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Golden calf   /gˈoʊldən kæf/   Listen
Golden calf

noun
1.
(Old Testament) an idol made by Aaron for the Israelites to worship; destroyed by Moses; it is now used to refer to anything worshipped undeservedly.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Golden calf" Quotes from Famous Books



... odds O'er Nile, with all its wilderness of gods; Nor could the nations kneel to viler shapes, Which worshipp'd cats, and sacrificed to apes; And can you think the wise forbear to laugh At the warm zeal that breeds this golden calf? Haply you judge these lines severely writ Against the proud usurpers of the pit; Stay while I tell my story, short, and true; To draw conclusions shall be left to you; Nor need I ramble far to force a rule, But lay the scene just here at Farnham[1] school. Last year, ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift

... induced a favourable disposition towards his benefactors, their laws, and their institutions. Though the Padre was extremely liberal in his political opinions, his management of his worldly affairs bore the stamp of the most sordid parsimony. He worshipped the golden calf, and his adoration of the image was manifest in everything around him. He wore a cassock of cloth which had in former times been of a black colour, but was now of a dusky grey, the woollen material being so completely incorporated with dust as to ...
— Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory • John M'lean

... Antoinette—I don't remember her name or her history, but she became the Comtesse de Charny. Now I shall think of you by that name—the Comtesse de Charny. Tell me, Comtesse, does it not shock your senses, our modern worship of that excellent, useful, comfortable fellow, the Golden Calf?" ...
— The Reflections of Ambrosine - A Novel • Elinor Glyn

... man by the name of Elah, (5) said in reply thereto: "If thou desirest to bring forth the truth, address thyself to each of the tribes separately." (6) Kenaz began with his own, the tribe of Judah. The wicked of Judah confessed to the sin of worshipping the golden calf, like unto their forefathers in the desert. The Reubenites had burnt sacrifices to idols. The Levites said: "We desired to prove whether the Tabernacle is holy." Those of the tribe of Issachar replied: "We consulted idols to ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG

... thought the bottle-dealer had a good countenance, and he admired the face full of violent tones. The mother and daughter hovered about the easel, marvelling at all his preparations; they evidently thought him a demigod. This visible admiration pleased Fougeres. The golden calf threw upon the family ...
— Pierre Grassou • Honore de Balzac

... perceiving that every step forward is a step wasted, he will pretty certainly use his feet to a better purpose than walking. Clearly, at a time when all the chosen people were Wandering Jews they would dance all they knew how. We know that they danced in worship of the Golden Calf, and that previously "Miriam the prophetess, sister of Aaron, took a timbrel in her hand; and all the women went out after her with timbrels and with dances." And ever so many generations before, Laban complained to Jacob that Jacob had ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce

... moribund creed into fresh life failed even to arrest the progress of decay. National thought, fickle as the wind, had turned from an impersonal philosophy to the materialistic cult of Hindu deities, as the Israelites of old hankered after the visible symbol of Isis and Osiris in the Golden Calf. No definite creed succeeded in gaining a permanent hold upon the wandering minds and shallow feelings of a race whose deepest instincts reveal the fleeting fancies and inconstant ideas indigenous to a sea-faring stock, imbued with the spirit of change ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings

... Gert. So was the golden calf, and so was Zeus; so were Thor and Odin, too. And yet they were struck down. (Catches sight of the Harlot.) Who's that woman? Oh, the one I tried to save by sending her in here. Tell me one thing, Olof. Have you ...
— Master Olof - A Drama in Five Acts • August Strindberg

... three great illustrations of the heart of love. As Moses came down from the presence of God, and found the people dancing about the golden calf, he was hotly indignant. But as he goes back to plead with God, the greatness of his love and grief comes out. In God's presence their sin is seen to be so much greater. He cries, "Oh, this people have sinned a great sin, ...
— Quiet Talks on Following the Christ • S. D. Gordon

... back into the shadow. He had never been of an envious disposition; he had always looked upon envy as a mean vice, unworthy of a gentleman; but for a moment something very like envy pulled at his heartstrings. Graciella worshipped the golden calf. He worshipped Graciella. But he had no money; he could not have taken her to the ball in a closed carriage, drawn by blooded horses and driven by ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt

... relations—yea, their own flesh and blood, with the varying tide of wealth: whom a luckless speculation in cotton makes an enemy, and gambling gains in corn restore a friend; men who fall down mentally before the golden calf, and offer up their souls to Nebuchadnezzar's idol: men who never saw harm nor shame in the craftiest usurer or meanest pimp, provided he has thousands in the three per cents.; and whose indulgent notions of iniquity reach their climax in the ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... their title and money notwithstanding, did not "go down" in their particular segment of county society, and in London there were other titles and incomes to compete with. People were willing to worship the Golden Calf, but allowed themselves a choice of altars. No one could justly say that the Shalems were either oppressively vulgar or insufferably bumptious; probably the chief reason for their lack of popularity was their intense and obvious desire to be popular. ...
— When William Came • Saki

... miserable woman bartered for gold! She betrayed her love, yielding it up for filthy lucre, crushing her nobler nature in the dust, and driving over it, as did Tullia the dead body of her father. She sold herself for riches, before which you all kneel, as if worshipping the golden calf! After selling her soul to a man whom she despised, even if he were not rich, she has had the boldness to summon me, the down-trodden and half-crazed victim, to her gilded palace, as if I were a slave to be attached to ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach

... gods, more especially those deities whose concerns were earthy—that is to say, those connected with love, joy, birth, death, fertility, reproduction, and so on. It will be remembered how David danced before the Ark of the Lord, and how his ancestors danced in honour of the golden calf. In Egypt the king was wont to dance before the great god Min of the crops, and at harvest-time the peasants performed their thanksgiving before the figures of Min in this manner. Hathor and Bast, the two great goddesses of pleasure, were ...
— The Treasury of Ancient Egypt - Miscellaneous Chapters on Ancient Egyptian History and Archaeology • Arthur E. P. B. Weigall

... length by Diodorus, and, as the severe command of Moses proves, when, on leaving Egypt, he gave orders that no images should be made to God, upon pain of death. Moses also, after having ascended the Mount, and having found a golden calf manufactured and adored by his people, was greatly troubled at seeing divine honours accorded to the image of a beast; so that he not only broke it to powder, but, in the punishment of so great a fault, caused the Levites to put to death many thousands ...
— The Lives of the Painters, Sculptors & Architects, Volume 1 (of 8) • Giorgio Vasari

... that is the American God," continued the Colonel, "like the children of Israel they worship the golden calf; they have no other ideal than to become rich, buy automobiles and 'put it over' the other fellows. The Germans spit in their faces every day and they say 'business is business' and take it. The Germans sink ...
— On the Fringe of the Great Fight • George G. Nasmith

... its grip on the eternal verities of self-sacrifice and self-denial has left the lesson of its downfall written large upon the pages of history. I repeat that if superstition consists in believing something that is inconsistent with rational human experience, then our present worship of the golden calf is by far the most dangerous form of superstition that has ...
— Craftsmanship in Teaching • William Chandler Bagley

... for a minute the old patriarch was going to heave the tables of stone at my head. He caught up the book in both his hands and gave a sort of choke and blazed at me out of his eyes—by gad, I might have been poor old Aaron caught jazzing round the golden calf. ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson



Words linked to "Golden calf" :   Old Testament, idol, god, graven image



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