"Decry" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... reproduce things just as sound judgment conceives of them; if they throw around them at times the halo of beauty which seems exaggerated, let us not decry them. ...
— Common Sense - - Subtitle: How To Exercise It • Yoritomo-Tashi
... attempt to reflect on the staying powers of the race, I have not the remotest idea of pandering to conceit or vanity, to the contrary, I decry any disposition to extol and magnify whatever we are subjectively, and whatever we have achieved. The fierce conflicts we have undergone and the terrible crucible through which the cruel hand of fate promises ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... dull coloured carpets and hangings, have your modern reproductions antiqued. If you prefer gay, cheering tones, let the painted furniture be bright. These schemes are equally interesting in different ways. It is stupid to decry new things, since every grey antique had its frivolous, ...
— The Art of Interior Decoration • Grace Wood
... Cruikshank commentators, whilst writing on the subject of the Harrison Ainsworth etchings, have thought fit to decry the author's share of the performance; but the fact that the pictures are so much better than the letterpress should not prevent us from dealing fairly with the veteran author, who, like the distinguished artist with whom he so long co-operated, has now gone to his rest. Even ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... any other force. The Mill continued to be the heart of the village. Through the Mill the lifeblood circulated; by the Mill the prosperity of the people was regulated; and since the master saw that on his own prosperity reposed the prosperity of those whom he employed, there was none to decry him, or echo a disordered past in the ear ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... maintain that he is a genuine Constitutionalist, and that Wu is not to be trusted, but Chen Chiung Ming has a better reputation than Sun among reformers. The British in China all praise Wu and hate Sun; the Americans all praise Sun and decry Wu. Sun undoubtedly has a past record of genuine patriotism, and there can be no doubt that the Canton Government has been the best in China. What appears in our newspapers on the subject is certainly designed ...
— The Problem of China • Bertrand Russell
... reputation, that the Jesuits and Dominicans began to be greatly alarmed, and determined to put a stop to the progress of this method. To do this, it was necessary to decry the author of it; and as heresy is an imputation that makes the strongest impression at Rome, Molinos and his followers were given out to be heretics. Books were also written by some of the Jesuits against Molinos and his method; ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... sketch the events that followed the publication of the Land Conference Report. Mr Sexton made it his business in The Freeman's Journal to decry its findings on the sinister ground that they offered too much to the landlords and were not sufficiently favourable to the tenants, sneering at the proposal for a bonus, hinting that no Government would find money for this purpose. ...
— Ireland Since Parnell • Daniel Desmond Sheehan
... those who decry the Greek and Latin classics. We think it a glorious privilege to read both those grand old tongues, and that an intelligent, cultivated man who is shut out from the converse of the splendid minds of those olden times loses a part of his birthright; and therefore it is that we ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... by hearing none Decry the object, then by cherishing The good we see in it, and overlooking What is less pleasant in the paths of life. All have some virtue if we leave it them In peace and quiet, all may lose some part By ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... writes on a Subject, to shew what is Good or Bad in it, he ought to discover, and mark very exactly all its Virtues, and Vices, for that is a sure way to find out the Truth, which is more valuable than all things else whatever. If I had written against Plato with a Design to Decry his Works, I should be as Impious as[21] Zoilus, but on the contrary, I would praise him, and if in doing so I have Improved any of his Defects, I have done nothing worthy of Complaint, and which was not necessary ...
— The Preface to Aristotle's Art of Poetry • Andre Dacier
... a woman has earned such a fame, and in a sphere which has been supposed to belong to man alone. And if men shall here and there be found to decry her greatness, let no woman be found who shall seek to dethrone her from her lofty pedestal; for in so doing she unwittingly becomes a detractor from that womanly greatness in which we should all rejoice, and which thus far has so seldom ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord
... influences and causes which produced it, we can be fairly certain that its roots stretch back very far and that the mediaeval and Geonic Kabbala was the culmination and not the inception of Jewish esoteric mysticism. From the time of Graetz it has been the fashion to decry the Kabbala and to regard it as a later incrustation, as something of which Judaism had reason to be ashamed." The writer goes on to express the opinion that "the recent tendency requires adjustment. The Kabbala, ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... law, that the male has certain natural "rights," and the women only such rights as are granted her by the males. And the reason of this wrong-headed attitude on part of the mob is plain. It rules by force, whereas the semi-ascetic sects decry force, using only moral suasion, falling back on the Christ doctrine of non-resistance. This has given their women a chance to prove that they have just as able minds as the men, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard
... letter without touching on another point, that suggests itself at the moment. It is the fashion to decry the niggardliness of the American government on the subject of money, as compared with those of this hemisphere. Nothing can be more unjust. Our working men are paid better than even those of England, ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... be prepared to suffer for this fine art, a member of the body of which it is your present thought to become; for, be assured, there will be suffering, which will dog your progress; aye, and the greater your talent, so much more will be jealousy of it, from those, at least, so on the alert to decry that which they cannot create; so much more will be contumely; so much more will be innuendoes which can not be met openly, as they certainly will not be in the slimy words and manner of utterance of bitter heartlessness, ...
— Violin Making - 'The Strad' Library, No. IX. • Walter H. Mayson
... exquisitely beautiful in summer, when all the fine trees are in full grandeur, for I never saw any larger or more flourishing. It is the custom for the French to decry everything Spanish, even to the natural productions; and I had often been told that the moment the French side was quitted all was barren and worthless; I found, however, on the contrary, that the mountain-scenery greatly increased in sublimity the nearer ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... your Rabbins of the Synod, And snap'd their Canons with a why-not; 530 (Grave Synod Men, that were rever'd For solid face and depth of beard;) Their classic model prov'd a maggot, Their direct'ry an Indian Pagod; And drown'd their discipline like a kitten, 535 On which they'd been so long a sitting; Decry'd it as a holy cheat, Grown out of date, and obsolete; And all the Saints of the first grass As casting foals of Balaam's ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... St. Stephen. The ornate decorations of the west front, added by Georges d'Amboise, are mainly of the sixteenth century and form no part of the original plan or design. It borders upon the style we have since learned to decry, but it is, at least, marvellous as to the skill with which its foliaged and crocketed pinnacles and elaborate traceries are worked. Ruskin was probably right in this estimate at least,—"The central gable is the most exquisite ...
— The Cathedrals of Northern France • Francis Miltoun
... purity of the spirit emulating God. For only in this way is unclean lead turned into gold." (P. 75.) "If one now ventures to say that the Word of Christ or the Holy Ghost of wisdom dwells in the microcosmic heaven [i.e., in the soul of man] we should not decry the blind children of the world as godless and abandoned. [But certainly the divine spirit is, as is later averred, the rectangular stone in us, on which we are to build.] This divine spark is, however, continuous and eternal; it is our gold purchasable ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer
... pointed but that for perhaps five years past my weight practically had been stationary. Also I called attention to the fact that I no longer ate so heavily as once I had. Not that I wished actually to decry my appetite. It had been a good friend to me and not for worlds would I slander it. I have a sincere conviction that age cannot wither nor custom stale my infinite gastric juices. Never, I trust, will ...
— One Third Off • Irvin S. Cobb
... continue there will shortly be a totally novel kind of advertising to be seen, where dissuasion holds the highest place. For unless something happens those journals which have already done much to reduce circulation will have to do more and actually decry themselves. Such counsels as those which follow may before long meet the eyes, and, it is possible, influence the minds, of the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, June 20, 1917 • Various
... is difficult to understand is much admired by the simple-minded, who also decry pictures that tell their own story! A certain class of minds enjoy being mystified, and in consequence writers, painters, and musicians have appeared who are willing to juggle for their amusement. The simple definition given to ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory
... horsemanship. Their open-handed munificence made them the idols of the populace, while their lofty magnanimity, and perfect faith, gained them golden opinions from the generous and high-minded. Never were they known to decry the merits of a rival, or to betray the confidings of a friend; and the "word of an Abencerrage" was a guarantee that never ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... it!" interrupted Theos swiftly and with passion—"I am aware that so-called 'wise' men, rooted in narrow prejudice, with a smattering of even narrower logic, presume, out of their immeasurable littleness, to decry and make mock of the truly great, who, thanks to God's unpurchasable gift of inspiration, can do without the study of books or the teaching of pedants,—who flare through the world flame-winged and full of song, like angels passing heavenward,—and whose voices, ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... feeling that led to his deliberation; viz., the firm resolve not to win Helen's, affections, and then leave her. No, he nobly resolved first to learn the state of his own feelings; and well would it be if many others would act equally generous. But no! however men decry beauty, they are all its slaves, and it ever wins a willing homage from them. They are won by the attractions of a pretty face, and are in consequence, most particular in their attentions to its possessor; who is thus singled out, and in all probability, is subject ...
— A Book For The Young • Sarah French
... Game o'er again: The Scene is only changed; for who wou'd lay A Plot, so hopeful, just the same dull way? Poets, like Statesmen, with a little change, Pass off old Politicks for new and strange; Tho the few Men of Sense decry't aloud, The Cheat will pass with the unthinking Croud: The Rabble 'tis we court, those powerful things, Whose Voices can impose even Laws on Kings. A Pox of Sense and Reason, or dull Rules, Give us an Audience that declares for Fools; Our Play will stand fair: we've ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... the end of the world or foretells the dawn of a millennium. And history affords no presumption in favour of the prophet who prophesies smooth things. The prognostics of a pessimist may be as much belied by the event as the hopes of an optimist. But for one prophet to decry the predictions of another simply as prophecies is a downright absurdity. Even among rival soothsayers some regard must be had to fairness and common sense; when Zedekiah, the son of Chenaanah, smote Micaiah ...
— A Leap in the Dark - A Criticism of the Principles of Home Rule as Illustrated by the - Bill of 1893 • A.V. Dicey
... the mad dance, while blest health prompts to move, We'll count joys to come, and exchange Vows of truth; And haply when Age cools the transports of Love, Decry, like good folks, the vain ...
— The Farmer's Boy - A Rural Poem • Robert Bloomfield
... cross became the "foolishness" of the cross, it took possession of the masses. And in our own day, those who wish to get rid of the supernatural, to enlighten religion, to economize faith, find themselves deserted, like poets who should declaim against poetry, or women who should decry love. Faith consists in the acceptance of the incomprehensible, and even in the pursuit of the impossible, and is self-intoxicated with its own ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... that if merit's exalted 'Tis excellent sport to decry it, And trail its good name in the gutter; And that cynics, white-gloved and cravatted, Are the cream and quintessence of all things, ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... Twickenham: his lies affect me now no more; they will be all as much despised as the story of the seraglio and the handkerchief, of which I am persuaded he was the only inventor. That man has a malignant and ungenerous heart; and he is base enough to assume the mask of a moralist, in order to decry human nature, and to give a decent vent to his hatred of man and woman kind.—But I must quit this contemptible subject, on which a just indignation would render my pen so fertile, that after having fatigued you with a long letter, I would surfeit you with a supplement ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville
... "I do not decry St. Paul," answered Bonpre quietly—"He was a gifted and clever man, but he was a Man—he was not God-in-Man. Christ's doctrine leaves no place for differing sects; St. Paul's method of applying that doctrine serves as authority for the establishment ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... purely scientific circles, the "species question" divides with Italy and the Volunteers the attention of general society. Everybody has read Mr. Darwin's book, or, at least, has given an opinion upon its merits or demerits; pietists, whether lay or ecclesiastic, decry it with the mild railing which sounds so charitable; bigots denounce it with ignorant invective; old ladies, of both sexes, consider it a decidedly dangerous book, and even savans, who have no better ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley
... in a minute, if I knew where to find a better. Rely on it, dearest Maud, all causes are alike, in this particular; though one side may employ instruments, as in the case of the savages, that the other side finds it its interest to decry. Men, as individuals, may be, and sometimes are, reasonably upright—but, bodies of men, I much fear, never. The latter escape responsibility ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... the more excusable for this coarse method of breaking in upon truth and good manners, because it is the only way they have to gratify the genius and the interest of the faction together; and never so much pains taken neither, to so very, very little purpose. They decry the play, but in such a manner, that it has the effect of a recommendation. They call it "a dull entertainment;" and that is a dangerous word, I must confess, from one of the greatest masters in human nature, of that faculty. Now I can forgive ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... is mentioned by Pallas as existing among the Buddhist Kalmaks, a relic of their old Shaman superstitions, which the Lamas profess to decry, but sometimes take part in. "Rich Kalmaks select from their flock a ram for dedication, which gets the name of Tengri Tockho, 'Heaven's Ram.' It must be a white one with a yellow head. He must never be shorn or sold, but when he gets old, and the owner chooses to dedicate a fresh one, then ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... not?" I exclaimed. "It is not for us women to decry that looking-glass side of us. It is serious, more serious than you think, for on the beauty of our reflection often depend our ardour, our courage, our very character and all the energies that create or affect our actions. Besides, whether men ...
— The Choice of Life • Georgette Leblanc
... poetry of politics" and poetry on paper did not go together. Meanwhile he would try his hand on prose. A controversy had arisen between Bowles and Campbell with regard to the merits of Pope. Byron rushed into the fray. To avenge and exalt Pope, to decry the "Lakers," and to lay down his own canons of art, Byron addressed two letters to **** ****** (i.e. John Murray), entitled "Strictures on the Life and Writings of Pope." The first was published in 1821, the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... different Sentiments; who certainly either never seriously consider'd, that the were thereby endeavouring to destroy their own Happiness, and overthrow her Majesty's Title to the Crown: or (if they knew what they did) presumed upon the Lenity of that Government they decry'd; which (were there no better Reason) ought to have recommended it to their Approbation, since it could patiently bear with such, as were doing all they ...
— Franco-Gallia • Francis Hotoman
... comedy: I want that gaiety of humour which is required to it. My conversation is slow and dull; my humour saturnine and reserved: In short, I am none of those who endeavour to break jests in company, or make repartees. So that those, who decry my comedies, do me no injury, except it be in point of profit: reputation in them is the last thing to which I shall pretend. I beg pardon for entertaining the reader with so ill a subject; but before I quit that ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott
... English contractors in South America took advantage of the statements in this book to depreciate the American railway system and American civil engineers, for their own private advantage in obtaining work, some Americans have been so foolish as to decry the book altogether, as traitorous to the interests of the country. Such mingled bigotry and conceit, shrinking from just criticism, would fetter all progress ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... an infection is not due to the vaccine or to the process of vaccination, but to the infection. Many people get unjust ideas about vaccination from just such cases. If the mother is not cleanly or neglects the vaccinated area and permits it to become infected she must not and others should not decry vaccination as a consequence. Anyone who doubts the virtue of vaccination is condemning himself; he is simply ignorant of the accumulation of evidence in favor of it and assumes a position without any possible justification. The mortality of vaccination is stated by Voigt from statistics ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol 2 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... however, that the ecclesiastical policy of the Protectorate was one which it would be most inconsistent on the part of Mr. Arnold and those who hold the same view with him to decry. It was a national church (to prevent the hasty abolition of which, seems to have been Cromwell's main reason for dissolving the Barebones Parliament) with the largest possible measure of comprehension. To us the weak points of such a policy appear ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... of the great neglect and scorn of preaching ariseth from the practice of men who set up to decry and disparage religion; these, being zealous to promote infidelity and vice, learn a rote of buffoonery that serveth all occasions, and refutes the strongest arguments for piety and good manners. These have a set of ridicule calculated for all sermons ...
— Three Sermons, Three Prayer • Jonathan Swift
... written—at least I never learned half so much from all I ever read. There is )s much wit as useful knowledge. He is said to have hurt his reputation by it in France, which I can conceive, for it is almost the interest of every body there that can understand it to decry it. The other, far inferior, but entertaining,, is Hainault's "Abrege Chronologique de l'Histoire de France." It is very amusing, though very full of Frenchisms; and though an abridgment, often so minute as to tell you ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... character and ability and marked by a conscientiousness and candor which have not always been reciprocated we have thought it simply right to set forth the doctrine as fairly and as favorably as we could There are plenty to decry it and the whole theory is widely exposed to attack For the arguments on the other side we may look to the numerous adverse publications which Darwin s volume has already called out and especially to those ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray
... quite aware of the extent of the stoop. The fact is, I am, as I've tried to make you understand, a hairdresser; some might lower themselves so far as to call me a barber. Now, hairdressing, whatever may be said for it" (he could not readily bring himself to decry his profession)—"hairdressing is considribly below you in social rank. I wouldn't deceive you by saying otherwise. I assure you that, if you had any ideer what a barber was, ...
— The Tinted Venus - A Farcical Romance • F. Anstey
... taken upon themselves a part, which seemed destined to the ministers of Religion. The hatred of the latter for philosophy was only a jealousy of trade. But, instead of endeavouring to injure and decry each other, all men of good sense should unite their efforts to combat error, seek truth, and especially to put to flight the prejudices, that are equally injurious to sovereigns and subjects, and of which the abettors themselves sooner ...
— Good Sense - 1772 • Paul Henri Thiry, Baron D'Holbach
... order that he might fill them with his own friends. I think the number of removals and appointments is said to be two thousand. While the administration and its friends have been attempting to circumscribe and to decry the powers belonging to other branches, it has thus seized into its own hands a patronage most pernicious and corrupting, an authority over men's means of living most tyrannical and odious, and a power to punish free men for political opinions ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... a too impatient view of the Art of our own time, since we can neither see the ends toward which it is almost blindly groping, nor the few perfected creations that will be left standing amidst the rubble of abortive effort. An age must always decry itself and extol its forbears. The unwritten history of every Art will show us that. Consider the novel—that most recent form of Art! Did not the age which followed Fielding lament the treachery of authors to the Picaresque ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... the fashion among the enemies of the new delusion to decry Mesmer as an unprincipled adventurer, while his disciples have extolled him to the skies as a regenerator of the human race. In nearly the same words, as the Rosicrucians applied to their founders, he has been called the ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... retiring with his family before the storm, and under many privations, continued to preach. In theology, modern philosophy, and all the sciences connected with his profession he was deeply read. For classic literature, which it is so common for the superficial to decry, he was a great advocate, and to evince his sincerity retained his knowledge of the dead languages as long as he lived. In his discourses he was neither an extempore preacher, nor did he read. He wrote out his ...
— A Sketch of the Life of Brig. Gen. Francis Marion • William Dobein James
... I, "Mr. North, is the 'Northern Evil' again. Oh, what a shame it is for intelligent people to decry Southern Christians in this way, and to erect their own moral ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams
... imitation I decry is that of black, or black-and-gold cases, suitable the exhibition of art treasures, but objectionable for natural history objects, which, usually dreary enough in their abject condition on pegs, are rendered more funereal by their black, or black-and-gold surroundings; ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... to-day decry any method of warfare which results in the killing of women and children, but the story of the aigrette trade deals with the slaughter of innocents by the slow process of {153} starvation, a method which history shows has ...
— The Bird Study Book • Thomas Gilbert Pearson
... in God there are three substances, one essence, and two processions. How does this sound as compared with the statement of Jesus that he and his Father are one, and that he would send the Comforter? This is not to decry theology; but is nevertheless to ...
— Understanding the Scriptures • Francis McConnell
... business,—an art which is practiced, to be sure, in every field of study, but one for which the philosophical branches provide unusual opportunity and material. It has become a habit with many of recent years to decry the study of logic as an antiquated discipline, but it still remains, if properly taught, an excellent means of cultivating clear thinking; there is no reason why a consciousness of correct ways of thinking and of the methods employed in reaching reliable ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... elaboration of style, which grew upon him more and more, giving throughout often a sense of extreme artificiality and of the self- consciousness usually bred of it, is but another incidental proof of this. And let no reader think that I wish here to decry R. L. Stevenson. I only desire faithfully to try to understand him, and to indicate the class or group to which his genius and temperament really belong. He is from first to last the idealistic dreamy or mystical romancer, and not the true idealist or dealer direct with life or character ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson - a Record, an Estimate, and a Memorial • Alexander H. Japp
... The things which my visitor knows have undergone no change, they have not been fused and blended by his personality; they have not affected his mind, nor has his mind affected them. I don't wish to despise or to decry his knowledge; as a lecturer, he must be invaluable; but he treats literature as a purveyor might—it has not been food to him, but material and stock-in-trade. Some of the poetry we talked about—Elizabethan lyrics—grow in my mind like flowers in a copse; in his mind they are planted in ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson
... absolutely preached submission to Napoleon! The Whigs, I hear, were the Liberals of those days. The two Pitts were Tories. The greatness of England has been built up by the Tories. I do and will defend them: it is the fashion to decry them now. They have the honour and safety of the country at heart. They do not play disgracefully at reductions of taxes, as the Liberals do. They have given us all our heroes. Non fu mai gloria senza invidia. They have done service enough to despise the envious ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the minutes), Andreae, and Wagner. These ministers had not been invited to participate in the organization of the synod, because, as a declaration put on record by synod explains, "1. they, without reason, decry us [Muhlenberg and his adherents] as Pietists; 2. are not sent and have neither an internal nor an external call; 3. are unwilling to observe a uniform order of service with us, each following the ceremonies of his country; 4. an experience of six years had taught ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 1: Early History of American Lutheranism and The Tennessee Synod • Friedrich Bente
... Goldsmith's style with that of his contemporaries—that hostile essay, for example, published from Richardson's firm, in which, time after time, sneers must cease and praise prevail, despite the intention to decry. If reluctant laudation is most sincere, then Boswell himself said of Goldsmith that there was nothing that he touched that he did not adorn. Goldsmith adorned, but not with mere polish or veneer. He threw a curious felicity on things, and made them fair. The very beauty ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • E. S. Lang Buckland
... tenderness of Latin elegy, the regal pomp of history, the gorgeous and philosophic mystery of the old dramatic fables. Never before had he learnt to gaze on "the bright countenance of truth, in the mild and dewy air of delightful studies." Those who decry classical education, do so from inexperience of its real character and value, and can hardly conceive the sense of strength and freedom which a young and ingenuous intellect acquires in all literature, and in ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... 3s. 0d.; but had I purchased the right of separate publication for 100 L, I hardly think you would have been satisfied that fortune should have so favoured you at my expense. It seems to be the fashion to decry that mode of publication; but there will always be books that can be published on no other terms, unless at the cost ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
... insight into its character and its customs must be possessed of an exceptionally oyster-like organization indeed. But the majority of American women seek foreign society on other grounds than this—chiefly from that tendency to ape everything European and to decry everything American to which I have already alluded as being characteristic of us as a nation. England and the English are the principal models chosen for imitation. It is marvellous to notice the fondness of American women abroad for the English accent and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... begins by alluding to his dedication of Suetonius two years before; but his real purpose is to say something about Luther. Luther's writings, he says, have given the Louvain obscurants plenty of reason to inveigh against the bonae literae, to decry all scholars. He himself does not know Luther and has glanced through his writings only cursorily as yet, but everyone praises his life. How little in accordance with theological gentleness it is to ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga
... seem naturally impelled to exalt the hero of the hour higher than they themselves intend, and when a reaction comes, to decry him in an equal degree. Few people see with their own eyes, and on special occasions even magnifying or diminishing glasses are called into ...
— Absalom's Hair • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... Elliott, that this task would prove his Waterloo. "Coach Severely Handicapped by Material and Facilities," one headline read, while another had it, "Sun Now Hardly Destined to Set on Triumph for John Brown," the articles going on to decry the lamentable conditions surrounding Elliott's effort to attain a higher athletic grade. The task was regarded as beyond that of even a miracle man and John Brown was credited with having accepted the crudest ...
— Interference and Other Football Stories • Harold M. Sherman
... most impressive first view of the ocean, I could not make more of it than there was of Lake Erie; and I have never thought the color of the sea comparable to the tender blue of the lake. I did not hint my disappointment to my friend; I had too much regard for the feelings of an Eastern man to decry his ocean to his face, and I felt besides that it would be vulgar and provincial to make comparisons. I am glad now that I held my tongue, for that kind soul is no longer in this world, and I should not like to ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... extent as in neighborhoods where the reverse is true. The reason is obvious: cultured people have attractive and generally musical homes, and are thus made, to a great extent, independent of the amusements afforded in public places. This I mention, not to decry the theatre, which, I hold, has its appropriate, and, under proper conditions, educational and refining uses. In fact, the theatre (in which is performed the legitimate drama) would seem to be in ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... cause may be added another, also mentioned by Lord Bacon — a misdirected zeal in matters of religion, which induces so many to decry a newly-discovered truth, because the Divine records contain no allusion to it, or because, at first sight, it appears to militate, not against religion, but against some obscure passage which has never been fairly interpreted. The old woman in the story could not believe that there ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... camps, the friends of the canal, and the friends of the iron highway. Newspapers acrimoniously championed either side; the question was a favorite topic with debating societies; public meetings and conventions were held to uphold one method of transportation and to decry the other. The canal, it was urged, was not an experiment; it had been tested and not found wanting; already the great achievement of De Witt Clinton in completing the Erie Canal had made New York City the metropolis of the western world. The railroad, it was asserted, was just ...
— The Railroad Builders - A Chronicle of the Welding of the States, Volume 38 in The - Chronicles of America Series • John Moody
... a man of industry and talent might have shown them proudly as a lifetime's labour. The great men in literature are the epoch makers, and Sir Walter is the only man in the literary history of the world who was an epoch maker in more than one direction. It is the fashion to-day to decry him as a poet. There are critics who, setting a high value on the verse of Wordsworth or of Browning, for example, cannot concede the name of poetry to any modern work which is not subtle and profound, metaphysical or analytical. But as a ...
— My Contemporaries In Fiction • David Christie Murray
... mentioned as among the holiest in the epic catalogue.[48] Soma is now revamped by a bath in a holy pool (IX. 35. 75). As in every antithesis of act and thought there are not lacking passages in the epic which decry the pools in comparison with holy life as a means of salvation. Thus in III. 82. 9 ff., the poet says: "The fruit of pilgrimage (to holy pools)—he whose hands, feet, and mind are controlled;[49] he who has knowledge, asceticism, and fame, he gets all the fruit that holy pools ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... public and outrageous sacrifice of her rival. The reprisals of feminine vanity did not stop there: the ambitious and intriguing Duchess went further, she undertook to ruin Madame de Longueville in her brother's estimation. With that object she set herself, with the assistance of La Rochefoucauld, to decry her in every way to him, and sought even to persuade him that his sister was not attached to him as she made it appear, and that she had promised the Duke de Nemours to serve him at his expense; whilst Madame de Longueville had never dreamed in any way of separating Nemours ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... letter while Red Chief, with a blanket wrapped around him, strutted up and down, guarding the mouth of the cave. Bill begged me tearfully to make the ransom fifteen hundred dollars instead of two thousand. "I ain't attempting," says he, "to decry the celebrated moral aspect of parental affection, but we're dealing with humans, and it ain't human for anybody to give up two thousand dollars for that forty-pound chunk of freckled wildcat. I'm willing to take a chance at fifteen hundred dollars. You can charge ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... contradicts his theory every time he tells of it." To that extent this writer states the case correctly. Every modern vocal teacher believes that the voice must be consciously guided in its muscular operations. Until this erroneous belief is abandoned it is idle for a teacher to decry ...
— The Psychology of Singing - A Rational Method of Voice Culture Based on a Scientific Analysis of All Systems, Ancient and Modern • David C. Taylor
... the last ten years. Instruction in its management in disease is included in the curriculum of almost every medical school, and most physicians now own an outfit, more or less extensive, for use in ordinary practice. To decry and utterly condemn is no longer the custom of the steady-going physician, the ethics of whose cloth had been for centuries to condemn all that interfered with the use of drugs, and everything whose ...
— Steam Steel and Electricity • James W. Steele
... superior to the genuine English. Either way there is something wrong, and it matters little whether we elevate the composer at the expense of the public, or whether we commend the national taste while we depreciate and decry the excellence of the music or the merit ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... on him you rely. What he says, you say; what he believes, you believe. Now, he believes all these doctrines, and you implicitly through him. But what I chiefly say as the object of this note is, that the bulk of men must believe by an implicit faith. Ergo, decry it not. ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... made nothing! I feel quite guilty among you all, for I took not a single coin the whole afternoon," said Maud the modest; but Jim would not allow his favourite sister to decry herself in his presence, and was up in arms in ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... fashion to decry scholastic distinctions as useless subtleties, or mere phantoms—'entia logica, vel etiam verbalia solum'. And yet in order to secure a safe and Christian interpretation to these and numerous other ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... all the obloquy of all the libelers on earth. If you have met him as man with man, you have doubtless been captivated with his manners, his wit, his animation, and his accomplishments. I have known him long and well. But Europe, within a month, will decry him, as a fugitive, a fool, and a dastard. Such is popular wisdom, justice, and knowledge. A pupil of the first warrior of Prussia and of modern ages, and wanting only experience to do honour to the lessons of Frederick, he will be laughed at by the loose loungers of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... Timothy was really angry, and condescended to speak of our old friend Phineas who had made the onslaught as a bellicose Irishman. There was an over-true story as to our friend having once been seduced into fighting a duel, and those who wished to decry him sometimes alluded to the adventure. Sir Timothy had been called to order, but the Speaker had ruled that "bellicose Irishman" was not beyond the latitude of parliamentary animadversion. Then Sir Timothy ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... without reproach, and without being afraid of wounding you; he abuses you, and you endure and bow before it. Oh, you men, if you read this, know that I am grieved to the bottom of my heart to allow you so much importance, but it would be both bad taste and bad tactics to decry your worth; the value of our enemies enhances our own. What credit is it to conquer dunces? Know, you who wear trousers, know that in me you have a foe. I take pleasure in magnifying you men in order to maintain in myself the noble ardour ...
— Marie Bashkirtseff (From Childhood to Girlhood) • Marie Bashkirtseff
... they showed themselves of pretty good metal, in that not even Happy Tack, confirmed pessimist that he was, ever put the least suspicion of Luck's honesty into words. They were not the kind to decry a comrade when his back was turned. And they had worked with Luck Lindsay and had worked for him. They had slept under the same roof with him, had shared his worries, his hopes, and his fears. They did not believe that Luck had appropriated the proceeds of The Phantom Herd and had deliberately left ...
— The Heritage of the Sioux • B.M. Bower
... the conversation, if it could have been tested, would have been found voluntary rather than spontaneous; but the sound was gay, and there could be no question of the splendor of the sight. We may decry our own almost as much as we please, but there is a point where we must cease to depreciate ourselves; even for the sake of evincing our superiority to our possessions, we must not undervalue some of them. One of these ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... match for two Yankees," he has an inherent, continuous, unconditioned right to have this superiority recognized at the ballot-box. Indeed, the injustice of this is so monstrous, that the Johnson orators find it more convenient to decry all conditions of representation than to meet the incontrovertible reasons for exacting the condition which bases representation on voters. Not to make it a part of the Constitution would be, in Mr. Shellabarger's ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various
... of their ray florets—have become prime favorites of late years in European gardens, so offering them still another chance to overrun the Old World, to which so much American hay is shipped? Thrifty farmers may decry the importation into their mowing lots, but there is a glory to the cone-flower beside which the glitter of a gold coin fades into paltry nothingness. Having been instructed in the decorative usefulness of all this genus by European landscape gardeners, we Americans now importune ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al
... decry opera, but it is very clear that some of the energy which is now being used for opera might far better be put into the wider field of drama. Because of its very nature, opera is bound to appeal to and to reach fewer people than drama. As a force and a power ...
— Poet Lore, Volume XXIV, Number IV, 1912 • Various
... too late now, we join M. Mignet in believing, to doubt or even to decry the personal charms of the Princess of Eboli, which the misty delirium of the poet may have magnified, or the expedient boldness of the romancer too voluptuously emblazoned, but which more than one grave annalist has calmly commemorated.[4] ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... their lungs shrink, and their stomachs grow fat. No other species will be quite so deformed and distorted. Athletics they will watch, yes, but on the whole sparingly practise. Their snuffy old scholars will even be proud to decry them. Where once the simians swung high through forests, or scampered like deer, their descendants will plod around farms, or mince along city streets, moving constrictedly, ...
— This Simian World • Clarence Day
... indeed from wishing to decry art, the study of art, or the benefits to be derived from its intelligent enjoyment. I only mean to suggest that we go the wrong way to work at present in this matter. Picture and sculpture galleries accustom us to the separation of art from life. Our methods ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... without pricking a lance with him in their behalf. What do you, either of you, who abuse woman in that wholesale style, know of her? Nothing—less than nothing; and yet you venture, upon your paltry experience, to lift up your voices and decry the sex. Now I do know her; and upon my own experience avouch, that, as a sex, woman, compared with man, is as an angel to a devil. As a sex, woman is faithful, loving, self-sacrificing. We 'tis that make her otherwise; we, selfish, exacting, neglectful men; we teach her indifference, ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... to be slaves! See, all our fools aspiring to be knaves! The wit of cheats, the courage of a whore, Are what ten thousand envy and adore; All, all look up, with reverential awe, At crimes that 'scape, or triumph o'er the law; While truth, worth, wisdom, daily they decry— "Nothing is sacred now but villainy ". Yet may this verse (if such a verse remain) Show, there was one who held it ...
— English Satires • Various
... popular Chamber in its struggles with the autocracy of the Upper House, the young Parliamentarian was equally jealous of the reasonable prerogative of the Crown, and temperate in the language he used when he had occasion to decry its abuse. He was one of the few in the Legislature who, while they recognized that the old system of government was becoming less and less suited to the genius and wants of the young Canadian community, at the same time wished to usher in the new regime with the moderation and tact which mark ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam
... to material forms, As mists to the copious shower As dead calms are to tornado storms That in tropical region lower So are educational fallacies That ignore and decry as naught The value and power that ever lie In ...
— Our Profession and Other Poems • Jared Barhite
... Another circumstance, too, which Mr. O'Connell did not create and could not in the beginning control, contributed to mar his future glory. This was the pecuniary compensation which the emancipated Catholics kneeled to present him. It is far from being intended here to disparage the offering or decry its acceptance. On the contrary, if this were the proper place, both would be vindicated with zealous pride. But the effect of the continued collection, on Mr. O'Connell's conduct and efficiency was baneful in the extreme. And it was among the most prominent ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny
... if at table some discordant dish, [59] Should shock our optics, such as frogs for fish; As oil in lieu of butter men decry, And poppies please not in a modern pie; [lxxxiii] 630 If all such mixtures then be half a crime, We must have Excellence to relish rhyme. Mere roast and boiled no Epicure invites; Thus Poetry ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... names, call by ugly names; avile^, revile; vilify, vilipend^; bespatter; backbite; clapperclaw^; rave against, thunder against, fulminate against; load with reproaches. exclaim against, protest against, inveigh against, declaim against, cry out against, raise one's voice against. decry; cry down, run down, frown down; clamor, hiss, hoot, mob, ostracize, blacklist; draw up a round robin, sign a round robin. animadvert upon, reflect upon; glance at; cast reflection, cast reproach, cast a slur upon; insinuate, damn with faint praise; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... prostrate before him, either on the ground upon bended knees, or sitting upon low benches. Nor was this rigid system relaxed in the middle of the same (xvith) century; when Roger Ascham composed his incomparable treatise, intitled the "Schoolmaster;" the object of which was to decry the same severity of discipline. This able writer taught his countrymen the value of making the road to knowledge smooth and inviting, by smiles and remunerations, rather than by stripes and other punishments. Indeed, such ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... an ante-graduate course of a few years on the road and he will know to what use to put his book learning when he gets that. I do not decry book lore; the midnight incandescent burned over the classic page is a good thing. I am merely saying that lots of good copper wire goes to waste, because too many college "grads" start their education wrong end ...
— Tales of the Road • Charles N. Crewdson
... reintroduce the old inequalities of wealth? What motive would they have for not doing so? What motive is possible except idealism, love of mankind, non-economic motives of the sort that Bolsheviks decry? The system created by violence and the forcible rule of a minority must necessarily allow of tyranny and exploitation; and if human nature is what Marxians assert it to be, why should the rulers neglect ...
— The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism • Bertrand Russell
... I was the plaything of the two irreconcilable passions I have now described to you; I was influenced by each alternately. I loved an angel and a demon; two women equally beautiful,—one adorned with all the virtues which we decry through hatred of our own imperfections, the other with all the vices which we deify through selfishness. Returning along that avenue, looking back again and again at Madame de Mortsauf, as she leaned against a tree surrounded ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... of nothing but you. After remaining at home but one week, business called me to Philadelphia. Judge of my delight when almost the first object that met my view was your beautiful, unforgotten little self. You were just stepping into one of those very omnibusses you have since seen fit to decry. What followed you must remember as distinctly as I—no not as distinctly, for the whole of that delicious interview is engraven on my heart—one of the sun-bright scenes of my life that I can never forget. And now, after that beautiful interchange of thought and soul that promised—every ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various
... been made to decry the consistency and question the real philanthropy of Las Casas, in consequence of one of the expedients to which he resorted to relieve the Indians from the cruel bondage imposed upon them. This occurred in 1517, when he arrived in Spain, on one of his ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... from officious neighbors that his father was speaking ill of him. After having been proud of his son's successes, and having boasted of them everywhere, Melchior was weak and shameful enough to be jealous of them. He tried to decry them. It was stupid to weep; Jean-Christophe could only shrug his shoulders in contempt. It was no use being angry about it, for his father did not know what he was doing, and was embittered by his own downfall. The boy said nothing. He was afraid, if he ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... self-holiness." Mind this phrase. Far was it from the heart of good Mr. Bunyan to decry personal holiness. It is nothing but self-holiness, or the holiness of the old man of sin; for true holiness springs from the belief of the truth, and love to the truth. All besides this only tends ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... inevitable prejudice even at this length of time leads one to discount the valour of pilots in the German Air Service, but the names of Boelcke, von Richthofen, and Immelmann recur as proof of the courage that was not wanting in the enemy ranks, while, however much we may decry the Gotha raids over the English coast and on London, there is no doubt that the men who undertook these raids were not deficient in the form of bravery that is of more value than the unthinking valour of a minute which, observed from the right ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian
... threshing-floor—if we examine it in France, for instance, between Racine and Andre Chenier, we are obliged to recognise that it was very rarely both genuine and appropriate. The Romantic Revival, which we are beginning ungratefully to decry, did at least restore to poetry the sense of a genuine stateliness of expression, which once more gave it the requisite dignity, and made it a vehicle for the vital and the ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... rugs—all old and all more than ordinarily pleasing in design and colouring—were sprawling about the chamber, any organised depreciation was out of the question. Where all were so beautiful, it required a larger output of moral courage than any one of us could essay to decry the whole pack. By way of doing his or her bit, everybody decided to praise one or two to the implied condemnation of the remainder. In the absence of collusion, it was inevitable that those rugs which somebody ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... to decry the holy state of matrimony, Mrs. Dr. dear, but I felt that when a man was running a revolution he had his hands full and should have postponed marriage until a more fitting season. The Russians are done ...
— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... stiff siege-pictures, with van der Werf offering his arm as food for the starving people, rather than surrender to the Spaniards. In spite of her distaste for the painting, however, she would not hear me decry van der Werf in favor of an obscure engineer, lately discovered as the true hero of the siege. Van der Werf should not be snatched from her by a man she chose to detest, so she argued and abused my treachery during the whole ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... contradiction to what has been described in this book, that there is as yet no prospect of coming to an understanding with many people. It is here that we come to the point where the desire must arise that it should no longer be a characteristic of our present day culture to at once decry as fanciful or visionary a method of research which differs from its own. But on the other hand it is also a fact at the present time that a number of people can appreciate the supersensible method of research, as it is presented in this book, people who understand that the meaning of life is ...
— An Outline of Occult Science • Rudolf Steiner
... in coffee-houses, brothels, and beer-shops, and observe who cry out most against the cheapness of the times, the reduced five per cents., and the increasing nuisance of police regulations; who rail the loudest against government, or decry physiognomical science, and such like? These are the right sort of fellows, brother. Their honesty is as loose as a hollow tooth; you have only to apply your pincers. Or a shorter and even better plan is to drop a full purse in the public highway, ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... antediluvian, anteroom *Bi two biped, bicycle *Circum around circumambient, circumference *Cum, com, with, together combine, consort, coadjutor con, co *Contra against contradict, contrast *De from, negative deplete, decry, demerit, declaim down, intensive *Di, dis asunder, away from, divert, disbelief negative *E, ex from, out of evict, excavate *Extra beyond extraordinary, extravagant *In in, into, not innate, instil, insignificant *Inter among, between intercollegiate, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... hope from war?—Go, fool, to Dardan ears These bodings whisper, to thy new ally. Go, swell the panic, spread the coward's fears. Puff up the foemen's prowess to the sky,— Twice-conquered churls,—and Latin arms decry. See now, forsooth, the Myrmidons afraid Of Phrygian arms, Tydides fain to fly, Achilles trembling, Aufidus in dread Shrunk from the Hadrian deep, and cowering ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... hold that he would have been justified in giving his son, an unbeliever, the same academic advantages that he had given to the two others, when it was possible, if not probable, that those very advantages might have been used to decry the doctrines which he had made it his life's mission and desire to propagate, and the mission of his ordained sons likewise. To put with one hand a pedestal under the feet of the two faithful ones, and with the other to exalt the unfaithful by the ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... reached the entrance to the government building: the Major paused at the foot of the mahogany staircase to conclude earnestly: "It is fashionable just now in Manila to decry this effort to institute civil government among the Moros—but I know you are not of the type to be influenced. Governor Mason is making good: you will see that after you have been here a month. He is a wonder, Terry,—probably the only man ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... you, too, who six months ago seemed as reasonable a man as I ever met, have joined in the chorus of denunciators. It has become the fashion to-day, thanks to your socialists, reformers, and agitators, to decry a man because he is rich, to take it for granted that he is a thief and a scoundrel, that he has no sense of responsibility for his country and his fellow-men. The glory, the true democracy of this nation, lies in its equal opportunity for all. They take no account of that, of ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... well. They possess the art of giving interest even to trifles, and have a natural eloquence de plume, as well as de langue, that renders the task an easy one. It is the custom in England to decry French novels, because the English unreasonably expect that the literature of other countries should be judged by the same criterion by which they examine their own, without making sufficient allowance for the different ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner
... a bolder eye Hath lit each dew-drop on our trimmer lawn! Yet not for this, if wise, will we decry The spots and struggles of the timid Dawn; Lest so we tempt the approaching Noon to scorn The mists and painted vapours of ...
— Poems of Coleridge • Coleridge, ed Arthur Symons
... made of the inefficacy of the present law to decry the proposal made by the noble lord for laying a high duty upon these pernicious liquors. High duties have already, as we are informed, been tried without advantage; high duties are at this hour imposed upon those spirits which are retailed, yet we see them every day sold in the streets without the ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 11. - Parlimentary Debates II. • Samuel Johnson
... not bow his head like a bulrush in the presence of a race whose records are as stained by crime and dishonor as theirs. Let others decry the Negro, and say hard things about him, I am not prepared to join in the ...
— Trial and Triumph • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... that a man is ignorant of rumors that are afloat about him. A whole town may be talking of his affairs; may calumniate and decry him, but if he has no good friends, he will know nothing about it. Now the innocent du Bousquier was superb in his ignorance. No one had told him as yet of Suzanne's revelations; he therefore appeared very jaunty and slightly conceited when the company, leaving the dining-room, ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... the follies you decry, As tyrants doom their tools of guilt to die; 'Tis yours, this night, to bid the reign commence Of rescued Nature, and reviving Sense; To chase the charms of Sound, the pomp of Show, For useful Mirth and salutary Woe; 60 Bid scenic Virtue form ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... Havemann in the August 8, 1960 issue of Life contains a very worthwhile article on this conference called "Who's Normal? Nobody, But We All Keep On Trying. In Dissent From 'Mental Health' Approach, Experts Decry Futile Search For An Unreal Goal." The following paragraph is taken from the ...
— A Practical Guide to Self-Hypnosis • Melvin Powers
... utterly useless for me to decry or ridicule his superstitions; and there was but ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... commerce, avarice and method and need, are odious to the Valley; and we cover them up with a pretty body of fiction and observances. Thus, when it comes to buying pigs, the buyer does not begin to decry the pig and the vendor to praise it, as is the custom with lesser men; but tradition makes them do ...
— Hills and the Sea • H. Belloc
... you have never been away from home," remarked Raleigh. "I have already been up the Mediterranean once, and without for a moment attempting to decry the—" ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... to decry the value of reading. We read, we are told, to avoid the necessity of thinking for ourselves. Books are ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... when he was discovered marking M. Claudin's catalogue, surreptitiously, before breakfast. Thus, indeed, end all our remorses. "Lancelot falls to his own love again," as in the romance. Much, and justly, as theologians decry a death-bed repentance, it is, perhaps, the only repentance that we do not repent of. All others leave us ready, when occasion comes, to fall to our old love again; and may that love never be worse than the taste for old books! Once a collector, always a ...
— Books and Bookmen • Andrew Lang
... I prefer the former for it seems to me that Paul's purpose is to impress upon us the benefits of Christ. This reading also preserves the implied criticism that the Galatians withdrew themselves from that Christ who had called them not unto the law, but unto grace. With Paul we decry the blindness and perverseness of men in that they will not receive the message of grace and salvation, or having received it they quickly let go of it, in spite of the fact that the Gospel bestows all good things spiritual: forgiveness of sins, true righteousness, peace of conscience, ...
— Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians • Martin Luther
... and prepare thee for the combat of life and death! Cast from thee the foul scurf which now encrusts thy robust limbs, which deadens their force, and makes them heavy and powerless! Cast from thee thy false philosophers, who would fain decry what, next to the love of God, has hitherto been deemed most sacred, the love of the mother land! Cast from thee thy false patriots, who, under the pretext of redressing the wrongs of the poor and weak, seek to promote internal discord, so that thou mayest become only terrible ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... into and disfigured the Shakespearean text, much to the puzzlement of the commentators. Often as Hamlet's reforming speech has been recited, it has been generally met and nullified by someone moving "the previous question." At the same time, while there is an inclination to decry perhaps too strenuously the condition of the modern stage, it is fair to credit it with a measure of amendment in regard both to rant and gag. Of late years rant has certainly declined in public favour, and the "robustious ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... be concluded, from this specimen of academick life, that I have attempted to decry our universities. If literature is not the essential requisite of the modern academick, I am yet persuaded, that Cambridge and Oxford, however degenerated, surpass the fashionable academies of our metropolis, and the gymnasia of foreign countries. The number of learned persons ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... gentlewoman is a tribute to me. You cannot have celebrity and sex-privilege both.' Thus Ethelberta laughed off the awkward conjuncture, inwardly deploring the unconscionable maternal meddling which had led to this, though not resentfully, for she had too much staunchness of heart to decry a parent's misdirected zeal. Had the clanship feeling been universally as strong as in the Chickerel family, the fable of the well-bonded fagot ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... from the law, and mercy from the gospel. "To impute crimes to Christianity," says the celebrated King of Prussia, "is the act of a novice." His word may fairly be taken for such an assertion. And yet these unbelievers have been so vile and perverse as to decry a system which they acknowledge to be useful. How ungrateful! How reprehensible! Collect now the thoughts scattered under this branch of the subject, and be honest—heartily believe, and openly acknowledge, ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... memories the talk of those lamentable four girls. It had spoilt the sweetness of her day; it spoils now, for a while, her own sweetness. Her comments on it have none of the wayward charm of her morning fancies, for Pippa is very human—she can envy and decry, swinging loose from the central steadiness of her nature like many another of us, obsessed like her by some vile happening of the hours. Just as we might find our whole remembrance of a festival thus overlaid ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... claims of faith so far, that it would become, if they had their will, an utterly unreasonable faith; some of whom do not scruple to speak slightingly of the evidences which substantiate Christianity; to decry and depreciate the study of them; to pronounce that study unnecessary; and even in many cases to insinuate their insufficiency. They are loud in the mean time in extolling a faith which, as Whately truly observes, ...
— Reason and Faith; Their Claims and Conflicts • Henry Rogers
... quotations from elsewhere, With a mere passing indication of the fact that Matthew Arnold here, like every good critic of this century, avowedly pursues that plan of "placing" writers which some of his own admirers so foolishly decry, I may observe that this is a locus classicus for his own special kind of criticism. It is possible—I do not know whether he did so—that Sir Mountstuart may, on receiving the letter, have smiled and thought of "Mon siege est fait"; but I am sure he would ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury |
