"Detestable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that we have divulged your compelling by force those who had long kept themselves apart from the contagion of heresy to yield to its detestable communion. In this, O chief[79] of human powers, I, as successor, however unmerited, in the Apostolic See, cease not to remind you that whatever may be your material power in the world, you are but a man. Review all those ...
— The Formation of Christendom, Volume VI - The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations, from St. Leo I to St. Gregory I • Thomas W. (Thomas William) Allies
... extracts the occupation of Long Meg may be readily guessed at. Is it then likely that such a detestable character would have been buried amongst "goodly friars" and "holy abbots" in the cloisters of our venerable abbey? I think not: but I leave considerable doubts as to whether Meg was a real personage.—Query. Is she not akin to Tom ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 39. Saturday, July 27, 1850 • Various
... world approved or disapproved by reflection, by that principle within, whirls is the guile of life, the judge of right and wrong. Numberless instances of this kind might be mentioned. There are pieces of treachery, which in themselves appear base and detestable to every one. There are actions, which perhaps can scarce have any other general name given them than indecencies, which yet are odious and shocking to human nature. There is such a thing as meanness, ...
— Human Nature - and Other Sermons • Joseph Butler
... the indulgence of their evil passions. The declaration of such a rule is not against the policy of the law. It is in harmony with it, and calculated to preserve peace and, in a great measure, prevent barbarous acts, acts of cruelty, regarded by mankind as inexcusable, contemptible, detestable. It is neither too early nor too late to promulgate the doctrine that if a husband commits an assault and battery upon his wife he may be held responsible civilly and criminally for the act, which ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... your Majesty now a view, in umbra, of those detestable thoughts which afterwards appeared in facto, according to the said Earl's own mot. For what other sense or allusion can the reaching at a crown with a sword in a stretched posture, and the impersonating of his device in a ...
— James VI and the Gowrie Mystery • Andrew Lang
... house is my business, and detestable things seem to be happening." Our host, it was clear, now so furiously detested them that I was afraid he would snatch the bone of contention without more ceremony. "Bring me that thing!" he cried; on which Tottenham stiffly ...
— A Passionate Pilgrim • Henry James
... considered the matter long and painfully, sitting over a cup of some exquisitely detestable concoction called tea by the Bowesian landlady. "If he had only left me to myself," thought Arthur, "I should do at least as much as that for them. It is for them that I want it; as for myself, I should be more comfortable at Oxford." And then he thought of West ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... to declare his license null and void, and in the end he had to appeal to the Assembly. The Assembly of 1717 was somewhat startled at the theological language of Auchterarder, ordered the Presbytery to restore Mr Craig's license, declared the chief article of the new creed to be "unsound and most detestable," and asked them to explain its meaning to a meeting of the Commission. The Presbytery was of course able to show that their meaning was both pious and orthodox, and that they had been only a little over-zealous for the purity of the faith. In the ...
— Chronicles of Strathearn • Various
... that wicked and detestable sedition, so unbecoming the elect of God, which a few headstrong and self-willed men have fomented to such a degree of madness, that your venerable and renowned name, so worthy of all men to be beloved, is ...
— The Forbidden Gospels and Epistles, Complete • Archbishop Wake
... pumped up, but the public rush away to buy some cheap story which has signs of life in it. My impression is that it is not good for writers to consort too much with men of their own class; the slang of literature is detestable, and a man soon begins to use it at all seasons if he lives in the literary atmosphere. The actor who works in the theatre at night, and lives only among his peers during the day, ends by becoming a mummer even in private life; a teacher who does not systematically shake off the taint ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... wanting in latter ages, who found much interest in taking advantage of the weakness or credulity of their fellow creatures. Against this pestilent and abandoned race of men, most civilized countries have enacted penal laws. But what rendered such persons peculiarly detestable in modern times, was the communication which they were supposed to hold with the devil, to whom they sold themselves, and from whom, in return, they derived their information. And by this principle the penal statutes, instead of extirpating, inflamed the evil. They alarmed the imaginations of the ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... cease to forgive you, and answer you in the same manner. It is to be feared, that the dissolution of our correspondence will immediately follow, or dwindle into half a page of your text hand, which I always looked upon as a detestable invention: if all this that I dread happens, we shall then cease to ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
... and nearly as much in France and Germany. By stringent regulations for maintaining cleanliness of ships, wharves, and, indeed of cities throughout, along with the abolition everywhere of the useless and detestable antiquated personal quarantine, yellow fever has been almost absolutely extinguished; only ten deaths from it occurring last summer in Havana, one or two in Pensacola, and not one in New Orleans, Memphis, Nashville, or any other city in the United States. Cholera, likewise, ...
— 1931: A Glance at the Twentieth Century • Henry Hartshorne
... not, perhaps, greatly to be wondered at if, under such circumstances, the blacks had gradually come to regard the possessor of a white skin as the incarnation of everything that was superlatively detestable, and a person to be destroyed promptly with as little hesitation or compunction as one would destroy a particularly venomous snake; and such was the feeling which Grosvenor and Dick inspired in the breasts of those natives in whose hands they found ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood
... little moment, but in such as affect the friend's life and honour. Now tell me, Anselmo, in which of these two art thou imperilled, that I should hazard myself to gratify thee, and do a thing so detestable as that thou seekest of me? Neither forsooth; on the contrary, thou dost ask of me, so far as I understand, to strive and labour to rob thee of honour and life, and to rob myself of them at the same time; for if I take away thy honour it is plain I take away thy life, as a man ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... June belongs to the National, but contains much matter by United members. "Tempora Mutantur," a very meritorious short story by Marguerite Sisson, affords an illuminating contrast between the solid culture of 1834 and the detestable shallowness of the present time. This prevailing frivolity and unscholarliness is something which the United is seeking to remedy, and we are thankful indeed for stories such as this, which expose modern levity in all its nauseousness. It is evident that Miss Sisson is emulating the appreciative ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... sympathy. "Oh, don't bother about me, Mr. Pathurst. Sea-sickness is only detestable and horrid, like sleet, and muddy weather, and poison ivy; besides, I'd rather be sea-sick than ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... ever been the enemy of liberal principles. It has ever been the friend of ignorance, prejudice, and all the unlawful, savage, and detestable passions which proceed therefrom. It has ever been domineering, arrogant, exacting, and overbearing. It has claimed to be a polished aristocrat, when in reality it has only been a coarse, swaggering, and brutal ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... greatly to facilitate matters, about settles the question of "sport." I should like to ask Charles Payne, or Goddard, their opinion of "pricking" a fox. However, to ride straight and fast over such a country would be simply impossible; their detestable snake-fences meet you everywhere, with their projecting "zigzags" of loosely-piled rails; you can hardly ever get a chance of taking them in your stride, and they are a fair standing jump with the top bar removed, which generally involves dismounting. The name of poor Falcon had led me so far afield, ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... taste of the Spanish kings," he observed to Gerald Burke, "to plant their capital at Madrid in the centre of a barren country, when they might make such a splendid city as this their capital. I could see no charms whatever in Madrid. The climate was detestable, with its hot sun and bitter cold winds. Here the temperature is delightful; the air is soft and balmy, the country round is a garden, and there is a cathedral worthy of ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty
... nothing more detestable than defamation. I have no scruple to rank a slanderer with a murderer or an assassin. Those who assault the reputation of their benefactors, and 'rob you of that which nought enriches them,' would destroy your life, if they could do ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner
... mysterious life of the wilderness that stirs in the forest, in the jungles, in the hearts of wild men. There's no initiation either into such mysteries. He has to live in the midst of the incomprehensible, which is also detestable. And it has a fascination, too, that goes to work upon him. The fascination of the abomination—you know, imagine the growing regrets, the longing to escape, the powerless disgust, ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... nineteenth, on which hundreds of citizens had fallen at Montretout, at Garches, and at Buzenval. Thanks to the want of foresight of the Government, the people of Paris were rationed to 300 grammes of detestable black bread a day for each person. All representations made to them had been in vain. Ration our bread by degrees, had been said, we should thus accustom ourselves to privation, and be prepared insensibly, ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton
... fifteenth centuries, and even, though in a minor degree, throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth, causing a permanent disorder of the mind, and exhibiting, in those cities to whose inhabitants it was a novelty, scenes as strange as they were detestable. ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... were also very numerous. They were the coffee-houses of the ancient day. Hot drinks were sold there, boiled and perfumed wine, and all sorts of mixtures, which must have been detestable, but for which the ancients seem to have had a special fancy. "A thousand and a thousand times more respectable than the wine-shops of our day, these bathing-houses of ages gone by, where men did not assemble to shamefully squander their means and their ...
— The Wonders of Pompeii • Marc Monnier
... of several of the prisoners, whose good behavior or stupidity recommended them to the clemency of the government. He inquired how they were fed, and if they had any request to make. The universal response was, that the fare was detestable, and that they ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Engineer proved to be a most courteous old gentleman. Towards Humility he bore himself with an antique politeness which flattered her considerably. And when he praised her tea she almost forgave him for his detestable habit of snuff-taking. ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... are too much an earthly being for that. Come, now, take off that detestable mask and let me ...
— Deadwood Dick, The Prince of the Road - or, The Black Rider of the Black Hills • Edward L. Wheeler
... of chastity, and the men drank "kill-devil" like their betters. Stedman was struck with the difference between the meaning of the word "good" in rebellious circles and in reputable. "It must, however, be observed that what we Europeans call a good character was by the Africans looked upon as detestable, especially by those born in the woods, whose only crime consisted in avenging the wrongs done to their forefathers." But if martial virtues be virtues, such were theirs. Not a rebel ever turned traitor or informer, ever flinched in battle or under torture, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various
... affairs. Good by, my dear, be happy and brave." The next day he wrote again on the same subject: "I have yours of the 27th, with those of Hortense and M. Napoleon enclosed. I have asked you to go back to Paris; the season is too bad, the roads too insecure and detestable, the distance too great for me to allow you to come so far to me when my affairs detain me. It would take you at least a month to get here. You. would be sick when you got here, and then, perhaps, you would have to start back; it would be madness. Your sojourn at Mayence ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... have been very many. There have been times when I could think only of death, so completely humbled have I felt, so without spirit, so utterly in Tom Burton's power. I have told you something of his slimy plots, of his detestable innuendoes. He knew of my loathing of the divorce courts, and my fear of scandal, no matter how unfounded, and played upon them constantly, feeling sure that in the end ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Criminologist • John T. McIntyre
... But in their temporal rights, or their quiet possession of any dignity and title, they will not suffer. Whenever I go in I will pay my entrance fee, like other liege subjects, and resign myself meekly to the guidance of the beadle, and listen without rebuke when he points out to my admiration detestable monuments, or shows me a hole in the wall for a confessional. Yet this splendid monument, its treasures of art and its fitting endowments, form not the parts of Westminster which will concern me; for there is another part which stands in frightful contrast, ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... look quite pretty when you are excited! Now, what did this wonderful Miss Peel do? Did she box the ears of those two detestable girls? If so, ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... the case was urgent; and, unless Juno could find good bail, she was certain of being committed on three very serious charges of 1. trespass; 2. assault and battery; 3. stealing in a dwelling-house. The case was briefly this: Juno had opened so detestable an overture of howling on her master's departure for the forest, that the people at the Double-barrelled Gun, out of mere consideration for the city of B——, had found it necessary to set her at liberty; whereupon, ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... it to me when he died, but he departed from life and never kept his word. A frequent source of grief to me has been to see objects of great value, illustrating some point in archaeology, seized as "curiosities" by ignorant wealthy folk. The most detestable form of this folly is the buying of incunabula, first editions or uncut copies, and keeping them from publication or reading, and, in short, of worshipping anything, be it a book or a coin, merely because it is rare. Men never expatiate on rariora in literature or in china, or talk cookery ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... women's colleges; but as very few of them are fortunate enough to enjoy this advantage, most women are so thoroughly home-bred as to be unfit for human society. So little is expected of them that in Sheridan's School for Scandal we hardly notice that the heroine is a female cad, as detestable and dishonorable in her repentance as she is vulgar and silly in her naughtiness. It was left to an abnormal critic like George Gissing to point out the glaring fact that in the remarkable set of life studies of ...
— Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw
... could wake such detestable groans, With reed and with chaunter—with bag and with drones: All day and ill night he delighted the chiels With sniggering ...
— The Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... the detestable and tyrannical police we spent the last four days and nights together in the closest intimacy. When she left I wanted her to take fifty Louis; but she would only have thirty, saying that she could travel to Montpellier on that ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... stable with the beasts; here we are reduced to asking alms, and you're so ugly, so revolting, so despised, that soon they will toss bread to us as they do to the dogs. Alas! my poor mondes [people], take pity on us! take pity on me! I don't deserve my fate, and no woman ever had a filthier, more detestable husband. Help me to pick him up, or else the wagons will crush him like an old broken bottle, and I shall be a widow, which would kill me with grief, although everybody says it would be great good ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... reserved for execution by martial law. The Italian general and some of the officers were made prisoners of war, but the garrison was butchered in cold blood; nor is it without pain that we find a service so horrid and detestable committed ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... first. They were plentiful enough, full. One could have been run over and killed by them twenty times between Trafalgar Square and Piccadilly Circus, but all teemed with selfish life. Men of ferocious concentration and women detestable in their purposefulness were to be seen through the passing windows. It was a day on which no one ever got out of a cab at all, except to tell it to wait. No flag was ever up. Since the blessing of peace began to be ours these days have ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 26, 1919 • Various
... uncompromising, unceasing "no" to? There are a few words in common use that give some suggestion of its character. There is the word selfish, that is, being absorbed in one's own self; in getting every stream to flow by his own door. That is commonly regarded, even in absolutely worldly circles, as a detestable trait. Its opposite, self-forgetful, being full of forgetting one's self in thinking of others, is as commonly regarded in all circles as a charming, winsome trait of character. The words self-centered, and self-willed, are as ...
— Quiet Talks on Power • S.D. Gordon
... had been one of the Strasburg conspirators, was particularly unmanageable; and late in the afternoon he insisted on going ashore to buy some cigars, saying that those on board were detestable. In vain Persigny and Orsi, who in the prince's absence considered themselves to be in command, assured him that to land was impossible; Parquin would not recognize their authority. The rest of the story I will tell in Count ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... only felt, and the Legislation Primitive and the Pensees sur Divers Sujets contain much that an enemy of the school will find it worth while to read, in spite of an artificial, and, if a foreigner may judge, a detestable style. ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 4: Joseph de Maistre • John Morley
... called 'cold,' not as wanting in tenderness or enthusiasm, but as representing a kind of philosophical asceticism. Whether from his early education, his recluse life, or his innate temperament, half the feelings which moved mankind seemed to him simply coarse and brutal. They were altogether detestable—not the perversions which, after all, might show a masculine and powerful nature. Mill's view, for example, seemed to be that all the differences between the sexes were accidental, and that women could be turned into men by trifling changes ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... into the lock, and the lid rose quickly. The paper? That new, detestable paper, which might deprive her of everything. ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... and right principle would send forth, against all arrangements and inveterate or more modern usages, of the nature of invidious exclusion, arbitrary repression, and the debasement of great public interests into a detestable private traffic, an energy, which could no more be resisted than the power of the sun, when he advances in the spring to annihilate the relics and vestiges of the winter. This plastic influence would modify the institutions of ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... often declared that, were it not for the guns, not one Arab would leave the country alive; this tends to prove that they would willingly engage in fight with the strangers who had made themselves so detestable, were it not that the startling explosion of gunpowder inspires them ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... capable of calm judgment. Here the atmosphere is simply detestable. Everybody has knuckled under to sentiment. Perhaps your deliberate opinion could influence . ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... crowded with English army motors and beautiful prancing chargers; and the restaurant of the inn (which has the luck to face the pink and grey palace) swarmed with khaki tea-drinkers turning indifferent shoulders to the widest view in Europe. It is one of the most detestable things about war that everything connected with it, except the death and ruin that result, is such a heightening of life, so visually stimulating and absorbing. "It was gay and terrible," is the phrase forever recurring in "War and Peace"; ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton
... cruelty that ever was heard of among men, they have been forced and compelled to fight against their country and their friends. These seamen we should be glad to deliver from the prisons in this kingdom, and from a misery and captivity infinitely more detestable on board of British men of war. We, therefore, beg leave to propose to your Excellency, that an inquiry be made, and a list taken of the natives of America among the crews of the Fox and Lively, and the men delivered to us. This would be attended with many happy consequences. ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various
... odorous than either of its components. These esters of the fatty acids give the characteristic savor to many of our favorite fruits, candies and beverages. The pear flavor, amyl acetate, is made from acetic acid and amyl alcohol—though amyl alcohol (fusel oil) has a detestable smell. Pineapple is ethyl butyrate—but the acid part of it (butyric acid) is what gives Limburger cheese its aroma. These essential oils are easily made in the laboratory, but cannot be extracted from the fruit ...
— Creative Chemistry - Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries • Edwin E. Slosson
... mean and ugly things. Don't let there be any misunderstanding," he said, smiling round the table. "I have hated most of you at different times, some of you very much. I don't deny there are good points about you, but that isn't enough. Sometimes you are detestable!" ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... rightly anywhere else at all. It's a horrible want of patriotism, of course, only, if I were upon trial, I might say in a low voice a few things to soften the judgment against me on account of that sin. Ah! we missed you at Havre! If you had come it would have been something pleasant to remember that detestable place by, besides the salt-water which profited one's health a little. We were in Paris too some six weeks in all (besides eight weeks at Havre!) and Paris has a certain charm for me always. If we had seen you in Paris! But no, you must have ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... man consists, as far as the crowd is concerned, in his entertaining or pretending to entertain the same sentiments as itself, and it is just for this reason that the representatives of the multitude are excellent as documents for information, but detestable, or at least, useless, and therefore ...
— The Cult of Incompetence • Emile Faguet
... medicine is potent for good and evil. For good in the hands of him who makes it his lifelong study; for evil in his hands who adopts it merely as a respectable means of obtaining his livelihood. It is noble in the one case; detestable in the other. You do not know how detestable. If the vail could be raised, if you could see the vast amount of misery and suffering caused, the many hearts broken that God would not have made sad; and the many unprepared ...
— Three Months of My Life • J. F. Foster
... to provoke general suspicion at the Council table. Gorges and Warwick must have "grinned horribly behind their hands" upon receipt of the honest thanks of these honest planters and the pious benedictions of their scribe, knowing themselves guilty of detestable conspiracy and fraud, which had frustrated an honest purpose, filched the results of others' labors, and had "done to death" good men and women not a few. Winslow, in "Hypocrisie Unmasked," says: "We met with many dangers and the mariners' put back into the harbor of the Cape." The original intent ...
— The Mayflower and Her Log, Complete • Azel Ames
... obliged to own grudgingly that the Colonel was justified in his decision,—that as Second in Command he was the right man to remain in charge of the station. But the acknowledgment did not make the necessity one whit less detestable in his eyes; and to-night the two men's positions were reversed. It was Paul who moved to and fro with long restless strides; while Theo, enveloped in a cloud of blue smoke, sat watching him in profound sympathy ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... one more great event, the end of this Parisian tyranny, and the resuscitation of provincial life; for I must repeat, my dear sir, that your centralization, which was once an excellent remedy, is a detestable regimen! It is a horrible instrument of oppression and tyranny, ready-made for all hands, suitable for every despotism, and under it France stifles and wastes away. You must agree with me yourself, Durocher; in this sense the Revolution overshot its mark, and placed in jeopardy even its purposes; ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... court which was a mere sink of profligacy and villainy. Then he had got his freedom, and next, the governorship of Judaea, probably by his brother Pallas's interest, who had been a slave like him, and had made an enormous fortune by the most detestable wickedness. ...
— Discipline and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... squall, or that the brig had been taken by another pirate. We were much disappointed to find that the brig had to be delivered up to the authorities at Gibraltar, as we fully expected that Nettleship would have been ordered to take her home. Though she was an especially detestable craft, yet he and Tom Pim and I were very happy together, and we had enjoyed an independence which was not to be obtained on board the frigate. When Lord Robert got tired of Gibraltar, we sailed to the eastward, and again brought up in the Bay of Naples. We ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston
... simplicity of tone. "And I don't mind telling you, Mr. Razumov, that if he had not come with his tale to such a staunch and loyal Russian as you, he would have disappeared like a stone in the water... which would have had a detestable effect," he added, with a bright, cruel smile under his stony stare. "So you see, there can be no suspicion ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... wife; I sue not for my ruddy drops of life, My children fair, my lovely girls and boys; I will forget them; I will pass these joys, Ask nought so heavenward; so too too high; Only I pray, as fairest boon, to die; To be delivered from this cumbrous flesh, >From this gross, detestable, filthy mesh, And merely given to the cold, bleak air. Have mercy, goddess! Circe, ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... anchored, and lay all day long. Provisions running short, a boat had to be sent to land, and the sailors purchased, among other things, some peculiarly detestable bread—according to them, cotto al sole. There was not a cloud in the sky; till evening, the wind whistled above our heads, but the sea about us was blue and smooth. I sat in hot sunshine, feasting my eyes on the beautiful cliffs and valleys of the thickly-wooded shore. Then came ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing
... wives' letters, and call on them to account for every farthing of their expenditure and every moment of their time; in which women do the same to their children; in which no room is private and no hour sacred; in which duty, obedience, affection, home, morality and religion are detestable tyrannies, and life is a vulgar round of punishments and lies, coercion and rebellion, jealousy, suspicion, recrimination—Oh! I cannot describe it to you: fortunately for you, you know nothing about it. (She sits down, panting. Gloria has listened ...
— You Never Can Tell • [George] Bernard Shaw
... and Morelly, the fanatics that set atheism up as an obligatory dogma and a superior duty; the socialists who, to suppress egoism, propose a community of property, and who found a republic in which any man that proposes to re-establish "detestable ownership" shall be declared an enemy of humanity, treated as a "raging maniac" and shut up in a dungeon for life. It is sufficient to have studied the operations of large armies and of great campaigns.—With different gadgets and opposite ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... cherished, and so fondly loved, would fill a murderer's grave, and she would look upon his face no more. She knew that it was appointed for all to "pass through the dark valley of the shadow of death," but what a horrible, detestable, and ignominious death was his! Could it be true? Was he—her son, in the prime of manhood and enjoyment—the life-blood coursing freely and strongly throughout his system—unshattered by disease—to die—to ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... with that detestable nick-name she has used since I wore rompers. "Aren't you trying for a record or something? This is twice you've ...
— 32 Caliber • Donald McGibeny
... Maltese, under arms. Had this garrison been resolute and united, the fortifications of Valetta could have held the French for a considerable time. But the natives were divided, many regarding the French, despite their doubtful career of the last few years, as liberators from a detestable tyranny. Two-thirds of the Knights were French, and many of them had become infected with republican principles, though the French langues also contained the fiercest ...
— Knights of Malta, 1523-1798 • R. Cohen
... under your feet, my life, my love! You walked on me and never knew it." Aloud he answered: "Was I so detestable? Forgive me. I ...
— The Indian On The Trail - From "Mackinac And Lake Stories", 1899 • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... myself at my desk, smiling a little cynically. How long would the lesson last? Then I happened to glance towards the mantelpiece, beside which Ursula had been standing. There, hastily propped against the clock, was that detestable photograph. It still quivered in the movement of release, as though shaking its shoulders, settling down palpably for another decade. With an uncontrollable impulse I leapt up, seized the abomination and, flinging it on the floor, ground it ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, August 11, 1920 • Various
... are attacked, they retaliate; and yet, lest further ill should arise, they at once endeavor to come to terms. They think that party acts most creditably, which is the first to propose terms of peace; that it is disgraceful to be anticipated in so doing; and that it is scandalous and detestable to refuse peace to those who ask for it, even though the latter should have been the aggressors: all the neighboring people unite in destroying such refusers of peace as impious and abominable. Hence ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 • Emma Helen Blair
... I can invest my earnings in wearing apparel. What a picturesque place this is! Way back in the primitive; no hint of those namby-pamby green meadows and set rows of shade trees that make most country towns detestable; rocks and boulders—boulders and rocks—and the scraggly pines for background. The wee brook has gone crazy. What do ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces on Vacation • Edith Van Dyne
... a letter to Lord Bathurst, that his army, the army which fought on the 18th of June, 1815, was a "detestable army." What does that sombre intermingling of bones buried beneath the furrows of Waterloo ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... table garnished with three or four kinds of well-made cake, compounded with citron and spices and all imaginable good things, where the meat was tough and greasy, the bread some hot preparation of flour, lard, saleratus, and acid, and the butter unutterably detestable, where, if the mistress of the feast had given the care, time, and labor to preparing the simple items of bread, butter, and meat, that she evidently had given to the preparation of these extras, the lot of her guests and family might be much more comfortable. But she does not think ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... female admirers and correspondents, or by his desire to become fashionable, or, as is most likely, by the wish to create in Sir Charles a virtuous foil to him whom he thought the wicked, witty, delightful, and detestable Lovelace? Whatever the reason, it is a thousand pities that he ...
— Letters on Literature • Andrew Lang
... may remember, causes some of the most terrible events in the Mysteres de Paris to occur in the Allee des Venves, a fine avenue in the Champs Elysees. This has had the effect of giving the unfortunate Allee—though as quiet, modest, well-behaved, moral street as need be—a detestable reputation; people have shunned it as if it were a cavern of cutthroats—those condemned to live in it have felt themselves quasi-infamous—its rents have fallen, its shops stood empty, its business has dwindled away. The owners of its houses, and its few remaining inhabitants and ...
— International Weekly Miscellany Of Literature, Art, and Science - Vol. I., July 22, 1850. No. 4. • Various
... incompatible. The state of our literature during the reigns of Elizabeth and James the First is a strong confirmation of this remark. The greatest works of imagination that the world has ever seen were produced at that period. The national taste, in the meantime, was to the last degree detestable. Alliterations, puns, antithetical forms of expression lavishly employed where no corresponding opposition existed between the thoughts expressed, strained allegories, pedantic allusions, everything, ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... family dish is the Gad-fly; elsewhere it is the Weevil; elsewhere again it is the Cricket, the Locust and the Praying Mantis. Good in themselves, in a general way, these several victuals may be noxious to a consumer who is not used to them. The larva which dotes on Locust may find caterpillar a detestable fare; and that which revels in caterpillar may hold Locust in horror. It would be hard for us to discover in what manner Cricket-flesh and Ephippiger-flesh differ as juicy, nourishing foodstuffs; but it does not follow that the two Sphex-wasps addicted to ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre
... the first day presented the hopeful ticket, a detestable blank. The rest came out with different fortune, and in conclusion I lost thirty pounds ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... 6.50 a.m., all our carriers being well provided with food. The country was as usual a well-watered undulating prairie, abounding in game. At this season the journey was very delightful, but when the grass is about nine feet high it is simply detestable travelling. ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... mirth as soon as I could, however, I covered its inappropriateness with a steely frown. "I do not need to glance at the dictionary to see that you would be a detestable room-mate," said I, "and on second thoughts I prefer to sleep quietly in the stable rather than press my claim here." With this, I turned on my heel, not giving the enemy time for another volley, and stalked downstairs, followed, I regret to ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... I have been compelled to respond to the intimation of the Vicomtesse de Bois de Rose, that "on sautera". I have jumped with the rest. I have half killed myself with sirops, petit-fours, those microscopic caricatures of detestable British preparation—sandwiches (pronounced sonveetch), bouillon, and chocolate, in the small hours; ices in tropical heats; foie-gras and champagne about two hours after healthy bedtime, and tea like that which provoked old Lady Gargoyle to kick over the ...
— The Cockaynes in Paris - 'Gone abroad' • Blanchard Jerrold
... going to understand. Have you really forgotten to what an extent the beautiful queens of antiquity had just cause to complain of the strangers whom fortune brought to their borders? The poet, Victor Hugo, pictured their detestable acts well enough in his colonial poem called la Fille d'O-Taiti. Wherever we look, we see similar examples of fraud and ingratitude. These gentlemen made free use of the beauty and the riches of the lady. Then, one fine morning, they disappeared. She ...
— Atlantida • Pierre Benoit
... Detestable Plujii! With malice aforethought, they brought about high winds that destroyed the banana plantations, and tumbled over the heads of its occupants many a bamboo dwelling. They cracked the calabashes; soured the "poee;" induced the colic; begat the spleen; ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... had good reason to bless his stars that in that moment of frenzy I did not encounter him, the detestable origin of the abomination that had just been heaped upon my head. I am no two-legged creature if I should not have sacrificed him on the spot with my razor, and so merited the gratitude of his regimental juniors by giving them ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, December 18, 1841 • Various
... Grandmamma had signified to him her dislike for corporal punishment, and therefore he dared not beat us, but he frequently THREATENED us, particularly myself, with the cane, and would utter the word fouetter as though it were fouatter in an expressive and detestable way which always gave me the idea that to whip me would afford him the ...
— Boyhood • Leo Tolstoy
... himself not only without murmuring and discontent, but even with an alacrity which almost approached to cheerfulness. So sensible, at the same time, were the men of the awfulness of their situation, that not an oath was heard among them, the detestable habit of profane swearing being instantly subdued by the dread of incurring guilt when a ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis
... again—cried—"No—let it never be said, that the royal blood that runs in my veins, could dictate to me no more noble ways for its defence and pretensions, than the mean cowardice of lies; and that to attain to empire, I should have recourse to the most detestable of all shifts. No, no, my too zealous friend," continued he, "I will, with only my sword in my hand, at the head of my army proclaim my right, and demand a crown, which if I win is mine; if not, it is his whose sword is better or luckier; and though ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... paying; yes; but I maintain that he was induced to do so by fraud. Well-informed in all things, the Devil must have known that my friend would gain nothing by his visit to futurity. The whole thing was a very shabby trick. The more I think of it, the more detestable ...
— Seven Men • Max Beerbohm
... my identity had been revealed to him. I regret this, inasmuch as the inventor will indubitably be the object of pressing solicitations, and as Engineer Serko will employ every means in his power to obtain the composition of the explosive and deflagrator, of which he will make such detestable use during future piratical exploits. Yes, it would have been far better if I could have remained Thomas Roch's keeper here, as ...
— Facing the Flag • Jules Verne
... fellow countrymen, while we call your attention to the outrage on your rights, the contempt of personal obligations and the hardened cruelty involved in this detestable resolution. Condemn us not for the harshness of our language, before you hear our justification. We shall speak only the truth, but we ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... person not bad of blood will always be glad to mention one of the few good sides of a generally detestable character; and a person of humour must always chuckle at some of the ways in which Calvin's services to French ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... know, Monsieur Le Capitaine (he always called my father so), I am a Frenchman, fond of liberty and change, and this detestable prison became so very irksome to me, with its scanty food and straw beds on the floor, that I had for some time determined to make my escape and go to Ireland, where I believe sympathies are strong towards the French nation. I am, as you know, acquainted with Monsieur P—-, ...
— Recollections of Old Liverpool • A Nonagenarian
... admirable in the eyes of all men, savage and civilized, Christian and non-Christian—as admirable as cowardice, the opposite quality, is detestable. The brave man is the hero of the savage. Bravery, or, as the Scriptures term it, virtue, is a great requisite in a Christian. If it is not the first, it is the second characteristic of a Christian life. ...
— Life and Conduct • J. Cameron Lees
... Pryntare to London with Harry Pepwell, Bonere and Tabbe, of Powlles churchyard stationers, to order him at your pleasure. Never heard of the little book of detestable heresies till the stationers showed it me.'—(Letters and Papers, Hen. VIII., Vol. xiv., Pt. ...
— A Short History of English Printing, 1476-1898 • Henry R. Plomer
... do not, Jimmy." I found myself engaged in one of those detestable conversations where one knows the talk ought to end, yet dislikes ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... the territories of Goa, but the Rajah desired, that should I wish to stay any time at a place I would first give him notice, in order that he might send someone to see that no injury was done me. Some wine was then brought us, and afterwards some detestable coffee and wretched sweetmeats, for it is a fact that I have never tasted good coffee where people ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume I. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... humanity,—it were difficult to imagine any ethical justification for the aggressions made upon alien peoples in the name of Christianity and enlightenment. Certainly the results in China of such aggression [478] have not been Christianity nor enlightenment, but revolts, massacres, detestable cruelties,—the destruction of cities, the devastation of provinces, the loss of tens of thousands of lives, the extortion of hundreds of millions of money. If all this be right, then might is might indeed; and our professed ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... limp in his walk, the kind, pleasant face with the mobile mouth and the eyeglass screwed in the smiling eye, and the hair, now sprinkled with grey, brushed back from the broad open forehead? The genial, pleasant manner, the entire ease of the man, and the utter absence of all that detestable putting on of "side" which is too often characteristic of the young actor of the present day, how all these things go towards the explanation of his universal popularity! A great sorrow has overshadowed the latter years of his life, ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... to understand that he regretted not being at liberty to say in that regard all that he knew." Flinders also believed Peron to be a worthy man who acted as he did "from overruling authority." Those who have read the evidence printed in this book, exhibiting the detestable conduct of both Peron and Freycinet in repaying indulgence and hospitality by base espionage, will hardly be precipitate in crediting either of them with immaculate motives. There is no evidence that authority was exercised to induce them to name the southern ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... scene. I was absolutely wrong, and I have suffered for it more than once. But at my age one doesn't reform. When I have drawn up the plan, I no longer want to write the piece. You see that I am a detestable collaborator. Say so, if you speak to me, but don't hold me ...
— How to Write a Play - Letters from Augier, Banville, Dennery, Dumas, Gondinet, - Labiche, Legouve, Pailleron, Sardou, Zola • Various
... enough for a man to have the right spirit and the right motives, unless he does that which is right in itself. Conscience may be warped by malevolence, selfishness, prejudice, or education, until the man is led to do that which is detestable in the sight of God. The time may come when this man will regret his foolishness, and see that he was wrong, like ...
— The Christian Foundation, March, 1880
... what I said to her; something at any rate that she found unpardonable, for she quite gave me up. Shortly afterwards my husband proposed we should cease to live in Paris, and I gladly assented, for I believe I had taken a turn of spirits that made me a detestable companion. I should have preferred to go quite into the country, into Auvergne, where my husband has a house. But to him Paris in some degree is necessary, and Saint-Germain has ...
— Madame de Mauves • Henry James
... received and the melancholy prospect before us, at the seeming departure of our invaluable liberties. But some sign of life appearing, Liberty was not deposited in the grave; it was rescued by a number of her sons, the motto changed to Liberty revived, and carried off in triumph. The detestable Act was buried in its stead, and the clods of the valley were laid upon it; the bells changed their melancholy sound to a more joyful tone." (1. Annals of Portsmouth, by ...
— An Old Town By The Sea • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... history of Spain, and no excuse is needed for giving it in its entirety: Berenguela was one of those rare beings who seems to have been born to do right and to have done it. From her earliest youth she was a leading figure, a happy and noble influence in one of the most contemptible and detestable societies of mediaeval Christendom. Married of her own free will to a stranger and an enemy, that she might bring peace to two kingdoms, she was ever a true and loyal wife; unwedded by ecclesiastical tyranny in the very flower of her young womanhood, she was ever a faithful ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... thing in the world, and, if for one moment you thought me capable of speaking to you as I did the other night, now that I know you to be a wealthy woman, I could never look you in the face again. If I seem angry you must try to forgive me; you know me of old—I am always detestable when I am ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... cannot get me out of the Bastile, and I remain there—oh! that will be so, and I shall be a detestable prisoner; I, who have been a passable man,—in that case, I give three-fifths to you, and ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... understand their power?" whispered the hot breath of Mr. Jones into his ear. "Can there be a more disgusting spectacle? It's enough to make the earth detestable. She seems to have found her affinity. Move on closer. If I have to shoot you in the end, then ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... not likely that he should borrow: he loves nothing, praises nothing, esteems nothing of this poor visible present; but it was an additional recommendation to the Puritanic piety, that it had left a detestable memory behind it, and was in declared hostility with all contemporaneous ways of thinking. What could he better do, therefore, than borrow this old volcanic crater of Puritanism, and pour out from it his religion and his anger upon a ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... twenty-four specimens of Buthus occitanus, the large White Scorpion of the south of France. The odious animal abounds, always isolated, under the flat stones of the neighbouring hills, in the sandy spots which enjoy the most sunlight. It has a detestable reputation. ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... to decide, captain," said he cynically; "but this one will make no deeference. Yes, I would take him. It will not be far," he added, in a tone that was not the less detestable for being lowered. ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... fearful inhabitants thrusting their heads out of the most hidden windows, frightened by the despotic governor, to whom any commiseration that should be shown to the poor archbishop was regarded as a detestable crime. The soldiers took the archbishop to the gate on the river, called Santo Domingo, where the prelate, complying with the precept of Christ, shook off the dust from his shoes; and, bathed in tender ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXV, 1635-36 • Various
... important change in taste if not in opinion. Vera Cruz cookery, which two years ago I thought detestable, now appears to me delicious! What excellent fish! and what incomparable frijoles! Well, this is a trifle; but after all, in trifles as in matters of moment, how necessary for a traveller to compare his judgments at ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... lodgings, where also my wardrobe is; and there I poured out millions of curses upon the whole crew, and refused to see either Sally or Polly; and this not only for suffering the lady to escape, but for the villanous arrest, and for their detestable insolence to ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... sleeps in the next cubicle to me," continued Dona, bent on retailing her own woes. "She snores dreadfully, and it kept me awake, though she's not so bad otherwise. Beatrice Elliot is detestable. She found that little Teddy bear I brought with me, and she sniggered and asked if I came from a kindergarten. I've calculated there are seventy-four days in this term. I don't know how I'm going to live through ...
— A Patriotic Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... what perverse and impious dogmas have been imagined! What grievous wolves, tearing the flock of the Lord, have sprung from these words to cast themselves upon souls! Is it not from hence that have come forth Marcions and Valentinuses and the detestable heresy of the Manicheans which you may, without going far wrong, call the ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume I - Basil to Calvin • Various
... their masters; the masters pursued and imprisoned them. Some blacks claimed freedom without fleeing. When a writ of habeas corpus came up in the Supreme Court, Chief Justice Strange did his best to avoid giving a decision. He knew that slavery was lawful but he knew it was detestable and he pursued a course which did not require him to stultify himself but which would nevertheless confer substantial benefits ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... placed, or conferred with a more graceful Air. It has been heretofore urged, how barbarous and inhuman is any unjust Step made to the Disadvantage of a Trader; and by how much such an Act towards him is detestable, by so much an Act of Kindness towards him is laudable. I remember to have heard a Bencher of the Temple tell a Story of a Tradition in their House, where they had formerly a Custom of chusing Kings for such a Season, and allowing him his Expences at the Charge of the Society: ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... Orange is a mystic. Orange is under the influence of Newman. Orange begins to see that marriage is not for him.' Such remarks don't help outside the Church. Really, competition renders the nicest people detestable." ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... that you've got 'em! That's half the battle!' Peterkin said, coming up close to him, and looking at him with a meaning smile more detestable than any menace could have been. 'I know you've got 'em, and I can run you if I try, and then what will your doxie think of you! Will she refuse my Bill for a thief, and treat me ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... but, elsewhere, people can fortify their houses, and call out and arm their retainers, and stand on their guard. But that here, in a city like this, private feuds should be carried on, and men stabbed when unconscious of danger, seems to me detestable." ...
— The Lion of Saint Mark - A Story of Venice in the Fourteenth Century • G. A. Henty
... Rochefoucauld. This is particularly true of Englishmen, who resent being told that "Our virtues are often only our vices in disguise," and who also, by the way, are constitutionally impatient of the French genius for making what is ugly, and even what is detestable, pleasing by the surface ...
— Three French Moralists and The Gallantry of France • Edmund Gosse
... Did Solomon know what he was talking about when he gave it that detestable name? He added still another word and called it a deceiver. Does it deceive and mock? It meets a young man at a social feast, garlands itself with the graces of hospitality, sparkles in the brilliant ...
— Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures • George W. Bain
... of the house opened, announcing some tenant's return. And as morning approached, her anxiety increased. "For her son would not have allowed her to remain in such suspense," she said to herself, "unless he had met with some accident or encountered some of his former friends—those detestable scamps who had tried to make him as vile as themselves." Perhaps he had met his father, Polyte Chupin, the man whom she still loved in spite of everything, because he was her husband, but whom she judged, and ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... of Homer's noble line to the effect that a man should strive ever to be foremost and in all things to outvie his peers; but they said that no wonder the countries in which such a detestable maxim was held in admiration were always flying at one ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... metaphysical research, showing, or appearing to show, in what sense the speculations of the philosophers were true, and in what sense absolutely false. We seemed to have cut ourselves adrift from the human race, and to look down upon it from a position whence its basest moral corruptions and most detestable oppressions marked the rhythm in a majestic poem. The infinite vagaries of crime, the unspeakable ecstasies of blessedness, were equally wholesome as equally full of Law. At times it seemed impossible that any words could so mould themselves as to give distinctness to the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... "A detestable prig!" you say, reader?—That is just what Mr. and Mrs. Sclater thought him that night, but they never quarrelled again before him. In truth, they were not given to quarrelling. Many couples who love each other more, quarrel more, and with ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... than he knew—for in attempting to drive out Sex (which of course he could not do) he entered into a conflict which was bound to end in the expulsion of SOMETHING; and that something was the domination, within himself, of self-consciousness, the very thing which makes and ever has made sex detestable. Man did not succeed in driving the snake out of the Garden, but he drove himself out, taking the real old serpent of self-greed and self-gratification with him. When some day he returns to Paradise this ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... always hold the first place in everything. A system of education that places the natural and the supernatural on the same level is absurd, and must be condemned; but a system of education that ignores the supernatural altogether, is, if possible, even more wicked and detestable. Yet this wicked, detestable, irreligious system, diabolical in its origin, and subversive of all political, social, and religious order, is imposed by the State upon all Christian denominations, whether they approve of it or not. Now the State has no right whatever ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller
... the jail gang, with the greatest ignominy; nor was it without the greatest exertions of the police, that the corpse was permitted to be carried along the streets, so great was the abhorrence expressed by the inhabitants at the idea of such an unnatural, detestable, and abominable offence. ...
— The Present Picture of New South Wales (1811) • David Dickinson Mann |
