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Licentious   /laɪsˈɛntʃəs/   Listen
Licentious

adjective
1.
Lacking moral discipline; especially sexually unrestrained.



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"Licentious" Quotes from Famous Books



... 'My nature was licentious and warm, but not cruel: My conduct had been imprudent, but my heart was not unprincipled. Judge then what I must have felt at being a continual witness of crimes the most horrible and revolting! Judge how I must have grieved ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis

... portrait of an actress at the Odeon who was making the world stare—Mademoiselle Bernhardt. For the rest he had the vague, distracting impression of a new world—of nude horrors and barbarities of all sorts—of things licentious or cruel, which yet, apparently, were all of as much value in the artist's eye, and to be discussed with as much calm or eagerness, as their neighbours. One moment he loathed what he saw, and threw himself upon his companion, ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... novels of doubtful or bad morality is as likely to corrupt the Affections as to associate with low and wicked companions. There is an abundant supply of pure and noble compositions of this sort on which the Imagination may feed without fear. If it morbidly craves the licentious pictures that come from the pen of such writers as Ainsworth or George Sand, its longings should be resisted as steadfastly as those which incline us to the gaming table or other scenes of licentious indulgence. On the other hand, the danger to the ...
— The Elements of Character • Mary G. Chandler

... circumstances of wanton barbarity. As many severe and sarcastic writings had lately appeared in which the whigs and ministry were reviled, and reflections hinted to the prejudice of the queen's person, the government resolved to make examples of the authors and publishers of these licentious productions. Dr. Joseph Browne was twice pilloried for a copy of verses, intituled "The Country Parson's Advice to the Lord-Keeper," and a letter which he afterwards wrote to Mr. Secretary Hailey. William ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... impulse of a genius Formed for converse with the muses He devoted his life to the literature of his country. As author of "The Lay Preacher," And as first editor of the Port Folio, He contributed to chasten the morals, and to Refine the taste of this nation. To an imagination lively, not licentious, A wit sportive, not wanton, And a heart without guile, he United a deep sensibility, which endeared Him to his friends, and an ardent piety, Which we humbly trust recommended him to his God. Those friends have erected this tribute of their Affection to ...
— The Philadelphia Magazines and their Contributors 1741-1850 • Albert Smyth

... is about to become a nun. They separate at Tarbes, and the scene of the story is laid in the region of the Pyrenees, in Tarbes Auch, Nerac, the Landes, and finishes with the return to Paris. Rose, after an entertainment which is a veritable orgy, is handed over by her mother to a licentious young man. He is ashamed of himself, and, instead of leading Rose astray, he takes her to the Convent of the Augustines, where she finds Sister Blanche once more. Sister Blanche has not yet pronounced her vows, and the proof ...
— George Sand, Some Aspects of Her Life and Writings • Rene Doumic

... and liegemen of a hereditary capitalist class. In the chronicles of royal misdoings there have been many dark chapters recording how besotted or imbecile monarchs have sold their people into bondage and sapped the welfare of their realms to enrich licentious favorites, but the darkest of those chapters is bright beside that which records the sale of the heritage and hopes of the American people to the highest bidder by the so-called democratic State, ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy

... coldly licentious comedies and ranting bombastic tragedies a few only seem to have been produced at the Dorset Gardens Theatre. Among these we may mention Limberham, OEdipus, Troilus and Cressida, and The ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... duty, as she understood it, and which meant the upholding of the monarchy, Catherine was a true woman; kind to her suite, faithful to her friends. She had none of the weaknesses of her sex; she lived chaste amid the debauchery of the most licentious court in Europe. The losses to art caused by the destructive Calvinists she replaced by erecting noble buildings and beautifying Paris. But she had the sense of royalty developed to the utmost; she defended ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various

... loose young men who imitated and encouraged his vices; and when they had totally drowned the little reason they possessed in copious draughts of wine, they were accustomed to sally out, and practise every species of absurd and licentious frolic. ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day

... holding up its absurdities to its face; and sometimes you may trace a tone of almost affectionate superiority, something like that in which a father speaks of the rogueries of a child. See the good-humoured way in which he describes Stephano passing from the most licentious freedom to absolute despotism over Trinculo and Caliban. The truth is, Shakespeare's characters are all genera intensely individualised; the results of meditation, of which observation supplied the drapery and the colours necessary to combine them with each other. He ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge

... simpler. But the scholar of the Renaissance was forced to combine great learning with the power of resisting the influence of ever-changing pursuits and situations. Add to this the deadening effect of licentious excess, and—since do what he might, the worst was believed of him—a total indifference to the moral laws recognized by others. Such men can hardly be conceived to exist without an inordinate pride. They needed it, if only to keep their heads above water, and ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt

... saintly life, and the enemy of every vice, insomuch that he would never on any account paint licentious works, although he was very often entreated to do so by the Marquis; and equal to him in goodness were his brothers, as will be related in the proper place. Finally, being old, and suffering in the bladder, Francesco, with the leave of the Marquis and by the advice of the physicians, went ...
— Lives of the most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 06 (of 10) Fra Giocondo to Niccolo Soggi • Giorgio Vasari

... Comus, had remembered not only Homer's description of the root Moly "that Hermes once to wise Ulysses gave,"{16:A} but also Ascham's remarks thereupon: "The true medicine against the enchantments of Circe, the vanity of licentious pleasure, the enticements of all sin, is, in Homer, the herb Moly, with the black root and white flower, sour at first, but sweet in the end; which Hesiod termeth the study of Virtue, hard and irksome ...
— Milton's Comus • John Milton

... observes the reviewer, 'is an inflated jargon, composed of terms picked up in all countries, and wholly irreducible to any ordinary rules of grammar and sense. The sentiments are mischievous in tendency, profligate in principle, licentious and irreverent in the highest degree.' The first part of this accusation was only too well founded, but the licentiousness of which Lady Morgan's works were invariably accused in the Quarterly Review, can only have existed in the mind of the reviewer. One cannot but smile to think how ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston

... finally, but very lightly, on the commonplaces of stock plots and characters. The whole array of puppets is familiar to us all: the cunning slave, the fond or licentious papa, the spendthrift son and their inevitable confreres appear in play after play with relentless regularity. The close correspondence of many plots is also too familiar to need discussion.[187] The glimmering of originality ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • Wilton Wallace Blancke

... they lavished their tenderest affection. You see these people care for other things besides trumps; and are not always thinking about black and red:—as even ogres are represented, in their histories, as of cruel natures, and licentious appetites, and, to be sure, fond of eating men and women; but yet it appears that their wives often respected them, and they had a sincere liking for their own hideous children. And, besides the card-players, there are band-players: ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray

... woes deserve compassion;" and perhaps the moralist, who is not too severe, may find some excuse for a Princess, who, at the age of sixteen, possibly without one real friend or disinterested adviser, became the unrestrained idol of the most licentious Court in Europe. Even her enemies do not pretend that her fate was so much a merited punishment as a political measure: they alledge, that while her life was yet spared, the valour of their troops was checked by the possibility of negotiation; and that being no more, neither the people nor armies ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady

... legendary half men, half goats of ancient Greece. Believing that the Roman satirists Persius and Juvenal had imitated the uncouth manners and vituperative diction of the satyrs, Elizabethan satirists likewise strove to be as rough, harsh, and licentious as possible.[6] Despite the objections to the satire-satyr etymology stated by Isaac Casaubon,[7] scurrilous satire, especially as a political weapon, was a recognizable subspecies in England at least to 1700. The anonymous author, for instance, of ...
— An Essay on Satire, Particularly on the Dunciad • Walter Harte

... owe to that holy book the Bible. Astonishing that after I have whirled about all my life over all the dance-floors of philosophy, and yielded myself to all the orgies of the intellect, and paid my addresses to all possible systems, without satisfaction like Messalina after a licentious night, I now find myself on the same standpoint where poor Uncle Tom stands,—on that of the Bible! I kneel down by my black brother in the same prayer! What a humiliation! With all my science I have come no further than the ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various

... be more disgusting than the too common spectacle of trifling licentious travellers, wandering about the church-yards of the different places through which they pass, in search of rude, ungrammatical, ill- spelt, and absurd verses among the grave-stones; and this for the gratification ...
— The Annals of the Poor • Legh Richmond

... punishments, which passed for discipline, his careful cringing to parents, and his careless indifference towards their children, and in brief his total unfitness for the twin duties of pastor and teacher. A large private school of mixed ages and classes is perilously liable to infection from licentious youths left to themselves and their evil propensities, and I can feelingly recollect how miserable for nearly a year was that poor little helpless innocent of seven under the unrestricted tyranny of one Cooke (in after years a life ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... reverence and mute attention. Their blameless hearts were lifted to the skies with the sentiment of gratitude; their honest bosoms overflowed with the fervour of devotion. They proved their sympathy with the feelings of the bard, not by licentious shouts and wild huzzas, but by the composure of their spirits, the serenity of their countenances, and the deep and unutterable silence which universally prevailed. And now the hoary minstrel rose from the little eminence, ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin

... friends, he wanted to see the Church of Rome return to her purer days and cast off the corruptions of a profligate idleness. Like them he couched his lance against the unworthy priest, the gluttonous or licentious monk, the wolves in sheep's clothing that were destroying the fold from within. Like them, as they re-echoed Colet—the saintly Dean of St. Paul's,—he passionately favoured the translation of the Scriptures into the vernacular ...
— Holbein • Beatrice Fortescue

... nervous, Lizzie?" Mrs. Mears broke out suddenly, ruffling her feather boa about an outraged bosom. Mrs. Mears was still in that stage of development when her countrywomen taste to the full the peril of being exposed to the gaze of the licentious Gaul. ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton

... them, and for two hours they were thus employed, during which time Soto stood upon his own deck directing the operations; for the vessels were within a hundred yards of each other. The scene which took place in the cabin exhibited a licentious brutality. The sick officer, Mr. Gibson, was dragged from his berth; the clothes of the other passengers stripped from their backs, and the whole of the cabin passengers driven on deck, except the females, whom they locked up in the round-house on deck, and the steward, who ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms

... and who died in the pursuit of knowledge,—such a man might have found more consideration than he has met with from the priest of Certaldo, and from a late English traveller, who strikes off his portrait as an odious, contemptible, licentious writer, whose impure remains should be suffered to rot without a record.[612] That English traveller, unfortunately for those who have to deplore the loss of a very amiable person, is beyond all criticism; but the mortality which did not ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron

... the same kind on the different destinies of the younger Crebillon and Rousseau. The former writes a licentious novel, and a young English girl of some fortune and family (a Miss Strafford) runs away, and crosses the sea to marry him; while Rousseau, the most tender and passionate of lovers, is obliged to espouse his chambermaid. If I recollect rightly, this remark was also ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron

... with good intentions and desirous of leading a moral life, but lacking will power, and inclined to be timid, and fearful, and negative in thought, often adopts a Devil formed by some selfish and licentious person, who fashions Devils by the wholesale and sends them out to roam over the earth, seeking an open door in a ...
— The Devil - A Tragedy of the Heart and Conscience • Joseph O'Brien

... years later, stimulated by the triumph of his predecessor over the liberties of Bohemia, resumed with fresh zeal the crusade against the privileges of the Magyars. Not only was the persecution of the Protestants recommenced, but the excesses of the ill-paid and licentious German mercenaries, who were quartered on the country in defiance of the constitution after the twenty years' truce, under the pretence of guarding against any fresh attack from the Turks, were carried to such a height that disaffection became universal even among those who had hitherto constantly ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various

... When at last the barbarians, sated with blood, surfeited with lechery, glutted with gold, and decimated by pestilence, withdrew, Rome raised her head a widow. From the shame and torment of that sack she never recovered, never became again the gay licentious lovely capital of arts and letters, the glittering gilded Rome of Leo. But the kings of the earth took pity on her desolation. The treaty of Amiens (August 18, 1527), concluded between Francis I. and Henry VIII. ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds

... Rome now holds. This is most strangely invective, Most full of spite, and insolent upbraiding. Nor is't the time alone is here disprised, But the whole man of time, yea, Caesar's self Brought in disvalue; and he aimed at most, By oblique glance of his licentious pen. Caesar, if Cassius were the last of Romans, ...
— Sejanus: His Fall • Ben Jonson

... man! while in thy early years, How prodigal of time! Misspending all thy precious hours, Thy glorious youthful prime! Alternate follies take the sway, Licentious passions burn; Which tenfold force gives Nature's law, That man was made ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various

... imagine him clad in splendor before which even English luxury is mean; arrayed in jewels, to which even Eastern pomp is tinsel; imagine an expression of tired hate, of low, brutal lust, hanging on those exquisite licentious features, and you have before you the type of Roman civilization. It is the boy just budding into manhood, whom later times will name as the lowest embodiment of meanness and cruelty! You ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale

... of the war called him away. He had triumphed over a fond, confiding woman; but he had been trained among the dissolute spirits of the Regency too thoroughly to feel more than a passing regret for a woman whom, probably, he loved better than any other of the victims of his licentious life. ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... employed to suppress and punish every murmur and complaint against it. To a sovereign, on the contrary, who feels himself supported, not only by the natural aristocracy of the country, but by a well regulated standing army, the rudest, the most groundless, and the most licentious remonstrances, can give little disturbance. He can safely pardon or neglect them, and his consciousness of his own superiority naturally disposes him to do so. That degree of liberty which approaches to licentiousness, can ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith

... misleading manner. A few popular writers of fiction present evangelical religion in its winning features; they preach with the pen the same truths that they preach from the pulpit. Two of the perils that threaten American youths are a licentious stage and a poisonous literature. A highly intelligent lady, who has examined many of the novels printed during the last decade, said to me: "The main purpose of many of these books is to knock away the underpinning of the marriage relation or of ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler

... debased him, to keep himself from being despised. Unfortunately he succeeded. To the early precepts of this infamous pander have been attributed those excesses that disgraced the manhood of the regent, and gave a licentious character to his whole course of government. His love of pleasure, quickened and indulged by those who should have restrained it, led him into all kinds of sensual indulgence. He had been taught to think lightly of the most ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving

... her favorite. Of course he was not allowed to be jealous, as the young lord was still her official lover, who had the pleasure of paying everything for that licentious beauty, and besides him, there was a whole army of so-called "good friends," who were fortunate enough to obtain a smile now and then, and occasionally, something more, and who, in return, had permission to present her with rare flowers, a ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant

... prostituted to other purposes than those for which they are designed. The most valuable and useful organs of the body are those which are capable of the greatest dishonor, abuse, and corruption. What a snare the wonderful organism of the eye may become, when used to read corrupt books, or to look upon licentious pictures, or vulgar theater scenes, or when used to meet the fascinating gaze of the harlot! What an instrument for depraving the whole man may be found in the matchless powers of the brain, the hand, the mouth, or the tongue! What potent instruments may these become in accomplishing ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis

... reprehending "the wits of our times" for "quibbling and drolling upon the Bible," says immediately after:—"This author's innocent abuse of Scripture is so far from countenancing, that it rather shames and condemns that licentious and abominable practice. Nor can we admit of the most useful allusions without that harmless (nay helpful and advantageous) [Greek: katachresis], or abuse here practised: wherein the words are indeed used to another, but yet to a Holy end and purpose, besides that for which they were ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 212, November 19, 1853 • Various

... happened in 1776, was submitted for the decision of the Papal See; when it appeared that the pretended prophetess had, by means of many ingenious mechanical devices, thus long imposed on public credulity, whilst in the retirement of the cloister the most licentious and profligate occurrences nightly took place; and that when any unfortunate nun gave offence, either by refusing to be sacrificed at the shrine of infamy, or that it became desirable to get rid of her, in order to appropriate for the convent the amount of her property, she was immured ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various

... we would be more pleased to have found in them, the truth of passion, and natural colouring, which characterised the old English drama. But the credit of the piece was redeemed by the comic part, which is a more light and airy representation of the fashionable and licentious manners of the time than Dryden could afterwards attain, excepting in "Marriage a la Mode." The king, whose judgment on this subject was unquestionable graced the "Maiden Queen" with the title of his play; and Dryden insinuates that it would ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott

... of what should be done to check the awful impurity which was sweeping over the nation like a flood-tide. He was true to his conviction in sending the four hundred priests of horribly licentious worship to their death. But was he brokenhearted over them? Was he utterly broken down with grief as he led them to the little running brook of Kishon for the nation's sake? God touched the sore spot, when, down ...
— Quiet Talks on Following the Christ • S. D. Gordon

... respecting this habit, he replied, "A father who walks abroad in the midst of his children has no cause for fear." Whilst possessed of many remarkable qualities, Alfonso, as Muratori and other writers have shown, was of an extremely licentious disposition. That he had no belief in conjugal fidelity is evidenced by his saying that "to ensure domestic happiness the husband should be deaf and the wife blind." He himself had several mistresses, and lived at variance with his wife, respecting whom ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. I. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre

... Connaught, which he would have effected, if he had not been bought off by a sum greater than he hoped to gain by his iniquity, besides the luxury of confiscation. The Irish, during the reign of James I., suffered under the DOUBLE evils of a licentious ...
— Peter Plymley's Letters and Selected Essays • Sydney Smith

... licentious discourses against the state, when they are frequent and open; and in like sort, false news often running up and down, to the disadvantage of the state, and hastily embraced; are amongst the signs of troubles. Virgil, giving the pedigree of Fame, ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon

... inclinations. The Duke of Bedford had died in 1435; and Humphrey now, in addition to the actual exercise of the powers of sovereignty, was next heir to the crown in case of the king's decease. This weak and licentious woman, being now Duchess of Gloucester, and wife to the Lord Protector, directed her ambition to the higher title and prerogatives of a queen, and, by way of feeding her evil passions, called to her counsels Margery Jourdain, commonly called the Witch ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various

... whose likeness had been flung upon him, and Perpetua had to slacken her speed in order that he might keep pace with her. But there were no signs of pursuit from the house of Lycabetta. The terror of the plague was so great that Robert's mantle was an unquestionable defence. The most licentious youth in Syracuse would not go near the loveliest woman if he had the least reason to believe that she had been but lightly touched by a plague-spotted garment. Limping and running, their shadows streaming ...
— The Proud Prince • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... Now all this licentious talk entirely goes upon a supposition that men follow their nature in the same sense, in violating the known rules of justice and honesty for the sake of a present gratification, as they do in following those rules when they have no ...
— Human Nature - and Other Sermons • Joseph Butler

... courtier cannot kiss his mistress's slippers in quiet for them; nor your white innocent gallant pawn his revelling suit to make his punk a supper. An honest decayed commander cannot skelder, cheat, nor be seen in a bawdy-house, but he shall be straight in one of their wormwood comedies. They are grown licentious, the rogues; libertines, flat libertines. They forget they are in the statute, the rascals; they are blazon'd there; there they are trick'd, they and their pedigrees; they need no ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson

... fallen over the city, and the busy turmoil of the streets had ceased; the laborer had repaired to his family, the wealthy had gone to their suburban villas, and licentious youth had sought the amusements over which darkness draws its veil. Politicians, newsmongers, and travellers made the cafe salons ring with their animated discussions. The policy of the Prime Minister, the probabilities ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly

... superstition affected even the licentious good-for- nothing Abbe. Down he dropped upon his knees, hiding his eyes, and sobbing out: 'Sancta Margarita, spare me, spare me! I vow thee a silver image. I vow to lead a changed life. I was drawn into it, holy Lady Saint. They showed me the ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge

... those of the Canadian voyagers. Some trouble is occasionally bestowed in teaching the former and it is not thrown away, but all the good that can be said of the latter is that they are not quite so licentious as their fathers are. ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin

... and acceptable in the sight of God, and they will be useful and happy among themselves. Let it be our fervent prayer that neither canting and hypocritical emissaries from schools of artificial theology on the one hand, nor sensual and licentious crews and adventurers on the other, may ever enter the charming village of Pitcairn to give disease to the minds or the bodies of the ...
— The Old Merchant Marine - A Chronicle of American Ships and Sailors, Volume 36 in - the Chronicles Of America Series • Ralph D. Paine

... lake, whose waters are daily increasing, all is unruffled till their own weight has forced its boundaries, and the roaring cataract sweeps everything before it. Such is the licentious and impetuous behaviour of the sailor on shore. But on board he is a different being, and appears as if he were without sin and without guile. Let those, then, who turn away at his occasional intemperance, be careful how they judge. ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat

... such as are too vehement in the exercise of the matrimonial duty—if such there still be—this lesson, that the very pleasures they enjoy in the society of their wives are reproachable if immoderate, and that a licentious and riotous abuse of them is a fault as reprovable here as in illicit connections. Those immodest and debauched tricks and postures, that the first ardour suggests to us in this affair, are not only indecently but detrimentally practised upon our wives. Let them at least ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... catastrophe. Now of his marriages, in which he both married and was bestowed in marriage, an account will be given presently. He appeared both as man and as woman, and performed the functions of both in the most licentious fashion [lacuna] about [lacuna] and [lacuna] by whom [lacuna] own [lacuna] Sergius [lacuna] and [lacuna] out of [lacuna] any [lacuna] making [lacuna] him [lacuna] blame for [lacuna] slaughter the [Sidenote:—6—] [lacuna] ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol VI. • Cassius Dio

... his lordship, that she is said never to have asked him a single question relative to that glorious victory which had so astonished the world. On the contrary, all the scandalous insinuations, and licentious remarks, with which the Jacobinical foreign journalists had filled their pestiferous pages, relative to our hero and his friends in Italy, and which had found their way into the most thoughtless and depraved of our own newspapers, were preserved for his lordship's immediate amusement. ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. II (of 2) • James Harrison

... part, I slid three-quarters of the way down a pipe, lost my grip somehow and tumbled sock upon the serried ranks of a brutal and licentious constabulary. They broke my fall, and afterwards I did my best. But, as Farrell had justly complained, there were too many of them. So now you know," Jimmy wound up ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... seeming marble heart, Now mask'd in silence, or withheld by pride, Was not unskilful in the spoiler's art, And spread its snares licentious far and wide." ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... nature merely so much as to be musicians in the paradise of Indra, the Apsarasas appear among other subordinate deities which share in the merry life of Indra's heaven, as the wives of the Gandharvas, but more especially as wives of a licentious sort, and they are promised therefore, too, as a reward to heroes fallen in battle when they are received in the paradise of Indra; and while, in the Rigveda, they assist Soma to pour down his floods, they descend in ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI

... dark and wicked deeds, known in the lives of wicked men and nations, with imperfections and apostacies of individuals in high places. This is what we must look for in a book of its pretensions. It professes to contain a revelation of God and his will to man. The ugly, wicked, licentious, and bloody things constitute the background of the picture, representing man in all his ways. It is also shaded with all there was, and is, of moral and noble character in the human. God with his attributes, as the true, grand and glorious Bible picture, shines out through this ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume 1, January, 1880 • Various

... were lost; but for every one, the rogues set down ten, like the gazettes after a battle when they count up the losses of the beaten side. And in any case I do not know that the Revolution and the Empire can reproach us; they were coarse, dull, licentious times. Faugh! it is revolting. Those are ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac

... of government and liberty; that they feel their inseparable union; that notwithstanding all the devices which have been used to sway them from their interest and duty, they are now as ready to maintain the authority of the laws against licentious invasions as they were to defend their rights against usurpation. It has been a spectacle displaying to the highest advantage the value of republican government to behold the most and the least wealthy of our citizens standing ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 4) of Volume 1: George Washington • James D. Richardson

... praise, Who, in her triumph, condescends to say, "What a good creature Blaney was to-day!" Hear the poor demon when the young attend, And willing ear to vile experience lend; When he relates (with laughing, leering eye) The tale licentious, mix'd with blasphemy: No genuine gladness his narrations cause, The frailest heart denies sincere applause; And many a youth has turn'd him half aside, And laugh'd aloud, the sign of shame to hide. Blaney, no aid in his vile cause to lose, Buys pictures, ...
— The Borough • George Crabbe

... of Flanders, of Holland, and other Netherland sovereigns, issued decrees, forbidding clerical institutions from acquiring property, by devise, gift, purchase, or any other mode. The downfall of the rapacious and licentious knights-templar in the provinces and throughout Europe, was another severe blow administered at the same time. The attacks upon Church abuses redoubled in boldness, as its authority declined. Towards the end of the fourteenth century, the doctrines of Wicklif had made great progress in the land. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... misdooers: but in that he absteined from mariage, and wallowed in filthie lecherie with diuerse women, and namelie with nuns, they sore blamed him, and withall declared in what infamie the whole English nation in those daies remained by common report in other countries for their licentious liuing in sinfull fornication, and namelie the most part of the noble men of Mercia by his euill example did forsake their wiues, and defloured other women which they kept [Sidenote: Nuns kept for concubines.] in adulterie, as nuns and others. Moreouer, he shewed how that such euill ...
— Chronicles (1 of 6): The Historie of England (6 of 8) - The Sixt Booke of the Historie of England • Raphael Holinshed

... despatch of Lord Hillsborough, addressed to Governor Bernard, communicating this conclusion, was elaborate and able, and laid down in full the policy of the Government. The instructions were based on the pretence that Boston was "in possession of a licentious and unrestrained mob"; that it was animated by a disposition "to resist the laws and to deny the authority of Parliament"; and that the alleged "illegal and unwarrantable measures which had been pursued in opposing the officers of the revenue in the execution of their duty, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various

... Governors. Example of Parents more effectual than their Precepts. Formation of Habits of Self-denial in Early Life. Denying Ourselves to promote the Happiness of Others. Habits of Honesty and Veracity. Habits of Modesty. Delicacy studiously to be cherished. Licentious and Impure Books to be banished. Bulwer a Licentious Writer, and to ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher

... manner of the times—straying far afield of propriety, and taking liberties of expression of which nice judgments could not approve. But indeed his majesty's speech was not more free than his conduct was licentious. He could not think, he gravely told Bishop Burnet, "God would make a man miserable for taking a little pleasure out of the way." Accordingly he followed the free bent of his desires, and his whole life was soon devoted to voluptuousness; a vice ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy

... his severity proceeded not from the superstition and bigotry of a weak mind or misanthropic feeling. Though his whole time and thoughts appeared devoted to the interest of his monastery, and thence to relieving and guiding the poor, and curbing and decreasing the intemperate follies and licentious conduct of the laymen, in its immediate neighborhood; yet his extraordinary knowledge, not merely of human nature, but of the world at large—his profound and extensive genius, which, in after years was displayed, in the prosecution of such vast ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar

... depredations they enter into; what untold miseries they let in upon themselves and upon the land that lies behind them; what years and years of siege, legislation, and rule it takes to reduce our bodily senses, those proud and licentious gates, to their true and proper allegiance, and to make their possessors a people loyal and ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte

... across the great prairies of the valley of the Messasebe. The Ojibways were not to ambush the scattered parties of the Iroquois. The unambitious colonists of New England and New York were to be left to till their stony farms in quiet. Meantime, the fur trade, wasteful, licentious, unprofitable, was to extend onward and outward in all the marches of the West. From one end of the Great River of the West to the other the insignia of France and of France's king were to be erected, and France's posts were to hold ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough

... "There are no words which truly describe this one emotion which rules the world. I know what YOU mean, of course; you mean evil words, licentious words, and yet it has nothing whatever to do with these. You cannot call such an exalted state of the nerves and sensations by ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli

... soul," he endured a tedious captivity for many years, until Charles II. was recalled, when he ordered his old and faithful friend Seaforth to be released, after which he became a great favourite at his licentious and profligate Court. ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie

... not conceive by what means such a number of licentious people, amounting, with their dependants, to above five hundred, were restrained within the bounds of any tolerable discipline, or prevented from making their escape, which they might at any time accomplish, either by stealth ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett

... opposed his recall from exile fell first. Others followed in multitudes. Those who had private wrongs to revenge followed the example of their chief. The slaves of the army killed at will all whom they wished to plunder. So great became the licentious outrages of these slaves that in the end Cinna, who had taken no part in the massacres, fell upon them with a body of troops and slew several thousands. This reprisal in some measure restored ...
— Historic Tales, Volume 11 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... control. Efforts were made to lead his teacher to check his enthusiasm for lofty exploits, and to surrender him to the claims of frivolous amusement. This detestable queen presented before the impassioned young man all the blandishments of female beauty, that she might betray him to licentious indulgence. In some of these infamous arts she ...
— Henry IV, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott

... sketch is an exaggeration and over-charged like all those from the same pen, and was destined to amuse the malignant curiosity of Mdme. de Caumartin—for without being altogether false, it is of a severity pushed to the verge of injustice. Was it becoming, one might ask, of the restless and licentious Coadjutor to constitute himself the remorseless censor of a woman whose errors he shared? Did he not deceive himself as much and for a far longer period than she? Did he show more address in political strategy or courage in the dangerous strife, more ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies

... place the theater leads one into bad company. As a class, the performers are licentious. How can one be in their company, be moved to laughter and to tears and not be contaminated by them? One who has studied the theater tells us that the "fruits of the Spirit and the fruits of the stage exhibit as pointed a contrast as the human imagination ...
— Questionable Amusements and Worthy Substitutes • J. M. Judy

... them; and I have either to give her up or else become the rival of that degraded being. I will never do it. I will see Luella, and tell her she must decide at once between us, and take a decisive stand in the matter. I saw a sneer upon the licentious mouth and a leer in the bloodshot eye of the reptile as he saw me treated so cavalierly. If I had him here for about five minutes I would settle this matter with him. And then I thought Luella's parting was not as warm as usual. Was it my jealous fears, or has she ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter

... of these two alone has the management of affairs; for the latter, given up to evil deeds, makes use of his power only for the indulgence of his licentious passions. ...
— Hindoo Tales - Or, The Adventures of Ten Princes • Translated by P. W. Jacob

... without a rival, for me! I choose rather to live graved in obscurity, than share with them in so preposterous a fame. Nor can I blame the wishes of those severe and wise patriots, who providing the hurts these licentious spirits may do in a state, desire rather to see fools and devils, and those antique relics of barbarism retrieved, with all other ridiculous and exploded follies, than behold the wounds of private men, of princes and nations: for, as Horace ...
— Volpone; Or, The Fox • Ben Jonson

... somewhat licentious character, most commonly sung during the period of the Indian carnival. For an account, at once brief and entertaining, of Hindoo popular songs and hymns, see Garcin de Tassy,—"Chants ...
— Some Chinese Ghosts • Lafcadio Hearn

... French at Milan, remaining in custody for eighteen months. He died at Albano on the 8th of July 1803, and was buried in Ickworth church. Varying estimates have been found of his character, including favourable ones by John Wesley and Jeremy Bentham. He was undoubtedly clever and cultured, but licentious and eccentric. In later life he openly professed materialistic opinions; he fell in love with the countess Lichtenau, mistress of Frederick William II., king of Prussia; and by his bearing he gave fresh point to the saying that "God created men, women and Herveys." In 1752 he ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various

... religious sacrifice. So actually on Shrove Tuesday a considerable number of boys were collected in front of the cathedral, and there divided into bands, which traversed the whole town, making a house-to-house visitation, claiming all profane books, licentious paintings, lutes, harps, cards and dice, cosmetics and perfumes—in a word, all the hundreds of products of a corrupt society and civilisation, by the aid of which Satan at times makes victorious war on God. The inhabitants of Florence obeyed, and came forth to the Piazza of the Duoma, ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... educated under his immediate care, was the sole object of his pride, as the marchioness was that of his affection. He loved her with romantic fondness, which she repaid with seeming tenderness, and secret perfidy. She allowed herself a free indulgence in the most licentious pleasures, yet conducted herself with an art so exquisite as to elude discovery, and even suspicion. In her amours she was equally inconstant as ardent, till the young Count Hippolitus de Vereza attracted her attention. ...
— A Sicilian Romance • Ann Radcliffe

... ressusciter en vous..." are criticisms upon the immoral influence of certain of his works, particularly the Paysan parvenu, which claim to have a moral aim. The archbishop suggests that his descriptions of licentious love are painted in such "naive and tender colors" that they must create upon the reader an impression other than that intended by the author, and that the young may be led to follow the example of the "paysan, parvenu a la fortune par des intrigues galantes," in spite ...
— A Selection from the Comedies of Marivaux • Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux

... genuine old songs of Scotland, than any other collection with which I am acquainted. Burns gathered oral airs, and fitted them with words of mirth or of woe, of tenderness or of humour, with unexampled readiness and felicity; he eked out old fragments and sobered down licentious strains so much in the olden spirit and feeling, that the new cannot be distinguished from the ancient; nay, he inserted lines and half lines, with such skill and nicety, that antiquarians are perplexed to settle which ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... of the United States with the north of Europe, heretofore much vexed by licentious cruisers, particularly under the Danish flag, has latterly been visited with fresh and extensive depredations. The measures pursued in behalf of our injured citizens not having obtained justice for them, a further and more formal interposition with ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 1: James Madison • Edited by James D. Richardson

... man, that to her I have been most faithful." With frantic efforts he strove to unclasp his pocket-book: but could not succeed. Bertram was deeply touched by the pallid and ghastly countenance of the man (in whose features however there was a wild and licentious expression which could not be mistaken); and he ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. I. • Thomas De Quincey

... efficient cause. A people that could listen to the broad farce of Aristophanes, and witness every sort of contempt thrown upon the deities they professed to worship, were not likely to seek in religion the advancement of art; and their licentious liberty—if liberty it deserved to be called—was of too watchful a jealousy over greatness of every kind, to suffer genius to be free and without suspicion. We will not follow the lecturer through his conjectures on the mechanic processes. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various

... attached to one of the pillars, and which was denominated, from the use it was put to, the "serving-man's log." Some of the crowd were smoking, some laughing, others gathering round a ballad-singer, who was chanting one of Rochester's own licentious ditties; some were buying quack medicines and remedies for the plague, the virtues of which the vendor loudly extolled; while others were paying court to the dames, many of whom were masked. Everything seemed to be ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth

... obtained and easily prepared for eating. The climate in which these Indians live is warm and equable throughout the year. They consequently do not need much clothing or shelter. They are not what would be called intemperate, nor are they licentious. The "sprees" in which they indulge when they make their visits to the white man's settlements are too infrequent to warrant us in classing them as intemperate. Their sexual morality is a matter of common notoriety. The white half-breed does not exist among the Florida ...
— The Seminole Indians of Florida • Clay MacCauley

... of the fourteenth century a decided tendency toward a recognition of her equality. Christine of Pisa, the most eminent woman of this period, supported a family of six persons by her pen, taking high ground on the conservation of morals in opposition to the general licentious spirit of the age. Margaret of Angouleme, the brilliant Queen of Navarre, was a voluminous writer, her Heptameron rising to the dignity of a French classic. A paper in the Revue des Deux Mondes, a few ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... dagger that I have asked of you and with it pierce this vile heart of mine? But no; there is no reason why I should suffer the punishment of another's fault. I will first know what it is that the bold licentious eyes of Lothario have seen in me that could have encouraged him to reveal to me a design so base as that which he has disclosed regardless of his friend and of my honour. Go to the window, Leonela, and ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... whom the training of young girls was confided corrupted and betrayed them to licentious men, hot lead was to be poured down his (or her) throat until it reached his heart (sic), 'for it was from thence that ...
— Roumania Past and Present • James Samuelson

... in his companion, these seemed to give him sufficient reason for the belief. His guardians insisted upon his immediately leaving his friend, and urged, that his character was dreadfully vicious, for that the possession of irresistible powers of seduction, rendered his licentious habits more dangerous to society. It had been discovered, that his contempt for the adultress had not originated in hatred of her character; but that he had required, to enhance his gratification, that his victim, the partner of his guilt, should be hurled from the ...
— The Vampyre; A Tale • John William Polidori

... execution, and therefore more interesting and valuable than any version which I could make; and, secondly, I debated with myself whether it became my moral character to render into English—and so far, certainly, lend my countenance to language—much of which I thought vulgar, licentious, and blasphemous. I need not tell you that I never put pen to paper ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge

... generative principle, the spring of fertility, whose beneficent agency was seen in the abundant harvest. She was clothed with sensual attributes, and propitiated with unchaste rites. It was in the worship of this divinity that the coarse and licentious side of the Semitic nature expressed itself. At the same time, there was an opposite ascetic side in the service of this deity. Her priests were eunuchs: they ministered at her altar in woman's attire. ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher

... voice of faction and rebellion: as if when men quitting the state of nature entered into society, they agreed that all of them but one, should be under the restraint of laws, but that he should still retain all the liberty of the state of nature, increased with power, and made licentious by impunity. This is to think, that men are so foolish, that they take care to avoid what mischiefs may be done them by pole-cats, or foxes; but are content, nay, think it safety, to be devoured by lions. Sec. 94. But whatever flatterers may talk ...
— Two Treatises of Government • John Locke

... provided only I do not imitate the tribunes, nor allow myself to be declared consul, contrary to the decree of the senate. But as for you, Gaius Claudius, I recommend that you, as well as myself, restrain the Roman people from this licentious spirit, and that you be persuaded of this, as far as I am concerned, that I shall take it in such a spirit, that I shall not consider that my attainment of office has been obstructed by you, but that the glory of having declined the honour ...
— Roman History, Books I-III • Titus Livius

... in his absence: on the contrary, he found it plunged more than ever in luxury, wantonness, and gluttony. Clement VI. had replenished the church, at the request of the French king, with numbers of cardinals, many of whom were so young and licentious, that the most scandalous abominations prevailed amongst them. "At this time," says Matthew Villani, "no regard was paid either to learning or virtue; and a man needed not to blush for anything, if he could cover his head ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch

... had retired to Silsea Castle; and resisting equally the invitations of his condescending master, and the entreaties of his former gay companions, he had never again joined the amusements of the court. Whether this retirement originated in some disgust occasioned by the licentious habits and insolent companions of Charles, whose present mode of life was peculiarly unfitted to the purer taste, and intellectual character of Lord Greville; or, whether it arose solely from his natural distaste for the parasitical existence of a courtier, was uncertain; but it ...
— Theresa Marchmont • Mrs Charles Gore

... scribblers of this age. As Lord Chamberlain, I know, you are absolute by your office in all that belongs to the decency and good manners of the stage. You can banish from thence scurrility and profaneness, and restrain the licentious insolence of poets and their actors in all things that shock the public quiet, or the reputation of private persons, under the notion of humour. But I mean not the authority which is annexed to your ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden

... turne men into beastes, some into Swine, som into Asses, some into Foxes, some into Wolues etc. euen so Plat. ad // Plato, like a wise Philosopher, doth plainelie Dionys. // declare, that pleasure, by licentious vanitie, that Epist. 3. // sweete and perilous poyson of all youth, doth ingender in all those, that yeld vp themselues to her, foure notorious properties. {1. lethen The fruits // {2. dysmathian of vayne // {3. achrosynen pleasure. ...
— The Schoolmaster • Roger Ascham

... the Atlantic frontier are all of them deeply interested in this provision for naval protection, and if they have hitherto been suffered to sleep quietly in their beds; if their property has remained safe against the predatory spirit of licentious adventurers; if their maritime towns have not yet been compelled to ransom themselves from the terrors of a conflagration, by yielding to the exactions of daring and sudden invaders, these instances of good fortune are not to be ascribed to the capacity of the existing government ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison

... of the nineteenth century were of one mind touching the greatness of "Don Giovanni." Beethoven was horrified by its licentious libretto, but tradition says that he kept before him on his writing-table a transcript of the music for the trombones in the second finale of the opera. Shortly after Mme. Viardot-Garcia came into possession of the autograph score ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... than in India, and, in consequence, nowhere than in the dances of that country is manifested a more simple unconsciousness or frank disregard of decency. As by nature, and according to the light that is in him, the Hindu is indolent and licentious, so, in accurately matching degree, are the dancing girls innocent of morality, and uninfected with shame. It would be difficult, more keenly to insult a respectable Hindu woman than to accuse her of having danced, while the man who should affect the society ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce

... were estemed to fall vnto king Henrie by the iust iudgement of God, for that being admonished diuerse waies, as well by diuine reuelation, as by the wholesome aduise of graue men, as Hugh bishop of Lincolne and others, he would not reforme his licentious appetite of heaping vp sinne vpon sinne, but still wallowed therein to his owne destruction. Wherevpon being brought to such an extremitie as ye haue heard, he was taken with a greeuous sicknesse, which bringing him to vtter desperation of recouering of health, ...
— Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (2 of 6): England (5 of 12) - Henrie the Second • Raphael Holinshed

... sad duty to say, before the whole world, that I know that by far the greater part of the confessors in America, Spain, France and England, reason and act just like that licentious Italian priest. ...
— The Priest, The Woman And The Confessional • Father Chiniquy

... clothing, as she did in the public conveyances, that were disagreeable to her, because the roads were rough, and the companions she met were frequently dissolute libertines, although her modest exterior and edifying conversation frequently silenced their licentious discourses. In fact her travels were a sort of continuous mission, effecting good for the souls of her neighbor, and advancing her own spiritual perfection. At such times she refused all personal convenience, so great was ...
— The Life of Venerable Sister Margaret Bourgeois • Anon.

... Who said his gravity was feigned: Indeed, the strictness of his morals Engaged him in a hundred quarrels: He saw, and he was grieved to see't, His zeal was sometimes indiscreet: He found his virtues too severe For our corrupted times to bear: Yet, such a lewd licentious age Might well excuse a ...
— The Battle of the Books - and Other Short Pieces • Jonathan Swift

... boiling houses, by which the females were constantly exposed during slavery. Now they may all be in their houses by dark. Formerly the mothers were the betrayers of their daughters, encouraging them to form unhallowed connections, and even selling them to licentious white and colored men, for their own gain. Now they were using great strictness to preserve the chastity ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... says your synod to such innovations? I am not studiously scrupulous, nor do I think a Masquerade either evil in itself or very likely to be the occasion of evil, yet, as the world thinks it a very licentious relaxation of manners, I would not have been one of the first masquers in a country where no ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole

... thought their object was to advance the temporal interests of mankind, and never dreamt but that they regarded virtue as the greatest of those interests. And when I found first one and then another to be dishonest, drunken, licentious, I was disposed to regard them as exceptions to the general rule. To the last; nay, for some time after my entire separation from the party, I supposed the profligate, unprincipled, abandoned ones to be the few, and the honest and virtuous ones to be the many. And when at length I was convinced ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker

... console him, and some of the noblest lines ever penned by man were written by Johnston in reply. They even wrung tears of repentance from the pachyderms who had attacked him, and will be a text and consolation to future commanders, who serve a country tolerant of an ignorant and licentious press. Like pure gold, he came forth from the furnace above the reach of slander, the foremost man of all the South; and had it been possible for one heart, one mind, and one arm to save her cause, she lost them when Albert Sidney ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor

... in a soft dream of sensual and intellectual voluptuousness. Choice cookery, delicious wines, lovely women, hounds, falcons, horses, newly discovered manuscripts of the classics, sonnets and burlesque romances in the sweetest Tuscan, just as licentious as a fine sense of the graceful would permit, plate from the hand of Benvenuto, designs for palaces by Michael Angelo, frescoes by Raphael, busts, mosaics, and gems just dug up from among the ruins of ancient temples and villas, these things were the delight and even the serious business ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... troops, seasoned in rough mountain-campaigning, but reckless and dissolute, as soldiers are apt to be when accustomed to predatory warfare. They would fight hard for booty, and then gamble it heedlessly away or squander it in licentious revelling. Alhama abounded with hawking, sharping, idle hangers-on, eager to profit by the vices and follies of the garrison. The soldiers were oftener gambling and dancing beneath the walls than keeping watch ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving

... cannot see any possible connection between a regenerated race, and a fashion which permits the display of the female figure upon the public streets, where men who are as yet un-regenerated, and licentious, may leer and pass vile remarks, ...
— Sex=The Unknown Quantity - The Spiritual Function of Sex • Ali Nomad

... endure another season of such deep degradation—not to be exposed to the Oh brother, you saw we all submitted to our fate without a murmur, and laboured cheerfully on the fortifications, when compelled to do so, by that inhuman monster Davoust, amidst the ribaldry of a licentious soldiery, merely because poor Janette had helped to embroider a standard for the brave Hanseatic Legion you know how we bore this"—here the sweet girl held out her delicate hands, galled by actual and unwonted labour and many other indignities, until that awful ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott

... Nazarene brethren from the doctrine of the synagogue; and they would gladly have extinguished the dangerous heresy in the blood of its adherents. But the decrees of Heaven had already disarmed their malice; and though they might sometimes exert the licentious privilege of sedition, they no longer possessed the administration of criminal justice; nor did they find it easy to infuse into the calm breast of a Roman magistrate the rancor of their own zeal and prejudice. The provincial governors declared ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... eccentric character who carried on philosophical discussions in streets and market-places, in drinking-houses and brothels. He shunned no society, and was on equally intimate terms with Pericles, the head of the state, and with the licentious Alcibiades. He sat down to table with tradesmen and artisans, drank with sailors in the Piraeus, and lived himself with his family in the suburb Ceramicus. When it was asked why Socrates was always out of doors, his friends answered, "because he was not comfortable at home." And when his ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg

... resources of a free, I may add a licentious press to destroy me, with a view of extinguishing the principles of civil and religious liberty which I advocate, you and your party now seek to have recourse to the "glorious uncertainty of the law" to accomplish ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson

... younger Cicero and of Horace. Few characters in history are more pathetically interesting than his. High born, yet disdainful of ambitious aims, irreproachable in an age of almost universal profligacy, the one pure member of a grossly licentious family, modest and unobtrusive although steeped in all the learning of old Greece, strong of will yet tolerant and gentle, his austerity so tempered by humanism that he won not only respect but love; he had been adored by the gay young patricians, who paid homage ...
— Horace • William Tuckwell

... judgment fewer faults can see, And gives applause to Blackmore, or to me. But you decline the mistress we pursue; Others are fond of fame, but fame of you. Instructive satire, true to virtue's cause! Thou shining supplement of public laws! When flatter'd crimes of a licentious age Reproach our silence, and demand our rage; When purchas'd follies, from each distant land, Like arts, improve in Britain's skilful hand; When the law shows her teeth, but dares not bite, And south ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young

... need of being saved by Christ's intercession? Then, hence I infer again, that God has a great dislike of the sins of his own people, and would fall upon them in judgment and anger much more severely than he doth, were it not for Christ's intercession. The gospel is not, as some think, a loose and licentious doctrine, nor God's discipline of his church a negligent and careless discipline; for, though those that believe already have also an intercessor, yet God, to show his detestation against sin, doth often make them feel to purpose the weight ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... guard of Africans, it was fully a moment, before the mob recognized Decius Magius, the partisan, of Rome. Then a chorus of howls and curses rose up. Insults were hurled,—the grossest that the minds of a licentious rabble could suggest, fists were shaken, women spat toward the prisoner,—even a few stones were cast, and when one of these happened to strike an African of the guard, he turned quietly and cut down the nearest citizen. Then, with their heavy javelins so held ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne

... our spiritual labours. These may be easily taught to understand and to speak the English language with fluency; these may be brought up from their earliest youth in habits of virtue, and restrained from all licentious indulgences: these may have the principles and the precepts of religion impressed so early upon their tender minds as to sink deep, and to take firm root, and bring forth the fruits of a truly Christian life. ...
— The Education Of The Negro Prior To 1861 • Carter Godwin Woodson

... destroy Both slavery and licentious joy; Foe to all sorts of planters{6}, he Will suffer neither bond ...
— No Abolition of Slavery - Or the Universal Empire of Love, A poem • James Boswell

... a class amongst us answering to those publicans and sinners to whom Jesus was wont to address the message of his mercy. Alas, they may be counted by thousands and tens of thousands in the land! They are the drunkards, the licentious, the profane, the false, the cruel,—those who abandon themselves to a vicious life, and do not take the trouble of attempting to hide their sin under a cloak of sanctity. They gratify every lust, and crucify none. They live without God in the world. The key-note ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot

... and condensation do not take place. After passing some guano islands on December 9th we landed at Callao, the port of Lima. Went on to Lima, a city founded by Pizarro, and once a very gay, luxurious and licentious capital. It is celebrated for its handsome churches. Its streets are narrow and the whole population seemingly devoted to peddling lottery tickets. There are many Chinamen amongst its 150,000 inhabitants. ...
— Ranching, Sport and Travel • Thomas Carson

... pompous imitation of foreign example set up by Louis XIV. It was more spontaneous, more original, more French. The influence of Italy began to fail, and the painters began to mirror French life. It was largely court life, lively, vivacious, licentious, but in that very respect characteristic of the time. Moreover, there was another quality about it that showed French taste at its best—the decorative quality. It can hardly be supposed that the fairy creations of the age were intended to ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Painting • John C. Van Dyke

... friend's ear, he pointed out the symptoms by which one could find out if a woman had passion. He even launched into an ethnographic digression: the German was vapourish, the French woman licentious, the ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert

... "He is a tyrant—greedy, cruel, and licentious. He had his own mother murdered because she opposed his plans, and some of our best and noblest citizens have been put to death, either because Nero was jealous of their popularity, or because he desired to ...
— Beric the Briton - A Story of the Roman Invasion • G. A. Henty

... into the dream of a Venus. An Oscar Wilde's maunderings over an art which has no reference to morality may possibly be poetry, but they certainly are not religion according to the Bible, for all his blasphemous apostrophes to Christ between his praises of licentious love. Hard as the granitic core of earth is the core of ...
— The Right and Wrong Uses of the Bible • R. Heber Newton

... reverenced a Pa, or father, as the immediate representative of God. They blindly and implicitly followed the instructions given to them, and did whatever was required at his hands. Many of the licentious brotherhood took advantage of this superstitious confidence placed in them by the people to an extent which, in a moral country, would not only shock every feeling of our nature to relate, but would, in the individual ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray

... the chant, "Exsurge, Domine" ("Rise, O Lord! and judge thine own cause"). One might have supposed them a company of martyrs about to lay down their lives in defence of their faith, instead of a licentious band of adventurers, meditating one of the most atrocious acts of perfidy on the record of history; yet, whatever were the vices of the Castilian cavalier, hypocrisy was not among the number. He felt that he was battling for the Cross, and under this conviction, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various

... gaunt, loathsome fingers towards them; and a Sha'er recited the romance of Aboo Zeyd. But Dicky noticed that none of the sheikhs, none of the great men of the village, were at these cafes; only the very young, the useless, the licentious, or the decrepit. But by flickering fires under the palm- trees were groups of men talking and gesticulating; and now and then an Arab galloped through the street, the point of his long lance shining. Dicky felt a secret, like a troubled wind, stirring through the place, a movement ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... Cerberean roar,3 Simply let these, like him of Samos4 live, Let herbs to them a bloodless banquet give; 60 In beechen goblets let their bev'rage shine, Cool from the chrystal spring, their sober wine! Their youth should pass, in innocence, secure From stain licentious, and in manners pure, Pure as the priest's, when robed in white he stands The fresh lustration ready in his hands. Thus Linus5 liv'd, and thus, as poets write, Tiresias, wiser for his loss of sight,6 Thus exil'd Chalcas,7 thus the bard of Thrace,8 Melodious tamer of the savage ...
— Poemata (William Cowper, trans.) • John Milton

... many savages is not even restrained by the presence of spectators. At the phallic and bacchanalian festivals of ancient and Oriental nations all distinctions of rank and all family ties were forgotten in a carnival of lust. Licentious orgies are indeed carried on to this day in our own large cities; but their participants are the criminal classes, and occasionally some foolish young men who would be very much ashamed to have their doings known; whereas the orgies ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck

... brethren in another world to-morrow.' As he said this, he brandished his rapier, exciting Dalcastle to offence. He gained his point. The latter, who had previously drawn, advanced upon his vapouring and licentious antagonist, and a fierce combat ensued. My companion was delighted beyond measure, and I could not keep him from exclaiming, loud enough to have been heard, 'That's grand! That's excellent!' For me, my heart quaked like an aspen. Young Dalcastle either had a decided advantage over his ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg

... detractor, a libeller, a scornful jester at home? For as they that write of poisons, and of creatures naturally disposed to the ruin of man, do as well mention the flea as the viper[170], because the flea, though he kill none, he does all the harm he can; so even these libellous and licentious jesters utter the venom they have, though sometimes virtue, and always power, be a good pigeon to draw this vapour from the head and from doing any deadly ...
— Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions - Together with Death's Duel • John Donne

... the Saints" are a history, not so much of men, as of all ages and nations,—of their manners, customs, laws, usages, and creeds. And in this licentious age, an age of corrupted literature, when that worldly wisdom or vain philosophy which God has declared to be folly, is again revived; in this age, when history has failed to represent the truth, and is only written ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler

... and which centres in the sacristy of San Lorenzo, as the tradition of the Creation centres in the Sistine Chapel. It has been said that all the great Florentines were preoccupied with death. Outre-tombe! Outre-tombe!—is the burden of their thoughts, from Dante to Savonarola. Even the gay and licentious Boccaccio gives a keener edge to his stories by putting them in the mouths of a party of people who had taken refuge from the danger of death by plague, in a country-house. It was to this inherited sentiment, ...
— The Renaissance - Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Pater

... sounds licentious and horrible, doesn't it; but there are two queer things about it—the first is that man quite naturally wishes to be decent, and the second is that, when he does come to rely wholly upon the ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson

... seems absurd, it is fairly evident that the mind of the author was busied with something more than the mere narration of rollicking adventure, more even than a satire on Roman life. The transformation of the hero into an ass, at the moment when he was plunging headlong into a licentious career, and the recovery of his manhood again through divine intervention, suggest a serious symbolism. The beautiful episode of 'Cupid and Psyche,' which would lend salt to a production far more corrupt, is also suggestive. Apuleius perfected ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner

... good pretext for you; she is young, beautiful, clever, modest, and virtuous. In fact many an actress who takes like her the role of the ingenuous young girl is in reality all that she personates, though a frivolous and frequently licentious public will not credit ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier

... of these gods involved the performance of ceremonies more bloody and licentious even than those practised by other races. The Baalim thirsted after blood, nor would they be satisfied with any common blood such as generally contented their brethren in Chaldaea or Egypt: they imperatively ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 4 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... appeared to combine to shock her. Mistress Dearmer led the laughter at what she termed Barbara's country manners and prudery. There were few things in heaven or earth exempt from the ridicule of Mrs. Dearmer's tongue, and it was a loose tongue, full of coarse tales and licentious wit. She was a pretty woman, which, from the men's point of view, seemed to add piquancy to her scandalous conversation, but the fact only made Barbara's ears tingle the more. Mrs. Dearmer was in the fashion; Barbara knew that, for even at Lady Bolsover's she had often been made to blush, but she ...
— The Brown Mask • Percy J. Brebner

... character of its inhabitants, must ever possess a charm for those who delight to sympathize with the noble struggles of a gallant people, conscientiously devoting themselves to the cause of a fallen and persecuted monarchy, and resisting the cruel and destructive ferocity of a licentious enemy, who had broken down the most sacred fences of society, and trampled upon the dearest ties ...
— A Visit to the Monastery of La Trappe in 1817 • W.D. Fellowes

... principles of self-destruction. It was feared that a system so ill balanced could not be permanent. A deep impression was made on the same persons by the influence of the galleries over the Legislature, and of mobs over the executive; by the tumultuous assemblages of the people, and their licentious excesses during the short and sickly existence of the regal authority. These did not appear to be the symptoms of a healthy constitution or of genuine freedom. Persuaded that the present state of things could not last, they doubted and ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing

... happiness of which they were the authors. A just but melancholy reflection imbittered, however, the noblest of human enjoyments. They must often have recollected the instability of a happiness which depended on the character of single man. The fatal moment was perhaps approaching, when some licentious youth, or some jealous tyrant, would abuse, to the destruction, that absolute power, which they had exerted for the benefit of their people. The ideal restraints of the senate and the laws might serve to display the virtues, but could ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon

... deshabille, with a flask of good wine, iced water, and delicate cakes and confitures before him, a witty and licentious epigrammatic poem close under his hand, sat lazily enjoying the luxuries that it had been his daughter's satisfaction to procure for him ever since her marriage. He sprang up to meet her with a grace and deference that showed how different a ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge

... discountenanced, and a sodden rule of ignorant craft and vulgarity was settled upon the nation. Those at the helm were clever demagogues who were prepared to humor the people, provided they had the control of the public funds wherewith to indulge their licentious tastes. President Bagshaw had converted Buckingham Palace into a barracks, where he sat day in, day out, with boon companions. Entrance was forbidden to none. The dirtiest scavenger might there at any moment shake the hand ...
— The King's Men - A Tale of To-morrow • Robert Grant, John Boyle O'Reilly, J. S. Dale, and John T.

... the untoward circumstances under which the great Pontiff I have mentioned undertook a new embassy to the King of the Huns. He was not, we may well conceive, to be a spectator of their barbaric festivities, or to be a listener to their licentious interludes; he was rather an object to be gazed upon, than to gaze; and in truth there was that about him, in the noble aspect and the spare youthful form, which portraits give to Pope Leo, which was adapted to arrest and subdue even Attila. Attila had seen many great men ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman

... ruled the family, came before the patriarchal, and so the reign of the goddess came before that of the god. Each community has its own Al-lat, "The Lady," as she is called in Arabia, a strict and exacting lady, not to be confounded with the licentious goddesses of later times; and in all Semitic lands traces of her early prevalence are found.[2] As the male god came to the front, the female became a less definite figure, till she was generally a mere counterpart of the male god, with little character of her own. With gods of this ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies

... others (not half of whom have been mentioned) as far as they go. The cross sister and the "kind" one; the false prude and false devote Mme. de Ferval, and the jolly, reckless, rather coarse Mme. de Fecour; the tyrannical, corrupt, and licentious financier, with others more slightly drawn, are seldom, if ever, out of drawing. The contemporary wash of colour passes, as it should, into something "fast"; you are in the Paris of the Regency, but you are ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury

... himself in all the vices and lusts to which he was prone, living in all those debaucheries to which the meanest and most licentious of the common soldiers are addicted; but he more especially gave himself up to lewdness and the conversation of women. This, as it led him into abundance of inconveniences, so at last it engaged him in a quarrel with one of his comrades which ended in a duel. Jackson had ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward

... you, my love," from himself. Her maid, a Eurasian—by name Serafina Lousada, whom she had brought with her from Bombay a couple of years earlier, prematurely-wrinkled of skin and shrunken of figure, yet whose lustrous black eyes still held the embers of licentious fires—would readily have shared her labours. But Henrietta was at some trouble to eliminate Serafina from the sick-chamber, holding her tendencies suspect as insidiously and quite superfluously sentimental, where any male ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet

... ancient Greeks we hear of the Ionian and Milesian tales, but they have now perished, and, from every account we hear of them, appear to have been loose and indelicate." Similarly, the classical dictionaries define "Milesiae fabulae" to be "licentious themes," "stories of an amatory or mirthful nature," or "ludicrous and indecent plays." M. Deriege seems indeed to confound them with the "Moeurs du Temps" illustrated with artistic gouaches, when he says, "une de ces fables milesiennes, rehaussees de peintures, que la corruption ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton

... was reported to be very seriously displeased with him, for he openly expressed contempt of the precise ways of the household, and absented himself in a manner that could scarcely be attributed to aught but the licentious indulgences of the time; and as he seldom mingled in the amusements of the young country gentlemen, it was only too probable that he found a lower grade of companions in Portsmouth. Moreover his talk, random ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge

... WOMEN.—Gonorrhea in women is a much more frequent and serious disease than was formerly supposed. The general impression among the laity is that gonorrhea in women is limited to the prostitute and vicious classes who indulge in licentious relations. Unfortunately, this is not the case. There is perhaps more gonorrhea, in the aggregate, among virtuous and respectable wives than among professional prostitutes, and the explanation is the following: A large proportion of men contract the disease at or before the marrying age. The great ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume II (of VI) • Various

... virtuous are often the objects of hatred and relentless persecution. Here the man of ambition and dark intrigue, circumvents and treads down his more honest rivals. Here Providence often afflicts even the most pious; while the licentious, and proud, and oppressive, are, perhaps, suffered to enjoy uninterrupted prosperity. Now we believe, assuredly, that "God is just;" and we infer, that he will so exhibit himself by another and more equal ...
— The National Preacher, Vol. 2 No. 7 Dec. 1827 • Aaron W. Leland and Elihu W. Baldwin

... under his banner, and set out on its march through Germany,—the two other divisions of the Christian army taking a different route. On reaching Hungary, Carloman, who then ruled that country, showed some signs of objection to the passage of so formidable a body,—remembering the licentious excesses that had been committed by the rabble which followed Peter the Hermit. Here Godfrey's wisdom was admirably displayed. By his firm measures of restraint on the impetuosity of his troops he first ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various

... window. The distance was not great to the roof of the lean-to, and she had been used to climb tall forest trees when a child, and fearlessly to drop from any height. She unclosed the casement and listened. She heard from below loud shouts and boisterous peals of laughter, mingled with licentious songs and ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie



Words linked to "Licentious" :   unchaste, licence



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