"Self-accusation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Armstrong had been driven to an expedient which would not have been adopted by a person perfectly innocent. And thus, from one thing to another, the charge of murder had been fixed upon him and his hapless wife. When his confession had been uttered, I felt a species of self-accusation in having contributed to his destruction, and gladly would I have undone the whole day's proceedings. The judge, on the contrary, was quite undisturbed. Viewing the harangue of Armstrong as a mere tissue of falsehood, he cooly pronounced sentence of death on the prisoners. They ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... thoroughly perplexed and half angry. She questioned herself sharply, as if running thorns into her flesh, to inquire whether she had failed in the least point of maidenly modesty and reserve in thinking so much of him; and the more she questioned herself, the more agitated she grew under her self-accusation: her temples throbbed violently; she hardly dared lift her eyes from the ground lest some one, even a stranger, she thought, might see her confusion and read its cause. "Sancta Maria," she murmured, pressing her bosom with both hands, "calm my soul with thy divine peace, for I ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... swindling of pathological liars, it appears objectively more pernicious than the lying, but it is an expression of the same tendency. The most striking form of this type of conduct is, of course, self-accusation. Mendacious self- impeachment seems especially convincing of abnormality. Such falsification ...
— Pathology of Lying, Etc. • William and Mary Healy
... innocent by force of self-accusation and self-abasement, suffer at once the torment of the victim ...
— Bebee • Ouida
... devote myself to comfort and protect them, I should wound my mother's heart anew, and spread the dark mist of sorrow over the fair prospect of my sister's young existence; and I cursed my fastidious folly in objecting to the toast, to which, in my self-accusation, I traced all that had afterwards occurred. Then, with the inconsistency of human nature, I began to speculate upon what would be Clara Saville's feelings, were she to learn that it was to prevent the slightest breath of insult being coupled with her name that I was about to peril, not only my life, ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... this to be a savage self-accusation which sprang from long self-bereavement, and yet there was something terrifying in its brutal frankness. She stood in silence till her mother left the room, then went to her own chamber with a painful knot in her throat. What could she do with ...
— Cavanaugh: Forest Ranger - A Romance of the Mountain West • Hamlin Garland
... day upon the water Janet fell a victim to mal-de-mer, and 'twas Katherine who turned nurse; and after four or five days Janet grew better and was half ashamed, veiling her confusion with self-accusation: "'Tis good enough for me, 'twas wrong to be eating pork, 'tis positively forbidden us. I lay it to that! I gave myself over to eating to make up for a fast of nine long years. Thou hadst not a qualm because thou hast been fed on wine and porridge and beef gruel and whey. The clearness of thy body ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... did not think of himself, except that he suffered from self-accusation. He blamed himself for neglecting to bring a needful supply of water. He was the cause of the sufferings of all the rest. He felt sad and humbled on account of ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... said the Sub-Prior. "What canst thou have done to deserve such self-accusation?—Hast thou too listened," he added, knitting his brows, "to the demon of heresy, ever most effectual tempter of those, who, like yonder unhappy man, are distinguished by their ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... themselves to be transformed. It is a well-known fact that men, whose minds are unhinged, will deliver themselves up to justice, accusing themselves of having committed crimes which have actually taken place, and it is only on investigation that their self-accusation proves to be false; and yet they will describe the circumstances with the greatest minuteness, and be thoroughly convinced of their own criminality. I need give but a ...
— The Book of Were-Wolves • Sabine Baring-Gould
... on his former self, must not mislead us into supposing him ever, either as boy or man, to have lived a vicious life. "The wickedness of the tinker," writes Southey, "has been greatly overrated, and it is taking the language of self-accusation too literally to pronounce of John Bunyan that he was at any time depraved." The justice of this verdict of acquittal is fully accepted by Coleridge. "Bunyan," he says, "was never in our received sense of the word 'wicked.' He was chaste, sober, and honest." ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables |
