"Contemptibly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... emoluments which naturally accrued from their position, than to endeavors to steady the helm of government for the good of their country. In order to save their pay, they studied economy, which caused them to make a beggarly appearance, and, in the eyes of the white men, they were often contemptibly mean. Greatly predominating in numbers, the Mexicans of course had no difficulty in ruling the country; and they naturally preferred their own countrymen in filling the law-making department of their government. The ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... hate, was this business of lugging a secret around! "I feel," he said to himself, "like a dog that's killed a hen, and had the carcass tied around his neck." His face twitched with disgust at his own simile. But as for Eleanor, he had been contemptibly mean to her, and, "By God!" he said to himself, "at least I'll play the game. I'll treat her as well as I can. Other fools have married jealous women, and put up with them. But, good Lord!" he thought, with honest perplexity, "can't the women ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... sawest the unfading crowns of the Saints in heaven, and with what great glory they now rejoice, who aforetime were reckoned by this world contemptibly and as it were unworthy of life, truly thou wouldst immediately humble thyself even to the earth, and wouldst desire rather to be in subjection to all, than to have authority over one; nor wouldst thou long for pleasant days of this life, but wouldst more rejoice to be afflicted ...
— The Imitation of Christ • Thomas a Kempis
... within their own limits, and enjoyed themselves unreservedly in consequence. Not so with the moderate incomes: they, in their social moments, shrank absurdly far from the poor people's porter and shrimps; crawled contemptibly near to the rich people's rare wines and luxurious dishes; exposed their poverty in imitation by chemical champagne from second-rate wine merchants, by flabby salads and fetid oyster-patties from second-rate pastry-cooks; ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... of distinction we have divided into classes, by which the reader may discern how various and numerous his compositions are—To have written so much upon so great a variety of subjects, and to have written nothing contemptibly, must indicate a genius much superior to the common standard.—His versification is almost every where beautiful; and tho' he has been ridiculed in the Treatise of the Bathos, published in Pope's works, for being too minute in his descriptions of the objects ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... weeks of secret plotting, the plans for unexpected meetings, the trumped-up business problems necessary to discuss, the deliberate flaunting of her physical charms before him, all of which had made his conquest extremely hard for Eileen, but Linda, seeing only results, had thought it contemptibly easy—she would not ask John Gilman anything. She would go ahead on the basis of her agreement with Eileen and do ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... unconcerned a way. 'How unutterably mean must my intelligence have appeared to the eye of a foreseeing God,' he frequently said in after-time. 'Columbus on the eve of his discovery of a world was not so contemptibly unaware.' ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... necessary, not only to Men of Study, but of Trade or publick employment, yet has been hitherto, not only unperformed, but almost unattempted among us. Bohun's Dictionary, the only one which has any pretension to regard, owes that pretension only to its bulk; for it is in all parts contemptibly defective and is therefore deservedly forgotten. In Collier's Dictionary, what Geography there is, can scarcely be found among the crowd of other subjects, and when it is found, is of no great importance. The books of Eachard ...
— Life of Johnson, Volume 6 (of 6) • James Boswell
... the power of the army and its leaders, and especially of that most famous leader, whom both in our conversation to-day, and in that discourse whereon I before touched, you have, in my poor opinion, far too roughly handled. Wherefore you speak contemptibly of his parts I know not; but I suspect that you are not free from the error common to studious and speculative men. Because Oliver was an ungraceful orator, and never said, either in public or private, anything memorable, you will have it that he was of a mean capacity. Sure this is unjust. Many ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... although, perchance, the sack of his own faults lie so behind his back, that he seeth not himself to dance in the same measure, whereto yet nothing can more open his eyes than to see his own actions contemptibly set forth; so that the right use of comedy will, I think, ...
— A Defence of Poesie and Poems • Philip Sidney
... best to you, Terry. And Adair—he was such a white man, so patient with her and so devoted to the kiddies. I can't see him in the role of a runaway. And what on earth would he gain by it that he hasn't got already? I don't want to think that what you've told me—— It makes all fidelity seem so contemptibly temporary." ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... shortest, I think, of all the stories in the one and forty volumes; the silliest as a composition; the most contemptibly thought—but by the accidents of fate endowed later with a tragic-satiric moralitas almost if not quite unrivalled in literature. Its author was a certain M. Selis, apparently a very respectable schoolmaster, professor, and bookmaker of not the lowest class—employments ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... not the Earth With various living creatures, and the Aire 370 Replenisht, and all these at thy command To come and play before thee, know'st thou not Thir language and thir wayes, they also know, And reason not contemptibly; with these Find pastime, and beare rule; thy Realm is large. So spake the Universal Lord, and seem'd So ordering. I with leave of speech implor'd, And humble deprecation thus repli'd. Let not my words offend thee, Heav'nly Power, My Maker, be propitious while I speak. 380 Hast thou not made me ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... of the Paradise Lost. It is not an arithmetical sublime like Klopstock's, whose rule always is to treat what we might think large as contemptibly small. Klopstock mistakes bigness for greatness. There is a greatness arising from images of effort and daring, and also from those of moral endurance; in Milton both are united. The fallen angels are human passions, ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... you gentlemen all, This fellow I have known of a long time, and have heard him speak things that ought not to be spoke; for he hath railed on our noble prince Beelzebub, and hath spoken contemptibly of his honourable friends, whose names are the Lord Old Man, the Lord Carnal Delight, the Lord Luxurious, the Lord Desire of Vain Glory, my old Lord Lechery, Sir Having Greedy, with all the rest of our nobility; and he hath said, moreover, That if all men were of his mind, if possible, there ...
— The Pilgrim's Progress - From this world to that which is to come. • John Bunyan
... skill, it is not worth so much as naming. The clerk was held to be a wondrous person in times when the "neck-verse" would save a man from the gallows; but "clerk" has far altered its meaning, and the modern being of that name is in sorrowful case. So contemptibly cheap are his poor services that he in person is not looked upon as a man, but rather as a lump of raw material which is at present on sale in a glutted market. All the walks of life wherein men proceed as though they belonged to the leisured class are becoming no fit places for self-respecting ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... stored away by the physiological inquisitor on dusty shelves, are mostly of as little present value to man as the knowledge of a new comet or of a tungstate of zirconium, perhaps to be confuted the next year, perhaps to remain a fixed truth of immediate value,— ... CONTEMPTIBLY SMALL COMPARED WITH THE PRICE PAID FOR ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell
... said bravely. "I know you care, dear Doggie. That's enough. I've just got to stick it like the rest." She withdrew her hand after a little squeeze. "Bless you. Don't worry about me. I'm contemptibly ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... thing, that he had certainly been deeply wounded at his first meeting with Petrusha, by the way he had embraced him. It was a deep and genuine grief; at least in his eyes and to his heart. He had another grief at the same time, that is the poignant consciousness of having acted contemptibly. He admitted this to me afterwards with perfect openness. And you know real genuine sorrow will sometimes make even a phenomenally frivolous, unstable man solid and stoical; for a short time at any rate; what's ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... her supremely insolent, "I must see what I can do," it became sinister and affected him like the sound of a second, more prolonged, more reverberating clash upon the gong. To submit was to show himself in Madame von Marwitz's eyes as contemptibly supine; to protest was to appear ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... energy she has!" he thought. "I never had anybody make me feel so contemptibly unlike a gentleman ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... chivalry came before all else. Again, how good he had been to her! And she had taken full advantage of his goodness. For the first time she wondered if she had been justified in so doing. She asked herself if she had behaved contemptibly. She had not been ready to make a full surrender, and he had not asked for it. But it seemed to her now that she had returned his gifts with a niggardliness which must have made her appear very small-minded. ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... Fortescue? Obviously, it was not because she thought he would disapprove of her breaking the social law. It was because she had fallen below her own standard, because she had been hypocritical with herself, played herself false, and acted contemptibly, hatefully! Professor Fortescue's mere presence had hunted out the truth from its hiding-place. He had made further self-sophistication impossible. She buried her face in her hands, in an agony of shame. She had known all along, that this had not been a profound and whole-hearted sentiment. She ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... number and the most characteristic among his sympathisers did not wish their names to be known. What does this signify? Do we still live on a planet on which we dare not express what we hold to be the truth—planet Terra so huge and yet so contemptibly small? Has mankind still only freedom of thought, but not freedom of utterance? The powers may blockade Greece; can they blockade thoughts on wings of words? It has been attempted, but force is no proof, and when we have ...
— The Silesian Horseherd - Questions of the Hour • Friedrich Max Mueller
... "Do you think the others would lie so contemptibly? Philip never lied to me. Judy would cut her tongue out first." Swish, swish, swish. "Going to a picnic, are you? You can picnic in your room till to-morrow's breakfast." Swish, swish, swish. "Pah—get ...
— Seven Little Australians • Ethel Sybil Turner |
