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The devil   /dˈɛvəl/   Listen
The devil

noun
1.
Something difficult or awkward to do or deal with.



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"The devil" Quotes from Famous Books



... and Burrington; and a large one has been recently discovered some 4 m. from Wells. At Cheddar their W. edge is broken by a remarkable gorge, in the sides of which caves also occur. The level of the tableland is indented with "swallet holes," the chief of which are the East Water Swallet and the Devil's Punch-Bowl. The Quantocks are much less extensive, though their highest summits rise to a greater altitude. Like the Mendips, they turn their steepest flank westwards, the ascent on the E. being ...
— Somerset • G.W. Wade and J.H. Wade

... "What the devil are you talking about?" gasped Thorpe, acutely alarmed by the little man's actions, to say nothing of his words, which under other circumstances might have been ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon

... "P'rhaps they are coum out to play, but see you, when there is trouble in the nest it is my notion that wasps come out to sting. Look at France now, they all fight each other there, ma fuifre! When folks begin to slap faces at home, look out when they get into the street. That is when the devil have a ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... convinced of the injustice in which he had been made an accomplice; but the other ministers who took the lead in the proceedings were less willing to believe in their own error; and equally convinced of the innocence of Mrs. Hale, they raised a question of conscience, whether the devil could not assume the shape of an innocent and pious person, as well as of a wicked person, for the purpose of afflicting his victims. The assistance of Increase Mather, the president or principal of Harvard College, was now called in, and he published ...
— The Wonders of the Invisible World • Cotton Mather

... Yue sardonically, "that a person like you can be such a boor as not to be able to discriminate water, when you taste it? This is snow collected from the plum blossom, five years back, when I was in the P'an Hsiang temple at Hsuean Mu. All I got was that flower jar, green as the devil's face, full, and as I couldn't make up my mind to part with it and drink it, I interred it in the ground, and only opened it this summer. I've had some of it once before, and this is the second time. But how is it you didn't detect it, when you put it to your lips? Has ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... never belonged to no chu'ch; dey thought I done too much of the devil's work—playin' the fiddle. Used to play the fiddle for dances all around the neighborhood. One white man gave me $10 once for playin' at a dance. Played lots of the old-time pieces like 'Turkey in the Straw', 'Dixie', ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves, Arkansas Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration

... get away after all," explained the former. "It's the devil's own thing to think there's a chap somewhere that a fellow might perhaps help, and then be obliged to let him go because others are calling for you. Women are desperately fond of asking their husbands if they would save them or their mothers first, in case of need. It's the deuce and all of a question ...
— The Peace of Roaring River • George van Schaick

... dumm. Keightly says: "This was a frequent assertion of the Fathers, who ascribed to the coming of Christ what was the effect of time. They regarded the ancient oracles as having been the inspiration of the devil." ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin

... were passed in the desert, none worse and many better. Troop days were all right; squadron days were not bad; regimental days were tolerable at times; but brigade and divisional manoeuvres were inventions of the devil. On these latter occasions elusive white flags, the skeleton enemy, appeared and disappeared. Scouts reported them here, then there. The mounted men advanced in open order, all except the front line smothered in a fog of dust. Infantry toiled and sweated after them. ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie

... said he, slowly, and with a peculiar emphasis which made his friend study his face closely, "if the Devil wanted to put temptation in my way, just as I have decided on my future course, he did it by sending you and the others down here to-night. If I could have jumped into that car with the rest of you, and by that one act put myself ...
— The Brown Study • Grace S. Richmond

... "To the devil with Jean," answered Moser gayly; "there is nothing for him to-night. Jean shall have his ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester

... have been," he muttered. "My father was a man of that sort. Why not I? If I hadn't gone wrong in my early days, if I had not been tempted by the devil to rob the storekeeper for whom I worked, and so made myself an outcast and a pariah, who knows but I might have been at this moment Thomas Burns, Esq., of some municipality, instead of Tom Burns, the tramp? However, it is foolish to speculate about this. ...
— A Cousin's Conspiracy - A Boy's Struggle for an Inheritance • Horatio Alger

... common enemy of man] It is always an entertainment to an inquisitive reader, to trace a sentiment to its original source; and therefore, though the term enemy of man, applied to the devil, is in itself natural and obvious, yet some may be pleased with being informed, that Shakespeare probably borrowed it from the first lines of the Destruction of Troy, a book which he is known to have read. This expression, however, ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson

... day pronounce words of faith, but they bear no good fruit, because their purpose is to turn men to their perverse opinions. On the other hand, those who have a divine call must suffer a good deal of opposition in order that they may become fortified against the running attacks of the devil ...
— Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians • Martin Luther

... process, ay, and a bad day for us, boys, when study masks the charming eyes in gig-lamps, and there is no pretty flying before us. Good-night to Cupid, I fear. May be I am not seeing far enough, and am asking for the devil to have the loveliest women as ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... the four corners of the world and forsake that which your Lord hath created for you of your wives? Nay, but ye are a froward folk.'[FN191] These it is that liken girls to boys, of their exceeding profligacy and frowardness and inclination to follow the devil and their own lusts, so that they say, 'She is apt for two men;' and these are all wanderers from the path of right. Quoth their chief ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume IV • Anonymous

... fellow—be quiet now! I wouldn't hurt you, boy! Whoa! I say. Hang me if I don't believe you've got the devil in you. Want to kill me, eh? No, you don't. Easy now, you rascal. ...
— Miss Caprice • St. George Rathborne

... shore; in the middle of the lake there are two islets, and on one of them is a mosque and house of the sun which is held in great veneration, and to it they come to make their offerings and sacrifices on a great stone on the island which they call Tichicasa[113] which either because the devil hides himself there and speaks to them or because of an ancient custom, or on account of some other cause that has never been made clear, all the people of that province hold in great esteem, and they offer there gold, silver and other things. There are more than ...
— An Account of the Conquest of Peru • Pedro Sancho

... [Fifteen images in waxwork, prepared for a procession on the 17th November, Queen Elizabeth's birthday, had been seized under a Secretary of State's warrant. Swift says, in his Journal to Stella, that the devil which was to have waited on the Pope was saved from burning because it was thought to ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... of intoxication which doubled her alarms. She would perhaps have fainted if an unknown rapture had not surged up in her heart to vivify her whole being, in spite of this chaos of sensations. She nevertheless believed herself to be under the power of the Devil, of whose awful snares she had been warned of by the thundering words of preachers. This moment was to her like a moment of madness. She found herself accompanied to her cousin's carriage by the young man, radiant with joy and love. ...
— At the Sign of the Cat and Racket • Honore de Balzac

... than right. I'm considerable used to judgin' men, an' I think you can handle it. Let 'em know right off the reel that you ain't afraid of any of 'em—an' get this before you start out: A man ain't God A'mighty because he happens to run cattle, an' he ain't the Devil because he runs sheep, neither. There's cattlemen on this range I wouldn't trust as far as I could throw a bull by the tail, an' there's sheep-men can have anything I've got just on their say-so—mind you, that ain't the general run—pickin' 'em in the dark, I'd tie to a cow-man every time—but ...
— Prairie Flowers • James B. Hendryx

... they [needs] must go, whom the devil drives; For your sharp fury and infernal rage, Your scorn of me, your spite to Marian, Your overdoating love to Huntington, Hath cross'd yourself, and me it ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various

... pretty tale your mother had in French of her dear Midi, of the man who would have Love see, and pulled the kerchief off his eyes, whereon the boy's wings tumbled off, and he sat down and cried because he could no longer fly. When a scamp loves a good girl, let him thank the devil ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell

... is not only no new thing, or hard to be believed, but that it is a thing already received, and commonly used from age to age. Nay, truly, this might seem much rather a marvel, and beyond all belief, if the devil, who is the father of lies, and enemy to all truth, would now upon a sudden change his nature, and hope that truth might otherwise be suppressed than by belying it; or that he would begin to establish his own kingdom by using now any other practices than the same which he ...
— The Apology of the Church of England • John Jewel

... of Claverhouse—there are people, we believe, who would whitewash the devil if he were only to present himself with a dashing person and a handsome face! But such historians as Macaulay, McCrie, McKenzie, and others, refuse to whitewash Claverhouse. Even Sir Walter Scott—who was very ...
— Hunted and Harried • R.M. Ballantyne

... girl is playing the devil with the callow hereabout," Wayward said; "Malcourt, house-broken, runs to heel with the rest. And when I see her I feel like joining the pack. Only—I was ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers

... mysteriously great, just because she is a woman, a little woman? Unknown properties were wrapped up somewhere in that porcelain; to press it with the lips is to feel strange virtue coming into one,—the devil was in those stars. ...
— The Romance of Zion Chapel [3d ed.] • Richard Le Gallienne

... didn't think you'd go back on a fellow. And I tell you straight up, Sir Redmond Hayes, I'm not out touching matches to range land—not if it belonged to the devil himself. I've got some feeling for the dumb brutes that would have to suffer. You can get right to work hunting evidence, and be damned! You're dead welcome to all you can find; and in this part of the country you ...
— Her Prairie Knight • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B. M. Bower

... meet you in New Orleans and start you off once more on the road to decency and self-respect. You will never be a success at anything, but I am always ready to do my duty. This is my last offer, and if you refuse you may distinctly and definitely go to the devil. As ever, ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach

... tell myself," replied the captain. "I drew it fine; I said I did; but what's been going on here gets me! Appears as if the devil had been around. That cook must be the holiest kind of fraud. Only twelve days too! Seems like craziness. I'll own up square to one thing: I seem to have figured too fine upon the flour. But the rest—my ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Conner." Indeed, I am sure I have—once in a canoe on the Red River, once on the Assinaboine, and twice or thrice on the prairies to the West. That was not the name he gave me, but, if I am right, it covers one of the most honest and genial of the strong characters that are fighting the devil and doing good work for men all over the world. He has seen with his own eyes the life which he describes in this book, and has himself, for some years of hard and lonely toil, assisted in the good influences which he traces among its wild and often hopeless conditions. He writes ...
— Black Rock • Ralph Connor

... "The devil take you, Andy Parker. I wanted to help you. If you don't take my interference kindly, I'll be on ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory

... tempest took the ship's course into its own hands and drove the frail craft north-westwards towards Cyprus, the wooded shores of which were, in course of time, sighted. Wenamon was now indeed 'twixt the devil and the deep sea, for behind him the waves raged furiously, and before him he perceived a threatening group of Cypriots awaiting him upon the wind-swept shore. Presently the vessel grounded upon the beach, and immediately the ill-starred ...
— The Treasury of Ancient Egypt - Miscellaneous Chapters on Ancient Egyptian History and Archaeology • Arthur E. P. B. Weigall

... do with is a little tuft of hair that is allowed to grow from the top of the head of a child when all the rest of the scalp is shaven. This is a commendable precaution, and is almost universally taken in the interest of children, the scalp lock being necessary to snatch the child away from the devil and other evil spirits when it is in danger from those sources. As the person grows older and capable of looking after himself this precaution is not so important, although many people wear the scalp lock or ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis

... is the question every soul must answer. How goes the battle in your soul? Who is winning on your field—Christ or money? Christ or pleasure? Christ or sin? Christ or self? Judas lost the battle; the Devil won. ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller

... who go to the devil while they're alive. There's a fellow in this neighborhood who's ...
— The Intriguers • Harold Bindloss

... The devil take his impudence! "Only the pure in heart," "clean, unsullied thought." How like the cheek of twenty! And all the same how true! Dear lad, how true! Certainly, the child is father to the man. Dirige nos! O sage ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne

... had poked, reposed, and were in amorous dalliance, lying face to face, she with one limb over my haunch, so that I could feel her cunt well, she twiddling my somewhat exhausted prick. "I have a surprise for you," she said. "For me,—what?" "I'm in the family way." "The devil,—whose fault is that?" "No one's fault, and perhaps no misfortune,—would you like a child?" "I?—why?" (I had a presentiment of what was coming.) "Because it is yours." "Nonsense." "It is my dear,—I ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous

... "The devil take you and your duty," growled the Marshal. "Why, in the name of all the fiends, couldn't you have ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey

... his supernatural principle. Sacrifice, too, was recognised—the instinct of oblation without the demand made by transcendent Holiness upon the blood-guiltiness of man.... In fact,—in fact, said Percy, it was exactly as clever as the devil, ...
— Lord of the World • Robert Hugh Benson

... eternally true, and that is, that, in order to be perfect, a man's life must be as pronounced on the negative side as the positive, in its denials as in its affirmations, and that it is futile to attempt to obey God unless one at the same time renounce all co-partnery with the devil. Circumcision is the symbol of this renunciation, and it is only as such it has any radical spiritual significance. Till he was circumcised, it is said, God did not speak to Abraham in Hebrew. Not till then is sacredness of speech, ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various

... special views, and was very specially known for them. His friends said that he was evangelical, and his enemies said that he was Low Church. He himself was wont to laugh at these names—for he was a man who could laugh—and to declare that his only ambition was to fight the devil under whatever name he might be allowed to carry on that battle. And he was always fighting the devil by opposing those pursuits which are the life and mainstay of such places as Littlebath. His chief enemies were card-playing and dancing as regarded the weaker sex, and hunting and horse-racing—to ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope

... think, to hear him, he was the only one not a coward amongst us, when the truth is he's the biggest one of all. Old Tonguey Murfree would cringe to the devil for ten cents worth of patronage, and then cheat him out of half ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry

... a power might be obtained by certain rites performed or charms learned. This power was called The Black Art, or Knowledge of Enchantment. The enchanter being (as king James observes in his Demonology) one who commands the devil, whereas the witch serves him. Those who thought best of this art, the existence of which was, I am afraid, believed very seriously, held, that certain sounds and characters had a physical power over spirits, and compelled their agency; others who condemned ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson

... At least save it for some more suitable time. Can't you fix it to do some of your dreaming while you sleep? It seems to me that for a man who has nothing to do you keep yourself unnecessarily exhausted. Why the devil aren't you in bed now if you haven't slept during ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck

... and night. Love is the scourge of the world in the hands of the devil. That is certain. She is buried near the south wall of the Campo Santo. Oh, God! when I think of her sweet ...
— Olive in Italy • Moray Dalton

... of the East said delayed menstruation due to a devil was its cause; the thrashing-out of the devil its cure. Chinese legends describe it, and its symptoms were ascribed by the Inquisition to witchcraft ...
— Epilepsy, Hysteria, and Neurasthenia • Isaac G. Briggs

... the pretended occult sciences were nothing better than juggling tricks. The French abbe, who had drank rather too much wine, challenged the whole tribe of ghosts, the English lord uttered blasphemies, and the musician made a cross to exorcise the devil. Some few of the company, amongst whom was the prince, contended that opinions respecting such matters ought to be kept to oneself. In the meantime the Russian officer discoursed with the ladies, and did not seem to pay attention ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... "Then what the devil are you doing here alone?" cried Raffles. "Why didn't you bring along a couple of good men and true from Scotland Yard? Here I am, Mr. Levy, entirely at your service. Why don't you ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung

... his wife, dropping the cravat from her hands. "What the devil is the woman shouting at?" ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover

... effect of power and dominance, the same clean, springy stride. The pose of the head, too, even the sweep of salient jaw, bore a marked resemblance. But similarity ceased at the expression. For instead of frankness there lurked here that hint of the devil of strong passion uncontrolled. He was the victim of his own moods, and in the space of an hour one might, perhaps, read in that face cold cunning, cruel malignity, leering ribaldry, as well as the hard-bitten virtues of ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine

... under the spell of her presence, back among the tricksters and assassins, the traps and ambushes of Wall Street, I believed again; believed firmly the promptings of the devil that possessed me. "She would have given you a brief fool's paradise," said that devil. "Then what a hideous awakening!" And I cursed the day when New York's insidious snobbishness had tempted my vanity into starting me on ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips

... happy could I be with either, Were t'other dear charmer away; But while you thus teaze me together, The devil ...
— An Apology for Atheism - Addressed to Religious Investigators of Every Denomination - by One of Its Apostles • Charles Southwell

... pranks and exploits. A year later Middleton made her the heroine of a sparkling comedy. Thereafter she became the favourite of the rufflers, the commonplace of the poets. Newgate knew her, and Fleet Street; her manly figure was as familiar in the Bear Garden as at the Devil Tavern; courted alike by the thief and his victim, for fifty years she lived a life brilliant as sunlight, many-coloured as a rainbow. And she is remembered, after the lapse of centuries, not only as the Queen-Regent of Misrule, the benevolent tyrant of cly-filers ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley

... fling the bridles to the devil, and rush in to the rescue of the unguarded soldier thus mischievously ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various

... bed in the dark, with his mind clear as crystal and hot shame clutching at his throat. Rochester was the first recollection that came to him, and it was a recollection tinged with evil. He felt like a man who had supped with the devil. Led by Rochester he had made a fool of himself, he had made a brute of himself, how would he face the hotel people? And what had he done with the last ...
— The Man Who Lost Himself • H. De Vere Stacpoole

... hybrid, the offspring of Satan by a harlot; of this opinion were Lactantius and Sulspitius. 3rd. Hilary, Jerome, and others thought he would be Satan incarnated. 4th. Chrysostom, Theopolact, and Theodoret thought he would be a real man under the influence of the devil. This latter view we accept as being the nearest to the Scripture teaching. In the Scriptures he goes by the names of Lucifer, man of sin, son of perdition, and that wicked one. Now all these names are indicative of some special feature of his character. Man of sin points out the intensity of ...
— The Lost Ten Tribes, and 1882 • Joseph Wild

... of September 13, the lofty Arch of Ctesiphon showed for hours as we toiled along the winding reaches; in the first gold and chill winds of dawn on the 14th we watched it recede. On the 18th I reached Beled, 'The Home of the Devil,' as the Arabs call it, where the Manchesters dragged out a panting existence, battling with dust-storms. In the station I was shocked to see what vandalism had been at work. The broken glass had been cleared away; in the tin shed where we had drunk tea amid ...
— The Leicestershires beyond Baghdad • Edward John Thompson

... well-intentioned." The hatching of the Dreiser bugaboo is here; it is the flat rejection of the rubber-stamp formulae that outrages petty minds; not being "good," he must be "evil"—as William Blake said of Milton, a true poet is always "of the devil's party." But in that very groping toward a light but dimly seen there is a measure, it seems to me, of Dreiser's rank and consideration as an artist. "Now comes the public," says Hermann Bahr, "and demands that we explain what the poet is trying to say. The answer is this: If we knew ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken

... to the devil!" Billy Louise flung back at him and touched Blue with her heel. "I hope that shocked some of the politeness out of him, anyway," she added grimly to herself. "Oh, I hate everything—Ward and God and all! I hate life—I ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower

... to make possible for man this intimate communion with God is careful to make it clear that this communion is only possible to redeemed, regenerate man; prior to new birth into the Kingdom of God, far from being a son of God, man is, according to the Lord Himself, a child of the devil, however potentially capable of being translated ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson

... East.—The practice of turning to the east, or to the Altar, at the Creed and at every Gloria (as a brief form of Creed) "probably originated in an old custom at Baptism. The catechumen turned his face toward the west in renouncing the devil and all his works, and to the east in making profession of his Faith. The early Christians were accustomed to turn to the east in their devotions, just as the Jews turned their faces toward Jerusalem when they prayed." Many churches, whenever it is possible, are built for this reason "east ...
— The Worship of the Church - and The Beauty of Holiness • Jacob A. Regester

... to his more accomplished Kinsman) Ye mun brag o' yer Lunnun fare; if smoak, smother, mud, and makeshift be the comforts and pleasures, gie me free air, health and a cottage."—Ha, ha, ha, Hark at the just-catch'd Johnny Rata, (says a bang-up Lad in a lily-shallow and upper toggery) where the devil did you come from? who let you loose upon society? d———e, you ought to be coop'd up at Exeter 'Change among the wild beasts, the Kangaroos and Catabaws, and shewn as the eighth wonder of the world! Shew 'em in! Shew 'em in! stir him up with a long pole; the ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... the importunity of friends, to interrupt the scheme I had begun in my last paper, by an Essay upon the Art of Political Lying. We are told, "the Devil is the father of lies, and was a liar from the beginning"; so that beyond contradiction, the invention is old: And which is more, his first essay of it was purely political, employed in undermining the authority of his Prince, and seducing a third part of ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift

... political preacher, and seeing that he could prevail nothing by secular pleas, he betook himself to his spiritual armory, and in a voice of sour derision that made Bessie Fairfax cringe asked the doctor if he had yet received the Devil's Decalogue according to h'act of Parliament and justices' notices that might be read on every wall?—and he proceeded to recite it: "Thou shalt remove the old landmarks, and enter into the fields of the poor. Thou shalt wholly reap the corners of thy fields ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr

... a grating sound. "Who the devil gave it to you to be judge and jury? Does landlordism give you control of the immortal souls of those that toil for you? I have been your physician. Am I to expect tomorrow your ukase that I give up Scotch and soda or your patronage? Bah! Ford, you take life too seriously. Besides, when Joe ...
— The House of Pride • Jack London

... any reason why we shall think scorn of those sanctuaries, provided by the merciful goodness of God, where men may flee for shelter from the world, and lead a life of devotion and fasting and prayer? My son, beware of the manifold snares of the devil. The young are ever ready to condemn and to revolt. It is the nature of the unchastened will of man. Be patient, and watch unto prayer. The day will surely come when (if thou wilt but listen for it) the voice will speak in ...
— The Secret Chamber at Chad • Evelyn Everett-Green

... a drama at old Drury," he observed, with a slight sneer. "Only your lordship should have said: 'Who the devil are you?'" ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham

... the light," he jeered, "and have a good look round for the devil? He was here a minute ago. What? Don't you believe in devils? That's heresy. All good parsons—" He got up suddenly and went to the switch. In a second the room was flooded with light. He returned to Crowther with the full flare on his face, and the only expression ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell

... 'oh! oh!' but I mean to say that this assertion is not so incongruous as the statement of my friend, that he saw twenty horses down at once on the wood pavement in Newgate Street, (laughter.) I may exclaim with my worthy friend the deputy on my left, who lives in Newgate Street, 'When the devil did it happen? I never heard of it.' I stand forward in support of wood paving as a great public principle, because I believe it to be most useful and advantageous to the public; which is proved by ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various

... president, Professor Smyth, the other professors, who teach exactly the same doctrines, being entirely undisturbed, although they presented themselves for trial. The time is coming when intelligent men will be ashamed to confess a belief in the devil, and the old-fashioned hell-fire,—indeed the time has already arrived among ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, August 1887 - Volume 1, Number 7 • Various

... cotton and tobacco interests presented once more their demand for immediate downward revision of the tariff, Clay and his more ardent protectionists brushed aside the cautious Adams and defied "the South, the Democratic party, and the Devil." The revision of the tariff which was made in 1832 was no revision, save in a few unimportant schedules in which the planters were not interested; but the vote on this measure showed a curious combination of the Jackson and the Clay politicians ...
— Expansion and Conflict • William E. Dodd

... Morse looked at him with a face cold as chiselled marble and as hard. The devil's own passion burned in the ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine

... close alongside; and the man, with the country-folk instinct, turned his cloudy vision first of all on his companion's mount. "The devil!" he cried. "You ride a bonny mare, friend!" And then his curiosity being satisfied about the essential, he turned his attention to that merely secondary matter, his companion's face. He started. "The Prince!" he cried, saluting, with another yaw that came near ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... fumbling for his spectacles] Oh, bother your pamphlets. Whats the practice of it? [Looking at the pamphlet] Opsonin? What the devil ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • George Bernard Shaw

... was brought into especial prominence by the new religious movements. The popular feeling that the line between natural magic and the black art was somewhat doubtful, that the one had a tendency to shade off into the other, now received fresh stimulus. The notion of compacts with the devil was a familiar one, and that they should be resorted to for the purpose of acquiring an acquaintance with hidden lore and magical ...
— German Culture Past and Present • Ernest Belfort Bax

... why man is mortal. One of them has already been related. Here is another. A Souh man went once to catch fish. A devil tried to devour him, but he fled into the forest and took refuge in a tree. The tree kindly closed on him so that the devil could not see him. When the devil was gone, the tree opened up and the man clambered down to the ground. Then said the tree to him, "Go to Souh and bring me two white pigs." He went and found two pigs, one was white and one was black. He took ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer

... understand that, Master Cadenette, but state! What the devil has the honorable guild of wigmakers ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas

... Kondraty, isn't here yet. I wonder why. Do you think the devil has taken him? The devil is fond ...
— Savva and The Life of Man • Leonid Andreyev

... countless ways of going wrong. Among the most reasonable people (at their highest) that the world has yet seen, there were some of the worst miscarriages of reason and of morals; and throughout their great centuries there was no word either for the devil or for sin in their language. For the Greek all human wrongdoing came under the one simple category of [Greek: hamartia], 'making a mistake', or better 'making a miss'. It is the slang of target-practice, for the correlative ...
— The Unity of Civilization • Various

... please, Mr. Bernardo. I have heard of stalking horses indeed, and that of Troy made many ghosts. But ghosts themselves walk. In speaking to it afterwards, Horatio says, "You spirits oft walk." "He durst as soon have met the devil in fight," as have said "stalk." The shades of difference in the meaning of these two words were nicely marked in a pantomime song of the late Mr. EDWIN, in which he courteously applied the word ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various

... "The devil has enabled you to change in every particular, excepting your eyes, which it is impossible to ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac

... fun along the Platte river was something worth laughing at but now they were very melancholy and talked in the lowest kind of low spirits. One fellow said he knew this was the Creator's dumping place where he had left the worthless dregs after making a world, and the devil had scraped these together a little. Another said this must be the very place where Lot's wife was turned into a pillar of salt, and the pillar been broken up and spread around the country. He said if a man was to die he would ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly

... "The devil!" Manton flushed red. "This is no place to smoke. By— by all the wives of Goodwin and all the stars of Griffith I'm going to start firing a few people!" he sputtered. "Here, sonny!" He jumped at the boy, frightening him. "Close all these doors and turn the combinations. Tell ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve

... pierce through the woods, with a view to attack the fort; but met with such opposition from deep morasses, and dark thickets, lined with fierce Indians, and wild Highlanders, that they honestly confessed that the devil himself could not pass through them to Frederica. Don Manuel de Monteano, however, had no other prospect left, and these difficulties must either be surmounted, or the design dropt; and therefore one party ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 2 • Alexander Hewatt

... follow it up very closely. But Flemister put the other man to the wall in the end—'put it all over him,' as your man Bradford would say. There was some domestic tragedy involved, too, in which Flemister played the devil with the other man's family; but I don't know ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde

... save us, her master dared not take the sea. Two days and a night we lay in the harbour, fearing all things not without cause, and yet most happy in each other's love. Now those who had charge of me in the dungeon had given out that I had escaped by the help of my master the Devil, and I was searched for throughout the country side. De Garcia also, finding that his cousin and affianced wife was missing, guessed that we two were not far apart. It was his cunning, sharpened by jealousy and hate, ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard

... not chaffering with men who have intercourse with the devil," Picard said, shaking his head gravely; "nothing good comes of it. My mother knew a man who bought a powder that was to cure his wife of jealousy; and indeed it did, for it straightway killed her, and he was hung. I think that I can stand up against mortal man as well as another, but my blood ...
— At Agincourt • G. A. Henty

... warfare resulted in a population in which women predominated, and we are told that in the interest of procreation both childlessness and celibacy were severely punished. Thus the situation of women was that best described by the phrase "between the devil ...
— Sex=The Unknown Quantity - The Spiritual Function of Sex • Ali Nomad

... prevailing opinion of supernatural influence: they themselves were probably moved by the same belief: the utmost they dared to advance was, that Joan was not an instrument of God; she was only the implement of the devil: but as the English had felt, to their sad experience, that the devil might be allowed sometimes to prevail, they derived not much consolation from the enforcing of ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume

... anger and disdain whenever he came near his charming sweetheart? how could they divine that the coquettish Grace Mainwaring was not thinking of her wiles and graces at all, but was on the road to a most piteous repentance? The one was saying to himself, "Very well, let the vixen go to the devil; a happy riddance!" and the other was saying, "Oh, dear me, what have I done?—why did he put me in such a passion?" But the public in the stalls were all unknowing. They looked on and laughed, or looked on and sat solemn and stolid, as happened ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black

... but some of the properties of wood; specimens of which are not unfrequent in the cabinets of the curious, procured from Loch Neigh in Ireland, from Bovey near Exeter, and other places; and from a famous cavern called the Temple of the Devil, near the town of Altorf in Franconia, at the foot of a mountain covered with pine and savine, in which are found large coals resembling trees of ebony; which are so far mineralized as to be heavy and ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin

... and Fifine is only a small weak child, but she loves to hate, and she loves revenge. She will walk till her feet are blistered, and her body worn and tired, but she will find Bijou, she owes him a little debt and she must pay it. She gives the devil his due, ha, ha, ha," and the wild unearthly laugh resounded once more through the dismal darkened chamber. In this horrible strain she continued chattering to herself and menacing Bijou, until suddenly she stopped ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera

... know," he groaned. "There's too much disaster piled high and staring in every one of their flushing rash young faces. On they go with their heads in the air and their hearts thumping, and hoping and refusing to believe in the devil and hell let loose—and the whole thing stares and gibbers ...
— Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... however. After it was over, last night, and the captain and I were congratulating ourselves, he remarked, with a jerk of his thumb toward your grimy self, 'That young man's head is too cool to be muddled up with the devil's brew. ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry

... there isn't an ounce of live public spirit left among you, in spite of all the moonshine your man Benham talks about the healing virtues of tradition and the sacred taboo of your political Pharisees. There wasn't one of you that didn't hate like the devil to see me Governor of Virginia—and yet how many of you took the trouble to find out what I am made of, or to understand what I mean? Did you even take the trouble to go to the polls and ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow

... have befallen them. It is strange that no message has come to us through any of our friends trading with the town, for your uncles know many of my comrades and can see their names in the shipping lists when they arrive. They would have known how anxious your mother would be at the news of the devil's work that is going on here, and, being always tender and thoughtful for her, would surely have sent her news of them from time to time as they had a chance. I sorely fear that something must have happened. Your uncles are prudent men, going about their work and interfering with none; ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty

... call 'One Steinbock'? Do you mean a young Livonian who was a pupil of mine?" cried Stidmann ironically. "I may tell you, monsieur, that he is a very great artist. It is said of me that I believe myself to be the Devil. Well, that poor fellow does not know that he is capable of becoming ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac

... it is the devil," the other replied with a shrug. "Mortally anxious to see him they ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey

... me, if the very fellow, this Joseph Leman, who gave you such an opportunity to turn all the artillery of his masters against themselves, and to play them upon one another to favour your plotting purposes, should be the instrument, in the devil's hand, (unwittingly too,) to avenge them all upon you; for should you even get the better of the Colonel, would the mischief end there?—It would but add remorse to your present remorse; since the interview must end in death; for he would not, I am confident, take his life at your hand. The Harlowes ...
— Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson

... pipe from between his teeth; well emptied the bowl, and put the blackened clay pipe in his pocket with studied carefulness. Then he began: "The feu bellanger is one of the devil's angels which takes the shape of fire, and goes about at night, generally when it is very dark, and tries ...
— The Silver Lining - A Guernsey Story • John Roussel

... information, naming our trades, what we hoped to find in the new world, or what we were fleeing from in the old; and, above all, we condoled together over the food and the vileness of the steerage. One or two had been so near famine, that you may say they had run into the ship with the devil at their heels; and to these all seemed for the best in the best of possible steamers. But the majority were hugely discontented. Coming as they did from a country in so low a state as Great Britain, many of them from ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... exclaimed the doctor, yawning: he had just awoke. "What the devil can you have babbled about during the whole blessed ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat

... of the devil. No sooner were the youths brought into his presence than he assumed the appearance of an affectionate father, embraced them and inquired sympathetically about their parents and their home. On their telling him they were Christians ...
— Castellinaria - and Other Sicilian Diversions • Henry Festing Jones

... instinct of an old man, my dear. There's a woman in it. We old parliamentary hands are very shrewd, you know, even in these things. Some one is playing the devil ...
— Behind the Beyond - and Other Contributions to Human Knowledge • Stephen Leacock

... few days before I came home, and found him more disconsolate than ever,—' just ready to go to the Devil,' as he forcibly expressed himself. I consoled the poor lad as well as I could, telling him his wisest plan was to defer his proposed expedition, and go on as steadily as he had begun,—thereby proving the injustice ...
— A Modern Cinderella - or The Little Old Show and Other Stories • Louisa May Alcott

... afternoon toward Bolinao, he noted the loud shouts in the village, caused by the feasting and dancing that they made according to their custom with the heads of the three Spaniards. He attempted to approach nearer in order to check their inhumanity, but an Indian instigated by the devil, scarcely saw the father when he threw two spears at him. It was regarded as a miracle that the father escaped the blow and was not wounded. Thereupon our valiant religious lifted up his voice, and loudly condemned so unjust actions in ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 41 of 55, 1691-1700 • Various

... a bitter laugh. "But it'll be a different game. A game most folks out here sure know how to play. We're most of us life's derelicts. I'll buck it, Peter, and set the devil dancing." ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum

... peasant as occupying a stage of development intermediate between the ape and the man, and at the same time in the local assemblies no one was readier to shake hands with the peasants and listen to their opinion. He believed neither in God nor the devil, but was much concerned about the question of the improvement of the clergy and the maintenance of their revenues, and took special trouble to keep up the church ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy

... the least of it, there had been very little friendship shown in the letter. Had Chiltern meant to have stood to him "like a brick," as he ought to have stood by his right hand man in the Brake country, at any rate a fair chance might have been given him. "Where the devil would he be in such a country as this without me,"—Tom had said to his cousin,—"not knowing a soul, and with all the shooting men against him? I might have had the hounds myself,—and might have 'em now if I cared to take them. It's not standing by a fellow ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope

... Miss Daisy, s'pose the devil walkin' round about a place; think it a nice place fur to be ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell

... the counterpart, and will not only not feed the sheep or let them be fed, but is himself a wolf and tears them, and yet makes it his boast that he is the vicar of the Lord Christ. He certainly is that, for since Christ is not there, he, like the devil, sits and rules in ...
— The Epistles of St. Peter and St. Jude Preached and Explained • Martin Luther

... against the rich. The women, not always so much by their own fault, were the type which keeps the charitable associations busy. I'm not saying that among these there were not often cases of sheer hard luck. Now and then sickness played the devil with a family and more often the cussedness of some one member dragged down a half dozen innocent ones with him, but I do say that when misfortune did come to this particular class they didn't buck up to it as Helen Bonnington did or use such means as ...
— One Way Out - A Middle-class New-Englander Emigrates to America • William Carleton

... He'll recognize the devil first! Even Dr. Jonathan, with all the persuasion he has, couldn't get Mr. Pindar to recognize the union. He'll close down the shops, and it's hunting a job I'll be, and I here going on ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... Mo. 14th. The Lord has been kind to me beyond expression. Not rapturous feeling, but calm and peaceful confidence,—though sometimes almost giving way to "the world, the flesh, and the devil," sometimes letting go faith; but, oh, He has been near through all; then when His face has shone upon me, how have I wondered that ever I loved the ...
— A Brief Memoir with Portions of the Diary, Letters, and Other Remains, - of Eliza Southall, Late of Birmingham, England • Eliza Southall

... Christianity, which supposed that all pagan literature and pagan knowledge were of the devil, and hence to be suppressed, opposed secular teaching, and tended to dethrone these schools. Constantine's effort to unite the church and state tended for a while to perpetuate secular institutions. ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar

... "Darby—and may the Devil fly away with him! . . . Oh! it is not jealousy," catching Aymer's quick glance. "We were children together at her father's castle, and she is like a ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott

... a long night whin the devil was bruising his knuckles agin the plates beneath me. But the nixt hour made me tin years ouldher. For we hadn't more'n got well started in before it was 'Stop her!' and 'Full speed ahead!' and 'Ease her!' Me assistant was excited, but kept on spillin' ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various

... English as follows: "This picture I, Alessandro, painted at the end of the year 1500, in the troubles of Italy, in the half-time after the time during the fulfilment of the eleventh of St. John, in the second woe of the Apocalypse, in the loosing of the devil for three years and a half. Afterwards he shall be confined, and we shall see him trodden down, as in this picture." The loosing of the devil was the three years and a half after Savonarola's execution on May 23rd, 1498, when Florence was mad with reaction from the severity of his ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas

... of the Widder Poll that if she could hold her tongue, the devil himself couldn't get ahead of her. But fortune had not gifted her with such endurance, and she always spoke too often and ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown



Words linked to "The devil" :   like the devil, speak of the devil, difficulty, trouble



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