"Demoralizing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the short lane that ended at the gate of Holly Court, and joyous and chattering men and women to come in to tea. Nancy loved this, and to see a group of men standing about his blazing logs filled Bert's heart with pride. It was rather demoralizing in a domestic sense, dinner was delayed, and their bedtime consequently delayed, and Dora, the cook was disgruntled at seven o'clock, when it was still impossible to set the dinner table. But Nancy, rather than disturb her guests, got a second servant, an enormous Irishwoman named Agnes, ...
— Undertow • Kathleen Norris
... University, he was all that my fond heart desired, all that his sainted mother could have hoped, and no young gentleman on the wide Continent gave fairer promise of future usefulness and distinction; but one year of demoralizing association with dissipated and reckless youths undermined the fair moral and intellectual structure I had so laboriously raised, and in an unlucky hour he fell a victim to alluring vices. Intemperance gradually gained such supremacy that he was threatened with expulsion, and to crown all other ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... be it remembered between 11,000 and 12,000 girls and women,—two thirds of them lack the use of a sitting-room and must entertain men as well as women in their bedrooms. Not a few indications were seen in the course of the investigation of the demoralizing results of this practice. Many of the young women in lodgings were young and were friendless and were earning very low pay. Eighteen per cent of those who were reported without the use of a sitting-room were under twenty-five. The housing or food, ...
— The Social Emergency - Studies in Sex Hygiene and Morals • Various
... the matter with her, but, not finding the scripture he was looking for, she exclaimed with bitter and vixenish speech, "Ah! You can't find it! You can't find it! It isn't there! I told you so!" And thus this couple were fast demoralizing the church, Billy Greenwell, the richest man in the church, being wholly carried away with this fanaticism. John Brown lived half way between Ripley and Rushville, but was a member of the church at Rushville. Bro. Brown ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler
... could have things all his own way than when his enterprise and industry were shackled by the impertinent and selfish interposition of the interests of others. In conclusion there was an eloquent description of the demoralizing consequences of smuggling, and a pungent attack on the tendencies of taxation in general. I have written and said some good things in my time, as several of my dependents have sworn to me in a way that ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... to the point of things, Philadelphia had what some of the fans called "one of them afternoons." There is no use trying to describe all the details of this so-called contest, for it is demoralizing to the young to see such things in print. Many criminals have confessed on the scaffold that they got their start watching the Athletics assault some honest young pitcher who was trying to support his aged mother. They say that, if the Macks can get away with ...
— Practical English Composition: Book II. - For the Second Year of the High School • Edwin L. Miller
... are thus narrowed in the base contests of selfishness, jealousy, and fraud; but of all the demoralizing influences that darken the mind by closing up permanently its most important inlets, none have had such a wide-spread and far-reaching power for evil as the false theology which demands the absolute surrender of reason ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, January 1888 - Volume 1, Number 12 • Various
... existence which is worse than slavery itself. It is not uncommon to see girls at the tender age of thirteen or fourteen—mere children—hardened courtesans, lost to all sense of shame and decency. They are reared in ignorance, surrounded by demoralizing influences, cut off from the blessings of church and Sabbath school, see nothing but licentiousness, intemperance and crime. These young girls are lost forever. They are beyond the reach of the moralist or preacher and have no ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... let us not be deceived by that vain apology for war, that it is necessary to keep alive the heroic spirit and to stimulate manly courage. Despite the noble side in war, its bestial side predominates; its larger effect upon men is demoralizing. And if it be glorious to die for a cause, how much nobler to live and strive for an ideal, utilizing the talents that God gave us for its realization! The movement for peace is not one of weaklings and mollycoddles. It is championed by red-blooded ...
— Prize Orations of the Intercollegiate Peace Association • Intercollegiate Peace Association
... payment for the most common public services, and of wholesale public gratuities, Pericles had introduced or encouraged practices that had the same demoralizing effects upon the Athenians that the free distribution of grain at Rome had upon the Roman populace. These pernicious customs cast discredit upon labor, destroyed frugality, and fostered idleness, thus sapping the virtues and ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... again, with its anniversaries and its dragging, interminable weeks: demoralizing summer, when Mrs. Mayo quite frankly appeared at her side window in a dressing sacque, and Honora longed to do the same. But time never stands absolutely still, and the day arrived when Mr. Beckwith called in a carriage. Honora, with an ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... you would like to see them look at a fly, I'll put it over them," she said, good-naturedly, "but, you know, it is most demoralizing." ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... make objectors remember that priests have mothers and sisters and relations whom they love; and priests would be the first to prevent these beloved ones from the demoralizing influences which enemies ignorantly attribute to ...
— Confession and Absolution • Thomas John Capel
... from a Southern plantation, he at once takes a name as the first step in liberty—the first assertion of individual identity. A woman's dignity is equally involved in a life-long name, to mark her individuality. We can not overestimate the demoralizing effect on woman herself, to say nothing of society at large, for her to consent thus to merge her existence so wholly ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... masses are of a very different class. They are the wild legends of the Puranas, and inane dialogues and lying incantations of the Tantras—two classes of works which are both the most popular and are lowest in the range of their ideas and most demoralizing in the cults ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones
... the restraints imposed by a committee of incompetents; besides, the minister who was chairman of the Board, considered a Unitarian to be an infidel, demoralizing the religious life of the young. I grew tired of his malicious peccadillos, and accepted a "louder" call from that quaint town where the historic Lloyd Ireson "with his hord horrt was torrd and futhered und Korrid in a Kort by the ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... therefore, explicable enough, and perhaps ineradicable under the circumstances. It was, nevertheless, very demoralizing, for it spread downward and infected the whole body of the clergy. A bishop who had made a large outlay in obtaining his office naturally expected something from the priests, whom it was his duty to appoint. The priest in turn was tempted ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... be! All that horrible publicity. All that concentrating of crude popular interest on themselves! Believe me, nobody who watches a public career carefully but sees the demoralizing effect the limelight has even on men's characters. And I suppose you'll admit that men are less delicately organized ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... friends of human freedom made reasonable allowance for a man brought up under such demoralizing influences as Thomas Hughes had been, they of course felt less confidence in him, than they would have done had he sought to obtain liberty by some more commendable process. Being aware of this, he returned to his master, ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... public morals. Mr. Freeman adduced the instance of a father having a right to disinherit one son and prefer the other. This is not a parallel case. The parallel would be a rich man leaving his fortune to found an Institution of demoralizing tendency—say to teach you the art of cheating! The laws would annul such a bequest. Society has an original, inherent right to defend itself from all evil—and that gaming is an evil, whether played with cards, lotteries, dice, stocks, or ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green
... are apprised of our plan and are able to concentrate more artillery than our guns can silence, the losses will be demoralizing," he observed. ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... support poor relatives at home, who would otherwise starve. This shows some of their heathen virtues. A good deal of the objection to them seems to be on the ground of their being Pagans; some of the speakers saying that it is "so very demoralizing to our Christian youth," that they should be here,—quite overlooking a very large class of the population who are worse than Pagans, and ...
— Life at Puget Sound: With Sketches of Travel in Washington Territory, British Columbia, Oregon and California • Caroline C. Leighton
... quarters. That episode had started many a tongue, and one of Button's henchmen, thinking to win favor at the fountain-head by mention of new iniquity on the part of the culprit, had deftly enlarged upon it. Snaffle, of course, was the fellow at fault, and he justified it on the plea that Lanier was demoralizing two men of his troop. The story he told was that Lanier had been carousing at his quarters with certain enlisted members of the guard. When told of it Button was furious, so much so that for the time he forgot ...
— Lanier of the Cavalry - or, A Week's Arrest • Charles King
... persons the more effectually to abuse the military profession, and to mislead their deluded followers, by clamouring about the expense of the army, and the aristocratic bearing of its members, that they may the more readily carry out their own schemes of personal vanity and demoralizing political economy. ...
— Campaign of the Indus • T.W.E. Holdsworth
... all mankind, A new era seemed to dawn upon the world, marked by a desire to cultivate the arts, sciences, and literature; to develop industries, and improve social conditions. War was seen to be barbaric, demoralizing, and exhausting. Peace was hailed with an enthusiasm scarcely less than that which for twenty years had created military heroes. The Holy Alliance was not hypocritical. Although a political compact made under a religious pretext, it was formed by ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord
... reduced their fighting effectives, the Kaiser and his war lords were determined to risk all in one mighty effort—an effort which should break through the French line at Verdun, thus bringing kudos to the armies of Prussia, and at the same time demoralizing the French soldiers. Who knows? They may have hoped to dash through the gap thus formed, and once more advance on Paris. In any case, they were well aware of the phenomenal rise in power of the British forces. Five million ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... of the plan; but when he had nearly reached Monmouth, he found, to his amazement, that Lee had gone there, but had done no fighting at all, and was now actually retreating, and coming in his direction. As it would be demoralizing in the highest degree to his own command, if Lee's armed forces in full retreat should come upon them, Washington hurried forward to prevent anything of the sort, and soon met Lee. When the latter was asked what was the meaning ...
— Stories of New Jersey • Frank Richard Stockton
... protagonist. One then, witnesses what might almost be described as an application of the process of capping the line or "crossing the 'T.'" This tends to throw the slower squadron into confusion by bending it back upon itself, meanwhile exposing it to a demoralizing fire. ...
— Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War • Frederick A. Talbot
... under the protectorate of Cromwell. He was now called to witness the effects of open and avowed wickedness among governors and nobles, by which the fountains of iniquity were opened up, and a flood of immorality let loose upon all classes; demoralizing the nation, and distressing the church. It must have been difficult to form any thing like an accurate estimate of the number of those who abandoned their Christian profession. The immoral conduct of one bad man is more conspicuous than the unobtrusive holiness of ninety-nine good ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... right. They had a generally demoralizing effect on our household. I was growing irritable, Silvia careworn. Even Huldah showed their influence by acquiring the very latest in slang from them. Once in a while to my amusement I heard Silvia unconsciously adopting the ...
— Our Next-Door Neighbors • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... some time in this country, writes, after his return, to an American friend, and thus cheerfully records his impressions. "The frightful effects produced by an unrestrained democracy," he says, "the demoralizing effects produced by universal suffrage never appeared to me so odious as they do now by contrast with the good breeding, the order and mutual support which all give to each other in this country, from the highest to the lowest." This letter ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... of a bookseller is very demoralizing to the intellect," he went on after a pause. "He is surrounded by innumerable books; he cannot possibly read them all; he dips into one and picks up a scrap from another. His mind gradually fills itself with miscellaneous flotsam, with superficial opinions, with a thousand half-knowledges. ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley
... John, simply by being a loving, indulgent husband, had come into the position, in some measure, of demoralizing the public conscience, of bringing in luxury and extravagance, and countenancing people who really ought not to be countenanced. He had a sort of uneasy perception of this fact; yet, at each particular step, he seemed to himself to be doing no more than ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... manoeuvring and fighting the commanding general had shown some capacity, but very much less than was indispensable in a commander who had to meet the generals of the South. Forthwith, also, there broke out a series of demoralizing quarrels among the principal officers as to what orders had been given and received, and whether or not they had been understood or misunderstood, obeyed or disobeyed. Also the enemies of General McClellan tried to lay upon him the whole responsibility for the disaster, on the ground ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II • John T. Morse
... imagination can destroy, but only, if at all, some concrete opportunity and temptation. Hence men can lead a manifold life, partly in the imagination and partly in action, without any corruption of heart or paralysis of will. In real conduct, to lead a double life is demoralizing because there choices are exclusive and each of the two lives tends to interfere with and spoil the other; but imagination does not conflict with reality, for they have no point of contact and do not belong to ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker
... of boarding can be the same as house-keeping," said March. "I want my little girl to have the run of a kitchen, and I want the whole family to have the moral effect of housekeeping. It's demoralizing to board, in every way; it isn't a home, if anybody else takes the care ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... of mere physical torture, in gladiatorial combats, or in the bloody precincts of plaza de toros, as grossly demoralizing as the loathsome minutiae of heinous crimes upon which legal orators dilate; and which Argus reporters, with magnifying lenses at every eye, reproduce for countless newspapers, that serve as wings for transporting moral dynamite to hearthstones and nurseries ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... an unfortunate fact that very few people are able to be idle successfully. I think it is not so much because we misuse idleness as because we misinterpret it that the long days become increasingly demoralizing. I would ask no one to accept a forced idleness without objection or regret. Such an acceptance would imply a lack of spirit, to say the least. But idleness and rest are not incompatible; neither are idleness and service, nor idleness and contentment. ...
— The Untroubled Mind • Herbert J. Hall
... I have drawn of other parts of France, I am reluctantly obliged to draw a very different picture of society here. The army and the celibate clergy, the soldier and the priest—such are the demoralizing elements that undermine domestic morality and family life in garrison, priest-ridden towns like this. Drink and debauchery fill the prisons, and the taint of immorality is not limited to one class ...
— Holidays in Eastern France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... That was not demoralizing to the Afghans, who have not European nerves. They were waiting for the mad riot to die down, and were firing quietly into the heart of the smoke. A private of the Fore and Aft spun up his company shrieking with agony, another was kicking ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... occurred to me that being a soldier, and belonging for the time being to Uncle Sam, I was a species of government property, which it was my duty to protect at all hazards. That settled the question, and conscience and honesty withdrew. Without going into the demoralizing details, suffice it to say that I stole a blanket from some hapless victim belonging to another company, and thus safeguarded the health and military efficiency of a chattel of the Nation. How the other fellow got along, I don't know. I made no impertinent inquiries, and, during the day time, ...
— The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 • Leander Stillwell
... admit that, owing to the demoralizing influence of Edward VII., they are in a state of religious, social and economic decadence, but their illusion as to the incomparable superiority of England prevents them from tracing the evil to its true source, and as some one must be to blame for it, the fault must of ...
— Gems (?) of German Thought • Various
... Quite the contrary. If good music has all those wonderful powers which have been ascribed to it from time immemorial, it follows necessarily that bad music must exert equal powers in an opposite direction. In fact, bad music is even a more demoralizing agent than, for instance, a miserable newspaper. The latter is once hastily read through and then thrown away, while a poor musical composition is apt to be preserved in the parlor—perhaps, neatly bound ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... contemptuous pelting of your back with icicles, to making your weary eyes water as if in grief, and your worn-out carcass quake pitifully. But each mood of the great autocrat has its own greatness, and each is hard to bear. Only the north-west phase of that mighty display is not demoralizing to the same extent, because between the hail and sleet squalls of a north-westerly gale one can ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad
... while he was learning his trade, and though he lived under demoralizing influences, he never lapsed into bad habits. What he said of himself one day was strictly true, and it was one of the most material ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... my way to San Francisco," he said. "But time is no object in my young life right now, or I'd take the Interurban instead of walking. It would be demoralizing to me, I'm afraid, to whiz down these roads in ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... Notwithstanding this, the Intendant, Bigot, shipped off large quantities of wheat to the West Indies, on his own account. The Marquis de Vaudreuil de Cavagnac sanctioned the avaricious exactions and dealings of Bigot. Practices the most dishonest and demoralizing were winked at or excused. The Governors positively enriched themselves on the miseries of the governed. A high standard value was given to grain in store. It was studiously reported that the farmers ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... on the 12th of May, 1789, in a speech of three hours and a half, he held the attention of the House, while he unfolded the African Slave-Trade in its several points of view,—its nature, being founded in injustice, its cruelties, the terrible mortality of the slave-ship, the demoralizing influence of the trade upon British sailors, and the astonishing waste of life among them, as well ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... must develop her own soul: she cannot borrow another. A dear friend whose life has been devoted to philology once said to me while commenting upon the deterioration of manners among the students of Japan: "Why, the English language itself has been a demoralizing influence!" There was much depth in that observation. Setting the whole Japanese nation to study English (the language of a people who are being forever preached to about their "rights," and never about their "duties") was almost an imprudence. ...
— Kokoro - Japanese Inner Life Hints • Lafcadio Hearn
... and loving human father would teach, or permit, his son to become a criminal, claiming that he needed such discipline to fit him for future happiness; or, any more than you, a teacher, would put demoralizing literature into the hands of a student as a method of discipline for ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... country is ringing with the cry of political bribery, boodle and official corruption, from the highest to the lowest. The rum traffic is the principal factor in demoralizing and destroying the dignity, honor and integrity of civic life. It is the insidious foe that is hatching and nursing crime. Startling complication of statistics, obtained from the replies of over 1,000 prison governors ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation
... preceding chapter was brought into play in the first great independent movement of American troops, which was to give the Germans a warning of what they were to expect from the army from across the seas, of which they had so sneeringly spoken. The drive opened with a demoralizing barrage, the greatest of the kind that, up to that time, had ever been laid down by artillery. It greatly exceeded in the number of guns brought into action and in amount of ammunition used, any barrage that either the Germans or the Allies had, prior to that time, attempted. It was like letting ...
— In the Flash Ranging Service - Observations of an American Soldier During His Service - With the A.E.F. in France • Edward Alva Trueblood
... no other legal restraint; the public judgment will correct false reasoning and opinions on a full hearing of all parties; and no other definite line can be drawn between the inestimable liberty of the press and its demoralizing licentiousness. If there be still improprieties which this rule would not restrain, its supplement must be sought in the censorship of ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various
... said, drawing back his head, and with flashing eyes, "I shall never lend myself to so demoralizing a practice. We must get these people out ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... is this demoralizing mode of amusement to our country! Degrading to the greatest degree, it is nevertheless pursued with avidity by all classes of people; and large bets are often depending on these brutal exercises. Gentlemen, noblemen, and even ladies, ...
— The Gipsies' Advocate - or, Observations on the Origin, Character, Manners, and Habits of - The English Gipsies • James Crabb
... box, it must be carefully guarded against the control of those who are corrupt in principle and enemies of free institutions, for it can only become to our political and social system a safe conductor of healthy popular sentiment when kept free from demoralizing influences. Controlled through fraud and usurpation by the designing, anarchy and despotism must inevitably follow. In the hands of the patriotic and worthy our Government will be preserved upon the principles of the Constitution inherited from our fathers. It follows, ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Andrew Johnson • Andrew Johnson
... 1834. These two, with an old portrait of the great Eclipse, who, as my engraving of 1780 (Stubbs's) says, "was never beat, or ever had occation for Whip or Spur," will constitute my entire sporting gallery. I have not that vicious and demoralizing love of horse-flesh which makes it next to impossible to find a perfectly honest hippophile. But a racer is the realization ...
— Our Hundred Days in Europe • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... are ardent for social reform, the one actively, the other passively engaged in it. Both also regard the law as to homosexuality as absurd and demoralizing. They also think that the law prohibiting polygamy is largely the cause of prostitution, as many women are prevented from living honest lives and being cared for by someone, and many men could marry one woman for physical satisfaction and ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... Captain Pike was demoralizing to the youthful mind. He didn't mention you. And Cap certainly did go ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan
... school or in the state, are always dangerous and demoralizing; but while we unequivocally condemn the tyrant in our story, we cannot always approve the conduct of his pupils. One evil gives birth to another; but even a righteous end cannot justify immoral means, and we beg to remind our young and enthusiastic readers that Ernest Thornton and his friends ...
— Breaking Away - or The Fortunes of a Student • Oliver Optic
... word of the demoralizing effects of dugouts: Often it takes a conscious effort to leave its safety or to stay away from it for the dangers of level ground, and this is what all officers must learn; for men can have no confidence in one who, ordering them out, stays underground himself. I am learning, ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... endurance and fortitude, were among the first to loose confidence, and give vent to feelings of discontent at the duties imposed on them. The evil seed, once sprung up, became more and more difficult to eradicate, showing daily more and more how completely demoralizing to the British soldier is the very idea of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... of every dollar that you have in your pay envelope, or in the bank, or included in your insurance policy or your pension, would be reduced to about eighty cents worth. I need not tell you that this would have a demoralizing effect on our people, soldiers and ...
— The Fireside Chats of Franklin Delano Roosevelt • Franklin Delano Roosevelt
... answered Mrs. Dredge, with great solemnity, "the education of the present day is to the heart hardening, and to the mind demoralizing. No, no; none of it for me. Miss Slowcum, now! Miss Jasmine, between you and me ...
— The Palace Beautiful - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... sooner forego their Abolitionism than their party.... Now, these are not the views of here and there a straggling Abolitionist, but of seven-tenths of all the voting Abolitionists of the State.... They are entirely unconscious of the demoralizing influence of their course. They need light, warning, entreaty, and rebuke." Besides this demoralization of the Abolitionists, as described by Collins, the parent society at New York fell into bad financial straits. It was absolutely ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... MacFarlane had perfected his plans. The town was to be avoided as too demoralizing a shelter for the men, and barracks were to be erected in which to house them. Locations of the principal derricks were selected and staked, as well as the sites for the entrance to the shaft, for the machine and blacksmith's shops and for a storage shanty for tools: the Maryland Mining Company's ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... much; besides, we get to be such slaves to it that we'd gladly hurt our bodies for the sake of it. It's the most demoralizing, hard-to-break habit on earth. But glory to God! I'm saved and sanctified now, and I'll tell ...
— Fifteen Years With The Outcast • Mrs. Florence (Mother) Roberts
... Among the whisperers it was related how the Emperor—who with the greatest difficulty had been prevailed on to leave Carignan the night before about eleven o'clock—when entreated to push on to Mezieres had refused point-blank to abandon the post of danger and take a step that would prove so demoralizing to the troops. Others asserted that he was no longer in the city, that he had fled, leaving behind him a dummy emperor, one of his officers dressed in his uniform, a man whose startling resemblance to his ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... college means to remove the necessary causes of disturbance and disorder. If young Sardanapalus, by his extravagance and riotous profusion and dissipation, constantly thwarts the essential purpose of the college, demoralizing the students and obstructing the peaceful course of its instruction, he ought to be dismissed. The college must judge the conditions under which its work may be most properly and efficiently accomplished, and to achieve ...
— Ars Recte Vivende - Being Essays Contributed to "The Easy Chair" • George William Curtis
... the nature of these gatherings, he did not hesitate to declare their dissipating and demoralizing tendency. He also stated the attitude of the institution in regard to them by giving utterance to the following sentiment: "Whilst everything at the academy is available for the betterment of the colored ...
— The Choctaw Freedmen - and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy • Robert Elliott Flickinger
... eighth or a sixteenth. There are ticket-brokers who accommodate the poorer classes with interests to the amount of ten cents, and so on. Thus, for them, the lottery replaces the savings-bank, with entire uncertainty of any return, and the demoralizing process of expectation thrown into the bargain. The negroes invest a good deal of money in this way, and we heard in Matanzas a curious anecdote on this head. A number of negroes, putting their means together, had commissioned a ticket-broker to purchase and hold for them a certain ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... instead of better, and the town was split up into parties—Liberal or the reverse, Church or Dissent, but all of one mind as regards their views being correct; and as to the weakness or wickedness of persons who thought otherwise. The evil of this spirit knew no bounds, and the demoralizing effect it produced was especially apparent at election times. When Oldfield wrote his 'Origin of Parliaments,' the town, he tells us, was under the influence of the Earl of Leicester, and was for many years ...
— East Anglia - Personal Recollections and Historical Associations • J. Ewing Ritchie
... by "landless men." And fifthly, when an excitable, uneducated people realize that lawlessness and outrages will be rewarded by an Act remitting debts and breaking contracts, they are not likely in future to limit their operations to land, but will apply the same maxims to other contracts. The demoralizing of character is a fact to ...
— Is Ulster Right? • Anonymous
... men, fate may reserve the possession of the fertile and well-watered Central Hungarian plain. There they may thrive in modesty and rue at their leisure the folly of having sacrificed their chance of national greatness to the vain pursuit of the "Magyar State Idea" under the demoralizing ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... fact, a good bit of it, and Tom sat back in his chair and listened, outwardly respectful, inwardly hot-hearted and contemptuous. Was this smooth-spoken, oracular prince of the market-place a predetermined hypocrite, shaping his words to fit the money-gathering end without regard to their demoralizing effect? Or was he only a subconscious Pharisee, self-deceived and complacent? Tom's thought ran lightning-like over the long list of the Vancourt Hennikers: men of the business world successful to the Croesus mark, large and liberal benefactors, ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... irreclaimable, obdurate, reprobate, past praying for; culpable, reprehensible &c (guilty) 947. unjustifiable; indefensible, inexcusable; inexpiable, unpardonable, irremissible^. weak, frail, lax, infirm, imperfect; indiscrete; demoralizing, degrading. Adv. wrong; sinfully &c adj.; without excuse. Int. O tempora!^, O mores!, Phr. alitur vitium vivitque tegendo [Vergil]; genus est mortis male vivere [Lat.] [Ovid]; mala mens malus animus [Lat.] [Terence]; nemo repente fuit turpissimus [Lat.]; the trail of the serpent is over them ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... rest when we ought to be at work is weakening and demoralizing. Rest and play after work is bracing and invigorating. The sooner we face and conquer a difficulty, the less of a difficulty it is. The longer we put it off the greater it seems, and the less becomes our strength with ...
— Practical Ethics • William DeWitt Hyde
... superiority in order to advance within the shorter ranges, and the impossibility of accomplishing this at ineffective ranges, make it imperative that fire be not opened as long as the advance can be continued without demoralizing losses. The attack which halts to open fire at extreme range (over 1,200 yards) is not likely ever to reach its destination. Every effort should be made, by using cover or inconspicuous formations, or by advancing the firing line as a whole, to arrive within ...
— Infantry Drill Regulations, United States Army, 1911 - Corrected to April 15, 1917 (Changes Nos. 1 to 19) • United States War Department
... saved, and to the Federal forces the occupation of Corinth proved as demoralizing as a defeat. The result showed that John Morgan was right when he said that the hope of the South rested, not on the occupancy of any single place, but on ...
— Raiding with Morgan • Byron A. Dunn
... had a most decided influence on the development of Grecian thought and enterprise. The exhibition of sculpture and painting alone made them attractive and intellectual, while the athletic exercises amused ordinary minds. They were not demoralizing, like the sports of the amphitheatre, or a modern bull-fight, or even fashionable races. They were more like tournaments in the martial ages of Europe, but superior to them vastly, since no woman was allowed to be present at the Olympic ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... to announce that an example ought to be instituted! That coward Simmel is demoralizing the whole company. At each shrapnel he yells out, 'Jesus, my Savior,' and flings himself to the ground. He is frightening the rest of the men. He ought to be made ...
— Men in War • Andreas Latzko
... democratic nonsense. He claims that the commission is autocratic, down to its last deputy. Denies that we have the right to apportion one-half the earnings to the workers and the other half to the owners. States that our system is wasteful, unjust, and demoralizing." ...
— The Devolutionist and The Emancipatrix • Homer Eon Flint
... bucolic idyll of Daphnis and Chloe, we can no longer have any doubt on the point. It is not nudity, it is not the natural description of sexual life, but the obscene intention of the artist, his improper and often venal object, which has a demoralizing effect. ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... which seemed to make it imply that more than the sofa was unchanged, she held out a cup into which she had forgotten to pour any tea. Being told of her forgetfulness, she frowned with annoyance, and said that Cassandra was demoralizing her. The glance she cast upon them, and the resolute way in which she plunged them into speech, made William and Cassandra feel like children who had been caught prying. They followed her obediently, making ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... America," said Phil. "We talk about the immorality of older countries. Did you ever notice that no class of men are so apt to take to drinking as highly cultivated Americans? It is a very demoralizing position, when one's tastes outgrow one's surroundings. Positively, I think a man is more excusable for coveting his neighbor's wife in America than in Europe, because there is so little else ...
— Malbone - An Oldport Romance • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... it is hard to imagine. It would at once have enormous social consequences. No woman would remain a celibate except by her own choice. Men would have to behave themselves in order to win wives, and would cease to occupy the demoralizing position of being able to get wives whenever they want them. It would in fact mean a new world in ...
— Men, Women, and God • A. Herbert Gray
... be tabooed from this moment. You must not say, 'How tired you look!' or 'How pale you are!' It is not manners at the Friary, and it is demoralizing. I am ten times more tired this minute than I was before you ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... the other party contemplated the destruction of the Constitution is very probable; but the worst that they, its enemies, could have done against it would have been a trifle in comparison with the demoralizing consequences of the violation of that instrument by its friends. Yet the Presidency of Guerrero will ever have honorable mention in history, for one most excellent reason: Slavery was abolished by him on the anniversary of Mexican independence, 1829, he deeming it proper ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... of the clergy. They were ignorant, debauched, and ambitious. The monks were exceedingly numerous; had ceased to be men of prayer and contemplation, as in the days of Benedict and Bernard; and might be seen frequenting places of demoralizing excitement, devoted to pleasure, and ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... system of management, as I have described it, you will see that there is no reward for, or incentive to, excellence; it is all debauching and demoralizing; it is a disgrace to the Government, which consents to maintain at the public cost what is, in fact, nothing else but a pauper shop ...
— Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands • Charles Nordhoff
... preliminary "bakhshish," to show or even to tell where certain ruins, concerning which they spoke or romanced, are found in their hills. And yet there are theologians who would raise Poverty, the most demoralizing of all conditions, to the rank of ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... plated ware, baking powder by glassware, boots and shoes by giving dolls and sleds, ready-made clothing by a prize of a Waterbury watch, and soap by giving jewelry. Nowadays a dealer don't ask you about the quality of your goods, but about the scheme you've got to sell them. It's a demoralizing way of doing business, ...
— A Man of Samples • Wm. H. Maher
... manners, and of very great moral and national corruption; and its extraordinary success must be partly explained by the prevalence of a sort of intellectual and moral disease which had overpowered the spirits of men after the fall of the ancient civilization and under the demoralizing influence of the gradual collapse of the great Roman empire. But even at that time those who stood intellectually high and looked deeply into things recognized the whole danger of this new turn ...
— Men, Women, and Gods - And Other Lectures • Helen H. Gardener
... England and America have caught the epidemic. But pantheism, sir, will not live, though here and at Oxford the students are reading Hegel, Strauss, Bruno-Bauer, and Feuerbach. At Oxford,' he added, 'these pernicious doctrines are demoralizing the university. Blanco White and John Sterling were but the pioneers of a large party of university men, who are preparing to avow their disbelief in Christianity.' The Doctor was right. Francis Newman, brother of the Puseyite Newman, who seceded to ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... sometimes found doing the work of the devil. Gift concerts, gift enterprises and raffles, sometimes in aid of religious or charitable objects, but often for less worthy purposes, lotteries, prize packages, etc., are all devices to obtain money without value received. Nothing is so demoralizing or intoxicating, particularly to the young, as the acquisition of money or property without labor. Respectable people engaging in these chance enterprises, and easing their consciences with the reflection that ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... amusement and profit by some exercises in elocution. Mr. G—— and myself have been trying to read Shakespeare a little; but some gentlemen here have had some qualms of conscience as to the propriety of it, and have condemned the reading of Shakespeare as demoralizing. What ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... been innocent" (p. 6 [note the suspicion of Swift's political and religious bias]), the author is mildly pleased with the first three voyages. But he finds intolerable the satire on human nature in the last, here echoing Addison's criticism of the demoralizing effect of a satire on mankind (Spectator 249, 5 ...
— A Letter From a Clergyman to his Friend, - with an Account of the Travels of Captain Lemuel Gulliver • Anonymous
... three religions in these parts, but one political belief only,' added our host. 'Everybody in the department of Lozere is a stanch Republican,' and a conclusion, novel to many minds, may be drawn from this fact also. The Republic is not the demoralizing force some would have it believed. An entire department may show a clean bill of moral health when the assizes come round, and yet be ardently devoted to a democratic ...
— The Roof of France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... though of slight importance as regards acquisitions—for we took only one cannon, a few rifles, and a few prisoners—had an immeasurable moral result in encouraging the population and demoralizing the hostile army. The handful of filibusters, without gold lace or epaulettes, who were spoken of with such solemn contempt, had routed several thousand of the Bourbon's best troops, artillery and all, commanded by one of those generals who, like Lucullus, are ready to spend the revenue ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... merely giving effect to Gilbert's Act of 1782, which legalized the supplementing of the wages of able-bodied men from the rates, and the decision was nicknamed the 'Speenhamland Act' because it was so generally followed. However well meant, the effect was most demoralizing and the English labourer, already too prone to look to the State for help, was induced to depend less on his own exertions. The real remedy would have been a substantial increase of his scanty wages. As it ...
— A Short History of English Agriculture • W. H. R. Curtler
... the wandering tribes of Asia and Africa. Therefore it is necessary—economic science and morality absolutely command it—for us to solve the problem of division: now, where are the economists? More than thirty years ago, Lemontey, developing a remark of Smith, exposed the demoralizing and homicidal influence of the division of labor. What has been the reply; what investigations have been made; what remedies proposed; has the question ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... treatment; and thus a new market was opened for the negro slaves captured by the Portuguese. They were accordingly introduced as early as 1503. Those who bought and those who sold were alike prepared to trample on the rights of their fellow-beings, by that most demoralizing of all influences, the ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child
... of family alliances and ungodly bargains; or, in other words, to turn her into a mass of bribes—a base appendage to the authority of the British minister, who used her as the successful medium of at once enslaving and demoralizing the country, instead of elevating and civilizing it. It is for this great neglect of national duty, and for permitting ourselves to be imbued with the carnal and secular spirit, which has led us so far from practical truth and piety, that the church is now suffering. ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... to my lot on this occasion, though I thought that some of them, when sufficiently near my face, grinned at me as they parted company. Yet none of them were over half a pound, and most of them much less. You can see that this healthful pastime does not produce its usual demoralizing effect on me. When we reached a flat piece of ground, the water would become quiet and the manners of the fish more humane, so that they would come out like chubs. I stood in one spot under a tree, and took twenty-nine ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol
... field. Fortunately we saw this before any of us had fired, and passed on over it at a low altitude to attack a train. There is a good deal of excitement in an expedition of this kind, and soldiers themselves say that surprise sorties from the air have a demoralizing effect upon troops. But as a form of sport, there is little to be said for it. It is too unfair. For this reason, among others, I was glad when ...
— High Adventure - A Narrative of Air Fighting in France • James Norman Hall
... proletariat. It cannot be gainsaid that there are races on the globe which are incapable of assimilating the higher forms of civilization, but which might well be made to render valuable services in the lower without either suffering injustice themselves or demoralizing others. And it seems nowise impossible that one day these reserves may be mobilized and systematically employed in virtue of the principle that the weal of the great progressive community necessitates such a distribution of parts as will set each organ to perform ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... lawyer Dempster, in a loud, rasping, oratorical tone, struggling against chronic huskiness, 'as long as my Maker grants me power of voice and power of intellect, I will take every legal means to resist the introduction of demoralizing, methodistical doctrine into this parish; I will not supinely suffer an insult to be inflicted on our venerable pastor, who has given us sound ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... hate us; others, to despise us!! all, to cease dreading us. In the language of a powerful journalist, (the Spectator,) opposed on most points to the present Government, "the late Ministers commenced a career, perilous in the extreme to all the best interests of the nation—demoralizing public opinion, wasting public resources, and entangling the country in quarrels alike endless and aimless; and all this with a labouring after melodramatic stage effect, and a regardlessness of consequences perfectly unprecedented." ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... State by the Negro property owners of the State; while the grand commonwealth of Kentucky only appropriates for the maintenance of colored schools such moneys as are paid into the State treasury by the colored people. Can the philosophy of taxation be reduced to a more hurtful, a more demoralizing absurdity! ...
— Black and White - Land, Labor, and Politics in the South • Timothy Thomas Fortune
... wait for orders to march to Jerusalem sent some leaders out to take cities over which they might rule, and others to visit the Christian leaders who had already won thrones. But most remained in a demoralizing inactivity until a prodigy of electrical balls of light, or possibly a meteoric shower, started, by various interpretations, the mass into securing their rear by the capture and subjugation of several Syrian cities. In one of these sieges the Saracens threw something like Greek fire down ...
— Peter the Hermit - A Tale of Enthusiasm • Daniel A. Goodsell
... no doubt that the practice, like all other illegal ones, was demoralizing to the community, and particularly fatal to the character of that class of bold, enterprising young men who would be most likely to be ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... testimony of men who came in contact with the Boers at a time when one would expect that the demoralizing and hardening influences of war had ...
— In the Shadow of Death • P. H. Kritzinger and R. D. McDonald
... powers not conferred by its organic law or necessary for its own preservation, nor dishonor its own engagements when able to meet them, without either shocking or demoralizing the sentiment of the people; and the fact that the indefinite continuance of the circulation of an inconvertible but still legal tender currency is so generally advocated indicates how far we have wandered from old landmarks both ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... you want, for one can hardly be quite content with mere necessities until one grows either so old or shapeless that everything is equally unbecoming, samples are forthcoming, from which an intelligent selection can be made without the demoralizing effect of glib salespeople ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... officials in Hayti.[395] This was undeniable. It is the curse of a policy of retirement that waverers haste to leave betimes with all the spoils obtainable. The signs of abandonment of Hayti caused a stampede, demoralizing to all concerned. On 1st January 1798, Portland and Dundas penned the order for the evacuation of Hayti, owing to the impossibility of making good the loss of troops or of recruiting in the island. After dwelling on the impossibility of reducing ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... few pleasanter ways of passing a desultory hour than haphazard reading amongst old numbers of a good magazine. I say advisedly "a desultory hour," for when it comes to more than that the habit is apt to become demoralizing. And, excellent as many English magazines are, I must own that for this particular purpose I give the preference to our American cousins. It would not be easy to say precisely why, but so it is. One feels lighter after them than one does after the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... religion in Canada could not be expected to be prosperous during the prevalence of the demoralizing influences of war. The Methodist circuit work, as well as the work of other denominations, was very much disorganized. It was, from the interruption of intercourse caused by the unnatural conflict, without any supervision of the American Conference by which the Canadian preachers ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow
... clause, which was necessary. I went with him in that; I now ask him to go with me, not against a mere shadow, but against what is the doctrine of a large portion of the people of the slave States; a doctrine of that proportion which proposes to overthrow the Constitution of the country. It is a demoralizing doctrine. My colleague proposes to vote against it. Did my colleague believe that any one proposed to interfere with ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... desolation everywhere. When I sin, I become the centre of demoralizing forces which influence the universe. And so let me ever pray, "Deliver me ...
— My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year • John Henry Jowett
... the remarks they address to them. No lights are allowed in the cells, and the aspect of the place is very gloomy, the whole prison is kept scrupulously clean, the sanitary regulations being very strict, but the lack of room necessitates the crowding of the prisoners to a fearfully demoralizing extent. ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... tendency; for I am satisfied that a sinful course of life increases the tendency to mental derangement, as well as to bodily disease; and I am as certain that an unhealthy state of mind and body has generally a demoralizing influence; and I consider light, air, and the power of seeing something beyond the mere monotonous walls of a cell highly important. I am aware that air is properly admitted, also light; still I do think they ought to see the sky, the changes ...
— Elizabeth Fry • Mrs. E. R. Pitman
... the model statesman, I would say he must have mental breadth and clearness, incorruptible integrity, strength of will, tireless patience, humanity, preserved from demoralizing weakness by conscientious reverence for law, ardent love of country, and, regulating all, a commanding sense of responsibility to God, the Judge of all. These, though wrapped in seeming rustic garb, were found in Abraham Lincoln. He had ...
— Abraham Lincoln - A Memorial Discourse • Rev. T. M. Eddy
... vile enough, and might well have made even men and women who knew the loose side of life shrink from it, but it can never be claimed that it had a demoralizing influence on Emma, who at an early age became familiar with unspeakable vices which left her little to learn at the time Greville sold her to his uncle, who took her to a centre of sordid uncleanness, there to become his wife ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... a remarkable circumstance that so little attention has been paid in Canada to the immense tract of country lying to the north of our boundary line, and known as the Hudson's Bay Company's Territory. There can be no question that the injurious and demoralizing sway of that company over a region of four millions of square miles, will, ere long, be brought to an end, and that the destinies of this immense country will be united with our own. It is unpardonable ...
— George Brown • John Lewis
... through the persuasions of my poor mother, that my father was induced to give up that nefarious traffic. Since that, his capital has been chiefly employed in privateering, which, if not so brutal and disgraceful, is certainly nearly as demoralizing. I have been home but a short time, and I have already ventured to express my opinion, certainly not so forcibly and so well as you have, upon the subject; but I was laughed at as a tender-hearted girl, who could not be a fit judge of such matters. But ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat
... To further show how demoralizing the traffic was I will relate an instance: “Old Bull Tail,” a chief of the Sioux, had an only daughter, who was named Chint-zille. She was very handsome as savage beauty goes, and the old chief really loved her, for the North American Indian is possessed of as much ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... unvarnished state of development. It was Patagonia trying to copy the ways of Europe. This was but a feature of the Teuton tribal belief that all the racial evolutions outside the German borders were undesirable, demoralizing and mischievously blocking the outspread ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry
... aside, as we do. A girl like that, in love with what she calls 'glory' and 'prestige,' is a dangerous and demoralizing influence. That glorification of the Army is at the ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... in America has taught me the demoralizing tendency of the doctrine of 'equality of races and of sexes,' and you must admit, Miss Earl, that your countrywomen are growing dangerously learned," answered Sir ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... earth. In his first sermon he declares that sorrow is in self; therefore to get rid of sorrow is to get rid of self. The means to this end is to forget self in deeds of mercy and kindness to others; to crucify demoralizing desires; to live in the realm of ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord
... vast dimensions. Masses of Negroes stood idle, or, if they worked spasmodically, were never sure of pay; and if perchance they received pay, squandered the new thing thoughtlessly. In these and other ways were camp-life and the new liberty demoralizing the freedmen. The broader economic organization thus clearly demanded sprang up here and there as accident and local conditions determined. Here it was that Pierce's Port Royal plan of leased plantations and guided ...
— The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois
... pride, or self-will, by [25] demoralizing his motives and Christlikeness, would have dethroned ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... you are encouraging me about the stage, and that poor Papa Claude is demoralizing ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... 'I am not one of those who believe in the permanence of an Irish Party in the English Parliament. I feel convinced that sooner or later the influence which every English Government has at its command—the powerful and demoralizing influence—sooner or later will sap the best party you can return ...
— Six days of the Irish Republic - A Narrative and Critical Account of the Latest Phase of Irish Politics • Louis Redmond-Howard
... father and Charlie! He has not been so attentive to the family during your absence, I can assure you. We haven't so much as had a peep at him since you went away. Flossy, I hadn't an idea you could be so rude. I declare, I think that Wilbur girl is demoralizing you. They say she has no idea of considering people's feelings; but then, one expects ...
— The Chautauqua Girls At Home • Pansy, AKA Isabella M. Alden
... It is demoralizing to both students and teachers. I refer to the inevitable outcome of such a system; some students (sometimes few and sometimes many) develop considerable skill in "working the Prof." Teachers offering elective ...
— On the Firing Line in Education • Adoniram Judson Ladd
... and the blue sky shining beyond them. We toss a pebble down into the subterranean passage where, they say, the monks were wont to pass out after provisions during a time of siege; which must have been somewhat demoralizing to the besiegers, whoever they were. I stoop to pick up something in the grass of the kitchen floor, which has a glitter of gold upon it, and my face flushes with eager ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various
... said Tarvrille as if he were expanding Philip's assertion, "there's been too many divorces in society. It's demoralizing people. It's discrediting us. It's setting class against class. Everybody is saying why don't these big people either set about respecting the law or altering it. Common people are getting too infernally clear-headed. Hitherto ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... has marked you for her own; and nothing will stop her now. You are doomed. [Straker comes back with a newspaper]. Here comes the New Man, demoralizing himself with a halfpenny paper ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... hear Dr. Hansen minimising a crime that is distinctly mentioned in Divine and human law as one of the worst—to hear him reduce it to the size of a trifling and insignificant misdemeanour. Is not this highly demoralizing and dangerous ...
— Norse Tales and Sketches • Alexander Lange Kielland
... such an artless ingenuous little house, so full of the demoralizing simplicity of great wealth, that it seemed to Susy just the kind of place in which to take the first steps in renunciation. But Nick had objected that Paris, at that time of year, would be swarming with acquaintances ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... work. I can never go on in my profession, there is no future for me but suffering." From this wrecking thought it was an easy step to condemnation of his father for his fatherhood, which, with his near-enmity toward his mother for her "criminal ignorance" in rearing him, introduced a sordidly demoralizing element into his mind which forever viciously tinctured memories and relations which should have been his sacred helpers. The normal mind can select well its world—miserably his mind lived with these ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll
... between feeling and intellect, body and mind. It can serve both as an awakener and a test of intelligence, predispose the heart against vice, and turn the springs of character toward virtue. That its present decadent forms, for those too devitalized to dance aright, can be demoralizing, we know in this day too well, although even questionable dances may sometimes work off vicious propensities in ways more harmless than those in which they would otherwise find vent. Its utilization for and influence on the insane would be another ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... cent for a colt that never kicked over the traces!" Which, if Jerry had really been guilty of any offence, would have been very demoralizing. But she was not and she watched Uncle Johnny go out of the room with a look ...
— Highacres • Jane Abbott
... life. Married women are so afraid of resembling the professional dancing girls, that they cannot be persuaded to learn anything the latter are taught. If a Brahman woman is rich her life is spent in demoralizing idleness; if she is poor, so much the worse, her earthly existence is concentrated in monotonous performances of mechanical rites. There is no past, and no future for her; only a tedious present, from which there is no possible escape. And this only if everything be well, ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... demoralizing the possession of such a sum would be, Charlie assembled his force next morning. He pointed out to them that, as the greater part of the plunder was in silver, it would be impossible for them to carry it on their ...
— With Clive in India - Or, The Beginnings of an Empire • G. A. Henty
... effect of the addition of so many thousands of men of voting age upon our political conditions? Undoubtedly demoralizing and dangerous. Professor Mayo-Smith says: "We are thus conferring the privilege of citizenship, including the right to vote, without any test of the man's fitness for it. The German vote in many localities controls the action of political leaders on the liquor question, ...
— Aliens or Americans? • Howard B. Grose
... of morality are pressed upon the public as works of genius which, in order to maintain a reputation for intellect, it is essential to admire. I do not believe that all this is accidental; I do not believe that the public asks for the anti-patriotic or demoralizing books and plays placed before it; on the contrary, it invariably responds to an appeal to patriotism and simple healthy emotions. The heart of the people is still sound, but ceaseless efforts ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... therefore, with this exact "measure of values," that we are dealing; and the necessity and value of these considerations are nowhere so plain to-day, or so imperative, as just here, in the face of these demoralizing dogmas and pretensions of men, who contradict all natural law and steal unblushingly the prerogatives of God, as his "Vicegerent." The marvel of it is that it excites neither surprise nor protest, but is treated with a smile of good-natured ...
— The New Avatar and The Destiny of the Soul - The Findings of Natural Science Reduced to Practical Studies - in Psychology • Jirah D. Buck
... last from the garish horrors of dress, formal dinners, visits, and drives, the inevitable and demoralizing gossip and scandal; far away from hotel piazzas, with their tedious accompaniments of corpulent dowagers, exclusive or inquisitive, slowly dying from too much food and too little exercise; ennuied spinsters; gushing buds; ...
— Adopting An Abandoned Farm • Kate Sanborn
... early the following morning. They exchanged significant looks, and he was gone. A ring, set with old-fashioned garnets, was left in the hand he had pressed; one of his mother's rings, worn on his watch-chain. Phyllis seized Burbage and danced her up and down the hall and back again, demoralizing the rugs. Then, having picked up her muff and thrown it at her, Phyllis raced up ...
— Old Valentines - A Love Story • Munson Aldrich Havens |
