"Offensive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... all we could gather, and we could see that neither the conductor nor the new driver were much concerned about the matter. They plainly had little respect for a man who would deliver offensive opinions of people and then be so simple as to come into their presence unprepared to "back his judgment," as they pleasantly phrased the killing of any fellow-being who did not like said opinions. And likewise they plainly had a contempt for the man's poor discretion in venturing to rouse ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Mary, Queen of Scots, born in Turin; the son of a dancing-master; was employed by the queen as her secretary, and being offensive to the nobles, was by a body of them dragged from the queen's presence and stabbed to ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... locked up in his chest almost before they were fairly dry. He did not seem to be a reader, but the objectionable little book with the gilt edges came out at a regular hour each day, and for five minutes at least had his full attention, without offensive interruption. ...
— Little Tora, The Swedish Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Mrs. Woods Baker
... about him. He pays great respect and deference to people who are old. He never uses coarse words nor bad language, and always speaks civilly to servants. He does not enter the parlour with dirty hands and face, nor ever greases his clothes, for he knows that dirty habits are offensive, disgusting things, and therefore he carefully ...
— The Bad Family and Other Stories • Mrs. Fenwick
... correct in saying that such a thing has never happened before to M. le Marquis in all his life. If you felt yourself affronted, you had but to ask the satisfaction due from one gentleman to another. Your action would seem to confirm the assumption that you found so offensive. But it does not on that account render you ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... attained to an enormous size, and, though the true reptile had already appeared, they continued to retain, till the close of the system, the high reptilian character and organization. Nothing, however, so impresses the observer as the formidable character of the offensive weapons with which they were furnished, and the amazing strength of their defensive armature. I need scarce say, that the Palaeontologist finds no trace in nature of that golden age of the world, of which the poets delighted to sing, when all creatures lived ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... trifle to which the self-styled count was accustomed, and which did not elicit any remark from him. When the game was over, we repaired to the coffee-room, where an officer of gentlemanly appearance, staring at me, began to smile, but not in an offensive manner. ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... which the laws of this State recognize.... This ceremony involves not the necessity of making promises regarding that over which we have no control, the state of human affections in the distant future, nor of repeating forms which we deem offensive, inasmuch as they outrage the principles of human liberty and equality, by conferring rights and imposing duties unequally on the sexes. The ceremony consists of a simply written contract in which we agree to take each other as husband and wife according to the laws of the ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... confidence of winning the game with Princeton to-morrow has been shattered, and gloom enshrouds the camp of the Elis to- night. Collins, the great full-back, who has been the key-stone of Yale's offensive game, was taken to the infirmary late this afternoon. He complained of feeling ill after the signal practice yesterday; fever developed overnight, and the consulting physicians decided that he must be operated on for appendicitis without delay. His place ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... of the bag which hung behind Vikram's royal back broke off the end of this offensive sentence. And the warrior king did not cease that discipline till the Baital promised him to preserve more ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton
... Great Britain is supporting armies in Egypt, German East Africa, Salonika, and Mesopotamia. No one who has seen in actual being one of these vast expeditions, any one of which in the past would have commanded the interest of the entire world, can appreciate how seriously they cripple the main offensive. Each robs it of hundreds of thousands of men needed in the trenches, of the transports required to carry those men, of war-ships to convoy them, of hospital ships to mend them, of medical men, medical stores, aeroplanes, motor-trucks, ambulances, machine-guns, field-guns, ...
— With the French in France and Salonika • Richard Harding Davis
... watching him. "What are you rolling your white eyes at me for, you lazy rascal?" He came down upon me with his cane, and laid on over my shoulders, arms, and legs, about a dozen severe blows, so that my limbs and flesh were sore for several weeks; and then after several other offensive epithets, ...
— The Fugitive Blacksmith - or, Events in the History of James W. C. Pennington • James W. C. Pennington
... superstition of the common people, who are, some or other of them, day and night offering bits of candle to the wooden figures that are set up almost in every street. The processions I see very often, are a pageantry as offensive, and apparently contradictory to all common sense, as the pagodas of China. God knows whether it be the womanly spirit of contradiction that works in me; but there never before was so much zeal against popery in the ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville
... woman said nothing at all, and went on with her soup. Her silence was almost more formidable than her speech, and she knew that, and contrived to make it offensive. Beatrice paid no sort of attention to it, however; and without looking at her again began to talk cheerfully to Sir James about her journey from town. Margaret watched her, fascinated; her sedate beautiful face, her lace and jewels, her white fingers, ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... glittering, shimmering, gleaming piles of silk-cocoons, varying in shade from palest straw-colour to deep orange. If pleasant to the eye, they were less grateful to the nose, for freshly baked cocoons have the most offensive odour. The silk-buyers from Lyons then made their appearance, and these shining heaps of gold thread were transformed into a more portable form of gold, which found its way into ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... Kansas refused to vote, frames a Constitution, in the interest and according to the convictions of the slenderest minority of the people; it incorporates in that Constitution a recognition of old Territorial laws to the last degree offensive to the majority of the people; it incorporates in it a clause establishing slavery in perpetuity; it connects with it a Schedule perpetuating the existing slavery, whatever it may be, against all future remedy which ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... by the pair made the dining-room so horribly offensive that Madame de Montcornet, whose senses were very delicate, would have been forced to leave the room if Fourchon and Mouche had remained. To this circumstance the old man was indebted for his twenty-five francs. He left the room with a timid glance at Michaud, ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... search of her, his sensitive conscience not permitting any delay. To show that the young merchant was not too good for this world, the same writer gives an incident of his shop-keeping experience of a different character. A rural bully having made himself especially offensive one day, when women were present, by loud profanity, Lincoln requested him to be silent. This was of course a cause of war, and the young clerk was forced to follow the incensed ruffian into the street, where the combat was of short duration. Lincoln threw him at once to the ground, and gathering ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... sir, most offensive," said Percival, whose ire was thoroughly roused by this address. "I will bid you and your client good-evening. I have no more ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... are generally called excellent authorities assert that an offensive and defensive alliance is concluded between Seward and Stanton. Further, I am told, that Senator Morgan, Thurlow Weed, and a certain Whiting, a new star on the politician's horizon, have been the attorneys ...
— Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski
... looked at Huish with an air of faint surprise, and looked pointedly away again. It was hard to be more offensive in dumb show. ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... to say anything that might sound offensive," she observed slowly, "but if it's a case of trouble of any sort with the police, ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... partner lost his nerve, turned tail and ran away, and that encouraged the bear to take the offensive, just as it would invite attack from a hesitating dog. The Grizzly sprang up over the edge of the steep and charged McKiernan, who threw up his rifle and fired at the bear's chest. It was a Yeager rifle carrying an ounce ball, and it checked the ...
— Bears I Have Met—and Others • Allen Kelly
... appearance and general effect were not precisely those of Flossy, Pauline, or Mrs. Hallett Taylor. She had always prided herself on the distinction of her face, and admired especially its freedom from gross or unintellectual lines. She did not intend to question its superiority now; but Flossy's offensive words rang in her ears and caused her to gnaw her lips with annoyance. What was the difference between them? Flossy had dared to call her common and superficial; had dared to insinuate that she never could be a lady. A lady? What ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... aid to the colonists. But the steady drift of French policy and the passion of the French people pressed heavier every day on the hesitation of their government; and the news of Saratoga forced its hand. The American envoys at last succeeded in forming an alliance; and in February 1778 a treaty offensive and defensive was concluded between France and America. Lord North strove to meet the blow by fresh offers of conciliation, and by a pledge to renounce for ever the right of direct taxation over the Colonies; but he felt that such offers were fruitless, that ...
— History of the English People, Volume VIII (of 8) - Modern England, 1760-1815 • John Richard Green
... direct and offensive, surveillance should be exercised over all the patients, with a view to securing them the largest possible liberty compatible with the singular nature ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 488, May 9, 1885 • Various
... "Montenegrin agents wander over Serbia with their propaganda and Serbia has therefore forbidden the further settlement of Montenegrins in Serbia." Pashitch again came to the fore and was sentenced to nine months' imprisonment for publishing an offensive letter to the ex-King Milan. And in November a plot, alleged to be ...
— Twenty Years Of Balkan Tangle • Durham M. Edith
... her offensive machinery, she had several underwater torpedo tubes. Although she was supposed to be too heavy for great speed, her coal carrying capacity was enormous, and she could travel on the power of her oil engines alone in a pinch. Altogether, the Kennebunk was the very latest result of battleship ...
— Navy Boys Behind the Big Guns - Sinking the German U-Boats • Halsey Davidson
... sacrifice their rights than to contend for them, unless something vital is involved, which is rarely the case. When a spiritual man is compelled to defend his rights, he will do it in a meek and quiet way, a way that has in it nothing offensive or self-assertive. When they were about to scourge Paul unlawfully, his only assertion of his rights was to quietly ask, "Is it lawful for you to scourge a man that is a Roman, and uncondemned?" (Acts 22: 25). But there are those who will not yield ...
— Heart Talks • Charles Wesley Naylor
... real book-lover fails to appreciate the neatness and beauty of a tasteful binding, any more than he is indifferent to the same qualities in literary style. Slovenly binding is almost as offensive to a cultivated eye as slovenly composition. No doubt both are "mere externals," as we are told, and so are the splendors of scenery, the beauty of flowers, and the comeliness of the human form, or features, or costume. Talk as men will of the insignificance of dress, it constitutes ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... and whom I have the honour to know. As he spoke loud enough to be overheard by the other guests who were present, I informed him most civilly that he was mistaken in his conjectures, which were of an offensive nature, and requested him to forbear. He did so for a little time, but as he chose to renew his conversation when leaving the room, in a more offensive strain than before, I could not refrain from making after him, and facilitating his departure ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... once a child detects you in falsehood, you lose his confidence; his incredulity will then be as extravagant as his former belief was gratuitous. It is in vain to expect, by the most eloquent manifestoes, or by the most secret leagues offensive and defensive, to conceal your real views, sentiments, and actions, from children. Their interest keeps their attention continually awake; not a word, not a look, in which they are concerned, escapes them; ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... a large bundle, tied up in a coloured handkerchief. In his conversation he employed the Armagh accent with such slavish fidelity as to make it evident that he regarded any other form of speech as showing culpable ignorance or offensive affectation. ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... lady,' said he—'although I have known you but a very short time, I have become exceedingly interested in you. I am an old man—old enough to be your father; and as a father I now speak to you.—What I am about to say, might seem impertinent and offensive in a young man, but you will pardon it in me. You have unconscientiously dropped a hint touching the insufficiency of your income to maintain you as a lady should be maintained. I am rich—deign to accept from me as a gift—or as a loan, if you will—this ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... system, were not ordered, when it was known that they would be almost certainly broken up after fifty years, and in the second, public sculptors knowing their work to be so ephemeral, scamped it to an extent that made it offensive even to the most uncultured eye. Hence before long subscribers took to paying the sculptor for the statue of their dead statesmen, on condition that he did not make it. The tribute of respect was thus paid to the deceased, the public sculptors ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... "if he had made himself offensive in any other way, I should have welcomed the opportunity of speaking to papa about it. But he has not. His attitude has been outwardly perfectly courteous, and papa would only laugh at me if I were to tell him what I have ...
— The Motor Pirate • George Sidney Paternoster
... strong liquors are only used during dinner: And I think the only circumstance in our conduct that any way disobliged our good host, was once seeing me drink a dram with the doctor, at a small eating-house; and, as nothing is more offensive to the Spaniards than drunkenness, I had much ado to apologise for this step. Yet they admit of gallantry in the utmost excess, thus only exchanging one ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... word. But really, Hector, you need not look so black, for when I look back at it I can quite see from his tone and manner that he meant no harm. He was thinking aloud, without the least intention of being offensive. I am convinced that the poor ...
— The Doings Of Raffles Haw • Arthur Conan Doyle
... chapter xi.] That, if society does regard cleanliness as important, it should be the duty of the individual to keep himself and his house clean presents no problem. He has no right to make himself gratuitously offensive, and gratuitously offensive he will be, if he is a dirty fellow. But why does anyone object to his being a dirty fellow? The prejudice in favor of cleanliness does not appear to be universal—witness the Eskimo and various ...
— A Handbook of Ethical Theory • George Stuart Fullerton
... controvert the position, that the causes of our sensations are like to the sensations themselves. Locke in particular has called the attention of the reasoning part of mankind to the consideration, that heat and cold, sweet and bitter, and odour offensive or otherwise, are perceptions, which imply a percipient being, and cannot exist in inanimate substances. We might with equal propriety ascribe pain to the whip that beats us, or pleasure to the slight alternation of contact in the person or thing that tickles us, as suppose that ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... his version of what he read at Simancas. Froude knew very well that he should make enemies. His belief that history had been cericalised, and required to be laicised, was regarded as peculiarly offensive in one ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... fact that he had already received the thanks of the republic for the services he had rendered, and stood high in the favour of the admiral, who never lost an opportunity of showing the interest he had in him. Had the hostility shown itself in any offensive degree Francis would at once have resented it; but Matteo, and some of those on board, who had been his comrades in the fencing rooms, had given such reports of his powers with his weapons, that even those most opposed to him thought ...
— The Lion of Saint Mark - A Story of Venice in the Fourteenth Century • G. A. Henty
... he does not leave the Palace. His friends will run after him. That accursed Philibert will be here; on your life, do not let him see him! Hark you! When he comes, make Le Gardeur affront him by some offensive reply to his ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... complain that the Allies are too frequently on the defensive forget that it is very difficult to be as offensive as the Germans. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 2nd, 1914 • Various
... as I entered my hotel a stout man with a big nose and a black mustache blocked my way in the corridor. When I would have passed around him, he greet me with offensive familiarity. ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... Suffrage platform the Fifteenth Amendment is considered essential. Miss Couzins was the only one who put the two amendments fairly before the Convention in Boston. After presenting the issues of the two amendments she trenched lightly on another topic still more offensive. She plead for the outcast woman in a most womanly way, but it did not prove to be a popular theme; but I think she is too true, pure, and noble not to do the ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... afraid. In a room as dishevelled and filthy as the bedroom, Mrs. Daniel Povey lay stretched awkwardly on a worn horse-hair sofa, her head thrown back, her face discoloured, her eyes bulging, her mouth wet and yawning: a sight horribly offensive. Samuel was frightened; he was struck with fear and with disgust. The singing gas beat down ruthlessly on that dreadful figure. A wife and mother! The lady of a house! The centre of order! The fount of healing! ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... feature of the period was the conduct of conspicuous females. The habits of Germany in its higher ranks were offensive to all purity. The Brunswick Princes had brought those habits to St James's. Born and educated in Germany, they were regardless even of the feeble decorums of English life, and a king's mistress ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... making a pretence of trying to suppress a titter, and thereby rendering it more offensive. ...
— Judith of the Cumberlands • Alice MacGowan
... had a man ride with us. It is not customary for even husbands and wives to drive together. My criticism was, "We do not like the manner of your ladies expectorating. In America we consider it a very filthy and offensive habit." She was quite surprised that we were so very particular and asked me if we ...
— An Ohio Woman in the Philippines • Emily Bronson Conger
... consequences. The object of the association from its inception was objectionable, since it could only be effected by entering upon territory the title to which was controverted and unsettled—a proceeding which could not fail to be offensive to the Government and people of the United States. Still more unjustifiable was the act of sovereignty giving to this company corporate powers over property known to be claimed by citizens of a friendly and neighboring State, and which constituted at the time ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 3: Martin Van Buren • James D. Richardson
... feeling may flow under a surface of illustrative imagery so impure as to produce an effect the opposite of that which was intended. Yet, though this fault may be carried to an intolerable degree, the Reader will have gathered that in our estimation it is not in kind the most offensive and injurious. We have contrasted it in its excess with instances where the genuine current or vein was wholly wanting; where the thoughts and feelings had no vital union, but were artificially connected, ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... Fairyland." So, when he, with his hood up, because of the slight rain, was surprised by Patricia, as he was rehearsing his patter, and taken for a fairy, he played up to her. Patricia is inclined to forgive him, but the conversation is interrupted by the entrance of Morris, in a mood to be offensive. He examines the apparatus, proclaims the way it is worked, and after a while breaks out into a frenzy of free thought, asking the universe in general and the Conjuror in particular for "that old apparatus that ...
— G. K. Chesterton, A Critical Study • Julius West
... history his loss To new remembrance; for full well he knows He cannot so precisely weed this land As his misdoubts present occasion: His foes are so enrooted with his friends That, plucking to unfix an enemy, He doth unfasten so and shake a friend: So that this land, like an offensive wife That hath enraged him on to offer strokes, As he is striking, holds his infant up And hangs resolved correction in the arm That ...
— King Henry IV, Second Part • William Shakespeare [Chiswick edition]
... great step towards enjoying your own dinner, and making yourself agreeable to the company. There is reason for everything in polite usage; thus the reason why one does not blow a thing to cool it, is not only that it is an inelegant and vulgar action intrinsically, but because it may be offensive to others—cannot help being so, indeed; and it, moreover implies, haste, which, whether from greediness or a desire to get away, is equally objectionable. Everything else may be as easily traced to its origin in the ...
— The Whitehouse Cookbook (1887) - The Whole Comprising A Comprehensive Cyclopedia Of Information For - The Home • Mrs. F.L. Gillette
... had long seen it, they understood that just as with the individuals so with nations the struggle for existence can most easily be conducted by adopting that war-principle of Clausewitz—the restless offensive, and not by writing meaningless dispatches. Prior to the Russian war they had written to Russia a magnificent series of documents in which they had pleaded with sincerity for an equitable settlement,—only to find that all was in vain. Forced to battle, they had found ...
— The Fight For The Republic in China • Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale
... between them. As before, Madame de Maintenon allowed Madame to talk her fill before she replied. She then said she was about to divulge a secret which had never escaped her mouth, although she had for ten years been at liberty to tell it; and she forthwith related a thousand most offensive things which had been uttered against her by Madame to the late Madame la Dauphine. This latter, falling out with Madame, had related all these things to Madame de Maintenon, who now brought ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... proves this one is yours." He rode up and received the coil which the Virginian held out, unloosing the disputed one on his saddle. If he had meant to devise a slippery, evasive insult, no small trick in cow-land could be more offensive than this taking another man's rope. And it is the small tricks which lead to the big bullets. Trampas put a smooth coating of plausibility over the whole transaction. "After the rope corral we had to make this morning"—his tone was mock ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... elected to play his own game, and he entered combinations only when they were generally defensive or offensive. Thus, though he had paid the highest wages, he joined the Mine-owners' Association, engineered the fight, and effectually curbed the growing insubordination of the wage-earners. Times had changed. The old days were gone forever. This was a new era, and Daylight, the wealthy ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... were known. But he was bound by constitutional restraints. Both his person and his measures were unpopular in England. His secluded life and his cold manners disgusted a people accustomed to the graceful affability of Charles the Second. His foreign accent and his foreign attachments were offensive to the national prejudices. His reign had been a season of distress, following a season of rapidly increasing prosperity. The burdens of the late war and the expense of restoring the currency had been severely felt. Nine ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... of the two respectable persons you have with you? Hm! Respectability is a mask—often a safe mask, often an offensive one, always a lie. All really dangerous criminals are ...
— The Lion of Petra • Talbot Mundy
... street corner—grown barbarians, it may be, now all but past saving, but bringing into the world young barbarians whom we may yet save, for God wishes us to save them. . . . Do not deceive yourselves about the little dirty, offensive children in the street. If they be offensive to you, they are not to Him who made them. "Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones: for I say unto you, their angels do always behold the face of your Father which ...
— Daily Thoughts - selected from the writings of Charles Kingsley by his wife • Charles Kingsley
... men in showy coats and lacquered hats, who came up to the garden, stared hard at us, and then walked in. Each of them, I noticed, wore a sword, and a kind of dagger stuck in his belt, and this made me at once recall their offensive looks and contemptuous manner towards us, and think of how far we were away from the ship, and unarmed, save for the ornamental dirks which hung from our belts, weapons that would have been, even if we had known how to use ...
— Blue Jackets - The Log of the Teaser • George Manville Fenn
... in singling out Drummle were to bring him out still more, it perfectly succeeded. In a sulky triumph, Drummle showed his morose depreciation of the rest of us, in a more and more offensive degree, until he became downright intolerable. Through all his stages, Mr. Jaggers followed him with the same strange interest. He actually seemed to serve as a zest to Mr. ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... in the street had not ventured on anything more offensive than jeers and curses, but when Carpenter's command reached 32d Street it was assailed in a new and deadly manner. Rioters, well provided with stones and brick-bats, had stationed themselves on the roofs, and, deeming themselves secure, began to rain the missiles on the column below, which formed ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... common to all colleges deal with (p. 065) carrying arms, unpunctuality, talking during the reading in Hall or disturbing the Chapel services, bringing strangers into College, sleeping out of College, absence without leave, negligence and idleness, scurrilous or offensive language, spilling water in upper rooms to the detriment of the inhabitants of the lower rooms, and failure to attend the regular "scrutinies" or the stated general meetings for College business. At these scrutinies, any serious charges against members of the Society were considered, and it is ...
— Life in the Medieval University • Robert S. Rait
... Coroner, "it is the verdict of men who use their judgment after hearing the evidence, and your remark is offensive and criminal." ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... elaborate Ass from all Asses preceding it, called his tale 'The Golden Ass.' But living in the present day, such a designation—implying a merit in general, not the partial and limited merit corresponding only with your individual abilities—would be presumptuous and offensive. True, I here anticipate the observation I see ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... don't!" called Lingard back, sharply. The leisurely drawl of the invisible speaker seemed to him offensive, and woke up a hostile feeling. "No! you don't if you care for your boat. Where do you spring from? Who are you—anyhow? How many of you are ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... had deprived him of the maintenance with which the emperor had honoured him and had killed his brother, charging him with responsibility for an uprising against the people of Byzacium. So at that time Antalas was pleased to see these barbarians, and making an offensive and defensive alliance with them, led ...
— History of the Wars, Books III and IV (of 8) - The Vandalic War • Procopius
... anxious to be gone. His errand was accomplished. The atmosphere of this place was offensive to him, and he was uneasy without well knowing why. His companion seemed to divine this; and the room being now cleared of all other guests, he put his hat on his head and said, "We will go out into the fresh air. The Cat and Fiddle is better as a resort by day than by night. ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... the sole representative of literature, it appears, at the "toping-tables" of these thick-witted fox-hunters. Pope naturally longed for the more refined or at least more fashionable indulgences of London life. Beside the literary affectation, he sometimes adopts the more offensive affectation—unfortunately not peculiar to any period—of the youth who wishes to pass himself off as deep in the knowledge of the world. Pope, as may be here said once for all, could be at times grossly indecent; and in these letters there are passages offensive upon this ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... disfavour. It always irritated him. The information, conveyed to him by amused friends, that his Aunt Lora had once described Ruth as a jewel in a dust-bin, seemed to him to carry an offensive innuendo directed at himself and the rest of the dwellers in the Bannister home. Also, she had called him a worm. Also, again, his actual encounters with the lady, though few, had been memorably unpleasant. Furthermore, he considered that she had far ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... earnestly recommend that those opinions and speculations be communicated to us with prudence, discretion, and all possible secrecy, and the terms in which they are conveyed be expressed in a manner as little offensive as possible to the powers whom they may concern and into ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... this divine ordinance than any other Protestant denomination. While all around us there has been a weakening and yielding on this point; while the spirit of our age and country scorns the idea of a child receiving divine Grace through baptism; while it has become offensive to the popular ear to speak of baptismal Grace, our Church, wherever she has been and is true to herself, stands to-day where Martin Luther and his co-workers stood, where the confessors of Augsburg stood, and where the framers of the ...
— The Way of Salvation in the Lutheran Church • G. H. Gerberding
... Independence, our adversaries have pushed their trenches, parallel after parallel, against the very citadel of our political equality. A siege, if uninterrupted, is a mere matter of time, and must end in capitulation. Our only safety is in assuming the offensive. Are we to be terrified any longer by such Chinese devices of warfare as the cry of Disunion,—a threat as hollow as the mask from which it issues, as harmless as the periodical suicides of Mantalini, as insincere ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various
... firm—I do not remember the name—and so managed as to put Cora on the iron grating, of the sidewalk inside, with his back to the brick wall of the store. Cora had not the slightest idea that Richardson had taken offence at his remark on Thursday night—for it was in no light offensive or insulting but simply a bit of ordinary pleasantry, and therefore, he was not aware of Richardson's object in asking him to come out from the saloon. But many of Richardson's intimate friends, who felt ...
— The Vigilance Committee of '56 • James O'Meara
... disposed toward Albert but he was very much disgusted with Albert's fondness for torch-light processions, particularly when Albert bore a transparency on which was painted, in crude letters, a motto most offensive to ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... Sir Tancred in the manner he always adopted towards profitable financiers of Hamburg extraction, a manner extremely condescending, without being offensive. ...
— The Admirable Tinker - Child of the World • Edgar Jepson
... after they have squeezed all they can out of them. The wrong-doers can so abstain, and still be able to murder, rob, torture, dishonour, and burn, upon a pretty large scale; and where they are so numerous, and so ready to unite for purposes "offensive and defensive," and the local authorities so generally connive at or quietly acquiesce all their misdeeds, any attempt on the part of an honest or overzealous individual to put them down would be sure to result in his speedy and ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... constant and unrelenting, was not in the least offensive—it had no curiosity in it: he had obviously been contemplating the cushions before I intruded, and since I had chosen to occupy his field of ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... only)—Ver. 457. "Pytiso" was the name given to the nasty practice of tasting wine, and then spitting it out; offensive in a man, but infinitely more so in a woman. It seems in those times to have been done by persons who wished to give themselves airs in the houses of private persons; at the present day it is probably confined to wine-vaults and ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... Rand, that alters the situation considerably," he said, with noticeably less hostility. He was still a bit resentful; people had no right to confuse him by jumping about from one category to another, like that. "Now understand, I'm not trying to be offensive, but it seems a little unusual for a private detective also to be an ...
— Murder in the Gunroom • Henry Beam Piper
... for hostile operations or as posts of observation upon the ships of war or privateers or merchant vessels of the other belligerent lying within or being about to enter the jurisdiction of the United States, must be regarded as unfriendly and offensive and in violation of that neutrality which it is the determination of this Government to observe; and to the end that the hazard and inconvenience of such apprehended practices may be avoided, I further proclaim and declare that from and after the 12th day of October instant, and during ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Ulysses S. Grant • James D. Richardson
... Corinthians prepared to renew the attack in the afternoon, when they saw in the distance 20 Athenian vessels, which they believed to be the advanced guard of a still larger fleet. They accordingly sailed away to the coast of Epirus; but finding that the Athenians did not mean to undertake offensive operations against them, they departed homewards with their whole fleet. These events took place in the ...
— A Smaller History of Greece • William Smith
... no scent offensive the chamber infest. Let fancy, not cost, prepare all our dishes. Let the caterer mind the taste of each guest, And the cook, in his ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley
... gain the latter's friendship afterwards by a generous use of victory. Innumerable instances could be cited in proof of this statement. It is related that "One day while showing goods to two or three women in Offutt's store, a bully came in and began to talk in an offensive manner, using much profanity and evidently wishing to provoke a quarrel. Lincoln leaned over the counter and begged him, as ladies were present, not to indulge in such talk. The bully retorted that the opportunity had come for which he had ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... I wish we had a few more of them. I like a well-conducted regiment, but these pasty-faced, shifty-eyed, mealy-mouthed young slouchers from the depot worry me sometimes with their offensive virtue. They don't seem to have backbone enough to do anything but play cards and prowl round the married quarters. I believe I'd forgive that old villain on the spot if he turned up with any sort of explanation that I could ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... The offensive arms certainly used by the Assyrians were the bow, the spear, the sword, the mace, the sling, the axe or hatchet, and the dagger. They may also have occasionally made use of the javelin, which is sometimes seen among the arrows of a quiver. But ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... for years, and the older it is they relish it all the more. They bake this in the form of little cakes, when the bread-fruit is out of season, and especially when there is a scarcity of taro. The odour of these cakes is offensive in the extreme to a European; but a Samoan turns from a bit of English cheese with far more disgust than we do ...
— Samoa, A Hundred Years Ago And Long Before • George Turner
... her few failures was trying to make beer out of bananas. The stuff, after being bottled, blew up with a great noise and a dissemination of the astonishingly offensive odour of the fermented fruit that seemed to spread for acres about. On the other hand, her attempt at making perfume from the moso'oi flower (said to be the real ylang-ylang) was a distinct success. She had to get permission ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez
... constrained by his ecclesiastics to execute them [b]. [MN 1195.] The emperor also made advances for Richard's friendship, and offered to give him a discharge of all the debt not yet paid to him provided he would enter into an offensive alliance against the King of France; a proposal which was very acceptable to Richard, and was greedily embraced by him. The treaty with the emperor took no effect; but it served to rekindle the war between ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... that smug, offensive smile appeared again. "You were trapped from the beginning, though you didn't know it," he said. "The plane you were following was equipped with batteries of the ray which, while not as powerful as the lamp I have here, were still powerful enough to hold you to the course we choose you to run. ...
— The Floating Island of Madness • Jason Kirby
... the Infinitely Little, with Madame du Chatelet, Voltaire witnessing with pain;—it was just as they quitted Cirey together, ten years ago, for these new courses of adventure. Do readers recall the circumstance? Maupertuis, referee in that quarrel, had, with a bluntness offensive to the female mind, declared Konig indisputably in the right; and there had followed a dryness between the divine Emilie and the Flattener of the Earth, scarcely to be healed by Voltaire's ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle
... exercise command over him. General Palmer was a man of ability, but was not enterprising. His three divisions were compact and strong, well commanded, admirable on the defensive but slow to move or to act on the offensive. His corps had sustained up to the time fewer hard knocks than any other corps in the whole army, and I was anxious to give it a chance. I always expected to have a desperate fight to get possession of the Macon Road, which was then the vital objective of the ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom
... possible, however, that we have to do instead with a realistic attempt to make her language match the essential vulgarity of her character. At any rate it is interesting to know that the scene was offensive to Schiller himself. He worked upon it with repugnance and was glad to be able to omit it entirely from the ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... haughty and insolent, such as was not becoming in a youth who, although the nephew of Augustus, was still taking his first steps in his political career; and it seems too that this conduct of his was especially offensive to Agrippa, who, next to Augustus, was the first person in ...
— The Women of the Caesars • Guglielmo Ferrero
... Olmos and Other Mexican Lore (Publication of the Texas Folklore Society XXIV), edited by Wilson M. Hudson, Southern Methodist University Press, Dallas, 1951. Don Pedrito was no more of a fraud than many an accredited psychiatrist, and he was the opposite of offensive. ...
— Guide to Life and Literature of the Southwest • J. Frank Dobie
... zigzag course of the ships of the convoy, and the speed with which we travel. But as a rule the accidents are of the scraping variety, and all thus is usually well. The convoy is purely a defensive measure. The patrol is the offensive; in this the destroyers and other craft go out and look for the U-boats, the idea being to hound them out ...
— Our Navy in the War • Lawrence Perry
... life in which food conditions are simple and stimuli mandatory. As we rise in the scale toward backboned and warm-blooded animals, the males become larger in size; and this reversal of relation, like the development of offensive and defensive weapons, is due to the superior variational tendency of the male, resulting in characters which persist in the species wherever they ...
— Sex and Society • William I. Thomas
... difference between you and Rabbi Balaam's burro, David: it could talk sense, and you can't," was the offensive rejoinder. ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... here he was without a torpedo on either of his ships, and no supplies nearer than Kiel. The Leger had carried two thousand torpedoes and five hundred cylinders of the gases which supplied the motive power. She was gone, and for all offensive purposes the Flying Fish and See Adler were as harmless as a ...
— The World Peril of 1910 • George Griffith
... or distress, and almost invariably becomes agreeable to the patient after a very few applications. We have no occasion to torture our patients in order to cure them. But the cases are comparatively rare where medicines are not offensive; commonly ...
— A Newly Discovered System of Electrical Medication • Daniel Clark
... noble savage holds forth to the utmost possible extent about himself; from which (to turn him to some civilised account) we may learn, I think, that as egotism is one of the most offensive and contemptible littlenesses a civilised man can exhibit, so it is really incompatible with the interchange of ideas; inasmuch as if we all talked about ourselves we should soon have no listeners, and must be all yelling and screeching at ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... which came out in the beginning of 1651. The Pro Populo Anglicano Defensio is now pleasanter reading for Milton's detractors than for those who honour his name. The unbridled insults which it heaps upon Charles I and still more upon Salmasius, for whom its least offensive titles are such as "blockhead," "liar" and "apostate," exceed even the wide limits of abuse customary in these days. Corruptio optimi pessima: such a man as Milton, if he once descends to the bandying of foul language, will beat the very bargemen ...
— Milton • John Bailey
... doubt that my state of mind had something to do with the change in the treatment adopted, by my once kind mistress toward me. I can easily believe, that my leaden, downcast, and discontented look, was very offensive to her. Poor lady! She did not know my trouble, and I dared not tell her. Could I have freely made her acquainted with the real state of my mind, and{126} given her the reasons therefor, it might have been well for both of us. Her abuse ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... the general opinion current both at home and abroad during the period immediately preceding the outbreak of the War; but it proved to be mistaken from the first. The Free Staters joined the Transvaalers and the allied forces assumed the offensive over a wide area without delay. Kimberley and Mafeking were threatened on the west, and on the east the Boers poured into Natal, upon which they had for sixty years looked with the aggrieved and greedy eyes of a dog from whom a bone, ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited
... rudeness towards the main body of men, who justly reverence the name of God, and detest such an abuse thereof; not only, further, an insolent defiance of the common profession, the religion, the law of our country, which disalloweth and condemneth it; but it is very odious and offensive to any particular society or company, at least wherein there is any sober person, any who retaineth a sense of goodness, or is anywise concerned for God's honour; for to any such person no language can be more disgustful. ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... a Protestant, second lieutenant Maurice Dieterlin, who was killed on the sixth of October, 1915, and who, on the eve of the Champagne offensive, wrote these last words they were to read from him, to ...
— Fighting France • Stephane Lauzanne
... puppy!" roared Mr. Hamblin, following him, and speaking loud enough for all the officers to hear his offensive remark. ...
— Dikes and Ditches - Young America in Holland and Belguim • Oliver Optic
... it was below, stuck his pick through the face of his drive into the wall of Dave's, about four feet from the end of it: the clay flaked away, leaving a hole as big as a wash-hand basin. They knocked off for the day and decided to let the other party take the offensive. ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson |
