"Profanity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to discuss Sir Thomas's position and to describe his own, but he perceived from her own aloofness just now that it would seem a profanity, so he preserved silence instead, knowing that it would be eloquent to her. At last she spoke again, and there was a suggestion of a ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... to be reformed and regulated lest they should be a mere occasion of profanity and rudeness, that curious one of Dives and Lazarus was occasionally heard, of which two lines could never be ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge
... and now he had to climb down, and the images were removed. On another occasion, described by the same historian, Pilate had seized the sacred money at the Temple and employed it in building an aqueduct, a piece of utilitarian profanity which enraged the Jews to such an extent that a vast crowd gathered, clamouring against Pilate and insisting on the stoppage of the works. Then the governor sent soldiers among the people, disguised in the garb of civilians, who at ...
— Men of the Bible; Some Lesser-Known Characters • George Milligan, J. G. Greenhough, Alfred Rowland, Walter F.
... said I, cutting him short, for I had become wearied of the invariable profanity which lent a lurid ...
— In Search of the Unknown • Robert W. Chambers
... steady rain of missiles, could see no one and departed in an atmosphere of heated profanity. Came delivery boys, wagons, an occasional carriage, and now and then an unprotected pedestrian. Only Louise, as she passed on the way to the grocery, ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... banker, seemed to be addressed, but that gentleman disliked coarseness and profanity, and merely bowed. The remark was taken up by Mr. Chichely, a middle-aged bachelor and coursing celebrity, who had a complexion something like an Easter egg, a few hairs carefully arranged, and a carriage implying the consciousness of ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... and Buck Stinson died full of profanity and curses, heaping upon their executioners all manner of abuse. They seemed to be animated by no understanding of a life hereafter, and were concerned only in their animal instinct to hold on to ...
— The Story of the Outlaw - A Study of the Western Desperado • Emerson Hough
... away, Ottenburg shoved Archie into a second taxi that waited by the curb. "We'd better trail her," he explained. "There might be a hold-up of some kind." As the cab whizzed off he broke into an eruption of profanity. ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... to be that poor man in the seedy garments, and had been endeavoring to serve my Maker for even half a century, I would have felt like muttering audibly, "You go to hell!" (I am not much given to profanity, but when I am sorely aggravated and vexed in spirit, I declare to you that it is such a relief to me, such a solace to my troubled soul, and gives me such heavenly peace, to now and then allow a word or phrase to escape ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... human statue on guard could even lower his gun to repel boarders, my head struck him soundly in the stomach, sending him crashing back against one of those tightly closed doors. Tangled up with the surprised soldier, who promptly clinched his unexpected antagonist, and, with shocking profanity, strove to throttle me, I yet chanced to take note of the number "18" painted upon the white wood just above us. Then the door itself was hurled hastily open, and with fierce exclamation of rage a gray-hooded Capuchin ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... the hunter, contemptuously, at the menace and profanity of the haughty officer. "Natural enough, though, mayhap, for a bag of wind to blow, if it does any thing. He is rather smart at—der—swearing, too, I think. But even at that, I guess he would have to haul in his horns a little, if old Ethan Allen was ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... constituted that it moves them the other way. When Tom replied gently to Zeigler, and asked him privately why he annoyed him without cause, the fellow sneered the more at him. He took pains to indulge in profanity and obscenity before Tom, and received the full reward he sought when he saw how ...
— Brave Tom - The Battle That Won • Edward S. Ellis
... neighbours with marked respect. She never speaks of the past, but it has been remarked that whenever the stalwart form of a certain policeman passes her door, her clean, delicate face assumes an expression which can only be described as frozen profanity. The Strong Young Man ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile
... they are raw collops slashed from the rump of Nature, and never mind the gristle. Likewise some of the strong adjectives and nouns have been softened,—Jonahed, as George Meredith would have said. There is, however, a Homeric quality about the cowboy's profanity and vulgarity that pleases rather than repulses. The broad sky under which he slept, the limitless plains over which he rode, the big, open, free life he lived near to Nature's breast, taught him simplicity, calm, directness. He spoke out plainly the impulses of his heart. ...
— Cowboy Songs - and Other Frontier Ballads • Various
... enough to excuse profanity," said Mrs. Richards witheringly. "Persis Dale is a coarse scheming creature." Then as her husband burst into astonished protests, ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... it is that leads us astray. That old stargazer, with whom Aesop has made us acquainted, deserved, indeed, to fall into the well, no less for his profanity than his stupidity. Yet this same star-gazing it is that we miscall reflection. Thus, in our blank wonder at Nature, in our naked analysis of her life, expressed through long lists of genera and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... more, yet hourly they added to the mass. Teams splashed through the lapping surf or stuck in the deep sand between hillocks of goods. All was noise, profanity, congestion, and feverish hurry. This burning haste rang in the voice of the multitude, showed in its violence of gesture and redness of face, permeated the atmosphere with a magnetic, ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... police have less to do. Houses are neater, children better clothed and cared for. Oyler has won the hearts of its people, improved the food on their tables and the clothes on their backs, sent the children to high school, and their mothers to Mothers' Clubs; and the people who once uttered their profanity indiscriminately in every direction now swear ...
— The New Education - A Review of Progressive Educational Movements of the Day (1915) • Scott Nearing
... a sound of a heavy fall, followed by a volley of profanity, and the next instant something flew against the wall, and was shivered to fragments that fell ...
— Canoe Boys and Campfires - Adventures on Winding Waters • William Murray Graydon
... as a saint; and when she appeared on deck the roughest man took off his cap as she passed, and hushed the profanity on his lips. Suspicions of the true state of the case were abroad, but no one dared to show sympathy with the prisoner. The men stood in great awe of De Roberval, and still more of the terrible Gaillon, who was daily advancing in favour with his master, whose ...
— Marguerite De Roberval - A Romance of the Days of Jacques Cartier • T. G. Marquis
... the new Grand Duke ordered the body of the Grand Duchess to be placed beside that of her husband in the Cappella Medici of the church. For six brief hours it was suffered to remain, and then, at midnight, agents of Ferdinando, well paid for their profanity, deported all that was mortal of the brilliant "woman whom he hated" to an unknown grave in the paupers' burial plot beyond the city boundary! "For," said he, "we will have none of her among ...
— The Tragedies of the Medici • Edgcumbe Staley
... of Jim's crude but honest ethics of the big wilderness to take the Lord's name in vain, and the words he uttered were filled more with the softness of a prayer than the harshness of profanity. He was big, and his hands were hard and knotted, and his face was covered with a coarse red scrub of beard. But his hair was blond, and his eyes were blue, and just now they were filled with unbounded amazement. Slowly the fork loaded with beans descended to his plate, ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood
... few seconds it seemed as though Benjamin J. Flugel's heirs-at-law would collect a substantial death benefit from the I. O. M. A., but the impending apoplexy was warded off by a tremendous burst of profanity. ...
— Elkan Lubliner, American • Montague Glass
... enough now, in good truth, though still under insufficient control. It roared, cracked upward, approaching a scream. Sentences trod on one another's heels, so rapid was his delivery; or bumped and jolted so overlaid was it with emphasis. He, dealt in ugly words, too—"lies, drunkenness, theft, profanity;" and worse still, "uncleanness, adultery, carnal debauchery." For not venial sins only, but mortal sins likewise were rife in Deadham, as he averred, matters of common knowledge and everyday occurrence—tolerated ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... illustrated and proved their assertion when occasion offered in the most fluent and incontrovertible manner; but I am convinced, after having heard the curses of experts in all parts of the East, that for variety, ingenuity and force the profanity of the Caucasian mountaineers is unsurpassed. They are by no means satisfied with damning their adversary's soul after the vulgar manner of the Anglo-Saxon, but invoke the direst calamities upon his body also; as, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... cast an oblique glance, which resembled denunciation, at his companion. To his superstitious mind, there was profanity in thus invoking the tempest, at a moment when the winds seemed already to be pouring out their ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... their fumes. They stung, smarted, stimulated, intoxicated. It was said that the most jaded and foot-sore horses became furious and ungovernable under their influence; wearied teamsters and muleteers, who had exhausted their profanity in the ascent, drank fresh draughts of inspiration in this fiery air, extended their vocabulary, and created new and startling forms of objurgation. It is recorded that one bibulous stage-driver exhausted description and condensed its virtues in a single phrase: "Gin and ginger." This felicitous ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... our stores running down to sweepings of bread-lockers and scrapings of sugar-casks. It was just like the East Wind's nature to inflict starvation upon the bodies of unoffending sailors, while he corrupted their simple souls by an exasperation leading to outbursts of profanity as lurid as his blood-red sunrises. They were followed by gray days under the cover of high, motionless clouds that looked as if carved in a slab of ash-coloured marble. And each mean starved sunset left us calling with imprecations upon the West Wind even in its most veiled ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad
... unsuspected reserves of strength. And then he began to swear. Edwin, like many timid men, often used forbidden words with much ferocity in private. Once he had had a long philosophic argument with Tom Orgreave on the subject of profanity. They had discussed all aspects of it, from its religious origin to its psychological results, and Edwin's theory had been that it was only improper by a purely superstitious convention, and that no man of sense could possibly be offended, in himself, by the mere sound of words that ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... direction, and a great resort of fishing vessels, mostly English, with whose masters Samoset, as sachem of the Indians in those parts, had both traded and feasted, learning their language, their manners, and, what was worse, their habits of strong drink and profanity, neither of which however seemed to have taken any great hold upon him, being reserved rather as accomplishments and proofs that he too ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... about 215,000 retail liquor houses in this nation. Allowing 20 feet to each, it gives us an unbroken liquor front of about 781 miles. Just think of it! Seven hundred and eighty-one miles of profanity and vulgarity. Seven hundred and eighty-one miles of Sabbath-breaking. Seven hundred and eighty-one miles of drunkard-making. Seven hundred and eighty-one miles of filth, debauchery, anarchy, dynamite and bombs. [Applause]. Seven hundred and eighty-one miles of political corruption; ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, August 1887 - Volume 1, Number 7 • Various
... is full of sin and iniquity on every hand. We may hear profanity as we pass along the street, or we may see iniquity before our eyes daily as we come in contact with the world, we may pick up a secular paper and read of murder and theft, and thus these evil thoughts may ...
— Sanctification • J. W. Byers
... . . Men are at the other end of the house. . . . Have the whole rat's nest on us." And a lot of profanity which I won't write down. The voices were at the broken window now, and although I was trembling violently, I was determined that I would hold them until help came. I moved up the stairs until I could see into the card-room, or rather through it, to ...
— The Circular Staircase • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... my coat, which had been folded and placed beyond my restless tossing, had been rescued in the morning from a heterogeneous jumble of blankets, evening papers and cravat, had been shaken out with profanity and donned with wrath. At the time, nothing occurred to me but the necessity of writing to the Pullman Company and asking them if they ever traveled in their own cars. I even ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... from it. Our imaginations got astir with it. We made up for lost time and went round it and through it and over it exhaustively. I recall prolonged discussion of polygamy on the way to Royston, muddy November tramps to Madingley, when amidst much profanity from Hatherleigh at the serious treatment of so obsolete a matter, we weighed the reasons, if any, for the institution of marriage. The fine dim night-time spaces of the Great Court are bound up with the inconclusive finales of mighty hot-eared wrangles; ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... when the wind blew soft and when it raved over the shrinking land, when the cold rain drove men into their yellow slickers and set horses to humping backs and turning tail to the drive of it and one heard the cook muttering profanity because the wood was wet and the water ran down the stovepipe and hungry men must wait because the stove would not "draw," the Double-Crank raked the range. Horses grew lean and ill-fitting saddles worked their wicked will upon backs that shrank to their touch of a morning. Wild range ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower
... gay; laughter and shouting went up and down their dusty lengths, with a lively accompaniment of curry-combs knocking against back fences and stable walls, for the darkies loved to curry their horses in the alley. Darkies always prefer to gossip in shouts instead of whispers; and they feel that profanity, unless it be vociferous, is almost worthless. Horrible phrases were caught by early rising children and carried to older people for definition, sometimes at inopportune moments; while less investigative children would ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... toward the Governor's son never so little, his left hand lifted to point his utterance, and opened upon Boyle the most withering stream of blasphemous profanity that Slavens had ever heard. If there ever was a man who cursed by note, as they used to say, Hun Shanklin was that one. He laid it to ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... man uttered violent language; but, since there was nobody present to hear him, it is likely he found small satisfaction in his profanity, rich though it may have been in metaphor and variety. So presently he betook himself off, going straight to the office in Legal Row of ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... the youth's company was shot in the hand. He began to swear so wondrously that a nervous laugh went along the regimental line. The officer's profanity sounded conventional. It relieved the tightened senses of the new men. It was as if he had hit his fingers with a ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... time you turned in. There's your bunk," pointing to a shelf in the dark and damp look-out house. Paul prepared to retire while the men continued their stories. The river-men of that time were rather given to profanity, so their yarns were freely interspersed with oaths. Suddenly Tom said ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... to bed at a country inn, he was aroused from his sleep and saw indistinctly a white phenomenon fluttering to and fro along the opposite wall. Instantly he grabs a boot and hurls it with ferocious force at the goblin. A roar was heard followed by a salvo of blue profanity. It was a fellow-traveller—a lumber-dealer—who was to occupy the other bed in the room. He had undressed and was disporting himself in nocturnal attire before reposing, when Jonas Lie's well-aimed missile hit him in the stomach and ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... exclamation of anger, disappointment, or dismay, regarded as a very strong expression, equivalent to profanity. Literally, ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... assumption was a safe one," said the priest, smilingly, "unless," he added on afterthought, "it be by way of a genial profanity. There used to be some old Clare men who said 'Hell to my soul!' when they missed at quoits, but I haven't heard it for a long time. I daresay ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... chorus of laughing profanity and worse, amongst which I caught the words, "Pretty filly!" "A dainty tit!" "A kiss all round, Tom! Share an' share, Tom!" "Oho, Tinker, pull an' ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... busier parts of the city the constant street noise puts a nervous tax upon the children; the proximity of so many bright and moving objects taxes the eyes; the splash of gaudy and gross advertisements creates a fevered imagination; slang, profanity, and vulgarity lend a smart effect; the merchant's tempting display often leads to theft, and the immodest dress of women produces an evil effect upon the mind of the overstimulated adolescent boy; opportunities to elude observation and to deceive one's parents abound; social control ...
— The Minister and the Boy • Allan Hoben
... membership; often as high as from five to six hundred. In Rockford, Ill., the juvenile union numbers over eight hundred boys and as many girls. The pledge taken by these children includes, in some localities, tobacco and profanity as well as intoxicants. ...
— Grappling with the Monster • T. S. Arthur
... and in a lady such expressions are too offensive to be tolerated at all in good society. Slang never ornamented conversation, but it invariably sullies and degrades it. Equally to be censured as a violation of etiquette, and more so in a moral point of view, is the use of profanity; it is a sure mark, not only of low-breeding, but of a narrow, degraded if not a positively vicious mind. ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost
... that he took the passage tempo prestissimo, in one roulade of gabble—that I, with the trained attention of an educated man, could gather but a fraction of its import—and the sailors nothing. No profanity in giving orders, no sheath-knives, Midway Island and any other port the master may direct, not to exceed six calendar months, and to this port to be paid off: so it seemed to run, with surprising verbiage; so ended. And with the end the commissioner, in each case, fetched a deep breath, resumed ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... kiss you!' Harold exclaimed, forgetting his own grief in this insult to Jerry; for it seemed to him little less than profanity for lips like Tom Tracy's ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... fell by politics, Coroner Bullfast rose by it. A judicious distribution of money and liquors, a notoriety for street fights, a singular talent for profanity, and an unstinted adulation of the basest classes of the community, won for him, in succession, some of the best prizes of the Municipal lottery. He has his small, sunken eyes now fixed on one of the highest offices of the State; and it will take a strong ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... belligerents was up, and they were battling as for life, with a dogged determination which would have lasted upon the part of either, the man or the beast, until death. Rough scenes and inhuman, Bye had witnessed until blase; but nothing before like this. The man used quirt, rowel, and profanity like a fiend. The pony, panting, quivering, bucking, struggling, covered with foam and streaming with blood, shrilled with the impotent anger of a demon. Even the impassive cowboy spectators from chaffing lapsed ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... saved Uncle Billy from bursting into a roar of laughter. As it was, he felt compelled to retire up the canon until he could recover his gravity. There he confided the joke to the tall pine-trees, with many slaps of his leg, contortions of his face, and the usual profanity. But when he returned to the party, he found them seated by a fire—for the air had grown strangely chill and the sky overcast—in apparently amicable conversation. Piney was actually talking in an ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... curse, profane swearing, affidavit, cursing, profanity, anathema, denunciation, reprobation, ban, execration, swearing, blaspheming, imprecation, sworn ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... of her profanity and ignorance she was a good neighbor and in time of trouble no one was readier to relieve any distress in the coulee. However, it was upon Mrs. Randal and the widow Green that my mother called for aid, and I do not think Mrs. Whitwell was ever quite welcome even at our quilting bees, for her ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... The traffic on deck nearly deserved the name of din. Commands and calls were being bawled in English, French, and polyglot profanity. A donkey-engine was rumbling, a winch clattering, a capstan-pawl clanking. Alongside a tug was panting hoarsely. The engine room telegraph jangled furiously, the fabric of the ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... who are disinclined to rely upon so-called "expert" opinion, but wish to look into these things for themselves and intelligently purchase an instrument which is thoroughly up-to-date in every particular, which will not drive the organist to the verge of profanity every time he plays upon it, and will not prove a snug source of income ...
— The Recent Revolution in Organ Building - Being an Account of Modern Developments • George Laing Miller
... Auction; Chat; Drugs; Electronic Commerce; Employment Search; Free Mail; Free Pages; Gambling; Games; Hate/Discrimination; Illegal; Jokes; Lingerie; Message/Bulletin Boards; Murder/Suicide; News; Nudity; Personal Information; Personals; Pornography; Profanity; Recreation/Entertainment; School Cheating Information; Search Engines; Search Terms; Sex; Sports; Stocks; Swimsuits; Tasteless/Gross; Tobacco; Violence; and Weapons. The "Nudity" category purports to block only "non-pornographic" images. The "Sex" ...
— Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA) Ruling • United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania
... dignified manner again began to speak: "There is another matter in which I am deeply interested. I have never been able to understand how any man made in the image of his Creator could take his Creator's name in vain. In my experience I have noticed that profanity is limited to men who are either weak or vicious. I think, my friends, that you will agree with me that we want neither class in our little settlement on the banks of the Kentucky. I therefore move that we adopt a ...
— Scouting with Daniel Boone • Everett T. Tomlinson
... lateness of the hour, went to Mr. Toombs' residence, awoke him, and asked for an authoritative denial of what they considered a damaging charge. Mr. Toombs listened to the delegation, and then declared with emphasis, not free from profanity, that it was so. "I have responded to their calls just as I have those of other denominations. You can tell the people that the distribution of my money is none of ...
— Robert Toombs - Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage • Pleasant A. Stovall
... interrupted by an outburst of such vile and savage profanity that it literally rendered me speechless. It lasted, I suppose, fully ten minutes, and left its utterer gasping and in a state of collapse. I administered stimulant, and at length the colour came slowly back to the sufferer's cheeks and lips, and he opened his ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood
... marked how deep dwelt the determination of Patrick Henry Hanway; for even as a young man he had taught himself a suave and cautious conversation, avoiding profanity as of those lingual vices that never made and sometimes ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... reason mingled with this white-haired old peasant's profanity. It was true that I had twice escaped mowing off his son's legs, and his ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 1 • Charles Farrar Browne
... upon the restraints of the clergy, or the court, or upon the fashionable frivolities of the day—for there were frivolities and fashions even in that primitive age—there was a freedom of expression bordering upon profanity or licentiousness. ...
— Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... tired, sleeping Puritan with his head thrown back in the corner of the pew; the vain, strutting, tithingman with his fantastic and thorned staff of office; and then—the sudden, electric wakening, and the consternation of the whole staid and pious congregation at such terrible profanity in the house of God. Ah!—it was not two hundred and forty years ago; when I read the quaint words my Puritan blood stirs my drowsy brain, and I remember it all well, just as I saw it last ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... of the Pony Express were different in character from the ordinary plainsmen of those days. The latter as a class were usually boisterous, indulged in profanity, and were fond of whiskey. Russell, Majors, & Waddell were God-fearing, temperate gentlemen themselves, and tried to engage no man who did not come up to their own standard ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... overflow. I think much depends upon the manner, the inflection, and the tone of voice in which the desire is expressed, and I am sorry to say that upon the occasion to which I refer, there was more of the asperity of profanity than the calmness of constructive suggestion in my father's manner. In any event I did not blame him, for here was I coming along, undeniably imminent, a tempest raging, and no doctor in sight, and consequently no telling when my venerable ...
— The Autobiography of Methuselah • John Kendrick Bangs
... kept going, for a driver takes no chances of losing a heat by coming back to ask questions. It was different in the case of Marengo Todd, driver of the pole-horse, and entitled to "protection." He pulled "Maria M." to a snorting halt under the wire and poured forth the vials of his artistic profanity in a way that piqued Cap'n Sproul's professional interest, he having heard more or less eminent efforts in his days ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... question of the Sacrament; he cited the appearance of Hooper as a witness in proof that it was really on this point that he was brought to trial, and he at last succeeded in arousing Cranmer's love of controversy. A reply of almost incredible profanity from the Archbishop, if we may trust Foxe's report, rewarded Bonner's perseverance in demanding a statement of his belief. The Bishop was not slow to accept the advantage he had gained. "I am right sorry ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... with no success, and with a stream of eloquence which my limited knowledge of profanity would never allow me to translate into plain English, he rolled up his trousers, grabbed the halter of my mule, and without further ado plunged into the water and made for ...
— Six Days on the Hurricane Deck of a Mule - An account of a journey made on mule back in Honduras, - C.A. in August, 1891 • Almira Stillwell Cole
... considered their charges exorbitant. At the base of the great mine-field which lies across the mouth of the Straits we were hailed by a British patrol boat, whose choleric commander bellowed instructions at us, interlarded with much profanity, through a megaphone. The captain of the Padova could understand a few simple English phrases, if slowly spoken, but the broadside of Billingsgate only confused and puzzled him, so, despite the fact ...
— The New Frontiers of Freedom from the Alps to the AEgean • Edward Alexander Powell
... have been mistaken for any other than a good Norman. He was endowed with the gift of oratory peculiar to the country; and his profanity was enriched with all the flavor of the provincial's elation in the committing of sin. From the earliest moment of our starting, the stream of his talk had been unending. His vocabulary was such as to have excited the envy and despair of a ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... out here in a hopen boat for pleasure and the fun o' the thing," was the boatswain's sarcastic comment upon their behaviour, prefaced by a stream of profanity, as the vessel disappeared ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood
... his porch that night he breathed out along with his smoke an accompanying fire of profanity; but for all his wrath, he could not keep the questions from arising. Why had she gone? What was she going to do? Was she coming back? Had she given up her father's case, and had she been silent to him that afternoon about her going for the simple reason ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott
... which a single religious captain may do can hardly be calculated. In the first place, as I have said, a kinder state of feeling exists on board the ship. There is no profanity allowed; and the men are not called by any opprobrious names, which is a great thing with sailors. The Sabbath is observed. This gives the men a day of rest, even if they pass it in no other way. Such a captain, too, ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... whole, quicker. One could improve upon them, too, with imagination and wit and a natural gift for terms. That Samuel Clemens maintained his promise as to drink and cards during those apprentice days is something worth remembering; and if he did not always restrict his profanity to moments of severe pressure or sift the quality of his wit, we may also remember that he was an extreme example of a human being, in that formative stage which gathers all as grist, later to refine it for the uses and ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... memory returned, and he rose stiffly to his feet. He limped out of the Park, putting away the handkerchief, muttering profanity and trying to fathom the mystery. As nearly as he could reason it out, he must have been struck by ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... to the house, gratified that she had enforced discipline, not hearing the contractor's profanity about meddlesome women. Later on the same day after the workmen had left,—they knocked off from their eight hours while the sun was still high in the heavens,—Adelle was wandering over the place, idly looking for a suitable location for a tennis-court. The doctor had told her to take some ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... there!" interrupted the Hatter. "Hello comes under the head of profanity, which is ...
— Alice in Blunderland - An Iridescent Dream • John Kendrick Bangs
... idleness—with the exception of Berry, that is. Prior to our arrival, he had been hovering about on the top of the cliff, but the instant he descried us, and while we were yet a great way off, he had retired precipitately, and was now busy rejoining the others with Agag's walk and a profusion of embryo profanity. He explained afterwards that if he had been wearing his own bathing-dress, instead of a green and red striped one—his own was being mended—he should have remained, but that he did not like to be seen wearing the colours of ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates
... spirit of rage and vengeance beyond all reasoning. Upon the heaving, tossing thing, so that he would have been fairly in its coils had it possessed longer any power, he leaped, striking fiercely and screaming out all the fearful terms he knew—what would have been the wildest of all abandonment of profanity had he but acquired the words for such performance. His father caught him by the arm, and he struggled with him. It was simply a young madman. Carried across the creek and held in bonds for a brief period, he suddenly burst out sobbing, and then went ...
— A Man and a Woman • Stanley Waterloo
... Cursing choice Dutch profanity, Jan wheeled the groundcar northward and drove along the edge of the abyss as fast as he could. He wasted half an hour before realizing that it ...
— Wind • Charles Louis Fontenay
... the rest. On Frontenac's suggestion, private theatricals were added to the polite diversions of Quebec. The Marquis de Tracy's ball far back in 1667 had given grievous offence to the Jesuits, and the unholy acting of plays was now declared an open profanity. Nicomede and Mithridate were condemned as immoral; but when Tartuffe, Moliere's mordant satire upon religious hypocrisy, was put upon the boards, the limits of endurance were ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... proof-sheets came back each a veritable "mush of concession," as Emerson says. Now and then he would try a little stronger language than 'The Atlantic' had stomach for, and once when I sent him a proof I made him observe that I had left out the profanity. He wrote back: "Mrs. Clemens opened that proof, and lit into the room with danger in her eye. What profanity? You see, when I read the manuscript to her I skipped that." It was part of his joke to pretend a violence in that gentlest creature which the more amusingly ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... dwelling does not deform the scene. Already the birds resort to it, to build their nests, and you may track to its door the feet of many quadrupeds. Thus, for a long time, nature overlooks the encroachment and profanity of-man. The wood still cheerfully and unsuspiciously echoes the strokes of the axe that fells it, and while they are few and seldom, they enhance its wildness, and all the elements strive to ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... Anne had a voice in the matter. Mrs. Tresslyn is at the back of all this. She is the one who has roped you in,—duped you, or whatever you choose to call it without resorting to profanity. She's forcing Anne into this damnable marriage, and she is making a perfect fool of you. Can't you see it? Can't you see—but, my God, how can I ask that question of you? When a man gets to be as old as you, he—" He broke off abruptly, on ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... an inveterate reader; and, while his diction embraced a choice stock of profanity, which he used when aroused, it also expressed itself in the choicest of English, his sentences full of commas, semicolons, and periods. He reeled off his stories as ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson
... of his chair with his fist and babbled profanity. When he became coherent he told his story, or rather Blount got it out of him piecemeal, of how he had been employed by the "organization" to falsify the registration lists in certain districts; of how, when the ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... morning stars were bright, but he might as well have watered the streets with his tears, which, indeed, when the farmers began to come in, bringing their cyclones of dust, he drew nigh unto, after a spell of profanity ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... stalwart infantry major had a battalion of the Fortieth out along the prairie slopes for over two hours every morning, drilling, drilling, drilling, until officers and men came double-quicking in at 11.30, exuding profanity and perspiration from every pore, but owning up to it, after a rub down and a rest and a hearty dinner, that old Alex was a boss soldier who knew how to take the conceit out of the cavalry, even if he did nearly have to run his bandy-legs off, and the lean shanks of his men, in doing ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... counter accusations against him. Two worthies beings, named Cherbonneau and Bugrau, agreed to become informers, and were brought before the ecclesiastical magistrate at Poitiers. They accused Grandier of having corrupted women and girls, of indulging in blasphemy and profanity, of neglecting to read his breviary daily, and of turning God's sanctuary into a place of debauchery and prostitution. The information was taken down, and Louis Chauvet, the civil lieutenant, and the archpriest of Saint-Marcel and the Loudenois, were appointed to investigate ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... loosen suddenly, gave another plunge and went careering up the bank, snorting back at Happy Jack. Happy swore, waded out and made threats, but Stranger, seeing himself pursued by a strange figure whose only resemblance to his master lay in voice and profanity, ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... for you," exclaimed the captain, "to bait a poor innocent lad with horrid blasphemy and profanity. I tell you every one of ...
— The Carbonels • Charlotte M. Yonge
... accused of profanity, or of impoliteness. The charge for which you are arraigned, is that you have rebelled against lawful authority. Of this you have been proved to be guilty; and for this I must now proceed to pass ...
— The Child at Home - The Principles of Filial Duty, Familiarly Illustrated • John S.C. Abbott
... is the ministry of forgiveness, and therefore the miracle of restored health. Let me mark the rich variety of the descriptive words. "Forgiven!" "Covered!" "Imputed not!" It is all removed and obliterated, and the place of defilement and profanity becomes the holy temple ...
— My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year • John Henry Jowett
... disappointed to find so few men there, and seemed to be asking them where the rest were, for by way of reply the seamen said something and pointed to the hatchways. The Spanish captain relieved his feelings by stamping on the deck, grinding his teeth, and indulging in a good deal of Castilian profanity; after which he seemed to give certain instructions, the result of which was that the men laid down their arms and went up on deck, one of their number having previously gone to the main hatchway and shouted something down it which ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... as one has recently written, and as I have myself heard him state, "he permitted no profanity; no man of loose morals was suffered to remain there, unless, indeed, as a prisoner of war. 'I would rather,' said he, 'have the small-pox, yellow-fever, and cholera, all together in my camp, than a man ...
— A Plea for Captain John Brown • Henry David Thoreau
... die with envy. The light breeze bears one's conversation audibly for half a mile; one hears the splash of a fish that jumps a thousand yards away; and the grim cliffs at the foot of which the canal winds in and out take up the profanity of the towpath and hurl it back and forth across the river as if it was great fun and all propriety. The stalwart exhortations and clean-cut phraseology of the mule-drivers and the notes of the bugles go ringing over to Virginia's shore, and fill the air with cadences so sweet and musical that ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... he came, college was in a most ungodly state. The college church was almost extinct. Most of the students were skeptical, and rowdies were plenty. Wine and liquors were kept in many rooms; intemperance, profanity, gambling, and licentiousness were common. I hardly know how I escaped.... That was the day of the infidelity of the Tom Paine school. Boys that dressed flax in the barn, as I used to, read Tom Paine and believed him; I read and fought him all the way. Never had ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... Mansfield: his mother's dreams for him, her prejudices, his own choice and his renouncing of it all for the sake of what his mother had already given up for him. To his colleagues, the old professor expressed himself with plain profanity. To Scott, he took a gentler tone, spoke with appreciation of a mother such as Mrs. Brenton must be, spoke of the ministerial profession with an admiration he was far from feeling, and then craftily suggested to his favourite student that the preaching of the gospel should go hand in ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... talks to his cattle like a Boston philanthropist to a poor relation. The steers look round at him, wonder, in a vague way, if he's worth eating, and stand at ease. An old freighter who's been over the "divide" and got his profanity down to a fine art, grabs that goad, cracks it like a rifled cannon reaching for a raw recruit and spills a string of cuss words calculated to precipitate the final conflagration. You expect to see him struck dead—but those steers don't. They're firmly persuaded that he's going to ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... again seated upon the barrel which he had used for his interview with Toby, beheld the transfigured face of the young man as the chestnut vender passed the mouth of the alley, and the committee-man released from his soul a burdening profanity in the ear of his companion and confidant, a policeman who would be on duty in Pixley's precinct on the morrow, and who had now reported for instructions not necessarily received in a ...
— In the Arena - Stories of Political Life • Booth Tarkington
... bad language, prithee." Dame La Theyn looked upon pious language as profanity when uttered in an unconsecrated place. "But if it were the Almighty that put these notions into thy head, I pray ...
— A Forgotten Hero - Not for Him • Emily Sarah Holt
... on with clangorous fury. Almost every party was in division. Some enthusiastic individual had made a find, or had seen some one else who had. His cackle reached other groups, and out of the dark hulking figures loomed to listen or to throw in hot missiles of profanity. Phrases ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... mighty oath, followed almost instantly by a thunderous thump on the barrel-like anatomy of the family horse. A second or two later Peggy's head came in for a resounding whack, and the stream of profanity increased ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon
... disagreeable qualities of both nations. She was in a frequent state of intoxication, and kept gin, brandy, and beer in her berth. Whether sober or not, she was equally voluble; and as her language was not only inelegant, but replete with coarseness and profanity, the annoyance was almost insupportable. She was a professed atheist, and as such justly an object of commiseration, the weakness of her unbelief being clearly manifested by the frequency with which she denied ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... this contemptible comedy is plain enough to my mind. She is simply holding off (Julian, as you know, is a poor man) until the influence of Lady Janet's persuasion is backed by the opening of Lady Janet's purse. In one word—Settlements! But for the profanity of the woman's language, and the really lamentable credulity of the poor old lady, the whole thing would make a fit subject for ...
— The New Magdalen • Wilkie Collins
... into a torrent of abusive profanity. Some of those present had been witnesses of the previous affair, and realizing what the pastoral visit might mean, they added their voices to the uproar. The language was emphatic rather than concise. The women, too, gave free rein ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... cussin'!" The Hopper admonished sharply. Since his retirement to private life he had sought diligently to free his speech of profanity and thieves' slang, as not only unbecoming in a respectable chicken farmer, but likely to arouse suspicions as to his origin and previous condition of servitude. "Can't ye see Shaver ain't use to ut? Shaver's a little gent; he's a reg'ler little ...
— A Reversible Santa Claus • Meredith Nicholson
... explained that the text means not that Jesus is like God, but that God is like Jesus—and we have already seen that Jesus is like us! One only has to state it all to see beneath its superficial reasonableness its appalling profanity! ...
— Preaching and Paganism • Albert Parker Fitch
... worst work of such a man is notable in its way; and Fielding's contributions to the Journal are by no means to be despised. They are shrewd lay sermons, often exhibiting much out-of-the-way erudition, and nearly always distinguished by some of his personal qualities. In No. 33, on "Profanity," there is a character- sketch which, for vigour and vitality, is worthy of his best days; and there is also a very thoughtful paper on "Reading," containing a kindly reference to "the ingenious ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson
... almost a matter of life and death with me; at least, it was. Your happiness and my own was at stake, I thought. But it's all right—I needn't have worried about it. I still have some of the instincts of a gentleman, and your pure ears shall not be offended by any profanity or any disagreeable 'conventional confessions.' The absolution, let me say, I expected to do without." He started, full of some secret intent, ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower
... the parrot. The Dummy had slipped it into the ward more than once and its profanity had delighted the patients. The Avenue Girl had been glad to see it too; and as it sat on the bedside table and shrieked defiance and oaths the Dummy had smiled benignly. John and the dove—the girl and ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... confident promise. He knows that in me He is able to restore to more than pristine beauty all which I, by my sin, have destroyed; to reconsecrate all which I, by my profanity, have polluted; to cast out the evil deities that desecrate and deform the shrine; and to make my poor heart, if only I will let Him come in to the ruined chamber, a fairer temple and ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... came to think of it, and saw how little foundation he had for such a hope. But his hands were full of business, and he had no time to consider his own affairs at this particular moment. It seemed to him a kind of profanity to permit Lucy to remain under the same roof with Wodehouse, even though he was her brother; and Mr Proctor's inquiries had stimulated his own feeling. There was a certain pleasure, besides, in postponing himself and his own ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... The cook—Thomas Crowpot by name—was ordered out of the galley. The sea cook is said to be the father of profanity. His reputation has come down through the ages untarnished, it would seem, by any example of philosophical moderation. Perhaps it is because, in the old days, his calling was a hard one and only those of a singular recklessness ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... the stave that met his ears, and asked how such profanity could be allowed. Tibble shrugged his shoulders, and cited the old saying, "The nearer the church"—adding, "Truth hath a voice, and ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... now obsolete school of Voltaire, and in biting wit and daring ridicule the performance is not unworthy of that supreme master in diablerie. Nor can it be asserted that this lashing sarcasm was undeserved, or that all the profanity was in Byron's parody, for Southey's conception of the Almighty as a High Tory judge, with an obsequious jury of angels, holding a trial of George III., browbeating the witnesses against him and acquitting him ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... mood to be put off with smiles just then. As Yasmini got the story afterward from the bald old mendicant, whose piety had recently won him permission to bask on the comfortable carved stones just outside the window, Gungadhura burst forth into such explosive profanity that the high priest ran out of the room. The mendicant vowed that he heard the door slam—and so he did; but it was really Gungadhura, done with argument, on his way to put threat ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... examining religion we should be in an "exalted mood" that Professor Thomson has in view the last contingency. For by an exalted mood we can only understand a religious mood—that is, we must believe in religion before we examine it, otherwise our examination is profanity. Well, that is just the cry of the priest in all ages. And while it is sound religion, there is no question of its being shocking science. Even the mere feeling of exaltation is not to be encouraged during ...
— Theism or Atheism - The Great Alternative • Chapman Cohen
... out of the mouth of man, and of course as a deacon I couldn't listen to such profanity, so I hurried ...
— Samantha at Coney Island - and a Thousand Other Islands • Marietta Holley
... Milton he makes no formal acknowledgment, but he was not ashamed to shelter himself behind Milton's shield when he was attacked on the score of blasphemy and profanity. "If Cain be blasphemous, Paradise Lost is blasphemous" (letter to Murray, Pisa, February 8, 1822), was, he would fain believe, a conclusive answer to his accusers. But apart from verbal parallels or coincidences, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... daylight over the mere accidental meeting with a pair of pretty eyes. He—the uncrowned king of a to-be-glorious throne! He—the affianced husband of the Princess Elodie of—Hell! He refused to think of it! And again the horse he rode and the Park trees heard a bit of Paul Zalenska's English profanity that should have made them hide in shame over ...
— One Day - A sequel to 'Three Weeks' • Anonymous
... this very minute, before I could rebuke him for his feerful profanity, Miss Flamm motioned to us to come and take a seat round a little table, and consequently ...
— Samantha at Saratoga • Marietta Holley
... Belle retorted. "Profanity isn't the accomplishment of a gentleman. But you must say something about Dick's case which will show her that all of Dick's friends are standing ...
— Dave Darrin's Fourth Year at Annapolis • H. Irving Hancock |
