"Offensively" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... when certain sects would feel offended at hearing their places of worship thus styled; whereas, at the present day, those very sectarians are a little disposed to resent this exclusive appropriation of the proscribed word by the sects who have always adhered to it as offensively presuming, and, in a slight degree, "arisdogradic!" I am a little afraid that your out-and-outers in politics, religion, love of liberty, and other human excellences, are somewhat apt to make these circuits in their eccentric orbits, and ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper
... cleared for Rio and the South Pacific. I was now twenty-six years old, and it was eight years since I had been at Liverpool, and ten since I had heard anything of John. After my father's death his old spirit had shown itself very offensively toward me, and we ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... disliking him, his manner was so offensively familiar and patronizing—and her plans concerning him made her contemptuous of herself, and therefore resentful against him. "I'm ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... the "gallery" and a very few indeed of the guests; but most of them put in a final "Glory, Hallelujah," at the end of each stanza. Mr. Wright's tunes are bright and cheerful in the extreme, without being vulgar or offensively secular. ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... renewed protest against the persistent use of certain distorted forms of spelling commonly called "simplified". These wretched innovations, popular amongst the less educated element during the past decade, are now becoming offensively prominent in certain periodicals of supposedly better grade, and require concerted opposition on the part of all friends of our language. The advantages claimed for the changes are almost wholly unsubstantial, whilst the inevitable disadvantages are ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... first, with the man she called Benjamin at her heels, and set the candle on the mantel-piece. Trottle takes leave to describe her as an offensively-cheerful old woman, awfully lean and wiry, and sharp all over, at eyes, nose, and chin—devilishly brisk, smiling, and restless, with a dirty false front and a dirty black cap, and short fidgetty arms, and long hooked finger-nails—an unnaturally lusty old woman, who ...
— A House to Let • Charles Dickens
... more frequently in his own office, to discuss the ways and means by which the principles of the Democratic party could be made to contribute most liberally to the liberty of man, especially in Jordantown. In the second place, the tone of Coleman's voice was cool, offensively so. He detected a note of command in it. Suppose Coleman should be coming up to inform him of certain changes in the policy which would govern the manifestations of the democratic principle? In short, suppose he ...
— The Co-Citizens • Corra Harris
... give us goodness when he chooses, a human goodness, not offensively perfect, not preaching, not mawkish, but high-minded and engaging. There are two such types in "Kings in Exile," the Queen and Elysee Meraut, essentially honest both of them, thinking little of self, and sustained by lofty purpose. Naturalistic novelists generally (and M. ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... movements. The town was of recent establishment, and seemed to have been hastily constructed of undressed lumber and flapping canvas. The element that had congregated about the station, though not offensively demonstrative, was clearly composed of citizens accustomed to and prepared ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... similar contact with negroes was to be avoided at any cost. He could hardly expect McBane to be a gentleman, but when among men of that class he might at least try to imitate their manners. A gentleman did not order his own servants around offensively, to say ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt
... to prevent our throwing ourselves into the hands of a cruel, barbarous, and insulting enemy: Our long-boat, when finished, can be fit for no enterprize, but the preservation of life: As we cannot act offensively, we ought to have regard to our safety and liberty. This evening proposals were offered to the officers concerning our going through the Streights of Magellan; which at this time ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... critic. I appreciated this better later on when advances were made to me from high quarters to use my influence with Seroff to assuage the bitterness of his persecution of Anton Rubinstein, who just at that time was being somewhat offensively patronised. On my mentioning the matter to him, he explained his reasons for believing Rubinstein's influence in Russia to be pernicious, whereupon I begged him, for my sake at least, to hold his hand a little, as I did not wish, during my brief stay in St. Petersburg, to pose as Rubinstein's ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... known throughout the colony. When a Commissary, lightly and incidentally (and therefore the more offensively) settles, without understanding them, the most important points of difference between two unreconciled races, the very winds stoop in their flight, to snatch up the tidings, and drop them as they fly. See here! See how ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... acquaintances to attribute some moral enormity as his governing reason, he prudently adopted a moderately selfish inducement for his acts, which he proclaimed with a simplicity and frankness that generally obtained credit. Indeed, the fact once conceded that the motive was not offensively disinterested and just, no one was indisposed to listen to the projects of his friend, who usually rose in estimation, as he was found to be ingenious, calculating, and shrewd. The effect of all this was to render society singularly ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... but in their habits there is a much greater. Instead of flying over hills and valleys in pursuit of living game, the vultures only search for dead carcasses, which they prefer, although they may have been a long time dead, and therefore very bad, and smelling very offensively. They generally live in very warm countries, and are useful in clearing away those dead carcasses which, but for them, would cause many dreadful diseases. In some countries, indeed, on account of this, the inhabitants ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin
... hair-line. The true reason for rejecting the Creed is that it is manufactured, that it is not a statement of what is seen and felt to be true. There is nevertheless a certain dogmatic pride in it, a desire to affirm as offensively as possible. ...
— More Pages from a Journal • Mark Rutherford
... deny the splendid role that the Home has played in the history of the last three centuries. Many an English and American home to-day still merits even such an offensively pretentious epithet as "Palladium." What morals our people have known and practised they have learned and been drilled in in the homes. That these morals should have been warped by a class-bias was inevitable. ...
— Socialism: Positive and Negative • Robert Rives La Monte
... Well, there I was! I had been raised to respect the Sabbath and between the time that he said he would see me in the morning and the time that I said all right—which was about a jiffy—I figured out that it would be better to succeed doing business on Sunday than to fail by being too offensively good. For a stranger in a strange place work is apt to be less mischievous than idling, even on the ...
— Tales of the Road • Charles N. Crewdson
... any brief and positive utterance upon them would seem to be lacking in judicial fairness. The exigencies and temptations of a lecture-room are also sadly provocative of that rhetorical bombast and exaggeration which, having been so lavishly and offensively indulged on our Fourth of July and other commemorative occasions in the supposed interests of popular patriotism, have brought our whole national literature under a reproach hardly deserved. Mr. Greene, from his long residence abroad, has heard and known too much of this reproach to have risked ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... hadn't joined the great army of teetotallers then,) when a neighboring farmer came in, whose moderation, at least in whisky toddies, was not known unto all men. His name was W—. He was a quiet sort of a man when sober, lively and chatty under the effect of a single glass, argumentative and offensively dogmatic after the second toddy, and downright insulting and quarrelsome after getting beyond that number of drinks. We liked him and disliked ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur
... formerly a time when the Gauls excelled the Germans in prowess, and waged war on them offensively, and on account of the great number of their people and the insufficiency of their land, sent colonies over the Rhine. Accordingly, the Volcae Tectosages seized on those parts of Germany which are the most fruitful and lie around ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... offensively enough; for over and above the habitual distrust of his character, it was in his nature to seek to revenge himself on the fine clothes and the fine furniture, in exact proportion as he had been unable ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... their clothing is stained indelibly by the juice. Botanists know the handsome tree as SEMECARPUS AUSTRALIENSIS, but by the indignant parent of the child with tearful and distorted features and ruined raiment it is offensively called the "tar-tree," and is subject to shrill denunciations. The fleshy stalk beneath the fruit is, however, quite wholesome either raw or cooked, but the oily pericarp contains a caustic principle actually poisonous, so that unwary ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... of politeness, he bade me welcome to his Court in the fewest possible words, and then passed me by without further notice. He afterward informed the English Minister that I had been so unfortunate as to try his temper: "Your new secretary irritates me, sir—he is a person in an offensively perfect state of health." The Prince's charming daughter was not of her father's way of thinking; it is impossible to say how graciously, how sweetly I was received. She honored me by speaking to me in my own language, of which ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... offensively said; but the conviction it expressed was absolute. Sweetwater recognised the tone, as one of truth, and inwardly laid down his arms. He could never like the man; there was too much iron in his fibre; ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green
... much attention from artists and members of clubs, but possibly her love, or affection for art, might have sprung from the desire to gain more knowledge of how to make herself attractive in dress, manner, and conversation. Christine was not offensively vain, but she was passionately fond of admiration. Alfonso had never dreamed that Christine was not genuine at heart. She appeared to him to make much of her American acquaintance, introducing him to her many friends, young ladies as well as young gentlemen, ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton
... Pashinsky repeated that the Em. will be taken to Ekaterinburg with the Empress and the Heir. The daughters will stay here for a while. "Believe me, we'll have a good time," he said, offensively ...
— Rescuing the Czar - Two authentic Diaries arranged and translated • James P. Smythe
... my answer to Melissa, for I fear it was offensively brusque, my opinion being that Sir Gavial was the more pernicious scoundrel of the two, since his name for virtue served as an effective part of a swindling apparatus; and perhaps I hinted that to call such a man moral showed rather a silly notion ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... 'Ere 'e is, sir; all alive an' kickin'," answered the small butcher, delighted to have the chance of making himself offensively useful, "but the hinsurance offices wouldn't 'ave the clo'se-baskit at no price. Shall I order up the remains of your ...
— Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished - A Tale of City Arab Life and Adventure • R.M. Ballantyne
... us, excited rather a wholesome feeling of inferiority or inadequacy. We had yet to find ourselves. But there remained undoubtedly some antagonism between the old and the new. Not that this ever showed itself offensively; nothing could have been kinder or more open-hearted than our reception by the lieutenants who had not known the Academy, and who probably depreciated it in their hearts. Whatever they thought, nothing was ever said that could ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... identified the passion with the dream. He had not been prepared for that view of it; and somehow it annoyed him. But for that, he would never have spoken as he now did. "When I wondered how you would take it I thought it might possibly strike you as something rather too real, almost offensively so. Do you know, I'd rather you'd taken it that way than that you should talk about my dreams. My dreams." (It was shocking, the violent emphasis of disgust the poet, the dreamer, flung into that one word.) "As if I'd dreamed that I knew you. As if I'd dreamed that I cared for you. Would you ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... Prussia has had the leadership of Germany. The political condition of a country without natural frontiers and surrounded by powerful neighbours is a perpetual source of wars which, in Germany's case, have been, by deliberate policy, offensively defensive. ...
— Essays in War-Time - Further Studies In The Task Of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... would not be at all probable. I am sure he would very much rather come with any message of his own." At this he sniggered most offensively. "I called with a hope of seeing your brother, Lord Hampstead, with whom I may take the liberty of saying that I have ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... the analyst; that though the very subject cannot but detract from the pleasure of a delicate mind, yet never was poem less dangerous on a moral account. Instead of doing as Ariosto, and as, still more offensively, Wieland has done, instead of degrading and deforming passion into appetite, the trials of love into the struggles of concupiscence; Shakespeare has here represented the animal impulse itself, so as to preclude all sympathy with it, by dissipating the reader's ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... unmusical, penurious old ladies and gentlemen back into the lounge, glaring at them as belligerently and offensively as a gentleman could and maintain his self-respect. Then he went into the waiting-room and embarked upon a positive orgy of letter-writing. Looking up from the last of his pile a half-hour later, he observed the young ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... I was a 'very great Missis', because of my 'plenty good behaviour'; that I spoke to him just as to a white gentleman, and did not 'laugh and talk nonsense talk'. 'Never say "Here, you black fellow", dat Misses.' The English, when they mean to be good- natured, are generally offensively familiar, and 'talk nonsense talk', i.e. imitate the Dutch English of the Malays and blacks; the latter feel it the greatest compliment to be treated au serieux, and spoken to in good English. Choslullah's ...
— Letters from the Cape • Lady Duff Gordon
... tinkering. Pardon my unceremonious language. I do not like that affected old word, 'ill-besped' in the first line. To ascribe human feelings to a leaf, as you have done through the whole Poem, notwithstanding your authority, as I conceive, offensively violates reason. There is no analogy; no conceivable bond of union between thought and inanimate things, and it is about as rational as though, in sober reasoning, you were to make the polished shoe remonstrate with its wearer, in being soiled so soon after it had received ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... equity proceeding from a sincere love of peace, and a liberality having no restriction but the essential interests and dignity of the United States. The attempt, however, of an amicable negotiation having been frustrated, the troops have marched to act offensively. Although the proposed treaty did not arrest the progress of military preparation, it is doubtful how far the advance of the season, before good faith justified active movements, may retard them during the remainder ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... to prevent the invasion of exposed and defenceless portions of the country.—The best plan for the accomplishment of this object was believed to be, the sending of an advance army into the Indian country, of sufficient strength to act offensively, before a confederacy could be formed of the different tribes, and their combined forces be brought into the field. A sense of the exposed situation of their towns in the presence of an hostile army, requiring the entire strength of every village for its defence, would, it was ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... investigators to have to admit it, were not objects of his solicitude except in so far as they contributed to his real and ultimate endeavor. He never at any time or under any circumstances advocated their use generally as soldiers outside of Indian Territory in regular campaign work and offensively.[38] As guerrillas he would have used them.[39] He would have sent them on predatory expeditions into Kansas or any other near-by state where pillaging would have been profitable or retaliatory; but never as an organized ...
— The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War • Annie Heloise Abel
... Mr. Billing's speech was indecently nude. The remainder of it was offensively bald. There was once an elderly and cantankerous farm labourer who complained that he could not hear the curate when he preached. He was on the next occasion set in the forefront of the congregation and the curate spoke directly into ...
— General John Regan - 1913 • George A. Birmingham
... absolutely does, stand within the frame—and at a depth behind it equal to the distance at which the painter sees his model. The frame is, indeed, the window through which the painter looks at his model, and nothing could be more offensively inartistic than this brutal attempt to thrust the model on the hither-side ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler
... condition of affairs is indeed most offensively unbearable, illustrious Being,' remarked Shan-se, who clearly perceived that his former silence had not been productive of a delicate ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah
... more interesting as the lack of news from the investigators restored a sort of hopeful optimism to the breasts of the anxious company. Those who had maintained a stubborn air of bravado, now became almost offensively jaunty. Others, frankly terrified at the outset, sauntered timidly away from the life-boats to which they were assigned. Every one was glad that the Captain had ordered a life-boat drill on the first afternoon out, ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... the Carvakas and Buddhists. This lumping together of offensively heretical sects may be merely theological animus, but still it is possible that there may be a connection between the Carvakas and the extreme forms of Mahayanist nihilism. Schrader[794] in analysing a singular work, called the Svasamvedyopanishad, says it is "inspired by the Mahayanist ...
— Hinduism And Buddhism, Volume II. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... dramatic power in the essential was rudimentary. Yet Mr. Matthew Arnold, a living English poet, writes that Sophocles 'saw life steadily and saw it whole.' This is true of no man, not of Shakespeare nor of Goethe, much less of Sophocles or Racine. The phrase itself is as offensively out of date as the First Commandment." The bold, incisive criticism had a singular fascination for his hearers, who were too young to remark in it the crudeness ...
— Elder Conklin and Other Stories • Frank Harris
... a condition due only to bad drainage, as other wash-rooms are absolutely dry. Whatever the condition of the work-rooms, the women's dressing-rooms frequently had insanitary plumbing, and were verminous and unhealthful. In one laundry the water supply was contaminated, smelling and tasting offensively when it came from the faucet, and worse after it had passed through the cooler. The women here at first kept bottles of soda-water. Some old women had beer. But on a series of hot days, with hours from half past seven to twelve, ...
— Making Both Ends Meet • Sue Ainslie Clark and Edith Wyatt
... sprang up, and the air felt pleasant and refreshing. We killed the cock and drank its blood. Then Islam turned the head of the sheep towards Mecca, cut off its head, and collected the blood in a pail, but it was thick and smelt offensively, and not even the dog ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... the turnpike road, when his reverie was suddenly interrupted by a confused noise; and when he lifted up his eyes he beheld at a little distance a rabble of men and women, variously armed with flails, pitchforks, poles, and muskets, acting offensively against a strange figure on horseback, who, with a kind of lance, laid about him with incredible fury. Our adventurer was not so totally abandoned by the spirit of chivalry, to see without emotion a single knight in danger of being overpowered by such a multitude of adversaries. Without staying to ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... back here?" inquired Newt, somewhat offensively, as the two drew closer together. ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon
... entertained, recurred with additional strength. Hayraddin had, that very morning, promised to him more modest and discreet behaviour than he was wont to exhibit, when they rested in a convent on their journey, yet he had broken his engagement, and had been even more offensively obstreperous than usual. Something probably lurked under this, for whatever were the Bohemian's deficiencies, he lacked neither sense, nor, when he pleased, self command, and might it not be probable that he wished to hold some communication, either with, his own horde or ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... understand," said Quest, leaning both elbows offensively on Dill's table, "that the job I ask for I expect ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... and now suffers, from two misleading conceptions: one that a navy is for defence primarily, and not for offensive war; the other, consequent mainly upon the first, that the monitor, being stronger defensively than offensively, and of inferior mobility, was the best type of warship. The Civil War, being, so far as the sea was concerned, essentially a coast war, naturally fostered this opinion. The monitor in smooth water is better able to stand up to shore guns than ships are which present a larger target; but, ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan
... consisted of her cousin, a cup of tea and the view. The tea was good; but the view was familiar, though perhaps not, like the cousin—a disagreeable old maid who had been of the group at the museum and with whom she now lived—offensively so. This connection with an inferior relative, which had partly an economical motive—she proclaimed her companion a marvellous manager—was one of the little perversities we had to forgive her. Another was her estimate of the proprieties created by her rupture with her husband. That ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James |
