"Baseness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... blame them. They showed that the crowded city life can bring out human nobleness as well as human baseness; that to be crushed into contact with their fellow-men, forced at least the loftier and tender souls to know their fellow-men, and therefore to care for them, to love them, to die for them. Yes—from one temptation the city life is free, to which the country life is ...
— Sanitary and Social Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... augment one's wealth, as do factory owners and manufacturers; or to profit by the poverty of men to increase one's gains, as merchants do. And everyone taken separately, especially if one's remarks are directed at someone else, not himself, will answer, No! And yet the very man who sees all the baseness of those actions, of his own free will, uncoerced by anyone, often even for no pecuniary profit, but only from childish vanity, for a china cross, a scrap of ribbon, a bit of fringe he is allowed to wear, will enter military ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy
... uncivilized nations, and the uncivilized customs which disgrace our own colonies, are become so familiar as to be permitted amongst us with impunity, we ourselves must insensibly degenerate to the same degree of baseness with those from whom such bad customs were derived; and may, too soon, have the mortification to see the hateful extremes of tyranny and slavery fostered ...
— Some Historical Account of Guinea, Its Situation, Produce, and the General Disposition of Its Inhabitants • Anthony Benezet
... good name is, after the grace of God, mans most precious possession; wealth is mere trash compared with it. You may find people who think otherwise, but the universal sentiment of mankind stigmatizes such baseness and buries it under the weight of its opprobrium. Nor is it impossible that honor be paid where a good character no longer exists; but this is accidental. In the nature of things, reputation is the basis of all honor; if ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... been cruel, Countess, but the cruelest were those in which you attribute the highest motive of my life to the baseness of hypocrisy. I have done many wrongs, broken many oaths, sinned many sins—in the interests of my country—the service of which has been the only aim of my existence. I have been entrusted by the Emperor himself with missions ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
|
