harlowe, but truly I tried to make things come right for you. I told Miss Wharton all about myself and tried to make her understand that you weren't in the least to blame for my misdeeds. But I only made matters worse. She is contemptible." Jean's voice vibrated with ...
— Grace Harlowe's Problem • Jessie Graham Flower
... It was written to punish Count Alessandro Brusantini. The leading episode, which occupies about three cantos of the twelve, is an elaborate vilification of this personal enemy travestied as the contemptible ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... was doubted, and that if an illegitimate child he had no right whatever to the throne. He seemed to wish to prove that he was the son of Peter III. by imitating all the silly and cruel caprices of that most contemptible prince. ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... irrevocable steps toward a collision, and were unconsciously playing into the hands of their arch-enemy, the leaders of the warlike faction in the Chamber and the Parisian press were clamouring with fury and vitriolic sarcasm against a faint-hearted and contemptible ministry that shrank from seizing the ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... of good and of evil. Under this influence, they would enter, if not restrained by the laws of civil society, on a scene of violence or meanness, which would exhibit our species, by turns, under an aspect more terrible and odious, or more vile and contemptible, than that of any ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... is one of the very few rhetorical scientists who have the art of making science popular without making it or themselves contemptible. It will be hard to find anywhere else so much skill in effective expression, combined with so much genuine astronomical learning, as is to be seen ...
— Fungi: Their Nature and Uses • Mordecai Cubitt Cooke
... oddities, and eccentric developments of London life. His procedure was to bring together a number of these fantastic humorists, to play them off upon each other, involve them in all manner of comical misadventures, and render them utterly ridiculous and contemptible. There was thus a perishable element in his art, for manners change; and however effective this exposure of contemporary affectations may have been, before an audience of Jonson's day, it is as hard for a modern reader to detect his points as it will be for a reader two hundred years ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... of the third day the pass of Thermopyae was forced, thanks to the treachery of a Greek and the contemptible policy of the Spartan government which steadily refused the plea of Leonidas for reenforcements. With Thermopyae taken there was no further reason for the Greek fleet to try to hold the straits north of Euboea, and during the night it retired unobserved. The following day ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... than two months after his death married his brother Claudius, which was noted by all people at the tim for a strange act of indiscretion, or unfeelingness, or worse; for this Claudius did no way resemble her late husband in the qualities of his person or his mind, but was as contemptible in outward appearance as he was base and unworthy in disposition; and suspicions did not fail to arise in the minds of some that he had privately made away with his brother, the late king, with the view of marrying his widow and ascending ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... pains to say significantly that one of the members of the iron firm had told him that Mr. Jocelyn had nothing to fall back upon. Therefore Arnold knew that the girl he loved must be in sore trouble. And yet, how could he go to her? What could he say or do that would not make him appear contemptible in her eyes? But to remain away in her hour of misfortune seemed such a manifestation of heartless indifference, such a mean example of the world's tendency to pass by on the other side, that he grew haggard and ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... white as your father I had to resort to a pretty poor weapon. Everything was with him. Measured up side by side we weren't in the same class. He was by far the better man and I knew it. I couldn't beat him as to character but I could do it with money, and I did. It was a contemptible game. I've always despised myself for playing it. I wish ...
— Paul and the Printing Press • Sara Ware Bassett
... shall henceforth be a picture, still look upon it with the quiet devotion of an old worshipper, who no longer offers incense on the shrine, but peaceably presents his inch of taper, taking special care in doing so not to burn his own fingers. Nothing in life can be more ludicrous or contemptible than an old man aping the passions ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... was due to Ali's chief engineer, Caretto, who next day sent a whole shower of balls and shells into the midst of a group of Frenchmen, whose curiosity had brought them to Tika, where Kursheed was forming a battery. "It is time," said Ali, "that these contemptible gossip-mongers should find listening at doors may become uncomfortable. I have furnished matter enough for them to talk about. Frangistan (Christendom) shall henceforth hear only of my triumph or my fall, which will leave it considerable ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... result of some mortgage transactions, a South Indian tea plantation fell into the hands of the firm, it was suggested that he should go out and take the management of it. The plan suited him admirably. He was a man in every way qualified to lead a rough life; to face a by no means contemptible amount of difficulty and danger, to govern a small army of native workers more amenable to fear than to affection. Such a life, demanding thought and action, would afford his strong nature greater interest and enjoyment than he ...
— Novel Notes • Jerome K. Jerome
... a thing is black one day and white another. I would rather remain as I am, the humble member for Plympton, than be guilty of such treachery, such contradiction, such unexplained conversion, such miserable and contemptible apostasy.... They might have turned me out of office, but I would not be made such a dirty tool as to draw that bill. I have therefore declined to have anything to do with it." Of course, Wetherell was ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... marvellous to me. He could "bark" a squirrel in the top of the tallest tree, or kill it by a bullet through its eye. He used to boast, in a quiet way, that he never spoilt a skin, though it was only that of a "contemptible squir'l." ...
— Our Young Folks—Vol. I, No. II, February 1865 - An Illustrated Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... thing that can make me forgive her for his wanting her. She was keeping him at arm's-length the whole time, and she was doing it so as not to make him contemptible ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... custom was no contemptible instructor how to bear pain. But the same hero complains with more decency, though in ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... he said heartily. "You have had so few chances of enjoying yourself with young people of your own age. It was, as you say, quite natural, but I hope you will have no more to do with the fellow. He is a pretty contemptible ...
— The Fortunes of the Farrells • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... a vindication of their honour, and the dignity of the state, by requiring the dismissal of the plenipotentiaries of America? Such is the degradation to which they have reduced the glories of England! The people, whom they affect to call contemptible rebels, but whose growing power has at least obtained the name of enemies—the people with whom they have engaged this country in war, and against whom they now command our implicit support in every ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... only man I know, recorded in history, who is solely odious, contemptible, and bestial, without one redeeming trait, one feature of mind or body that can preserve him from utter and absolute detestation and damnation of all ...
— Godey's Lady's Book, Vol. 42, January, 1851 • Various
... well-to-do printer in any other light than that of a graciously condescending patron. That there could be danger to herself! you would have been sorry you had suggested the idea. The expression of lofty scorn would have made you feel yourself contemptible. ...
— Tommy and Co. • Jerome K. Jerome
... directed to make of them rings for the bridle of the chief of earthly kings. He who rides to war with such a bridle should be invincible; and a prophecy to that effect is quoted! Helena obeys, and sends the bridle over sea to Constantine,—"no contemptible gift!" Helena assembles the chief men of the Jews, bids them submit to Cyriacus, and keep up the anniversary of the Finding of the Cross. Finally, for those who keep the day is proclaimed a benediction so unmeasured ...
— Anglo-Saxon Literature • John Earle
... the native pronunciation and the "h" should be retained. The reason for its elision current in Alaska is too contemptible to be referred to further. Perhaps the same genius removed this "h" who removed the "'s" from the "Cook's Inlet" of the British admiralty. One is not surprised when a post-office at Cape Prince of Wales is named "Wales" because one is not surprised at any banalities of ...
— The Ascent of Denali (Mount McKinley) - A Narrative of the First Complete Ascent of the Highest - Peak in North America • Hudson Stuck
... a sting in it, and Del Ferice reflected upon the mean traffic in stolen information by which he got his livelihood, and was ashamed. Somehow, too, Donna Tullia felt that the part she fancied herself playing was contemptible enough when compared with the hard work, the earnest purpose, and the remarkable talent of the young artist. But though she felt her inferiority, she would have died rather than own it, even to Del Ferice. She knew that for months she had talked with Del Ferice, with Valdarno, ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... from his hands, but he held her only the more firmly. "Josephine," he said, in a hollow voice, "listen to me, do not drive me to despair, for it would kill me to lose you. No duty, no title would attach me any longer to earth. Men are so contemptible, life is so wretched—you alone extinguish the ignominy of mankind in my eyes. [Footnote: "Correspondance inedite avec Josephine," p. 875] Without you there is no hope, no happiness. ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... insulting Pride?—let him who fills it remember that he is but the puppet of knaves, or fools; and at best but a mere servant of the public! Does wealth intoxicate the weakness of man?—let it never be forgotten that the possession is distinct from the possessor, and that the most contemptible of the human race have been the accumulators of wealth! Does the name of wisdom, puff up any of its professors?—of such it may truly be said, that their wisdom is foolishness—for none truly wise ever felt, in the researches of man, any ground of arrogance, while ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips
... meet that man, and tell him what I think of him!" said she. "Such men as he do more harm than a dozen agitators. So contemptible, too!" ...
— Dolly Dialogues • Anthony Hope
... de' Medici, who had lately succeeded his father as chief magistrate of Florence, and pretended to the same power. The death of his friend Lorenzo had been sincerely deplored by Lodovico, who, before many months had passed, began to discover how weak and contemptible a character his son possessed, and had already consulted his astrologer as to the influence which this young man would have upon his own fortunes. Now the vain and foolish youth refused to join in the proposed embassy to the Vatican, because he wished to appear alone before ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright
... source of the thing in our NATURE; but then comes the furious hankering after wealth—the desire to have it without WORKING for it—which is the wish of so many of us; and THIS is the source of that hideous gambling which has produced the contemptible characters and criminal acts which are the ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... lived a hundred years ago,—dealt with men and women; that is why all are as impressive to-day as they were when originally composed. Men and women like reading about men and women, and it is becoming understood, nowadays, that the truth about men and women can never be contemptible." ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore
... liberties. This, Sir, is a principle of allegiance equally solid and rational, fit for Englishmen to adopt, and well worthy of your Majesty's encouragement. We cannot long be deluded by nominal distinctions. The name of Stuart, of itself, is only contemptible; armed with the sovereign authority, their principles are formidable. The prince who imitates their conduct should be warned by their example, and, while he plumes himself upon the security of his title to the crown, ...
— English Satires • Various
... two acts of common justice required on the part of England to make Ireland prosperous and free. It is glorious to say, that Burke was the first to see this, and inaugurate the reign of concession; it is pitiful, it is utterly contemptible, to be obliged to add, that what was then inaugurated is not yet fully accomplished. Burke demanded for Ireland political and religious freedom. Slowly some small concessions of both have been made when England has feared to refuse ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... place not theirs, reflect the sadness of art's captivity; and the irretrievable destruction of an inimitable past excites the pity and resentment of thoughtful men. The attempt to outdo the works of the great has exhibited the contemptible imbecility of the little, and the coarse-grained vanity of Clement the Eleventh has parodied the poetry of art in the bombastic prose of a vulgar tongue. Pope Pelagius took for his church the pillars and marbles of Trajan's Forum, in the belief that his acts were acceptable to God; but Clement had ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... Meg said, "but why am I so little when I am put to the test, and why do I feel so big, so far above such contemptible things, when I look at a distance ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... commencing the attack, and now his only chance is to be silent and let people forget the exposure. I do not believe that in the whole history of science there is a case of any man of reputation getting himself into such a contemptible position. He will be the laughing-stock of all ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... so true, as soon as you hint that it is prejudicial to the common interests of the said society, all the bystanders will find that your opponent's arguments, however excellent they be, are weak and contemptible; and that yours, on the other hand, though they were random conjecture, are correct and to the point; you will have a chorus of loud approval on your side, and your opponent will be driven out of the field ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; The Art of Controversy • Arthur Schopenhauer
... their safeguard, and they were too strong to be pillaged by any petty marauder, as any one who has seen a Banjari encampment will be convinced. They encamp in a square, and their grain-bags piled over each other breast-high, with interstices left for their matchlocks, make no contemptible fortification. Even the ruthless Turk, Jamshid Khan, set up a protecting tablet in favour of the Charans of Murlah, recording their exemption from dind contributions, and that there should be no increase in duties, with threats to all who should ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... he intended her to believe he loved her, and suspicious as gossips had made her with reference to his conduct, she could not suppose he was guilty of heartless and contemptible trifling. She trusted his honor; yet the discovery of his affection brought a sensation of regret—of vague self-reproach, and she felt that in future he would prove a source of endless disquiet. Hitherto she had enjoyed ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... manner, and lay up secret store, not caring to exhibit it until the time comes for fruitful display. But they must not, in after-life, imitate the spendthrift vegetable, and blossom only in the strength of what they learned long ago; else they soon come to contemptible end. Wise people live like laurels and cedars, and go on mining in the earth, while they ...
— Proserpina, Volume 1 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin
... late of the Seaforth Highlanders, as he informed us, and he was relating his experiences during the world memorable retreat at Mons, when Britain's little regular army, denominated by His Majesty, Wilhelm II, "The contemptible little English army," was practically ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant
... to observe how the first thing men do, when engaged in controversy with others, is ever to assume some honourable name to themselves, such as, if possible, shall beg the whole subject in dispute, and at the same time to affix on their adversaries a name which shall place them in a ridiculous or contemptible or odious light. A deep instinct, deeper perhaps than men give any account of to themselves, tells them how far this will go; that multitudes, utterly unable to weigh the arguments on one side or the other, will yet be ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge
... "You are a contemptible lot over yonder. Some of you are commissioners, and some are lieutenant-governors, and some have the V. C., and a few are privileged to walk about the Mall arm in arm with the viceroy; but I have seen Mark Twain this golden morning, have shaken his hand, and smoked a cigar—no, two cigars—with ...
— The Boys' Life of Mark Twain • Albert Bigelow Paine
... I have this to say to you here and now. You came here to bring shame and distress on an honest girl,—you, an old soldier and an Irishman,—the first soldier and the first Irishman I ever knew to be guilty of so low and contemptible a piece of persecution. When I write to Major Cranston of this, and ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King
... according to his lights, but deeply influenced by his military and aristocratic leanings. Statesmen thousands of miles away might plan to encourage English settlers and English political ways and to put down all that was French. To the man on the spot English settlers meant "the four hundred and fifty contemptible sutlers and traders" who had come in the wake of the army from New England and New York, with no proper respect for their betters, and vulgarly and annoyingly insistent upon what they claimed to be their rights. ...
— The Canadian Dominion - A Chronicle of our Northern Neighbor • Oscar D. Skelton
... variety used by the softer-hearted landlords—quite contemptible in their clemency. The jaws of these resembled the jaws of an old woman to whom time has left nothing but gums. There were also the intermediate or half-toothed sorts, probably devised by the middle-natured squires, or those under the influence of their ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... time and later, many vehement letters about these "skippers." To Joseph Hewes: "There are characters among the thirteen on the list who are truly contemptible—with such, as a private gentleman, I would disdain to sit down—I would disdain to be acquainted.... Until they give proof of their superior ability, I never shall acknowledge them as my senior officers—I ...
— Paul Jones • Hutchins Hapgood
... wealth is bad enough; but the aristocracy of dress is perfectly contemptible. Could Raphael visit Canada in rags, he would be nothing in their eyes beyond ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... all his hopes of life and lost that which was in his hand and for which his flesh had prompted him to venture himself, and died a miserable death. "And I tell thee not this parable, O King," added Shimas, "but that thou mayest leave this contemptible conduct that diverteth thee from thy duties and look to that which is committed to thee of the rule of thy folk and the maintenance of the order of thy realm, so that none may see fault in thee." The King asked "What ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... the smiling land into the pestilential morass, where she could play again her old antics. From the period of the Reformation in England up to the present time, she has kept her emissaries here, individuals contemptible in intellect, it is true, but cat-like and gliding, who, at her bidding, have endeavoured, as much as in their power has lain, to damp and stifle every genial, honest, loyal, and independent thought, and to reduce minds to such a state of dotage as would enable their ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... the fascinating topic, while I, who had no part in the game, sat and listened. The Baron was very cunning, and, as it seemed to me, very contemptible. With all the vices that are mine, I thank heaven that I have never loved money; for that love, it seems, undermines much that is manly and honest in upright hearts. Money, it will be remembered, was at the root of the last quarrel I ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman
... in the heart. My only wish was to push on at any cost, and it was only on account of my good friend, the doctor, that I had reluctantly refrained from making my way onward by force. My blood was boiling. The cowardice of my men made them so contemptible in my eyes that I could not bear even ...
— An Explorer's Adventures in Tibet • A. Henry Savage Landor
... He worships success. She is going to have a marvellous career, and she can help Gerald on in his. He can write plays for her to star in. What have I to offer against that? Yes, I know it's grovelling and contemptible of me to say that, Ginger. I ought to be above it, oughtn't I—talking as if I were competing for some prize... But I haven't any pride ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... it was sustained by wealth, as in that country. A very rich man gained, ultimately, admission to the noble class, as Rothschild has in London. Without wealth to uphold distinctions, any aristocracy soon becomes contemptible. That organization of society is most aristocratic which confers great political and social privileges on a few men, and retains these privileges from generation to generation, as in France during the reign of Louis XV. The state of society at ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... the contemptible perfidy and meanness of the man whom, for twenty years, I have trusted," she panted, but the tone was so hollow he never would have known who was speaking had ...
— The Masked Bridal • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... the strong, because they are strong, against the weak, nothing that tells for the haughty against the humble, nothing that tells for wealth against poverty. The effect of Dickens is purely democratic, and however contemptible he found our pseudo-equality, he was more truly democratic than any American who had yet written fiction. I suppose it was our instinctive perception in the region of his instinctive expression, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... a beautiful and noble-minded young woman falls in love with a contemptible scoundrel, forgives his rebuffs, compromises her own dignity to win his affection, and finally persuades him to let her throw herself away on him,—is the result a romance or a tragedy? This is a nice question; and by the answer to it we must determine whether All's ...
— An Introduction to Shakespeare • H. N. MacCracken
... addressing Histrio, observes, "Commend me to Seven shares and a half," as if some individual at that period had engrossed as large a proportion. Shakspeare, in Hamlet, speaks of "a whole share" as a source of no contemptible emolument, and of the owner of it as a person filling no inferior station in "a cry of payers." In Northward Ho! also, a sharer is noticed with respect. Bellamont the poet enters, and tells his servant, "Sirrah, I'll speak with none:" on which the ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 227, March 4, 1854 • Various
... to it in all vicissitudes, is one of the rarest and highest attributes of genius. All the chief characters in the book follow this line of absolutely consistent development, from Uncle Tom and Legree down to the most aggravating and contemptible of all, Marie St. Clare. The selfish and hysterical woman has never been so faithfully depicted by any ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... here, just now, on whose secrecy I can rely. This shall be no obstacle to my revenge. Neither shall Emily Brown be exposed to the mercenary solicitations of a scoundrel, odious in her eyes, and contemptible in everybody else's: nor will I tamely submit to the clandestine ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... Randall such an obvious rotter? He is well bred; he has been at a public school and a university; he has been in the Foreign Office; he knows the best people and has lived all his life among them. Why is he so unsatisfactory, so contemptible? Why can't he get a valet to stay with him longer than a few months? Just because he is too lazy and pleasure-loving to hunt and shoot. He strums the piano, and sketches, and runs after married women, and reads literary books and ...
— Heartbreak House • George Bernard Shaw
... silent scorn on his contemptible foe, Woodburn, having been anxiously casting about him in thought for some means of rescuing the ill-fated girl from her impending doom, now, with the air of one acting only on his own responsibility, hastily called on his companions to follow him, and led the way, with ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... he's wrapped up in us, and all his "getting on" is for us. Would you like to be treated as your mother treated Chloe? Your mother's set the stroke for the other big-wigs about here; nobody calls on Chloe. And why not? Why not? I think it's contemptible to bar people just because they're new, as you call it, and have to make their position instead ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... man had risen from his chair. Jessie surveyed him with cool measuring eyes. His podgy figure was almost ludicrous in her eyes. His round, fleshy face became almost contemptible. But not quite. He was part of her life, and then those eyes, so strange, so baffling. So alive with an intelligence which at ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... hung and poised this motionless globe of the earth? Who laid its foundation? Nothing seems more vile and contemptible, for the meanest wretches tread it under foot; but yet it is in order to possess it that we part with the greatest treasures. If it were harder than it is, men could not open its bosom to cultivate ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... and let down their beards, under a specious appearance hiding the most abandoned profligacy; like one of the players on the stage, if you strip him of his fine habits wrought with gold, all that remains behind is a ridiculous spectacle of a little contemptible fellow, hired to appear there for seven drachmas. And yet these men despise everybody, talk absurdly of the gods, and drawing in a number of credulous boys, roar to them in a tragical style about virtue, and enter into disputations ...
— Trips to the Moon • Lucian
... that I have any personal feeling against Dr. Windship or other heavy-lifters, I will say that I regard all personal motives in a work of such magnitude and beneficence as simply contemptible. On the contrary, I am exceedingly grateful to this class of gymnasts for their noble illustration of the possibilities in one department ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... appear to glory in justifying the idea, and astonishing the natives by the eccentricity of their behaviour. But these originals should recollect that what may be tolerated in a man of superior talent, is ridiculous, if not contemptible, in one undistinguished by such a pretension; and that, by thus posting their absurdities to the eyes of a foreign nation, they leave behind them an impression which operates as a real injury in regard to their more rational countrymen. Another ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... the set, for it seemed they had no regular places of their own. "Of course not," said Mrs Fairchild, contemptuously. "They can't afford it," which expressive phrase summed up, with both husband and wife, the very essence of all that was mean and contemptible, and she was only indignant at their being able to come there at all. The Bankheads were bad enough; but to have the Hamiltons there too, and then to hear them all talking French with some foreigners who occasionally joined them, really ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... this great philosopher, "poor Richard," or "the old lightning rod." Franklin, whose researches in philosophy have placed him preeminent among the first characters in this country, or in Europe: is it possible then that such a contemptible wretch as Peter Porcupine, (who never gave any specimen of his philosophy, but in bearing with Christian patience a severe whipping at the public post) can injure the exalted reputation of this great philosopher? The ...
— Priestley in America - 1794-1804 • Edgar F. Smith
... tragical fate, alas, Us, poor mortals, constrains to bear Anguish of vision, unspeakable, Which the contemptible, ever-detestable, Doth in lovers ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... oftener from behind than from before. He had always taken every advantage of size and weight and numbers that he could call to his assistance. He was an insulter of girls and women. He was a bar-room brawler, and a saloon-corner loafer. He was all that was dirty, and mean, and contemptible, and cowardly in the eyes of a brave man, and yet, notwithstanding all this, Billy Byrne was no coward. He was what he was because of training and environment. He knew no other methods; no other code. Whatever the meager ethics of his kind he would have lived up to them to the death. ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... your generous indignation be directed against any among us who may advise so absurd and madd'ning a measure. Their number is but few and daily decreased; and the spirit which can render them patient of slavery, will render them contemptible enemies. ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... difficult things might be demanded of a very young boy,—to go alone at midnight to the execution-ground, for example, and bring back a head in proof of courage. For the fear of the dead was held not less contemptible in a samurai than the fear of man. The samurai child was pledged to fear nothing. In all such tests, the demeanor exacted was perfect impassiveness; any swaggering would have been judged quite as harshly as any sign ...
— Kokoro - Japanese Inner Life Hints • Lafcadio Hearn
... prudence was not his strong point. Moreover, the Secret Service man had aroused his curiosity. He wanted to see more of this fellow. So, with an indifference to danger, foolhardy, though too genuine to be contemptible, he strolled across an unprotected space of ...
— Rosa Mundi and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... evidences of the justness of our observations! We cannot pass from the East without noticing the sound statesmanship which is regulating all Lord Ellenborough's leading movements in India—a matter now universally admitted. How unspeakably contemptible and ridiculous has the lapse of a few months rendered the petty clamours against him, with which the ex-ministerial party commenced their last year's campaign! Without, however, travelling round the entire circle of our foreign connexions and operations—there are one or two points to which ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... is more likely than that you would justly value your self upon that mans Censure as being the highest Applause. Those who were fond of continuing Mr Otis on the Seat, were I dare say to a Man among your warmest friends: Will you then add to their Disappointment by a Resignation, merely because one contemptible person, who perhaps was hired for the purpose, has blessd you with his reviling—Need I add more than to intreat it as a favor that you would ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams
... schools, the costly ornaments and studied contrivances of speech, shock and disgust men when their own lives and the fate of their wives, their children, and their country hang on the decision of the hour. Then words have lost their power, rhetoric is vain, and all elaborate oratory contemptible. Even genius itself then feels rebuked and subdued, as in the presence of higher qualities. Then patriotism is eloquent; then self-devotion is eloquent. The clear conception, outrunning the deductions of logic, the high purpose, the firm ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... Maine appeared then as contemptible in the broad open daylight as he had appeared redoubtable in the obscurity of the cabinets. He had the look of one condemned, and his face, generally so fresh-coloured, was now as pale as death. He replied in a very low and ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... comes from obscurity, as pearls from homely oyster shells. Working among the poor of London, an English author searched out the life-career of an apple woman. Her history makes the story of kings and queens contemptible. Events had appointed her to poverty, hunger, cold and two rooms in a tenement. But there were three orphan boys sleeping in an ash-box whose lot was harder. She dedicated her heart and life to the little waifs. During two ...
— The Investment of Influence - A Study of Social Sympathy and Service • Newell Dwight Hillis
... his frock. Most of us have some wolf to gnaw us somewhere; but we are generally gnawed beneath our clothes, so that the world doesn't see; and it behoves us so to bear it that the world shall not suspect. The man who goes about declaring himself to be miserable will be not only miserable, but contemptible ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... They never sight the returning Texans, nor these them. The Rangers go down the river; the savages up stream. Of all Apaches, of all Indians, the Jicarillas are the most contemptible cowards. Dastards to the last degree, the young "braves" who mutilated the slain lancers will return to their tribe to tell of ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... So lowe from what we were, that we dare heare This from our Servants and not punish it? Where is the terrour of our names, our powre That Spaine with feare hath felt in both his Indies? We are lost for ever, and from freemen growne Slaves so contemptible as no worthie Prince, That would have men, not sluggish Beasts, his Servants, Would ere vouchsafe the owning. Now, my frends, I call not on your furtherance to preserve The lustre of my actions; let me with them Be nere remembred, so this government Your wives, ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... a great knowledge in modern histories, especially in those of the countries in which he had travelled, and he seems, by his letters, to have been no contemptible politician: As to his poetry, it is smoother, and more harmonious, than was very common with the ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... from heaven. They look upon it as a convenience, and accept the privilege of love without the responsibility of it. They even use their friends for their own selfish purposes, and so never have true friends. Some men shed friends at every step they rise in the social scale. It is mean and contemptible to merely use men, so long as they further one's personal interests. But there is a nemesis on such heartlessness. To such can never come the ecstasy and comfort of mutual trust. This worldly policy can never truly succeed. It stands to reason ...
— Friendship • Hugh Black
... pressure of petty, vexatious, and provoking, but useless annoyances. Caesar's demands may have been unjust, but they were bold, manly, and undisguised. The eunuch may have been right in resisting them; but the mode was so mean and contemptible, that mankind have always taken part with Caesar in the sentiments which they have formed ...
— Cleopatra • Jacob Abbott
... Inza, contemptuously. "You had better go away at once. I wouldn't believe such a contemptible creature as you ...
— Frank Merriwell's Chums • Burt L. Standish
... office of Sir Lemuel Levison, the young man used some very intemperate language, accusing the great banker of appropriating his own contemptible little fortune for private ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... men standing there, all three so elegant, so distinguished! A wicked sentiment of female vanity crossed my mind; and I said to myself with miserable pride and triumph: "All three love me ... All three are thinking of me!" ... Oh! I have been cruelly punished for this contemptible vanity. Alas! one of the three did not love me—and he was the one I loved—one of them did not think of me, and he was the one that filled my every thought. Another sentiment more noble than the first, saddened my heart. I said: "Here are three devoted friends ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin
... to stand thus, tricked out in the dress of a remote civilization from which he had thrust himself forever, before the woman he perhaps had wronged, and with so easy and disdainful a bearing, seemed to Ringfield the summit of senseless folly and contemptible weakness. Subjected during the rest of the evening to the cynical, amused and imperturbable gaze of this man, whom, in spite of his Christianity, he hated, Ringfield made but a sorry chairman. His French stuck in his throat; ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... boar whose heart's 25 High temper flashes in his eyes, with these The spear accomplish'd youths of Panthus' house. Yet Hyperenor of equestrian fame Lived not his lusty manhood to enjoy, Who scoffingly defied my force in arms, 30 And call'd me most contemptible in fight Of all the Danai. But him, I ween, His feet bore never hence to cheer at home His wife and parents with his glad return. So also shall thy courage fierce be tamed, 35 If thou oppose me. I command thee, go— Mix with the multitude; withstand not me, Lest evil overtake thee! To be taught By ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer |
