"Discredit" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Chaos a little nearer to the form of Cosmos; possessed, in fact, of loyalties to Cosmos, that is to say, of authentic virtues in the savage state, such as have been needed in all societies at their incipience in this world; a kind of "virtues" hugely in discredit at present, but not unlikely to be needed again, to the astonishment of careless persons, before ...
— Early Kings of Norway • Thomas Carlyle
... watching him, trying to read his thoughts. He saw the tears glistening on Oliver's lashes, but he misunderstood the cause. Only the practical side of the situation appealed to the Vermonter at the moment. These New York men had cast discredit on his endorsement of Richard's priority in the invention and had tried to ignore them both. Now he held them tight in his grasp. Horn ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... in a different way from anything that is being attempted at present. Perhaps as approaching my concept I may cite Dostoyevsky. Yet that exorable Russian is less an elevated realist than an evangelic socialist. In France right now the purely corporal recipe has brought upon itself such discredit that two clans have arisen: the liberal, which prunes naturalism of all its boldness of subject matter and diction in order to fit it for the drawing-room, and the decadent, which gets completely off the ground and raves incoherently in a telegraphic patois intended to represent the ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... soothed the spot with an antiseptic, that such a darling little girl as she, would never hold up against him anything he had done in pre-Kitty days. It would be unjust and unreasonable. Why, hang it all! who was there that was human who hadn't some little—or big—scrape to his discredit in his bachelor days? Unfortunately, fellows were not gifted with second sight to know how they would feel when they came to be properly in love with the only girl in the world for them! The sickening sense ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... was a reflection from her mother's wrath, whose mind had been filled up with rumours from the mills to the effect that her son had been "fired." Annette was wise enough and knew her brother well enough to discredit much that rumour brought to her ears, but she could not rid herself of the thought that a way might have been found to hold Tony about ...
— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor
... our experience recognizes burning as the result of such a situation. But if we are told that a man who fell into the water emerged dry, or that a general who served under Washington was born in 1830, we discredit it because such statements are not in accord with our experience. We are ready, then, to answer our question: "What reasons will those in the audience believe?" They will believe those statements which harmonize with their ...
— Elements of Debating • Leverett S. Lyon
... Sir, what I really think, most of that ridiculousness, of those phantastical phrases, harsh and sometimes blasphemous metaphors, abundantly foppish similitudes, childish and empty transitions, and the like, so commonly uttered out of pulpits, and so fatally redounding to the discredit of the Clergy, may, in a great measure, be charged upon the want of that, which we have here ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... were moderate men in America, who, in the days of the anti-slavery movement, cited against it the intemperate language of many abolitionists. There were aristocrats in England, who, during the struggle for the freedom and unity of Italy, sought to discredit the patriotic party by accusing them of tyrannicide. But the sound sense of both nations refused to be led away by such arguments, because it held those two causes to be in their essence righteous. ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.
... entirely stricken out; and of these there is not one that we have noticed which it could possibly have been intended to represent as spurious. What was a forger to gain by this? It could but serve to throw discredit on his work. And again, in these erased passages, and on erasures for new readings, the verbal and literal changes are still made, and made, too, in points of not the slightest moment as to the text, and which, in fact, produce no change in it, Take this instance, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... been translated without discredit from the tavern to the palace, and if the worse comes to the worst, I may say with the dying Caesar, ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... industry as a gatherer of manna, I suspect I am trying to make myself believe that I'm working in the manna field to-day, by keeping my mind on my achievement yesterday. That's another sin to my discredit, and another occasion for a revival. When I am fasting I do the most talking about how busy I am. If I were harvesting manna I'd not have time for so much talk. I should not need to tell how busy I am, for folks ...
— Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson
... case of recognizing the opportunity when it presented itself, and having the nerve to seize it without hesitation. He found himself now in a country and an atmosphere where "playing safe" was somewhat to a man's discredit—where the successful man was the man who dared to throw discretion to the winds and take the chance. And because money, not earned in the country, was pouring in from outside, and by its own buoyancy raising the ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... called out and stimulated his pupil's powers to a remarkable degree, was not one which made for literary productiveness. He was a great upholder of the doctrine that truth is to be sought for its own sake and without reference to any ulterior end, and he had strong ideas about the discredit—the shamefulness, as it seemed to him—of speaking or writing on any subject until it had been mastered down to its last detail. This attitude prevented Hamilton himself from doing full justice to his powers and learning, ...
— Principal Cairns • John Cairns
... it I am asked to do nothing to discredit my office. I am not an independent individual,"—smiling to put her more at ease. (I haven't the least doubt that I would have committed any sort of folly had she ...
— The Princess Elopes • Harold MacGrath
... on Madame Hanska and play for them when he went to St. Petersburg. He expressed his gratitude to Liszt for this favor by dedicating to him La Duchesse de Langeais. He regretted this later, after the musician fell into such discredit. ...
— Women in the Life of Balzac • Juanita Helm Floyd
... messenger from God. But what I do say is, that when the moment comes, it is perfectly easy for us to recognise him. Whether we listen to his message or not is another matter. If we do not—if we stop to dispute with him, we are undone, for we shall very soon learn to discredit him. ...
— The Autobiography of Mark Rutherford • Mark Rutherford
... said that your father had permitted you to marry the son of this rich old extortioner for the sake of his money. Your action would throw discredit on all your father's life and ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... of a Natural Science Degree might have been, that the public would have turned to it with favour, while the old one sank into discredit.] ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain
... the infirm, when so heavily afflicted as to be in danger of death, piously assuming the tonsure and the penitential habit, and engaging to continue both through life, if God raised them up. As the use of this penance became common enough to throw discredit on the piety of all who did not thus undertake it, if the sick or dying man was unable to demand the habit, his relations or friends could invest him with it, and his obligation to a penitential life thenceforward was as great as if that obligation had been imposed, not by others, but at ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, - Issue 552, June 16, 1832 • Various
... later, to make him, being what he was, plunge into a fatal and irretrievable mistake. He was treated as a cat treats a mouse; he was worried, confined, disgraced, publicly reprimanded, brought just within verge of the charge of treason, but not quite, just enough to discredit and alarm him, but to leave him still a certain amount of play. He was made to see that the Queen's favour was not quite hopeless; but that nothing but the most absolute and unreserved humiliation could recover ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church
... principle is merely a general or comprehensive precept; and his precept is merely a specific or limited principle. The distinction he makes between them, and the use he makes of this distinction, only reflect discredit upon the wisdom and consistency of the ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... meeting no end of peril and hardship and he fought down a sense of dread that was not to his discredit. But it was so decreed that he should pass secure and unmolested. At first he went too fast, without husbanding his strength, and loped along like a hound whenever the country was clear of brushwood. This wore him down and he ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... eat, spread through the country, and indeed throughout the world, and had its influence in determining whether men voted for him or not. His enemies used it as proof that he was not a safe President, but they took means much more malignant than this to discredit and destroy him. When the Big Interests discovered that they could not silence him, they circulated stories of all kinds that would have rendered even the archangel Gabriel ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... matter at that. It is no diminution of Pascal, but only an aggrandisement of Montaigne. Had Montaigne been an ordinary life-sized sceptic, a small man like Anatole France, or even a greater man like Renan, or even like the greatest sceptic of all, Voltaire, this "influence" would be to the discredit of Pascal; but if Montaigne had been no more than Voltaire, he could not have affected Pascal at all. The picture of Montaigne which offers itself first to our eyes, that of the original and independent solitary "personality," absorbed in amused analysis of himself, is deceptive. ...
— Pascal's Pensees • Blaise Pascal
... is it!" Such a reason was no discredit to the Rhos; therefore it was the harder to accept. "You give me a jolt, Walt. Just because your uncle is in a rotten fraternity you must crawl into the heap, too. I'd see him hanged first before I'd queer ...
— Stanford Stories - Tales of a Young University • Charles K. Field
... logic, memory, archaeology, the law and the prophets. A little madness was a splendid thing, but it must be methodic. Still, for the rest he was a Georgian, heart and soul, and it pained him when men who ought to know better raised the standard of reaction and sought to discredit the achievements of his proteges. These attacks could not be passed over in silence, and the meeting had been convened to consider how they should be met, whether by a reasoned protest ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, February 11, 1920 • Various
... mean by nature, let him give full swing to his meanness. Such a fellow brings discredit upon generosity by putting on its semblance. If he attempts to disguise the smallness of his soul, he only adds to his contemptible trait of meanness the still more despicable vice of hypocrisy. Mean by the sacred institution of Nature, and without a generous trait ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... industries. Away back in the history of the world, we find Adam and Eve conveying their milk from the garden of Eden, in a one-horse wagon to the cool spring cheese factory, to be weighed in the balance. Whatever may be said of Adam and Eve to their discredit in the marketing of the products of their orchard, it has never been charged that they stopped at the pump and put water in their milk cans. Doubtless you all remember how Cain killed his brother Abel because Abel would not let him do the churning. We can picture Cain and Abel driving mooly cows ...
— Peck's Sunshine - Being a Collection of Articles Written for Peck's Sun, - Milwaukee, Wis. - 1882 • George W. Peck
... has been an error of judgment and of temper, however, to have rescued from an ephemeral state of existence and conferred literary permanence on much in his present volume, which is mere personal attack on his adversary and a deliberate attempt to discredit a writer with whom he pretends to enter into serious argument. A material part of the volume is composed of such matter. I cannot congratulate him on the spirit which he has displayed. Personally I am profoundly indifferent to such attempts at detraction, and it ...
— A Reply to Dr. Lightfoot's Essays • Walter R. Cassels
... and will run the risk of a disunion with the Southern gentry rather than forsake him, if he will stay with us. We hope, however, better things than that." And better things did come to pass. Attempts to cast discredit upon the validity of his consecration, initiated and persisted in mainly by those opposed to him on political grounds, were met in a manly and Christian spirit, and he took the necessary steps to frustrate them without using harsh words or doing more than state simple facts. His second and ...
— Report Of Commemorative Services With The Sermons And Addresses At The Seabury Centenary, 1883-1885. • Diocese Of Connecticut
... discredit is that ore bodies may usually be assumed to become richer in depth. As applied to gold lodes the teaching of experience does ...
— Getting Gold • J. C. F. Johnson
... said the doctor, going on to another side of the subject, "and have tried to injure him in many ways. This is known to all the Hilltop boys. Would it not be natural, therefore, that you would try to throw discredit on ...
— The Hilltop Boys on the River • Cyril Burleigh
... completely wrecked. In his march to the sea Sherman lived on the country. He did not destroy it, and as against the burning of Columbia must be placed to the discredit of the Germans the wiping out ...
— With the Allies • Richard Harding Davis
... derision, contempt discredit, opprobrium, scandal, disgrace, obloquy; mortification, abashment, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... and in dread of the attack upon them which rumor declared him to be inditing behind the shuttered windows of his great lonely house, they instigated Samuel Da Silva, a physician equally skilled with the lancet and the quill, to anticipate him by a counterblast calculated to discredit the thunderer. He denied immortality, insinuated the horrified Da Silva, in his elegant Portuguese treatise, Tradado da Immortalide, probably basing his knowledge of Uriel's "bestial and injurious opinions" on the confused reports of the heretic's ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... are terrible—as murders. A detective cannot allow his sympathies or sensibility to pain or grief to hamper him in his work. In Bolt's sense the case was terrible because it was difficult to investigate; because, unless the perpetrators were discovered and arrested, discredit would be brought upon the service and glaring contents-bills declare the inefficiency of the department to the world. The C.I.D. is very jealous of ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... for his merits we accord the full Christian name—do any discredit to the perspicacity of his master, if it was not that he rather exceeded the hopes of his benefactor, for he was attentive to the horses, civil to the farmers, and handy at anything that came in his way. Then, to render the connection ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various
... are irreconcilable," went on the Frenchman airily. "I might claim that the term adventurer, as applied to me, is a harsh one. You may inquire where and how you choose in Paris, and you will find no discredit attached to my name. But that phase of the difficulty is now of no consequence. Let us keep to the main issue. Some three months ago I made the acquaintance of a lady fitted in every respect to fill my ideal. I was on good terms with her father, and by no means ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... critical period of the War of Independence, said that the Lords could not be expected to lose their pheasant shooting for the sake of America. In the working class, which, like all classes, has its own official aristocracy, there is the same reluctance to discredit an institution or to "do a man out of his job." At bottom, of course, this apparently shameless sacrifice of great public interests to petty personal ones, is simply the preference of the ordinary man for the things he can feel and understand to the things that are beyond his capacity. ...
— The Devil's Disciple • George Bernard Shaw
... I have been wounded in the head, arms, neck, legs, or abdomen, are all foolish. Probably the people who are always inquiring about me, will now discredit such rumors. ...
— An Aviator's Field Book - Being the field reports of Oswald Boelcke, from August 1, - 1914 to October 28, 1916 • Oswald Boelcke
... the province and the Canadas. The stature of Hurry Harry exceeded six feet four, and being unusually well proportioned, his strength fully realized the idea created by his gigantic frame. The face did no discredit to the rest of the man, for it was both good-humored and handsome. His air was free, and though his manner necessarily partook of the rudeness of a border life, the grandeur that pervaded so noble a physique prevented it from ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... had loved his second wife too well to seek to know the truth, if that truth would be to her discredit. He preferred to be deceived; and he had what he preferred. He stifled all doubts, darkened all chinks by which the obtrusive light might penetrate, kept his love if not his faith unshaken, caring only to remember her ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... for all early theorising will, in all probability, end only in error. It is surely better frankly to own that we know not what these markings mean (and possibly may never know it), rather than wander off into that vague mystification and conjecture which in former days often brought discredit on the whole study ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson
... without incentive is unthinkable. But Duchemin searched his memory in vain for anything he could have said or done to make anybody desire to discredit him in the sight of the ladies of the Chateau de Montalais. Still the attempt so to do had been unmistakable: the Lone Wolf had been lugged into the conversation literally by ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... think it is not to the little sailor's discredit to confess that he surrendered without terms forthwith. "The thing's yours for when you like to fetch it," he snapped out ungraciously enough, and the missionary at once stooped and cut the grass ropes, and set to chafing his wrists and ankles. "And now," he said, "clear out for your canoe ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... smiling, 'I think that these lines do you no discredit. Your versification is tolerably easy, and your ear seems to be just. The perusal of your little poem upon the whole gave me much pleasure; and if it is not asking too great a favour, I shall be highly obliged to you for ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... Jack had christened "the Crazy Kid," "the Gilt-edged Baby," "the Suckin' Vanderpoop," and other pet names; and with his sea-booted feet cocked up on the table would even invent histories about silk pajamas and specially imported neckwear, to the "friend's" discredit. Harvey was a very adaptable person, with a keen eye and ear for every ...
— "Captains Courageous" • Rudyard Kipling
... tone threw discredit on that possibility, but she knew perfectly well what she meant. "Not of getting at them directly, not, as mother says, of nosing round himself; but of listening—and small blame to him!—to the horrible things other people say ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... judges themselves may have complied with this practice on similar occasions, and he trusts that they will not be angry with him for not following their example. But he feels that such conduct brings discredit on the name of Athens: he feels too, that the judge has sworn not to give away justice; and he cannot be guilty of the impiety of asking the judge to break his oath, when he is himself being ...
— Apology - Also known as "The Death of Socrates" • Plato
... of government in the Red River Settlement is attributable alike to the habitual attempt, encouraged, perhaps very naturally, in England and in Canada, to discredit the traditions, and question the title of the Hudson's Bay Company, and to the false economy which has stripped the Governor of a military force, with which, in the last resort, to support the decisions of the legal tribunals. No other organized Government of white men in the world, since ...
— Canada and the States • Edward William Watkin
... You do mistake your busines, my Brother neuer Did vrge me in his Act: I did inquire it. And haue my Learning from some true reports That drew their swords with you, did he not rather Discredit my authority with yours, And make the warres alike against my stomacke, Hauing alike your cause. Of this, my Letters Before did satisfie you. If you'l patch a quarrell, As matter whole you haue to make it with, It must ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... said: "That which makes people distrust foreign missions is the testimony that the Europeans in India will not trust the Christianized Indian. It is not strange that some poor creature should bring discredit on the religion he professes. He worships in strange houses and in a strange way. He kneels in American-style churches and is taught by men full of American ideas. Christianity will never be the religion of India until it comes there imbued with the spirit of the day. In time there must ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... distant villages. He cares only for his profit, and his business is conducted with a single view to that end. He himself has no public opinion to face, as he lives in a town among a community of his caste-fellows, and here absolutely no discredit is attached to grinding the faces of the poor, but on the contrary the honour and consideration accruing to him are in direct proportion to his wealth. The agent may have some compunction, but his first aim is to please ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... told, was a great adept, and always found himself very much exhausted at the end of his performance; which leads me to think that perhaps he dabbled in electro-biology. At last the advent of Christianity threw discredit on the practice; severe punishments were denounced against all who indulged in it; and, in the end, its mysteries became the monopoly of ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... Knez Alfanas, and Peter Gregoriwich in the Emperours name, that if Benet Butler or any English man complaine, deface, hinder in way of traffike or otherwise go about to discredit the worshipfull company, and their doings, that therein they shall not be heard, and the doers to be punished, as in such cases they shalbe iudged ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation v. 4 • Richard Hakluyt
... two greatest forces which move the mind, conscience and habit.—And observe the result of this. You not only convert the State into a policeman in the service of heresy, but also, through this fruitless and tyrannous attempt of Gallican Jansenism, you bring into permanent discredit Gallican maxims and Jansenist doctrines. You cut away the last two roots by which a liberal sentiment still vegetated in orthodox Catholicism. You throw the clergy back on Rome; you attach them to the Pope from whom you wish to separate them, and deprive them of ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... ne'er happened me; No one could ever speak to my discredit. Ah, thought I, in my conduct has he read it— Something immodest or unseemly free? He seemed to have the sudden feeling That with this wench 'twere very easy dealing. I will confess, I knew not what appeal On your behalf, here, in my bosom grew; But I was angry with myself, to ...
— Faust • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... except when introduced into the groups of the Nativity and the Worship of the Magi. Previous to the Nestorian controversy, these maternal effigies, as objects of devotion, were, I still believe, unknown, but I cannot understand why there should exist among Protestants, so strong a disposition to discredit every representation of Mary the Mother of our Lord to which a high antiquity had been assigned by the Roman Catholics. We know that as early as the second century, not only symbolical figures of our Lord, but figures of certain personages of holy life, as St. Peter ...
— Legends of the Madonna • Mrs. Jameson
... accustomed to think aloud, if I were to attempt to disguise from you, that the prospect is, in the highest degree, pleasing to me, as holding out to me a situation, though far above my pretensions, yet so circumstanced as to give me hopes of filling it without discredit. I know how much you will share my satisfaction, and have, therefore, no difficulty in expressing it to you. It is not a little heightened, by comparing it with what I mentioned to you as having been since proposed to me, and what I was so near being compelled to accept. There is, however, still ...
— Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George the Third - From the Original Family Documents, Volume 1 (of 2) • The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... carried on the same game after being confronted with Maria, it was already becoming desperate. He had not reckoned upon her deserting his cause even for her own sake, and the last chance of employing her antecedents to discredit her testimony, had been overthrown by Rose's innocent witness to their mutual relations, a remembrance which had been burnt in on her childish memory by the very means taken to secure her silence. ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... been more agreeable to our feelings than to be instrumental in paying a tribute of respect to our distinguished predecessor in the career of discovery. I shall always regret that we were prevented from doing so. At the same time I must say, that it will reflect great discredit on the colony of South Australia, if some portion of its wealth be not devoted to the erection of a suitable monument to the memory of Flinders in one of ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... affair of Chatelard, a French minor poet, a Huguenot apparently, who, whether in mere fatuity or to discredit Mary, hid himself under her bed at Holyrood, and again at Burntisland. Mary had listened to his rhymes, had danced with him, and smiled on him, but Chatelard went too far. He was decapitated in the market street of St Andrews (Feb. 22, 1563). It is clear, if we may trust Knox's account, singularly ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang
... renowned for valour, is now to be quoted in an idle brawl with hirelings, whose utmost boast it is to bear a mercenary battle-axe in the ranks of the Emperor's guards? For shame—for shame—do not, for the discredit of Norman ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... Christian people, by an injudicious use of Christian phraseology in the wrong place, and by the glaring contradiction between their prayers and their talks and their daily life, bring down a great deal of deserved hostility upon themselves and of discredit upon Christianity; and then they comfort themselves and say they are bearing the 'reproach of the Cross.' Not a bit of it! They are bearing the natural results of their own failings and faults. And it is for us to see to it that what provokes, if it does provoke, hostile ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren
... of redeeming our pledges to commence. It will never come, in my opinion, except by positive action by Congress, or by national disasters which will destroy, for a time at least, the credit of the individual and the State at large. A sound currency might be reached by total bankruptcy and discredit of the integrity of the nation and of individuals. I believe it is in the power of Congress at this session to devise such legislation as will renew confidence, revive all the industries, start us on a career of prosperity to last for ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Ulysses S. Grant • Ulysses S. Grant
... of the elongated shape, or rather the triple structure, of Saturn. The singular figure which he had observed in this planet had entirely disappeared; and he evidently announces the fact to Velser, lest it should be used by his enemies to discredit the accuracy of his observations. "Looking on Saturn," says he, "within these few days, I found it solitary, without the assistance of its accustomed stars, and, in short, perfectly round and defined like Jupiter; and such it still remains. ...
— The Martyrs of Science, or, The lives of Galileo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler • David Brewster
... degree. Nor was this estimation lessened by the conduct of Caesar himself in the present instance; for true to his training, instinct, and great sagacity, he led them forward at a rapid pace, and seemed possessed of reasoning powers that would have done no discredit to an intelligent human being. One instance in point is worthy of note. In passing through a dense thicket on the Indian trail, the noble brute discovered a small fragment of ribbon, which he instantly seized ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett
... the Catholic party refused to vote it. Bismarck, who for ten years had fought the Pope, and who had thundered against the interference of a foreign ecclesiastical potentate in temporal matters, now asked the Pope to interfere in favour of the Army Bill. To the discredit of the Papacy, Leo XIII. fell into the trap. Leo XIII. exerted pressure on the Catholic party. But they still were recalcitrant. Bismarck and the Pope proved equally persistent. Finally, at the behest of the Iron Chancellor and ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea
... extent of the law. Even if it wasn't tried at court, take it as a hint from me, the men of these mountains would get together in a body and lynch you. Reports have already been going round to your eternal discredit about this child, and one more act of yours will simply settle your hash. ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... controversial tracts, and James Naylor once suffered himself to be worshipped as the Christ. Each prophet comes presently to identify himself with his thought, and to esteem his hat and shoes sacred. However this may discredit such persons with the judicious, it helps them with the people, as it gives heat, pungency, and publicity to their words. A similar experience is not infrequent in private life. Each young and ardent person writes a diary, in which, when the ...
— Essays, Second Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... of Scripture tended to throw discredit upon it as a revelation from God; while, on the other hand, the grand discoveries in natural science which were a distinguishing feature of the seventeenth century equally tended to exalt men's notions of that other revelation ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... remains for me to declare (that as opinions have been industriously propagated tending to discredit my account of Marocco, and the interior of Africa,) that nothing has been set down therein, until I had previously investigated the qualifications of the narrators, their means of knowledge, and whether the respective vocations of the several narrators made ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny
... before, how could we with credit involve ourselves in the illegal villany of a smuggler? It is actually a discredit to have such a fellow upon the estate. He is, in the first place, a bad example, and calculated by his conduct and influence to spread dangerous principles among the tenantry. However, as it is, he is, ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... Your sidewalks are dangerous, and your streets are unclean. John Phenix declared you destitute of honesty. Dickens asserted that your physical and moral foundations were insecurely laid. Russell did not praise you, and Trollope uttered much to your discredit. Your musquitos are large, numerous, and hungry. Your atmosphere does not resemble the spicy breezes that blow soft o'er Ceylon's isle. Your energy and enterprise are commendable, and your geographical location is excellent, but you can never ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox
... subsequent ages. The world had had enough of the flippant persiflage with which Voltaire had treated the most heroic efforts and tragic disasters of the human race. Philosophic historians had got into discredit from the rash conclusions and unfounded pretensions of the greater part of their number; though the philosophy of history can never cease to be one of the noblest subjects of human thought. To guard against the error into which they had fallen, ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... be obtained. The romance which Derues had invented by way of defence, and which became known as well as Monsieur de Lamotte's accusation, obtained no credence whatever; on the contrary, all the reports to his discredit were eagerly adopted. As yet, no crime could be traced, but the public presentiment divined an atrocious one. Have we not often seen similar agitations? The names of Bastide, of Castaing, of Papavoine, had hardly been ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... we have been so perpetually accustomed to see we believe that we shall continue to see. But why what has always been hitherto should always be hereafter, no reason whatever can be given. The logical conclusion obviously is to discredit all human faculties and to ...
— The Relations Between Religion and Science - Eight Lectures Preached Before the University of Oxford in the Year 1884 • Frederick, Lord Bishop of Exeter
... it," said Warner warmly. "Our friend here, who I see can see, despite the dim light, has a countenance which one could justly say indicates a doubtful and disputatious nature, wishes to discredit it because he has not heard of such a thing before. Now, I ask you, gentlemen, intelligent and fair-minded as I know you are, where would we be, where would civilization be if we assumed the attitude of our friend here. If a thing is ever ...
— The Sword of Antietam • Joseph A. Altsheler
... and Frenchified—her Creole coiffure, and the long gray locks that escaped from her crimson kerchief bound over her ears, as well as her more refined deportment, did indeed seem to discredit my first idea, which came at last (notwithstanding these discrepancies) to be fixed, and proved one link in the long chain of duplicity ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... decorate his figure. On the contrary, the ancients recounted and spread abroad, and perhaps in part invented, these storiettes of gallantry for quite opposite reasons—as source of dishonour, to discredit him, to demonstrate that Caesar was effeminate, that he could not give guarantee of knowing how to lead the armies and to fulfil the virile and arduous duties that awaited every eminent Roman. There is ...
— Characters and events of Roman History • Guglielmo Ferrero
... man-of-war. That he was above such atrocious vulgarity as this, was much to his credit and more to our advantage. What he could have done safely, other men would have attempted to whom the attempt would have been destruction. Some discredit also would have been cast upon those who live ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... mineral waters, purgatives and emetics, and hemlock as a sedative, were in use. If a cure was not effected, the faith of the patient was impugned, and not the power of the god or the skill of the Asclepiades, so that neither religion nor the practice of physic was exposed to discredit. Great was the wisdom of the Greeks! These temples were the famous medical schools of ancient Greece. A spirit of emulation prevailed, and a high ethical standard was attained, as is shown by the oath prescribed for students when they completed their course of study. ...
— Outlines of Greek and Roman Medicine • James Sands Elliott
... people hard names, and suspecting or vituperating their motives for disagreeing with us, we sin both against Love and Light. It was that spirit which called forth from Christ the sternest denunciation which ever fell from his lips. The Pharisees tried to discredit His work by representing Him as in league with the powers of evil; and this sin, which is the imputing of evil motives to actions and beliefs that appear to be good, because our own beliefs are too narrow to include them, ...
— Joyous Gard • Arthur Christopher Benson
... four years as chief magistrate (1797—1801) were marked by a succession of intrigues which embittered all his later life; they were marked, also, by events, such as the passage of the Alien and Sedition Acts, which brought discredit on the Federalist party. Moreover, factional strife broke out within the party itself; Adams and Hamilton became alienated, and members of Adams's own cabinet virtually looked to Hamilton rather than to ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... professions to the people that they are incapable of fulfilling, and another is that they have largely aided in deceiving the people themselves as to where they really stand and as to what they are really capable of under present conditions. But to go on means discredit and failure in the end, and a greater work could be done for the country at large by squarely facing the facts. It must be admitted that neither position is especially pleasant. There has been created among the people a vanity of ability and power ...
— The Head Hunters of Northern Luzon From Ifugao to Kalinga • Cornelis De Witt Willcox
... saying that all children copy, if they can, and she wonders that I should be so severe upon such a frequent occurrence, which reflects more discredit on the governesses ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... do this," the colonel said, "when the time came for your entering the army, for we felt that it would indeed be a discredit to the regiment were you to go into the world without the equipment that a Scottish gentleman should have. Now, Captain Mackenzie and Captain Home, I will ask you to act as furnishers. You know what is required for a young officer on the staff of a general like Viscount ...
— Won by the Sword - A Story of the Thirty Years' War • G.A. Henty
... railings, scarcely knowing what he expected to gain by remaining there, but finding the place as well suited to reflection as any other. He shared with Dunbar a dread that the famous Frenchman would bring the case to a successful conclusion unaided by Scotland Yard, thus casting professional discredit ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer
... hunting, visited his principal fortresses, and, to guard against the evil designs of his son Henry, caused him to sleep in his own bedroom. At Chinon, however, the youth contrived to elude his vigilance, stole away, and escaped to Paris, where he was received in a manner that reflects great discredit on ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... in his university, extricated himself and struggled on in his determination to carry out his commission. The odds of blizzard and cold were too heavy, and the gallant lad succumbed in the unequal contest. But he would bring no discredit on the Police tradition, and when his body was discovered by a search party the following words, scribbled with freezing fingers, were found on a paper in his dispatch bag, "Lost. Horse dead. Am trying to push on. Have done my best." In the long roll ...
— Policing the Plains - Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous North-West Mounted Police • R.G. MacBeth
... lived so many years out of England and out of the world," said the school-master, turning to me with a half-vexed laugh, "I don't suppose I should discredit myself to no purpose by telling fools they are in danger. Jack! will you promise me not to go on the ...
— We and the World, Part I - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... nothing to retrieve the day, I drew off my shattered troop, and I have deemed it my duty to hasten on to warn the inhabitants of Leyden that the enemy are rapidly advancing again to lay siege to their walls." At first the burgomaster seemed inclined to discredit the intelligence. ...
— The Lily of Leyden • W.H.G. Kingston
... counsel. They carried innumerable scrolls under their arms, in which were written all manner of things that had occurred since the first appearance of the Nazarene. The Galilean Rabbis especially had sent volumes in order to discredit and expose Him. Yet all this would not be sufficient for the governor. Some definite point must ...
— I.N.R.I. - A prisoner's Story of the Cross • Peter Rosegger
... said, "as for my faithful, true, and loving heart to her Majesty and my country, I have utterly undone myself. For favour, I have disgrace; for reward, utter spoil and ruin. But if this taking upon me the name of governor is so evil taken as it hath deserved dishonour, discredit, disfavour, with all griefs that may be laid upon a man, I must receive it as deserved of God and not of my Queen, whom I have reverenced with all humility, and whom I ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... was attacked in a new way. Some of the politicians laid traps for him whereby they hoped to bring discredit to his management of the department. The fight grew very hot and very bitter, and he was accused of doing many things, "just for the looks of them," rather than to benefit the public at large. But he kept on his way, and at last the opposition were silenced to such an extent that ...
— American Boy's Life of Theodore Roosevelt • Edward Stratemeyer
... thinks it would discredit us to let such a scoundrel get away," differed her father. "However, he'll leave you alone, Mr. Ashton, if you stay with us as a guest, and will only haze you a bit, if you insist upon ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet
... be borne in mind that the first effect of association with the more advanced race was not improvement but degeneracy. I have no wish to discredit the statements of the early explorers, including the Jesuit priests; but it is evident that in the zeal of the latter to gain honor for their society for saving the souls of the natives it was almost necessary to represent them as godless and murderous savages—otherwise ...
— The Indian Today - The Past and Future of the First American • Charles A. Eastman
... been prepared!" said Mr. Friend: "but how could we be prepared for such a stroke? Even now, if we had time, we could summon witnesses who would discredit theirs, but—" ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... for all those who truly repent. A man who, laying aside self-justification, will freely acknowledge his offences and shortcomings before GOD, and that in a spirit not of self-pity, self-loathing or self-contempt, but of sorrow at having brought discredit upon the Christian name and done what in him lies to crucify the Son of GOD afresh, may freely claim and find in ...
— Religious Reality • A.E.J. Rawlinson
... recall the testimony of Ann Putnam the mother, and find that the afflicted generally charged the death of the above-named persons upon the shape of Rebecca Nurse, we perceive how absolutely Captain John Putnam and his wife discredit their testimony. The opinion of the father and mother of Fuller and Shepard ought to have had weight with the Court. They were persons of the highest standing, and of recognized intelligence and judgment. They were old church-members, and eminently ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... alleged to his discredit, and whoever may arise to heap scandal on his name, the grand facts remain that it was chiefly through his marvelous qualities, word, and work that the towering dominion of the Papacy was humbled and broken for ever; that prophets and apostles ...
— Luther and the Reformation: - The Life-Springs of Our Liberties • Joseph A. Seiss
... at his principal with the air of a man profoundly puzzled, and Rawdon felt with a kind of rage that his prey was escaping him. He did not believe a word of the story, and yet, how discredit ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... hardly be put forward in the face of such clear and overwhelming evidence of its falsity. The ultimate effects of such vain efforts to prove black to be white can only be to make them ridiculous, and to discredit them in the ...
— The Purpose of the Papacy • John S. Vaughan
... bringing their money, that it was thought the subscription would be filled that day; but before noon, the tide turned. In spite of all that could be done to prevent it, the South Sea Company's stock fell rapidly. Their bonds were in such discredit, that a run commenced upon the most eminent goldsmiths and bankers, some of whom having lent out great sums upon South Sea stock were obliged to shut up their shops and abscond. The Sword-blade Company, who had hitherto been the chief cashiers of the South ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... prepared to believe that an ignorant old mulatto woman was gifted by divine Providence with supernatural power, constituted a second Witch of Endor, and able by "examining the ball of Josephine's left thumb with great attention," to discover the minute particulars of her future life, we must discredit the absurdity. A prediction believed sometimes effects its own fulfillment; and Josephine, whose ambition seems to have been most ardent, may have been inspired with romantic hopes by the foolish promise of an ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... self-reliance and to have become less and less prosperous. This may be explained partially at least by the following considerations: (1) the terrible system of taxation, which discouraged and not infrequently ruined the members of the wealthier classes; (2) the existence of slavery, which served to discredit honest labor and demoralized the free workingmen; (3) the steady decrease of population; (4) the infiltration of barbarians, who prepared the way for the conquest of the western portion of ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... steadily, and Winston felt the blood surge to his forehead as he remembered having heard of a certain venture made by Courthorne which brought discredit on one or two men connected with the affairs of a grain elevator. It was evident that Miss Barrington had also heard of it, and no man cares to stand convicted of falsification in the eyes of a very pretty girl. Still, he roused himself ...
— Winston of the Prairie • Harold Bindloss
... which Paris had been too long alarmed by the Triumvirate. Billaud, fearing to be outdone in the attack, hastily forced his way to the tribune, broke into what Tallien was saying, and proceeded dexterously to discredit Robespierre's allies without at once assailing Robespierre himself. Le Bas ran in a fury to stop him; Collot d'Herbois, the president, declared Le Bas out of order; the hall rang with cries of 'To prison! To the Abbey!' and Le Bas was driven from the ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3) - Essay 1: Robespierre • John Morley
... mount his wig, and the whole apparatus to-day: he must consider this as a young lawyer does his first appearance at the bar, and the sooner the laugh is over the better for the dignity of the Chair. Whatever may be Grenville's future fortunes, it can be no discredit to his character to have been placed in the Chair by such a majority, in such times and circumstances, and ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... daughters to attend such plays as You Never Can Tell, written by the infamous author of Mrs Warren's Profession, and acted by the monster who produced it. What made this harder to bear was that though no fact is better established in theatrical business than the financial disastrousness of moral discredit, the journalists who had done all the mischief kept paying vice the homage of assuming that it is enormously popular and lucrative, and that I and Mr Daly, being exploiters of vice, must therefore be making colossal fortunes out of the abuse heaped on us, and had in fact provoked it and welcomed ...
— How He Lied to Her Husband • George Bernard Shaw
... in the least silly. The Sergeant's daughter would do discredit to her worthy father, were she to do or say anything that ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... fail to see, Senor Don Juan, that these episodes in your earthly career and in that of the Senor Commander in any way discredit my view of life. Here, I repeat, you have all that you sought without anything that ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... a kind caution, which seems to imply more than you express, when you advise me against countenancing visiters that may discredit me. You have spoken quite out. Surely, I have had afflictions enow to strengthen my mind, and to enable it to bear the worst that can now happen. But I will not puzzle myself by conjectural evils; as I might perhaps do, if I had not enow that were ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... truth, Kay, no man ever before confessed to an adventure so much to his own discredit; and verily it seems strange to me that neither before nor since have I heard of any person who knew of this adventure, and that the subject of it should exist within King Arthur's dominions without any other ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... limited to truth. Formerly the performers of the longest voyages destroyed half the merit of their expeditions by relating, not what they had, but had not seen; a sort of communication that they might have imparted without stirring a foot from home. Such exaggerations drew discredit on travels, till people would not believe that there existed in other countries any thing very different from- what they saw in their own; and because no Patagonians, or gentry seven or eight feet high, were ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... that greatest of all Epic Poets to whom he fearlessly said that all the Greeks and Latins must give place. In so doing he might suggest here and there cautiously, and without bringing upon himself the discredit of much heresy,—indeed, without being much of a heretic,—that even the Divine Aristotle sometimes fell short of perfection. The conventional critics who believed they kept the gates of Fame would neither understand nor credit him. Nine years after these papers appeared, Charles Gildon, who ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... very well with all his family, particularly the Duke of Sussex, but he dislikes and seems to know the Duke of Cumberland, who is furious at his own discredit. The King has taken from him the Gold Stick, by means of which he had usurped the functions of all the other colonels of the regiments of the Guards, and put himself always about the late King. He says the Duke's rank is too high to perform those functions, and has put an ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... soldiers, cut off from civilization, frequently took wives from the Indian tribes about them, and settled down to a life half barbarous. These men soon grew as lawless as their adopted kinsfolk. They were a weakness and a discredit to the country in time of peace, but in war their skill and daring were the ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various
... Tabor has, until recent years, been regarded as the Mount of the Transfiguration. But closer examination of the text and comparison of dates, and the fact that Tabor itself was at that time the site of a fortified town containing a Roman garrison, combine in this instance to discredit tradition. One of the spurs of Herman must therefore be the alternative and more probable scene of the Transfiguration; the seclusion of this district of mountain, valley, and woodland providing opportunity for contemplation, and preparation for the ...
— The Life of Jesus Christ for the Young • Richard Newton
... the Starets who ran Rasputin so closely in the public favour. I saw he was hopelessly intoxicated, and was being followed by a crowd of jeering urchins. I did not, however, know that Stuermer and his friends had arranged this disgraceful exhibition of unholiness in order to discredit and destroy Grichka's rival. Five minutes later I met the Bishop Theophanus walking with the Procurator of the Holy Synod, who, like myself, witnessed the degrading sight, and from that moment Mitia the Blessed no longer exercised power, and was not further invited to the salons of those mystical ...
— The Minister of Evil - The Secret History of Rasputin's Betrayal of Russia • William Le Queux
... This storm prevented the French from pressing with due force upon their retiring foes; but that would have been but a small evil, if the storm had not settled into a steady and heavy rain, which converted the fat Flemish soil into a mud that would have done discredit even to the "sacred soil" of Virginia, and the latter has the discredit of being the nastiest earth in America. All through the night the windows of heaven were open, as if weeping over the spectacle of two hundred thousand men preparing to butcher each other. Occasionally the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... suggest to those who intend to believe only half of my present book, that they exercise a little discretion in their choice. I am not fastidious in the matter, and only ask them to believe what counts most toward the goodness of humanity, and to discredit—if they will persist in it—only what tells badly for our common nature. The man, or the woman, who believes well, is apt to work well; and Faith is as much the key to happiness here, as it is the key ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... exactly what I am going to tell you," Evors went on. "It is a strange story, and one which, if you read it in the pages of a book, you would be inclined to discredit entirely. And yet stranger and more remarkable ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White
... of the Bad Effects of Alcohol is Decreasing its Use. It is most impressive that almost everything we have found out about alcohol in the short time that we have been studying it carefully has been to its discredit. Fifty years ago beer and wine, all over the civilized world, were commonly regarded as foods. Now they are not considered true foods, but harmful beverages. Fifty years ago alcohol was believed to improve the digestion and increase the appetite. Now we know that it does neither. ...
— A Handbook of Health • Woods Hutchinson
... for conducting a political and philosophical Review: and he augured so ill of the enterprise that he regretted it altogether, feeling persuaded not only that Mr. Bentham would lose his money, but that discredit would probably be brought upon Radical principles. He could not, however, desert Mr. Bentham, and he consented to write an article for the first number. As it had been a favourite portion of the scheme formerly talked ...
— Autobiography • John Stuart Mill
... among its old trees at the cross roads; down the hill and across the creek; and slowly up the other side of the valley they went: then past the house where the little girl had lived; and so turned in, at last, to the home of that boy in the Yesterdays. And surely it was no discredit to the man that, when they left him alone in his old room to prepare for the evening meal, he ...
— Their Yesterdays • Harold Bell Wright
... assigned to some department of the army or to special work in connection with the army. Of the few who were permitted to enlist, a very small percentage was permitted to enlist in the Navy. Of this small number only a few were allowed the regular training and opportunities of combatants, to the DISCREDIT of our nation, not as yet, grown to that moral vision and all around ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney
... against it; I must be then obliged, for my own safety, to say I did not approve of the resolution. Then the Court will be informed that I find fault with it, and not only that, but that I do it in order to raise the mob and discredit the Cardinal, which, though ever so false; yet in consequence the people will firmly believe it, and thus I shall meet with the same treatment I met with in the beginning of the late troubles, and what I even now experience in relation to the affairs of ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz
... call that the limit!" she exploded. "The little monkey! Why, Gibbie would slay her if she knew! Such an atrociously cheeky, unladylike thing to do, and putting her address here at the Grange! Bringing discredit on the school! I don't suppose whoever finds it will take ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... man known as James Hill, who had been in Sir Horace Fewbanks's employ as a butler. Hill's connection with the prisoner was in some aspects unfortunate, for himself, and no doubt counsel for the defense would endeavour to discredit his evidence on that account, but the jury, when they heard the butler tell his story in the witness box, would have little difficulty in coming to the conclusion that the man Hill was the victim of circumstances and his own weakness of temperament. However ...
— The Hampstead Mystery • John R. Watson
... statement of Pierce is corroborated by a note contributed by Sir Gardner Wilkinson to Rawlinson's Herodotus (book iv. chap. 105). "A class of people in Abyssinia are believed to change themselves into hynas when they like. On my appearing to discredit it, I was told by one who lived for years there, that no well-informed person doubted it, and that he was once walking with one of them, when he happened to look away for a moment, and on turning ...
— The Book of Were-Wolves • Sabine Baring-Gould |
