"Debasement" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Caesar's profile. And what a creature beside him! Some there are who confound the nephew with the uncle, to the delight of the Elysee, but to the shame of France! The parodist assumes the airs of a stage manager. Alas! a splendour so infinite could not be tarnished save by this boundless debasement! Yes! worse than Hudson Lowe! Hudson Lowe was only a jailor, Hudson Lowe was only an executioner. The man who has really assassinated Napoleon is Louis Bonaparte; Hudson Lowe killed only his life, Louis ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo
... unnatural effects of theology on the minds of earnest, truth-seeking men—the total prostration of manly dignity, the perversion of the mental faculties, and the debasement of human nature, is truly stated by Mr. Barker in ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts
... in an ignorance of the animate symbols employed with such marked preference by the red race to express abstract ideas. In some cases, doubtless, the natives themselves came, in time, to confound the symbol with the idea, by that familiar process of personification and consequent debasement exemplified in the history of every religion; but I do not believe that a single example could be found where an Indian tribe had a tradition whose real purport was that man came by natural process of descent ...
— The Myths of the New World - A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America • Daniel G. Brinton
... commodities, and it is easy to account for the depreciation. "The consequences were equally obvious and alarming,"—"depravity of morals, decay of public virtue, a precarious supply for the war, debasement of the public faith, injustice to individuals, and the destruction of the safety, honor, and independence of the United States." But "a reasonable and effectual remedy" was still within their reach, and therefore, "with mature deliberation and the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... immoderately fond of ardent spirits, men, women and—shocking to say—children. This hateful vice, which contributes more than any other to the debasement of human nature, seems to produce more baneful effects upon the Indian, both physically and morally, than upon the European. The worst propensities of his nature are excited by it. While under the influence of this demon ...
— Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory • John M'lean
... shall therefore hasten to a conclusion. And first, I ask the West Indians, whether they think that they will be allowed to carry on their present cruel system, the arbitrary use of the whip and the chain, and the brutal debasement of their fellow-creatures, for ever. I say, No; I entertain better hopes of the humanity and justice of the British people. I am sure that they will interfere, and that when they once take up the cause, they will never abandon it till they have obtained their object. And what is ...
— Thoughts On The Necessity Of Improving The Condition Of The Slaves • Thomas Clarkson
... high mental endowments—she had a powerful will and strong passions—but she had no affections. There have been many Jezebels—but few Athaliahs. The affections compose so large a part of a woman's nature that we disown one who is without them. In her deepest guilt, in her lowest debasement, they still cling to her; and raised to the summit of power, they do not often wholly ...
— Notable Women of Olden Time • Anonymous
... extreme case. It assumes a particularly bad mother and a particularly ill-chosen nurse, and what is probably only a transitory phase of sexual debasement. The average nurse of the upper- class child is often a woman of highly developed motherly instincts, and it is probable that our upper class and our upper middle-class is passing or has already passed through that phase of thought which has made solitary children so common in the last decade or ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells
... mean Rome. Its system was once prevalent in England, and, during the period that it prevailed there, was more prolific of debasement and crime than all other causes united. The people and the government at last becoming enlightened by means of the Scripture spurned it from the island with disgust and horror, the land instantly after its disappearance ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... is such an atrocious debasement of human nature, that its very extirpation, if not performed with solicitous care, may sometimes open ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various
... unjust and damaging prejudice; but if their degradation were but skin-deep, they might easily overcome it. . . . . Of course, we understand that the evil we contemplate is complex and retroactive—that the political degradation of the blacks is a cause as well as a consequence of their moral debasement. Had they never been enslaved, they would not now be so abject in soul; had they not been so abject, they could not have been enslaved. Our aborigines might have been crushed into slavery by overwhelming ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... and phrases have been made by commerce."—Bicknell's Gram., Part ii, p. 10. "The dialect of some nouns are taken notice of in the notes."—Milnes, Greek Gram., p. 255. "It has been said, that a discovery of the full resources of the arts, afford the means of debasement, or of perversion."—Rush, on the Voice, p. xxvii. "By which means the Order of the Words are disturbed."—Holmes's Rhet., B. i, p. 57. "The twofold influence of these and the others require the asserter to be in the plural form."—O. B. Peirce's ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... which is unrighteously withheld, and the restoration of which is, in their opinion, the first and most indispensable step to all improvement, and absolutely essential to the application of the only remedy for that moral debasement, in which ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... that a man may frequent a low tavern, not without detriment, but, without becoming thereby worthy of being classed with the lowest of the low. Do not misunderstand us, gentle reader. We do not wish in the slightest degree to palliate the coarse language, the debasement, the harsh villainy, which shock the virtuous when visiting the haunts of poverty. Our simple desire is to assure the sceptical that goodness and truth are sometimes found in strange questionable places, although it is undoubtedly true that they do not deliberately search out such places for ...
— The Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne
... to the slaughter on the Coelian Hill, which happened not long before it was written, I will add here that whatever color it may have pleased Aurelian to give to that affair—as if it were occasioned by a dishonest debasement of the coin by the directors of the mint—there is now no doubt, on the part of any who are familiar with the history of that period, that the difficulty originated in a much deeper and more formidable cause, well known to Aurelian himself, but not spoken of by him, in alluding to the event. ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... legalization; and were that point once effected, I am of opinion that its most objectionable feature would be altogether removed. Even as it now exists it appears to me to be unattended with a hundredth part of the debasement and misery which may be seen in our native country from the lamentable abuse of ardent spirits, and those who so sweepingly condemn the opium trade on that principle need not, I think, leave the shores of England to find a far ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... more affecting than that timorous debasement and self-humiliation of a woman. How she owns that it is she and not the man who is guilty; how she takes all the faults on her side; how she courts in a manner punishment for the wrongs which she has not committed ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... struggle to get an education and be religious; but despite this struggle, the bottom strata of the race are being sucked into crime and ruin with unprecedented and increasing rapidity. But, wherever the efforts of white Christians to aid them are regular, steady, and strong, this destruction and debasement are stayed to a marvelous degree. Here, then, are conditions that seem to leave no room for either neglect or delay, so far as we are concerned. Delay is sin to ...
— The American Missionary - Volume 50, No. 4, April 1896 • Various
... rain and thunder; but our miserable plight had attracted a sympathising crowd. No question was asked of who? or whence? by a generous people, to wounded and wearied men and helpless women; till there pressed through the ring of bystanders a tall fellow, with a strong expression of debasement and desperate impudence upon his face, that seemed to say, "Infamy, you have done your worst." He demanded our names and passports, and arrested us all in the king's name, almost in the same breath. I struck ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... of Mr. Davis. "Suppose, instead of issuing paper money," said Mr. Bayard, "it had pleased Congress to order a debasement of our National coinage. Suppose twenty-five per cent more of alloy or worthless metal had been injected into our currency, and with that base coinage men had come forward to buy your bonds, what would be thought of the man who, when the day of payment of those ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... have stated are for the awakening of parents and guardians of girls. If I were to presume to say anything to the possible victims of this awful scourge of white slavery it would be this: "Those who enter here leave hope behind." The depths of debasement and suffering disclosed by the investigation now in progress would make the flesh of a seasoned man of the world ...
— Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls - War on the White Slave Trade • Various |
