"Demoralizing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... its anniversaries and its dragging, interminable weeks: demoralizing summer, when Mrs. Mayo quite frankly appeared at her side window in a dressing sacque, and Honora longed to do the same. But time never stands absolutely still, and the day arrived when Mr. Beckwith called in a carriage. Honora, with an audibly beating heart, got into it, and they drove down town, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... the American press, nine tenths of our journals abandoned many years ago the abominable practice of regularly publishing police cases; and that, making every allowance, English newspapers at present publish on an average ten times as much demoralizing matter as ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... are producing moral havoc and disaster among the princes of wealth in this country. Mr. Carnegie has said that a man who dies rich dies disgraced, but there is even greater reason to believe that to be born rich is to be born damned. The inheritance of vast fortunes is always demoralizing. ...
— The Common Sense of Socialism - A Series of Letters Addressed to Jonathan Edwards, of Pittsburg • John Spargo
... when they alone are in question; and for mankind generally, though possibly not for an exceptional man like Huxley, an impotent suspension of judgment on such issues as a future life or the Being of God is both unsatisfying and demoralizing. ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... of the ultimate results of slavery. He wished—it had been accounted sensible in his family to wish—that slavery had never existed. Having existed, they never thought of favoring its extinction. They thought it corrupting and demoralizing to the white race. They felt that it was separating them, year by year, farther and farther from that independent self-relying manhood, which had built up American institutions and American prosperity. They feared the fruit of this demoralization. ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... other's throats—literally and without restraint. A strong hand was needed—a hand that could weld the warring elements into one, and push Russian trade far down from Alaska to New Spain, driving off the field those foreigners whose relentless methods—liquor, bludgeon, musket—were demoralizing the Indian ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... little account. Swift could not, had he even known everything, write the true story of the negotiations for publication at the time. In the first place, he would never have attempted it—the facts would have been demoralizing; and in the second place, had he accomplished it, its publication would have been a matter for much more serious consideration than was given even to the story he did write. For Swift's purpose, it was much better that he did not know the full extent of the ministry's ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... population; where there was a numerous peasantry, a trading middle class struggling into existence; the system of Dutch finance, pursued more or less for nearly a century and a half, has ended in the degradation of a fettered and burthened multitude. Nor have the demoralizing consequences of the funding system on the more favoured classes been less decided. It has made debt a national habit; it has made credit the ruling power, not the exceptional auxiliary, of all transactions; it ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... reproduce itself in any country to which we may export them; and the types can be several, as our territory is so great and demands so varied, but blood and breeding must be the standard for each type. Our fancy breeders have a standard now, called a "time standard," which is purely a gambling standard, demoralizing in all its tendencies to both man and beast. With this the government need have nothing to do, for it will die out of itself as the masses learn more of it, and especially would it cease to be, once the government established a blood standard for the breeding of all ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 611, September 17, 1887 • Various
... obdurate, reprobate, past praying for; culpable, reprehensible &c (guilty) 947. unjustifiable; indefensible, inexcusable; inexpiable, unpardonable, irremissible^. weak, frail, lax, infirm, imperfect; indiscrete; demoralizing, degrading. Adv. wrong; sinfully &c adj.; without excuse. Int. O tempora!^, O mores!, Phr. alitur vitium vivitque tegendo [Vergil]; genus est mortis male vivere [Lat.] [Ovid]; mala mens malus animus [Lat.] ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... and as a consequence, have felt impelled to look in on Williams and VanHorne every day—sometimes oftener. I am unable to dismiss my speculations from my thoughts. I find myself wondering what has happened to the stocks I am carrying, and I am satisfied that the practice is thoroughly demoralizing to my self-respect and to my progress. I am ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... or self-will, by [25] demoralizing his motives and Christlikeness, would have dethroned his ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... the men had dealt with them. It was the system which permitted human beings to come into relations of superiority and inferiority to one another which was the cause of the whole evil. Power over others is necessarily demoralizing to the master and degrading to the subject. Equality is the only moral relation between human beings. Any reform which should result in remedying the abuse of women by men, or workingmen by capitalists, must therefore be addressed to equalizing their economic condition. Not till the women, as ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... but it is not true, for Dickens never saw the wind thus, else his metaphors would have been less mixed. What we see truly with our imagination we see clearly, and the metaphors born of clear sight are ever pure. Hence such description is extravagant because untrue; hence such description is demoralizing because extravagant, immoderate. ...
— Lectures on Russian Literature - Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenef, Tolstoy • Ivan Panin
... gainsaid that there are races on the globe which are incapable of assimilating the higher forms of civilization, but which might well be made to render valuable services in the lower without either suffering injustice themselves or demoralizing others. And it seems nowise impossible that one day these reserves may be mobilized and systematically employed in virtue of the principle that the weal of the great progressive community necessitates such a distribution ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... unobjectionable as was possible, and that the works were admirably regulated; but it was in going over the distillery as a curiosity he had seen enough to perceive that it was a line in which enterprise and exertion could only find scope by extending the demoralizing sale of spirits, and he trusted to Phoebe's agreeing with him, that when he already had a profession fairly free from temptation, it was his duty not to put himself into one that might prove more full of danger to him than to one who had been ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... labour, would alone be sufficient to account for the prevalence of the idle custom of losing at least one day every week in busy times, and the drinking habits, which are a blot upon a population of superior intelligence. But a still more demoralizing influence exists in the state of the dwellings of the working classes in Birmingham, which, although at first sight very attractive in appearance, forming neat courts of cottages, compared with the crowded lodging-houses of many manufacturing towns, are, nevertheless, ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney
... in his government of India. His interest in that country was of old date. It arose partly from the fact of William Burke's residence there, partly from his friendship with Philip Francis, but most of all, we suspect, from the effect which he observed Indian influence to have in demoralizing the House of Commons. "Take my advice for once in your life," Francis wrote to Shee; "lay aside 40,000 rupees for a seat in parliament: in this country that alone makes all the difference between somebody and nobody." The relations, moreover, between the East India Company and ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... 5, '87. MY DEAR CHATTO,—Look here, I don't mind paying the tax, but don't you let the Inland Revenue Office send me any more receipts for it, for the postage is something perfectly demoralizing. If they feel obliged to print a receipt on a horse-blanket, why don't they hire a ship and send it over at their ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... them for some wise purpose,' as you have quoted, any more than a just and loving human father would teach, or permit, his son to become a criminal, claiming that he needed such discipline to fit him for future happiness; or, any more than you, a teacher, would put demoralizing literature into the hands of a student as a method of discipline for ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... of Swift's political and religious bias]), the author is mildly pleased with the first three voyages. But he finds intolerable the satire on human nature in the last, here echoing Addison's criticism of the demoralizing effect of a satire on mankind (Spectator 249, 5 ...
— A Letter From a Clergyman to his Friend, - with an Account of the Travels of Captain Lemuel Gulliver • Anonymous
... demoralizing influence of so-called civilization! While in the elegant counting-rooms of polished millionaires in more eastern localities we had occasionally met with insults and snubs; in this place of reputed "roughs" we received not one rebuff, and were greeted not merely with respect, ...
— The World As I Have Found It - Sequel to Incidents in the Life of a Blind Girl • Mary L. Day Arms
... narrow limits, caused a general breakdown in the old arrangements for providing water, drainage, and fresh air; and made rents high, and consequently living in crowded rooms necessary. The factory towns in the early part of the century were filthy, crowded, and demoralizing, compared alike with their earlier ...
— An Introduction to the Industrial and Social History of England • Edward Potts Cheyney
... country, and to promote the religious and moral habits of the people." In the lords the address was voted nem. con.; in the commons it met with animadversion from Lord Althorp and Sir Samuel Romilly, who deprecated the demoralizing system of espionnage, as well as the arbitrary imprisonment and tyrannical persecutions which had lately been carried on by government; but the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... the more wretched is her life. Married women are so afraid of resembling the professional dancing girls, that they cannot be persuaded to learn anything the latter are taught. If a Brahman woman is rich her life is spent in demoralizing idleness; if she is poor, so much the worse, her earthly existence is concentrated in monotonous performances of mechanical rites. There is no past, and no future for her; only a tedious present, from which there is no possible escape. And this only if ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... The men were flattering the dude, and flattery is always based on design and a selfish motive. Beware of the flatterer in the first place. Eschew gambling—if you are only playing for fun it costs as much as though you were playing to make money. It is demoralizing every time, and often leads to greater crime. Gambling is a very dangerous amusement. These men were working the dude, and it is, as we have intimated, an actual incident we are describing. The conversation we ...
— Oscar the Detective - Or, Dudie Dunne, The Exquisite Detective • Harlan Page Halsey
... nothing so demoralizing to regular troops as employment on police duty which requires them to work singly or in small squads. Discipline speedily goes to the dogs and ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester
... demoralizing interruption to talk is poor table-service. There can be no good conversation at table where the talk is constantly interrupted by wordy instructions to servants. A hostess who takes pride in the table-talk of her guests assures herself in advance that the maid or the butler serving the ...
— Conversation - What to Say and How to Say it • Mary Greer Conklin
... must not hesitate to use constantly his voice as a protest against all forms of evil. This duty is the more incumbent upon him as there are none among the people to protest and to denounce the most flagrant, demoralizing and universal evils of the land. One of the most discouraging things concerning the situation in India is, not the universality of certain evils, but the utter absence of those who dare to withstand them and denounce them as sins before all the people. Missionaries have done more ...
— India's Problem Krishna or Christ • John P. Jones
... and so on; but you are as well aware as I am that the subject has been mixed with a heap of nonsense both by Jews and Christians. And as to the connection of our race with Palestine, it has been perverted by superstition till it's as demoralizing as the old poor-law. The raff and scum go there to be maintained like able-bodied paupers, and to be taken special care of by the angel Gabriel when they die. It's no use fighting against facts. We must look ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... am sure is baneful in its moral tendency; for I am satisfied that a sinful course of life increases the tendency to mental derangement, as well as to bodily disease; and I am as certain that an unhealthy state of mind and body has generally a demoralizing influence; and I consider light, air, and the power of seeing something beyond the mere monotonous walls of a cell highly important. I am aware that air is properly admitted, also light; still I do think they ought to see the sky, the changes in which make it a ...
— Elizabeth Fry • Mrs. E. R. Pitman
... young people are possessed of good intentions and would respond to amusements less demoralizing and dangerous, if such were available at no greater cost than ...
— Home Missions In Action • Edith H. Allen
... the Danube (see Figure 18). Rome soon became mistress of the whole Mediterranean world. Her ships plied the seas, her armies and governors ruled the land. The introduction of wealth, luxuries, and slaves from the new provinces, which followed their capture, soon had a very demoralizing influence upon the people. Private and public religion and morality rapidly declined; religion came to be an empty ceremonial; divorce became common; wealth and influence ruled the State; slaves became very cheap and abundant, and were used for almost every type of service. From a land of farmers ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... in the national convention only a President and a Vice-President are nominated. In state and county conventions, where often candidates for a dozen or more offices are to be nominated, it was often subject to demoralizing bartering. ...
— The Boss and the Machine • Samuel P. Orth
... Company, a code of "Laws, Divine, Moral, and Martial," to which no parallel can be found in the severest legislation of New England. An invaluable service to the colony was the abolition of that demoralizing socialism that had been enforced on the colonists, by which all their labor was to be devoted to the common stock. He gave out land in severalty, and the laborer enjoyed the fruits of his own industry and ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... of his own importance and merits, it arouses latent brutality, it fosters grandiose thinking (that terribly harmful vice of nearly all our statesmen). Indeed, most of the cruelty and injustice in the world are due to the demoralizing influence of authority. And that is why there were some amongst us who would not have accepted promotion whatever material advantages ...
— Combed Out • Fritz August Voigt
... much; besides, we get to be such slaves to it that we'd gladly hurt our bodies for the sake of it. It's the most demoralizing, hard-to-break habit on earth. But glory to God! I'm saved and sanctified now, and I'll tell you how it ...
— Fifteen Years With The Outcast • Mrs. Florence (Mother) Roberts
... preliminary "bakhshish," to show or even to tell where certain ruins, concerning which they spoke or romanced, are found in their hills. And yet there are theologians who would raise Poverty, the most demoralizing of all conditions, to the rank of ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... international Socialist movement. We unreservedly reject the policy of those Socialists who supported their belligerent capitalist governments on the plea of 'national defense,' and who entered into demoralizing compacts for so-called civil peace with the exploiters of labor during the war and continued a political alliance with ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto
... undoubtedly has much to do with the swollen homicide statistics of the United States. Vicious and corrupting customs, such as compulsory social drinking, and the like, undoubtedly greatly influence crime. Even the luxury and extravagance of the rich might easily be shown to have a demoralizing effect, both upon the upper and the lower ...
— Sociology and Modern Social Problems • Charles A. Ellwood
... boarding-houses,—numbering be it remembered between 11,000 and 12,000 girls and women,—two thirds of them lack the use of a sitting-room and must entertain men as well as women in their bedrooms. Not a few indications were seen in the course of the investigation of the demoralizing results of this practice. Many of the young women in lodgings were young and were friendless and were earning very low pay. Eighteen per cent of those who were reported without the use of a sitting-room were under twenty-five. The housing or food, ...
— The Social Emergency - Studies in Sex Hygiene and Morals • Various
... great exception to divorce or to be divorced. The only class amongst whom it is at all common is the class of hangers-on to our Administration, the clerks and policemen, and so on. I fear there is little that is good to be said of many of them. It is terrible to see how demoralizing our contact is to all sorts and conditions of men. To be attached to our Administration is almost a stigma of disreputableness. I remember remarking once to a headman that a certain official seemed to be quite regardless of public opinion in his life, and asked him ...
— The Soul of a People • H. Fielding
... from the year 1748 to 1783, encroached on the hunting grounds of the Indians and explored the wilderness, seeking out the remote tribes and trading the villainous rum for the rare pelts. In 1784 the French authorities, realizing that these vagrants were demoralizing the Indians, warned them to get off the soil. Finding this course ineffectual they arrested those that could be apprehended and sent them to Canada. But it was too late: the harm had been done: the poor, ignorant savage had tasted of the terrible ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... unprincipled and designing parties. When my son Cuthbert entered —— University, he was all that my fond heart desired, all that his sainted mother could have hoped, and no young gentleman on the wide Continent gave fairer promise of future usefulness and distinction; but one year of demoralizing association with dissipated and reckless youths undermined the fair moral and intellectual structure I had so laboriously raised, and in an unlucky hour he fell a victim to alluring vices. Intemperance gradually gained such supremacy that he was threatened with expulsion, and to ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... reaction of the conquest would seem to have been upon the morals of the conqueror. In Greece she found a spring of corruption; so also in Egypt; and the student, having exhausted the subject, will close the books assured that the flow of the demoralizing river was from the East westwardly, and that this very city of Antioch, one of the oldest seats of Assyrian power and splendor, was a principal source of ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... measure, the product of environment. Yet it would be injustice to Frederick Douglass to say that he was great simply because of environment. He was great in spite of environment. Born a slave, subjected in his youth and early manhood to all the degrading, stultifying, demoralizing influences of slavery, he has left behind him, after a public life long and varied and stormy, a name as clean and spotless as driven snow. Take notice of this, young men, you who have ambitions, you who are aspiring to public place, position, and power. Take notice that a public ...
— The Upward Path - A Reader For Colored Children • Various
... this, Liane ended her pensive moment by leaning toward Lanyard and making demoralizing eyes, while the hand left his and stole with a caressing ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... employee is off duty, she should not be allowed to remain with or to talk to the other employee or employees who are still on duty. When her work is finished, she ought to leave her employer's house. The non-observance of either of these two points produces a demoralizing effect. ...
— Wanted, a Young Woman to Do Housework • C. Helene Barker
... But we are hunting for him." Cutty had not explained his interest in Gregor. Those plaguey stones again. They were demoralizing him. Loot. ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... resulted from their collective mismanagement of the business of the mission, and from the want of vital piety evinced by some of their number, still the present deplorable condition of the Sandwich Islands is by no means wholly chargeable against them. The demoralizing influence of a dissolute foreign population, and the frequent visits of all descriptions of vessels, have tended not a little to increase the evils alluded to. In a word, here, as in every case where civilization ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... weight, the smallest influence of gold or spleen; and in the most critical epoch of an empire, the poising of his tremendous influence—the influence of so much earnestness and magical power—was the accident of an accident. We admit for him, in palliation, the demoralizing influence of terrific example, and of maddening oppression; but where is the worth of a morality that, in a man of heroic mould, will not stand assay? and what is virtue but a name, if she may be betrayed whenever ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... they are sold by fathers and mothers into an existence which is worse than slavery itself. It is not uncommon to see girls at the tender age of thirteen or fourteen—mere children—hardened courtesans, lost to all sense of shame and decency. They are reared in ignorance, surrounded by demoralizing influences, cut off from the blessings of church and Sabbath school, see nothing but licentiousness, intemperance and crime. These young girls are lost forever. They are beyond the reach of the moralist or preacher and have no comprehension of modesty and purity. Virtue to them is a ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... human freedom made reasonable allowance for a man brought up under such demoralizing influences as Thomas Hughes had been, they of course felt less confidence in him, than they would have done had he sought to obtain liberty by some more commendable process. Being aware of this, he returned to his master, not long ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... anything that has less tendency to soften a man than long columns of figures. I think the figures you work at are quite as demoralizing as the minerals I have ...
— A Woman Intervenes • Robert Barr
... considerable proportion of his recruits had been drawn from among the convicts of the French jails. Had the colony been then established, the mixture of such an element must have tainted its very source, and exercised an utterly demoralizing influence on its future. But God had designs of special mercy on Canada, so the day of her visitation was deferred, only that it might rise at a later period with a steadier, a clearer, and a more enduring light. Although Jacques ...
— The Life of the Venerable Mother Mary of the Incarnation • "A Religious of the Ursuline Community"
... of earnestness and devout philanthropy, it happened at other times—and I fear it must be confessed more frequently—that coarse natures, hard and cruel ones, were made more brutal and callous by the demoralizing influences ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp
... moment Blunt began to lose his head. No doubt he had not thought of such a serious fight as this when he had given his challenge, and there was a savage bull-dog tenacity about Myles that could not but have had a somewhat demoralizing effect upon him. ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle
... regiment lying behind us under that tree was very demoralizing to our men, setting them a bad example. General Kimball, who commanded our brigade, was seated on his horse just under the knoll in the rear of our regiment, evidently watching our work, and he signalled me to come to him, and then gave me orders to present his compliments to ...
— War from the Inside • Frederick L. (Frederick Lyman) Hitchcock
... begrudge the earning of the motion picture men. What I object to is the demoralizing effect such a picture film would have. It would tend to make a hero out of this man, and I don't propose that the young shall be allowed to worship him ...
— The Attempted Assassination of ex-President Theodore Roosevelt • Oliver Remey
... ringing with the cry of political bribery, boodle and official corruption, from the highest to the lowest. The rum traffic is the principal factor in demoralizing and destroying the dignity, honor and integrity of civic life. It is the insidious foe that is hatching and nursing crime. Startling complication of statistics, obtained from the replies of over 1,000 prison governors in the United States ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation
... was delivered by Elias B. Caldwell, the Princeton schoolmate of Charles Fenton Mercer. He argued for the expediency and practicability of African colonization. It was expedient because the free blacks have a demoralizing influence on our civil institutions; they can never enjoy equality among the whites in America; only in a district by themselves will they ever be happy. To colonize them in America would invite the possibility of their making common cause with the Indians and border nations, and furnish an ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... were not the whole of Judah; and the origin and source of the demoralizing wickedness lay not in the farm sections, but in the capital; and as to the capital, "her wounds are incurable." The cause of the ...
— Stories of the Prophets - (Before the Exile) • Isaac Landman
... of Lee's army. Hence it is difficult to see in what respect Sherman's campaign of the Carolinas was essential to this great result, or proved to be more important than his march through Georgia. Each was a great raid, inflicting immense damage upon the enemy's country and resources, demoralizing to the people at home and the army in Virginia, cutting off supplies necessary to the support of the latter, possibly expediting somewhat the final crisis at Richmond, and certainly making the subjugation more complete of those of the Southern people who were thus ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... be deceived by that vain apology for war, that it is necessary to keep alive the heroic spirit and to stimulate manly courage. Despite the noble side in war, its bestial side predominates; its larger effect upon men is demoralizing. And if it be glorious to die for a cause, how much nobler to live and strive for an ideal, utilizing the talents that God gave us for its realization! The movement for peace is not one of weaklings and mollycoddles. ...
— Prize Orations of the Intercollegiate Peace Association • Intercollegiate Peace Association
... league with false facts, the press, confined to truth, needs no other legal restraint; the public judgment will correct false reasoning and opinions on a full hearing of all parties; and no other definite line can be drawn between the inestimable liberty of the press and its demoralizing licentiousness. If there be still improprieties which this rule would not restrain, its supplement must be sought in the censorship of ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various
... of thing was encouraging at the time, and kept our lads in good heart; but, in the long run, it has proved demoralizing to our critics as well as to their clients. For, now that the war is over, those who so loyally proclaimed that any bugle-boy was a better musician than any fiddler find themselves incapable of distinguishing, ...
— Since Cezanne • Clive Bell
... not a uniform dress; the Shakers and Rappists have, and it is an advantage in point of neatness. The slop-made coats and trousers worn in many societies quickly turn shabby, and give a slouchy appearance to the men, which is disagreeable to the eye, and must be more or less demoralizing to the wearers. The blue jacket of the Rappist is a very suitable and comfortable working garment; and the long coat of the Shaker ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... pleased God to bring this demoralizing commerce to a sudden and sanguinary close. Henceforth North and South will meet as equals, neither finding or fancying in their intimate relations any reason for imposing a profession of faith on the other. The Southron ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... interest me, and Frau Lichtenfeld will stay because she has no money to get away, and Buisson will stay because he feels somewhat responsible. These complications are interesting enough to cold-blooded folk like myself who have an eye for the dramatic element, but they are distracting and demoralizing to young people with any serious purpose ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather
... British bombardment was most demoralizing to the enemy. The first German prisoners taken were in a completely dazed state as a result of the terrific bombardment they had undergone, and other Germans were seen to flee to the rear, deserting their posts ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... evils which the difference of rank creates are aggravated in her case. Men of the higher classes of society can, by entering a political or military life, make duties for themselves. Women in the same station are not allowed these channels of escape from the demoralizing idleness and luxury to which their social position confines them. On the other hand, women of the middle class, who are above menial service but who are forced to work, have the choice of a few despised employments. Milliners and mantua-makers are respected only a little more ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... him, however untrue and improbable his story may be;" and if, whilst the Anti-corn-law League can display such perseverance, determination, and system, its opponents obstinately remain supine and silent, can any one wonder if such progress be not made by the League, in their demoralizing and revolutionary enterprize, that it will soon be too late ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... Orphans, generally speaking, require particular care as to their health. In this respect I desire to care for them; but there is more than that to be attended to. I further heartily desire to keep them from the corrupting and demoralizing effect of the lowest sort of children in the streets, courts and Unions; but I desire more for them than mere decency and morality. I desire that they should be useful members of society, and that the prisons of the United Kingdom ...
— A Narrative of Some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself, Fourth Part • George Mueller
... whole cursed business would be done away with. It isn't a question of our laxity of divorce laws," he said, after a pause, "it's a question of the senseless severity of the laws in other States. That's what throws this demoralizing business into ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... said Phil. "We talk about the immorality of older countries. Did you ever notice that no class of men are so apt to take to drinking as highly cultivated Americans? It is a very demoralizing position, when one's tastes outgrow one's surroundings. Positively, I think a man is more excusable for coveting his neighbor's wife in America than in Europe, because there is so ...
— Malbone - An Oldport Romance • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... that when Messrs. Jackson and Lowell went about their task, their grand idea was to place factory work upon a respectable footing—to give employment in mills which should not be unhealthy, degrading, demoralizing, or hard in its circumstances. Throughout the Northern States of America the same feeling is to be seen. Good and thoughtful men have been active to spread education, to maintain health, to make work compatible with comfort and personal dignity, and to divest the ordinary lot of man of the sting ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... for most was written by an old political friend of his who was then editor of a great Chicago daily. He wrote that while there were doubtless many members of the Illinois legislature who during the great contracts of the war time and the demoralizing reconstruction days that followed, had never accepted a bribe, he wished to bear testimony that he personally had known but this one man who had never been offered a bribe because bad men were instinctively afraid ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... ministers and officers of State than were the early English sovereigns of the House of Hanover. The filthy indecency which came so habitually from the lips of Walpole, of other statesmen, of the King—sometimes even of the Queen herself—hardly seems more ignoble, more demoralizing, than the outpouring of a flattery as false as it was gross, a flattery that ought to have sickened alike the man who poured it out and the man whom it was poured over. Poor, stupid George seems to have been always taken in by it. Indeed, in his dull, heavy mind there ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... cursed him who served, and it cursed him that owned the slave. (Hear, hear.) When we recollect the insuperable temptations which that system held out to maintain in a state of degradation and ignorance a whole race of mankind; the horrors of the internal slave-trade, more widely demoralizing, in my opinion, than the foreign slave-trade itself; the violence which was done to the sanctities of domestic life; the corrupting effect which it was having upon the very churches of Christianity, ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... beg to announce that an example ought to be instituted! That coward Simmel is demoralizing the whole company. At each shrapnel he yells out, 'Jesus, my Savior,' and flings himself to the ground. He is frightening the rest of the men. He ought to be made ...
— Men in War • Andreas Latzko
... now realized that I was altogether too energetic a humanitarian to remain in a ward with so many other patients. My actions had a demoralizing effect upon them; so I was forthwith transferred to a private room, one of two situated in a small one-story annex. These new quarters were rather attractive, not ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... soulless and a joyless thing. But substitute the national service of the Guilds for the profiteering of the few; substitute responsible labor for a saleable commodity; substitute self-government and decentralization for the bureaucracy and demoralizing hugeness of the modern State and the modern joint stock company; and then it may be just once more to speak of a "joy in labor,'' and once more to hope that men may be proud of quality and not only of quantity in their work. There ...
— Proposed Roads To Freedom • Bertrand Russell
... tolerated because they are law." It answered the Liberal arraignment of the civil service by declaring that "any system of the civil service under which the subordinate positions of the Government are rewards for mere party zeal is fatally demoralizing, and we therefore favor a reform of the system by laws which shall abolish the evils of patronage." Besides these points, the Republican platform opposed further land-grants to corporations, recommended the abolition of the ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... was that the indispensable assets in it were not industry, intelligence, ambitions, but a reasonably presentable pair of arms and legs (a good-looking face would surely come in handy too) and a rudimentary sense of rhythm. Another demoralizing thing about it, he had said, was the fact that the work wasn't hard enough, except during rehearsal, to keep its votaries ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... come down the short lane that ended at the gate of Holly Court, and joyous and chattering men and women to come in to tea. Nancy loved this, and to see a group of men standing about his blazing logs filled Bert's heart with pride. It was rather demoralizing in a domestic sense, dinner was delayed, and their bedtime consequently delayed, and Dora, the cook was disgruntled at seven o'clock, when it was still impossible to set the dinner table. But Nancy, rather than disturb her guests, got a second servant, an enormous ...
— Undertow • Kathleen Norris
... viewed in any light that you choose to put it. There is no sense in holding camp-meetings over the Sabbath, and every one agrees that they have a demoralizing effect." ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy
... young beholders, lively, bright, and full of the harmless nonsense which brings the laugh without the blush. That night she saw one of the new spectacles which have lately become the rage, and run for hundreds of nights, dazzling, exciting, and demoralizing the spectator by every allurement French ingenuity can invent, and American prodigality execute. Never mind what its name was, it was very gorgeous, very vulgar, and very fashionable; so, of course, it was much admired, and every ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... in spite of herself, and the stout lady on the platform went on piling up the indictment against her sex, and showing how demoralizing the vote had proved to women; how the suffrage sentiment was dying out in the West; how the "Antis" were organizing even in the suffrage States to lift the curse from their kind; how much purer and nobler politics would be without the influence of woman, and wound ...
— An American Suffragette • Isaac N. Stevens
... stampede of the natives interfered too much with labor and the interests of the white folks, and by sticking in a law here, and preaching a sermon there, and by various other means, they gradually broke it up. The demoralizing hula hula was forbidden to be performed, save at night, with closed doors, in presence of few spectators, and only by permission duly procured from the authorities and the payment of ten dollars for the same. There are ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... right. They had a generally demoralizing effect on our household. I was growing irritable, Silvia careworn. Even Huldah showed their influence by acquiring the very latest in slang from them. Once in a while to my amusement I heard Silvia ...
— Our Next-Door Neighbors • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... mislead their deluded followers, by clamouring about the expense of the army, and the aristocratic bearing of its members, that they may the more readily carry out their own schemes of personal vanity and demoralizing ...
— Campaign of the Indus • T.W.E. Holdsworth
... source of innocent enjoyment, and an important aid to higher culture; but unless it leads to higher culture, it will probably be merely sensuous. And when art is merely sensuous, it is enfeebling and demoralizing rather than strengthening or elevating. Honest courage is of greater worth than any amount of grace; purity is better than elegance; and cleanliness of body, mind, and heart, than any ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... delay this column as much as possible. Although he had with him but a few hundred men, he succeeded in doing good service in cutting off detached bodies of the enemy, capturing many officers and men, and so demoralizing the invaders that, after pushing on as far as the James River, Stoneman had to retreat in great ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... Raymond. "You will head a clerical crusade against the turf, but I do not think it just to compare it with those ferocious sports which were demoralizing in themselves; while this is to large numbers simply a harmless holiday and excuse for an outing, not to speak of the benefit ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... heartbroken way which is so demoralizing to the person who has caused the tears. Like a hurt child she rubbed her ankle and huddled there ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... lavish customer interesting, but demoralizing. "Run away with him, Jean," she said. "I am not used to Croesuses. He won't leave anything to sell, and then what shall I say to the ...
— The Tin Soldier • Temple Bailey
... that these soul-blasting and hope-killing exposures—so degrading to the criminal, so demoralizing to the community,—these foul, in-human blots on our fair and dearly loved Puritan Lord's Day, were never frequent, nor did the form of punishment obtain for a long time. In 1681 two women were sentenced ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... stories I had read of the stony-heartedness during the plague, were more than rivalled by these charnel realities. Already corruption was violating the "temples of the living God." The heat of the day and the general demoralizing influences of the climate, were making havoc with the shapely men of yesterday, and nature seemed hastening to reabsorb, and renew by her marvellous processes, what was now blistering and burdening her surface. Enough, however, of this. Satiated with the scenes of war, my ambition now was to extend ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... all, I'm a woman and helpless; and, if I seriously offend him, what would become of me? But you're a man. The world was made for men; they can make their own way. And it seems unworthy of you to be afraid to be yourself before anybody. And I'm sure it's demoralizing." ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... longer tolerated. Drunken professionals should be driven from service just as the crooks of a dozen years ago were, never to be allowed to return. Drunken players are not only a costly drawback to success individually, but they permeate the whole baseball fraternity with a demoralizing influence. The fact is, professional baseball playing has arrived at that point of excellence, and reached so advanced a position in regard to its financial possibilities, that it will no longer pay, in any solitary respect, to allow players of drinking habits in first-class teams. The demands ...
— Spalding's Baseball Guide and Official League Book for 1889 • edited by Henry Chadwick
... religious books which engage the mind of the masses are of a very different class. They are the wild legends of the Puranas, and inane dialogues and lying incantations of the Tantras—two classes of works which are both the most popular and are lowest in the range of their ideas and most demoralizing in ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones
... neutralize the effects of German territorial advances and the impression of power which the persistence of the offensive was making. It was also a view that tended to make the public acquiesce in the demoralizing defensive strategy imposed upon the Allied armies. For the public, accustomed to the idea that war consists of great strategic movements, flank attacks, encirclements, and dramatic surrenders, had gradually to ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... women's sentiments on the moral cultivation of mankind: and if women are to remain in their subordinate situation, it were greatly to be lamented that the chivalrous standard should have passed away, for it is the only one at all capable of mitigating the demoralizing influences of that position. But the changes in the general state of the species rendered inevitable the substitution of a totally different ideal of morality for the chivalrous one. Chivalry was the attempt to infuse moral elements into a state of society in which everything depended for ...
— The Subjection of Women • John Stuart Mill
... in wait along every daily path. The affrighted imagination, in every scene and mode of life, was conversant with ghosts, apparitions, spectres, devils. This prevalent, all but universal, exercise of credulous fancy, exalted into the most imposing dignity of theology and faith, must have had a demoralizing effect upon the rational condition and faculties of men, and upon all discrimination and healthfulness of thought. When error, in its most extravagant forms, had driven the simplicity of the Gospel out of the Church and the world, it is not to be wondered at that ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham
... hundred inhabitants of the District presented a petition to Congress, complaining of the "DOMESTIC SLAVE-TRADE" as a grievance disgraceful in its character, and "even more demoralizing its influence" than the foreign traffic. The petition concluded as follows: "The people of this District have within themselves no means of legislative redress, and we therefore appeal to your Honorable body as the only one vested by the American ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society |
