"Exceptionable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... inauspicious &c 859. bad, ill, arrant, as bad as bad can be, dreadful; horrid, horrible; dire; rank, peccant, foul, fulsome; rotten, rotten at the core. vile, base, villainous; mean &c (paltry) 643; injured &c; deteriorated &c 659; unsatisfactory, exceptionable indifferent; below par &c (imperfect) 651; illcontrived, ill-conditioned; wretched, sad, grievous, deplorable, lamentable; pitiful, pitiable, woeful &c (painful) 830. evil, wrong; depraved &c 945; shocking; reprehensible &c (disapprove) 932. hateful, hateful as a toad; abominable, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... attendant upon ill-digested ideas. The preamble recited various practices of Great Britain as subversive of international right; most of which were not so, but in accordance with long-standing usage and general prescription. The methods of blockade instituted by her were more exceptionable, and were given prominence, with evident reference to the Order of May 16, declaring the blockade of a long coast-line. It being evident, so ran the Emperor's reasoning, that the object of this abuse of blockade was to interrupt neutral commerce in favor ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... passengers were drowned; but whether there was a Paul or a Virginia on board, I cannot say. Certainly the French author had no other foundation for his tale than the mere wreck of a ship of that name; and as the language is good, and the moral is less exceptionable than that of most French tales, it is put into the hands of most young people beginning to learn French, and has thus become ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... present, provided they do not come within the degrees of consanguinity mentioned in the seventh rule of Chapter I. 3. Persons admitted on the ground, are carefully to abstain by word or behavior, from any act that might be the least exceptionable; nor should they stand near the principals or seconds, or hold ...
— The Code of Honor • John Lyde Wilson
... are fears. Pope, was it, who used to look around upon the missives hurled at him, and say, "These are my amusement"? But they are not mine. I want you to like me and be good-natured. It is not that you must always agree with opinions, or not take exception to what is exceptionable; it is only that you shall not say things in a sour, cross, disagreeable way. Impale the bait on your arming-wire, but handle it as if you loved it. Talk thunderbolts, if necessary, but don't "make faces." The soft south-wind is very, charming; the northwest-wind, though sharp, is ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... the prisoners has recently been much less exceptionable than in the earlier days of the settlement, and they seem to have accommodated their dispositions, in a great degree, to their new situations; those who are guilty of theft have latterly been transported to some ...
— The Present Picture of New South Wales (1811) • David Dickinson Mann
... Nevertheless, it is exceptionable and unsatisfactory; and like the previous one, in all probability, an incorrect inference founded upon ...
— A Handbook of the English Language • Robert Gordon Latham
... reasons of which I could not feel the force; whilst the other two volumes were known to contain things of such a nature as, had the censor objected to them in the manner he did to the passages he thought exceptionable in the others, would have required their being entirely written over again. I also understood, and M. de Malesherbes himself told me of it, that the Abbe de Grave, whom he had charged with the inspection of this edition, was another partisan of the Jesuits. ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... down to us, the Lycian and Achaean leagues, as far as there remain vestiges of them, appear to have been most free from the fetters of that mistaken principle, and were accordingly those which have best deserved, and have most liberally received, the applauding suffrages of political writers. This exceptionable principle may, as truly as emphatically, be styled the parent of anarchy: It has been seen that delinquencies in the members of the Union are its natural and necessary offspring; and that whenever they happen, the only constitutional remedy is force, ...
— The Federalist Papers
... body which it animates. Therefore, merely because after death the soul is not visible is no demonstration that it does not still live. The condition of being unseen is the same condition which occurs while the body is living, so that intrinsically there is nothing exceptionable, or supernatural, in the life of the soul after death. Resting by the tumulus, the spirit of the man who had been interred there was to me really alive, and very close. This was quite natural, as ...
— The Story of My Heart • Richard Jefferies
... animals. One shall be given in the very words of the Rev. Nicholas Wanley, who, in his authentic Wonders of the Little World, has recorded a number of other facts quite as marvellous, and sustained by testimony not one whit more exceptionable:—'Mathiolus tells of a German, who coming in winter-time into an inn to sup with him and some other of his friends, the woman of the house being acquainted with his temper (lest he should depart at the sight of a young cat which she kept ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 419, New Series, January 10, 1852 • Various
... and palpable a character, and the witnesses to their reality are so numerous, so intelligent, and so high above every suspicion of deceit, that it is equally impossible to deny credit to what is attested by such ample and un exceptionable evidence."—Sir W. Hamilton: Lectures on Metaphysics and Logic, ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... matter as much as Lord Kames. "Just criticism," says he, "calls on us also to point out some of the passages that appear exceptionable in the Dunciad. Such is the hero's first speech, in which, contrary to all decorum and probability, he addresses the goddess Dulness, without disguising her as a despicable being, and even calls himself fool and blockhead. For a person to be introduced speaking thus ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... heiresses shows that he had been looking for exceptionable material in "Irish Artifice," but finding little to his purpose there, had reverted to the stock objections to the scandal novels, where he was upon safe but not original ground. In the body of the pamphlet he returned to assault the same breach. The supposed writer, ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher
... shall be vicious and utterly debauched in his principles;—exceptionable in his conduct to the world; shall live shameless, in the open commission of a sin which no reason or pretence can justify,—a sin by which, contrary to all the workings of humanity, he shall ruin for ever the deluded partner of his guilt;—rob ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... by no means the moat exceptionable parts of Mr. Romanes' article, and have given them a permanence they would not otherwise attain, inasmuch as nothing can better show the temper of the kind of men who are now—as I said in the body of the foregoing work—clamouring ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... exceptionable viscount with weak brains and a large rent-roll whom Margaret had refused ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... no such good angels. Must that which I had to tell remain forever untold for the want of one? This could not be; there must exist somewhere a man or a woman who would be willing to hear my accounts of travels and experiences which, in an exceptionable ...
— The House of Martha • Frank R. Stockton
... registered as such in the process and the sentence; while the fact that he had not been stretched upon the rack during his trial, nor kept in chains for the eight months of his imprisonment, were complacently mentioned as proofs of exceptionable indulgence. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... have been produced at an early period) can derive much merit either from the subject or composition. Many of them were written under great depression of spirits, and during severe indisposition:—hence the gloomy turn of the ideas. We coincide in opinion that the "poesies erotiques" are the most exceptionable; they were, however, grateful to the deities, on whose altars they were offered—more I ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... of rights, asserting and securing from encroachment the great principles of civil and religious liberty, and the unalienable rights of the people, together with amendments to the most ambiguous and exceptionable parts of the said Constitution of government, ought to be laid before Congress and the Convention of the States that shall or may be called for the purpose of amending the said Constitution, for their consideration, previous to the ratification ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... in the Collections. It first appeared in Herd's Collection, in 1769, though it is understood to be of a considerably older date. Allan Ramsay composed two songs to the same air, but they are both inferior. The air is believed to have originally been connected with some exceptionable words, beginning, "Saw ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... the poet, the sceptic, the man of the world, the writer; these are the present moral categories, the summa genera of human greatness as Mr. Emerson arranges them. From every point of view an exceptionable catalogue. They are all thinkers, to begin with, except one: and thought is but a poor business compared to action. Saints did not earn canonisation by the number of their folios; and if the necessities of the times are now driving our best men out of action into ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... proposes to prove, in the first place, that such a communication does actually exist. He quotes the Egyptian magicians, the witch of Endor, the possessions mentioned in the New Testament, and many more exceptionable authorities from the fathers, and canons of the church. He is positive the incantations of the Egyptian magicians were real operations of infernal agents, and that the accounts of them, delivered by Moses, ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... he, "forget for once that you are Pantaloon, and behave as a nice, amiable father-in-law should behave when he has secured a son-in-law of exceptionable merits. We are going to have a bottle of Burgundy at my expense, and it shall be the best bottle of Burgundy to be found in Redon. Compose yourself to do fitting honour to it. Excitations of the bile invariably impair the fine sensitiveness of ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... that he felt little sense of responsibility for the maintenance of the conversation. He sat back in a chair of exceptionable comfortableness, and allowed Beverley Byrd to discourse with him; a privilege which Byrd exercised fitfully, for his heart was in the talk that Sharlee was dutifully supporting with Mr. Miller. Into this talk he resolutely declined ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... disquisitions of this nature. The same remark is applicable to the narratives and descriptions given by native travellers and merchants, and, in general, to all African evidence whatever, except when supported by collateral proof from other less exceptionable sources. ...
— The Journal Of A Mission To The Interior Of Africa, In The Year 1805 • Mungo Park
... Cromwell must ever stand high in the list of those who raised themselves to supreme power by the force of their genius; and among such, even in respect of moral virtue, it would be found to be one of the least exceptionable if it had not been tainted with that most odious and degrading of ...
— A History of the Early Part of the Reign of James the Second • Charles James Fox
... the good and moderate men of all parties. It has already embraced several denominations in the dispute in this Province, and I hear the agitation has extended to New Brunswick, where it will doubtless be renewed with equal zeal. I am told all the pamphlets are exceptionable in point of temper, and this one in particular, which not only ascribes the most unworthy motives to its antagonist, but contains some very unjustifiable and gratuitous attacks upon other sects unconnected with the dispute. ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... chamber-window, which was in full view of the gentlemen, and placing her ear in a listening attitude, bent all her energies to gain a knowledge of what was said; and, having so much at stake, we must excuse the exceptionable act. ...
— Eveline Mandeville - The Horse Thief Rival • Alvin Addison
... indignation at what had passed, their devotion to the federal head, and their dispositions to protect it, and praying them to return; the legislature as soon as assembled did the same thing; the Executive, whose irresolution had been so exceptionable, made apologies. But Congress were now removed; and to the opinion that this example was proper, other causes were now added sufficient to prevent their return ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... Committee. It was desirable to find the best men to get up to the World's Convention. I proposed Mr. Barnum as one, knowing his amazing efficiency. Dr. H. objected, on the ground that he (Barnum) was a very exceptionable man in his part of Connecticut, and would do injury to the Convention; and, as harmony was desirable, and unexceptionable men should be put upon the Committee, his name was withdrawn. It was agreed that what was said in Committee should not ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... pretended prodigies is in most cases a refutation of their claim upon our notice,[329] and even those which are not in themselves exceptionable become so from the circumstances or manner in which they took place. Apollonius is said to have been an incarnation of the God Proteus; his birth was announced by the falling of a thunderbolt and a chorus of swans; his death signalized ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... Like Hannibal, his heroic qualities had inspired a multifarious army—colluvies omnium gentium—with one homogeneous spirit, rendered them subject to his discipline, faithful to his standard, obedient to his will. But in some particulars his private character was still more exceptionable, and stained with the vices as well as virtues of the savage character. Though not habitually cruel, he was stern, vindictive, and implacable; and his government has been stained by some acts of atrocious barbarity at which humanity shudders, and which must ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... fellow-servants as we may say: but since they have the sense to admire so good an example, and are proud to follow it, each to his and her power, I think it one of her peculiar facilities to have continued them, and to choose to reform such as were exceptionable ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... Stubbs is the soul of punctuality, honesty, and efficiency,—a thorough business hand, and as humane as the general run. We can't have perfection; and if I keep him, I must sustain his administration as a whole, even if there are, now and then, things that are exceptionable. All government includes some necessary hardness. General rules will bear hard on particular cases.' This last maxim my father seemed to consider a settler in most alleged cases of cruelty. After he had said that, he commonly drew up his feet on the sofa, like a man that has disposed of a business, ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... animals. One shall be given in the very words of the Rev. Nicholas Wanley, who, in his authentic Wonders of the Little World, has recorded a number of other facts quite as marvellous, and sustained by testimony not one whit more exceptionable: "Mathiolus tells of a German, who coming in wintertime into an inn to sup with him and some other of his friends, the woman of the house being acquainted with his temper (lest he should depart at the sight of a young cat which she kept ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... disapprove. It would not be considered right by men of the world to attempt to accomplish any other purposes in such a case; and are the pure and holy principles of piety to be extended by methods more exceptionable than those by which political and party contests ...
— The Teacher • Jacob Abbott
... of these early coffee-houses, as they are denominated. The company in this room were, as far as appearances went, of rather a better order; but an event soon occurred which convinced us that their morality was perhaps more exceptionable than the motley group which filled the outer chamber. A bevy of damsels were singing, flirting, and drinking, to amuse their companions,—when all at once the doors were forced open, and in rushed three of the principal officers of Bow-street, the ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... which he is always spoken of by three men in successive ages, Thucydides, Xenophon, and Isoc'rates, all friendly to the aristocratical interest, and all anxious for concord with Lacedaemon, strongly indicates that what may appear exceptionable in his conduct was, in their opinion, the result, not of choice, but of necessity. By no other conduct, probably, could the independence of Athens have been preserved; and yet that, as the event showed, was indispensable ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... management was not less exceptionable, chiefly expirees, surrounded the large estates; thus, while some convicts were considered both as criminals and slaves, others sat at the table and enjoyed the company of their masters. The results of these extremes have been already described, ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West |
