"Profane" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... if King John surrendered himself, it was because of the ease and pleasures he enjoyed in London, and to be rid of cares. The name given to the Companies in the South was Raobadous (Ribauds)—the very name has come to us under the form of ribald, as indicative of all that is brutal, profane, ...
— Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe • Sabine Baring-Gould
... reality they have but few. Ifound this on my journey through the 'Christian Mountain,' the Tr el' 'Abedn, where I visited many places and monasteries but little known. Ionly saw Bibles in Estrangelo character, which were of value, nowhere profane books; but the people are so fanatical, and watch their books so closely, that it is very difficult to get sight of anything; and one has to keep them in good humor. Unless after a long sojourn, and with the aid of bribery, there can never be any thought of buying anything from a monastic ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... turned the box-hedge when Danvers Carmichael gave us a taste of his nature and had his say with us in language free and skirting the profane. ...
— Nancy Stair - A Novel • Elinor Macartney Lane
... Fleur-de-Marie, with bitter despair, "I respected, I blessed by an innocent and pure child, I, formerly the object of everybody's scorn, I profane thus the sacred name of mother? Oh, never! miserable thing that I was to allow myself to be drawn away to ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... priest, encouraged by the mild tone of the silvan leader; "it were usage fit for no hound of good race—much less for a Christian—far less for a priest—and least of all for the Prior of the holy community of Jorvaulx. Here is a profane and drunken minstrel, called Allan-a-Dale—'nebulo quidam'—who has menaced me with corporal punishment—nay, with death itself, an I pay not down four hundred crowns of ransom, to the boot of all the treasure he hath already robbed ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... there seemed to be nothing else to do. It did not help his feelings to hear, as George Kent was left standing in the road, a disgusted and profane ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... paternal care by cutting off his head, a new kind of training came into fashion. Another government arose which, like the former, considered religion as its surest basis, and the religious discipline of the people as its first duty. Sanguinary laws were enacted against libertinism; profane pictures were burned; drapery was put on indecorous statues; the theatres were shut up; fast-days were numerous; and the Parliament resolved that no person should be admitted into any public employment, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... effect in checking his departure. Again, the scene when the projectile reaches the neutral point between the earth and moon, so that there is no longer any gravity to keep the travellers on the floor of their travelling car, is well conceived (though, in part, somewhat profane); but in reality the state of things described as occurring there would have prevailed throughout the journey. The travellers would no more be drawn earthwards (as compared with the projectile itself) ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... strictly faithful to his wife; but he had even before his marriage, been perfectly spotless. It does not appear from his own confessions, or from the railings of his enemies, that he ever was drunk in his life. One bad habit he contracted, that of using profane language; but he tells us that a single reproof cured him so effectually that he never offended again. The worst that can be laid to the charge of this poor youth, whom it has been the fashion to represent ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... been "converted"] who could not follow his calling without his pipe in his mouth, but that text Isaiah 55, 2, coming into his mind hee layd aside his taking of tobacco. The other instance was of a profane person living nigh Haslingdon (who was but poor) and took up his time in the trade of smoking and also spent what should reliev his poor family. This man dreamed that he was taking tobacco, and that the devill stood by him filling one pipe upon ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson
... mark'd with happy mean, Public and private, sacred and profane, The wandering joys of lawless love supprest, With equal rites the wedded couple blest, Plann'd future towns, and ...
— An Essay on the Lyric Poetry of the Ancients • John Ogilvie
... It seems half profane, even at this distance of time, to pry into grief so deep and so lasting. Johnson turned for relief to that which all sufferers know to be the only remedy for sorrow—hard labour. He set to work in ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... face grew purple. At first he gurgled incoherently, but finally recovered sufficiently to enunciate; and for ten minutes he denounced Mr. Small and Mr. Burke, their conduct and antecedents. It was a splendid exhibition of profane invective, and when he concluded he ...
— Potash & Perlmutter - Their Copartnership Ventures and Adventures • Montague Glass
... A somewhat profane French writer, giving his ideas on the Creation, says that gold, the latest metal, was expressly created for the demoralization of mankind. This is an ugly version of the fact that it is found on the surface of the earth's crust, and that its beauty and worth makes it a ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
... human faces. Various were the emotions and feelings which influenced that mass of spectators. The credulous and superstitious—forming more than nine-tenths of the whole multitude—shook their heads, and commented amongst themselves, in subdued whispers, on the profane rashness of the chief judge, who dared to doubt the existence of such a being as a Wehr-Wolf. The few who shared the skepticism of the judge applauded that high functionary for his courage in venturing so bold a stroke ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... out wine for him; and then he set to work heartily himself. Some one once had the hardihood to maintain that the stomach is equivalent to all the other physical and intellectual parts of man put together. That is a profane and abominable doctrine; but this much is certain, that the stomach is like a despotic tyrant or ironical mystifier, and often carries through its own will. And this was the case in the present instance. For instinctively, ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... found him pirouetting across the parade ground on the back of the most vicious mount to be found within the limits of Maitland. More than once there had been a breathless pause while the entire squadron had waited to watch the killing of Trooper Weldon; more than once there had been an utterly profane pause while the officers had waited for Trooper Weldon to bring his bolting steed back into some semblance of alignment. The pause always ended with Weldon upright in his saddle, his face beaming with jovial ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... were to be relied on, there was no love, no accommodating principle manifested between the two, but a fiery burning zeal, relating to points of such minor importance that a true Christian would blush to hear them mentioned, and the infidel and profane make a handle of them to turn our ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... himself—at least, there was no other human being to be seen. He held in his hand a battered pair of marine glasses and occasionally he peered through them. Each time he did so his soliloquy became more animated and profane. ...
— The Woman-Haters • Joseph C. Lincoln
... him as an excuse which he wished to make so that he could believe that he might release himself from that which he had to recognize as his duty." Maria however "he had in these days accustomed himself to think of as a being so high above him that his love must profane her." Again the well known splitting of the mother into the holy and the ...
— Sleep Walking and Moon Walking - A Medico-Literary Study • Isidor Isaak Sadger
... would appear to greater disadvantage, if they admitted of a more familiar communication. Considering the vivacity of the French people, one would imagine they could not possibly lead such an insipid life, altogether unanimated by society, or diversion. True it is, the only profane diversions of this place are a puppet-show and a mountebank; but then their religion affords a perpetual comedy. Their high masses, their feasts, their processions, their pilgrimages, confessions, images, tapers, robes, incense, benedictions, spectacles, representations, ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... should lay a white egg; and states that he 'would give something handsome to be certain whether or no NEBUCHADNEZZAR'S hands, when he was out on grass, grew six-penny or ten-penny nails!' His remaining queries are profane; indeed, the last one goes somewhat too near the edge. . . . 'EVER anxious to please,' as the advertisements have it, we have placed the original department of the KNICKERBOCKER in a larger type; and it seems to us that we may ask with some confidence whether our readers ever saw a Magazine ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... hear more in the pamphlets and newspapers between 1650 and 1655, though there are traces of them of earlier date. The pamphlets about them generally take the form of professed accounts of some of their meetings, with reports of their profane discourses and the indecencies with which they were accompanied. There are illustrative wood-cuts in some of the pamphlets; and, on the whole, I fancy that some low printers and booksellers made a trade on the public curiosity about the Ranters, getting up ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... probabilities are very strongly in the latter direction. "Everlasting punishment" may mean, in philosophical strictness, a punishment absolutely eternal, or may be a popular expression denoting, with general indefiniteness, a very long duration. Since in all Greek literature, sacred and profane, [non-ASCII characters] is applied to things that end, ten times as often as it is to things immortal, no fair critic can assert positively that when it is connected with future punishment it has the stringent meaning of metaphysical endlessness. On the other hand, ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... teacher should ever wish to forbid or destroy. Day by day, he sees visions and dreams dreams, and so builds for himself a world in which he finds delight and profit. In this world he is king, and only profane hands would ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson
... galloped up to him. As he turned his head to see who they might be, he observed that each of them held a pistol in a very threatening manner. As he looked, however, the pistols dropped, and one of the riders indulged in a profane expression ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... day,—viz. a paper had been presented for the recall of Mrs. Siddons to the stage, (she having lately taken leave, to the loss of ages,—for nothing ever was, or can be, like her,) to which all men had been called to subscribe. Whereupon, Thomas Moore, of profane and poetical memory, did propose that a similar paper should be subscribed and circumscribed 'for the recall of Mr. Edgeworth ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... of 1st of Kings B.C. 958 says: There can be no rational doubt that this Shishak was the famous Sesostris the conqueror of Asia. Herodotus, the father of profane history, relates that he, himself, has seen stones in Palestine erected by the Conqueror, and ...
— Chess History and Reminiscences • H. E. Bird
... to anything, and he meant to amount to something, it would be all due to Tony and her Uncle Phil. The two of them had saved him in more ways than one, had faith in him when he wasn't much but a scarecrow, ignorant, profane, unmoral, miserable, a "gutter brat" as some one had once called him, a phrase he had never forgotten. It had seemed to brand him, set him apart from people like the Holidays forever. But Tony and Doctor Phil had shown him a different way ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... account of his last illness and death transmitted by those who attended on him and witnessed it, a death worthy of his noble life, and fully justifying the brief comment of Smeton, "Surely, whatever opprobrious things profane men may utter, God hath in him given us an example of the right way as well of dying as of living." It is true, as his heartless traducer takes care to remind us, no dirge was chanted over his remains, no mass of requiem was celebrated for his ...
— The Scottish Reformation - Its Epochs, Episodes, Leaders, and Distinctive Characteristics • Alexander F. Mitchell
... divinity, they were framed at least by a profound knowledge of mankind; they applied themselves exactly to the circumstances of individuals, and made a notable contrast to the vague and loose generalities of their rival temples. As Arbaces now arrived at the rails which separated the profane from the sacred place, a crowd, composed of all classes, but especially of the commercial, collected, breathless and reverential, before the many altars which rose in the open court. In the walls of the cella, elevated on seven ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... recovering himself; "you will see presently if I have reason to love that those foul and sordid lips should profane the story I am about to relate. Gertrude was an only daughter; though of gentle blood, she was no match for me, either in rank or fortune. Did I say just now that the world had not altered me? See my folly; ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... were off the lamps from the jolting and there was danger. I tried to fix them. The driver had not made his appearance up to this time. A man rushed in at the door, cursing, took my head in his two hands, threw me out of the door, using profane and indecent language. He was reeking with the smell of liquor. I was surprised and terrified, not knowing any reason for this. The conductor, Mr. Knight, took me in his carriage up to Mrs. Martin's. My friends said the outrage was such that I ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation
... fleeing girl, the drunken, profane waterman!—how his heart had leaped and his body had become steel for the encounter; an excess of vigor for a paltry task! Jack, as he called himself, might have been a fighting-man earlier in the day, but now he had gone down like straw. ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... the beginning, man has had the sole and whole regulation of the matter. He has spoken in Scripture, he has spoken in law. As an individual, he has decided the time and cause for putting away a wife, and as a judge and legislator, he still holds the entire control. In all history, sacred and profane, the woman is regarded and spoken of simply as the toy of man—made for his special use—to meet his most gross and sensuous desires. She is taken or put away, given or received, bought or sold, just as the interest of the parties ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... or light-minded persons, forgetting the duties which the sabbath imposes, and the benefits which these duties confer on society, are known to profane its sanctity, by following their pleasures or their affairs; this way of acting being contrary to their own interest as Christians, and calculated to annoy those who do not follow their example; being also of great injury to society at large, by spreading a taste for ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al
... new literature," he says, "we have a new art of illustration, new miniatures, no longer drawing inspiration from antiquity.... We meet the new style in its full perfection wherever it is a matter of a new technique (in the art of staining glass, for instance, or of illustrating profane literature)...." He speaks of a new decoration of manuscripts invented in Paris in the first half of the thirteenth century. Thus the close and causal connection between the new poetry and the illumination ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... or when the voice of the priest was heard asking for the Divine mercy, the heart of Miss Tippit often moved, notwithstanding the compression of her tight black dress, and something seemed to rebel in her throat against her bonnet-strings. What did she think in those sacred moments? Let us not profane her worship with too minute inquiry. Whatever she thought, those emotions were perfectly valid. She might be snappish, limited, and say ugly things during half the week, but there was something underneath ...
— Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers - Gideon; Samuel; Saul; Miriam's Schooling; and Michael Trevanion • Mark Rutherford
... very near my thoughts—so much so that it mingles constantly with them and my words in a manner rather startling and shocking, I think, to people whose minds are parcelled out into distinct and detached divisions—pigeon-holes, as it were—for the sacred and profane, and whose seriousness never comes near their mirth. This is not at all the case with me, with whom they are apt to run into each other very frequently; seriousness is perhaps more habitual to my mind ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... Is heard along the bloody street; Nearer and nearer yet they come, With clanking arms and noiseless drum. Now whispered curses, low and deep, Around the holy temple creep; The gate is burst; a ruffian band Rush in, and savagely demand, With brutal voice and oath profane, The ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... me as if no more than half an hour had passed before Nicholas Skot was making another proclamation, and this time to the effect that whosoever, after that moment, was heard uttering profane words, should have a can full of cold ...
— Richard of Jamestown - A Story of the Virginia Colony • James Otis
... various times. In the time of Tiberius (A.D. 14) they sustained a great slaughter from the forces of Germanicus, who ravaged their country for fifty miles with fire and sword, sparing neither age nor sex, neither things profane nor sacred. (See Ann. i. 51.) At this period they were occupying the country in the neighborhood of the Rura (Ruhr), a tributary of the Rhine. Probably this slaughter was the destruction of them as a separate people; and by the time that Trajan succeeded to the imperial ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus
... for a time in a silence broken only by Hank's occasional profane mutterings at his patient horse, then Whitey descried two objects moving toward him from the west. At first he mistook them for two horsemen, then discovered that one horse was being led, then that the rider was Injun, and the led horse was Monty. With a whoop of astonishment and joy Whitey ...
— Injun and Whitey to the Rescue • William S. Hart
... the protector to whom they are to be intrusted may not be altogether such as could be desired. Even in case a parent accompanies the children, he will find it a great task to keep them from many pernicious influences during a long voyage. In very many ships they will hear more or less profane, low, vulgar and infamous language, both in conversation and in song. They will see exhibitions of anger, impatience, fretfulness, boisterous laughter and giddy mirth. They will see the holy Sabbath made a day of business, or ...
— Thoughts on Missions • Sheldon Dibble
... begun, All trust was stayed. But when Ulysses, fain To weave new crimes, with Tydeus' impious son Dragged the Palladium from her sacred fane, And, on the citadel the warders slain, Upon the virgin's image dared to lay Red hands of slaughter, and her wreaths profane, Hope ebbed and failed them from that fatal day, The Danaans' strength grew ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... may rebuke the mortal's illusion, that mistook for a daughter of Heaven a creature of clay like himself, yet for a while the illusion has grandeur. Though it comes from the senses which shall later oppress and profane it, the senses at first shrink into shade, awed and hushed by the presence that charms them. All that is brightest and best in the man has soared up like long-dormant instincts of Heaven, to greet and to hallow what to him seems life's fairest ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... different countries. The greatest part of spurious Christian writings are utterly lost, the rest preserved by some single manuscript. There is weight also in Dr. Bentley's observation, that the New Testament has suffered less injury by the errors of transcribers than the works of any profane author of the same size and antiquity; that is, there never was any writing, in the preservation and purity of which the world was ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley
... decrees of the Tridentine Council, was actually settled in the Courts of Spain, Austria, France and Rome. The Fathers of the Council were the mouthpieces of royal and Papal cabinets. The Holy Ghost, to quote a profane satire of the time, reached Trent in the despatch-bags of couriers, in the sealed instructions issued to ambassadors ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... me; but, nevertheless, they possess many characteristics which claim attention and deserve applause. They are never drunkards or wife-beaters; they don't drag their business to the dinner-table and bed; they are not given to profane speech; and they show greater interest in a sonnet than in ...
— From Yauco to Las Marias • Karl Stephen Herrman
... flock to the music and don't come to the service, and that the pieces played are profane, or mundane, or inane, or something—not what ought to be played on Sunday. Of course 'tis Lautmann who settles ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... morning, noon, and, night; and hard things she thought if any unhappy wight—especially of the female sex—who dared in her presence to show the light of a gay heart on a sunny countenance. In her estimation, to be mirthful was to be profane, to be cheerful was to be frivolous. She drew no distinctions. Yet she was a very good wife, a very careful mother, looked after her children unceasingly, was sincerely attached to her husband; only the worst of it was, if she could have had her will, she would not have ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... you, Not in word alone, but in deed, to love one another! Is this the fruit of my toils, of my vigils and prayers and privations? Have you so soon forgotten all lessons of love and forgiveness? This is the house of the Prince of Peace, and would you profane it Thus with violent deeds and hearts overflowing with hatred? Lo! where the crucified Christ from His cross is gazing upon you! See! in those sorrowful eyes what meekness and holy compassion! Hark! how those lips still repeat the prayer, 'O Father, forgive them!' Let ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... hear from curiosity or indolence, and never expect to use their information to any future advantage. Devotional services are becoming more common among the students. The Scriptures are studied with a feeling of devout reverence, and are no longer subjected to that profane ridicule which has given an unenviable fame to ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... and neighboring regions. He added that if this were not remedied, by ordering the said princes to desist from persecuting the Mahometans, he would destroy the holy house at Jerusalem and the sepulcher of the Redeemer. As can be verified, the letter contains many profane remarks against Christianity. It was sent by a Franciscan friar who lived in a monastery on the mount called Sion, and who was guardian there at Jerusalem. The said pontiff, as soon as he saw the letter, sent a copy of it to Castilla and Portugal through the same friar. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume VI, 1583-1588 • Emma Helen Blair
... could go only by sea. When the time came to depart, laden carriages, trucks, and wheelbarrows crowded to the quays through the narrow streets and a sad procession of exiles went out from their homes. A profane critic said that they moved "as if the very devil was after them." No doubt many of them would have been arrogant and merciless to "rebels" had theirs been the triumph. But the day was above all a day of ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong
... was so human of you to translate it out loud! It isn't profane. Look at him now. Don't you think it is a good name ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... the exertions of the jig. The aforesaid forms, by-the-bye, were borrowed from the chapel; the old wigsby who had the care of them for some time doubted the propriety of the sacred property being put to such a profane use, until the widow's arguments convinced him it was quite right, after she had given him a tenpenny-piece. As the dancing-room could not boast of a lustre, the deficiency was supplied by tin sconces hung against the wall; for ormulu branches are not expected to be ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... good cause: in books profane Thou unceasingly delightest, Verse thou readest, verse thou writest, Of their very vanity vain. And if thou wouldst have me prove What I say to thy proceeding, Tell me, what 's ...
— The Two Lovers of Heaven: Chrysanthus and Daria - A Drama of Early Christian Rome • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... appellation: but though we love the same ages, you must excuse worldly me for preferring the romantic scenes of antiquity. If you will tell me how to send it, and are partial enough to me to read a profane work in the style of former centuries, I shall convey to you a little story-book, which I published some time ago, though not boldly with my own name: but it has succeeded so well, that I do not any longer entirely keep the secret. Does ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... being held in the church, and the ladies went in to rest and listen, for the music was fine. Much red and white drapery gave the sanctuary the appearance of a gay drawing-room, and the profane Lavinia compared the officiating clergy to a set of red furniture. The biggest priest was the sofa, four deacons the arm-chairs, and three little boys the foot-stools, all upholstered in crimson silk, and ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... in itself a reformation, and its benefits were chiefly felt by the great masses of the people. The clergy possessed their libraries, where they might read and study if they chose; the castles contained collections of MSS., sacred and profane, illuminated with the most exquisite taste; while the citizen, the poor layman, though he might be able to read and to write, was debarred from the use of books, and had to satisfy his literary tastes with the sermons of travelling Franciscans, or the songs of blind ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... army I found that hard drinkers and fast livers and profane-tongued men often proved to be the kindest-hearted, squarest friends one could ever have," one ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey
... hear, O ye swains,—'tis a tale most profane, How all the tyrannical powers, Kings, Commons, and Lords, are uniting amain, To cut down this guardian of ours. From the East to the West, blow the trumpet to arms, Through the land let the sound of it flee, Let the far and the near all unite with a cheer, In ...
— The Little Book of the Flag • Eva March Tappan
... which I bled, for which I died here in the wilderness, leaving only these barren acres, and the stone that bears my last word, my message to those who should come after me. Keep the faith for which my fair wife faded and died, far away from home and friends! Let no piping or jigging or profane sound be in thy house, but let it be the house of fasting and of prayer, even as my house was. Keep faith! If thy right hand offend thee, cut it off and cast ...
— Marie • Laura E. Richards
... man, because he swore once. I think he intended to leave me lying there, and himself escape through the back door. I know he lifted the bar and looked out. It was then he shut the door again quickly, and became profane. Something he saw outside compelled a change of plan, for he came back quickly, dragged the table to one side, and opened the trap leading down into the cellar. Whoever he was he evidently knew all about the house. Then, he caught me up again, took me down the steps in ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish
... most insignificant with something of unsurpassable grandeur. The desire to gain influence from the prescriptive forms of great writings was the first incentive to parody. We cannot suppose that Luther intended to be profane when he imitated the ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... off with a profane execration. A silence reigned for a long time and the slight, very gentle rolling of the ship slipping before the N.E. trade-wind seemed to be a soothing device for lulling to sleep the suspicions of men who trust themselves to ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... in that wonderful English which he had picked up in less than three years, "don't sit in the wisdom-seat; you might profane it." ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions
... out a regular sportsman, by George! For the first day he was more or less in the same state in which he arrived. Then he began to wake up and ask questions. 'What the devil is this place?' he said to me in the evening. It may sound profane, but he was very polite, I assure you. I told him, and he sort of raised his eyebrows, smiled, and thanked me like a Prime Minister acknowledging an obligation. Since then he has steadily developed sporting, not to say frisky, tastes. He went ...
— The Lunatic at Large • J. Storer Clouston
... rude toys: a boat, a cart, a doll's house, in which the good-natured Caleb had busied himself for the younger ones of that family in which he had found the fatal ideal of his trite life. One by one were these lugged forth from their dusty slumber-profane hands struggling for the first right of appropriation. And now, revealed against the wall, glared upon the startled violators of the sanctuary, with glassy eyes and horrent visage, a grim monster. They huddled ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... in quarters where the person and pretensions of Mr. Froude could be impressive and influential—but here, in the momentous concern of man with Him who "is no respecter of persons," his interference, mentally disposed as he tells us he is with reference to such a matter, is nothing less than profane intrusion. ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas
... whether sacred or profane, teaches the attainment of godhood by Man. This can not mean other than the attainment of realization of godhood, by the individual and the retention of this realization to the end that reincarnation shall cease and identity ...
— Cosmic Consciousness • Ali Nomad
... these matters, I sent up the close for James Batter, who, being a member of the fifteenpence a-quarter subscription book-club, had read a power of all sorts of things, sacred and profane. James, as he was humming it over with his specs on his beak, gave now and then a thump on his thigh, "Prime, prime, man; fine, prime, good, capital!" and so on, which astonished me much, kenning who had written it—a callant that had ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... be noticed respecting him. As far as I am aware, he never painted profane subjects. All his important existing works are exclusively devoted to the illustration of Christianity. This was not a result of his own peculiar feeling or determination; it was a necessity of the period. Giotto appears to have considered ...
— Giotto and his works in Padua • John Ruskin
... a profane and vigorous protest. "Have you forgot who this guy is you're arrestin'? Go-Get-'Em Jim is no tenderfoot kid. He's chain lightnin' on the shoot. If he suspects me one steenth part of a second, that will be long enough for him to gun ...
— A Man Four-Square • William MacLeod Raine
... can never replace **[missing text] Louvain library, nor the sculpture of Rheims; and it follows logically that you shall empty your pockets into ours." Much better say: "God forgive us all!" If we cannot rise to this, and must soil our hands with plunder, at least let us call it plunder, and not profane our language and our souls by ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... the first experience of the famous New York habit of talking in a faint careless way of large sums of money—other people's money. "You did save us a swat," he said to Susan, and beckoned another man. The upshot of a long and arduous discussion, noisy and profane, was that they got the carriage for six dollars—a price which the policeman who had been drawn into the discussion vouched for as reasonable. Spenser knew it was too high, knew the policeman would get a dollar or so of the profit, but he ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... away! Back from the passionate mysteries now surging through the depths of my soul! Profane them not with a word; ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... such places sacred and no vulgar foot should ever profane them. Once, as I passed the entrance to the tomb of Seti in the Valley of the Kings, I met a fat German coming out. He was munching sandwiches, and I had to turn aside; I believe I clenched my fists. A picture of ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer
... not to grow industriously, after the way Dab and I have sprained our old backs spading and feeding them according to spiritual direction that stood over us with a rake," answered father, with proud if profane enthusiasm. There was a faint pink glow in his haggard, thin cheeks, and he took from his pocket a huge knife I had never seen him use before and began carefully to cut away a few dead twigs from ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... Lesbian maid cast herself disconsolate into the sea, is a mere pile of dirt: the Tarpeian, whence the Law went forth to the whole world for so many centuries, is not fit to be mentioned in the same day: the Rock of Cashel, itself, is but the subject of profane Milesian oaths; and the Ledge of Plymouth is the real "Rock of Ages!" It is well that every people should have something to adore, especially if that "something" belongs exclusively to themselves. It elevates their self-respect: ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... of a somewhat profane character, the Captain gave the required permission, and a few minutes later the sea-faring man was mounting (with some difficulty), the ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, March 19, 1892 • Various
... nobles took their revenge on the son of Bernardone for his airs as of a future prince. At twenty years one hardly pardons things like these. If, as we are often assured, there is a pleasure unsuspected by the profane in getting even with a stranger, it must be an almost divine delight to get even with a young coxcomb upon whom one has to ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... saint (most probably as relics, efficacious for the protection of himself and followers), then locked the shrine, and threw the keys into the Nid. Its secrets from that day were respected until the profane hands of Lutheran Danes carried it bodily away, with all the gold and silver chalices, and jewelled pyxes, which, by kingly gifts and piratical offerings, had accumulated for ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... Every hero and martyr in sacred or profane history would view the matter as the commodore and ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... the Conqueror may be said to have “confirmed with an oath,” for the charter, conveying the land, sets forth that they “shall be preserved inviolable for ever,” and concludes with an anathema on whosoever shall profane the charter, or change anything therein, unless for the better:—“by the authority of the Prince of Apostles, I deprive them of the society of the Lord, the aforesaid Pope Gregory, and the Church; and reserve them by the judgment of God, to be punished by everlasting fire with the ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... her stocking. She sulked once, and for fifteen minutes wouldn't say a word. But by seven o'clock in the morning, when they went back to the lunch-room and ate an enormous breakfast, Olga's sluggish blood was fired at last. It was a profane thought, but you could take the Fatal Sisters by the hair and coerce a change in ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... through the crowd that gave at her approach, and all day the dancing went on without her. The flutter of her blasphemous sash did not profane the sunlight in the streets of Bugletown, nor pollute with its passing the houses of the good wives. Like a swallow's wing, it had but flashed across the ...
— The White Riband - A Young Female's Folly • Fryniwyd Tennyson Jesse
... State Fish Commissioners at Milwaukee was an important event, and the discussions the wise men indulged in will be valuable additions to the literature of the country, and future readers of profane history will rise up and call them blessed. It seems that the action of the Milwaukee common council in withdrawing the use of the water works from the commissioners, will put a stop to the hatching of whitefish. This is as it should be. The white fish is an aristocratic ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck
... witches mentioned in the Scriptures were of this description. Neither in sacred nor profane ancient history do we find what was understood in the days of our ancestors by witchcraft, which meant a formal and actual compact with the great Prince of evil beings. The sorcery of antiquity consisted in pretending to possess ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... commandment, not only what Isaiah said, 'Let Him be your fear and your dread,' but also a reverent love and trust. For we do not hallow Christ as we ought, unless we absolutely confide in every word of His lips. Did you ever think that not to trust Jesus Christ is to blaspheme and profane that holy name by which we are called; and that to hallow Him means to say to Him, 'I believe every word that Thou speakest, and I am ready to risk my life upon Thy veracity'? Distrust is dishonouring the Master, and taking from Him the glory that ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... receive the cook, be he white or black, have him restock the mess-wagon to his liking and then bring the outfit to the ranch, when Chip would again take it in hand. He said that he was going home to get a square meal, and he mentioned Happy Jack along with several profane words. "Johnny Scott will send a cook, and a good one,"; he added hopefully. "Johnny never threw down a friend in his life and he never will. And say, Weary, if he wires, you collect the message and act accordingly. I'm going to have a decent supper, to-night!" He was riding a good horse and there ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... consultation it was agreed that as we were not mere men, but prophets, and infidel saints, an exception might be made in our favor without violation of the Mussulman law; not, indeed, to the extent of allowing us to profane the inner sanctuary of the harem with our presence, but so far as to admit us into in apartment adjoining it, where the women would be ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... says: "The common oaths in the Middle Ages were by the different parts of God's body; and the popular preachers represented that profane swearers tore Christ's body by their imprecations." The idea was doubtless borrowed from the passage in Hebrews (vi. 6), where apostates are said to "crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put Him ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... camellia that she wore at her breast; the doctor gasped thrice convulsively and said no word; but I wonder how she accounted afterward for the smile and blush which answered some whispered thanks? There are certain limits that even the historian dares not transgress; a veil falls between the profane and the thalamus of an LL.D.; but I rather imagine she had a hard time of it that night, the poor little woman! Let us hope, in charity, that ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... imagine the stormy sea of torment in which I laboured. In a word, I was to discover a new Aurelia—Aurelia the affectionate wife, the careful minister; not the adored mistress of a feverish boy, the heroine of a Vita Nuova, the Beatrice of a, I fear me, profane comedy, the beloved of Aminta and the Pastor Fido. I own that I was dismayed, wounded in my tenderest part, at the discovery. Aurelia had suddenly become a stranger to my heart. I was nothing, less than nothing, ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... London's AEschylus. 'We find,' he says, 'a great arbitrariness of proceeding, and much boldness of innovation, guided by no sure principle'; here it is: qualis ab incepto. He begins with AEschylus, and ends with the Church of England; begins with profane, and ends with holy innovations—scratching out old readings which every commentator had sanctioned; abolishing ecclesiastical dignities which every reformer had spared; thrusting an anapaeest into a verse, ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... complaint, even when her bare feet slipped into the deep ruts in the trail, or were painfully bruised and cut by the sharp stones and bits of wood that lay in the narrow path. Once she fell. The man addressed as Julio assisted her to her feet. The other broke into a torrent of profane abuse. ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... Aristotle, certain dialogues of Plato, the Comedies of Aristophanes, the first-class Historians, Demosthenes, Lucretius, a Greek Testament, Wheeler's Analysis, Prideaux, Horne, and several books of reference sacred and profane. But he could not get these books without Dr. Wycherley, and unfortunately he had cut that worthy ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... change the day, contending, with reason, that the French people cannot be expected to exchange their usages for those of a foreign country. Although it is understood that Queen Victoria has formally forbidden the prince of Wales to assist at these profane solemnities, this interdict has not prevented the appearance there of some of the principal personages of England, and we have several times noticed the presence of the dukes of St. Albans, Argyll, Beaufort and Hamilton, the marquis of Westminster and Lords Powlett, Howard ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... whole criminal code of Quebec was, indeed, of a piece with this; and an obvious feature was the quasi-religious character of most of the offences. The edict against blasphemy read as follows: "...All persons convicted of profane swearing or blaspheming the name of God, the most Holy Virgin, His Mother, or the Saints, shall be condemned for the first offence to a pecuniary fine according to their possessions and the greatness and ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... and then, after a pause (which some have been daring enough to set down to sentimental recollections), "Is she releegious?" he asked, and was shortly after, at his own request, presented. The acquaintance, which it seems profane to call a courtship, was pursued with Mr. Weir's accustomed industry, and was long a legend, or rather a source of legends, in the Parliament House. He was described coming, rosy with much port, into the drawing-room, walking ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Spuyten Duyvil, on both sides of the river, all the skaters swore at the weather, as profane persons no doubt did when the windows of heaven were opened in Noah's time. The skateresses did not swear, but savagely said, "It is too bad,"—and so ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... entirely out of the world of worship, maintained their existence in a transformed shape. Funerals, as Chouquet[4] pointedly notes, "provided the occasion for scenic performances and certain religious fetes the pretext for profane ceremonies." ...
— Some Forerunners of Italian Opera • William James Henderson
... introduced from France after the Restoration, or indeed having come in at all, is not founded on fact, the only change being that the plays of Charles the Second's time were somewhat more stupid, and that while five of the seven deadly sins had always had free licence on the stage, blasphemy and profane swearing were now enfranchised to fill up the seven. As for the assertion that the new manner (supposing it to have existed) was imported from France, there is far more reason to believe that the French copied us than we them, and that if they did not learn ...
— Plays and Puritans - from "Plays and Puritans and Other Historical Essays" • Charles Kingsley
... be ashamed, my lad, if you have a patch on your elbow. It is no mark of disgrace. It speaks well for your industrious mother. For our part, we would rather see a dozen patches on your clothes than to have you do a bad or mean action, or to hear a profane or vulgar word proceed from your lips. No good boy will shun you or think less of you because you do not dress as well as he does, and if any one laugh at your appearance, never mind it. Go right on doing ...
— Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad • Various
... at Nelson as a cripple, as to gibe at the struggling speech and the maimed bodies of the mass of our comic and tragic race. If I shrink faintly from this affair of tourists and tombs, it is certainly not because I am so profane as to think lightly either of the tombs or the tourists. I reverence those great men who had the courage to die; I reverence also these little men who ...
— Alarms and Discursions • G. K. Chesterton
... bark of a tree, as the sparkling light from the brightness of the star, such ease was it to Mary to bring forth her first born son; and therefore having no weakness in her body, feeling no want of vigor, she did not deliver him to any profane hand to be drest, but by a special ability, above all that are newly delivered, she wrapt him in swaddling clouts. 'Gravida, sed non gravabatur'; she had a burden in her womb, before she was delivered, and yet she was ...
— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge
... not of a careless or a profane man, who stumbles suddenly upon the Gospel when he was in search of other things, but of one who is awakened, and has begun to seek the true religion, endeavouring to add attainment to attainment sincerely, according to his light. His conscience is uneasy. He has tried ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... others, "who, after having made a perfect rattle out of the organ in his own church, comes here to profane ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Spanish • Various
... months entire, was broken into gigantic continents and a Polynesia of rose-coloured islands that no ships might approach; while in this nether world the middle of the Calabro-Sicilian strait was occupied by a condensation of vapour, (one could never profane them by the term of sea-mist or fog,) the most subtile and attenuated which ever came from the realms of cloud-compelling Jove. This fleecy tissue pursued its deliberate progress from coast to coast, like a cortege of cobwebs carrying a deputation ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... pagan spirit, breathes in every bar of Purcell's music. Mid-Victorian critics and historians deplored the resemblance between the profane style of the stage pieces and the sacred style of the anthems and services. Not resemblance, but identity, is the word to use. There is no distinguishing between the two styles. There are not two styles: there ...
— Purcell • John F. Runciman
... multiplied greatly in Frankfort, and scandal-mongers asserted that besides receiving the usury exacted, the pietistic Count tapped the treasure-casks of upward-sailing Rhine merchants quite as successfully, if more quietly, than the profane Henry had done. Thus the House of Sayn was one of ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... up with the mildest of his profane exclamations. "Ride on, senores, and get soon home! While there, be happy as you best may. Ha, ha! there won't be much merriment in that nest now, with the young chick out of it—pet bird of the flock; nor long before the whole brood be called upon ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... in shore-boats rowed by white-clad Asiatics, who clamoured fiercely for payment before coming alongside the gangway-ladder. The feverish and shrill babble of Eastern language struggled against the masterful tones of tipsy seamen, who argued against brazen claims and dishonest hopes by profane shouts. The resplendent and bestarred peace of the East was torn into squalid tatters by howls of rage and shrieks of lament raised over sums ranging from five annas to half a rupee; and every soul afloat in Bombay Harbour became aware that ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... the big essential qualities that art possesses only in its noblest expression. Symmetry, balance, and harmony work together for a wonderful expression of unity, of oneness, that buildings devoted to profane ...
— The Art of the Exposition • Eugen Neuhaus
... thee foully—they who mocked Thy honest face, and said thou wouldst not burn; Of hewing thee to chimney-pieces talked, And grew profane, and swore, in bitter scorn, That men might to thy inner caves retire, And there, unsinged, abide ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... expression hereinbefore written would have seemed profane to young Fielding, for a farmer's farm and a sailor's ship have always something sacred in the sufferer's eyes, though one sends one to jail, and the other the ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... I hear!" cried Joseph. "What profane doubt are you so bold as to utter! You do not belong to the stupid, pious band, who think that prayer cures all woes? Poor Josepha, let no one but me hear such heresy from your lips—pray, pray; ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... guarded from profane approach By mountains high and waters widely spread, Is that recess to which St. Herbert came In life's decline; a self-secluded Man, After long exercise in social cares And offices humane, intent to adore The Deity, with undistracted mind, And meditate on everlasting things. ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... politics. There is no rule attached to this dramatic censorship, and each censor, in every town throughout the island, has his own way of passing judgment; thus, what would suit the politics and morality of Havana, might be considered treasonable and profane at Santiago, and vice versa. A capital comedy is often so mutilated by the Cuban censor as to be rendered dramatically unfit ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... a natural son of Henry VIII., was the first to employ the profane oath of God's Wounds, which Queen ELIZABETH adopted, but the ladies of her court minced and softened it into zounds ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... exhort you in the name of Jesus Christ to return to God by a true repentance, I conjure you to do this by all that is most holy, and sacred in Heaven, or on earth, by the Blood of Jesus Christ which you profane, by the loving-kindness of the Saviour, whom you crucify afresh, by the Spirit of Grace against whom you are rebelling." These remonstrances, or rather the Spirit of God speaking by the mouth of this zealous Pastor, had such effect that the guilty man was by this change ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... "Then that is why she left me. When she learned to love me, she would not profane our friendship. That is ...
— Eve to the Rescue • Ethel Hueston
... as if I should like to have him with me! ... But Lord, I don't want to take him from 'ee—ever I should sin to speak so profane—though I should think you must have enough of your own! He's in very good hands, that I know; and I am not the woman to find fault with what the Lord has ordained. I've reached a more resigned ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... social gatherings in their higher aspect, of the feasts of reason which he must have often shared at his patron's board, we long to know, but Horace is discreet; for him the rose of Harpocrates was suspended over every caenobium, and he would not profane its sacrament. He sat there as an equal, we know; his attitude towards those above him had in it no tinge of servility. That he was, and meant to be, independent they were fairly warned; when Maecenas wished to heap on him further benefits, he refused: "What I ...
— Horace • William Tuckwell
... in a large family like that he must be kept busy. Not far from the King's Remembrancer there is a Commissioner for Oaths; you can go into his room and have a really good swear for about half-a-crown. This is cheaper than having it in the street—that is, if you are a gentleman; for by the Profane Oaths Act, 1745, swearing and cursing are punishable by a fine of one shilling for every day-labourer, soldier or seaman; two shillings for every other person under the degree of a gentleman; and five shillings for every person of or above the degree of a gentleman. This ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, April 28, 1920 • Various
... then, "Don't be profane, Scott," she rebuked him, with the literalness which had replaced her meagre childish sense of humour. "The good Lord didn't make your surplices a full eighth of a yard too long, nor put you into a black stole for the whole ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... was the last day of the Carnival, at the beginning of this year, and there was a fete at the palace of the Ober-Amtmann. I had long gazed with adoration upon that angelic face, and treasured it in my heart. I already worshipped yon saintly portraits, because in one—God forgive me the profane thought!—I had found a faint forth-showing of the beam of her bright eye; in another, the gentle, dimpled smile of her sweet mouth; in a third, her pure and saint-like brow. It was not for such as I, a poor artist, to be invited to the noble Amtmann's fete; but I thought that, through the windows ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... modern times, at best a dualism and often an open warfare.... The opposition of Church and State expresses an opposition between two sides of human nature which we must not too easily label as good and evil, the heavenly and the earthly, the sacred and the profane. For the State, too, is divine as well as the Church, and may have its own ideals and sacramental duties and its own prophets, even its own martyrs. The opposition of Church and State is to be regarded rather as the pursuit of one great aim, pursued by contrasted ...
— Progress and History • Various
... a miserable failure. We do not find either Christian faith or Christian morality in it. As to faith, he had none; for he was an atheist, and gloried in his disbelief of all revealed truth. As to morality, his biographer informs us that he was an unchaste, profane, passionate, arbitrary, ungenerous, unloving man. His apparent philanthropy was so veined with selfishness that it was rarely ever exhibited except under conditions which secured publicity. And even the college which perpetuates his name proclaims, ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... of Ancient Geography, Sacred and Profane, being an abridgment of D'Anville's Geography, with improvements, from various other authors; by which the omissions of D'Anville are supplied, and his errors corrected. Accompanied with an account of the origin and migration of ancient nations.—By Robert ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... didn't you write and let us know?" Bob grew mildly profane in his warmth. He was as easy as though his friend had come back from a week in the hills on a deer hunt. "We didn't know when the Governor was goin' to act. Or we'd 'a' been right at the gate, me or Em Crawford one. ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine |
