"Degraded" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... with the moral law, is of the greatest use, not merely for the present purpose of supplementing the impotence of speculative reason, but also with respect to religion. In default of it, either the moral law is quite degraded from its holiness, being made out to be indulgent and conformable to our convenience, or else men strain their notions of their vocation and their expectation to an unattainable goal, hoping to acquire complete ...
— The Critique of Practical Reason • Immanuel Kant
... are very marvellous, but they are not themselves half so wonderful as the way in which they become known to the world. There could be no doubt that Mr. Bonteen's high ambition had foundered, and that he had been degraded through the secret enmity of the Duchess of Omnium. It was equally certain that his secret enmity to Phineas Finn had brought this punishment on his head. But before the Ministry had been a week in office almost everybody knew that it was so. The rumours were full ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... chaos-dragon, or of the serpent of Iranian mythology who sprang from heaven to earth to blight the "good creation''? It is true that the serpent of Eden has mythological affinities. In iii. 14, 15, indeed, he is degraded into a mere typical snake, but iii. 1-5 shows that he was not so originally. He is perhaps best regarded, in the light of Arabian folk-lore, as the manifestation of a demon residing in the tree with the ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... whose gallery you actually hang suspended over the abyss; not but that the tower is in itself rudely simple, and in good taste perhaps, but that one feels this place needs no such accessories, and, instead of deriving advantage from them, is degraded into a mere show by their presence; and, in saying this much, I feel as though the application of ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... Catholics, allowable; or have even given them higher rank undeservedly. John is an instance of this. When he was not accepted by the Catholics at Apamea, and had been driven away from Antioch, you set him over the Tyrians. Humerius also, having been degraded from the diaconite and deprived of the Christian name, you advanced to the priesthood. And as if these seemed to you minor offences, in the boldness of your pride you assaulted the truth itself of apostolic doctrine. That Peter, whose condemnation by my predecessor of holy memory you ...
— The Formation of Christendom, Volume VI - The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations, from St. Leo I to St. Gregory I • Thomas W. (Thomas William) Allies
... only the right, but the duty, of sound citizens to ignore. I do not say that the Eighteenth Amendment falls into this category. But it comes perilously near to doing so, and thousands of the best American citizens think that it actually does do so. It has degraded the Constitution of the United States. It has created a division among the people of the United States comparable only to that which was made by the awful issue of slavery and secession. That issue was a result of deepseated historical causes in the face ...
— What Prohibition Has Done to America • Fabian Franklin
... resolute, in most extreames. He then, that is not furnish'd in this sort, Doth but vsurpe the Sacred name of Knight, Prophaning this most Honourable Order, And should (if I were worthy to be Iudge) Be quite degraded, like a Hedge-borne Swaine, That doth presume to boast of ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... with almost equal vehemence against Mr. Reeve for his having published "such an abominable book," and she charged Sir Arthur Helps to convey to him her deep displeasure. Mr. Reeve, however, was impenitent. When Sir Arthur told him that, in the Queen's opinion, "the book degraded royalty," he replied: "Not at all; it elevates it by the contrast it offers between the present and the defunct state of affairs." But this adroit defence failed to make any impression upon Victoria; and Mr. Reeve, when he retired from the public ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... "I've got to get out of this and begin all over again in some corner of the world where at least one man in ten hasn't forgotten the meaning of common honesty and decency and fair dealing. Heaven knows I'm no saint, but if I stay here this cursed crookedness will get into my blood and I'll be just as degraded as the worst of them. No, I'm not raving; there have been times when I've felt myself slipping—times when I've been tempted to get down and fight with the weapons that everybody fights with in this God-forsaken, law-breaking, ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... that if I could not go into the first cabin, first-cabin passengers could come into the second cabin, and the result justified my anticipations to the fullest extent. Indeed, I soon found myself an object of more general interest than I wished to be; and so far from being degraded by being placed in the second cabin, that part of the ship became the scene of as much pleasure and refinement, during the voyage, as the cabin itself. The Hutchinson Family, celebrated vocalists—fellow-passengers—often came to my rude forecastle ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... recognized the rustic bacchanalian for the first time. He had always had a peculiar antipathy to this young gentleman; but at this moment it was intensified into a loathing. How could he ask assistance from such a degraded creature as this? ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... when she ate a salad, smeared her lovely mouth and cheeks all round with oil to her ears. Some one said something to her about the manner in which the serfs were treated in Poland, whereupon she replied with great vivacity that the Polish serfs were even more degraded and barbarous than those of Russia. Which remark inspired in me certain reflections, which were amply developed in after years by the perusal of Von Moltke's work on Poland, and more recently of that very interesting ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... Bumble do? He looked dejectedly round, and slunk away; and, as he reached the door, the titterings of the paupers broke into a shrill chuckle of irrepressible delight. It wanted but this. He was degraded in their eyes; he had lost caste and station before the very paupers; he had fallen from all the height and pomp of beadleship, to the lowest depth of ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... Meter, "is the very concentration of all evil and the headquarters of the most desperate and degraded representatives of many nations. It swarms with poor little helpless victims, who are born in sin and shame, nursed in misery, want, and woe, and carefully trained to all manner of degradation, vice, and crime. The ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... supernaturalism and secularism. Although the supernaturalists are well entrenched and fortified, it is well to remember that it is the man with vision who finally prevails. The time has passed when the freethinker could be held up to the community as an example of a base and degraded individual. No manner of pulpit drivel can delude even the unthinking masses to this misconception. The freethinker is today the one who beholds the vision, and this vision does not transcend the natural. It is a vision that is earth-bound; ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... crusade against organized vice. Too long neglected by the authorities and the public, the so-called levee districts of the city had fallen into the hands of grafting police officials, who, working with the lowest of degraded of men, had created an open and most brazen vice syndicate. Without going into details, it is enough to say that conditions finally became so scandalous that all Chicago rose in horror and rebellion. The police department was thoroughly ...
— What eight million women want • Rheta Childe Dorr
... to face BOUTEFLIKA in his second term, including the ethnic minority Berbers' ongoing autonomy campaign, large-scale unemployment, a shortage of housing, unreliable electrical and water supplies, government inefficiencies and corruption, and the continuing - although significantly degraded - activities of extremist militants. Algeria must also diversify its petroleum-based economy, which has yielded a large cash reserve but which has not been used to redress Algeria's many social ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... and allowed to remain exposed for three days. An open grave, the upturned soil of which seemed almost entirely composed of dead men's remains, waited to receive the dishonoured corpse, over which three or four Etas, squalid and degraded beings, were mounting guard, smoking their pipes by a scanty charcoal fire, and bandying obscene jests. It was a hideous and ghastly warning, had any cared to read the lesson; but the passers-by on the high road took little or no notice of the ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... How many things would be denied one!—pleasant solitude, simple friendships, even a good name. Those who had too little would envy you and hate you; and if you sought to relieve their distress they would hate you more than ever in their hearts, because you would have degraded them. You would have to be a spendthrift, which is vulgar, or you would have to be a miser, which is mean. There is an old saying in Chinese . . . how shall I put it in your language? Runnings fleet, unhampered feet. You see? The rich have pampered feet. At best they tread soft places. ...
— Everychild - A Story Which The Old May Interpret to the Young and Which the Young May Interpret to the Old • Louis Dodge
... host; "I'm father of that club, and I don't like to see it degraded. If he'd gone for you, and kicked you into the street, I shouldn't have lifted a finger to stop him. He could have made hay of you if I'd chosen, a sickly youngster ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed
... Evors echoed bitterly. "I behaved in a perfectly disgraceful fashion. I degraded the old name, I made it a byword in the district. As sure as I am standing here at the present moment, I am more or less answerable for my mother's death. It is a strange thing with us Evors that ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White
... which the tide of life beat remorselessly for ever. And such life! For very pity the child's heart grew heavy within her often as she looked upon the stream of humanity in these poor streets, on the degraded, hopeless faces, the dull eyes, the languid bearing of those who appeared to have lost interest in, and respect for, themselves. She believed it wholly sad. Standing on the outside, she knew nothing of the homely ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... said Mrs. Ross, to her husband. "In my opinion, mercy would be misplaced in such a case as this. The boy who is degraded enough to steal is likely to continue in his criminal course, and the sooner he is punished ...
— The Tin Box - and What it Contained • Horatio Alger
... rights. They would mix them in all things,—their business, their occupations, their pleasures. It may readily be conceived, that, by thus attempting to make one sex equal to the other, both are degraded; and, from so preposterous a medley of the works of Nature, nothing could ever result, but weak men and ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher
... sarcasm of Mr Pomney. She had once declared, in one of her warmer moments, 'that now-a-days the gentlemen were all women, and the ladies all men.' She could not alter the debased character of the age. But such being the case, why should she take on herself to cater for the amusement of people of such degraded tastes? This question she asked herself more than once, and she could only answer herself with a sigh. There was her own brother Wilfred, on whose shoulders rested the all the ancient honours of Ullathorne House; it was very doubtful whether even he would consent to ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... winter, and the heats of summer, had warped what wreck remained, so that not a post or a board retained the position it was meant to hold, but everything was twisted from its purpose, like its owner, and degraded and debased. In this homestead of the sluggard, behind the ruined hedge, and sinking away among the ruined grass and the nettles, were the last perishing fragments of certain ricks: which had gradually mildewed and collapsed, until they looked like mounds of ...
— Tom Tiddler's Ground • Charles Dickens
... to these qualities of the warrior he added a power of political organization, a capacity for far-reaching combinations, a faculty of statesmanship, which became the heritage of his race, and lifted them as high above the intellectual level of the rulers of their time as their shameless wickedness degraded them below the level of man. His overthrow of Britanny on the field of Conquereux was followed by the gradual absorption of Southern Touraine; a victory at Pontlevoi crushed the rival house of Blois; the seizure of Saumur completed ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green
... her dignified coming. What would an Archbishop be worth for dignity, who should be continually scratching his ears, and brushing his nose, and crossing and re-crossing his legs, and drumming with his fingers? Who would not deem the ermine degraded by a chief justice who should be constantly twitching about upon his bench? It is a fact that has come under the observation of the least observant, that the moment a man surrenders himself to his passions ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... Melodramma, or Tragedia per musica, all of which terms stand in Italian for the conception that Musikdrama stands for in German. The new thing had been in existence for half a century, and was already on the road to the degraded level on which we shall find it when we come to the subject of operatic singing, before it came to be called Opera in musica, of which "opera" is an abbreviation. Now it is to be observed that the composers ...
— How to Listen to Music, 7th ed. - Hints and Suggestions to Untaught Lovers of the Art • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... And suddenly Lucy was really sorry. She had done this, she had degraded her happy brother to a mere milksop, just because he had happened to plant her out, and leave her planted. Remorse suddenly gripped her with tooth ...
— Oswald Bastable and Others • Edith Nesbit
... the East, where it witnessed the extinction of the Princes of the Captivity by the ignominious death of the last sovereign, the downfall of the schools, and the dispersion of the community, which from that period remained an abject and degraded part of the population. During the ninth and tenth centuries the Caliphate fell into weakness and confusion, and split up into several kingdoms under conflicting sovereigns, and at the same time Judaism in the East was distracted by continual disputes between ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... whom she had had raised to the post of footman, took to drink, began to disappear from the house, and wound up by stealing six of the family's silver spoons, and hiding them—until a convenient opportunity—in his wife's chest. This was discovered. He was again degraded to the rank of cow-herd, and a sentence of disgrace was pronounced upon Agafya; she was not banished from the house, but she was reduced from the place of housekeeper to that of seamstress, and ordered ...
— A Nobleman's Nest • Ivan Turgenieff
... not to exaggerate the importance that should be attributed to the phrase degraded energy. If the heat is not equivalent to the work, if heat at 99 deg. is not equivalent to heat at 100 deg., that means that we cannot in practice construct an engine which shall transform all this heat into work, or that, for the same cold source, ...
— The New Physics and Its Evolution • Lucien Poincare
... these Indians have been brought in contact with some of the worst influences of civilization, and in consequence the women have become gross, the men have lost their sense of honor, and the people are manifestly more degraded and harder to reach than the wild Indians on ...
— The American Missionary — Volume 38, No. 06, June, 1884 • Various
... who had been reared from infancy in the house of his master, and who, as if in mockery of his degraded state, had been complimented with the name of Caesar, was the only other witness of this unexpected discovery of the son of Mr. Wharton. After receiving the extended hand of his young master, and imprinting on it a fervent kiss, Caesar withdrew. The boy did not reenter the room; and ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... against the Jesuits. The essay, besides being a picture of the times as regards religion, is an example of what was to be Bacon's characteristic strength and weakness: his strength in lifting up a subject which had been degraded by mean and wrangling disputations, into a higher and larger light, and bringing to bear on it great principles and the results of the best human wisdom and experience, expressed in weighty and pregnant maxims; his weakness in forgetting, as, in spite of his ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church
... both premises are without support. Human nature, even in irresponsible multitudes, is not essentially tyrannical. Let us admit frankly all the degraded sweeps of intolerance in the past; yet has not human nature during recent generations been growing in the tolerant spirit? Look straight at the intelligent society around us; look within ourselves most of all, and let us ask if we see any such intolerance of spirit as would bloom into tyranny if ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 20, July, 1891 • Various
... recorded of anyone else, obtain a sombre reflection from other facts which precede them, and thenceforth cannot be passed over in silence. The historian is obliged to collect and note them, as showing the logical development of this degraded being: he unites them in sequence, and counts the successive steps of the ladder ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - DERUES • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... hours. I secretly mourned over the sorrow I was bringing on my grandmother, who had so tried to shield me from harm. I knew that I was the greatest comfort of her old age, and that it was a source of pride to her that I had not degraded myself, like most of the slaves. I wanted to confess to her that I was no longer worthy of her love; but I could not ...
— Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Written by Herself • Harriet Jacobs (AKA Linda Brent)
... massacred. "Their carriage was still burning as I passed, and the corpses were stretched out not far off. Their driver was still in durance, and it was it vain that I solicited his release."—On the other hand, at Lyons, the power has fallen into the hands of the degraded women of the streets. "They seized the central club, constituted themselves commissaries of police, signed notices as such, and paid visits of inspection to store-houses;" they drew up a tariff of provisions, "from bread and meat up to common peaches, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... it," he said bitterly; then, as Rosamond made no reply, he continued—"she told you, I suppose, of our married life, and painted me the blackest villain that ever trod the earth. This may in part be true, but, Rosamond, though I may never know the bliss of calling you my wife, I cannot be thus degraded in your sight and offer no apology. I was a boy—a self-willed, high- tempered boy, nineteen years of age, and she aggravated me beyond all human endurance, seeking ways and means by which she could provoke me. I loved her at first—nay, ...
— Rosamond - or, The Youthful Error • Mary J. Holmes
... He represented the greatness and the riches of Brazil, and the happiness to which it might attain if independent. He set forth the long and oppressive tyranny of Portugal; and the meanness of submitting to be ruled by so poor and degraded a country. He talked long and eloquently of the services Don Pedro had rendered to Brazil; of his virtues, and those of the Empress: so that at the last, said the girl, "I felt my heart burning in my "breast." Her father, however, had none ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... desecrating many common esculent articles, these Jews have laid the stress and emphasis of religion. They would not resign them; they did not expect others to adopt them—not in any case; a fortiori not from a degraded people. And hence, not by any mysterious operation of Providential control, arose their separation, their resolute refusal to blend with ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... replied Belotti. "Her father has torn her from his heart, and calls Henrica his only daughter. Happiness abandons those who are burdened by a father's curse, and she certainly did not find it. Don Luis is said to have been degraded to the rank of ensign on account of some wild escapades, and who knows what has become of the poor, beautiful signorina. The padrona sometimes sent money to her in Italy, by way of Florence, through Signor Lamperi—but I have ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... and just in applauding it. If there have been exceptions, he has also generally been able to trace their cause to the unpropitious coincidence of narrow circumstances, a defective education, and poverty of intellect. Is it then surprising, that in the hands of such a triumvirate the art should be degraded to an imposture, to the trick of a juggler? but it surely would be a cause of wonder, if, with such leprous members, the sound and respectable body of its professors should escape the suspicion of partaking ...
— The Sylphs of the Season with Other Poems • Washington Allston
... repeat to him before you all:—'Jack, my child, do not let them do it. Throw yourself into the arms of your parents, of your mother who loves you, of your mother's husband, who for her sake must love you. Entreat them, implore them. Ask them what you have done to deserve to be thus degraded, to be ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... he rioted abroad for a brief term, living by his wits—which means by the abuse of every faculty that worthily employed raises man above the beasts, and so degraded, sinks him far below them. It was not long before his body was recognised by a stranger, who chanced to visit that hospital in Paris where the drowned are laid out to be owned; despite the bruises and disfigurements which were said to have been occasioned by some ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... and my jewels and my position in the house. I deny that I have done wrong. Society has used me cruelly; I owe nothing to Society. I have a right to take any advantage of it if I can. I deny that I have injured you. How was I to know that you would come to life again? Have I degraded your name and your character? I have done honor to both. I have won everybody's liking and everybody's respect. Do you think Lady Janet would have loved you as she loves me? Not she! I tell you to your face I have filled the false position more creditably than ...
— The New Magdalen • Wilkie Collins
... of whom he had read in history she was the best. But, he had gone on to say there should be no king or queen. The practice was an absurdity. The reverence paid even to the high office was such as, in his idea, degraded a man. Even in America, the Kotooing which took place before the President's toe was to him an abomination. No man in accordance with his theory should worship another man. Titles should only be used ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope
... the draperies of wealth and luxury, these distinguished men awoke to find themselves within bare walls, full of nail-holes, degraded into abject poverty. ...
— A Daughter of Eve • Honore de Balzac
... social occasions. She lived alone, and was a busy and unprocrastinating housekeeper. She may have made less raspberry jam than in her earlier days, but it was always pound for pound; while her sponge-cake was never degraded in its ingredients from the royal standard of twelve eggs. The honest English and French stuffs that had been used in the furnishing of the captain's house so many years before faded a little as the years passed by, but they ...
— The Life of Nancy • Sarah Orne Jewett
... dogs and that are stained with pounded barley and other corn. The Vahikas drink the milk of sheep and camels and asses and eat curds and other preparations from those different kinds of milk. Those degraded people number many bastards among them. There is no food and no milk that they do not take. The Aratta-Vahikas that are steeped in ignorance, should be avoided.' Thou shouldst know this, O Shalya. I must, however, again speak to thee about what another ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... first place, they excluded the Poor; imitating in a late age the Athenian tradition of a small polite society resting on a large and degraded one. Throughout the 18th century—and the great Whig families were at least as much to blame for this as the Tories—by enclosure of commons, by grants, by handling of the franchise, by taxation, by poor laws in result punitive though ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... friction between the two Houses in the years 1830-1911 resulted in no small degree from the reckless conduct of Pitt in this respect. Vague and sweeping assertions like these can neither be substantiated nor refuted. But the only definite part of them, namely, that Pitt's creations degraded the House of Lords, is obviously overstrained. At no period was the tone of its debates higher than in that of Pitt's supremacy, witness those on Warren Hastings, the disputes with Spain and Russia, ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... half a dozen strong young fellows. Behind them crept a reprobate, degraded priest who got his living and his name of "Couple-Beggar" by performing irregular marriages. The end of it was that Matty was married over again to Casey, whom she had sent for while the dancing was going on. Poor Andy, bound hand and foot, was carried out of ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... it may be agreed on all hands that Sir Joshua Reynolds has not been unduly exalted. Possibly, however, when a man rises or is lifted up to a high pitch of celebrity, it is inevitable that he should in some degree mount upon the prostrate and degraded ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... O sinless one, to this story of a previous existence of mine. O son of an excellent Brahmana, I was formerly a Brahmana, well-read in the Vedas, and an accomplished student of the Vedangas. Through my own fault I have been degraded to my present state. A certain king, accomplished in the science of dhanurveda (science of archery), was my friend; and from his companionship, O Brahmana, I, too became skilled in archery; and one day the king, in company with his ministers and followed by his ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... with figures in glass cases and ex voto offerings. The lousy-looking, dressed-up dolls, life size and tinselly, that stood in the glass cases; the blood-streaked Jesus on the crucifix; the mouldering, mumbling, filthy peasant women on their knees; all the sense of trashy, repulsive, degraded fetish-worship was too much for her. She hurried out, shrinking from the contamination ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... on the wilderness rim," were struck by the painted savages in the primeval woods, huge furnaces belch forth perpetual fires and Huns and Bulgars, Poles and Sicilians struggle for a chance to earn their daily bread, and live a brutal and degraded life. Irresistibly there rushed across my mind the memorable ...
— The Frontier in American History • Frederick Jackson Turner
... his biographer), the Begam, when the mutiny broke out, was actually preparing to attack Thomas. A German officer, known only as the Liegeois, strenuously dissuaded the Begam from the proposed hostilities, and was, in consequence, degraded by Le Vaisseau. The troop then mutinied, and swore allegiance to Zafar Yab Khan. ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... of our children's sayings, last night. Which reminds me that last week I sent down and got Susie a vast pair of shoes of a most villainous pattern, for I discovered that her feet were being twisted and cramped out of shape by a smaller and prettier article. She did not complain, but looked degraded and injured. At night her mamma gave her the usual admonition when she was about to say ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... our ease and without restraint," he remarked to Kai Lung. "It will be a distinguished privilege for a person occupying the important public position which you undoubtedly do; for myself, my instincts are so degraded and low-minded that nothing gives me more gratification than to ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah
... asked of some of the plantation superintendents, on the voyage, was, "Do these people appreciate justice?" If they did it was evident that all the rest would be easy. When a race is degraded beyond that point it must be very hard to deal with them; they must mistake all kindness for indulgence, all strictness for cruelty. With these freed slaves there is no such trouble, not a particle: let an officer be only just and ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... misery of my own degraded position! I ask for nothing save that God, in his mercy, will free me from it, I care not how! I look despairingly on all sides, and see no escape! I am bound, hand and foot, by the chains of my own noble birth, and shut within the iron walls of circumstance. ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... the friends that to me were so dear, Long, long ago—long ago! Where are the hopes that my heart used to cheer? Long, long ago—long ago! I am degraded, for man was my foe, Friends that I loved in the grave are laid low, All hope of freedom hath fled from me now, Long, long ago—long, ...
— The Anti-Slavery Harp • Various
... himself to leave them: he was afraid of going home and of being left alone face to face with his soul, his desires, and remorse. He was going to the dogs: he knew it: he was doing it deliberately,—with cruel clarity he saw in Friedemann the degraded image of what he was—of what he would be one day: and he was passing through a phase of such disheartenedness and disgust that instead of being brought to himself by such a menace, it actually brought ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... pass away, and the many must no longer suffer that the few may shine. Our religion must teach the brotherhood of the race, the essential oneness of humanity, and our government must be based on the broad principles of equal rights to all. A religion that seeks to make the people satisfied in their degraded conditions, and releases them from all responsibility for its continuance, is unworthy our intelligent belief, and a government that holds half its people in slavery, practically chained where they are born, in ignorance, poverty, and vice, is ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 21, August, 1891 • Various
... Philadelphia), will turn away from a negro, or coloured man, with disdain. It is the same thing in the Eastern States, notwithstanding their religious professions. In fact, in the United States, a negro, from his colour, and I believe his colour alone, is a degraded being. Is not this extraordinary, in a land which professes universal liberty, equality, and the rights of man? In England this is not the case. In private society no one objects to sit in company with a man of colour, provided he has the necessary education and respectability. Nor, indeed, ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... which the strata have in many places suffered, independently of the rate of accumulation of the degraded matter, probably offers the best evidence of the lapse of time. I remember {285} having been much struck with the evidence of denudation, when viewing volcanic islands, which have been worn by the waves and pared all round into perpendicular ...
— On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection • Charles Darwin
... the American people is to unloosen the thraldom of the "System" on our financial mechanism; to pluck out of their high places the dishonest usurpers who have degraded the purposes of our financial institutions, and to restore those institutions to their legitimate functions. When the people are fully awakened to the condition I describe, surely they will arise in their wrath and sweep the money-changers ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... Chatelain, for nothing comes quicker to the minds of the honored and happy than the thought of resenting an evil turn. It is not so with the despised. Revenge would be an idle remedy for us. Would it raise us in men's esteem? should we forget our own degraded condition? should we be a whit nearer respect after the deed was done than ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... and intellectually, France was at the lowest ebb. The masses of the people were in a degraded condition of squalid poverty and debasement. Still the king, by enormous taxation, succeeded in wresting from his wretched subjects an income to meet the expenses of his court, amounting to about four millions of our money. But the outlays were so enormous that even ...
— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... as though something of herself, of her person, had been thus exposed and degraded; all that she held sacred pilloried, gibbeted, and exhibited to the world's derision. Tears of anguish sprang to her eyes, a red flame of outraged modesty ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... density, limited land access, and strict internal and external security controls have kept economic conditions in the Gaza Strip - the smaller of the two areas under the Palestinian Authority (PA)- even more degraded than in the West Bank. The beginning of the second intifadah in September 2000 sparked an economic downturn, largely the result of Israeli closure policies; these policies, which were imposed to address security concerns in Israel, disrupted labor and trade access to and from the Gaza Strip. In ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... impossible, futile; of which nothing has been more impossible and futile than this very sortie which has brought him into contact with it. People nowadays allow infinitely too little for the psychological sense of victory as a factor in affairs. Then he was attacking the degraded but undoubtedly victorious Quin; now he is attacking the interesting but totally ...
— The Napoleon of Notting Hill • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... conference ended. I walked out of the study a very different being from what I was on entering it. I had gone in with the air of a professor about to deliver a lecture; I came out like a student who had failed in his examination, and been degraded in his class. ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... I think we are all of us scoundrels and hypocrites. I myself am a degraded old man, and as useless as a cast-off shoe. I abuse myself as much as any one else. I was rich once, and free, and happy at times, but now I am a dependent, an object of charity, a joke to the world. When I am at last exasperated and defy them, they ...
— Ivanoff - A Play • Anton Checkov
... prodigal son, the Pharisee and the publican; in his private teachings to his disciples; and, above all, by his daily example he taught and illustrated, as the leading characteristics of his kingdom, love to God, the brotherhood of man, the rights of all, however poor, degraded, or despised. More, he makes this idea of brotherhood and equality even with himself, the great test in the judgment. Matt. 25:40, 45: "And the king shall answer, and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done ...
— Is Slavery Sanctioned by the Bible? • Isaac Allen
... Moabite, and the Assyro-Babylonian, than between either of these and the Aramaic. The Aramaic is scanty both in variety of grammatical forms and in vocabulary; the Phoenician and Assyro-Babylonian are comparatively copious.[36] The Aramaic has the character of a degraded language; the Assyro-Babylonian and the Phoenician are modelled on a primitive type.[37] In some respects Phoenician is even closer to Assyro-Babylonian than Hebrew is—e.g. in preferring at to ah for ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... public life. I have heard it said that even the manliest fellow, who has become an actor, is liable to be filled to a bursting gorge with hatred of the pretty woman who may snatch from him a round of applause; and assuredly every nature is liable to be soured, inflamed, and degraded by those appearances before the gallery of the public meeting, the watchful voters, the echoing Press, and all the other agencies that create ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... He was filled with impotent fury. And was it this pass, indeed, he asked himself, to which every human creature must needs come one day? Would he, Roger Ormiston, one day, find himself thus weak and broken; his body—now so lively a source of various enjoyment—degraded into a pest-house, a mere dwelling-place of suffering and corruption? The young man gripped the high, narrow mantel-shelf with both hands and pressed his forehead down between them. He really had not the nerve to watch what was going forward over there any longer. It was too painful. ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... of rags, under all that dull incumbrance of imperfect physical organs that cramped and stifled it, there dwelt a soul; and the soul of man knows its own worth, and is proud. The coarsest, most degraded drudge still harbors in his wretched house of clay a divine guest. There is that in the convict and slave which stirs yet at an insult. And even in this lank, half-witted lad, the despised and outcast of years, there abode a sense of inalienable dignity,—an immanent instinct ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... each successive editor. Greatest of the additions to the substance of the cycle was the story of the Holy Grail, originally an altogether independent legend. Important changes necessarily developed. Arthur himself, in many of the romances, was degraded from his position of the bravest knight to be the inactive figurehead of a brilliant court; and the only really historical element in the story, his struggle against the Saxons, was thrust far into the background, ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... degraded, and least intellectual tribes of Northern Asia and America have purer notions of a Spiritual Deity than were possessed of old by the worshipers of Jupiter and Juno under Pericles."—Progression by Antagonism. This, according to Lord Lindsay's theory, is to be accounted for by the absence of ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... Frederick von Kammacher. He felt mortally ashamed. Never, it seemed to him, in his whole life had he so degraded himself. ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... John. "It is a sure sign that a people have fallen into a degraded and uncivilised condition when women do not hold an honourable position among them. But there are some savages who treat their females even worse than these do. From what I have seen, they appear in many respects kind and gentle to them. The Australian savage—who is, however, the lowest in the ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston
... state and left him these. He felt sad and grim, and, try as he would—he could not help showing it for a moment. It was always his business and his intention to conceal his real feelings, but now it was not quite possible. He felt degraded, impossible, in these clothes, and he knew that he looked it. Nevertheless, he did his best to pull himself together and look unconcerned, willing, obedient, considerate of those above him. After all, he said to ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... are not again to be permitted to enter the Army, nor at any time hereafter to be enlisted in the service of the country. It is desirable and highly important that the ranks of the Army should be composed of respectable, not degraded, materials. Those who can be so lost to the obligations of a soldier as to abandon a country which morally they are bound to defend, and which solemnly they have sworn to serve, are unworthy, and ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, - Vol. 2, Part 3, Andrew Jackson, 1st term • Edited by James D. Richardson
... locomotion, but the fundamental trunk muscles with those that move the large joints are more or less spasmodically active. Then comes creeping, with use of the hip muscles, while all below the knee is useless, as also are the fingers. Slowly the leg and foot are degraded to locomotion, slowly the great toe becomes more limited in its action, the thumb increases in flexibility and strength of opposition, and the fingers grow more mobile and controllable. As the body slowly assumes the vertical attitude, the form of the chest changes till its ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... right. The truth of history, the law of this land, and of all lands where there is any law which marks a boundary between legal right and despotic usurpation, unite to denounce, and will forever condemn, the judicial magistrate whose great name is tarnished and whose "great office" is degraded by this political pronunciamento, uttered from the loftiest judicial place ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... we went down the valley along the craggy ridges of the winding creek. The woodland on the opposite bank was vocal with the chirp and croak and chatter of Australian birds,—all mirthful, all songless, save that sweetest of warblers, which some early irreverent emigrant degraded to the name of magpie, but whose note is sweeter than the nightingale's, and trills through the lucent air with a distinct ecstatic melody of joy that dominates all the discords, so ravishing the sense, that, while it sings, the ear scarcely heeds ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... when I approach Her loveliness, so absolute she seems And in herself complete, so well to know Her own, that what she wills to do or say, Seems wisest, virtuousest, discreetest, best: All higher knowledge in her presence falls Degraded; Wisdom in discourse with her Loses discountenanced, and like Folly shows; Authority and Reason on her wait, As one intended first, not after made Occasionally; and, to consummate all, Greatness of mind and Nobleness their seat Build in her loveliest, ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... been related, that in the kingdom of Yemen there was a sultan who had three sons, two of whom were born of the same mother, and the third of another wife, with whom becoming disgusted from some caprice, and having degraded her to the station of a domestic, he suffered her and her son to live unnoticed among the servants of the haram. The two former, one day, addressed their father, requesting his permission to hunt: upon which he presented them each with ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.
... of degraded me. He wanted to bully me because he hadn't got me. And then I felt as if I wanted to run, as if I was fastened and bound up. And ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... we also know that the product of this diversified inefficiency is what constitutes the decadence and the degeneracy of the human race. Is it any wonder that mistakes occur, that heartaches abound, and that homes are degraded? ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol. 3 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... considerable resistance and obloquy, but ultimately with triumphant success. This, however, he never attempted, and must therefore be classed, in this respect, with such writers as Byron, whose powers gilded their pollutions, less than their pollutions degraded and defiled their powers; nay, perhaps he should be ranked even lower than the noble bard, whose obscenities are not so gross, and who had, besides, to account for them the double palliations ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... hath been said indeed[d], that if a baron waste his estate, so that he is not able to support the degree, the king may degrade him: but it is expressly held by later authorities[e], that a peer cannot be degraded but ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... was appointed by the commander of the fort to take charge. Here we struck the plains proper, or the great American desert, as it was often called, the home of the desperate Indians, degraded half-breeds, and the squaw man—white men with Indian wives—who were at that time either French or Spanish; also the fearless hunters and trappers with nerves of steel, outdoing the bravest Indian in daring ...
— Dangers of the Trail in 1865 - A Narrative of Actual Events • Charles E Young
... a few free men; but the greater part are slaves degraded to beasts of burden. The immense weights they carry are usually fastened on a plank, each end of which is borne by a negro, keeping time to his steps by a monotonous and melancholy song in his ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue
... board to inquire into my political conduct, and blaming me as a person disaffected to government. Sir, you are a husband and a father: you know what you would feel, to see the much-loved wife of your bosom, and your helpless prattling little ones, turned adrift into the world, degraded and disgraced, from a situation in which they had been respectable and respected. I would not tell a deliberate falsehood, no, not though even worse horrors, if worse can be than those I have mentioned, hung over my head, and I say that the allegation, whatever villain has ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... would ensue. In addition to this, John told me that his master whipped him regularly three times a week for the first two months:—and all this to "tame him." A more noble looking man than he, was not to be found in all St. Louis, before he fell into the hands of More; and a more degraded and spirit-crushed looking being was never seen on a southern plantation, after he had been subjected to this "taming" process for three months. The last time that I saw him, he had nearly lost the entire ...
— The Narrative of William W. Brown, a Fugitive Slave • William Wells Brown
... them as "thieves and liars," and then asked them, "Is it not true?" Imagining, doubtless, that he was declaiming their praises, the enthusiastic assemblage responded, "Si! si!" (Yes! yes!) Not a crime so gross, nor a trait of character so degraded, but he laid it to their charge, receiving always the same ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... the light of such a narrative we are able to perceive how wretched was the lot of an Acadian Indian, even during the period when his very name carried terror to the hearts of the settlers of Maine and New Hampshire. Modern civilization may have degraded him in some respects but it has at least rescued him from the danger of starvation and also from the cruel necessity of abandoning his kindred to perish when unable longer to supply their own wants or endure the constant ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond
... think America immoral and degraded because American divorce laws are different from the English laws, let him think it!—but he has no business to air his views to an American—at a first visit, too!" said Daphne passionately, and, drawing herself up, she swept out of the room, ...
— Marriage a la mode • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Master of Arts at College, and also to professional men, eminent merchants, military officers, and mates of vessels, and their wives and daughters monopolized the epithet "Mrs." Mr. Josiah Plastow, when he had stolen four baskets of corn from the Indians, was degraded into plain Josiah. "Mr." seems to have meant simply "My Sir," and the clergy were often called "Sir" merely, a title given also to college graduates, on Commencement programmes, down to the time of the Revolution. And so strong was the Puritan dislike to the idolatry ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... blood upon it. For me, I accept my destiny. I'm a pariah, an outcast. I'll live to do evil, to square accounts with the race that has made me what I am. I'll go back to that camp, and leave it with whatever negro will have me, and when I'm so degraded I don't care for anything, I'll go out and ruin every white man I can. I'll keep the money you gave me, so that I'll be ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... to hear the case. She was a near relative of Chirikaloma, and was going up the river to her husband, when the old man (at whose house she was now a prisoner) caught her, took her servant away from her, and kept her in the degraded state we saw. The withes with which she was bound were green and sappy. The old man said in justification that she was running away from Chirikaloma, and he would be offended with him if ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... night! Those who recall the last evenings of July, 1914, and the even more beautiful evening of the first day of August, must keep in their minds the wonderful splendour of Nature, as with a smile of pity she stretched out her arms to the degraded, self-devouring human race. ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain
... seemed to be expected, the mean use to which the Baronet's faculties had been degraded on this melancholy occasion, Mr. Glossin offered to officiate as clerk or assessor, or in any way in which he could be most useful. 'And with a view to possessing you of the whole business, and in the first place, there will, I believe, be no difficulty in proving the main fact, ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... giantess, a virago of the first magnitude—and she was evidently the only thing in the world of which Usanga stood in awe. Even though she was particularly cruel to the young woman, the latter believed that she was her sole protection from the degraded black tyrant. ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... you are at the end of your work. Why, you are only beginning. Now comes the real brain work; invention. Now are craniology and you upon your trial. But you are quite right about weekly salary. Invention must not be so degraded, but paid by the piece. Life, Labor, and Capital are upside down in this place, are they? Then you shall be the man to set them ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... had no doubt as to what the sentence of the court would be—death and degradation—but thought that physical fatigue and great depression must have caused a general breakdown. The end every one knows. He was condemned to be shot and degraded. The first part of the sentence was cancelled on account of his former services, but he was degraded, imprisoned, escaped, and finished his life in Spain in poverty and obscurity, deserted by all his friends and his wife. It was a melancholy rentree for the Duc d'Aumale. His thoughts must have gone ...
— My First Years As A Frenchwoman, 1876-1879 • Mary King Waddington |
