"Debase" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... overtaken Yoshisada, had not one of those sacrifices familiar on a Japanese field of battle been made for his sake. Oyamada Takaiye gave his horse to the Nitta general and fell fighting in his stead, while Yoshisada rode away. At first sight these sacrifices seem to debase the saved as much as they exalt the saver. But, according to Japanese ethics, an institution was always more precious than the person of its representative, and a principle than the life of its exponent. Men sacrificed themselves ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... and apathy, even females, of respectable appearance and dress, will be gazing upon these subjects; and now that the art of lithography is become fashionable, the print-shops of Paris will be deluged with an inundation of these odious representations, which threaten equally to debase the art and to corrupt morals. This cheap and wholesale circulation of what is mischievous, and of really most miserable execution, is much to be deplored. Even in the better part of art, lithography will have ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... moulded in a nobler cast than his; it was founded in the school of Christianity, which was, that all men are by nature equal; that they are wisely and justly endowed by their Creator with certain rights which are irrefragable, and no matter how human pride and avarice may depress and debase, still God is the author of good to man; and of evil, man is the artificer to himself and to his species. Unlike Plato and Socrates, his mind was free from the gloom that surrounded theirs. Let the name, the worth, the zeal, and other excellent qualifications of this noble man, ever ...
— Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 (of 2) (1854) • Various
... army, the duke of Argyle having harangued with equal skill and energy on military affairs, proposed that the forces should be augmented by adding new levies to the old companies, without increasing the number of officers; as such an augmentation served only to debase the dignity of the service, by raising the lowest of mankind to the rank of gentlemen; and to extend the influence of the minister, by multiplying his dependents. He therefore moved for a resolution, that the augmenting the army ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... one of them, without in any degree improving the other. Therefore the prison, considered without reference to the elevating influence of the pardoning power, has but little ability to reform the bad, and yet possesses a sad tendency to debase the comparatively good. ...
— Thoughts on Educational Topics and Institutions • George S. Boutwell
... have respected no human laws, and I bid defiance to all Divine vengeance. I might be murdered or hanged, but it is impossible to degrade me. On a gibbet or in the palace of a Prince, seized by the executioner or dining with Sovereigns, I am, I will, and I must, always remain the same. Infamy cannot debase me, nor is it in the power of grandeur to exalt me." General, Ambassador, Field-marshal, First Consul, or Emperor, Lasnes will always be the same polluted, but daring individual; a stranger to remorse and repentance, as well as to honour and virtue. Where ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... deserters in this war—better shoot the traitors in high positions. The indigent men of the South will fight, shoulder to shoulder with the wealthy, for Southern independence; but when the attempt is made to debase them to a ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... howe'er inclin'd, Will deign to own a kindred care? Who will debase his manly mind, For friendship every ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... the very arteries of our national life; who have sought to bring the authority and good name of our Government into contempt, to destroy our industries wherever they thought it effective for their vindictive purposes to strike at them, and to debase our politics to the uses of foreign intrigue. Their number is not great as compared with the whole number of those sturdy hosts by which our nation has been enriched in recent generations out of virile foreign stocks; but ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff
... when we send a young man from the Schools into active life, lest he should indulge his appetites intemperately, lest he should debase himself by ragged clothing, or be puffed up by fine raiment? Knows he not the God within him; knows he not with whom he is starting on his way? Have we patience to hear him say to us, Would I had thee with me!—Hast thou not God where thou art, and having Him dost thou still seek for any ...
— The Golden Sayings of Epictetus • Epictetus
... beautify. Decorous, demure, sedate, sober, staid, prim, proper. Deface, disfigure, mar, mutilate. Defect, fault, imperfection, disfigurement, blemish, flaw. Delay, defer, postpone, procrastinate. Demoralize, deprave, debase, corrupt, vitiate. Deportment, demeanor, bearing, port, mien. Deprive, divest, dispossess, strip, despoil. Despise, contemn, scorn, disdain. Despondency, despair, desperation. Detach, separate, sunder, sever, disconnect, disjoin, disunite. Determined, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... whose eyes were beginning dimly to see the truth, had poisoned his mind with lies, and had hurled him into depths of Plutonian ignorance inconceivably more profound than his original estate; and now he was about to debase another fellow-creature of his own race, to tamper with his manhood, to confuse his identity, to render him among his own kindred and people perhaps tabooed, ostracised, despised—perhaps an object of pity. If he should succeed? ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... Now the bosom is no longer cheerful and placid; and if the countenance preserve its exterior character, this is no longer the honest expression of the heart. Prosperity and luxury, gradually extinguishing sympathy, and puffing up with pride, harden and debase the soul. In other instances, shame secretly clouds, and remorse begins to sting, and suspicion to corrode, and jealousy and envy to embitter. Disappointed hopes, unsuccessful competitions, and frustrated pursuits, sour and irritate the temper. A little ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... do not satisfy them by telling us what is really the case. I have heard you charged with disrespect to the King of Prussia; and above all, to King William and the Revolution. My own objections are little more essential: they relate chiefly to inaccuracies of style, which either debase the expression or obscure the meaning. As to your argument@ most of the principal parts are made out with a clearness and evidence that no one would expect, where materials are so scarce. Yet I still suspect Richard of the murder of Henry the Sixth." Works, ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... he desired me to remember, not only that our former relationship of tutor and pupil was at an end, but that friendship for his person was incompatible with the respect due to his superior station, I can neither so far degrade the dignity of letters, nor, above all, so meanly debase the sanctity of my divine profession, as any longer to remain beneath your hospitable roof,—a guest not only unwelcome to, but insulted by, your relation and apparent heir. Suffer me to offer you my gratitude for the favours you have ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... use of his shoulders for a few pence. At this they were as much surprised as they were doubtful at first whether the porter could be his majesty. At length they ventured to express their complaints that so great a personage should debase himself by so vile an employment. His majesty having heard them, replied—"Upon my honour, gentlemen, the load which I quitted is by far heavier than the one you see me carry here: the weightiest is but a straw, when compared to that world under which I laboured. I have slept more in four ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... a source they are of misapprehension, owing to the curiosity that will not be content to have the gold in the ore, but must needs vainly strive to refine it out, we can well understand how mythology tends to corrupt and debase religion if it be not continually watched and weeded; and how, being, from the nature of the case, ever to the front, ever on men's lips and mingling with their lives, it should seem to the outsider to be not the imperfect garment of religion, but a substitute ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell
... a canker'd heart That can debase the excellence of art, Nor great in titles makes our worth obey, Since we have lines far more esteem'd than they. For there is hidden in a poet's name A spell that can command the wings of Fame, And maugre all oblivion's hated birth Begin their immortality on earth, When he that ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... to the English Ministry, in order to have them restored to them, and having invited the merchants of Rotterdam to join with them in this Deputation, the latter have answered, that with men capable of acting so ruffianlike, they would rather let them keep all that they had robbed, than debase themselves by courting the robbers. This noble answer would be still more so, if Rotterdam had lost as much at St Eustatia as Amsterdam; there being, as for that, a ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. IX • Various
... disposing of the flawless mechanism of an absolute State. She is armed with the most deadly engines of destruction that advanced science can forge, and in order to use them ruthlessly she mixes the subtlest poisons to corrupt the wells of truth and debase the standards of right and wrong. And this she can do without the least qualms of conscience, in virtue of her firm belief in the amorality of political conduct. Her members at home and abroad, whose ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... attention of every Christian philanthropist in the Southern States. This, I conceive, has originated partly from the competition of slave and free labor, but mainly, I presume, from the association of this class with the African population. There are other agencies, no doubt, which have contributed to debase and brutalize this class of the white population, but I judge, that the causes above indicated, are the principal ones. Some will, no doubt, attribute this in part to the disparity between the lower classes in the South, and what they choose ...
— A Review of Uncle Tom's Cabin - or, An Essay on Slavery • A. Woodward
... gains what he pretends, Disgusts a thousand unpretending friends: And since no art can make a counterpass, Or add the weight of gold to mimic brass, When princes to bad ore their image join, They more debase the stamp, than raise the coin. Be thine the care, true merit to reward And gain the good—nor will that task be hard; Souls form'd alike so quick by nature blend, An honest man is more than half thy friend. Him, no mean views, or haste to rise, shall ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... the vicissitudes of society? Sequestered from the world, neither its pageants nor its mortifications could have reached me there. I have seen thee, matchless Constantine! Like a bright planet, thou has passed before me!—like a being of a superior order! And I never, never can debase my nature to change that love. Thy image shall follow me into solitude—shall consecrate my soul to the practice of every virtue! I will emulate thy excellence, when, perhaps, thou hast forgotten ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... ALONE, except to care for them when care is needed, and they may prove the greatest blessing you have ever known. They were given you that you might become a mother, the highest office to which God has ever called one of His creatures. Do not debase yourself and become lower than the beasts of the field. If this habit has fastened itself upon any one of our readers, stop it now. Do not allow yourself to think about it, give up all evil associations, ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... M. Bergson's system precludes ethics: I cannot think that observation just. Apart from the moral inspiration which appears throughout his philosophy, which is indeed a passionate attempt to exalt (or debase) values into powers, it offers, I should say, two starting-points for ethics. In the first place, the elan vital ought not to falter, although it can do so: therefore to persevere, labour, experiment, propagate, must be duties, and the opposite must be sins. In the second place, ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana
... captivate the mind of their master to such an extent that they obtain from him very important favours in behalf of the persons they protect, and the consequence is that they are often courted by the highest families. Where is the man who will not debase himself if he be in want? Does not Agamemnon say, in Homer, that in such a case man must necessarily be guilty of meanness? And Agamemnon and Homer lived long before our time! It evidently proves that men are at all times moved by ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... for the future. The thought of adversity, or of coming sorrow, or of the helplessness that comes with years and sickness, never crosses their minds. In these respects, they resemble the savage tribes, who know no better, and do no worse. Like the North American Indians, they debase themselves by the vices which accompany civilization, but make no use whatever of ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles |
