"Contemptible" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... "I think you had better tell her first, Daddy," she said. "I think it may be wiser for you to tell her. Things were said and done at that election which she must not know. They were so mean, so contemptible that she ought never to know. If I am not there she cannot ask about them. I will tell you the result and how it came about and you can tell her. Perhaps that will be sufficient. I hope it may ...
— Cap'n Dan's Daughter • Joseph C. Lincoln
... would be obliged to remain. Besides, he wished to go to court; and since his testimony would carry considerable weight with the jury, it was his duty to be present on account of Florentin. It would be a contemptible cowardice to fail in this duty, and more, it would be an imprudence. In the eyes of the world he must appear to have nothing to fear, and this assurance, this confidence in himself, was one of the conditions of his safety. Now, if he went to ...
— Conscience, Complete • Hector Malot
... “Pickering, what a contemptible scoundrel you are! I lent you that three hundred thousand dollars to buy securities to give you better standing in your railroad enterprises, and the last time I saw you, you got me to release the collateral so you could raise money to buy ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson
... old protectress, in a tone of some asperity. Thither I ascended. What counsels and directions I might happen to receive at the maternal toilet, naturally I have forgotten. The most memorable circumstance to me was, that I, who had never till that time possessed the least or most contemptible coin, received, in a network purse, six glittering guineas, with instructions to put three immediately into Mr. H——'s hands, and the others when he should call ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... rose ever and anon before the exile; but when it did, and became too painful, he crept nearer to Jemima, and looked in her simple face, and pressed her cordial hand. And yet the monster had implied to Harley that his comforter was a fool,—so she was, to love so contemptible a slanderer of ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... they walked on, "this Ralston is a more contemptible rascal than I thought. If my old father were living, I would give half the money I possess. While I had a dollar in my ...
— Chester Rand - or The New Path to Fortune • Horatio Alger, Jr
... gnawed beneath our clothes, so that the world doesn't see; and it behoves us so to bear it that the world shall not suspect. The man who goes about declaring himself to be miserable will be not only miserable, but contemptible as well." ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... effort to re-establish his self-satisfaction by a process of reasoning and ingenious excuses. Lionel felt that in the brief episode of the afternoon he had scarcely behaved with dignity. In other words, he was fully and painfully aware that he must have looked a fool, a coward, an ass, a contemptible and pitiful person, in the eyes of at least one girl, if not of two. He did not like this—no man would have liked it; and to Lionel the memory of an undignified act was acute torture. Why had he bidden the girls adieu and departed? ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... victorious, they would have had reason to say, "We are masters, and will make laws for you." But to be driven out at first, and to be brought back by the Prussians and the Russians, and then to come and humiliate us, that was contemptible, and the older I grow the more I am confirmed in ...
— Waterloo - A sequel to The Conscript of 1813 • Emile Erckmann
... suppliant with the most unmitigated scorn. There is always something contemptible in the sight of one man pleading to another for assistance in his love affairs—that is a business which he should do for himself. How much greater, then, is the humiliation involved when the amorous person asks the aid of one whom ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard
... you have a chapter on "Corporations," no one can tell whether the legislature or compilers are going to put it under "C" for corporations, under "I" for incorporations, or under "J" for joint-stock companies. The alphabetical system of arrangement is the most contemptible of all, and should be relegated to a limbo at once. The annual laws, of course, are much less likely to have any arrangement whatever. Passed chronologically, they are more apt to follow in ...
— Popular Law-making • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... time he caused Barclay to issue addresses, designed to corrupt the French and their allies, similar to those which had so irritated Napoleon at Klubokoe;—attempts which the French regarded as contemptible, ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... followed. The young man squeezed the lady's hand when they were five or six steps above him, and said, in a low voice: "Now you see the dangers to which your imprudent enterprises, which have no glory in them, expose us. If we are discovered, how are we to escape? And what a contemptible role you ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... hedging in conversation: one which comes from failing to follow the trend of the discussion; another which is the result of talking at random merely to make bulk. The first is tolerable; the last is contemptible. The moment one begins to talk for effect, or to hedge flippantly, he is talking insincerely. And when a good converser runs against this sort of talker, his heart calls out, with Carlyle, for an empty room, his tobacco, and his pipe. It is maintained by ...
— Conversation - What to Say and How to Say it • Mary Greer Conklin
... Senate of the United States is the only legislative body in the world which cannot act when its majority is ready for action. A little group of willful men, representing no opinion but their own, have rendered the great Government of the United States helpless and contemptible. ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... degrading calling about her, was recognised the mistress of one of the cardinals; the other portrayed the Goddess of Fortune dispensing her rich gifts. But cardinals' hats, bishops' mitres, gold medals, decorations of orders, were falling upon bleating sheep, braying asses, and other such like contemptible animals, whilst well-made men in ragged clothes were vainly straining their eyes upwards to get even the smallest gift. Salvator had given free rein to his embittered mood, and the animals' heads bore the closest resemblance to the features ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... were telling me the truth—but I wouldn't listen. I hadn't been brought up to care what results my actions brought on other people. I thought only of myself—of the indulgence of my own desires. I lived a useless, contemptible life—entirely without scruples or restraints. There was scarcely a vice that I was not steeped in—hardly a sin that I had not explored. I had enough money to gratify all my senses. Nothing was beneath ...
— The Crooked House • Brandon Fleming
... comforter, was stamped on her face; and with these a hate, a horror, a contempt, mingled triumphantly. The door opened,—it was closed,—and my wife was lost to me forever. I essayed to call her back. "Eudora" came faintly to my lips. It was too late. Then a contemptible, jealous hatred took possession of me. Ere I left my apartment, I said, "She shall pay dear for this! she shall soon come submissive to my feet! she cannot live away from me; and before I forgive, she must be humiliated!" How little ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... then," she gritted, in a swift surge of anger. "I am afraid to face this country alone. I admit my helplessness. But so help me Heaven, I'll make you pay for this dirty trick! You're not a man! You're a cur—a miserable, contemptible scoundrel!" ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... sumachs parted in view, they beheld Joe! He dashed through the briers interspersed among the undergrowth, and plunged through the winding brook that occasionally crossed his path, as if all surrounding obstacles and obstructions were contemptible in comparison with the danger behind! Leaping over intervening rocks, and flying through dense clusters of young trees that ever and anon threatened to impede his progress, he at length reached the spot where the little group still remained seated. Without hat or coat, ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... effectually—a halter! 'Sdeath! if I had been such a gull to two such scoundrels as Strutwell and Straddle, I would, without any more ado, tuck myself up." Shocked at this exclamation, I desired him with some confusion to explain himself; upon which he gave me to understand that Straddle was a poor contemptible wretch, who lived by borrowing and pimping for his fellow-peers; that in consequence of this last capacity, he had doubtless introduced me to Strutwell, who was so notorious for a passion for his own sex that ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... bewildered in metaphysical controversy: in the belief of visions and miracles, they had lost all principles of moral evidence, and their taste was vitiates by the homilies of the monks, an absurd medley of declamation and Scripture. Even these contemptible studies were no longer dignified by the abuse of superior talents: the leaders of the Greek church were humbly content to admire and copy the oracles of antiquity, nor did the schools of pulpit produce any rivals of the fame of Athanasius ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... of our fathers is too manifest. It creates and lets loose upon their institutions, the vandal spirit of innovation and overthrow; for after the memory of our father shall have been rendered contemptible, who will appreciate and sustain their institutions? "The memory of our fathers" should be the watchword of liberty throughout the land; for, imperfect as they were, the world before had not seen their like, nor will it soon, we fear, behold their like ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... in the neighbourhood of a city named Abba, a fine body of young men who had been enlisted by their recruiting officers in Spain; and that Hasdrubal would very soon arrive with a body of troops by no means contemptible. Accordingly, he not only returned a kind answer to the ambassadors, but also showed them a multitude of Numidian rustics, whom he had lately furnished with arms and horses; and at the same time assured them that he would call out all the youth in his kingdom. ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... eyeing this censor with a look of disdain, replied, in a solemn, lofty tone: "He that from affectation imitates the extravagancies recorded of Don Quixote, is an impostor equally wicked and contemptible. He that counterfeits madness, unless he dissembles, like the elder Brutus, for some virtuous purpose, not only debases his own soul, but acts as a traitor to Heaven, by denying the divinity that is within him. I am neither an affected imitator of Don Quixote, nor, as I trust ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... forces that are to have part in it. There has been a conference among the Allied commanders, and it has been decided that it's time to teach the Germans a lesson. They've been despising the American troops, as they despised General French's 'contemptible little army,' and General Pershing is going to show Fritz that we have a soldier ...
— Air Service Boys in the Big Battle • Charles Amory Beach
... his voice waxing louder, "he's one of these grubstake sharks. He came to Nevada after the Tonopah excitement with a flunkey they call Flip Flappum. That's another dirty dog that I'm going to put my mark on when I get him in the door—one of the most low-down, contemptible curs that I know of—he makes his living by selling bum life insurance. Phillip F. Lapham is his name but we all call him Flip Flappum—he's the black-leg lawyer that drew up that contract that made me lose my ...
— Wunpost • Dane Coolidge
... like it, dear Tess! Distinction does not consist in the facile use of a contemptible set of conventions, but in being numbered among those who are true, and honest, and just, and pure, and lovely, and of good report—as ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... newspapers the other day that the German Emperor made a speech to some of his regiments in which he urged them to concentrate their attention upon what he was pleased to call "French's contemptible little army." [Laughter.] Well, they are concentrating their attention upon it [laughter and cheers] and that army, which has been fighting with such extraordinary prowess, which has revived in a fortnight of adverse actions the ancient fame ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various
... was rather an undefined consciousness that here was a purity which was adorable. From that moment he became no longer a boy, but a man with a high standard of womanhood. Instantly he thought with regret of his scornful little speech—it was contemptible. ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... railroad." The Federal Constitution required their return, but this task had been left to State laws and courts, and was performed slackly, if at all. The total number of fugitives was not large nor the pecuniary loss heavy, but the South was exasperated by what it considered a petty and contemptible depredation. So there was a demand that the Federal government should undertake and enforce the return ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... is the plow and harness. Failure also is a curative agent, and so also is success. But chiefly do the ideals rebuke conceit. The imagination is God in the soul, and lifting up the possible achievement, the glory of what men may become, shames and makes contemptible what men are. ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis
... which you'll find useful through life. Never go and repeat what you hear about anybody. It's done by people through idleness sometimes, and often through ill-nature, or with a downright evil intention; but whatever is the cause, it's a contemptible propensity, and is certain to lead to harm." I promised that I would follow this advice, and I ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... ethics will hold life to be a privilege and a responsibility, not a sort of night refuge for base spirits out of the void; and the alternative in right conduct between living fully, beautifully, and efficiently will be to die. For a multitude of contemptible and silly creatures, fear-driven and helpless and useless, unhappy or hatefully happy in the midst of squalid dishonour, feeble, ugly, inefficient, born of unrestrained lusts, and increasing and multiplying ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... by Lieutenant Saumarez. Lagos was strongly fortified; the people also had long been trained to arms, and possessed at least 5000 muskets and 60 pieces of cannon, so that the work undertaken was of no contemptible character. As the Bloodhound and Teaser with the boats approached the stockades, they were received with a hot fire from the guns, jingalls, and muskets of the negroes, which was returned with round-shot and rockets from the steamers ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston
... disdains comparison with that of his noble calumniator; a temper unruffled by malignant passions, a mind superior to vicissitude, are gifts for which the pride of doubtful birth, and the temporary possession of Newstead Abbey are contemptible ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... will—Goethe, Schiller, Heine, and the rest—and we still have the folk-songs. A nation that can produce those folk-songs has got unusual gifts for the world. And, of course, we envy the Germans their music. Of all the contemptible utterances that this war has produced (and it has produced a good many) none has been worse than the silly blathering against German music just because it is German. What have Beethoven, Bach, Schubert, Schumann, Wagner got to do with the politics of the present war? Leaving the ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton
... polished; the walls, painted by some wretched artisan of the neighborhood, were a terror to the eye; the stone mantel-piece, ill-carved, "swore" with the handsome clock, which was further degraded by the company of contemptible candlesticks. Like the period which du Bousquier himself represented, the house was a jumble of dirt and magnificence. Being considered a man of leisure, du Bousquier led the same parasite life as the chevalier; and he who does not spend ...
— An Old Maid • Honore de Balzac
... seems that the world is crumbling under our feet, and we sit down in tears as did Adam at Eden's gate. And to cure our griefs we have but to make a movement of the hand and moisten our throats. How contemptible our sorrow since it can be thus assuaged! We are surprised that Providence does not send angels to grant our prayers; it need not take the trouble, for it has seen our woes, it knows our desires, our pride and bitterness, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... rascal! You mean, contemptible cur!" she went on, after an incoherent storm of curses: "You think I'm to work and slave for you always, I suppose, while you're after that Green Street girl and drinking every penny you've got. But you're mistaken, Sam,—indeed, I'll bear it no longer. Damn you, you dirty thief, I've ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various
... person who intends wrong and does right to one who intends right and does wrong," replied Dic. "I know nothing so worthless and contemptible as mistaken good intentions. But we ...
— A Forest Hearth: A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties • Charles Major
... all the folks. As to you," Joe pursued with a countenance expressive of seeing something very nasty indeed, "if you could have been aware how small and flabby and mean you was, dear me, you'd have formed the most contemptible opinion of yourself!" ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... by Lord Londonderry after this business conference, Carson took occasion to refer to a particularly contemptible slander to which currency had been given some days previously by Sir John Benn, one of the Eighty Club strolling seekers after truth. It was perhaps hardly worth while to notice a statement so silly as that ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill
... not only forever to silence his foes, though it accomplished this, for henceforth no man ventured to meet him in public discussion; nor yet did Jesus desire further to humiliate his enemies. In the presence of the people he had already shown them to be ridiculous, contemptible, impotent, and insincere. His real motive was to ask a question, the answer to which would embody the chief of all his claims, namely, the claim that he is divine. It was of supreme importance that this claim should be made at exactly this time. He knew that the rulers had been unable ...
— The Gospel of Luke, An Exposition • Charles R. Erdman
... The title 'A Sunset' was prefixed by the Editor. These lines are inscribed in one of Coleridge's Malta Notebooks. The following note or comment is attached:—'These lines I wrote as nonsense verses merely to try a metre; but they are by no means contemptible; at least in reading them I am surprised at finding them so ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... personal services; and if singular eagerness in pursuit of preferment, and singular homage to the influence of the queen's bed-chamber-woman, could stamp them with shame, the brand would be at once broad and indelible. But it must be remembered, that there are contemptible minds in every profession, that these men acted in direct violation of the principles of their religion, and that the church is no more accountable for the delinquencies of its members, than the courts of law for the morals of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... astonished that He has left us His example, in order that we may ourselves endure with patience all things for our own salvation? He is God, and we are His creatures; He is the Lord, and we are His servants; He is Master of the world, and we are contemptible mortals:—yet He suffered! Why, then, should we not suffer also, particularly when suffering is for us a purification? Therefore, beloved, if my death ought to contribute to His glory, pray that it may come quickly, ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... who're like to secure—as you phrase it—"the spoil." Yes, these be the birds most en evidence now; And by Jingo, my JOE, they are raising a row. They're full of cacophonous fuss, and loud spite; And they don't take their licking as well as they might. In fact, they're a rather contemptible crew; And—well, of which species, dear ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 6, 1892 • Various
... the doing of any great work in ideal art, is the looking upon all foulness with horror, as a contemptible though dreadful enemy. You may easily understand what I mean, by comparing the feelings with which Dante regards any form of obscenity or of base jest, with the temper in which the same things are regarded by Shakspere. ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... Now this was a contemptible thing to suggest; but any one who stoops, as I was letting myself do, to use a cat's-paw to work out his ends will surely soil his fingers. The sword is the clean weapon. I felt that even this Indian would look at me with disdain, but she did not. She thought ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... containing three tea-cups, a tea-pot, and a plate of thick bread-and-butter. All Pen's splendour and magnificence vanished away at this—and he faltered and became quite abashed. "What will they think of us?" he thought: and, indeed, Wagg thrust his tongue in his cheek, thought the tea infinitely contemptible, and leered and winked at Pynsent ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... upon him angrily, "aren't you ashamed? I want you to stop being jealous of all my friends. It is the meanest and most contemptible thing a man can do. I—I won't ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... for humanity as the vast armies and navies that consume the substance of mankind. If we could not obtain Utopia then, we might, at least by abolishing the subnormals and abnormals who constitute the slaves and careerists of society, render the human race less contemptible and more divine. ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.
... soberly. "As for going off my head, Lord bless you, man, it's in the temperament. I might never lose my head in just that way. We're not made alike, you see. Now I should be struck with a dumb devil, and grow surly and cynical as time went on, and of all contemptible men a cynic is the worst. You will have your burst of passion, and carry a tender spot to your grave, but you can't squeeze all the sunshine out of your soul, any more than out ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... to the world, but unto God they were as kinsmen and friends. They seemed unto themselves as of no reputation, and in the world's eyes contemptible; but in the sight of God they were precious and beloved. They stood fast in true humility, they lived in simple obedience, they walked in love and patience; and thus they waxed strong in spirit, and obtained great favour before God. To all religious men ...
— The Imitation of Christ • Thomas a Kempis
... of fort, however contemptible, is a sufficient defense against Indians, who have no cannon. Finding ourselves now posted securely, and having a place to retreat to on occasion, we ventur'd out in parties to scour the adjacent country. ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... be performed? When we find him ordaining measures for the promotion, and measures for the counteraction, of his own plans? When we find him ordaining all the contradictions and vacillations by which human conduct is diversified and disgraced?—when every example of the most contemptible folly that ever turned the laugh, or the sneer, or the frown, or the sentiment of pity upon its immediate perpetrators, can be traced to the free counsels and designs of God, and finds its ...
— The Calvinistic Doctrine of Predestination Examined and Refuted • Francis Hodgson
... been in Paradise, and seen God take a clod of red earth, and make that wretched clod of contemptible earth such a body as should be fit to ...
— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge
... length, that they can turn no way but their infamy becomes more exposed. It is of great importance to set a resolution, not to be shaken, never to tell an untruth. There is no vice so mean, so pitiful, so contemptible; and he who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and third time, till a length it becomes habitual; he tells lies without attending to it, and truths without the world's believing him. This falsehood of the tongue leads to that of the heart, ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... from my writing by her cry that I am making strange faces again. It is my contemptible weakness that if I say a character smiled vacuously, I must smile vacuously; if he frowns or leers, I frown or leer; if he is a coward or given to contortions, I cringe, or twist my legs until I have to stop ...
— Margaret Ogilvy • James M. Barrie
... experience and adventures of the particular cavalry regiment to which he was attached as a major, since, notwithstanding their infinite variety, they were such as all shared whose glory it was to take part with what the Kaiser called the "contemptible little army" of England in the ineffable retreat from Mons, that retreat which saved ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard
... without first of all demonstrating upon what grounds they have the right to be so. Satire is a wholly laudable thing if it is directed in a fair minded manner, but if it is only an excuse for bitter cynicism it is altogether contemptible. Thus he says of the Thackerean treatment of 'Vanity Fair,' 'he was attacking "Vanity Fair" from the inside.' It comes to this: if you want to make an extract from Thackeray you must dive about all over the place to ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... sides with the crown, the power of which then needed strengthening. He supported Tyzenhaus, because of the latter's beneficial activity in the most important direction, that of the economic welfare of the country. After the King's contemptible desertion to the camp of the Confederates of Targowica, all noble and patriotic men in Poland had of course to oppose him. Thus the King, and not Maciek, was the real Cock-on-the-Steeple, and our man of Dobrzyn was really ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... continued, "that in my very humble opinion it was contemptible for a man to marry and allow another man ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... occasions they met, and Browning and Tennyson were alike unrevealed to him. Borrow indeed stands quite apart from the great literature of a period in which he was a striking and individual figure. Lacking appreciation in this sphere of work, he wrote of 'the contemptible trade of author,' counting it less creditable than that ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... to a system, even an ethical system, we in the first place do not say anything at all about the advocates of this system and their moral value. Often enough some noble and fruitful truth has been advocated by men who are personally contemptible, and often enough some dangerous error is propagated by men who are personally very amiable and moral, although the damage which such an error carries with it, must become evident in their lives, on closer observation. Besides, we must ...
— The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and Morality • Rudolf Schmid
... return journey the Captain raged and swore. "A contemptible cad, Sir! a base-born, low-bred cad, Sir! What else could you expect from a fellow of his breeding? The insolence of these lower orders is becoming insupportable. The idea! the very idea! His bank against my family ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
... passions, and never suffer them to carry on any design that may be destructive of its security; yet, at the same time, it must be careful, that it don't so far break their strength as to render them contemptible, and, ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... our engagement and our prospects, in his hopeful congratulations on our future wealth and his despondent references to his own poverty—all equally hollow, and jesting, and full of mockery—I saw it clearly. He made me feel more and more resentful, and more and more contemptible, by always presenting to me everything that surrounded me with some new hateful light upon it, while he pretended to exhibit it in its best aspect for my admiration and his own. He was like the dressed-up Death in the Dutch series; ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... always taken every advantage of size and weight and numbers that he could call to his assistance. He was an insulter of girls and women. He was a bar-room brawler, and a saloon-corner loafer. He was all that was dirty, and mean, and contemptible, and cowardly in the eyes of a brave man, and yet, notwithstanding all this, Billy Byrne was no coward. He was what he was because of training and environment. He knew no other methods; no other code. Whatever the meager ethics of ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... they are men. Still, even while they resist, they revere. While they will rise up against a vexatious impost, they crouch before a system of which the impost is the smallest evil. They smite the tax-gatherer, but fall prostrate at the feet of the contemptible prince for whom the tax-gatherer plies his craft; they will even revile the troublesome and importunate monk, or sometimes they will scoff at the sleek and arrogant priest, while such is their infatuation that they would risk their lives ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various
... reputation Poesie and Poets were in old time with Princes and otherwise generally, and how they be now become contemptible ...
— The Arte of English Poesie • George Puttenham
... for two or three especial patterns which he happened to recollect. When I stopped, he jumped up from his chair and walked up and down in front of me, ejaculating, 'By Jove! this is infernal—I never heard of such a contemptible bit of rascality in my life. I have told my father ever since I came home that these men had bad faces, and I have looked carefully for traces of cheating in their accounts. But they were too cowardly to try it ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson
... same spirit that he drinks and wh***s; Enough if all around him but admire, And now the punk applaud, and now the friar. Thus with each gift of nature and of art, And wanting nothing but an honest heart; Grown all to all, from no one vice exempt; And most contemptible, to shun contempt: His passion still, to covet general praise, His life, to forfeit it a thousand ways; A constant bounty which no friend has made; An angel tongue, which no man can persuade; A fool, with more of wit than half mankind, ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope
... for damages, on the ground of misrepresentation, false pretense and willful intent to damage the reputation and political career of one of the most distinguished men in the state. Another letter was a round robin, signed by several firms, demanding the immediate discharge of "that contemptible practical joker, James Gollop," and still another was from no less person that the Judge of the Fourth District Court, in which what was said of the same James Gollop was enough to wither that unfortunate individual. ...
— Mixed Faces • Roy Norton
... contemptible little hound! Bless my soul, man, I'm engaged to Mrs. Bawdrey's cousin. And as for his stepmother, why, she threw the little worm over as soon as he began making love to her, and tried to make her take up ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... first end is to maintain his office, which is done no less by avoiding what is unfit than by observing what is suitable. Whoever is either too remiss or too strict is no more a king or a governor, but either a demagogue or a despot, and so becomes either odious or contemptible to his subjects. Though certainly the one seems to be the fault of easiness and good-nature, the other of pride ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... dated end might come, the old mixture promised to go on, the great and small, the mean and grand, the call for tears and throbs of the heart alternating with the obstinate curling or curving of lips swift to respond to the vision of the contemptible or the ludicrous. ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... you?" sneered Lem, lurching to and fro. "You're a sneak. Bart Stirling—a low, contemptible ...
— Bart Stirling's Road to Success - Or; The Young Express Agent • Allen Chapman
... but nauseous to the palate of man. It is the same air and the same fruit acting differently upon different beings. To different men a different world—to one all pollution—to another all purity. To the noble all things are noble, to the mean all things are contemptible. ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson
... leads almost inevitably to disintegration of morals, Jose had kept himself untainted. For his vital problems he had now, after many days, found "grace sufficient." In what he had regarded as the contemptible tricks of fate, he was beginning to discern the guiding hand of a wisdom greater than the world's. The danger threatened by Cartagena was, temporarily, at least, averted by Rosendo's magnificent spirit. Under the spur of that ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... my praise, Yet should a singer be," exclaimed the Prince, As with a critical and searching eye He scanned the small competitors for choice. Obedient to his governor, the bird Poured forth his song, oblivious of the crowd Of vain and envious round him, in whose eyes He stood contemptible. The Prince, entranced, Broke forth at length: "Nor hue, nor elegance, Nor fascination, can outvie the gift Of genius. My choice is made." And to the great offence Of one bright bird, at least, the humble ...
— Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812. - A Drama. And Other Poems. • Sarah Anne Curzon
... next day sent a whole shower of balls and shells into the midst of a group of Frenchmen, whose curiosity had brought them to Tika, where Kursheed was forming a battery. "It is time," said Ali, "that these contemptible gossip-mongers should find listening at doors may become uncomfortable. I have furnished matter enough for them to talk about. Frangistan (Christendom) shall henceforth hear only of my triumph or my fall, which will leave it considerable trouble to pacify." Then, after a moment's silence, ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... himself much displeased with this enthusiasm of the ladies of the Faubourg St. Germain, and openly avowed to Countess Ducayla his dissatisfaction with the ridiculous and contemptible behavior of these ladies at that time. He was even of the opinion that it was calculated to injure his cause, as the nation had then not yet pronounced ...
— Queen Hortense - A Life Picture of the Napoleonic Era • L. Muhlbach
... which every repetition of indulgence makes it more difficult to resist; each of these, in succession, becomes a precedent for more, until the standard of proficiency sinks gradually to something almost contemptible. Examinations for degrees at the two great Universities have generally been as slender in their requirements as those for honors are trying and serious. Where there is no inducement to exceed a certain minimum, the minimum comes to be the maximum: it becomes ...
— Considerations on Representative Government • John Stuart Mill
... ground than on one with a brilliant pattern already worked in its texture. But as the very essence of genius is truthfulness, contact with realities, (which are always ideas behind shows of form or language,) nothing is so contemptible as falsehood and pretence in its eyes. Now it is not easy to find a perfectly true woman, and it is very hard to find a perfectly true man. And a woman of genius, who has the sagacity to choose such a one as her companion, shows more of the divine gift in ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... mountaineer was not to be sidetracked so easily. Ollie's poor attempt only showed more clearly that he had purposely refrained from telling Sammy of the might when Young Matt had interfered to save his life. To the simple straight-forward lad of the woods, such a course revealed a spirit most contemptible. Raising his soiled hands and looking straight at Ollie, he said, deliberately, "I'm sorry, seein' as this is the first time we've met, that I can't shake hands with you. ...
— The Shepherd of the Hills • Harold Bell Wright
... can't be purchased. Still, want is the great abomination which distresses me. I can understand that you should have felt everything crumbling when charity appeared to you so insufficient a remedy as to be contemptible. Yet it does bring relief; and, moreover, it is so sweet to be able to give. Some day, too, by dint of reason and toil, by the good and efficient working of life itself, the reign of justice will surely come. But now it's I that am preaching! Oh! I have little taste for ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... was even to the Devils themselves most astonishing, That after all the rest of their Observations they should find this whole immense Work was adapted for, and made subservient to the Use, Delight and Blessing only of one poor Species, in itself small, and in Appearance contemptible; the meanest of all the Kinds supposed to inhabit so many glorious Worlds, as appeared now to be form'd; I mean, that Moon call'd the Earth, and the Creature call'd Man; that all was made for him, upheld by the wise Creator, on his account only, and would necessarily end and cease whenever ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe
... the insurgents was thus raised to about a hundred and fifty—a very small body of men, contemptible in point of numbers compared with the overwhelming forces by which they were opposed, but all animated by a determined spirit, and commanded by fearless and indomitable leaders. The band was divided into three brigades ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles
... fury of the pagan priesthood, than to denounce the craft by which they had their wealth, and to preach that they are no gods which are made by hands. The most degraded wretch, who perishes by the hand of the hangman is not so contemptible in our eyes, as the crucified malefactor was in the eyes of the Roman people; nor could anything more disagreeable to the Jewish nation be invented than the declaration, that the Gentiles should become partakers of the kingdom of God. What ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... lived strenuously as was his way, making "The Freelance" a power in the land. He set himself to found a school of journalists who wrote for the love of truth and scorned the mean and paltry things of life. As with "The Mercury," Denis Quirk made his new organ a censor of all that is contemptible. ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin
... sometimes called we believe La Capital de Majeza; the proper translation of which we conceive to be the Head Quarters of Foolery, for nothing more absurd and contemptible than this Majeza ever came within the sphere of our contemplation. Nevertheless it constitutes the chief glory of the Sevillians. Every Sevillian, male or female, rich or poor, handsome or ugly, ...
— A Supplementary Chapter to the Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... is not pretended, it is real. It arises from his total want of faith in all virtue; he is no more capable of conceiving goodness than she is capable of conceiving evil. To the brutish coarseness and fiendish malignity of this man, her gentleness appears only a contemptible weakness; her purity of affection, which saw "Othello's visage in his mind," only a perversion of taste; her bashful modesty, only a cloak for evil propensities; so he represents them with all the force of language and self-conviction, and we are obliged to listen to him. He ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... exchange purchased an entirely new suit, new hat, and new shoes. The incriminating documents, he placed under the carpet in his room against a time when he might see an opportunity to safely dispose of them to the pecuniary advantage of himself and to the discomfiture of the contemptible ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... quotes his favorite Wei Liao Tzu (ch. 3): "If one man were to run amok with a sword in the market-place, and everybody else tried to get our of his way, I should not allow that this man alone had courage and that all the rest were contemptible cowards. The truth is, that a desperado and a man who sets some value on his life do not meet ...
— The Art of War • Sun Tzu
... philosophical reasonableness, and moral helpfulness are the only available criteria. Saint Teresa might have had the nervous system of the placidest cow, and it would not now save her theology, if the trial of the theology by these other tests should show it to be contemptible. And conversely if her theology can stand these other tests, it will make no difference how hysterical or nervously off her balance Saint Teresa may have been when she was with us ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... ejaculated, inwardly, "I would not have believed it if I hadn't seen it. I knew Jim was a bully and a tyrant, but I didn't think he was as contemptible as ...
— Hector's Inheritance - or The Boys of Smith Institute • Horatio Alger
... as has been said, he was far from vain, on the whole, and in particular he had none of that contemptible vanity which makes a man readily believe that every woman he meets is in love with him. He had not the slightest idea at that time that Annetta, the peasant girl, looked upon him with anything more than the curiosity and vague interest ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... of his situation than from the dignity of his mind; before whom all borrowed greatness sinks into insignificance, and all the potentates of Europe (excepting the members of our own royal family) become little and contemptible! He has had no occasion to have recourse to any tricks of policy or arts of alarm; his authority has been sufficiently supported by the same means by which it was acquired, and his conduct has uniformly been characterized by wisdom, moderation, and ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... excellent than he: thou hast created me of fire, and has created him of clay. God said, Get thee down therefore from Paradise; for it is not fit that thou behave thyself proudly therein: get thee hence; thou shalt be one of the contemptible."—Surat vii. ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... fortune out of an estate that is lying all but barren. Before the emancipation of the niggers, the Bahamas flourished wonderfully; now they are fallen to decay, and ruled, so far as I understand it, by a particularly contemptible crew of native whites, who ought all to be kicked into the sea. My friend's father is a man of no energy; he calls himself magistrate, coroner, superintendent of the customs, and a dozen other things, but seems to have spent his time for years in lying about, smoking and imbibing. ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... having dispassionately thought the matter over, came to conclusion that conduct of HOME SECRETARY was "contemptible." ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 25, 1914 • Various
... A gallant Contemptible has been complaining to me that the Press shows no sense of proportion in the space that it allots to air-raids. Our casualties from that source, he said, are never one tenth as heavy as those in France on ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 3, 1917 • Various
... Strohbach (to Wolf). 'Contemptible cub—we will bounce thee out of this!' [It is inferable that the 'thee' is not intended to indicate affection this time, but to re-enforce and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... to Oxford, the public feeling was expressed still more strongly. Howard's Committee was performed. This play, written soon after the Restoration, exhibited the Puritans in an odious and contemptible light, and had therefore been, during a quarter of a century, a favourite with Oxonian audiences. It was now a greater favourite than ever; for, by a lucky coincidence, one of the most conspicuous characters was an old hypocrite named Obadiah. The audience shouted with delight ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... in your kind as I am in mine, and are not banished from France. I tell you there is nothing to be feared but truth and material persecution. Beyond these two things, enemies can do absolutely nothing; and your enemy is but a contemptible woman, jealous of your beauty and purity." "Write to me. I know you address me by your deeds; but ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... the lives of those who are not of the slightest interest to us. We seem as though we believe that life is in itself something precious. Yet nature teaches us plainly enough that nothing is more worthless and contemptible. In former days people were less besmeared with sentimentalism. Each of us held his own life to be infinitely precious, but he did not profess any respect whatever for the life of others. We were nearer to nature in ...
— A Mummer's Tale • Anatole France
... the situation hopeless was the circumstance that the civilians accepted it with contemptible humility. It was almost pathetic to observe how people, just on the border-line, received with humble thankfulness such crumbs of recognition as were occasionally thrown to them. Snobbery increases in ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully
... and, in lieu of tea in the afternoon, they treat with a glass of sherbet, or capillaire. In a word, I know not a more insignificant set of mortals than the noblesse of Boulogne; helpless in themselves, and useless to the community; without dignity, sense, or sentiment; contemptible from pride. and ridiculous from vanity. They pretend to be jealous of their rank, and will entertain no correspondence with the merchants, whom they term plebeians. They likewise keep at a great distance from strangers, on pretence ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett |
