"Profane" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... before his departure been shown the African, and has recognised him as the page of the demon, and has stated the Saracens to have the custom of mutilating their slaves thus, to commit to them the task of guarding their women by an ancient usage, as it appears in the profane histories of Narsez, general of Constantinople, ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 2 • Honore de Balzac
... Profane, as well as sacred, history is threaded with incidents of dream prophecy. Ancient history relates that Gennadius was convinced of the immortality of his soul by conversing with an ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... and alternate rule by hate Profane contested, and the guilt of Thebes I sing, moved ...
— An Essay on True and Apparent Beauty in which from Settled Principles is Rendered the Grounds for Choosing and Rejecting Epigrams • Pierre Nicole
... for my adoption, I was about to make use of. But when I reflected from whence I had collected that sacred earth, I dared not profane it by falsehood. So, with a faltering voice, and my eyes filling with tears, I ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... one day, and the diction of them appealed to me almost more, I felt myself, first secretly, afterwards more consciously, drawn towards the school of form in Danish literature, and rather enjoyed being a heretic on this point. For to entertain kindly sentiments for the man who had dared to profane Oehlenschlaeger was like siding with Loki against Thor. Poul Moeller's Collected Works I had received at my confirmation, and read again and again with such enthusiasm that I almost wore the pages out, and did not skip a line, even of the philosophical parts, which I did not understand ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... answers to "Dear Abelard," or "Pelleas," or "Philemon," or "Tristan," as the case demanded. She indited her missives with a dainty gold pen engraved with an orchid, which Harold had requested her never to profane by ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... squeeze as much extravagance and nonsense in the same space as in the above quoted words of Increase Mather. Where was the Scripture which taught them not to submit complaints of their fellow-colonists to their King and his Council, the highest authority in the empire? Both Scripture and profane history furnish us with examples almost without number of usurpers professing that the usurpation and conquest they had achieved was "that which the Lord our God had given" them, and which they should "possess" at all hazards as if it were an "inheritance of ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... of restoration have been discovered: a painting, the convass of which is decayed, or the pannel worm-eaten, is transferred to a fresh cloth; the profane touches of a foreign pencil are made to disappear; the effaced strokes are reinserted with scrupulous nicety; and life is restored to a picture which was disfigured, or drawing near to its end. This art has made great progress, especially in Paris, and experienced recent improvement under ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... to tea to-night at the Russians' villa. Tea was made out of a samovar, which is something like a small steam engine, and whose principal advantage is that it burns the fingers of all who lay their profane touch upon it. After tea Madame Z. played Russian airs, very plaintive and pretty; so the evening was Muscovite from beginning to end. Madame G.'s daughter danced a tarantella, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... publicly gave his license to Paulinus to preach the Gospel, and renouncing idolatry, declared that he received the faith of Christ. And when he inquired of the high priest who should first profane the altars and temples of their idols with the enclosures that were about them, Coifi answered, 'I; for who can more properly than myself destroy those things which I worshiped through ignorance, for an example to all others through the wisdom which has been ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... Prophetic, Critically Examined and Demonstrated, and Harmonized with the Chronology of Profane Writers: Embracing an Examination and Refutation of the Theories of Modern Egyptologists. Accompanied with Extensive Chronological and Genealogical Tables, from the Earliest Records to the Present Time; a Map of the Ancients; ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various
... hunt. His questions, his movements, his changes of locality showed that; and Woodhull was one of those who cannot avoid asseverance, needing it for their courage sake. Now morose and brooding, now loudly profane, now laughing or now aloof, his errand in these unknown hills was plain. Well, he was not alone among men whose depths were loosed. Some time his hour ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... dissertation sur l'amour profane et religieux et de son influence sur les sciences et les arts. ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes
... had who could thus glide, as it were unseen, from place to place, bring back the volume which the Church had interdicted to the spots from which it had been removed under her express auspices; and, who, by encouraging the daring and profane thirst after knowledge forbidden and useless to the laity, had encouraged the fisher of souls to use with effect his old ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... O lords of me, have ruth upon the stress my passion deals * Enough to me is what you doled of sorrow and of pain. 'Tis life to me an deign you keep the troth you deigned to plight * 'Tis death to me an troth you break and fondest vows profane: Given I've sinned a sorry sin, ye grant me ruth, for naught * By Allah, sweeter is than friend who is of ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... what the profane would call up a tree. He had been giving his consent for some seventeen years. And Joy had swept the ground from under his feet. He did not in the least remember meeting this amazing lover at any of his receptions, but there had been a tradition for many years that he never ...
— The Wishing-Ring Man • Margaret Widdemer
... religion), that "pure religion, and undefiled before God, is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep ourselves unspotted from the world;" James i. 27. From all which (together with many more texts that might be produced) it appears, that an unholy and profane life is inconsistent with Christian religion and society; and that holiness is essential to salvation and church-communion. So that these three things, faith, baptism, and a holy life, as I said before, ...
— An Exhortation to Peace and Unity • Attributed (incorrectly) to John Bunyan
... country in Europe. I paid the cabman exactly his fare. He received it with an oath; upon which I instantly gave him a tract. If I had presented a pistol at his head, this abandoned wretch could hardly have exhibited greater consternation. He jumped up on his box, and, with profane exclamations of dismay, drove off furiously. Quite useless, I am happy to say! I sowed the good seed, in spite of him, by throwing a second tract in at ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... spoons. Ingenious gentlemen who believe that Beelzebub made this world, are not a class of gentlemen I can get profit from. Let them keep at a distance, lest mischief fall out between us. They are of the set deserving to be called—and this not in the way of profane swearing, but of solemn wrath and pity, I say of virtuous anger and inexorable reprobation—the damned set. For, in very deed, they are doomed and damned, by Nature's oldest Act of Parliament, they, and whatsoever thing they do or say or think; unless ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. III. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Hohenzollerns In Brandenburg—1412-1718 • Thomas Carlyle
... he was, the 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 ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... Oscar discovered that Edward was a very bad boy. His conversation was low and profane, and he seemed to take special delight in relating sundry "scrapes," in which he himself figured in a character that was something worse than mischievous, and bordered on the criminal. He "talked large," too, amazingly large; and ...
— Oscar - The Boy Who Had His Own Way • Walter Aimwell
... There were men of all grades of society, and all degrees of moral worth,—beginning, of course, at a very moderate standard, and descending to the vilest of the vile, which last were in a large majority. There were tipplers, and gamblers, and profane swearers, in abundance; and Uncle Nathan felt, at the bottom of his philanthropic heart, a desire to lead them from their sins. Not that he was officious and meddlesome, for he believed in "a time for everything." In his modest, inoffensive way, ...
— Hatchie, the Guardian Slave; or, The Heiress of Bellevue • Warren T. Ashton
... marvelous electric force not only gave motion, heat, and light to the Nautilus but even protected it against outside attack, transforming it into a sacred ark no profane hand could touch without being blasted; my wonderment was boundless, and it went from the submersible itself to the engineer ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... that never fades, Shoots between scattered rocks and opening shades; And while it shows the land the soul desires, The language of the land she seeks inspires. Thus touched, the tongue receives a sacred cure Of all that was absurd, profane, impure; Held within modest bounds, the tide of speech Pursues the course that Truth and Nature teach; No longer labours merely to produce The pomp of sound or tinkle without use; Where'er it winds, the salutary stream, ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... entered very properly into the Thoughts of that Being, who is all along describ'd as aspiring to the Majesty of his Maker. Such Engines were the only Instruments he could have made use of to imitate those Thunders, that in all Poetry, both sacred and profane, are represented as the Arms of the Almighty. The tearing up the Hills, was not altogether so daring a Thought as the former. We are, in some measure, prepared for such an Incident by the Description of the Giants War, which we meet with among the Ancient Poets. What still made this Circumstance ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... which the apostle speaks, to be the "mysteries" of the "secret societies" which prevailed among the ancient heathen. They maintained religious rites and ceremonies in honor of their imaginary deities, just as most modern "secret societies" make a profane use of the word and worship of God in their parades and initiations. He says it would be a shame to speak of the rites performed by the heathen in their secret associations in honor of Bacchus and Venus, the god of wine and the goddess of lust, and ...
— Secret Societies • David MacDill, Jonathan Blanchard, and Edward Beecher
... undergo the sentence passed against me by the commander of the believers; you need only make it known to me." "Madam," answered Jaaffier, falling also down till she had raised herself, "God forbid any man should presume to lay profane hands on you. I do not intend to offer you the least harm. I have no farther orders, than to intreat you will be pleased to go with me to the palace, and to conduct you thither, with the merchant that lives ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... be supposed that Billy meant to be profane, but he had taken a dislike to Mrs Dotropy, and did not choose to ...
— The Young Trawler • R.M. Ballantyne
... hark! the tramp of heavy feet 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 startled boy for ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... wake a bolder lay. But ah! the swimming eye o'erflows anew, Nor check the sacred drops to pity due; Lo! where in speechless, hopeless anguish, bend O'er her loved dust, the Parent, Brother, Friend! How vain the hope of man!—But cease the strain, Nor Sorrow's dread solemnity profane; Mixed with yon drooping mourners, on her bier In ...
— The Minstrel; or the Progress of Genius - with some other poems • James Beattie
... of dire disaster. She is called the weaker vessel; but all profane as well as sacred history attests that, when the crisis comes, she is better prepared than man to meet the emergency. How often you have seen a woman who seemed to be a disciple of frivolity and indolence, who, under one stroke of calamity, changed to a heroine. Oh, what a great ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... both? What on earth makes me think of such gruesome things here? I must give up drinking; I'm an old man, I shan't live much longer. At sixty-eight people go to church and prepare for death, but here I am—heavens! A profane old drunkard in this fool's dress—I'm simply not fit to look at. I must go and change it at once.... This is a dreadful place, I should die of fright sitting here all night. [Goes toward his dressing-room; at the same time NIKITA IVANITCH in a long white coat comes ...
— Swan Song • Anton Checkov
... the mother, And caused her a dreadful internal pother: The woman's scent is fine and strong; Snuffles over her prayer-book all day long, And knows, by the smell of an article, plain, Whether the thing is holy or profane; And as to the box she was soon aware There could not be much blessing there. "My child," she cried, "unrighteous gains Ensnare the soul, dry up the veins. We'll consecrate it to God's mother, She'll give us some heavenly manna or other!" Little Margaret made a wry face; ...
— Faust • Goethe
... 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: and, for this object, ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... Haddingly. It was plainly a padre's duty to support a spiritual and romantic view of life against the profane jibes of ...
— Our Casualty And Other Stories - 1918 • James Owen Hannay, AKA George A. Birmingham
... all the town 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 ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... silver-toned—accompanied by rather a quick movement on the organ, upon the diapason stop; which, united with the silence and prostration of the congregation, might have commanded the reverence of the most profane. ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... that when, a few years ago, a representative of the press directed Mr. Vanderbilt's attention to the fact that the public disapproved of his railroad policy, the latter gave vent to his contempt for public opinion by the no less profane than laconic reply: "The public be damned." Ex-Railroad Commissioner Coffin called on one of the Goulds to urge the adoption of the automatic car-coupler and other safety appliances for the roads controlled by them. He was very curtly told that not a cent would be expended by ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee
... was respectful and obedient. She used to consult him on passages of French which she could not understand, though her mother was a Frenchwoman, and which he would construe to her satisfaction: and, besides giving her his aid in profane literature, he was kind enough to select for her books of a more serious tendency, and address to her much of his conversation. She admired, beyond measure, his speech at the Quashimaboo-Aid Society; took an interest in his pamphlet on malt: was often affected, even to tears, by his discourses ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... dark shadows, The hair stands on end through terror; Thus confused, so full of doubt, Sad remembrance so o'erwhelms me, That the thing I dared to do I scarce dare in words to tell thee. For, in fine, my crime is such, So to be abhorred, detested, So profane, so sacrilegious (Strange upon thee so to press it), That for having such committed I at times feel some repentance. Well, in fine, I dared one night, When deep silence had erected Sepulchres of fleeting sleep For men's overwearied ...
— The Purgatory of St. Patrick • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... stop to the vocalists by telling them to "sit doon, and listen to God's ambassador." He then resumed his address by stating that when his fist knocked the candles off the table he was "nearly givin' way to temptation. In fact," said he, "I was just on the point of usin' profane language to the mockers and scoffers of the sarvent of the livin' God. I mean them parvarse lads and lasses ...
— Looking Seaward Again • Walter Runciman
... committed, and about which he had got notice that the officers was lookin' fur him, but that if he'd trust us and give a description of the officers, so there wouldn't be any mistake, we'd watch fur 'em up the trail and pick 'em off afore they could profane New Constantinople ...
— A Waif of the Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... of that class of the bad to which the profane Jeffreys and Scroggs and the obscene Kelyng belong. But he was as prone to the wrong as was Chief Justice Fleming in sustaining impositions, and Chancellor Ellesmere in supporting benevolences for King James; as ready to do it as Hyde and Heath were ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... contractors, an unscrupulous man of action and decision, bold, audacious, and unshrinking; and the Western Reserve brought forward bluff Ben Wade, feigning fanaticism and stoical virtue, but a mere mouther of strong words and profane epithets. A few spoke of a fifth Ohio candidate for the nomination in General Sheridan, but, "like a little man," he promptly sat down on every demonstration in his behalf. It soon became evident that General Grant would ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... favorite of the gods. He is by vocation a Sorcerer, and by rank a Priest. You now see him casting charms and blessings into the canoes of our fishermen, who kneel to him for fine weather and great plenty of fish. If any profane person, native or stranger, presumes to set foot on that island, my otherwise peaceful subjects will (in the performance of a religious duty) put that person to death. Mention this to your men. ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... K., and a few others of the same calibre would agree to meet together for dancing cotillons. It would do you all good, and if you took Mr. K.'s wife and poor Miss Much-Afraid, her daughter, into the alliance it would do them good. Bless me! what a profane set everybody would think you were, and yet you are the people of all the world most solemnly in need of it. I wish you could be with me in Brattleboro' and coast down hill on a sled, go sliding and snowballing by moonlight! I would snowball every ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... (Lat. adj. fanat'icus, literally, one inspired by divinity—the god of the fane), a wild enthusiast; fanat'ical; fanat'icism; profane', v. (literally, to be before or outside of the temple), to desecrate; profane', adj., ...
— New Word-Analysis - Or, School Etymology of English Derivative Words • William Swinton
... clergy to withdraw the minds of the people from the profane and immoral buffooneries to which they were accustomed, ecclesiastics did not hesitate to join in the performance, and even to permit the representation to take place in churches and chapels. Afterwards the ordering and arrangement ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton
... The profane poll-parrot is not a more startling witness to the character of its surroundings than the "terrible infant," whose rude snatchings, pert contradictions, and glib slang phrases are sure to be most effectively "shown off" in the presence of visitors. It is of little use to affect ...
— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton
... athletic body with the broken finger-nails—in this rough man, who knew no better lyrics than he could find in the Old and New Version and an occasional hymn; who knew the smallest possible amount of profane history; and for whom the motion and shape of the earth, the course of the sun, and the changes of the seasons lay in the region of mystery just made visible by fragmentary knowledge. It had cost Adam a great deal of trouble ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... 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
... After a few days' rest and refreshment, they resumed their journey, advancing rapidly towards the Caucasus, of which the highest summit, Mount Elburz, from time to time afforded them a glimpse of its lofty head, which was almost always shrouded in mist, as if to conceal it from the profane gaze. Tradition avows that Noah's dove alighted on its peak, and plucked thence the mystic branch which has ever since been hallowed as ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... him, fending off her caresses with a pretense of slight indisposition until suddenly panic-stricken over insistence, he told her he was going to bed, bolted into the room, locked the door behind him, and sat long in the darkness and the heat, filling the room with a profane appreciation of himself as a double-dyed fool who could not even ...
— Square Deal Sanderson • Charles Alden Seltzer
... and clad in Pontifical robes, is laid on a sumptuous bier, amid a blaze of tapers, with sentinels from the Swiss guard at his feet, leaning on their long halberds, and officers of the household in official costume, and all that imposing mixture of sacred and profane which Rome knows so well how to use upon all great occasions. And here, day after day, the faithful still crowd to take the last look of their "Holy Father," and kiss the cross on his slipper, and repeat a prayer for his soul. And hundreds among ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... sense, methinks, that we should understand the saying of Keats—to wit, that in a great many cases the happiest conjunction of music and the soul occurs during what the profane call silence; the very fact of music haunting our mind, while every other sort of sound may be battering our ear, showing our highest receptivity. And, as a fact, we do not know that real musicians, real Master Hugues of Saxe-Gotha and Abt Voglers, not written ones, require organs neither of ...
— Hortus Vitae - Essays on the Gardening of Life • Violet Paget, AKA Vernon Lee
... comedy in which dramatic justice was done to everybody's foibles. I remember that she made me laugh more than I liked; for I was, at that time, an eager scholar of ethics, and had tasted the sweets of solitude and stoicism, and I found something profane in the hours of amusing gossip into which she drew me, and, when I returned to my library, had much to think of the crackling of thorns under a pot. Margaret, who had stuffed me out as a philosopher, in her own fancy, was too intent on establishing a good footing between us, ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... world.—Everything is just going on as he would have it to be; all are acting in the department of life which is appointed. Therefore go on, ye jolly drunkards, and jovial song-singers; proceed, ye numerous tribes of profane swearers and sabbath-breakers; curse on, ye horrid blasphemers and swarms of liars; ye murderers, plunderers, unclean profligates,—ye are all doing the will of God, answering the great ends for which you were made. What avails all the noise the preacher makes about the wicked ...
— A Solemn Caution Against the Ten Horns of Calvinism • Thomas Taylor
... no degree influenced by any considerations of a moral nature, as connected with language. Exceedingly exasperated at this interference with our comfort, I did not hesitate to tell the mate my opinion of his order. Warming with my own complaints, I soon became fearfully profane and denunciatory. I called down curses on the brig, and all that belonged to her, not hesitating about wishing that she might founder at sea, and carry all hands of us to the bottom of the ocean. In a word, I indulged ...
— Ned Myers • James Fenimore Cooper
... this fellow showed out; when a sail was to be handed or a reef taken in, he was a crew in himself; one of the coolest and smartest fellows I ever met, but somewhat profane in his humour, and rather hard upon the nerves of the chief: few of his sayings will bear repetition; but the exaggeration of his figures of speech, the wild fantastic spirit of reckless humour by which he was governed, ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... praying and fasting and Psalm-singing, to extreme impiety? Alas! my backsliding had cost me no travail of spirit. Always weak in my faith, playing at sanctity as I played at soldiers, just as I was in the mood or not, I had neglected my books of devotion and given myself up to profane literature at the first opportunity, in Vitebsk; and I never took up my prayer book again. On my return to Polotzk, America loomed so near that my imagination was fully occupied, and I did not revive the secret experiments with which I used to test the nature and intention of Deity. It was more ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... literature, 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 with the cosmic, principle, be established, beyond ...
— Cosmic Consciousness • Ali Nomad
... of the monastic system and its supporters. The prayer of Infidelitas which opens the second act of his Thre Laws (quoted by T. Warton, Hist. Eng. Poetry, sect. 41) is an example of the lengths to which he went in profane parody. These coarse and violent productions were well calculated to impress popular feeling, and no doubt Cromwell found in him an invaluable instrument. But on his patron's fall in 1540 Bale fled with his wife and children to Germany. He returned on the accession ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... 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
... of sin was on Eric's mind. How could he speak? was not his own language sometimes profane? How—how could he profess to reprove another boy on the ground of morality, when he himself said and did things less dangerous perhaps, but ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar
... as a unifying element is of interest in connection with the theory of Hildebrand, that the landscape should have a narrow foreground and wide background, since that is most in conformity with our experience. He adduces Titian's "Sacred and Profane Love" as an example. But of the general principle it may be said that not the reproduction of nature, but the production of beauty, is the aim of composition, and that this aim is best reached by focusing the eye by a narrow background, i.e. vista. No matter how much it wanders, it returns ...
— The Psychology of Beauty • Ethel D. Puffer
... never see that revolver again," declared the leader of the invaders, with profane emphasis. "And you'll never see your friends again if you don't hit it fast for ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... not even see him. He lies cradled in rose leaves, no doubt, and the singing of the west wind is not sweet enough for his lullaby. No profane eye must rest on this sacred treasure fresh from the hands of the gods! Is he not the heir of Kingsland? But Achmet the Astrologer has cast his horoscope, and Achmet, and Zara, his wife, wilt see that the starry destiny is ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... 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
... 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 ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... teach thee courtesy, if I can. What! a profane swearer too! Wish me in the kingdom of pepper! We'll have pepper growing on thy soft cheeks here. There, there—is that pepper? Thou art rouged, my lady, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... happy if these persons dole you out show-money or send you paltry beeves; [Footnote: Entertainments were frequently given to the people after sacrifices, at which a very small part of the victim was devoted to the gods, such as the legs and intestines, the rest being kept for more profane purposes. Tho Athenians were remarkably extravagant in sacrifices. Demades, ridiculing the donations of public meat, compared the republic to an old woman, sitting at home in slippers and supping her ...
— The Olynthiacs and the Phillippics of Demosthenes • Demosthenes
... Finally, with the profane portion of our vocabularies completely exhausted and rendered meaningless by repetition, and with bruised and bleeding hands, we again arranged our furnace and sat down to wait. We had waited until the dishes from our dinner had ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout
... 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 ordered ways and ...
— The White Riband - A Young Female's Folly • Fryniwyd Tennyson Jesse
... privilege which without doubt cannot be sufficiently admired. With respect to the sensible effects of this sacrament, and of the visible grace which it confers, they are enabled, by the help of some words and certain ceremonies, to change a profane man into one that is sacred; that is to say, who is not profane any longer. By this spiritual metamorphosis, this man becomes capable of enjoying considerable revenues without being obliged to do any thing useful ...
— Letters to Eugenia - or, a Preservative Against Religious Prejudices • Baron d'Holbach
... better building of the streets, an improvement which came in aid of the cleanliness that was resorted to against the plague; so that instead of a judgment against the King and his government, Rochester said, in his profane way, that heaven never showed a judgment of a ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19. No. 534 - 18 Feb 1832 • Various
... and, when stripped of the supernatural and miraculous drapery which accompanies fable, as containing the history of primitive times.[157] Some of the latter class have imagined they could recognize in Grecian mythology traces of sacred personages, as well as profane; in fact, a dimmed image of the patriarchal traditions which are preserved in the ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... June, 1826, at the early age of twenty-eight, when I was but four and one-half years old. The only distinct recollections that I have of him are his leading me to school in the morning, and that he once punished me for using a profane word that I had heard from some rough boys. That wholesome bit of discipline kept me from ever breaking the Third Commandment again. After his death, I passed entirely into the care of one of the best mothers that God ever gave to an ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
... comprehensible save in the light of contemporaneous history. The worst spirit of the time was incorporated in the later plays, and the Puritans made no discrimination. The players in turn hated them, and Mrs. Hutchinson wrote: "Every stage and every table, and every puppet- play, belched forth profane scoffs upon them, the drunkards made them their songs, and all fiddlers and mimics learned to abuse them, as finding it the ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... Arabs was called Saracens; and this was the name given to the whole race whom God had sent to punish the Christian world. The Holy City itself, and all the sacred spots, were permitted to fall into their hands; and though they did not profane the churches, the Khalif Omar built a great mosque, or Mahometan place of worship, where the Temple had once been, so as quite to overshadow the Church of ...
— The Chosen People - A Compendium Of Sacred And Church History For School-Children • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... 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
... how thy soul would like the condition of such as are carnal, profane, careless in the matters of God; and if thy soul doth really abhor that, and thou would not upon any account choose to be in such a case, thou may gather something from that to thy comfort. But enough ...
— Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life • John Brown (of Wamphray)
... grave; it takes, but it does not give.' The same is true of 'discussion.' Once effectually submit a subject to that ordeal, and you can never withdraw it again; you can never again clothe it with mystery, or fence it by consecration; it remains for ever open to free choice, and exposed to profane deliberation. ...
— Physics and Politics, or, Thoughts on the application of the principles of "natural selection" and "inheritance" to political society • Walter Bagehot
... placed under the convoy of Captain James Robertson, of Montgomery's Highlanders, and seventy Highlanders, for New York City. The Highlanders "behaved at first very wild and unfriendly, being particularly troublesome to the young women by their profane conversation, but were persuaded by degrees to conduct themselves with more order and decency." On arriving at Amboy, one of the soldiers exclaimed: "Would to God, all the white people were as ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... Of course to profane and worldly eyes these ghosts assumed the mean guise of empty boxes, decaying barrels and timbers, old kitchen-refuse, and such-like ghostly fowl. But there were spirits in mortal form among us imaginative enough to penetrate this sordid masquerade and to know that subterraneanly we were ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... had always lived in a community of rude, rough people, he had no bad habits. He used no tobacco; he did not drink strong liquor; no profane word ...
— Four Great Americans: Washington, Franklin, Webster, Lincoln - A Book for Young Americans • James Baldwin
... stout fellows in it: for shame, gentlemen! conferre Notes!) That Colonel Norton at Rumsey took 200 prisoners. (I saw them counted: they were just two millions.) Then the Dove hath this sweet passage: O Aulicus, thou profane wretch, that darest scandalize GOD'S saints, darest thou call that loyal subject Master Pym a traitor? (Yes, pretty Pigeon,[334] he was charged with six articles by his Majesty's Atturney Generall.) ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... neatly in foolscap, and rogue's binding for cheapness, by the same author, The Converted Bailiff; being designed as a companion to The Religious Attorney. These productions need not be sought for with any of the profane booksellers of the city; but only at the Religious Depositories, or at those godly establishments in ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... in the manner of Jesus." Observe that we have absolutely no details, no evidence of any sort whatever, outside the Gospels for the "manner of Jesus." It is not, as in some at least of the more risky exercises of profane criticism in a similar field, as if we had some absolutely or almost absolutely authenticated documents, and others to judge by them. External evidence, except for the mere fact of Christ's existence and death, we have none. So you must, by the inner light, pick ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... feeling this to be true, I have ever inculcated my opinions upon my children and grandchildren. Yet I confess I am surprised—knowing what I do of her father's character—that Mistress Aveline should indulge herself with beholding this profane spectacle, which ought, by rights, to be odious in ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... the cache was a solid phalanx of Cascellans. They stood behind a network of ropes that probably marked the boundary between sacred and profane ground. ...
— Warrior Race • Robert Sheckley
... incense, pepper, cloves, cinnamon, saffron, wax, cassia, rhubarb, tamarinds, all drugs and spices, were lost without exception. Mark, mark, quoth Homenas, an effect of divine justice! This comes of putting the sacred Scriptures to such profane uses. ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... Their appropriate motto is, "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." It has been said that even this brute philosophy is reasonable compared with the dogma of a large portion of unbelievers, to wit., that blasphemers, thieves, profane swearers, murderers and adulterers, will all go straight to heaven when they die; that men with their hearts steeped in blood will sit down with Abraham and Isaac in the kingdom of God. But Spiritualists, Pantheists, Atheists, and Deists inform us that an external revelation is useless. Their common ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume I, No. 7, July, 1880 • Various
... it," he said, leaning towards her and half whispering the words. "Is not renunciation the beginning and the end of wisdom? I have sacrificed you rather than profane our friendship by asking you to share my whole life with me. You are unfit for that, and I have committed myself to another union, and am begging you to follow my example, lest we should tempt one ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... his pupil turned her back upon him, strode to the nearest window, and flung it open as if for air; his surprise deepened when she faced him again and moved in his direction. Her expression caused him to utter a profane warning, but she continued to bear down upon him, and when she reached out to seize him he struck at her as he would have ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... grew, during that fearful time, to cyclopean dimensions. For the first time in my life I experienced the desire to murder—"saw red," as some of our picturesque writers phrase it. Life in general might still be sacred, but life in the particular case of Thomas Mugridge had become very profane indeed. I was frightened when I became conscious that I was seeing red, and the thought flashed through my mind: was I, too, becoming tainted by the brutality of my environment?—I, who even in ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... mild amid the rout profane, The justice solemn thus began: "Forebear your knighthood thus to stain, Revere ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... sentiment was Pepper Arden (subsequently Master of the Rolls and Lord Alvanley), and his punishment is thus recorded in the archives of the circuit:—"In this he was considered as doubly culpable, in the first place as having offended, against the laws of Almighty God by his profane cursing; for which, however, he made a very sufficient atonement by paying a bottle of claret; and secondly, as having made use of an expression which, if it should become a prevailing opinion, ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... plant his throne beneath the Asian skies, A sacred seat that now neglected lies. Ye lords of Christendom! eternal shame For ever will pursue each royal name, And tell your wolfish rage for kindred blood, While Paynim hounds profane the seat of God! With him the Christian glory seem'd to fall, The rest was hid behind oblivion's pall; Save a few honour'd names, inferior far In peace to guide, or point the storm of war. Yet e'en among the stranger tribes ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... picked him up and brought him over to us and invited us to consider his merits. When we had singly and together declined to consider the proposition of eating him in each of the three languages we knew—namely, English, bad French, and profane—the master sorrowfully returned him ...
— Eating in Two or Three Languages • Irvin S. Cobb
... of the Bishop of 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, which will not bear it; and intruding ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... of profane or abusive language by foremen or others in authority, when addressing subordinates, will not ...
— Modern Americans - A Biographical School Reader for the Upper Grades • Chester Sanford
... were listened to with much interest, and we found that if Nancy was rough, she possessed a true heart and a Christian spirit, and was never backward in extending aid to the sick, or giving good advice to the profane. ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... us, and our total number of conversions is twenty. Among the persons who have left the ways of sin and turned into the way of life are two very remarkable cases. A woman of about fifty years of age, a drunkard and one of the most profane women in our city, asked the people of God to pray for her. It seemed hard for her to understand the simple plan of salvation, and that the Lord Jesus would save her if she would believe. The evening after Mr. Wharton left she received the evidence of her conversion. I can ...
— The American Missionary - Volume 50, No. 6, June 1896 • Various
... to allow a man to pass through was made. A gallery running within the mountain around the obstacle which the well offered to the profane, led to a square hall, the blue vault of which rested upon four massive pillars ornamented by the red-skinned, white-garmented figures which so often show, in Egyptian frescoes, the full bust and the head in profile. This hall opened into ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... by trying to dash his brains out, he was adjudged insane, and a watch set on him all night. In the morning, when taken before the magistrate, he was violent and abusive, using the most frightfully obscene and profane language. There he was held for examination and sent to Bellevue in a "straight-jacket," which was found to be necessary in order to control him. From the padded cell there ...
— Manhood Perfectly Restored • Unknown
... Mary found the profane prophecy true. Back in New York, she experienced a poverty more ravaging than any she had known in those five lean years of her working in the store. She had been absolutely penniless for two days, and without food through the gnawing hours, when she at last found employment of the humblest ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... his youth up, he had been very profane. He knew no Sabbath, worshipped no God, and was himself the highest law. He was filled with a grand religious sentiment, and only needed the grace of God to bring it out, and the love of God to ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... carriage stopt, there stood an ancient temple, esteemed to be the largest in the whole kingdom, which, having been polluted some years before by an unnatural murder, was, according to the zeal of those people, looked upon as profane, and therefore had been applied to common use, and all the ornaments and furniture carried away. In this edifice it was determined I should lodge. The great gate, fronting to the north, was about four feet high, ...
— Gulliver's Travels - Into Several Remote Regions of the World • Jonathan Swift
... their concerts at Leeds. They were to sing that night in New York, and we attended the performance, and were delighted with their sweet wild music, and with their wisdom and their wit. They were all reformers of the radical school, and though their songs and conversation were not immoral or profane, they were advanced beyond the bounds of religion, into the neutral ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... Flowers only can understand flower-speech, the stars the language of the spheres, one pillar of Memnon answers another, the dead comprehend the Walkyrie, sleep-walkers the speech of the moon—lovers only the language of love. And he who has ever known this sacred emotion will not profane it, but guard it like a secret of the confessional. Neither the wise king in his marvelous song, nor Ovid in his love elegies, nor Hafiz in his ardent lays, nor Heine in his poems, nor Petofi ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... moment that they saw, a moment without death. For he was a prisoner in a perfect spell; he was utterly entangled in the looped and ensnaring song of a nightingale. The song was like beaten gold wire. Never again in her life did Sarah Brown profane with her poor voice the words that a perfect singer begot in a marriage with a perfect song. But in unhappiness, and in the horrible nights, the song ...
— Living Alone • Stella Benson
... sand as far as the eye can reach, or a horse and wagon, with a profane driver, can travel. The ocean laves the beach. The sea also is here. The tide comes in twice a day. This alone gives Sandy Point a great advantage over all other points on ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 24, September 10, 1870 • Various
... to subscribe to the proposed building, and the scheme fell through. In 1709, Miss Astell published a book called "Bart'lemy Fair; or, An Enquiry after Wit.... By Mr. Wotton, in answer to Lord Shaftesbury's Letter concerning Enthusiasm, and other profane writers." In the advertisement to the Second Edition ("An Enquiry after Wit," &c., 1722), Mary Astell says that, although her book was at first published under a borrowed name, it was ascribed to ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... battail, travailer, and many other words are similarly modernized. On the other hand there are a few cases where the 1645 edition exhibits the spelling which has succeeded in fixing itself, as travail (1673, travel) in the sense of labour; and rob'd, profane, human, flood and bloody, forest, triple, alas, huddling, are found where the 1673 edition has roab'd, prophane, humane, floud and bloudy, forrest, tripple, alass and hudling. Indeed the spelling in this later edition is not untouched by seventeenth century ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... 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 instituted ...
— An Essay on the Lyric Poetry of the Ancients • John Ogilvie
... transparent as truth itself. It looked airier than nothing, because it had not substance enough to brighten, and it was clearer than the atmosphere. I remember nothing else of the valley of Clitumnus, except that the beggars in this region of proverbial fertility are wellnigh profane in the urgency of their petitions; they absolutely fall down on their knees as you approach, in the same attitude as if they were praying to their Maker, and beseech you for alms with a fervency which I am afraid they seldom use before ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... effects, instead of going to the root of the matter and realizing that all the tragedies that spring out of Sex are due to wrong teaching and thinking in regard to the sex-function. That which we reverence, and hold sacred, we do not profane. Until Sex is established in its rightful place, as the holy and divine creative power of this universe, we will be shocked and ...
— Sex=The Unknown Quantity - The Spiritual Function of Sex • Ali Nomad
... of him what that vessel was on the other side of us. He replied it was a Liverpool slave-trader, and that the captain appeared to be a very good sort of man; that he never indulged in liquor, nor was given to profane language. ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat
... gown; a black hood completely concealed his face; a clergyman, and two or three of the Vigilance officers or guards followed. A strong guard under arms was stationed about the foot of the gallows. Permission was given the two to say anything they wished. Brace broke forth in a loud rant, profane and obscene, and danced about like one demented. The clergyman felt obliged to stop his blasphemous harangue by cramming his handkerchief over his mouth. He broke away, nevertheless, and again poured forth a tirade, ...
— The Vigilance Committee of '56 • James O'Meara
... year Mr. White, accompanied by two witnesses of credit, should withdraw the veil from her face. The lady was placed in a common English clock-case, having the usual glass face; but a veil of white velvet obscured from all profane eyes the silent features behind. The clock I had myself seen, when a child, and had gazed upon it with inexpressible awe. But, naturally, on my report of the case, the whole of our party were devoured by a curiosity to see the departed fair one. Had Mr. White, ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... Christianity its professors had been exhorted to withdraw their differences from the cognizance of profane tribunals, and to submit them to the paternal authority of their bishops, who, by the nature of their office, were bound to heal the wounds of dissension, and by the sacredness of their character were removed beyond the suspicion of partiality or prejudice. Though an honorable, it was ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... say at Washington, and what do you say about Gen. Macomb's 'Pontiac?'[78] Is the Indian Prince, who was traveling in these parts a while ago, one of the getters up of this affair? I suspect him. Does the prince go to 'profane stageplays and such like vanities,' as the dear old Puritans ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... be told that we are not listening to Homer's Agamemnon but to an Agamemnon in a full-bottomed wig. Yet Pope's Homer had a success unparalleled by any other translation of profane poetry; for the rest of the century it was taken to be a masterpiece; it has been the book from which Byron and many clever lads first learned to enjoy what they at least took for Homer; and, as Mrs. Gallup has discovered, it was used by Bacon at the beginning ...
— English Literature and Society in the Eighteenth Century • Leslie Stephen
... heed them, Ser Agostino. They are profane and wicked men," she said, "and if you aspire to holiness, the less you see of them the better will it ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... whose sacred wine, To some beloved health we drain, Lest future pledges, less divine, Should e'er the hallowed toy profane: And thus I broke a heart that poured Its tide of feelings out for thee, In draughts, by after times deplored, Yet ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... you not read what David did, when he was hungry, and those who were with him? [12:4]how he entered into the house of God and eat the show bread, which it was not lawful for him to eat, nor for those with him, but only for the priests? [12:5]Or have you not read in the law, that the priests profane the sabbath in the temple, and are blameless? [12:6]But I tell you that here is an object greater than the temple. [12:7]But if you had known what, I wish for mercy and not a sacrifice, means, you would not have condemned the ...
— The New Testament • Various
... on the press. John Wilkes, member of Parliament for Aylesbury, was singled out for persecution. Wilkes had, till very lately, been known chiefly as one of the most profane, licentious, and agreeable rakes about town. He was a man of taste, reading, and engaging manners. His sprightly conversation was the delight of greenrooms and taverns, and pleased even grave hearers ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... manner and address is "Be natural," but this cannot be taken too literally. Most of us find it perfectly natural to be cross and disagreeable under trying circumstances. It would be natural for a man to cry out profane words when a woman grinds down on his corn but it would not be polite. It was natural for Uriah Heep to wriggle like an eel, but that did not make it any the less detestable. It was natural, considering the past history of Germany and the system under which ...
— The Book of Business Etiquette • Nella Henney
... several more arrived from the Crow Roost country. Old Dutch John, a famous range character, was driving the chuck wagon. At one time he had been a crony of Pan's father, and that attracted Pan to the profane old grizzled cook. He could not talk without swearing and, if he replied to a question that needed only yes or no, he would supplement it with a ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey
... great profane soul! That is where the doctrine of form destroys your eye! Sedaine is not a writer, that is true, although he falls but little short of it, but he is a man, with a heart and soul, with the sense of moral truth, the direct insight into human feelings. I don't mind his out-of-date reasonings and ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... when Silas Wegg had grown accustomed to the arrival of his patron in a cab, accompanied by some profane historian charged with unutterable names of incomprehensible peoples, of impossible descent, waging wars any number of years and syllables long, and carrying illimitable hosts and riches about, with the greatest ease, beyond the confines of geography—one ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens |
