"Demoralising" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... cobwebs, and a breakfast which, if not high-toned in its accessories, was at least enjoyed at a fashionable hour, had made me feel as if I wanted a quiet smoke out of the gigantic meerschaum which I unpack only on special occasions, and something demoralising to read. ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... noble work! I scolded that tramdriver on Harold's cross bridge for illusing the poor horse with his harness scab. Bad French I got for my pains. Of course it was frosty and the last tram. All tales of circus life are highly demoralising. ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... unreasonably. He had run away with her, and eventually married her; the scandal was still fresh. Already she had repented of her bargain. These women regard their infatuated lovers merely as steps in the social ladder, and he had failed to appreciably advance her. Under her demoralising spell his ambition had died in him. He no longer wrote, no longer took interest in anything beyond his own debasement. He was with us in the company, playing small parts, and playing them badly; he would have remained ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... Duncan's Committee in 1849 a general feeling prevailed against the deer, on the ground of their demoralising influence as an inducement to poaching, and all were ordered to be destroyed, there being at that time perhaps ...
— The Forest of Dean - An Historical and Descriptive Account • H. G. Nicholls
... single verse. The songs published in her youth had been given to others; but, as in the case of Lady Anne Barnard, these assignments caused her no uneasiness. She experienced much gratification in finding her simple minstrelsy supplanting the coarse and demoralising rhymes of a former period; and this mental satisfaction ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... beautiful cut of his tunics, breeches, jackets, and coats was universally admired. The way his harness was kept and the shape of his high boots were a marvel. To say all this is to give some idea of the change he suddenly experienced in his habits and his tastes during those demoralising days of retreat and merciless hours of pursuit. But, in spite of all, he had kept his good humour and never lost his gay spirits. He still accompanied his talk with elaborate gestures, and seemed to be just as much at ease behind ...
— In the Field (1914-1915) - The Impressions of an Officer of Light Cavalry • Marcel Dupont
... of being early admitted into Church fellowship. But one night the desire to return to the drug became irresistible, and, strangely, the desire attacked all three men at the same time on the same night; and they escaped together. Sadly enough there was in this case marked evidence of the demoralising influence of opium, for when they escaped they took with them everything portable that they could lay their hands on. It was a ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... must obey, it is better and less demoralising to yield an external submission so as to escape penalty or constraint, than to yield to authority from a general confidence which enslaves the mind. Comply but criticise. Obey but beware of reverence. If I surrender my conscience to another ...
— Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle • H. N. Brailsford
... eccentricities, but they were not without their effect, and that a demoralising one; for in me they aggravated the fever of the unknown, and whetted my appetite for the strange, abnormal and unhealthy in art. Hence all pallidities of thought and desire were eagerly welcomed, and Verlaine became my ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... insensibility to personal religion that is the everlasting ruin of multitudes of eloquent ministers. That is true. We ministers all feel that to be true. Our miserable experience tells us that is only too true of ourselves. What a flood of demoralising talk has been poured out from the pulpits of this one city to-day!—demoralising to preachers and to hearers both, because not intended to be put in practice. How few of those who have talked and heard talk all this day about divine truth and human duty, have made the least ...
— Bunyan Characters - First Series • Alexander Whyte
... exists in the United States a slave trade, not less odious or demoralising, nay, I do in my conscience believe, more odious and more demoralising than that which is carried on between Africa and Brazil. North Carolina and Virginia are to Louisiana and Alabama what Congo is to Rio Janeiro. The slave States of the Union are divided into two classes, the breeding States, ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... visitor to Japan often vaunts himself on being broadminded. He regards heathendom as only another sect and he desires to be respectful to it. But I want to show you that it is not a case of only another sect but often a case of gross and demoralising superstition and priestly countenancing of immorality. Heaven forbid that I should deny the beauty of the idea of the foxes being the messengers of divinity or that I should suggest that some religious feelings may not inspire and some religious feeling may not ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... drawing-room at Merriston and thinking it all over, Althea asked herself the question while her heart sank to a deeper dejection. Not only had she lost Franklin; she had lost herself. She embarked on the dangerous and often demoralising search for a definite, recognisable personality—something to lean on with security, a standard and a prop. With growing dismay she could find only a sorry little group of shivering hopes and shaken adages. What was she? Only ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... feelings when lying in the trenches with shells bursting directly overhead. I have been in all sorts of places, under heavy shell-fire, but for intensity and nearness—nothing—absolutely nothing—compared with the frightful and demoralising nature of the shell-fire which I experienced during ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins
... chuckled a little, shamefacedly. His second daughter thereupon arranged the folds of her mauve cashmere, with bent head.—"It is very clear papa and Shotover have been together to-day," she thought. "Shotover's influence over papa is always demoralising. It's too extraordinary the subjects men joke about and call amusing ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... when Coningsby, who being somewhat impatient for the entrance of the ladies was rather more abrupt than his wont, told the worthy Baronet that he looked, upon a government without distinct principles of policy as only a stop-gap to a wide-spread and demoralising anarchy; that he for one could not comprehend how a free government could endure without national opinions to uphold it; and that governments for the preservation of peace and order, and nothing else, had better be sought in China, or among ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... Charlemagne in the Chanson de Roland: "Deus, Dist li Reis, si peneuse est ma vie." The author of the Doloneia consistently conforms to the character of Agamemnon as drawn in the rest of the Iliad. He is over-anxious; he is demoralising in his fits of gloom, but all the burden of the host hangs on him—sipeneuse ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang
... practically nothing, as otherwise they would have fallen into the hands of the anarchists; but this pottering about from day to day with a gun, doing nothing except play at billiards and drink, has been very demoralising, and it will be long before its effect ceases ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... Boer has besides what the British "Tommy Atkins" lacks, the power of initiative. The death of an officer does not throw the ranks of a Boer commando into chaos, for everybody knows how to proceed. It must not be supposed, however, that the death of an officer does not exercise a certain amount of demoralising influence. What I wish to impress is that the members of a commando can act independently of the officer and can exercise ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen
... subject. But in relating what may be conceived as the true motive that incited Sir Edward Stanley to the founding of that beautiful structure Hornby Chapel, we may be allowed to show the operation as well as the effect—to trace the steps by which his conversion from an awful and demoralising infidelity ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... adventurer was gaining a place among the landed classes. The simple archers and men-at-arms, who received high wages and good hopes of plunder in the king's foreign service, found in it a congenial and lucrative, if demoralising profession. In England, though wages were low, provisions were cheap and employment constant. The growth of the wool trade, then further stimulated by refugees from the "three towns of Flanders," against which ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... poachers, and the like were allowed to choose between military service and transportation. The general effect was to provide an army of blackguards commanded by gentlemen. The army no doubt had its merits as well as its defects. The continental armies which it met were collected by equally demoralising methods until the French revolution led to a systematic conscription. The bad side is suggested by Napier's famous phrase, the 'cold shade of our aristocracy'; while Napier gives facts enough to prove both the ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... so may be very limited. For a year the great president of Harvard, Dr. Charles Eliot, did his best to abolish or amend football in that university. As head of the institution he spoke out against the game, which he honestly believed to be brutal and demoralising. What was the result of his protest? It had no influence toward abolishing the game and very little, if any, toward modifying it. The fact is our colleges and universities are just now controlled in a large measure by the opinion of those who support them. In other words, ...
— The High Calling • Charles M. Sheldon
... right, and with "All is fair in love and war" held up by the united force of a million minds, is it to be wondered at that anything and everything seemed justified under martial law? And yet, when we come to think of it, how pernicious and demoralising the effect of such maxims must be on the public in general and the uneducated mind in particular. Under its influence a nation may become, in times of war, dishonourable and treacherous, may be dragged from one abyss of degradation ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt
... exhaustion about him. He was hoping on his arrival to lighten the heavy burden of life a little by undertaking the conductorship of the entr'acte music at the theatre, which he proposed to organise artistically, and thus set himself free from the oppressive and demoralising service of the opera. It was with sincere grief that I accompanied him to the mail-coach, and he too seemed to be seized with sudden foreboding. As a matter of fact, this was the last time we ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... plenty of other gossip in these letters, and gossip often about unsavoury matters which need not be noticed here. It lets in a flood of light upon the causes of the general incompetence and inefficiency; the life of the Forum was a demoralising one: ...
— Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero • W. Warde Fowler
... it, but we got a couple of stretchers from it. And we had need of them. No. 4 gun, my own gun, which was nearest to the road, suffered most severely. Seven of the detachment on this gun were hit, not all at once but, what is apt to be much more demoralising, at intervals of a few minutes. A Bombardier was in charge of the gun that day, no senior N.C.O.'s being available. He showed a very wonderful coolness and courage. Shells were bursting all round the gunpit, and sometimes in the gunpit itself. But ...
— With British Guns in Italy - A Tribute to Italian Achievement • Hugh Dalton
... now fairly afloat on her favourite theme, viz., if men were kind to women, their kindness was worse than their cruelty—it was demoralising. ...
— Celibates • George Moore
... truth, and deeply to be lamented, that the vicinity of European settlers has always produced a very demoralising effect upon the Indians. As a proof of this, I will relate a ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... also describes the Hindu character with a good deal of accuracy, but he adds truly: "I do not by any means assent to the pictures of depravity and general worthlessness which some have drawn of the Hindus." But when speaking of their religion as a "demoralising and absurd religion," he is much nearer the truth than those modern writers who ...
— India and the Indians • Edward F. Elwin
... of doing that sort of thing again," he said. "Unless a person is naturally eccentric, the attempt to be so demoralises him, because there is nothing so demoralising as failure—except on one's own particular lines. Did you, for instance, jump on a horse and career barebacked through Menlo Park like a wild Indian,—a performance which your friend would probably ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... Good Intent, and he and thou need not be parted. I approve of thy constancy to him and of his faithfulness to thee. A long-shore life, such as thou wouldst lead if thou wast owner of a wherry, would be dangerous if not demoralising, albeit thou might ...
— Peter Trawl - The Adventures of a Whaler • W. H. G. Kingston
... Newgate on the occasion of the last condemned sermon and on the morning of the execution have been fully investigated;[15] and the report established the necessity of legislative interference to prevent the recurrence of scenes so disgraceful and demoralising. The policy of depriving capital executions of their present publicity is well worthy of careful revision; and Sir James Graham, in obedience to your Majesty's desire, will bring the subject under the notice of his ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... paused an instant; then, while Peter still hunted for the envelope, he administered another, and this time a distinctly disobedient, rap. Peter heard it from within and was struck with its oddity of sound—so much so that, leaving the child for a moment under a demoralising impression of impunity, he waited with quick curiosity for a repetition of the stroke. It came of course immediately, and then the young man, who had at the same instant found his envelope and ejaculated "Hallo, this thing ...
— Sir Dominick Ferrand • Henry James
... raft put forth from the haven of shelter into the stormy waves. The first experience was, as Jock said, that large rooms and country clearness had been demoralising, or, as Babie averred, the bad taste and griminess of the Drake remains were invincible, for when the old furniture and pictures were all restored to the old places, the tout ensemble was so terribly dingy and confined ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... dealt at length with the subject of environment, and his father was given to understand that the conditions in which his life was spent were mean, sordid, demoralising; fatal to all that was true and beautiful. The lad also gave it as his opinion that, so far from regarding money as a worthy object for a life's ambition, the true lover of Nature would be cumbered by the possession of more ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... even aim when firing. Then, the more shells we have the better, as we all know here and at home. Yesterday we used very little shrapnel, it was almost entirely high explosives. At home it was discovered that we had used too much of the former in France. The demoralising effect of shrapnel is slight, and it has little effect on troops under cover, but you might as well fight an earthquake as the other, if it is anywhere ...
— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson
... armies of Austria, Hungary and Italy—so Germany saves money on her peace footing which we idly expend on ours.' What this officer did not say to me has been said by many other well-informed Frenchmen, that the recent military legislation of the parliamentary majority is demoralising this great military force and threatens its efficiency. The prominent position taken in the new Chamber since it assembled by M. Raynal, a Radical member for the Gironde who held the portfolio of Public Works under M. Gambetta ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... thus strengthened. This change is slowly working its way in Great Britain—slowly, but perceptibly here and there—thanks to the faithful and persevering efforts put forth by good and true men, to enlighten the subjects of this impoverishing and demoralising custom, which has ruled with such despotism over the laborers of the land. Little by little the proper balance between the Four Great Powers of human necessity,— Food, Drink, Raiment and Housing, so long disturbed by this habit, is being restored. ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... own. For she was in the world as not of it, in a painful sense; she was cut off from the cheerful, natural development of ordinary human beings; and if, as was probable, the conviction of this dreary fact had fastened on her mind, the result would have been perhaps demoralising, certainly depressing, more and more. Rather praise God for her therefore, dearest Isa, that she is gone above the cloud, gone where she can exercise active virtues and charities, instead of being the mild patient object of the charities and virtues of her friends. ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... like this," answered the elder. "It means that Raymond is to look to you in future, and that henceforth you may justly demand that he should not live in idleness. There is nothing more demoralising for youth than to live upon money it doesn't earn. I should say—subject to your aunt's opinion, to which I attach the greatest importance—that it is your place to give your brother an interest ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... concluded by observing that it pained him to bring forward this motion, as he had many friends who had been born in the purple, and some had survived the demoralising influences involved in their birth, but he felt it his solemn duty to lodge a practical protest against the fetish worship of rank and wealth and war, which, in the opinion of his great-headed colleague, Mr. John Ward, was ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, May 27, 1914 • Various
... of a good mother. He had fought his way to fortune with clean hands, winning always his battles by sheer superiority of brain, never by laxity of principle; no man could lay to his charge that he had dealt him a foul blow. He had come, therefore, through that demoralising fight with a clean heart, his native shrewdness increased a thousand-fold, his native simplicity unabated. It was this combination of shrewdness and simplicity which had caused him to send Dorothy, bitter as it had been to part with her, to Europe to finish her education. His gorge had risen ...
— The Admirable Tinker - Child of the World • Edgar Jepson
... It illustrates the demoralising influence upon society in Ireland of the protracted toleration of such a contest as has been waging between the authority of the Law and the authority of the League, that, when this case came up for consideration ten days ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (1 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... emptiness and flatness behind. "For once, nay, for a few times," he was of opinion, "such excesses might be harmless, perhaps even refreshing; but often repeated—ah! that would be prejudicial, and demoralising in the highest degree!" ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... which are visited very frequently by the Russian traders; and through these traders and Russian peasants they have received many of the worst vices of civilisation without any of its virtues. To this must be added the demoralising influence of American whalers, who have given the settled Koraks rum and cursed them with horrible diseases, which are only aggravated by their diet and mode of life. They have learned from the Russians to lie, cheat, and steal; and ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... knot of sowars rode down into sight from time to time, offering our men a tempting mark for a discharge of grape, but there was no firing, for such shots could do no good, and they were reserved for a time when they could have a demoralising and scattering effect upon some ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn
... generation is full of distrust the most demoralising of social influences. He is like a sailor who believes no longer either in the good faith or seamanship of his captain, and, between desperation and contempt, contemplates vaguely but persistently the assumption of control by a collective forecastle. He ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... You know officers aren't allowed to use the needle—might give the man blood poisoning. You give those tabloids. They say they act in a few minutes, but they DON'T. It's a quarter of an hour. And nothing is more demoralising than when you have a man, wounded, you know, and crying out. Well, this man I gave him the morphia before he got over the stunning, you know. So he didn't feel the pain. Well, they carried him in. I always used to like to look after my men. So I went next morning ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... all conversation is gold, gold, gold. It is in all their thoughts, excepting, perhaps, a too liberal thought of drink. The people of Johannesburg think of gold; they talk of gold; they dream of gold. I believe, if they could, they would eat and drink gold. But, demoralising as this is to a vast number of those, who are in the vortex of the daily doings of this remarkable place, the startling fact is only too apparent to anyone who visits Johannesburg. It is to be hoped that the day will come when the legitimate ...
— A Winter Tour in South Africa • Frederick Young
... if her face grew tender for the young girls and the eight-year-olds, at the sight of Miss Quincey it stiffened into tolerance, cynically braced to bear. Miss Cursiter had an eye for magnificence of effect, and the unseemly impact of Miss Quincey was apt to throw the lines into disorder, demoralising the younger units and ruining the spectacle as a whole. To-day it made the new Classical Mistress smile, and somehow that smile annoyed ...
— Superseded • May Sinclair
... was stripped to the skin. But I was not permitted to re-dress. Evidently they concluded that I might have pockets in my epidermis because they went over me, inch by inch, resorting to actions which were wholly unnecessary and which were revolting, degrading, and demoralising to the last degree—such actions as one would hardly expect even from the lowest animals. During the process they joked and gibed freely ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... in its noisome growth by the so-called Grand Old Man, at whose grave may be laid every calamity which has affected Ireland since it had the misfortune to arouse his interest, and the ill effects of whose demoralising interference will bear fruit for many ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... your visit here. In the first place, you were nearly knocked over yourself, and now there is this man lying insensible. So for goodness' sake get off to your room again, and lie down and keep yourself quiet for the rest of the day. I shall have you demoralising the whole ward ...
— The Queen's Cup • G. A. Henty
... of the musical programme. I do not approve of this demoralising instrument except to a very limited extent. The cylinders usually gyrate with records of fatuous music-hall songs, unedifying coster-airs and farcical speeches. The vox humana interpreting national melodies is infinitely ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... the doctor weighed heavily on her; and it made her rage inwardly to hear her friend discussed openly at the Club by a clique that usually looked on at the tennis. While serving her smart over-hand strokes, scraps of conversation would float to her, demoralising her play and rousing in her a fierce inclination to speak ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... society. The religion of pagan Rome could not satisfy the wants of the soul; it could neither improve the heart nor invigorate the intellect; and it was now rapidly losing its hold on the consciences of the multitude. The high places of idolatrous worship often exercised a most demoralising influence, as their rites were not unfrequently a wretched mixture of brutality, levity, imposture, and prostitution. Philosophy had completely failed to ameliorate the condition of man. The vices of some of its most distinguished ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... September, 1899, by the Governor, Sir Walter Hely-Hutchinson, to the Colonial Office, it was urged that: "In the opinion of the Ministers, such a catastrophe as the seizure of Laing's Nek, and the destruction of the northern portion of the railway ... would have a most demoralising effect on the natives and the loyal Europeans in the colony, and would afford great encouragement to the Boers and their sympathisers." The announcement from home of the early despatch of reinforcements from India which was ...
— History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902 v. 1 (of 4) - Compiled by Direction of His Majesty's Government • Frederick Maurice
... strolled up to one of our officers and the conversation turning on to pom-poms, languidly remarked: "Ye-es, I don't think they do much weel destwuction—er-er—it is pwincipally their demowalising effect." The demoralising effect on himself having been so very non-evident, this remark struck me as being distinctly good. Our "Wearie Willie" snapped out a remark now and again, and apparently always to the point. Later, Legge's men occupied the ridge opposite and chivvied the enemy for several miles; ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross
... the brutal and demoralising games of the amphitheatre. Wherever they went they erected these huge places for entertaining themselves with the spectacle of suffering. There never was an amphitheatre at Marseilles, for Marseilles was Greek and not Roman, and to the Greek such spectacles ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould
... beer-houses, without pain and regret, that ever an act of parliament was passed to legalize such places. I have visited some hundreds of such, throughout the country, and can positively assert that the demoralising tendency of too many is awful! Our magistrates must be more careful in granting licences, or the efforts of the wise and good will be neutralized, by the evils concocted at such places. The old inkeepers had a character, and capital at stake. The new beerhouse-keepers, I should ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin
... word more, sat down by the pillar and looked vacantly before him while the new prisoners told their story. Ben Aboo was a villain. The people of Tetuan had found him out. His wife was a harlot whose heart was a deep pit. Between them they were demoralising the entire bashalic. The town was worse than Sodom. Hardly a child in the streets was safe, and no woman, whether wife or daughter, whom God had made comely, dare show herself on the roofs. Their own women had been carried off to the ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine
... entrance of thirty-five dollars a week to one who has endured scant allowances for several years is a demoralising thing. Carrie found her purse bursting with good green bills of comfortable denominations. Having no one dependent upon her, she began to buy pretty clothes and pleasing trinkets, to eat well, and to ornament her room. Friends were not long in gathering about. She ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... in these later years there had been neither time nor money for any fetes. Piety, however, was still left, and it was characteristic of the scrupulousness persisting in Marcus's mother through all the demoralising experiences of poverty that, after she had finished the heavier tasks, she should set to work to mark the religious day by a freshly washed cloth upon the table, with a bowl of red roses picked from the bush that grew by the doorway, and a gala supper of new-laid eggs, lentil ...
— Roads from Rome • Anne C. E. Allinson
... receive assistance in this new intellectual life, was he not in need of such a friendship? Would he not appreciate its usefulness and uniqueness sufficiently to see that it did not turn to a mere useless and demoralising love affair? There may also have been something very reassuring to Alfieri's apprehensions in the knowledge that he would be dealing, not with an Italian woman, accustomed and almost socially obliged to hold a man in the degrading bonds ...
— The Countess of Albany • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... of the river has a demoralising effect upon one's temper, and this it is, I suppose, which causes even barge men to be sometimes rude to one another, and to use language which, no doubt, in their calmer moments ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome
... the demand greater than the supply, and produces direful consequences to a large class of persons who labor under the evils, physical and moral, of poverty. You find it, as described by a witness called yesterday, in the overcrowding of our cities and country villages, and the necessarily demoralising effects resulting from that over-crowding. You have heard of the way in which women—I mean child-bearing women—are destroyed by being obliged to submit to the necessities of their position before they are fully restored from the effects of ...
— Autobiographical Sketches • Annie Besant
... love his country, who supports that which is increasing taxation and demoralising his countrymen? Should we allow any nation under the sun to do us the harm one public-house will do? Is it not true that nearly all the police are needed by those who frequent the Public- house? Is it not this devil's academy that costs the nation so much more ...
— Broken Bread - from an Evangelist's Wallet • Thomas Champness
... in his rather careless and sketchy hands, apt to endanger the apparatus of the Institute and even the lives of his students. Then thirdly, real experiments involved washing up. And moreover they always turned out wrong, and sometimes misled the too observant learner very seriously and opened demoralising controversies. Quite early in life I acquired an almost ineradicable sense of the unscientific perversity of Nature and the impassable gulf that is fixed between systematic science and elusive fact. I knew, for example, ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... procured a crimson stamp from his father's desk. Then he went forth, by the back way, alone into the streets. The adventure was not so hazardous as it seemed and as it felt. Darius was incurious by nature, though he had brief fevers of curiosity. Thus the life of the children was a demoralising mixture of rigid discipline and freedom. They were permitted nothing, but, as the years passed, they might take nearly anything. There was small chance of ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... only uncommon cleverness but also great suppleness of body. As usual, these qualities, together with the qualities of voice, the magnificent dress, and the carefully cultivated long hair, won for the actor demoralising influence over too large a number of the more impressionable and ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... If I am late, he is sure to be furious, and I couldn't have a scene in this bonnet. It is far too fragile. A harsh word would ruin it. No, I must go, dear Agatha. Good-bye, Lord Henry, you are quite delightful, and dreadfully demoralising. I am sure I don't know what to say about your views. You must come and dine with us some night. Tuesday? Are ...
— The Picture of Dorian Gray • Oscar Wilde
... will-power. But most Tsars, who are men of ordinary capacity, found it impossible to do so. The consequence was that the bureaucracy acquired what amounted in practice to absolute irresponsibility. Now irresponsibility is demoralising to any administration, however democratic be the principles upon which its officials are selected. A bureaucracy, ruling without proper external control, becomes a prey to the demons of red tape, routine, officialdom and place-hunting; it tends to stifle individual initiative and the sense of moral ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... partisan of aristocracy. Thus they became the only people of antiquity that grew great by democratic institutions. But the possession of unlimited power, which corrodes the conscience, hardens the heart, and confounds the understanding of monarchs, exercised its demoralising influence on the illustrious democracy of Athens. It is bad to be oppressed by a minority, but it is worse to be oppressed by a majority. For there is a reserve of latent power in the masses which, if it is called into play, the minority can seldom resist. ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... his time, in the days when discipline was lax, and the one idea of the soldiers was that the war was being carried on for the sake of providing them with loot. There were loot agents and other means by which the officers and soldiers could easily dispose of their booty. All this was demoralising, so Gordon decided on an immediate change. But the army looked at the matter from a different standpoint, and a mutinous spirit arose. Mr. Wilson informs us that the artillery threatened to blow the officers to pieces, and a written ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... venture to give it, as affording a proof that, in those days, no consideration, not even the most awful that affects human nature, could be made to outweigh the claims of a determined conviviality. It may, I think, be mentioned also, in the way of warning men generally against the hardening and demoralising effects of habitual drunkenness. The story is this:—At a prolonged drinking bout, one of the party remarked, "What gars the laird of Garskadden look sae gash[39]?" "Ou," says his neighbour, the laird of Kilmardinny, "deil meane him! Garskadden's been wi' his Maker ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... doubt that you loved me then. But wealth, I had been told, is so demoralising, and I thought your never coming forward to find me and protect me in my illness might have something to do with inconstancy. Anyhow, these thoughts combined with my dread of your mother to prevent me ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... Wakatta's return, also witnessed another event of nearly equal importance. I allude to a great farewell breakfast, given by Max in celebration of our approaching departure, as well as for the purpose of stemming the current of the demoralising influence above alluded to. The "founder of the feast," together with Eiulo and Johnny, was up preparing it with his own hospitable hands, a full hour before the ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... Unfortunately he never lets us know who his "Caleb" and his "Joshua" were. But one of them can hardly have been other than the young schoolmaster, Francis Hall, whose letters reveal a singularly earnest and beautiful spirit. Even he, however, admits the demoralising influence of the surrounding paganism—an influence which none wholly escaped, and before which some actually succumbed. "I feel in myself," quaintly writes another, "a great want of that spirituality ...
— A History of the English Church in New Zealand • Henry Thomas Purchas
... it, as a man and a brother. He spoke sadly and somewhat bitterly of the manners of the brother man who shaved him, which he found unjustifiably affable, and of the inexcusable abasement of a British railway porter if you gave him a shilling. He said he was glad to leave England, it was demoralising to live there; you lost your sense of the dignity of labour, and in the course of time you were almost bound to degenerate into a swell. He expressed a good deal of sympathy with the aristocracy on this account, concentrating his indignation upon those ...
— A Voyage of Consolation - (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An - American girl in London') • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... he knew anything at all about the 'art for art' theory—which is doubtful—he may well have held it cheap enough. But he practised Millet's dogma—Dans l'art il faut sa peau—as resolutely as Millet himself, and that, too, under conditions that might have proved utterly demoralising had he been less robust and less sincere. He began as a serious novelist with Ralph Nickleby and Lord Frederick Verisopht; he went on to produce such masterpieces as Jonas Chuzzlewit and Doubledick, ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... "birch" or corporal punishment at all. I do not advocate it, but I am certain that the demoralising effect of a few' days' imprisonment is far in excess of the demoralisation that follows a reasonable application ...
— London's Underworld • Thomas Holmes
... the sturdy past When simpler methods ruled the fray, At whose demoralising blast The stoutest foe recoiled aghast, How fall'n art ...
— Rhymes of the East and Re-collected Verses • John Kendall (AKA Dum-Dum)
... His shapely, slim figure and broad shoulders gave evidence of a strong constitution, capable of enduring all the hardships of a nomad life and changes of climates, and of resisting with success both the demoralising effects of life in the Capital and the tempests of the soul. His velvet overcoat, which was covered with dust, was fastened by the two lower buttons only, and exposed to view linen of dazzling whiteness, which proved that he had the habits of a gentleman. His gloves, soiled ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov
... enemy at a cost to themselves of eight men wounded. The cavalry and Camel corps had about twenty casualties in the pursuit. But although the Dervishes thus withdrew in an orderly manner from the field, the demoralising influence of retreat soon impaired their discipline and order, and many small parties, becoming detached from the main body, were captured by the pursuers. The line of retreat was strewn with weapons and other effects, and so many babies were abandoned by their ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... I have now spoken, together with the physical effects of masturbation, young men become powerless to face the sexual temptations of manhood; and many, who in all other relations of life are admirable, sink in this matter into the mire of prostitution or the less demoralising, but far crueller, sin ...
— Youth and Sex • Mary Scharlieb and F. Arthur Sibly
... benevolent desire to better the poor, and yet complained of high wages.[248] If, he says elsewhere,[249] a country can 'only be rich by running a successful race for low wages, I should be disposed to say, Perish such riches!' No one, in fact, could see more distinctly than Malthus the demoralising influence of poverty, and the surpassing importance of raising the people from the terrible gulf of pauperism. He refers to Colquhoun's account of the twenty thousand people who rose every morning ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... impossible to get reliable evidence in the island—not because the people are dishonest, but because they think the claim of kinship more sacred than the claims of abstract truth—turns the whole system of sworn evidence into a demoralising farce, and it is easy to believe that law dealings on this false basis must lead to ...
— The Aran Islands • John M. Synge
... founded on authority? What is there, human or Divine, that is left to reverence? The heart of England was still sound at the core, and she passed through the crisis triumphantly; but the transition period was a dangerous and a demoralising one, and there is no wonder that she sank for a time under the wave that was passing ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... more moderate Socialists complain that work is carried on by the employers only "at a profit to themselves," and they wish to abolish this state of affairs, which, they argue, is demoralising to the working men, and is the cause of low wages and unemployment. "The workman is called into the workshop when capital can profitably employ him, and turned adrift again the moment capital finds it can no longer turn his services to profitable account. He is not consulted as to when ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker
... of the Department of Agriculture. The result of its work, crowned as it was by Mr. Wyndham's Purchase Act, is shown by the fact that Irish trade has increased from 103 millions in 1904 to 130 millions in 1910. The steady object which Sir Horace Plunkett has set before him is to counteract the demoralising effect of paternal legislation on the part of the Government, by reviving and stimulating a policy of self-help. The I.A.O.S. has done valuable work in enabling the Irish farmers, by co-operating, to secure a more stable position ...
— Against Home Rule (1912) - The Case for the Union • Various
... humble and obscure not to have a gallery; that gallery which envenoms the play by stealthy jeers, counsels of anger, amused comments or words of perfidious compassion. However, the Anthonys were free from all demoralising influences. At sea, you know, there is no gallery. You hear no tormenting echoes of your own littleness there, where either a great elemental voice roars defiantly under the sky or else an elemental silence seems to be part of the infinite stillness ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... home of virtue, of intelligence, of the purest and best affections, that he was introduced after a long course of contamination in the lowest scenes of French corruption, which had succeeded an equally demoralising initiation into the less graceful vices of the Court of George the First. The inestimable privilege came too late in one sense. Lord Lovat had gained nothing but wariness by the lapse of years; but the benefit to his worldly condition ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson
... the Mantis does not square very well with the popular name for the insect. From the term Prego-Dieu we should expect a peaceful placid creature, devoutly self-absorbed; and we find a cannibal, a ferocious spectre, biting open the heads of its captives after demoralising them with terror. But we have yet to learn the worst. The customs of the Mantis in connection with its own kin are more atrocious even than those of the spiders, who bear an ill repute ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... modern writers respecting the demoralising effect of prison society; and it has been asserted, that a youth once confined in Newgate, is certain to come out a confirmed thief. However this may be now, it was unquestionably true of old Newgate. It was the grand nursery of vice.—"A famous ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... least recently barbaric figure among the citizens, there was a very real problem of drink. Drink certainly has a very exceptionally destructive effect upon negroes in their native countries; and it was alleged to have a peculiarly demoralising effect upon negroes in the United States; to call up the passions that are the particular temptation of the race and to lead to appalling outrages that are followed by appalling popular vengeance. However ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton |
