"Profane" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... game, and he loved to win, but he occasionally made a very bad stroke, and then the varied, picturesque, and unorthodox vocabulary, acquired in his more youthful years, was the only thing that gave him comfort. Gently, slowly, with no profane inflexions of voice, but irresistibly as though they had the headwaters of the Mississippi for their source, came this stream of unholy adjectives ...
— 1601 - Conversation as it was by the Social Fireside in the Time of the Tudors • Mark Twain
... of certain houses, in different parts of the country, many weird skull stories, the popular idea being that if any profane hand should be bold enough to remove, or in any way tamper with, such gruesome relics of the dead, misfortune will inevitably overtake the family. Hence, for years past, there have been carefully preserved in ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer
... remedies, but also nourish them with sugared poison? For these be they which with the fruitless thorns of affections do kill the fruitful crop of reason, and do accustom men's minds to sickness, instead of curing them. But if your flattery did deprive us of some profane fellow,[81] as commonly it happeneth, I should think that it were not so grievously to be taken, for in him our labours should receive no harm. But now have you laid hold of him who hath been brought up in Eleatical and Academical studies?[82] ...
— The Theological Tractates and The Consolation of Philosophy • Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius
... vicissitudes. Oh! there are gods who punish haughty pride: Respect them, honor them, the dreadful ones Who thus before thy feet have humbled me! Before these strangers' eyes dishonor not Yourself in me: profane not, nor disgrace The royal blood of Tudor. In my veins It flows as pure a stream as in your own. Oh, for God's pity, stand not so estranged And inaccessible, like some tall cliff, Which the poor shipwrecked mariner in vain Struggles ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... the profane world must have come now and then to hermits in their cells, to the cloistered monks of middle ages, to lonely sages, men of science, reformers; the revelations of the world's superficial judgment, shocking to the souls concentrated upon their own bitter labour in the cause of sanctity, ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... as we debarked from the train. The land seemed dry as ashes, and the hills which rose near resembled those of Montana or Colorado. The little hotel swarmed with the rudest and crudest types of men; not dangerous men, only thoughtless and profane teamsters and cow-boys, who drank thirstily and ate like wolves. They spat on the floor while at the table, leaning on their elbows gracelessly. In the bar-room they drank and chewed tobacco, and talked in loud voices upon ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... their miserable affairs. The oracle answered, "Depart from the temple with head veiled and garments unbound, and cast behind you the bones of your mother." They heard the words with astonishment. Pyrrha first broke silence: "We cannot obey; we dare not profane the remains of our parents." They sought the thickest shades of the wood, and revolved the oracle in their minds. At length Deucalion spoke: "Either my sagacity deceives me, or the command is one we may obey ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... "What is liberty?" It leaves the questioner free to disregard any liberty, or in other words to take any liberties. The very thing he says is an anticipatory excuse for anything he may choose to do. If he gags a man to prevent him from indulging in profane swearing, or locks him in the coal cellar to guard against his going on the spree, he can still be satisfied with saying, "After all, what is liberty? Man is a ...
— Eugenics and Other Evils • G. K. Chesterton
... well enough, will sound wild and chimerical to the profane herd of those vulgar and mechanical politicians who have no place among us; a sort of people who think that nothing exists but what is gross and material, and who, therefore, far from being qualified to be directors of the great movement of empire, are not fit to turn a wheel in ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... the secular, pagan spirit, breathes in every bar of Purcell's music. Mid-Victorian critics and historians deplored the resemblance between the profane style of the stage pieces and the sacred style of the anthems and services. Not resemblance, but identity, is the word to use. There is no distinguishing between the two styles. There are not two styles: there is one style—the ...
— Purcell • John F. Runciman
... MacKay's prayer slowly and reverently, and then, letting the paper fall upon the grass, Dundee fell into a reverie. There was a day when he would have treated the prayer lightly, not because he had ever been a profane man, like Esau, but because he had no relish for soldiers who acted ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren
... the prosperous, life shows herself only in the world, decently attired: we know her at home in her nudity. For him she has manners, a good behaviour, a society smile; with us she is frankly herself—brutal, if you please, corrupt with disease and vice, sordid, profane, lascivious, but genuine. She is kind to him, but hypocritical, affecting scruples, modesties, pieties, a heart and conscience, attitudinising, blushing false blushes, weeping crocodile tears; she is cruel to us, ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland
... rain and the sun do their part; and in the fall he has a magnificent result. Now has that anything whatever to do with the question whether the man was a good man or not, as to whether he went to prayer-meeting or not, as to whether he read his Bible or not, as to whether he was profane or not, as to whether he was a good neighbor or not? Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he reap, and reap it where he sows it. Is it not perfectly plain? So in any department of human life, I care not what, trace it out, and you will ...
— Our Unitarian Gospel • Minot Savage
... a distinction between the holy (Sabbath) and the profane (days of the week) pardon our sins and multiply our children and our money as the sand and as ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... though placed so, From profane men you hide, Which will no faith on this bestow, Or, if ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... charm, and the virtue of her childhood was wrecked on golden rocks. She no longer went to daily Mass; her visits to the convent became less frequent, her dress lighter; her conversation, toned by the ideas of pride and self-love reflected from the society she moved in, was profane and irreligious; and soon the roses of Christian virtue that bloom in the cheek of innocent maidenhood became sick and withered in the heated, feverish air of perverse influences that tainted ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly
... Sabbath was unattended in the country with a religious welcome. Many employed their time in hunting: the more scrupulous in visits, and the profane in labor or intemperance. A gentleman, now distinguished among the wesleyans, was found by his neighbour ploughing by the road side on Sunday morning: both himself and his men had forgotten the day. Yet at the houses of all, a minister of religion, of any name, met a cheerful ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... cousin of Francis' former queen, Claude, had been reared with rigid strictness, although provided with various preceptors who had made her more or less proficient in the profane letters, as they were then called, Latin, Greek, theology and philosophy. The fame of her beauty had gone abroad; her hand had been often sought, but the obdurate king had steadfastly refused to sanction her betrothal until Charles, the emperor, himself proposed a union ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... Popes," threatened to divert the profits from pilgrims from Rome to Canterbury. A ferocious letter from the pope to the papal nuncios, on the 19th of March 1423, denounced the proceeding as calculated "to ensnare simple souls and extort from them a profane reward, thereby setting up themselves against the apostolic see and the Roman pontiff, to whom alone so great a faculty has been granted by God" (Cal. Pap. Reg. vii. 12). Chicheley also incurred the papal wrath by opposing the system of papal provision which diverted patronage ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... manner of ware, and sold on the sabbath unto the children of Judah, and in Jerusalem. 17. Then I contended with the nobles of Judah, and said unto them, What evil thing is this that ye do, and profane the sabbath day? 18. Did not your fathers thus, and did not our God bring all this evil upon us, and upon this city? yet ye bring more wrath upon Israel by profaning the sabbath, 19. And it came to pass, that when the gates of Jerusalem began to ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... make it the unconscious atmosphere of the whole hut. It is a striking fact, to which every soldier will testify, that while the language of the barrack room and beer canteen is often reeking with the profane and the obscene, the whole tone of the Association hut is entirely different. As one soldier says: "You don't realize the enormous difference of atmosphere between this and any other place where soldiers congregate. A man simply does not talk bad language and filth here; he learns to ...
— With Our Soldiers in France • Sherwood Eddy
... sausage meat. The few in Petropavlovsk made much of their ability, and were especially vocal at sunset, near their feeding time. Occasionally during the night they try their throats and keep up a hailing and answering chorus, calculated to draw a great many oaths from profane strangers. ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... I do not condemn the use of arms as immoral, nor do I conceive it profane to say that the King of Heaven—the Lord of Hosts! the God of Battles!—bestows his benediction upon those who unsheathe the sword in the hour of a nation's peril. From that evening, on which, in the valley of Bethulia, he ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... senses would dream of adding anything to the story of Joseph, as narrated in Genesis, whether it came from the pen of Moses or from some subsequent writer. It is a masterpiece of historical composition, unequalled in any literature sacred or profane, in ancient or modern times, for its simplicity, its pathos, its dramatic power, and its sustained interest. Nor shall I attempt to paraphrase or re-tell it, save by way of annotation and illustration of subjects connected ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume II • John Lord
... for England—great and classic England—no, by heavens! I will not do her that wrong—but for London, and London artists!—I believe that is the proper phrase—after having exhausted every other subject of parody, sacred and profane, to invade the sanctuary of childhood, and vulgarize the very earliest impressions which are conveyed to the infant. Are not the men who sit down deliberately to such a task more culpable than even the nursery jade who administers gin and opium to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... possible book, whilst in reality they have but few. Ifound this on my journey through the 'Christian Mountain,' the Tr el' 'Abedn, where I visited many places and monasteries but little known. Ionly saw Bibles in Estrangelo character, which were of value, nowhere profane books; but the people are so fanatical, and watch their books so closely, that it is very difficult to get sight of anything; and one has to keep them in good humor. Unless after a long sojourn, and ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... cried Maurice, involuntarily. He did not use the words with any profane intention: they escaped his lips as a sort of cry of agony, of protest, almost of entreaty. He had hoped until this moment that Lesley would be able to deny this charge. When she acknowledged its truth, the conviction of Oliver's falsity, the suspicion of Lesley's faith, smote him ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... husband she says, "Oh, I hate them! I do hate them! Anything is fair against a Jew." And during a meeting with Anton she exclaims, "How dares he come here to talk of his love? It is filthy—it is worse than filthy—it is profane." ...
— Nina Balatka • Anthony Trollope
... her to hear Mr. Lewis Wade, a celebrated missionary preacher, who had been to Syria and the Holy Land, and brought thence observations on subjects sacred and profane that made his discourses ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... to the sullen tide, And whirlwinds that the billowy desert sweep! Thou at the distant death-shriek dost rejoice; The rule of the tempestuous main is thine, Outstretched and lone; thou utterest thy voice, Like solemn thunders: These wild waves are mine; Mine their dread empire; nor shall man profane The eternal secrets ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles
... all this is now changed. The last century has seen the birth and growth of a new science—the Science of Historical Criticism.... The whole world of profane history ...
— The Lights of the Church and the Light of Science - Essay #6 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition" • Thomas Henry Huxley
... a certain old-fashioned uncle and aunt in Cornwall, who since Jim's father's death had assumed the guardianship of that youth and his brothers and sisters. This good uncle and aunt were horribly shocked that one destined for so solemn a sphere in life as the ministry should profane himself with athletic sports. The matter formed the theme for many serious remonstrances, and long letters addressed to the depraved Jim, who, on his part, maintained his side of the argument with characteristic vehemence. He actually spent a whole day in the college library, ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... Vineyard management, therefore, may represent the consummate art of three thousand or more years of cultural subserviency; or it may be so primeval in simplicity as to approach neglect. The grape is so wonderfully responsive to good care, however, that no true lover of fruit will profane it with neglect, but will seek, rather, to give it a favorable situation, its choice of soils and such generous care as will insure strong, vigorous, productive ...
— Manual of American Grape-Growing • U. P. Hedrick
... history, as a means of cultivating the mind and for its immediate practical benefit, ever since the days of Moses, who wrote the pioneer history of Israel, and Herodotus, the father of profane history, has formed a necessary part of a liberal and thorough education."—History of ...
— The Choctaw Freedmen - and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy • Robert Elliott Flickinger
... Verse, the Inspirations, the lofty flights, the hymns, and songs, and ballads, and odes; all the nestfuls hatched during the last seven years, in fact. There lie their muses, thick with dust, bespattered by every passing cab, at the mercy of every profane hand that turns them over to look at the vignette ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... good place to pray in, among the cool slabs, the panels of black marble glittering with the name and full titles of the dead, and the inscriptions from Ecclesiastes or the Song of Songs. But the Princess could find only a few indistinct words, confused with profane thoughts, which made her ashamed. She rose and busied herself with the flower-stands, retiring gradually far enough to judge the effect of the sarcophagus or bed. The cushion of black bronze, with silver monogram, was already in its place, and she thought the hard couch ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... and frenzy drives you in these happy days to pollute yourselves with blood, since you have such an abundance of things necessary for your subsistence? Why do you belie the earth as unable to maintain you? Why do you profane the lawgiver Ceres, and shame the mild and gentle Bacchus, as not furnishing you with sufficiency? Are you not ashamed to mix tame fruits with blood and slaughter? You are indeed wont to call serpents, leopards, and lions savage creatures; but yet yourselves are defiled with blood, and come nothing ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... sky, did you suppose me giggling with Lyra or the Pleiades! I should dread to see the statue descend; it seemed irreverence even to gaze. The lofty serenity keeps me aloof. I like to believe in a creature too bright and good for human nature's daily food. Our profane squinting through telescopes at the Lady Moon reveals nothing but worn-out volcanoes and dry oceans, black gulfs and scorched desolation; but verily that may not be Lady Moon's fault—only that of our base inventions. So I would be content to mark her—Isabel, I mean—queenly, moonlike ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Well-intentioned persons in their desire to make him a faultless being have argued at great length that Washington never swore, and but for their argument the matter would never have attracted much attention. He was anything but a profane man, but the evidence is beyond question that if deeply angered he would use a hearty English oath; and not seldom the action accompanied the word, as when he rode among the fleeing soldiers at Kip's Landing, striking them with his sword, and almost beside himself at their cowardice. ...
— George Washington, Vol. II • Henry Cabot Lodge
... some half-finished attempts at rude toys: a boat, a cart, a doll's house, in which the good-natured Caleb had busied himself for the younger ones of that family in which he had found the fatal ideal of his trite life. One by one were these lugged forth from their dusty slumber-profane hands struggling for the first right of appropriation. And now, revealed against the wall, glared upon the startled violators of the sanctuary, with glassy eyes and horrent visage, a grim monster. They huddled back one upon the other, pale and breathless, ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... you, or she would never have borne to have been catechised by him, and have heard his long lectures against singing and dancing and such debaucheries, and going to filthy plays, and profane music meetings, where the lewd trebles squeak nothing but bawdy, and the basses roar blasphemy. Oh, she would have swooned at the sight or name of an obscene play-book—and can I think after all this that my daughter can be naught? What, a whore? And thought it excommunication ...
— The Way of the World • William Congreve
... description of the clergy, as well as laity, it met with a roar of applause. "Holy Willie's Prayer" next made its appearance, and alarmed the kirk-session so much, that they held several meetings to look over their spiritual artillery, if haply any of it might be pointed against profane rhymers. Unluckily for me, my wanderings led me on another side, within point-blank shot of their heaviest metal. This is the unfortunate story that gave rise to my printed poem, "The Lament." This was a most melancholy ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume IV (of 6) - Authors and Journalists • Various
... placed him right before the reading- desk, where his blackened face nodded a drunken, stupid assent to all that Mr. Redhead said. At last, either prompted by some mischief-maker, or from some tipsy impulse, he clambered up the pulpit stairs, and attempted to embrace Mr. Redhead. Then the profane fun grew fast and furious. Some of the more riotous, pushed the soot-covered chimney-sweeper against Mr. Redhead, as he tried to escape. They threw both him and his tormentor down on the ground in the churchyard where ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... Vanity Fair, in which enthusiasm is out of place. But if the true humourist also sees himself presiding, in the sacred name of duty, over a booth in Vanity Fair, he may yet reach perfection. What Father Faber opposed so strenuously were, not the vanities of the profane, of the openly and cheerfully unregenerate; but the vanities of a devout and fashionable congregation, making especial terms—by virtue of its exalted station—with Providence. These were the people whom he regarded all his priestly life with ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier
... extravagant fancies of a scorched imagination. Mighty folios have been written about the problem, how many angels could dance upon the top of a needle without touching each other? The folly of subtility went so far as to profane the sacred name of God, by disputing if He, being omnipotent, has the power to sin? If, in the holy wafer, He be present dressed or undressed? If the Saviour would have chosen the incarnation in the shape of a gourd, instead of a man, how would he have ...
— Select Speeches of Kossuth • Kossuth
... Earth's silent covering, Youth and Death Held converse thro' undying love? No—smile and taunt me as thou wilt— Tho' but to gaze thus was delight, Yet seemed it like a wrong, a guilt, To win by stealth so pure a sight: And rather than a look profane Should then have met those thoughtful eyes, Or voice or whisper broke the chain That linked her spirit with the skies, I would have gladly in that place From which I watched her heavenward face, Let my heart break, without one beat That could disturb a prayer so sweet. Gently, as if on every ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... embonpoint of the French Princesses. They said that their nieces, by the exercise of religious principles, obtained the advantage of solid flesh, while the Austrian Archduchesses, by wasting themselves in idleness and profane pursuits, grew thin and meagre, and were equally exhausted in their minds and bodies! At this the Abbe Vermond, as the tutor of Marie Antoinette, felt himself highly offended, and called on Comte de Mercy, then the Imperial Ambassador, to apprise ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 3 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... William IX. The series of Williams all appear to have been more or less de rudes seigneurs, who were divided between the vices and virtues of their period. There is William Tete d'Etoupes, William Fier-a-bras, William the Great, and William the Troubadour; the latter—now pious, now profane—was at one time fighting foremost in the christian ranks against the Paynim; at another, "playing on pipes of straw and versing love" to fair ladies, to whom he had no right to make himself captivating. He is said to have repudiated his wife, Phillippa, or Mahaud, ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... Brahmanas, Upanishads, and Sutras; in fact, all literature which orthodox Hindoos regard as sacred. The correct distinction then between the Vedic and the Sanscrit writings is that of holy writ and profane literature. ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... never knew any one so unsympathetic as you are," said Minnie, with an angry flush of colour. Chatty had not stayed to defend herself. She had hurried away out of reach of the warfare. No desire to crush her sister with a name was in Chatty's mind. It had seemed to her profane to speak of such a possibility at all. She realised so fully that everything was over, that all idea of change in her life was at an end for ever, that she heard with a little shiver, but with no warm personal feeling, the end of this ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... broke into the sanctuary of Vesta, and carried away a statue, which he supposed to be the palladium; but the vestals boasted that, by a pious fraud, they had imposed a counterfeit image on the profane ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... Not that I say all soldiers foretell their end by some kind of secret monitor, but that some do, or seem to do so. Captain Summer, of my company, was an unusually good-humored and lively man, and while he was not what could be called profane, yet he had little predilection toward piety or the Church. In other battles he advanced to the front as light-hearted and free from care as if going on drill or inspection. When we were drawn up in line of battle at Fredericksburg the ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... of the "profane herd of those vulgar and mechanical politicians" (p. 126) to arouse righteous anger against a certain class, to flatter his audience, or did ...
— Teachers' Outlines for Studies in English - Based on the Requirements for Admission to College • Gilbert Sykes Blakely
... to return to the charge," quoth Maurice. "In what particular dare ye contend the palm with Dublin? We'll not speak of beauty. I can't suffer any such profane turn in the conversation as to dispute the superiority of Irishwomen's lips, eyes, noses, and eyebrows, to anything under heaven. We'll not talk of gay fellows; egad, we needn't. I'll give you the garrison,—a decent present,—and I'll back the ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... What on earth do you want with a match?" demanded Miss Mink. Then a look of apprehension swept over her face. Was this young man actually proposing to profane the virgin air of her domicile ...
— Miss Mink's Soldier and Other Stories • Alice Hegan Rice
... of that class of the bad to which the profane Jeffreys and Scroggs and the obscene Kelyng belong. But he was as prone to the wrong as was Chief Justice Fleming in sustaining impositions, and Chancellor Ellesmere in supporting benevolences for King James; as ready to do it as Hyde and Heath were to legalize ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... waiting secretly in the house—waiting for her last moments; listening for her last words; watching his opportunity, perhaps, to enter the room again, and openly profane it by his presence! I placed myself by the door, resolved, if he approached, to thrust him back, at any hazard, from the bedside. How long I remained absorbed in watching before the darkness of the inner ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... several anecdotes of Isaac's boyhood was strikingly manifested in his treatment of a colored printer, named Kane. This man was noted for his profane swearing. Friend Hopper had expostulated with him concerning this bad habit, without producing the least effect. One day, he encountered him in the street, pouring forth a volley of terrible oaths, enough to make one shudder. Believing him incurable by gentler means, he ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... Christian virtue, stripped of its birthright, the reward of fifteen hundred years of benevolence; or to the recent acquires, who had converted the convents into workshops, the churches into warehouses, and had turned to profane uses all that had been deemed most holy ...
— Napoleon Bonaparte • John S. C. Abbott
... from the King's Remembrancer there is a Commissioner for Oaths; you can go into his room and have a really good swear for about half-a-crown. This is cheaper than having it in the street—that is, if you are a gentleman; for by the Profane Oaths Act, 1745, swearing and cursing are punishable by a fine of one shilling for every day-labourer, soldier or seaman; two shillings for every other person under the degree of a gentleman; and five shillings for every person of or above the degree of a gentleman. This is not generally known. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, April 28, 1920 • Various
... terrace and advancing with dignity to his wife's end of the chesterfield]. Will you have the goodness, sir, in addressing this lady, to keep your temper and refrain from using profane language? ...
— Overruled • George Bernard Shaw
... sentence of excommunication was pronounced against him: he was forbidden access to the sacrifices or public worship: he was debarred all intercourse with his fellow-citizens, even in the common affairs of life: his company was universally shunned, as profane and dangerous. He was refused the protection of law [f]; and death itself became an acceptable relief from the misery and infamy to which he was exposed. Thus, the bands of government, which were naturally ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... Rideau, and this further outraged Utie who—to his credit be it said—had only modest thoughts for her. When he saw, however, that she looked after the manly figure and naval gilt of him of the profane eyes, as if to return his admiration, the intoxicated ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... writing or speaking, blaspheme or curse God, or deny our Savior, Jesus Christ, to be the son of God, or shall deny the Holy Trinity, the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost, or the God-head of any of the three persons, or the unity of the God-head, or shall utter any profane words concerning the Holy Trinity, or the persons thereof and shall therefore be convicted by verdict, shall, for the first offense, be bored through the tongue, and fined L20, to be levied on his body. As for the ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... of the Reformation which must have most appealed to her was neither its austere morals, nor its bare ritual, nor its doctrines, properly so called, but its spiritual pietism and its connection with profane learning and letters; for of literature Margaret was an ardent devotee and a ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. I. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... ball-rooms and hot theatres, they still, Full of meek sympathy, must heave their sighs O'er Philomela's pity-pleading strains. My friend, and thou, our sister! we have learnt A different love: we may not thus profane Nature's sweet voices, always full of love And joyance! 'Tis the merry nightingale That crowds and hurries and precipitates With fast-thick warble his delicious notes, As he were fearful that an April night Would be too short for him to utter forth His love-chant and disburden ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 442 - Volume 17, New Series, June 19, 1852 • Various
... regarded with amazement the changed life of the profane young tinker. "And truly," he honestly confesses, "so they well might for this my conversion was as great as for Tom of Bedlam to become a sober man." Bunyan's reformation was soon the town's talk; he had "become godly," "become a right honest man." These commendations flattered is ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables
... president, now turning his attention to the worthy Hugh, "profane and execrable wretch!—we have said, that in consideration of those rights which, even in thy filthy person, we feel no inclination to violate, we have condescended to make reply to thy rude and unseasonable inquiries. We nevertheless, for your unhallowed intrusion upon our ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... fast, passion and misery in all her attitude and in every tone and gesture. The man, chunky in figure and churlish in demeanour, held a horsewhip in his hand, answering his wife back word for word in language both profane and violent. ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... her death, she sent most pious thoughts as harbingers to heaven; and her soul saw a glimpse of happiness through the chinks of her sickness-broken body." Fuller's 'Holy and Profane State', ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... what that vessel was on the other side of us. He replied it was a Liverpool slave-trader, and that the captain appeared to be a very good sort of man; that he never indulged in liquor, nor was given to profane language. ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat
... peasantry as having belonged to the founders of the churches, and were used for a variety of purposes, as the curing of diseases, taking oaths upon them, etc.[269] Similarly the using of any remains of destroyed churches for profane purposes was believed to bring misfortune,[270] while the land which once belonged to the church of St. Baramedan, in the parish of Kilbarrymeaden, county Waterford, "has long been highly venerated by the common people, who attribute to it many surprising ...
— Folklore as an Historical Science • George Laurence Gomme
... lad, if you have a patch on your elbow. It is no mark of disgrace. It speaks well for your industrious mother. For our part, we would rather see a dozen patches on your clothes than to have you do a bad or mean action, or to hear a profane or vulgar word proceed from your lips. No good boy will shun you or think less of you because you do not dress as well as he does, and if any one laugh at your appearance, never mind it. Go right on doing ...
— Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad • Various
... not to be confined, Obey the spells of Wisdom's wizard skill; 195 Time, earth, and fire—the ocean and the wind, And all their shapes—and man's imperial will; And other scrolls whose writings did unbind The inmost lore of Love—let the profane Tremble to ask what secrets ...
— The Witch of Atlas • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... very outcasts and pariahs of society? And is it for one of these that you would like to be mistaken? is it with this repulsive brotherhood that you would choose to ally yourself? Hardly, I would fain hope. No, boys, it is not manly—still less is it gentlemanly—to be ribald and profane. No true gentleman—let his position in life be what it may—ever degrades himself by the use of foul language, and don't you do it, unless you are anxious to gain for yourself the loathing and utter ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... fame. In 1881 he became interested in the work which had been done by an English clergyman named Garret. The latter had built a submarine boat which he called the Resurgam (I shall rise)—thus neatly combining a sacred promise with a profane purpose. In 1879 another boat was built by him driven by a steam engine. Nordenfeldt used the fundamental ideas upon which these two boats were based, added to them some improvements of his own as well as some devices which had been used by Bushnell, and finally launched ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... has come over the vessel's crew since the advent of the mission smack. Before that vessel joined the fleet, the chief occupation of the men during the hours of leisure was gambling, diversified now and then with stories and songs more or less profane. ...
— The Lively Poll - A Tale of the North Sea • R.M. Ballantyne
... learned to love still more the innocent ignorance of my past existence. Wiser than myself, you have remained in the service of the Lord; you have understood the divine mission which had been reserved for you; you have been unwilling to step over the profane threshold and to enter the world, that cavern, I ought to say, in which I am now assailed, tossed about like a frail bark during a tempest. Nay, the anger of the waves of the sea compared to that of the passions ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... striding through the churchyard, his hat well down over his eyes as if clapped on with unusual vigour, both hands thrust deep in his pockets, the umbrella, without which he never, even on the fairest of days, went out, pressed close to his side under his arm, and his long legs taking short and profane cuts over graves and tombstones with the indifference to decency of one immersed in unpleasant thought. It was not the custom in Symford to leap in this manner over its tombs; and Fritzing arriving at a point a few yards ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... character engaged in business in the great cities of China. I would not speak any disparaging word of those who are worthy of all respect. But it is all too evident that "many Americans and Europeans doing business in Asia are living the life of the prodigal son who has not yet come to himself.'' Profane, intemperate, immoral, not living among the Chinese, but segregating themselves in foreign communities in the treaty ports, not speaking the Chinese language, frequently beating and cursing those who are in their employ, ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... stormy period of youth it is the only means of preserving the virgin purity of the heart and of the body. Does anyone believe that young men who in good season have in their hearts a love strong and worthy of them would profane themselves, as they so often otherwise do, in vile affections, in those relations of a day, giving themselves a holocaust to beauty without soul, or even to ...
— What a Young Woman Ought to Know • Mary Wood-Allen
... the notes of the bugles go ringing over to Virginia's shore, and fill the air with cadences so sweet and musical that they sound like the pleasant laughter of good-humored Nature, instead of the well-punctuated and diligent ribaldry of the most profane class of humanity in existence. It is perfectly startling and frightful to hear an objurgation of the most utterly purposeless and ingeniously vile description transmitted half a mile with painful distinctness, and then ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... particular sensation which the disposition of St. Rocque's altars and ornaments alone can give. In the evening we looked at the new square called the Palais Royal, whence the Due de Chartres has removed a vast number of noble trees, which it was a sin and shame to profane with an axe, after they had adorned that spot for so many centuries.—The people were accordingly as angry, I believe, as Frenchmen can be, when the folly was first committed: the court, however, had wit enough to convert the place ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... execrable sentiment was Pepper Arden (subsequently Master of the Rolls and Lord Alvanley), and his punishment is thus recorded in the archives of the circuit:—"In this he was considered as doubly culpable, in the first place as having offended, against the laws of Almighty God by his profane cursing; for which, however, he made a very sufficient atonement by paying a bottle of claret; and secondly, as having made use of an expression which, if it should become a prevailing opinion, might ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... 'If I profane with my unworthy hand (Taking her hand) This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this— My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand To smooth that rough touch with a ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... must have an air of intelligence which successfully masks our colossal ignorance of occult facts and defunct dates, because they rely on us to inform them off-hand concerning everything social, political, historical, sacred and profane, spirituous and spiritual, from the protoplasm of the cliff-dwellers to the details of the Dingley bill, not skipping accurate information on the process of whiskey-making in Kentucky, a crocodile-hunt in Florida, ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell
... by the latest masters, is the art of expressing what is too foolish, too profane, or too indecent to be expressed in any other way. And thus, just as a consummate cook will prepare a most delicate repast out of the most poor materials, so will the modern poet concoct us a most ...
— Every Man His Own Poet - Or, The Inspired Singer's Recipe Book • Newdigate Prizeman
... X. (whose tastes were rather profane than pious) instructed or amused himself by causing to be discussed the question of the nature of the soul—himself adopting the opinion 'redit in nihilum quod fuit ante nihil,' and the decision of ...
— The Superstitions of Witchcraft • Howard Williams
... their lugubrious clamors, and the dogs of the late comte by their lamentable howlings. Grimaud was the only one who did not lift up his voice. Even in the paroxysm of his grief he would not have dared to profane the dead, or for the first time disturb the slumber of his master. Had not Athos always bidden him ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... foreigners, but in Portugal the peasant has still deeper subtleties of speech at the end of his tongue. Add to this that he has a vocabulary of abuse before which the Spaniard or the California mule-driver would be silenced, and you have the extent of his linguistic accomplishments. This profane eloquence was an art imparted no doubt by the Moors. The refinements of syntax come from the Latin, to which Portuguese bears more affinity in form than ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... old, Who long since, in the limits of the North, Set up his evil throne, and warred with God— What if, both mad and blinded in their rage, Our foes should fling us down their mortal gage, And with a hostile step profane our sod! We shall not shrink, my brothers, but go forth To meet them, marshalled by the Lord of Hosts, And overshadowed by the mighty ghosts Of Moultrie and of Eutaw—who shall foil Auxiliars such as these? Nor these alone, ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... A list of twelve such evils was drawn up in 1675, and the crimes which were condemned, and which were said to be committed chiefly by the younger sort, included immodest wearing of the hair by men, strange new fashions of dress, want of reverence at worship, profane cursing, tippling, breaking the Sabbath, idleness, overcharges by the merchants, and the "loose and sinful habit of riding from town to town, men and women together, under pretence of going to lectures, but really to drink and revel in taverns." The law forbidding the keeping of Christmas Day ...
— The Fathers of New England - A Chronicle of the Puritan Commonwealths • Charles M. Andrews
... profane language, did you, Cy?" asked Bailey. "I hope not, 'cause she might have you took up just out of spite. Did she ask your pardon ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln
... second, his banter of what he considered unessential and injurious dogmas of belief, in favour of those principles of the religion of charity which inflict no contradiction on the heart and understanding; third, the trouble which seems to have been given him by critics, "sacred and profane," in consequence of these originalities; and lastly, a doubt which has strangely existed with some, as to whether he intended to write a serious or a comic poem, or on any one point was in earnest at all. One writer thinks ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt
... was set, and ready to go off; I sent word to our distant neighbors that we were about to blast, and they had better come up until it was over. My courtesy was repaid by a very profane answer, accompanied with ...
— Eric - or, Under the Sea • Mrs. S. B. C. Samuels
... all profane far hence; fly, fly far off: Be absent far; far hence be all profane! [Tub. and Tib. sound while the Flamen washeth. Fla. We have been faulty, but repent us now, And bring pure hands, pure ...
— Sejanus: His Fall • Ben Jonson
... say so For good cause: in books profane Thou unceasingly delightest, Verse thou readest, verse thou writest, Of their very vanity vain. And if thou wouldst have me prove What I say to thy proceeding, Tell me, what 's this book thou ...
— The Two Lovers of Heaven: Chrysanthus and Daria - A Drama of Early Christian Rome • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... them all, or what place would best preserve them in safe custody, consider it best to put them into casks and to bury them in the chapel adjoining to the residence of the Flamen Quirinalis, where now it is profane to spit out. The rest they carry away with them, after dividing the burden among themselves, by the road which leads by the Sublician bridge to the Janiculum. When Lucius Albinius, a Roman plebeian, who was conveying his wife and children ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... weaker sex) very bold. She says, "A large naked winged woman, whose ugliness is perfectly repulsive." This object, I must confess, appears to me, a coarse male, "welcome to contemplation of the mind and eye." The splendid Venus in Titian's Sacred and Profane Love, or his Ariadne at Madrid; or Raphael's Galatea; or Michael Angelo's Eve (on the Sistine vault) are all of them doubtless far more akin to the Aphrodite of Praxiteles, or to her who crouches in the ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... and for fifteen minutes wouldn't say a word. But by seven o'clock in the morning, when they went back to the lunch-room and ate an enormous breakfast, Olga's sluggish blood was fired at last. It was a profane thought, but you could take the Fatal Sisters by the hair and coerce a change in ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... the divinity should not engage in industrially productive work; that work of any kind—any employment which is of tangible human use—must not be carried on in the divine presence, or within the precincts of the sanctuary; that whoever comes into the presence should come cleansed of all profane industrial features in his apparel or person, and should come clad in garments of more than everyday expensiveness; that on holidays set apart in honor of or for communion with the divinity no work that is of human use should be performed by any one. Even the remoter, ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen
... observed. True, the change from favor and ascendency to mere equality, is not in itself welcome to human creatures:—one conceives, for various reasons of lower and higher nature, a minority of discontented individuals in Breslau, zealous for their creed and old perquisites sacred and profane; who long in secret, sometimes vocally to one another, for the good old times,—when souls were not liable to perish wholesale, and people guilty only of loyalty and orthodoxy to be turned out of their offices on suspicion. ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... offended At such an act profane, Laid by his book, the cat he took, And bound her in ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... Frenchman instantly acceded to the boy's wish, and the precious violin was put in his hands. After the concert, when Paganini returned the instrument to M. Livron, the latter, who had been to hear him, exclaimed, "Never will I profane the strings which your fingers have touched! That instrument is yours." The astonishment and delight of the young artist may be more easily imagined than described. It was upon this violin that Paganini afterward performed in all his concerts, and the great ...
— Great Violinists And Pianists • George T. Ferris
... effect of it on the religious bodies already in occupation of the soil. The impression made on them by what seemed an irruption of barbarians of strange language or dialect, for the most part rude, unskilled, and illiterate, shunning as profane the Christian churches of the land, and bowing in unknown rites as devotees of a system known, and by no means favorably known, only through polemic literature and history, and through the gruesome traditions of Puritan and Presbyterian and Huguenot, was an impression not far removed from ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... and down it became highly amusing to see the crew and passengers scramble up the ladder, which sometimes was perpendicular, and at other times almost flat, as it followed the altering level of the tug. The ladder got broken—two or three ropes snapped—a deal of profane swearing took place—but it ...
— Canada and the States • Edward William Watkin
... Alvarez—El Negrito, they call him—paid us a little visit a few days ago." He added a profane and heartfelt abjuration of the bandit. "Most of us were corraled in the Blue Chip, and Geoff, he was shot down along with a ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant
... distinguished by the most extraordinary event recorded in history, either sacred or profane, the nativity of the Saviour of mankind; which has since introduced a new epoch into the chronology of all Christian nations. The commencement of the new aera being the most flourishing period of the Roman empire, a general view of the state of knowledge and taste at ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... himself with good boys than with such fellows as the Rovers; for, though he was "master of marine" among them, he could not help acknowledging to himself that they were not pleasant companions. They used profane and vulgar language; were always disposed to quarrel. Disputes which were settled peaceably in the clubs were decided by a fight among the Rovers; and the ambitious "master" had many misgivings as to his ability ...
— All Aboard; or, Life on the Lake - A Sequel to "The Boat Club" • Oliver Optic
... manifest, I felt, perhaps, a little impatient, put on my hat and left abruptly—the fair secretary, of whom I shall evermore stand in supreme awe, scowling at me when I did so. As I passed into Gower Street—sweet, serene Gower Street, sacred from the wheels of profane cabmen, I was almost surprised to see the "materialized" forms around me; and it really was not until I got well within sound—and smell—of the Underground Railway that I quite realized my abased position, or got out of the spheres whither the lofty periods of Mrs. Tappan's ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... happy mean, Public and private, sacred and profane, The wandering joys of lawless love supprest, With equal rites the wedded couple blest, Plann'd future towns, and instituted ...
— An Essay on the Lyric Poetry of the Ancients • John Ogilvie
... they have lies open for them, just as if it were their own [Matt. x. 11].... For which reason they carry nothing with them when they travel into remote parts [Matt. x. 9, 10].... As for their piety towards God, it is very extraordinary; for before sunrising they speak not a word about profane matters, but put up certain prayers which they have received from their forefathers, as if they made a supplication for its rising [the Essenes were then sun-worshippers].... A priest says grace before meat; and it is unlawful for anyone to taste of the food before ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... her morning hours and her Saturdays to help Rosamond; for they are "cooeperating" here, in the new home; what was the use, else, of having cooeperated in the old? Rosamond cannot bear to have any coarse, profane fingers laid upon her little household gods,—her wedding-tins and her feather dusters,—while the first gloss and freshness are on, at any rate; and with her dainty handling, the gloss is likely to ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... or Incarnation, because, the authority and authenticity of the sacred Books once proved, these great points ought to be held demonstrated. Those who since Grotius have written against infidelity with greatest success, have followed his example. Sacred and profane authors employed him alternately. In the end of the year 1620[104] he promises his brother to send him his observations on Seneca's Tragedies: These he had written at Vossius's desire[105]. He acknowledges his conjectures are sometimes very bold; but is ...
— The Life of the Truly Eminent and Learned Hugo Grotius • Jean Levesque de Burigny
... with thy profane foolery," said Don Rodrigo; "it is not seemly when the life of thy master is at stake. Prepare to give me a full and circumstantial account of this iniquitous business, or by my sword thou shalt severely rue the day thy master ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... every day for their comfortable sustenance—that is, 21d. a week—to be paid them every month during their single life, and as long as they should behave themselves honestly and godly, and duly frequent the parish church.' They were to be summarily removed if guilty of profane or wicked conduct. The alms-bodies were not to exceed five in number at any one time. He directed a buttery to be built for their convenience, and also a little brick room, with a window in it, for the five alms-bodies ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 436 - Volume 17, New Series, May 8, 1852 • Various
... trying to cultivate a pleasing manner and address is "Be natural," but this cannot be taken too literally. Most of us find it perfectly natural to be cross and disagreeable under trying circumstances. It would be natural for a man to cry out profane words when a woman grinds down on his corn but it would not be polite. It was natural for Uriah Heep to wriggle like an eel, but that did not make it any the less detestable. It was natural, considering the past history ...
— The Book of Business Etiquette • Nella Henney
... Anon, the vessel ships a weighty sea, Then all below is dread and misery; While the salt water pours in torrents down, As if inclined the Emigrants to drown! Some women shriek, and children cry aloud, While men toward the hatchways quickly crowd, Not now inclined to utter oaths profane, Or break a jest a meed of praise to gain. Some, on their knees, implore the "Virgin's" aid; And some true prayer is to the Savior made. The wind abates, but still the surges roar, Hearts fearful beat, and consciences feel sore. Ere long, the calm begins to be perceived And many ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd
... from him in a moment of exasperation and never intended to reach the fair band of sisters of the Cross, were piled high with additions, impolitic, impolite, discourteous, impudent, intolerable, yes, even profane and blasphemous. ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King
... interest in connection with the theory of Hildebrand,[16] that the landscape should have a narrow foreground and wide background, since that is most in conformity with our experience. He adduces Titian's Sacred and Profane Love as an example. But of the general principle it may be said that not the reproduction of nature, but the production of a unified complex of motor impulses, is the aim of composition, and that this aim is best reached by focusing the eye by a narrow ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various
... Allie, peeping out, saw by the fire and torch-light a multitude of men drawn to Durade's large tent. Mexicans, Negroes, Irishmen—all kinds of men passed, loud and profane, careless and reckless, quarrelsome and loquacious. Soon there arose in her ears the long-forgotten but now familiar sounds of a gambling-hell in full blast. The rolling rattle of the wheel, sharp, strident, and keen, ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... and a profane mate were fitting a couple of biscuit sacks over a twisted figure which lay on the grimy greasy deck planks. They pulled one over the head and another over the heels, and then with a palm and needle made them fast about the figure's middle. Afterwards they lashed a fire-bar ...
— The Harmsworth Magazine, v. 1, 1898-1899, No. 2 • Various
... innocent of any other crime. Having asked the keeper of the relics whether any robbery had been committed, the man began to laugh, and pointed out to them how impossible such a crime was, but from the moment I had plunged my profane hand into venerable relics, I was no longer worthy of my fair-haired and ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... mother, with Professor and Mrs. Allen, Mrs. K., and a few others of the same calibre would agree to meet together for dancing cotillons. It would do you all good, and if you took Mr. K.'s wife and poor Miss Much-Afraid, her daughter, into the alliance it would do them good. Bless me! what a profane set everybody would think you were, and yet you are the people of all the world most solemnly in need of it. I wish you could be with me in Brattleboro' and coast down hill on a sled, go sliding and snowballing by moonlight! ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... observed that the men of his regiment are very profane and reprobate. He takes this opportunity to inform them of his great displeasure at such practices, and assures them that, if they do not leave them off, they shall be severely punished. The officers are desired, if they hear any men swear ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... came. Henson whirled angrily, but he could elicit no response. He kicked the instrument over and danced round it impotently. Littimer had never seen him in such a raging fury before. The language of the man was an outrage, filthy, revolting, profane. No yelling, drunken Hooligan could have been more ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White
... not familiar with ecclesiastical law, he merely bowed. In fact, the blood-offerings of the ancients was of animals, and it was deemed profane to offer one's own. Still, the offering of blood is dedication to a friend or the country. Lincoln had ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... well, Lady Davers," added Mr. B., "the power your sex have over ours, and their subtle tricks: and so will never, in my weakest moments, be drawn in to make a blindfold promise. There have been several instances, both in sacred and profane story, of mischiefs done by such surprises: so you must allow me to suspect myself, when I know the dear slut's power over me, and have been taught, by the inviolable regard she pays to her own word, ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... Ralph firmly objected. "He uses profane language. You and I have both seen him foolish from drink. And we know that he was sent home from a good place, under circumstances that threw suspicion on his honesty. This being so, I am not going to be seen in his company. I think too much ...
— After a Shadow, and Other Stories • T. S. Arthur
... articles of the coarsest furniture, and a man was engaged in removing more of the same kind from the hovel. He had paused for a moment in his occupation, and before him stood a woman who was wringing her hands in the agonies of despair. Fanny could hear the profane and abusive language the man used, and she could hear the piteous pleadings of the woman, at whose side stood a little boy, half clothed in tattered garments, weeping as though his ...
— Hope and Have - or, Fanny Grant Among the Indians, A Story for Young People • Oliver Optic
... the rim of the world, sprayed its rays through the window and splashed with gold the face of Racey Dawson. He awoke, and much to the profane disgust of Swing Tunstall, ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... shall utter to whom it is lawful; but let the doors be closed, Nevertheless, against all the profane. But do thou hear, O Musaeus, for I will declare what ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... other, but it is also reenforced by their reliance on numbers. That reliance will be deep, since, to their numbers, they will owe much success. It will be thus that they will drive out other species, and garrison the globe. Such a race would naturally come to esteem fertility. It will seem profane not to. ...
— This Simian World • Clarence Day Jr.
... anything else he possesses. They exist in a dual form: in idea and in fact. They show themselves in language, habits of thought, sentiments, even instincts, and one sees them materialized in portraits, furniture, buildings, dress, songs. To profane eyes, they are nothing; to the eyes of those who know how to appreciate the things of the family, they are relics with which one should not ...
— The Simple Life • Charles Wagner
... — N. misuse, misusage, misemployment[obs3], misapplication, misappropriation. abuse, profanation, prostitution, desecration; waste &c. 638. V. misuse, misemploy, misapply, misappropriate. desecrate, abuse, profane, prostitute: waste &c. 638; overtask, overtax, overwork: squander &c. 818. cut blocks with a razor, employ a steam engine to crack a nut; catch at a straw. Adj. misused &c. v. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... considerations of a moral nature, as connected with language. Exceedingly exasperated at this interference with our comfort, I did not hesitate to tell the mate my opinion of his order. Warming with my own complaints, I soon became fearfully profane and denunciatory. I called down curses on the brig, and all that belonged to her, not hesitating about wishing that she might founder at sea, and carry all hands of us to the bottom of the ocean. In a word, ...
— Ned Myers • James Fenimore Cooper
... harmonious hours profane! Whom Love refines, can barbarous tumults please? Shall rage of blood pollute the sylvan reign? Shall Leisure wanton ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... carriage stopt, there stood an ancient temple, esteemed to be the largest in the whole kingdom, which, having been polluted some years before by an unnatural murder, was, according to the zeal of those people, looked upon as profane, and therefore had been applied to common use, and all the ornaments and furniture carried away. In this edifice it was determined I should lodge. The great gate, fronting to the north, was about four feet high, and almost two feet wide, through which I could easily creep. On each side of the gate ...
— Gulliver's Travels - Into Several Remote Regions of the World • Jonathan Swift
... and profane," Mikah said through his clenched teeth, as he went to the controls. "You attempt to kill us both. You have no respect for your own life or mine. You're a man who deserves the worst punishment the ...
— The Ethical Engineer • Henry Maxwell Dempsey
... libel him; But that's what both of us have learned to bear. He can forgive, but you disdain forgiveness. Your chiefs are they no libel must profane; Honour's a sacred thing in all but kings; But when your rhymes assassinate our fame, You hug your nauseous, blundering ballad-wits, And pay them, as if nonsense were a merit, If it can ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... when Silas Wegg had grown accustomed to the arrival of his patron in a cab, accompanied by some profane historian charged with unutterable names of incomprehensible peoples, of impossible descent, waging wars any number of years and syllables long, and carrying illimitable hosts and riches about, with the greatest ease, beyond the confines ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... inglorious, dastard train An absent hero's nuptial joys profane So with her young, amid the woodland shades, A timorous hind the lion's court invades, Leaves in that fatal lair her tender fawns, And climbs the cliffs, or feeds along the lawns; Meantime returning, ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... a little profane, mademoiselle," observed the captain; "but his journal probably was not intended for the ladies, and you must overlook it. Well, sir, you went to that ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... proposed that the clergymen should lead the way out of the little waiting-room in which we bald-headed ones and superlatively wise were assembled. But to this the manager of the affair demurred. He wanted the clergymen for a purpose, he said. And so the profane ones led the way, and the clergymen, of whom there might be some six or seven, clustered in around the lecturer at last. Early in his discourse, Mr. Everett told us what it was that the country needed at this period of her trial. Patriotism, courage, the bravery of the men, the good ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... announced that he had nothing to do and might as well help me wash up. I went to hand him a dish-towel. Instead of taking the towel he took my hand, with the very profane ejaculation, as he did so, of "Oh, hell, Gee-Gee, ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... had lived wild and reckless lives. One or two, according to persistent rumor, had carried out cargoes of New England rum and brought back shiploads of "black ivory" from the West coast of Africa. Not a few of them were picturesquely profane. Old Skipper Tom Bowman had a very original oath, "tender-eyed Satan!" which he must have had copyrighted, as he was the only one that I ever heard use it. We boys would sometimes bait him, provoking him to exasperation, ...
— Out of the Fog • C. K. Ober
... beginning." said Cicernachi, "I do not recollect all. It sounded thus: 'You have long known that Frederick, margrave of Brandenburg, in contempt for the authority of the Church, took to himself the name and insignia of king, a profane and unheard of act among Christians. He has thus unwisely enough become one of those of whom it is said in the Bible, 'They reigned, but not through Me; they were princes, but I did not know them.' Do you conceive now why I placed the king's picture before my store? ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... the Maid. Their words, which she quotes, were now promises of support, vague warnings of trouble to come. "Fear not, for God will stand by you." She thought they meant that she would be delivered in safety as she had been hitherto, her wounds healing, her sacred person preserved from any profane touch. But yet such promises have always something enigmatical in them, and it might be, as proved to be the case, that they meant rather consolation and strength to endure than deliverance. For the first time the Maid was often sad; she feared nothing, but the shadow ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." It has been said that even this brute philosophy is reasonable compared with the dogma of a large portion of unbelievers, to wit., that blasphemers, thieves, profane swearers, murderers and adulterers, will all go straight to heaven when they die; that men with their hearts steeped in blood will sit down with Abraham and Isaac in the kingdom of God. But Spiritualists, Pantheists, Atheists, and Deists inform us that an external revelation is useless. Their ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume I, No. 7, July, 1880 • Various
... of scandalous, wicked, and profane men, who appropriate to themselves the name of High Church (but may more properly be said to be Jesuits or Papists in masquerade), do take liberty to teach, preach, and print, publickly and privately, sedition, contentions, and divisions among the Protestants of this ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 197, August 6, 1853 • Various |
