"Abase" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... terms with Squire Bull was concerned; so, with the view of making a last attack upon the Squire, and driving him into terms, he began to look about for assistance among those with whom he had previously been at loggerheads. It cost him some qualms before he could so far abase his stomach as to do so; but at last he ventured to address a long and pitiful letter to Hugh, in which he set forth all his disputes with John, and dwelt much on his scruples of conscience; begged him to forget old quarrels, and put down his name to a Round Robin, which ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... will quickly be scorched in the flame. Moreover, had the Roman kept quiet, even had he refrained from threats, it becomes our honour, of our own choice, to enter on this war, to avenge the wrongs of our fathers, and to abase his pride. The Romans' logic is that they are entitled to receive tribute at our hands, by reason that their fathers, in their day, took truage of our ancestors. If this be so, it was no free-will offering of our fathers, but was wrenched from them by force. So be it. By force ...
— Arthurian Chronicles: Roman de Brut • Wace
... Detraction, which on Earth never fails to persecute superior Virtue, has not scrupled to assert that the affliction, to which I allude, was the mere consequence of paternal austerity. The Earth itself, though frequently accused of being eager to receive ideas that may abase the eminent, could hardly admit a calumny so groundless and irrational. In this purer spot it is utterly needless to prove the innocence of an exalted being, to whom we are only solicitous to pay ...
— The Eulogies of Howard • William Hayley
... through life discernible. And with these marks on his back, this image of his Creator must rise at the Last Day. Yet so untouchable is true dignity, that there are cases wherein to be flogged at the gangway is no dishonour; though, to abase and hurl down the last pride of some sailor who has piqued him, be some-times the secret motive, with some malicious officer, in procuring him to be condemned to the lash. But this feeling of the innate dignity remaining untouched, though outwardly the body be scarred for the whole term of ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... the Abbaser.] But if ye abase your thing or matter by ignorance or errour in the choise of your word, then is it by vicious maner of speach called Tapinosis, whereof ye shall haue examples in the chapter of vices ...
— The Arte of English Poesie • George Puttenham
... bully tribe" of the Gold Coast Hinterland. Instead of finding the bully as willing to fight as Cuff was willing to face dear old Dobbin, B.-P. found a cowering, cringing enemy, willing to lick the dust and abase himself in any manner the ingenious white man might suggest. So it was with no feelings of elation that the man who had received the pink flimsy ordering him on active service, who had raised and organised the Native Levy, who had cut a road through ...
— The Story of Baden-Powell - 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps' • Harold Begbie
... want is to KNOW the Celt and his genius; not to exalt him or to abase him, but to know him. And for this a disinterested, positive, and constructive criticism is needed. Neither his friends nor his enemies have yet given us much of this. His friends have given us materials ...
— Celtic Literature • Matthew Arnold
... a sort of tense composure he found to his discomfort that woman-like she intended to abase herself thoroughly and completely. She implored his forgiveness for his long exile, gazing at him humbly, and when he said in a matter-of-fact tone that he had been happy, giving him a look which showed that she thought he was lying to save ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... Machiavelli no better example of his lucid scientific method than this passage. There is neither excuse nor hypocrisy. It is merely a matter of business calculation. Mankind is the raw material, the State is the finished work. Further you are to conciliate your neighbours who are weak and abase the strong, and you must not let the stranger within your gates. Above all look before as well as after and think not to leave it to time, godere li benefici del tempo, but, as did the Romans, strike and strike at once. For illustration ...
— Machiavelli, Volume I - The Art of War; and The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... way, and "breathing out vengeance" on the head of Eveline. He had entered her room so confident of triumphing, that the humiliation of defeat was tenfold greater than if he had doubted of success. And then the degradation to which he had been forced to abase himself! The very remembrance of it set his blood to boiling! He cursed himself for his cowardice; he cursed Eveline for her manifestation of courage and for everything else she had done. To be forced to kneel and beg his life of a woman! and that woman his own prisoner, ...
— Eveline Mandeville - The Horse Thief Rival • Alvin Addison
... divine knowledge,” he says, “what have men been able to do save to exalt themselves in the consciousness of their original greatness, or abase themselves in the view of their present weakness? Unable to see the whole truth, they have never attained to perfect virtue. One class considering nature as incorrupt, another as irreparable, they have been alternately the victims of pride or sensuality—the two sources of all vice. ...
— Pascal • John Tulloch
... He ought to abase himself before God, to be overwhelmed at His feet, to spread himself in a passion of gratitude; he knew and wished it! And without knowing how, he was exercising himself in seeking natural causes which might account for the substitution of a monk ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... Mrs. Brookenham's amiability that, with her sudden sense of the importance of this new light, she should be quite ready to abase herself. "There are so many things in one's life. One follows false scents. One doesn't make out everything at once. If you're right you must help me. We must see more ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... peevish and unsisterly jealousy. Under his lead the Bulgarians had covered themselves with glory, and had leaped at a bound from political youth to manhood. Why should he risk their new-found unity merely in order to abase Servia? The Prince never acted more prudently than when he decided not to bring into the field the Power which, as he believed, had pushed on Servia ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... where our innate knowledge leads us. If it be not true, there is no truth in man; and if it be true, he finds therein great cause for humiliation, being compelled to abase himself in one way or another. And since he cannot exist without this knowledge, I wish that, before entering on deeper researches into nature, he would consider her both seriously and at leisure, that he would reflect upon himself also, and knowing what proportion ...
— Pascal's Pensees • Blaise Pascal |
