"Sacrilegious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... seized anew by the old horror. I tried to smother the sound of my voice as something sacrilegious. The Swede, of course, heard it too—the strange cry overhead in the darkness—and that sudden drop in the air as though something ...
— The Willows • Algernon Blackwood
... or at least the person of the Pope, in the eyes of the French public. The spirit of the people must have been greatly changed if this end could be thus attained by a means which formerly would have drawn universal indignation on the head of the sacrilegious monarch. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... "Now, how's this ... good grief! The Ancient Order of Hibernians, if you please, formally requests that ... since '58 Beta was launched on St. Patrick's day ... to do otherwise with this launch would be unthinkable, sacrilegious, treasonable, etc, etc." ...
— If at First You Don't... • John Brudy
... of books carried suddenly into the very midst of the famous library of Alexandria burned by the sacrilegious Omar, and which some miracle had restored to its pristine splendor! Such was something of the state of mind in which Uncle Hardwigg ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne
... herself so filled her soul as to leave no room for any softer emotion. She loved no one in the world, not even herself; she wished for nothing on earth but death, and only her religious faith, or her superstitious fears, restrained her from laying sacrilegious ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... mountains as to their effect on the literary mind. We like to associate peaks of genius with peaks of granite. Ruskin found fault with Shakespeare's lack of impression from a more sublime country as shown by the sacrilegious lines— ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby
... these facts, reverence for the past may amount to such religious veneration that change may come literally to be regarded as sacrilegious. In primitive tribes the reasons for this insistence are clear. Rites and rituals are used to secure the favor of the gods and any departure from traditional customs is looked upon as fraught with actual danger. But ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... the censure of the whole Church of France and was judged by the bishops worse than the cruellest tyrants of Scripture—Pharaoh, Nebuchadnezzar, Artaxerxes[1387]—who, when they chastised Israel had spared the Levites. More wicked than they and more sacrilegious, my Lord of Bedford threatened the privileges of the Gallican Church, when, on behalf of the Holy See, he robbed the bishops of their patronage, levied a double tithe on the French clergy, and commanded churchmen to surrender to him the contributions they had been ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... the animal whose slaughter has to be atoned for is sacred, that is, it is one whose life is commonly spared from motives of superstition. Yet the treatment of the sacrilegious slayer seems to resemble so closely the treatment of hunters and fishermen who have killed animals for food in the ordinary course of business, that the ideas on which both sets of customs are based may be assumed to be substantially ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... speeches he takes certain liberties, inserting, for example, an appeal to the hope of immortality in Mattathias' address to his sons.[2] He turns to his Greek authority for the death of Antiochus, and controverts Polybius, who ascribes the king's distemper to his sacrilegious desire to plunder a temple of Diana in Persia. Josephus, with a touch of patriotism and an unusual disregard of the feelings of his patrons, who can hardly have liked the implied parallel, says it is surely more probable that he lost his life because of his ...
— Josephus • Norman Bentwich
... sweet incense of young love, to have seen this gay company approach his shrine with laughter and roses, a very bacchanal, where he had looked for sympathetic sackcloth and ashes—surely it must have all seemed a silly sacrilegious jest. However, he is long since slandered beyond all hope of restitution. So long as the spring moves in the blood, lovers will doubtless continue to take his name in vain, and feign his saintly sanction ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... story. The people understood this awful visitation to be the judgment of heaven against Laocoon for his sacrilegious presumption in daring to thrust his spear into the side of the image before them, and which they were now very sure they were to consider as something supernatural and divine. They determined with one accord to take it ...
— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... to furnish the solution. In several instances he had found walls carefully built up in front of tombs so as to conceal them. It was plain that this must have been done with some definite purpose; and it seems altogether likely that it was to hide these tombs from sacrilegious invaders. The walls had been built when the faithful were forced by the presence of their enemies to desert the catacombs and leave them unprotected. It was a striking illustration of the veneration in which ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various
... the clergy. On the other hand, it was complained that this custom put the bishops and other high ecclesiastics into a relation of dependence on the lay authority; and, moreover, that, the ring and staff being badges of a spiritual function, it was sacrilegious for a layman ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... that lady is preparing for you," hung upon her ears like the notes of a raven, and sounded equally ominous. The words "murder" and "excommunication" he had likewise uttered; all the fatal effects of sacrilegious love. Frightful superstitions struck her to the heart, and she could scarcely prevent falling ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... that is to Hindus what the "Imitation of Christ" is to emotional Christians—all these are pressed into the service of inflaming impressionable minds. The last instance is perhaps the worst. I can imagine no more wicked desecration than that the sacrilegious hand of the Anarchist should be laid upon the Indian song of songs, and that a masterpiece of transcendental philosophy and religious ecstasy should be perverted to the base uses of preaching ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol
... more matters to be defined,—as for instance, if we inquire whether he is a thief or a sacrilegious person who has stolen sacred vessels from a private house,—we shall have to employ many definitions, and then the whole cause will have to be dealt with on a similar principle. But it is a common topic to dwell on the wickedness of that man who ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero
... pluck the blade Too readily, and train the guns. We here, apart and unafraid Of envious foes, are but your sons: We stretched a heedless hand to smutch Our spotless flag with Murder's blight — For one less sacrilegious touch ...
— An Anthology of Australian Verse • Bertram Stevens
... cannot omit the sacrilege and punishment of King John, who in the seventeenth year of his reign, among other churches, rifled the abbeys of {572} Peterborough and Croyland, and after attempts to carry his sacrilegious wealth from Lynn to Lincoln; but, passing the Washes, the earth in the midst of the waters opens her mouth (as for Korah and his company), and at once swallows up both carts, carriage, and horses, all his treasure, all his regalities, all his church spoil, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 189, June 11, 1853 • Various
... protect from attack or injury. Had he failed in his task, had he slumbered at his post, all god though he might be, his people themselves would have risen in a body and torn him limb from limb before their ancestral fetich as a sacrilegious pretender. ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen
... Liao, with many unfeigned manifestations of an unbearable fate, 'to what degree do the class and position of her entirely unnecessary parents affect the question? or how little hope can this sacrilegious one reasonably have of ever progressing as far as earthly details of a pecuniary character in the case of so adorable and far-removed a Being? The uttermost extent of this wildly-hoping person's ambition is that when the incomparably ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah
... virgins of the Temple, holy, set apart from man, sacred to Aten. Never did one betray her sacred trust—never, until Taia fled to the land of ice with the sacrilegious Inaros. Our mighty Pharaoh pursued them, and after twenty years, by Aten's special grace, slew the man and brought the maid back to pay for her transgression. Never before ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... dwell therein, and come out to bathe by night in that clear wave. What meant the fruit, the flowers, the honey, which the slaves left there by night? Pure food for some pure nymph. The wasp-gods would be forgotten; probably smoked out as sacrilegious intruders. The lucky seer or poet who struck out the fancy would soon find imitators; and it would become, after a while, a common and popular superstition that Hamadryads haunted the hollow forest trees, Naiads the wells, and Oreads the lawns. Somewhat thus, I presume, did the more ...
— Scientific Essays and Lectures • Charles Kingsley
... praecipit, there's a difference betwixt God's ordinances and men's laws: and therefore Cyprian Epist. 8. boldly denounceth, impium est, adulterum est, sacrilegum est, quodcunque humano furore statuitur, ut dispositio divina violetur, it is abominable, impious, adulterous, and sacrilegious, what men make and ordain after their own furies to cross God's laws. [5911]Georgius Wicelius, one of their own arch divines (Inspect. eccles. pag. 18) exclaims against it, and all such rash monastical vows, and would have such ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... the following:—"Those who have hollow eyes are noted for evil; and the larger and moister they are, the more they indicate envy. The same eyes, when dry, show the possessors to be faithless, traitorous, and sacrilegious; and if these eyes are also yellow and cold, they argue insanity. For hollow eyes are the sign of craft and malignity; and if they are wanting in darkness, they also show foolishness. But if the eyes are too hollow, and of medium size, dry and rigid,—if, besides this, they ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... countries the rights of women have been sacrificed to the caprices of men; and, having plucked this fair flower of creation from its original and highly elevated situation, its beauty has faded, its glory been lost in the sacrilegious hands of its barbarian possessor. Abject slavery or base flattery have existed where woman has been displaced from her proper and original character, and the most mischievous consequences have ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... Persian robbers who sought to rifle his holy fane. And yet the time came when a horde of bandit Greeks made the temple their prey and the hand of the god was not lifted in its defence, nor did outraged Greece rise to punish the sacrilegious robbers. This is the tale that we have next to tell, that of the so-called Sacred War, with ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... discerned the modest wreaths of green leaves, now faded and yellow, and the little nosegays of withered flowers attached to the arms of this cross, left there after the departure of the regiment and undisturbed by any sacrilegious hand. ...
— In the Field (1914-1915) - The Impressions of an Officer of Light Cavalry • Marcel Dupont
... adventurers; and upbraiding the pope, that in a cause where justice, religion, and the dignity of the church, were so much concerned, a cause which it might well befit his holiness himself to support, by taking in person a journey to Germany, the spiritual thunders should so long be suspended over those sacrilegious offenders [p]. The zeal of Celestine corresponded not to the impatience of the queen-mother; and the regency of England were, for a long time, left to struggle alone with all their domestic and foreign enemies. [FN [p] Rymer, vol. i. p. 72, 73, ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... medicine-bag, fourteen fore-fingers, the trophies taken from as many enemies, whom he had killed in war. This was the first time that the travellers had known any other trophy preserved than the scalp. The great medicine-bag, among these Indians, is an useful invention; for, as it is deemed sacrilegious for any person, except the owner, to touch it, this bag serves the purpose of a strong-box, in which the most valuable ...
— Travels in North America, From Modern Writers • William Bingley
... two broad aims beyond the winning of the war; and their thinking and their opinion coincide with what most Americans here back home are mulling over. They know, and we know, that it would be inconceivable—it would, indeed, be sacrilegious—if this Nation and the world did not attain some real, lasting good out of all these efforts and sufferings and ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... Delusion, Hypocrisie{7}, Heresie, Taxes, Excises, Sequestration, Decimation, and a thousand like barbarities: In summe, the solitudes were filled with noble Exiles, the Cities with rapacious Theives, the Temples with Sacrilegious Villains; They had the spoiles of Provinces, the robbing of Churches, the goods of the slain, the Stock of Pupils, the plunder of Loyal Subjects; no Testament, no State secure, and nothing escaped ...
— An Apologie for the Royal Party (1659); and A Panegyric to Charles the Second (1661) • John Evelyn
... so. It then sought every means of impeding the operations of the municipalities. In the south, it raised catholics against protestants; in the pulpit, it alarmed consciences; in the confessional, it treated sales as sacrilegious, and in the tribune it strove to render the sentiments of the assembly suspected. It excited as much as possible religious questions for the purpose of compromising the assembly, and confounding the cause of its own interest with that of religion. ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet
... at. He knew the squire and the parson were feeling full of wrath, and that they believed him to be a mistaken instrument for evil, and that the whole parish was thrown into revolt by his wild advocacy of a sacrilegious creed, and that it must be put a stop to or he would ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... to the sacrilegious, were numerous in the rockiest and least accessible parts of the island. Mr. Addison found them in the Canadas del Pico, 7,700 feet above sea-level. [Footnote: Tenerife: 'An Ascent of the Peak and Sketch of the Island,' by Robert Edward Alison. ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... these thoughts with a half suppressed exclamation of disgust. It seemed sacrilegious to be speculating in this fashion on the gain from the death of the old man who had been so fond of life, for all he had made ...
— Two Boys and a Fortune • Matthew White, Jr.
... the moral story-books is correct; but when that narrative goes on to say that at the seventeenth round the awe-stricken savage said solemnly that that man was being reserved by the Great Spirit for some mighty mission, and he dared not lift his sacrilegious rifle against him again, the narrative seriously impairs the integrity of history. ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... struggling against disintegration from automatic plunges down a rugged beach, and creaking journeys back you are asked to hold on through—it's no use going on drying!—these tributes to public decorum you can find no room in, and probably swear at—no sacrilegious restorer has laid his hand on these. They evidently contemplate going on for ever; for though their axes grow more and more oblique every day, their self-confidence remains unshaken. But then they think they are St. Sennans, and that ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... as if a knife had been thrust through her; then, controlling herself by force, she dipped her fingers in the basin of holy water that stood upon the little altar. "It is sacrilegious to speak against the Holy Father," she said in a low, grieved tone, as she made the sign of the cross upon his breast. "May God forgive thee, my dear one—it is not thy fault. But in the Senate they are ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... goddess!' exclaimed Arbaces, clasping the column, and raising his eyes toward the sacred image it supported, 'protect thy chosen—proclaim they vengeance against this thing of an upstart creed, who with sacrilegious violence profanes thy resting-place and assails ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... growled Graves. "In my mind it's almost sacrilegious for women to dare to go so far that some of the best of its members will leave a well-regulated church. Maria, you must talk to Mrs. Hall and bring her ...
— Tess of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... of blood and destruction; as, for example, it happened in the games of the circus under the Roman emperors; nay, some have even looked upon homicide and torture as religious duties, and a part of the worship due to the Divine Being! Fanaticism naturally engenders that sacrilegious alliance, and man, under its irresistible influence, becomes more frightful in his hatred, more cruel in his hostilities, than the beasts ...
— Roman Catholicism in Spain • Anonymous
... Alas, the cruel day!—what time her lap-dog, Her beauteous lap-dog, darling of the Graces, Sporting in youthful gayety, impressed The light mark of her ivory tooth upon The rude foot of a menial; he, with bold And sacrilegious toe, flung her away. Over and over thrice she rolled, and thrice Rumpled her silken coat, and thrice inhaled With tender nostril the thick, choking dust, Then raised imploring cries, and "Help, help, help!" ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... fallen out of the envelope. Was it possible that it could be his wife's, the duchess? Was it possible that a Duchess of Datchet could be kidnaped, in broad daylight, in the heart of London, and be sent home, as it were, in pieces? Had sacrilegious hands already been playing pranks with that great lady's hair? Certainly, that hair was so like her hair that the mere resemblance made his grace's blood run cold. He turned on Messrs. Barnes and Moysey as though he would have liked ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... being could be so bold as to imagine that the Creator of the Universe would concern himself about Mr. Gladstone's budget, prepared for a little speck of this little speck of earth? It seems almost sacrilegious, yet to Mr. Gladstone we know it was the reverse—a religious belief such as has no doubt often enabled men to accomplish wonders as direct agents of God and ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie
... ejaculated James, "a loaded dag, crammed to the muzzle wi' bullets, nae doubt. Haud it down, man! haud it down! it may fire off of itsel', and accomplish the villain's murtherous and sacrilegious design. And sae this was to be the instrument of our destruction! Dost thou confess thy guilt, thou bluid-thirsty traitor, or shall the torture ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... them fast against me; thou hast given him an hearing, but hast stopped thine ears at my cry; he brought to thee thy destruction, and thou didst receive both him and it: I am come to thee bringing salvation, but thou regardest me not. Besides, thou hast, as with sacrilegious hands, taken thyself with all that was mine in thee, and hast given all to my foe, and to the greatest enemy my Father has. You have bowed and subjected yourselves to him; you have vowed and sworn yourselves to be his. Poor Mansoul! what shall I do unto thee? Shall ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... and the stone in which the plate was inserted. This pietas Tewkesburiensis still survives, as flowers are annually laid upon the site of the grave. Before this there was, according to Dingley, who wrote in 1680, a "fair tombstone of grey marble, the brass whereof has bin pickt out by sacrilegious hands, directly underneath the Tower of this Church, at the entrance into the Quire, and sayed to be layd over Prince Edward, who lost his life in cool blood in the dispute between York and Lancaster, at which time ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Abbey Church of Tewkesbury - with some Account of the Priory Church of Deerhurst Gloucestershire • H. J. L. J. Masse
... painted at first on every face, was not in the least occasioned by the prospect of medical destitution, but by the immediate divinity of Chench. How much more did I respect the king's command, which had been able to extort in a moment and for nothing a sacrilegious favour that I had in vain solicited with millions! But now I had a difficult task in front of me; it was not in my view that Terutak' should suffer by his virtue; and I must persuade the king to share my opinion, to let me enrich one of his subjects, ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... marriage union was an ideal of mutual love, honor, and respect, to feel that marriage was the holiest and most awful of obligations. To her, the idea of a husband or a wife betraying each other's weaknesses or faults by complaints to a third party seemed something sacrilegious; and she used all her womanly tact and skill to prevent any conversation that might lead ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... don't look a day older than Drew's sister, and she's powerful cheerful for an afflicted person. But maybe she ain't afflicted. They ain't, always. She looks as if she was dressing up in them togs for fun, and at first glimpse it strikes one as sacrilegious. Something like a kid using ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... the earl felt—and it would be almost sacrilegious to intrude upon them, or to venture on any idle speculation concerning them—one thing was clear; in losing Helen, the light of his eyes, the delight ...
— A Noble Life • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... who reigned supreme in her father's house, it seemed as though two vandals had invaded her domain, so ruthlessly did they open up the rooms for years jealously guarded from sunshine and dust, while her cherished household gods were removed by sacrilegious hands from their time-honored niches and consigned to the ignominy of obscure back chambers or the ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour
... former attitude toward these moderns, whose perusal he had deprecated as treason to the saints! And he remembered his horror on having listened to a fellow-clergyman discuss with calmness the plan of the "Varieties of Religious Experiences." A sacrilegious dissection of the lives of these very saints! The scientific process, the theories of modern psychology applied with sang-froid to the workings of God in the human soul! Science he had regarded as the proclaimed enemy of religion, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... be remembered that we absolutely bow to revelation. Yet we are not to stultify our reason. It is not out of its sphere in dealing with such high themes. Our reason is a sacred gift from God; it is to be used for His glory. Formerly, it was deemed almost sacrilegious to allow reason to intrude into such a sacred domain. That was surely an unworthy mistake. We may and ought to be humble; but we have minds to think as ...
— Love's Final Victory • Horatio
... treasure-boxes. All his beloved doubloons, all his cherished dollars, for the which no Yankee ever felt a stronger passion, took swift wings and flew from his coffers to alight in the hands of the adversary. The sacred recesses of his pockets, and those of his companions, were sacred no longer from the sacrilegious hands of the spoilers. The breast-pins were ravished from the shirt-frills,—for in those days studs were not,—and the rings snatched from the reluctant fingers. All the shining testimonials of Mexican admiration were transferred with the celerity of magic into the possession ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... his memoirs, after referring to the unmanly cruelties practised by Louis XIV. on the Huguenots, "without the slightest pretext or necessity," characterizes this forced participation in the Eucharist as sacrilegious and blasphemous folly, notwithstanding that nearly all the bishops lent themselves to the practice. "From simulated abjuration," he says, "they [the Huguenots] are dragged to endorse what they do not believe in, and to receive the divine body of the Saint of saints whilst remaining persuaded ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles
... magnify Him—not minify, as the theologians do. If God is anything more than a social fetich, then He must be so much more that He includes and explains everything. It may sound inconceivable to you, it may sound sacrilegious, but I suggest to you that it is even possible God ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... horrible whispers about brushing up the external walls with a coat of paint,—a purpose as little to my taste as might be that of rouging the venerable cheeks of one's grandmother. But the hand that renovates is always more sacrilegious than that which destroys. In fine, we gathered up our household goods, drank a farewell cup of tea in our pleasant little breakfast-room,—delicately fragrant tea, an unpurchasable luxury, one of the many angel gifts that had fallen like dew upon us,—and passed forth between the tall stone gate-posts ...
— The Old Manse (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... averted eyes, bow the head as in presence of some holy thing; and if such pure and sacred influences shed their lustre over that meeting, and the old man wept tears of deep and fervent thankfulness on the neck of the son whom he had, as it were, received from the dead, far be it from us, with sacrilegious hand, to remove the veil which shrouds ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... did you not reproach me more bitterly? I desire, I implore to be crushed, to be annihilated by your vengeance! Most admirable, most virtuous, most estimable of women, best of wives, I have with sacrilegious love profaned a soul consecrated to you and conjugal virtue. I acknowledge my crime; trample upon me as you will, I am humbled in the dust. More than all your bitterest reproaches, do I feel the remorse of having, for a moment, ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... There were difficulties in the way; and among others this, that, in the first fervour of the Crusades, the men who took the Cross, after receiving communion, heartily devoted the day to the extermination of Jews. To judge them by a fixed standard, to call them sacrilegious fanatics or furious hypocrites, was to yield a gratuitous victory to Voltaire. It became a rule of policy to praise the spirit when you could not defend the deed. So that we have no common code; our moral notions are always fluid; and you must consider ...
— A Lecture on the Study of History • Lord Acton
... shadows of that awful room. She had experienced what seldom happened to her, a collapse of faith, a sudden loss of courage, all the rage of the suffering being who can no longer wait. Such was her despair, indeed, that she even became sacrilegious. ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... the vault below were seen the four coffins containing the several bodies of the royal dead, the leaden covering to one of which had been pried off by French bayonets in search of treasures supposed to have been buried with the body. But this sacrilegious injury to the casket has been carefully repaired. Close at hand, in a corner of this vault, was seen the metallic coffin which contains the remains of Prince Miguel of Portugal,—the little fellow who was thrown from his pony while ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... by a man whom I had always regarded as a respectable Fabian Researcher, but who now turned out to be a Demon Pianist out-Heroding (my secretary put in two rs, and explains that she was thinking of Harrods) Svengali. A horribly sacrilegious character was given to the proceedings by the fact that the tune they were singing when I entered was Luther's hymn Eine Feste Burg ist Unser Gott. As they went on (for I regret to say that my presence exercised no restraint whatever) ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... long speech about religion, which he charged Rant with insulting; he regretted that a false humanity had repealed some of those stringent but wholesome laws that had been enacted for the preservation of holy things, and was truly sorry that this sacrilegious old wretch could not be brought to the stake. He did not envy his learned, friend the sneering contempt for religion that ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... god at this one place able to pass over the benign deity. You remember, too, the horrid blasphemy of Cambyses (his very name suggests Cambridge), and the vengeance of the gods. So be it to any sacrilegious reformer who would transmute either the Oxford Don or the Oxford undergraduate—the most august of human counsellors, the ...
— Masques & Phases • Robert Ross
... pleasing truth attend. The royal object of your dearest care Breathes in no distant clime the vital air: In rich Thesprotia, and the nearer bound Of Thessaly, his name I heard renown'd: Without retinue, to that friendly shore Welcomed with gifts of price, a sumless store! His sacrilegious train, who dared to prey On herds devoted to the god of day, Were doom'd by Jove, and Phoebus' just decree, To perish in the rough Trinacrian sea. To better fate the blameless chief ordain'd, A floating fragment ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... can nor will discover more; The gods will punish you, if they be just; The gods will plague your sacrilegious lust. ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott
... of common-sense, I ask you not to appeal to a just God in such a sacrilegious manner. You who, in the midst of peace and prosperity, have plunged a nation into war—dark and cruel war—who dared and badgered us to battle, insulted our flag, seized our arsenals and forts that were left in the honorable custody of peaceful ordnance-sergeants, ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... friend," continued Achilles. "This Nicanor was daring enough to throw a reproach on our noble corps, accusing them—gods and goddesses!—of plundering in the field, and, yet more sacrilegious, of drinking the precious wine which was prepared for his most sacred Majesty's own blessed consumption. I, the sacred person of the Emperor being present, proceeded, as ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... and Lenox. What's the matter? Macd. Confusion now hath made his Master-peece: Most sacrilegious Murther hath broke ope The Lords anoynted Temple, and stole thence ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... being desirous of dining, and, after poking her nose into the basket several times, seized upon a sausage, and proceeded to pull it out. The poor woman cast a discomfited glance at the robber, but before the devout Catholic could finish her beads, sacrilegious pussy had carried off and ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux
... accordingly with a command, that his Subjects should adore Worship and Honour them, and in compensation send Indians Male and Female into servitude. The terrified People delivered up their Children, and by this means there was an end made of this Sacrilegious Merchandize, and thus the Casic satisfied the greedy desires of the (I dare not say Christian) Spaniards. One of these Sacrilegious Robbers was John Garcia by name, who being very sick and at the point of ...
— A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies • Bartolome de las Casas
... bays each ancient altar stands, Above the reach of sacrilegious hands, Secure from flames, from envy's fiercer rage, [183] Destructive war, and all-involving age. See, from each clime the learned their incense bring; Hear, in all tongues consenting Paeans ring! In praise so just ...
— An Essay on Criticism • Alexander Pope
... quickly, and take those misguided men, thy minions, with thee, lest I call down the wrath of Holy Mother Church upon thy sacrilegious head—and theirs. Who art thou, that ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... not know whether the monstrous tableau of the Black Mass—so marvellously, so revoltingly described in the central episode of the book—is still enacted in our days, but I do know that all but the most horrible practices of the sacrilegious magic of the Middle Ages are yet performed, from time to time, in a secrecy which is all but absolute. The character of Madame Chantelouve is an attempt, probably the first in literature, to diagnose a case of Sadism in a woman. To say that it is successful would be to assume ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... Winds. The Apache never complains of the wind, for should he become impatient about them and give vent to sacrilegious utterances he might anger the Wind God and thereby ...
— The North American Indian • Edward S. Curtis
... "Such are a sort of sacrilegious ministers in the temple of intellect. They profane its shew-bread to pamper the palate, its everlasting lamp they use to light unholy fires within their breast, and show them the way to the sensual chambers of sense and ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... Barbarian viewed with wonder and delight this valuable acquisition, till he was interrupted by a serious admonition, addressed to him in the following words: "These," said she, "are the consecrated vessels belonging to St. Peter; if you presume to touch them, the sacrilegious deed will remain on your conscience. For my part, I dare not keep what I am unable to defend." The Gothic captain, struck with reverential awe, despatched a messenger to inform the King of the treasure which he had discovered; and received a peremptory order ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... retained it in their own body. At another time, the Indians had dared to take a friar from his convent, and they dragged him to the place where I was. I commenced to try the case, and gave a verdict against the Indians, as it was doubly sacrilegious to take the friar from his convent, and to place hands on an ecclesiastic. This case came to the Audiencia by way of appeal, and it still remains there, with the records. A beneficed priest, who was performing the duties of his office, was refused its dues by the encomendero, and came ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, V7, 1588-1591 • Emma Helen Blair
... of God!" thundered Mr. Shorto-Champernowne, with tones so resonant that they woke rafter echoes the organ itself had never roused. "Silence, and cease this sacrilegious brawling, or the consequences will be unutterably serious! Let those involved," he concluded more calmly, "appear before me in the vestry after divine ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... of a creature. In case such practices succeed, there is the grave danger of being mislead and deceived by the evil spirit, who is often permitted, as the instrument of God, to punish guilty men. When resorted to, as a means of relieving fools of their earnings, it is sacrilegious; and those who support such impious humbugs can be excused from deadly sin only ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... the custom of observing Christmas was looked upon as sacrilegious. It savored of popery, and in the narrowness of the light then dawning the festival was abolished except in the Anglican and Lutheran Churches. Tenants and neighbors no longer gathered in the hall on Christmas morning to partake freely of the ale, blackjacks, ...
— Yule-Tide in Many Lands • Mary P. Pringle and Clara A. Urann
... some supernatural charm, has saved herself; and with her own salvation she has wrought that of the spirit of Germany. She alone holds the warrant for this spirit in future ages, provided she be not destroyed at the sacrilegious hands of the modern world. "But Di meliora! Avaunt, ye pachyderms, avaunt! This is the German language, by means of which men express themselves, and in which great poets have sung and great thinkers have ...
— Thoughts out of Season (Part One) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... sacrifice,"—a curious text for him to choose, for it may be interpreted in more ways than one, and might have been taken by an enemy as a summary of the preacher's own career. Under the same entry Evelyn describes his friend as one "who took great pains to preserve the Universities from the ignorant and sacrilegious commanders who would have demolished all places and persons that pretended to learning"; another indication among many that the "obliging" Dr ...
— The Life and Times of John Wilkins • Patrick A. Wright-Henderson
... spoke no more of the matter; but Ann Eliza now understood that the little black bag about her sister's neck, which she had innocently taken for a memento of Ramy, was some kind of sacrilegious amulet, and her fingers shrank from its contact when she bathed and dressed Evelina. It seemed to her the ...
— Bunner Sisters • Edith Wharton
... "is thy servant to blame that he believed the rumour that declared thy death? These men are of our holy faith, whom I have snatched from the violence of the sacrilegious and maddened mob. No spot but this seemed safe from the popular frenzy." "Are ye Jews?" said Almamen. "Ah, yes! I know ye now—things of the market-place and bazaar'. Oh, ye are Jews, ...
— Leila or, The Siege of Granada, Book V. • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... demolished, including that of the Holy Sepulchre,—the greatest object of Jewish hatred. The stately building of Helena and Constantine was abandoned to the flames, and the devout offerings of three hundred years were rifled in one sacrilegious day. ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell
... sovereign," answered the Hermit, (well known to the curious in penny-histories of Robin Hood, by the name of Friar Tuck,) "it is not the crosier I fear, but the sceptre.—Alas! that my sacrilegious fist should ever have been applied to the ear of ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... king and queen, and their child, was wanting to the other auspicious circumstances of this "beautiful day". The actual murder of the bishops, though called for by so many holy ejaculations, was also wanting. A group of regicide and sacrilegious slaughter was, indeed, boldly sketched, but it was only sketched. It unhappily was left unfinished, in this great history-piece of the massacre of innocents. What hardy pencil of a great master, from the school of the rights of men, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... descend upon him with an ugly violence. It was true; nothing that they could do now would alter it. And, of course, the thing was serious. If anything in life was serious, this was. It was frightful—it seemed sacrilegious to connect such things for an instant with Julia. Dear little Julia, with her crisp little uniforms, her authority in the classroom, her charming deference to Aunt Sanna! And she ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... to our consciences, from ignorance, extream poverty and dependance, in short from civil and political slavery.—Let us see delineated before us, the true map of man. Let us hear the dignity of his nature, and the noble rank he holds among the works of GOD! that consenting to slavery is a sacrilegious breach of trust, as offensive in the sight of GOD, as it is derogatory from our own honour, or interest or happiness; and that GOD ALMIGHTY has promulgated from heaven, liberty, peace, ...
— A Collection of State-Papers, Relative to the First Acknowledgment of the Sovereignty of the United States of America • John Adams
... for you, Madonna?" I usually just call her "you," but once in a great while, when there's nobody else around, I call her Madonna, and I know she likes it, even if she does think it a little Romish or sacrilegious or something queer. ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... Scheveningen, on May 24th. On the 26th, as we have already seen, he landed at Dover amidst the thunder of cannon, and that day took coach to Canterbury. The great cathedral had suffered sorely from sacrilegious hands, but there gathered within its walls a goodly company of the notables of the kingdom to join their King in a Service of Thanksgiving. Upon General Monk, the Marquis of Hertford, the Earl of Southampton, ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... when sacrilegious power would seize My property? 'tis an affront to heaven, Whose ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... were made known to me in this way. I saw their authors assault Jesus in bands, and strike him with different arms, corresponding to their various offences. I saw irreverent Christians of all ages, careless or sacrilegious priests, crowds of tepid and unworthy communicants, wicked soldiers profaning the sacred vessels, and servants of the devil making use of the Holy Eucharist in the frightful mysteries of hellish worship. ...
— The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ • Anna Catherine Emmerich
... worm-like attitude of those who crept round the feet of Meeson. This young man had not, indeed, even taken the trouble to remove his hat, which was stuck upon the back of his head, his hands were in his pockets, a sacrilegious whistle hovered on his lips, and he opened the door of the sanctum sanctorum of the Meeson ...
— Mr. Meeson's Will • H. Rider Haggard
... treasure among the people; he will be very ambitious and aspiring, doing or being anything so he may gain his point; he will be very self-willed; he will be very boastful, speaking great words; he will be very cruel, not heeding the plea of woman; he will be very sacrilegious, sitting in the temple of God—that is, the new temple, built by the returned Jews—and actually claim to be God; he will be a scientific spiritualist, able to work miracles, even to bring fire down from the clouds; he will ...
— The Lost Ten Tribes, and 1882 • Joseph Wild
... The sacrilegious homicide made it impossible for Bruce again to waver. He could not hope for pardon; he must be victorious or share the fate of Wallace. He summoned his adherents, including young James Douglas, received the support of the Bishops of St Andrews and Glasgow, hurried ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang
... General established a British Governor in Cabul who had a heavy hand, and policed the place in a fashion that stirred a lurid fury in the bosoms of haughty Sirdars who had been wont to do what seemed good in their own eyes. He engaged in the sacrilegious work of dismantling the Balla Hissar, the historic fortress of the nation, within whose walls were the royal palace and the residences of the principal nobles. Those were bitter things, but they could be borne ...
— The Afghan Wars 1839-42 and 1878-80 • Archibald Forbes
... such an appearance sacrilegious," Mrs. Ebley said. "A man has no right to imitate one of the blessed apostles in these modern days; it is very ...
— The Point of View • Elinor Glyn
... find in my writings, teachings, and example a greater degree of this spirit than in others, they can justly declare it. But to think or speak of me in any manner as a Christ, is sacrilegious. Such a statement would not only be false, but the absolute antipode of Christian Science, and would savor more of heathenism, than of ...
— Pulpit and Press (6th Edition) • Mary Baker Eddy
... curious stone work, that had not any representation in the World, but only of the cost of the Founder and skill of the Mason, what toting and piping upon the destroyed Organ pipes, and what a hideous triumph on the Market day before all the Countrey, when, in a kind of Sacrilegious and profane procession, all the Organ pipes, Vestments, both Copes and Surplices, together with the Leaden Crosse which had been newly sawne down from over the Green-Yard Pulpit, and the Service books and singing books ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Norwich - A Description of Its Fabric and A Brief History of the Episcopal See • C. H. B. Quennell
... in the New York Nation, of May 21, 1878, in which we read: "Is it sacrilegious to ask whether it is wholly impossible to verify the supposition that the Stratford bust is from a death-mask? Would not the present age permit a tender and reverential scientific examination ...
— Shakespeare's Bones • C. M. Ingleby
... about as sacrilegious as it would have been to thrust St. Catherine among the chain-gang in the galleys," ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... same time that Jesus Christ, in the sacrament of His body, repeats His holy passion in a manner altogether mysterious, men, the false imitators, or rather base corrupters of the works of God, have found means to renew this same passion, not only in a profane, but in a criminal, sacrilegious, and horrible manner! ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Vol. 2 (of 10) • Grenville Kleiser
... abyss—Death. And he was tortured not by the fact that Death was visible, but that both Life and Death were visible at the same time. The curtain which through eternity has hidden the mystery of life and the mystery of death was pushed aside by a sacrilegious hand, and the mysteries ceased to be mysteries—yet they remained incomprehensible, like the Truth written in a foreign tongue. There were no conceptions in his human mind, no words in his human language that could define what he saw. And ...
— The Seven who were Hanged • Leonid Andreyev
... moral side of his nature has been sufficiently developed to stand the strain which it imposes. A perception of the amount of evil karma that may be generated by such action in a very short time changes one's disgust into pity for the unhappy perpetrator of that sacrilegious folly. ...
— Clairvoyance • Charles Webster Leadbeater
... and parishioner, Peter Grimm, to the effect that whichever of them should first leave this mortal life was to return and make known his presence to the other. I told McPherson to his face that I regarded such a compact as being even more sacrilegious than senseless. My good wife echoed my sentiments. McPherson, who has not the admirable control over his temper so needful to a medical man, chose to become angry at my outspoken opinion and said several cruelly unjust things concerning ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm - Novelised From the Play • David Belasco
... of the quips and cranks and puns have been lost in the process of Anglicising. These unavoidable blemishes apart, the writer ventures to hope that he has treated this great masterpiece in a reverent spirit, touched it with no sacrilegious hand, but, on the contrary, given as close a translation as the dissimilarities of the two languages permit. With this idea, no attempt had been made to polish or round many of the awkwardly constructed sentences which are characteristic ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... of Marshal Turenne; to which Louis XIV. had awarded the honours of annihilation by giving them a place among the royal tombs in the vaults of St. Denis, had been torn from their grave at the time of the sacrilegious violation of the tombs. His bones, mingled indiscriminately with others, had long lain in obscurity in a garret of the College of Medicine when M. Lenoir collected and restored them to the ancient tomb of Turenne in the Mussee des Petits ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... was burning in a fierce furnace, to see the vessel of white ashes brought back, and be told that there was all that was mortal of the departed friend. No doubt it may be weakness and prejudice, but I think that few could divest themselves of the feeling of sacrilegious violence. Better far to lay the brother or sister, tenderly as though still they felt, in the last resting-place, so soft and trim. It soothes us, if it does no good to them, and the sad change which we know is soon to follow is wrought only by the gentle hand of Nature. ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... manifest, and it was seen that it was the Earth which revolved and not the Stars. Even then, owing to its supposed antagonism to what was stated in the Bible, the new Conception was opposed with great bitterness, it being long looked upon and denounced as a sacrilegious invention, and anybody daring to promulgate such a ...
— Science and the Infinite - or Through a Window in the Blank Wall • Sydney T. Klein
... profligate monarchs that ever disgraced the page of sacred history, sat upon the throne of Judah. His court was filled with men who recommended themselves chiefly by their licentiousness. The altar was forsaken. Sacrilegious hands had placed the abominations of heathenism in the Holy Place; and Piety, banished from the State, the Church, and the Royal court, was once more as she had been before, and will be again, a wanderer on the ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson
... upon the third horse, and led the way with his hand upon her bridle. Two hours more brought them to the fortress of Tuebingen, where the brave Count Montfort, though refusing to join Rodolph, had designed to hold out to the last against his perjured and sacrilegious rival. The palmer demanded admittance in the name of Albert of Hers, and ...
— The Truce of God - A Tale of the Eleventh Century • George Henry Miles
... rainy, drizzly afternoon and the stove felt mighty homey and cozy. So did the big rocker that Hannah transplanted from the parlor to the settin'-room. That chair had been a kind of sacred throne afore, and to set in it had been sort of sacrilegious, but there 'twas, and Kenelm didn't object. And those President cigars certainly filled ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln
... familiar with the whole Nile basin as with the goldfish tank in the hotel lounge. To Galusha Egypt was an enchanted land, a sort of paradise to which fortunate explorers might eventually be permitted to go if they were very, very good. To have this sacrilegious female patting the Sphinx on the head was more ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... all very well to say about Rameses or Julius Caesar or some other deceased who is pretty well seasoned, but I'll tell you it made the college gasp, coming when it did. It sounded sacrilegious and to me it sounded as if some one who was noted as an orator was going to get thumped by the late Mr. Hogboom about the next day. I perspired a lot from nervousness as Pierce rumbled on, first praising the departed and then landing on him with both oratorical ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch
... was no new object of adoration to the red race, and were in doubt whether to ascribe the fact to the pious labors of Saint Thomas or the sacrilegious subtlety of Satan. It was the central object in the great temple of Cozumel, and is still preserved on the bas-reliefs of the ruined city of Palenque. From time immemorial it had received the prayers and sacrifices of the Aztecs and Toltecs, and was suspended as an august emblem from the ...
— The Myths of the New World - A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America • Daniel G. Brinton
... spoken of. The temple now was echoing with sounds, for the priests on duty, who had been asleep as usual when not engaged in attending to the lights, had now been roused by one of their number, who ran in and told them some sacrilegious persons had made their way ...
— The Cat of Bubastes - A Tale of Ancient Egypt • G. A. Henty
... "I tried to detain him, but suspecting some discovery he forced his way out, sword in hand, and has gone I do not know in what direction; but he cannot be far—saddle all the horses in my stable and pursue the sacrilegious wretch. I would sacrifice half my worldly wealth, that he should ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... made his masterpiece. Most sacrilegious murder hath broke ope the Lord's anointed temple and stole thence ...
— ZigZag Journeys in Northern Lands; - The Rhine to the Arctic • Hezekiah Butterworth
... kettle o' the kirk and state, Perhaps a clout may fail in't; But deil a foreign tinkler loon Shall ever ca' a nail in't. Our fathers' bluid the kettle bought, And wha wad dare to spoil it; By heaven! the sacrilegious dog Shall fuel be to ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... informed, chastely hid the exchange of those mutual caresses known as "kisses." There was no cruel tearing of the veil from those sacred privacies of the human affection—there was no forensic shouting out of those fond confidences meant only for one. But there was, he was shocked to say, a new sacrilegious intrusion. The weak pipings of Cupid were mingled with the chorus of the saints—the sanctity of the temple known as the "meeting-house" was desecrated by proceedings more in keeping with the shrine of Venus—and the inspired writings themselves were used as the medium ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... and the Arakhtu canal which flowed past it was choked with ruins. The Babylonian chronicler tells us that for eight years there were "no kings;" the image of Bel-Merodach had been cast to the ground by the sacrilegious conqueror, and there was none who could legitimise his ...
— Early Israel and the Surrounding Nations • Archibald Sayce
... will put solemnly upon the altar, in placing him among the blest, the venerable Father Clavier, of the Society of Jesus, and at the close of the expiatory triduo which has been celebrated at Saint Andre della Valle in reparation of a sacrilegious outrage committed against the Madonna du Vicolo dell' ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... divine poet really wrote the inscription there, and cared as much about the quiet of his bones as its deprecatory earnestness would imply, it was time for those crumbling relics to bestir themselves under her sacrilegious feet. But they were safe. She made no attempt to disturb them; though, I believe, she looked narrowly into the crevices between Shakespeare's and the two adjacent stones, and in some way satisfied herself that her single strength would suffice ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... The archbishop of Seville did not blush to espouse the cause of the paramour, who maintained a magnificence of state, which rivalled that of royalty itself. The public were still more scandalized by Henry's sacrilegious intrusion of another of his mistresses into the post of abbess of a convent in Toledo, after the expulsion of her predecessor, a lady of noble rank ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... escaped not the ravages of the sacrilegious band, who committed such havoc on the chateau; for the beautiful altar, and some very interesting monuments, were barbarously mutilated, and the tomb of the Princesse de Croy, the mother of General Count d'Orsay, on which a vast ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner |
