"Impious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... is now a name; in art, a hypocrisy or affectation. Over German religious pictures the inscription, "See how Pious I am," can be read at a glance by any clear-sighted person. Over French and English religious pictures the inscription, "See how Impious I am," is equally legible. All sincere and modest ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... there be, Baptism and the Supper of the Lord; Both mysteries divine, which do to me, By God's appointment, benefit afford. But shall they be my God, or shall I have Of them so foul and impious a thought, To think that from the curse they can me save? Bread, wine, nor water, me no ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... Yea, the heavens are not clean in his sight; how much more abominable and filthy is man, which drinketh iniquity like water?" Strange, that after all these thousands of years, we should still persist in this degrading confession, as a thing which it is impious to deny, and impious to attempt to render otherwise, when scripture itself, in language so emphatic, declares that it is a lie. Job is innocent, perfect, righteous. God Himself bears witness to it. It is Job who is found at last to have ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... Such an idol of popular admiration would be sure to exhibit an overweening vanity. When in Hamburg in 1819, M. Schevenke, a great musician, criticised her vocal feats with severity. Mme. Catalani shrugged her beautiful shoulders and called him "an impious man." "For," said she, "when God has given to a mortal so extraordinary a talent as I possess, people ought to applaud and honor it as a miracle; it is profane to depreciate the gifts ...
— Great Singers, First Series - Faustina Bordoni To Henrietta Sontag • George T. Ferris
... continued that War System by which such a duel is authorized and regulated among nations? When will this legalized, organized crime be abolished? When at last will it be confessed that the Law of Right is the same for nations as for individuals, so that, if Trial by Battle be impious for individuals, it is so for nations likewise? Against it are Reason and Humanity, pleading as never before,—Economy, asking for mighty help,—Peace, with softest voice praying for safeguard,—and then the authority of Philosophy, speaking by some ...
— The Duel Between France and Germany • Charles Sumner
... a grand little pair of convictors, were Babson and O'Brien, and woe unto that man who was brought before them. It was even alleged by the impious that when Babson was in doubt what to do or what O'Brien wanted him to do the latter communicated the information to his conspirator upon the bench by a system of preconcerted signals. But indeed no such system was necessary, for the judge's part in the drama was merely to sustain his colleague's ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train
... Of impious stubbornnesse. Tis vnmanly greefe, It shewes a will most incorrect to Heauen, A Heart vnfortified, a Minde impatient, [Sidenote: or minde] An Vnderstanding simple, and vnschool'd: For, what we know must be, and is as common As any the most vulgar thing to sence, Why should ...
— The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 • George MacDonald
... be killed it should be done under the direction of those other priests who were faithful to the gods and whom King Firkked drove out of their temples, and it must be done in the name of the gods. Thus will you be esteemed a pious, and not an impious, king. As to why you must be a Skilkan in Skilk, you heard the words of Flurknurk, and how the others agreed with him. It must not be allowed to seem that the city has come under foreign rule. And you must not change the ...
— Uller Uprising • Henry Beam Piper, John D. Clark and John F. Carr
... fall Of sacred Troy, and raz'd her heav'n-built wall, Wandering from clime to clime, observant stray'd, The manners noted, and their states survey'd. On stormy seas unnumber'd toils he bore, Safe with his friends to gain his natal shore: Vain toils! their impious folly dar'd to prey On herds devoted to the god of day; The god vindictive doom'd them never more (Ah! men unbless'd) to touch that natal shore. O snatch some portion of these acts from fate, Celestial muse! and to our ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... the land to combat the pernicious and heretical doctrines associated with the late outbreak, and that the bishops should relegate to monasteries of the strictest observance the priests who had acted as the agents of an impious faction. [341] Thus the war of revenge was openly declared against the defeated party. It was in vain that Angouleme indignantly reproached the King, and that the ambassadors of the three Eastern Courts pressed him to draw up at least some kind of amnesty. ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... the respectable name of a republic: he had therefore no comparison between monarchies and republics to make.—That what was done in France was a wild attempt to methodize anarchy, to perpetuate and fix disorder. That it was a foul, impious, monstrous thing, wholly out of the course of moral Nature. He undertook to prove that it was generated in treachery, fraud, falsehood, hypocrisy, and unprovoked murder.—He offered to make out that those who have led in that business ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... my best labours and euer shall be) penned this small Treatise, occasioned by the detection of a late witch among you, whose irreligious care, and vnwearied industry, is not to be defrauded of deserued commendation, and by mature deliberation, and descreete search, found out her irreligious and impious demeanour, and also discouered sundry her vnnaturall and inhumane mischiefes done to others, whereof being conuicted, she was accordingly sentenced, and did vndergoe the penalty iustly appointed, and due by Law vnto malefactors of that ...
— A Treatise of Witchcraft • Alexander Roberts
... was so conveniently situated with respect to the neighboring islands, that it would be easy, making this his headquarters, to explore their resources and natural productions, he therefore went to the chief of Subuth and suggested to him, that since he had turned away from the foolish and impious worship of false gods to the Christian religion, it would be proper that the chiefs of the neighboring islands should obey his rule; that he had determined to send envoys for this purpose, and if any of the chiefs should refuse to obey this summons, to compel them to do so by force of arms. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 • Emma Helen Blair
... express the astonishment of the caliph at this dreadful spectacle. His surprise was instantly changed into passion, and darting an angry look at the vizier, Ah! thou wretch, said he, is this your inspection into the actions of my people? Do they commit such impious murders under thy ministry in my capital city, and throw my subjects into the Tigris, that they may cry for vengeance against me at the day of judgment? If thou dost not speedily revenge the murder ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... lovers!" exclaimed the artist, in a sort of transport, "foolish, absurd, wicked, impious, and ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... either to bless the works of God, or to speak of the happy future that is promised us by the goodness of God; of seeing him, while doing good on every side, still insensible to everything that makes the delight of doing good; of watching him, by the most bizarre of contradictions, think with the impious, and yet live like a Christian. Think of Julie walking with her husband; the one admiring in the rich and splendid robe of the earth the handiwork and the bounteous gifts of the author of the universe; the other seeing nothing in it all ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... a funeral, when the door opens, and the corpse advances in a gap of daylight, all is changed. Like a superterrestrial antiseptic, an extrahuman disinfectant, the liturgy purifies and cleanses the impious ugliness ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... immeasurably his superiors, we have now learned to bear without complaint, though not without some inward suffering. To be shut out from the hearts of so many, who once ran to meet us on our approach; nor only that, but to be held by them as impious and atheistical, monsters whom the earth is sick of, and whom the gods are besought to destroy—this is a part of our burden which we feel to be heaviest. Heaven preserve to us the smiles, ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... and Fletcher, had been forbidden by an order from the Lord Chamberlain. It was conjectured that "the killing of the king in that play, while the tragical death of King Charles I. was then so fresh in people's memory, was an object too horribly impious for a public entertainment;" and, accordingly, the courtly poet Waller occupied himself in altering the catastrophe of the story, so as to save the life of the king. Another opinion prevailed, to the effect that the ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... than the Eternal God!" he cried; and he cursed Antipas for his luxurious gardens, his statues, his furniture of carved ivory and precious woods, comparing him to the impious Ahab. ...
— Herodias • Gustave Flaubert
... times especially, directed their efforts by the desire to place certain monstrous offsprings of opinion on a par with the doctrine of Christ, or to blend them therewith, seeking to propagate more and more that impious system of indifference toward all ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... indeed, descends on earth in the form of lightning, but which men were not themselves to produce. He who—like the Prometheus of the Greeks—discovers the method of artificially kindling a flame, and communicates this discovery to other men, is impious, has stolen the forbidden fruit from the sacred tree, is accursed, and the wrath of the gods pursues him ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various
... trust, though, thou dost only mean my kingdom? It were impious! He is my father's brother—they sat on the knees of the same father—lay in the bosom of the same mother. Out on thee, man, what follies they make thy ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... breathe even the same air, and regard the most distant communication with them as an indignity and disgrace offered to ourselves. This is considering the difference not in the individual, but in the very species; a height of insolence impious in a Christian society, and most absurd and ridiculous in a ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... mental growth and consent of the peoples, rather than through some unique and miraculous event of a rather arbitrary and unexplained character—which indeed might never be repeated, and concerning which it would perhaps be impious to suggest ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... supernatural sign of His Messiahship, though thrice already had they or others of their kind so attempted to entrap Him, and thrice had they been foiled.[759] Before them, Satan in person had similarly tried and failed.[760] To their present impertinent and impious demand He gave a brief and definite refusal coupled with an exposure of their hypocrisy. This was His reply: "When it is evening, ye say, It will be fair weather: for the sky is red. And in the ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... and assumed the fixed and far-seeing gaze of a man in a cabinet photograph. He seemed lost to his surroundings, and rapt by some great vision of enchanted architects, busy in drawing plans of the magic buildings of the future ages. The Prophet felt that it would be impious to disturb him. Malkiel's reverie was long, and indeed the two prophets might well have been sitting in Jellybrand's parlour now, had not a violent sneeze called for the pink assistance of the flight of storks, and brought the sneezer down to ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens
... "Wicked and insolent man, can it be that they call you in Ithaca one of their wisest men? No, it is a fool's work you are doing, plotting to kill my son. He is helpless before you now, but Zeus is the friend of the helpless and avenges their wrongs. Impious and ungrateful too! Did not Ulysses once shield your father from his enemies and save his life? Yet you waste his substance and ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various
... of alchemy seems to have been general sometime before Chaucer wrote; but that belief was accompanied by the conviction that alchemy was an impious pursuit, because the transmutation of baser metals into gold was regarded as trenching on the prerogative of the Creator, to whom alone this power rightfully belonged. In his Inferno (which was probably written about the year 1300), Dante places the alchemists in the eighth ...
— The Story of Alchemy and the Beginnings of Chemistry • M. M. Pattison Muir
... persons, our property, and our lives, and take no notice of those who impiously and deliberately would destroy our souls by their envenomed blasphemies? Shall we allow the wells of water which spring up to everlasting life to be poisoned by the impious atheists and scoffers, who in every age set themselves up against Christ and His kingdom, and are only allowed by God Almighty to live, as the wild beasts of the desert or scorpions and serpents are allowed to live? Let them live, but let us defend ourselves against ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV • John Lord
... obtained permission for those members of the Church of England who had sacrificed every thing in his cause to meet privately in some modest oratory, and to receive the eucharistic bread and wine from the hands of one of their own clergy; but he did not wish his residence to be defiled by such impious rites. Doctor Dennis Granville, who had quitted the richest deanery, the richest archdeaconry and one of the richest livings in England, rather than take the oaths, gave mortal offence by asking leave to read prayers to the exiles of his own communion. His ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... missionaries having more zeal than discretion, refused to quit the vineyard. — They persisted in saying mass, in preaching, baptizing, and squabbling with the conjurers, or priests of the country, till they had thrown the whole community into confusion. — Then the assembly proceeded to try them as impious impostors, who represented the Almighty as a trifling, weak, capricious being, and pretended to make, unmake, and reproduce him at pleasure; they were, therefore, convicted of blasphemy and sedition, and condemned to the stale, where they died singing Salve regina, in ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... far have we Profaned thy heavenly gift of Poesy! Made prostitute and profligate the Muse, Debased to each obscene and impious use, Whose harmony was first ordain'd above For tongues of angels, and for hymns of love! O wretched we! why were we hurried down This lubrique and adulterate age, (Nay added fat pollutions of our own,) To increase the streaming ordures of the stage? What can we say to excuse ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... chords sound from Memnon broken in half, and ancient Thebes lies buried in ruins, with her hundred gates. In one place they venerate sea-fish, in another river-fish; there, whole towns worship a dog: no one Diana. It is an impious act to violate or break with the teeth a leek or an onion. O holy nations! whose gods grow for them in their gardens! Every table abstains from animals that have wool: it is a crime there to kill a kid. But human ...
— Egyptian Ideas of the Future Life • E. A. Wallis Budge
... raised thereon, against which I contend. The story, taking it as it is told, is blasphemously obscene. It gives an account of a young woman engaged to be married, and while under this engagement, she is, to speak plain language, debauched by a ghost, under the impious pretence, (Luke i. 35,) that "the Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee." Notwithstanding which, Joseph afterwards marries her, cohabits with her as his wife, and in his turn rivals the ghost. This is putting the story into intelligible ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... for death, and making all proper preparations for it, convinced that grief and ill usage have broken her noble heart, she abhors the impious thought of shortening her allotted period; and, as much a stranger to revenge as despair, is able to forgive the author of her ruin; wishes his repentance, and that she may be the last victim to his barbarous perfidy: and is solicitous ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... thy mould'ring bones! And you, ye heroes of the past, Who serv'd your country to the last, And bought her freedom with your blood, Cornwallis, Duncan, Collingwood! Rise, if ye can, and mark the wretch Who dares his impious arm to stretch And scrawl upon the graves of those Who gave him freedom and repose! And can no rev'rence for the dead Ye heartless crew, no sense of dread To place your names on aught so high As e'en the tombs where heroes lie, Force you with horror to ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 20, Issue 561, August 11, 1832 • Various
... betray. Capaneus threatens what his hand would do, Scorning the gods, and with unchastened lips, Madly exulting, vents against high heaven And heaven's high king his swelling blasphemies. Surely I trust that on his impious head The lightning shall be launched more fiery far Than are the rays of any noonday sun. To meet him with his braggart menaces Stout Polyphontus goes, a gallant soul, Who well can hold the post, so Artemis ...
— Specimens of Greek Tragedy - Aeschylus and Sophocles • Goldwin Smith
... pleads the devil's fair apologist, And, pleading, safely enters on his list. Let angel-forms angelic truths maintain; Nature disjoins the beauteous and profane. For what's true beauty, but fair virtue's face? Virtue made visible in outward grace? She, then, that's haunted with an impious mind, The more she charms, the more she shocks mankind. But charms decline: the fair long vigils keep: They sleep no more! (17)quadrille has murder'd sleep. "Poor K—p! cries Livia; I have not been there These two nights; the poor creature will ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... Persian Nanaea or Anaitis in Elymais or the modern Luristan, the most celebrated and the richest shrine in the whole region of the Euphrates.(17) From far and near the Asiatics flocked in crowds to the banner of the kings, who summoned them to protect the east and its gods from the impious foreigners. But facts had shown not only that the mere assemblage of enormous hosts was of little avail, but that the troops really capable of marching and fighting were by their very incorporation in such a mass rendered useless and involved in the general ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... thine the realms of Death's eternal night. 285 "Oh, bend thine ear, thy gracious eye incline, "Lo! Ashur's King blasphemes thy holy shrine, "Insults our offerings, and derides our vows,—- "Oh! strike the diadem from his impious brows, "Tear from his murderous hand the bloody rod, 290 "And teach the trembling nations, "THOU ART GOD!"— —SYLPHS! in what dread array with pennons broad Onward ye floated o'er the ethereal road, Call'd each dank steam the reeking ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... I always thought It was both impious and unnatural That such immanity and bloody strife Should reign among professors ...
— King Henry VI, First Part • William Shakespeare [Aldus edition]
... sadder than any one, in these times, will believe!—But we cannot dwell on this consideration. Let the reader take it with him, as a constant accompaniment in whatever work of Friedrich Wilhelm's or of Friedrich his Son's, he now or at any other time may be contemplating. Impious waste, which means disorder and dishonesty, and loss of much other than money to all, parties,—disgusting aspect of human creatures, master and servant, working together as if they were not human,—will be spared him in those foreign departments; and in an English heart ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. X. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—At Reinsberg—1736-1740 • Thomas Carlyle
... letter was highly literary. Lee reminded Burgoyne of their old friendship, and then, with many flourishes, went at his business. He lamented the infatuation of the times, when men of the stamp of Burgoyne and Howe could be seduced into an impious and nefarious service, and reminding Burgoyne of various bygone incidents, called to his mind his experience with the wickedness and treachery of the present court and cabinet. He spread himself at large on the principles of the present struggle, rejoiced that Burgoyne came by ...
— The Siege of Boston • Allen French
... even to check the progress of the assailants, who carried all before them everywhere. Bursting into the palace, a band of Persians made their way to the presence of the monarch, and slew him on the scene of his impious revelry. Other bands carried fire and sword through the town. When morning came, Cyrus found himself undisputed master of the city, which, if it had not despised his efforts, might with the greatest ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 4. (of 7): Babylon • George Rawlinson
... Court of Rome. There was no longer any doubt as to the attitude of the Holy See. All the propositions were declared to be distinctly heretical, and the first and the fifth, moreover, to be blasphemous and impious. This result was not reached without much debate and delay. No sooner had Cornet’s propositions appeared than Arnauld assailed them and all who supported them. A congregation of four cardinals and eleven ...
— Pascal • John Tulloch
... English privative is un; but as we often borrow trom the Latin, or its descendants, words already signifying privation, as inefficacious, impious, indiscreet, the inseparable particles un and in have fallen into confusion, from which it is not ...
— A Grammar of the English Tongue • Samuel Johnson
... curiosity with respect to the peregrinations of the consecrated skeletons, I examined their shrine; and was rather surprised to find it not only enriched with barbaric gold and pearl, but covered with cameos and intaglios of the best antique sculpture. Many an impious emperor and gross Silenus, many a wanton nymph and frantic bacchanal, figure in the same range with the statues of saints and evangelists. How St. Helena could tolerate such a mixed assembly (for the shrine was formed under her auspices) surpasses my ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... preparation. My own relations to or ideas of the Bible always have been peculiar, owing to my Quaker training. The Friends consider the book as historical, made up of traditions, but not as a plenary inspiration. Of course people say these women are impious and presumptuous for daring to interpret the Scriptures as they understand them, but I think women have just as good a right to interpret and twist the Bible to their own advantage as men always have twisted and turned it to theirs.... It was written by men, and ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... the other side of the hollow bridle-way which crossed the hill. To make for home he had first to walk some little distance along it; and scarcely had he descended into it for that purpose, when he found himself in the front of a band of revellers, who were returning from some scene of impious festivity. They were arrayed in holiday guise, as far as they studied dress at all; the symbols of idolatry were on their foreheads and arms; some of them were intoxicated, and most of them ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... proconsul, and, since she refused to sacrifice to the pagan gods, was savagely maltreated, and sentenced to be beaten as she walked naked through the streets; but she raised her eyes to heaven and a cloud descended and hid her from the gaze of the impious mortals who would otherwise have witnessed her martyrdom. Subsequently she was spirited away to the top of a mountain, where, however, her presence was betrayed by a shepherd. Her pagan father, learning of her hiding-place, quickly ascended the height and beheaded her with his own ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... most impious hell, and all its terrors; By all the grief, the madness and the guilt Of thine impostures, which must be their errors, That sand on which thy ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley as a Philosopher and Reformer • Charles Sotheran
... Frenchmen: you shall be the skirmishers (eclaireurs) of the national guard. I shall be without any anxiety for the capital, while the national guard and you are employed in its defence: and if it be true, that foreigners persist in the impious design of attacking our independence and our honour, I may avail myself of victory, without being checked by ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. II • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... England and executing his bloody purpose. He was here encouraged in the design by Thomas Morgan, a gentleman of great credit in the party; and though Watts and some other Catholic priests told him that the enterprise was criminal and impious, he preferred the authority of Raggazzoni, the nuncio at Paris, and determined to persist in his resolution. He here wrote a letter to the pope, which was conveyed to Cardinal Como; he communicated his intention to the holy father, and craved his absolution and paternal benediction. He received ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... authenticity of "La Gioconda." The correspondence relative to its sale yet exists, and even the voucher proving its payment may still be seen. Fate and fortune have guarded the "Mona Lisa"; and neither thief nor vandal, nor impious infidel nor unappreciative stupidity, nor time itself has done it harm. France bought the picture; France has always owned and housed it; it still ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... like one from some delightful Dream, To reassume my wonted Cares and Shame. —I will not speak with him. [Exit Boy. Oh Hippolyta! thou poor lost thing, Hippolyta! How art thou fallen from Honour, and from Virtue, And liv'st in Whoredom with an impious Villain, Who in revenge to me has thus betray'd thee. Keep thy self closer than thou'st done thy Sin; For if I find thee out, by all that's good, Thou hadst more Mercy on thy slaughter'd Honour, Than I will have for thee. And thou, ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... "that sage is a stranger, and he has not the right to impart such important advice to the lord of Egypt. But, O Pharaoh, permit him to look at thee. I am sure that he will find a medicine to cure thy illness, and in no case will he offend thee by impious expressions." ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus
... pointed at the end, you would be able in the same way to dissipate your electricity before it ever had time to come to a head in the shape of lightning. From that moment the thunderbolt was safely dead and buried. It was urged, indeed, that the attempt thus to rob Heaven of its thunders was wicked and impious; but the common-sense of mankind refused to believe that absolute omnipotence could be sensibly defied by twenty yards of cylindrical iron tubing. Thenceforth the thunderbolt ceased to exist, save in poetry, country houses, ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... that I am guilty. Impious and rash! thus to usurp the prerogatives of your Maker! to set up your bounded views and halting reason, as the ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown
... a step toward the church-yard, but D'Effernay clutched his arm, and, with an impious oath, "you shall not stir," he said; "that grave shall not ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... not forget that we are watched over in the night season," he said, laying his hand on Low's shoulder, with an illustration of celestial guardianship that would have been impious but for its palpable grotesqueness. "No, sir, we know not what a day ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... with other things, made Stubb such an easy-going, unfearing man, so cheerily trudging off with the burden of life in a world full of grave pedlars, all bowed to the ground with their packs; what helped to bring about that almost impious good-humor of his; that thing must have been his pipe. For, like his nose, his short, black little pipe was one of the regular features of his face. You would almost as soon have expected him to turn out of his bunk without his nose as without his pipe. He kept a whole row of pipes there ready ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... condemn to the galleys the first who shall have the insolence to say, that a man cannot think without his head; for, some bachelor will tell him, the soul is a pure spirit, the head is nothing but matter: God can place the soul in the nails, as well as in the skull, therefore I proscribe you as impious." ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts
... respect and admiration, the manful, cheerful view of pain and death, and indeed of the whole creation, which the Psalmist has, because he has faith. There is in him no sentimentalism, no complaining of God, no impious, or at least weak and peevish, cry of "Why hast Thou made things thus?" He sees the mystery of pain and death. He does not attempt to explain it: but he faces it; faces it cheerfully and manfully, in the strength of his faith, saying—This too, mysterious, painful, terrible as it ...
— Westminster Sermons - with a Preface • Charles Kingsley
... distinguished Sauerteig, in his SPRINGWURZELN, has these words: "To burn away, in mad waste, the divine aromas and plainly celestial elements from our existence; to change our holy-of-holies into a place of riot; to make the soul itself hard, impious, barren! Surely a day is coming, when it will be known again what virtue is in purity and continence of life; how divine is the blush of young human cheeks; how high, beneficent, sternly inexorable if ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... which is still the common name for curlew, the peewit and plover being called (onomatopoetically) "Bibat" and in Marocco Yahudi, certain impious Jews having been turned into the Vanellus Cristatus which still wears ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... others, whose prejudices are still more formidable, inasmuch as they are grounded in their moral feelings and religious principles, which had been alarmed and shocked by the impious and pernicious tenets defended by Hume, Priestley, and the French fatalists or necessitarians; some of whom had perverted metaphysical reasonings to the denial of the mysteries and indeed of all the peculiar doctrines of Christianity; ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... them fairy stories of an elder and a grimmer day than ours. Sometimes Doctor Nesbit, coming for Laura in his buggy, would find Amos in the school room, and they would fall to their everlasting debate upon the reality of time and space with the Doctor enjoying hugely his impious attempt to couch the terminology of abstract philosophy in ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... miracles, because said to have been produced by God through Moses, will either scout the enchantments performed by Pharoah's magicians, or attribute them to the devil. It is the latter whom our pious enemies connect with Occultism, while their impious foes, the infidels, laugh at Moses, Magicians, and Occultists, and would blush to give one serious thought to such "superstitions." This, because there is no term in existence to show the difference; no words to express the lights and shadows and draw the line ...
— Studies in Occultism; A Series of Reprints from the Writings of H. P. Blavatsky • H. P. Blavatsky
... temple, altar, have they not profaned? Why have we fallen on such evil times? Why didst thou give us birth, or why No sooner suffer us to die, O cruel Fate? We, who have seen Our wretched country so betrayed, The handmaid, slave of impious strangers made, And of her ancient virtues all bereft; Yet could no aid or comfort give. Or ray of hope, that might relieve The anguish of her soul. Alas, my blood has not been shed for thee, My country dear! Nor have I died That thou mightst live! My heart with anger ...
— The Poems of Giacomo Leopardi • Giacomo Leopardi
... congregation fall upon their knees, and are hushed into profound stillness as he delivers an extempore prayer, in which he calls upon the Sacred Founder of the Christian faith to bless his ministry, in terms of disgusting and impious familiarity not to be described. He begins his oration in a drawling tone, and his hearers listen with silent attention. He grows warmer as he proceeds with his subject, and his gesticulation becomes proportionately violent. He clenches his fists, beats the book upon the desk before him, and swings ...
— Sunday Under Three Heads • Charles Dickens
... thus it seemed to say, "What dost thou here? Leave the forsaken Fauns In peace beneath their trees! Dost thou not know, Poet, that ever it is impious deemed, In desert spots where drowsy shades repose— Though love itself might prompt thee—to shake down The moss that hangs from ruined centuries, And, with the vain noise of throe ill-timed words, To mar the recollections ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... to the liar—he is doom'd to the fire, Until all his dark lies are confess'd— Till he honestly tell, what a spirit from hell Had its impious seat in his breast. ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... born A.D. 185; from Tertullian, who flourished within one hundred years after the apostles; from Cyprian and the Council of Carthage; from Augustine and his antagonist, Pelagius, who expressly said that he had never heard of any one, not even the most impious heretic, ...
— Bertha and Her Baptism • Nehemiah Adams
... to such edifices; an organ-loft, from which weird noises issue at every opening or closing of a door; a vaulted roof, which echoes one's footsteps with a moan, as of some outraged spirit hovering in empty space, and ejaculating piteously, "Another impious intruder after the sacramental plate! another plebeian sole trampling on the brasses of the De Montacutes, lords of ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... possibility of liberty; for it recognises its actual existence in the Divine Being. "If the divine will," says Calvin, "has any cause, then there must be something antecedent, on which it depends; which it is impious to suppose." According to Calvin, it is the uncaused divine will which makes the "necessity of all things." He frequently sets forth the doctrine, that, from all eternity, God decreed whatever should come to pass, not excepting, but expressly including, the deliberations ...
— A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory • Albert Taylor Bledsoe
... Narcissus." Mr. Buchanan, with the unrestrained and irresponsible enjoyment of a traveler, entered fully into the spirit of the scene. He even found words of praise for Aladdin, whose extravagance had at first seemed to him almost impious. "Eh, but I'm not prepared to say he is a fool, either," he remarked to his friend the San Francisco banker. "Those who try to pick him up for one," returned the banker, "will find themselves mistaken. His is the prodigality that loosens others' purse-strings besides his own, Everybody ...
— Maruja • Bret Harte
... He gave to her that impassioned cult which to Brother Archangias savoured of heresy. In his opinion it was she who would save the Church by some matchless prodigy whose near appearance would entrance the world. She was the only miracle of our impious age—the blue-robed lady that showed herself to little shepherdesses, the whiteness that gleamed at night between two clouds, her veil trailing over the low thatched roofs of peasant homes. When Brother Archangias coarsely asked him ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... Pelee, the terrific goddess of the volcanoes Mount Eoa and Mount Kea, was supposed to guard all the passes to the extensive valleys lying round their base. There are legends of her having chased with streams of fire several impious adventurers. Near Hilo, a jet-black cliff is shown, with the vitreous torrent apparently pouring over into the sea: just as it cooled after ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... Benjamin Franklin devised the lightning rod, in order to prevent lightning from striking objects. The literature of that day abounds with instances of protests made, on the part of those who were as superstitions as the people in ancient times, who urged that it was impious to attempt to ward off Heaven's lightnings. It was argued that the lightning was one way in which the Creator manifested His displeasure, and exercised His power to strike ...
— Electricity for Boys • J. S. Zerbe
... note of Grandmother's voice would have made the dead stir. "Ain't I showed it to you, in the paper?" To question print was as impious as to ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... 'Impious and sacrilegious wretches!' shouted the King. 'To the dungeons with them! We will find a way, tomorrow, to make them speak. For without doubt they can tell us where to find ...
— The Story of the Amulet • E. Nesbit
... a thrill of horror shake the forms of Harut and of all those with him as the full meaning of these, to them, most impious requests sank into their minds. But ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard
... brace up! Perhaps she didn't hear that impious remark," said Fred, chuckling maliciously. "Or if she did, perhaps she'll let you off easy: only a few hours in the dark closet, or bread and water ...
— That Mother-in-Law of Mine • Anonymous
... is, of course, part of our own use; and though it seems narrow to confine themselves to this, I doubt whether they do worse than those who weave in long strings of intercession from any source. Their opinions about the sacraments are certainly impious; but at any rate they are under no temptation to exploit these holy mysteries for the sake of gain or futile glory or tyrannous imposition. I do not see why they should reject vigils and fasts in moderation; but these are matters for encouragement rather ...
— The Age of Erasmus - Lectures Delivered in the Universities of Oxford and London • P. S. Allen
... comes from the side of religion. These things we learn, are spiritual mysteries into which men must not inquire. This is only a relic of the ancient opinion that he was an impious character who first launched a boat, God having made man a terrestrial animal. Assuredly God put us into a world of phenomena, and gave us inquiring minds. We have as much right to explore the phenomena of these minds as to explore the ocean. Again, if it be said that our inquiries may lead ...
— The Book of Dreams and Ghosts • Andrew Lang
... clothes, with a lovely blue handkerchief setting off his beautiful orange-tawny face, he had to rush off to try to borrow another cart. As ill luck would have it, he met a 'serious young man', with no front teeth, and a hideous wen on his eyebrow, who informed the priest of Choslullah's impious purpose, and came with him to see that he did NOT sit for his portrait. I believe it was half envy; for my handsome driver was as pleased, and then as disappointed, as a young lady about her first ball, and obviously had no religious scruples of his own on the subject. The weather is very delightful ...
— Letters from the Cape • Lady Duff Gordon
... easy to be spoken to); affabil'ity; inef'fable; in'fant (Lat. participle, in'fans, infan'tis, literally, not speaking) (-ile, -ine); in'fancy; nefa'rious (Lat. adj. nefa'rius, impious); pref'ace (Fr. n. preface), something spoken or written by way ...
— New Word-Analysis - Or, School Etymology of English Derivative Words • William Swinton
... of Rei and Hamadan. Firouzan was appointed commander. The Caliph, hearing of the preparations of the Persian king, sent in his turn reinforcements, and placed at their head his general No'man, with the strictest orders to destroy the impious religion of the Fire-Worshippers. It was at Nehawend [9] that, after a delay of two months, the shock of arms decided the fate of Iran. Thirty thousand Persians fell on the battlefield, and eighty thousand were drowned in the moats surrounding the camp. Firouzan was pursued ...
— Les Parsis • D. Menant
... you reckon Misfortune herself. But for what cause I fall at thy knees, now hear: if I appear to you to suffer these ills justly, I would be reconciled to them; but if otherwise, be thou my avenger on this man, this most impious of false friends; who revering neither the Gods beneath[12] the earth, nor the Gods above, hath done this most unholy deed, having often partaken of the same table with me, [and in the list of hospitality the first of my friends; and having met with whatever ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... together in council the pious and the just scattered abroad, He the God of all gods, the Lord of all lords, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God is the Lord of war! From me, Joshua, the servant of God, and from the holy and chosen congregation to the impious nations, who pay worship to images, and prostrate themselves before idols: No peace unto you, saith my God! Know that ye acted foolishly to awaken the slumbering lion, to rouse up the lion's whelp, to excite his wrath. I am ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... came to an end. One candid youth admitted that all he knew of the matter was that he was very glad Hector was dead, and for this impious irrelevance he was ordered to write an appalling imposition and forfeit several half-holidays. But that, for the time being, was the worst thunderbolt that fell from the ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed
... been taken by the loyal inhabitants as a mere preliminary to the real fight. They were very little disturbed by it. It was the overt act which was necessary to convince Mexico that her clemency to Americans was a mistake, and that the ungrateful and impious race must be wiped out of existence. The newspapers not only reiterated this necessity, but proclaimed its certainty. They heralded the coming of Santa Anna, the victorious avenger, with passionate gasconading. It was a mere question of a few days or weeks, and in the meantime the ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr
... such doctrine as this?" we ventured to reply as courteously as we knew how. We endeavored to treat our reviewer fairly, as he had handsomely accorded to us the credit of "searching the fields of natural science, lance in hand, to deal hard thrusts at impious skeptics, materialists, and evolutionists—of which Mr. Darwin and Mr. Bastian fare the most severely." But we had no thought of using these offensive adjectives toward either of the distinguished gentlemen named, and did not so use them; however "unscrupulous" ...
— Life: Its True Genesis • R. W. Wright
... while my mother's sense of innocence existed in the absence of false instruction, and in the purity of her intentions. One had been taught no exaggerated and false notion of sin,—nay, a notion that is impious, as it is clearly impious in man to torture acts that are perfectly innocent, per se, into formal transgressions of the law of God,—while the other had been educated under the narrow and exaggerated notions of a provincial sect, and had ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... commonly supposed, and that the whole sum of the guilt which the practice produces is great, beyond what has perhaps been ever conceived! It will be the writer's comfort to have solemnly suggested this consideration, to the consciences of those by whom this impious practice might be suppressed: If such there be, which he is strongly inclined to believe, their's is the crime, and their's the responsibility of suffering ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... be the child of ignorance, ignorance is also the child of fear; the two react on, and produce each other. The more men dread Nature, the less they wish to know about her. Why pry into her awful secrets? It is dangerous; perhaps impious. She says to them, as in the Egyptian temple of old—"I am Isis, and my veil no mortal yet hath lifted." And why should they try or wish to lift it? If she will leave them in peace, they will leave her in peace. It is enough that she does not destroy them. So as ignorance ...
— Scientific Essays and Lectures • Charles Kingsley
... [34] That impious maxim of the ancient philosophy, Ex nihilo, nihil fit, by which the creation of matter was excluded, ceases to be a maxim, according to this philosophy. Not only the will of the supreme Being may create matter; but, ...
— An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding • David Hume et al
... by sin does not easily find satisfaction in this cheap pardon. There is something in conscience which will not allow it to believe that God can simply condone sin: to take forgiveness for granted, when you realise what you are doing, seems to a live conscience impious and profane. In reality, the tendency to take forgiveness for granted is the tendency of those who, while they properly emphasise the personal character of the relations of God and man, overlook their universal character—that is, exclude from them that element of law without which personal ...
— The Atonement and the Modern Mind • James Denney
... country, even unsuccessfully, that would have been worship, acceptable to the gods. But theft is never worship—how then can I offer this gold? Ah me! I am doomed to death myself, must I desecrate my country with my impious touch? The way to put the money back is closed to me. I have not the strength to return to the room, take again that key, open once more that safe—I should swoon on the threshold of my husband's door. The only road left ...
— The Home and the World • Rabindranath Tagore
... money,[48] and having just failed in a desperate and rapacious attempt to secure to himself for life the revenues of the Duchy of Lancaster; and the best of it is, that this Minister, after abusing his predecessors for their impious bounty to the Catholics, has found himself compelled, from the apprehension of immediate danger, to grant ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... mausolae. If the tables and written instruments of Empire, it is a Capitol. If the whole furniture of Cyclopxdia, it is a mart. If matters marine, it is an arsenal—if martial, a camp and magazine. Briefly it is the Arck, where all noble things which the deluges of impious vastitic and sacriligious furie have not devoured, are kept to bee the seminaries ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... arranged in its damning exactness by a skilful judge, is to me an intellectual enjoyment which can hardly be equalled. I have never stayed in court after the jury had retired in a capital case, for I hold it impious to stare at the mortal agony of a fellow-creature; but the trial of Johann Most for inciting to tyrannicide; of Gallagher and his gang of dynamiters for Treason-Felony; and of Dr. Lampson for poisoning his brother-in-law, ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... for thee to have died in the bloom of youth and innocence, than to have fallen the victim of an insidious—villain," he would have added, but that villain was his father; and he paused without giving utterance to the word, shocked at himself that his heart had dared to frame the impious word his conscience forbade him ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... moons and Sabbaths—the calling of assemblies—I cannot away with; it is iniquity even the solemn meeting.' These are only as the whitewash of your sepulchres to hide the loathsomeness within—'the rottenness and dead men's bones!' If you had made no impious pretensions, I would not, peradventure, have dealt so sternly with you. If like the other trees you had confessed your nakedness, and stood with your leafless stems, waiting for summer suns, and dews, and rains, to fructify you, and to bring your fruit to perfection—all well; but you ...
— Memories of Bethany • John Ross Macduff
... national policy should be one of 'drift,' although I admit that there are many most excellent persons who by their attitude seem to resent any attempt to steer the ship of State along a definite course as being an impious attempt to usurp the functions of Providence, whose special business they conceive ...
— The War After the War • Isaac Frederick Marcosson
... reflection in after years did Sylvia Moorhouse express so favourable an opinion of her. In all things she affected singularity; especially it was her delight to utter democratic and revolutionary sentiments among hearers who, belonging to a rigidly conservative order, held such opinions impious. Arrived at womanhood, she affected scorn of the beliefs and habits cherished by her own sex, and shrank from association with the other. Godwin Peak was the first man with whom she conversed in the tone of friendship, and it took a year or more before ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... which He extirpates the sinners of His people. The "sinful kingdom" forms the contrast with the righteous kingdom; the article being here used in a generic sense. Similar are Is. x. 6: "I send him against impious people, and against the people of My wrath (wheresoever there are such) I give him command;" and Ps. xxxiii. 12: "Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people whom He hath chosen for His inheritance;" on ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... writings, I shall quote the following passage, which appears to me equally absurd and impious, and which might have been retorted upon him by the men who were prosecuted for burning his house. 'I cannot, (says he,) as a necessarian, [meaning necessitarian] hate any man; because I consider him as being, in all respects, just what GOD has made him to be; ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... how sweet illusion! The illusion of the great sun; the illusion of the shadow-casting hills; the illusion of waters, formless and multiform; the illusion of—Nay, nay I what impious fancy! Accursed girl! yet, yet! why should he curse her? Had she ever done aught to merit the malediction of an ascetic? Never, never! Only her form, the memory of her, the beautiful phantom of her, the accursed phantom of her! What was she? An illusion creating ...
— Some Chinese Ghosts • Lafcadio Hearn
... suppressed, serve better the purposes of mistaken or insidious malcontents than the real publication can. And, if any thing were by this, or any other, History to be shown essentially erroneous in our politics, who, that calls himself a Briton, can be deemed such an impious slave, as to conceal the destructive evil? The editor of this work disdains and abhors the servile thought, and wishes to live no longer than he dares to think, speak, write, and, in all things, to act ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... These impious monsters, marking me out for their prey, tempted me on board the ship, which I had no sooner entered than they led me between the decks to some other boys whom they had kidnapped in like manner. Not understanding what a fate was in store for me, I passed the time in childish amusement with ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... Truth severe, by fairy Fiction drest. In buskin'd measures move Pale Grief, and pleasing Pain, With Horror, tyrant of the throbbing breast. A voice as of the cherub-choir Gales from blooming Eden bear, And distant warblings lessen on my ear That lost in long futurity expire. Fond impious man, think'st thou yon sanguine cloud Raised by thy breath, has quench'd the orb of day? To-morrow he repairs the golden flood And warms the nations with redoubled ray. Enough for me: with joy I see The different doom our ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... not all of them, but only the pious ones, are daimonic and divine. Once separated from the body, and after the struggle to acquire piety, which consists in knowing God and injuring none, such a soul becomes all intelligence. The impious soul, however, remains in its own essence and punishes itself by seeking a human body to enter into, for no other body can receive a human soul, it cannot enter the body of an animal devoid of reason: divine ...
— Reincarnation - A Study in Human Evolution • Th. Pascal
... speak well of the avengers of crimes, then long thou to lose thy quick power of hearing, that thy impious spirit may not ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... grown Current among mankind so mischievous As money. This brings cities to their fall: This drives men homeless, and moves honest minds To base contrivings. This hath taught mankind The use of wickedness, and how to give An impious turn to every kind of act. But whosoe'er hath done this for reward Hath found his way at length to punishment. If Zeus have still my worship, be assured Of that which here on oath I say to thee— Unless ye find the man who made this ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles
... native England, that endured too long The ceaseless burden of his impious song; His mad career of crimes and follies run, And grey in vice, when life was scarce begun; He goes, in foreign lands prepared to find A life more suited to his guilty mind; Where other climes new pleasures ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... (regardless of the published rules prohibiting it,) those lovely productions of the Almighty, which required ages to perfect; thus destroying in a moment the work of centuries. These beautiful and gorgeous formations were encrusted on the walls by the hands of our Maker, and who so impious as to desecrate them—to tear them from their place? there they are, all lovely and beautiful, and there they ought to remain, untouched by the hands of man, for the admiration and wonder of all future ages. If the comparatively small ...
— Rambles in the Mammoth Cave, during the Year 1844 - By a Visiter • Alexander Clark Bullitt
... spirit of doubt, scepticism, and denial, was engendered. They comprehended now why Abelard had claimed the "supremacy of reason over faith," and why Italian poets smiled at dreams of "immortality." Then, too, the new culture compelled respect for infidel and for Jew. Was it not from their impious hands, that this new knowledge of the ...
— The Evolution of an Empire • Mary Parmele
... attempt any innovation or revolt from the Romans, nor had they given any marks of hatred or treacherous designs towards the Syrians. But what was done by the inhabitants of Scythopolis was the most impious and most highly criminal of all; [6] for when the Jews their enemies came upon them from without, they forced the Jews that were among them to bear arms against their own countrymen, which it is unlawful for us to do; [7] and when, by their assistance, they had joined ...
— The Life of Flavius Josephus • Flavius Josephus
... procession, which should have suggested such far other thoughts even to her undisciplined soul, Loveday was taken only by an idea so rash and impious that it alarmed even herself. It was the penalty of her dark and ardent blood that fear, like despair, added to the force of her desires. That idea, which she should have driven from her as a serpent, she nourished in her bosom as ...
— The White Riband - A Young Female's Folly • Fryniwyd Tennyson Jesse
... hopes and especially their fears were centered. Miserable sinners, born into total depravity could only employ their brief sojourn on earth in striving to save their souls. Mortifying the flesh and holding all pleasures to be foolish if not impious, they deferred happiness to the realms beyond the skies. To them Here was nothing and Now was nothing. The eternal hereafter was all. Looking at life as merely a preparation for death, their point of view ...
— My Friends at Brook Farm • John Van Der Zee Sears
... all his impious hand has broken The Martinella,—our great battle bell, That, sounding through three centuries, has led The Florentines to victory,—lest its voice Should waken in their souls some memory Of ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... no communication between the living and the dead? O! how I want to ask all about the spirit-land. Wake up and reclothe thy bones and become again animated dust, and tell me thou, my great progenitor, the mysteries of the grave, of heaven and hell. How quiet is the grave? No response, and it is impious to ask what I have. O! what is life which animates and harmonizes the elements of this mysterious creation, man! Life how imperious, and yet how kind; it unites and controls these antagonistic elements, and they do not quarrel on his watch. Mingling ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... the very volume in which our reverend friend Dibdin so heartily condemns these inexcusable bandits, should be seized on as a receptacle for their ill-gotten prizes. May the spectre of Thomas Frognall Dibdin haunt the souls of these impious rascals, and torture them with never-ceasing visions of unobtainable and rare portraits, non-existent autographs, and elusive engravings in general! They even dare to profane your sacred work, the Biblia of book-lovers, by the 'insertion' ...
— Book-Lovers, Bibliomaniacs and Book Clubs • Henry H. Harper
... slow—an affair of sporadic attempts and scattered adventures. The two strongest motives, patriotic devotion and commercial gain, would have been lacking. The English have never been good at preparing for a merely possible war; they are apt, indeed, to regard such preparation as ill-omened and impious. This strenuous and self-dependent breed of men, being conscious that they do not desire war, and believing that he is thrice armed who has his quarrel just, have always been content, in the face of many warnings, to repose their main confidence in the virtue of their cause and ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh
... from the chaos of eternall night (To which the whole digestion of the world Is now returning) once more I ascend, And bide the cold dampe of this piercing ayre, To urge the justice whose almightie word 5 Measures the bloudy acts of impious men With equall pennance, who in th'act it selfe Includes th'infliction, which like chained shot Batter together still; though (as the thunder Seemes, by mens duller hearing then their sight, 10 To breake a great time after lightning forth, Yet both at one time teare the labouring cloud) So men thinke ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman
... the telescope, or looking might refuse to see that it was the moon which caused the eclipse, and their deep-seated reverence for the insect, which was the growth of ages, would lead them to regard as impious those individuals who denied its godhead, and might even lead to the physical destruction of the first unbelievers. The society, once so homogeneous and co-ordinated in all its parts, would become at once ...
— Woman and Labour • Olive Schreiner
... Virginia, advances opinions incompatible with Mosaic history. This cannot be disputed, nor will Mr. Jefferson dare to deny that he has, since he has been President of the United States, publicly made the Eucharist a subject of impious ridicule. Tom Paine has written two books for the express purpose of combating the Holy Scriptures. His Age of Reason is but too common, and his letter to the late Samuel Adams still evinces his perverse ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... devout pagan. At this time the defence of popular superstition was no longer a matter of mere policy but of heartfelt need. Marcus Aurelius was a great immolator of white cows. The Christians were disliked, not as superstitious, but as impious. Alexander of Abunoteichos expelled 'Christians and Epicureans' by name from his séances. Lucian is the Voltaire of a credulous age. As for sacerdotal magic, Ovid explicitly ascribed the ex opere ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... the day, To whom thy hands the vows of Greece convey. And whose bless'd oracles thy lips declare; Long as Achilles breathes this vital air, No daring Greek, of all the numerous band, Against his priest shall lift an impious hand; Not e'en the chief by whom our hosts are led, The king of kings, shall ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... oxen, which, with their labouring to pull at the yoke of the plough, appear real and natural; and the same is shown in Abel, who is watching his flocks, and Cain puts him to death, when he is seen, in a most impious and cruel attitude, slaughtering his brother with a club, in such a manner that the very bronze shows the limpness of the dead limbs in the most beautiful person of Abel; and in the distance, likewise, there is God asking Cain ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol 2, Berna to Michelozzo Michelozzi • Giorgio Vasari
... O God! with impious will, Have made these Negroes turn Thy mill! Their human limbs with chains we bound, And bade them whirl Thy mill-stones round; With branded brow and fettered wrist, We bade them ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various
... my startled sight What awful sighs broke on my listening ear! The anguish of the earth, augmented here A thousand-fold, made one continuous night. The sack I flung away in impious spite Hung yet upon me, filled, I saw in fear. With tears that rained from earth's adjacent sphere, And turned to stones in falling from ...
— The Kingdom of Love - and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... reproduction of lifeless forms copied technically and without inspiration from debased patterns. Pictures became symbolically connected with the religious feelings of the people, formulas from which to deviate would be impious in the artist and confusing to the worshipper. Superstitious reverence bound the painter to copy the almond eyes and stiff joints of the saints whom he had adored from infancy; and, even had it been ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... called upon to expose it in her defence, or in the rescue of the innocent. Private war, a practice unknown to the civilised ancients, is, of all the absurdities introduced by the Gothic tribes, the most gross, impious, and cruel. Let me hear no more of these absurd quarrels, and I will show you the treatise upon the duello, which I composed when the town-clerk and provost Mucklewhame chose to assume the privileges of gentlemen, and challenged each other. I thought of printing ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... 'Tis an impious thing that the wives of the laymen, Should use Pagan words 'bout a pistil and stamen, Let the heir break his head while they fester a Dahlia, And the babe die of pap as they ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 326, August 9, 1828 • Various
... conclusion of this classical example of the snares ever lying around the footsteps of the impious, I perceived that the jocular stripling, whom I had so delicately reproved, was no longer present. Doubtless he had been unable to remain in the same room with the commanding Helena's high-spirited indignation, and anticipating that in consequence ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah
... impious axe he plies, loud strokes resound: Till dragg'd with ropes, and fell'd with many a wound, The loosen'd tree ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... of mine anger, The staff in whose hand is mine indignation. Against an impious nation am I wont to send him. And against the people of my wrath I give him charge, To take spoil and gather booty, And to tread them down like the mire in the streets. But he—not so doth he plan; And his heart—not so doth it purpose. For destruction is in his heart, And to cut off ...
— Stories of the Prophets - (Before the Exile) • Isaac Landman
... upon the influence of a theatre on public morals; yet, I fear, though the most moral plays are incapable of doing much good, the turn of others may make a mischievous impression, by embodying in verse, and rendering apt for the memory, maxims of an impious or profligate tendency. In this point of view, there is, at least, no edification in beholding the horrible crimes unto which OEdipus is unwillingly plunged, and in witnessing the dreadful punishment he sustains, though innocent of all moral or intentional ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... Who is so patient of this impious world, That he can check his spirit, or rein his tongue? Or who hath such a dead unfeeling sense, That heaven's horrid thunders cannot wake? To see the earth crack'd with the weight of sin, Hell gaping under us, and ...
— Every Man Out Of His Humour • Ben Jonson
... hopeless. These glosses, however, were revised by another master of the Apostolic Palace, Sixtus Fabri, and were edited, under the sanction of Pope Gregory XIII., in the year 1580; and from this authentic impression the impious panegyric has not been withdrawn. The marginal abridgment has, in compliance with Manriq's direction, been exterminated; and this additional note has been appended as ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 45, Saturday, September 7, 1850 • Various
... "That was an impious remark; and Heaven, by its own mysterious ways, will conduct the just cause of the South to a successful ending, and the Confederate States of America will be an honored member ...
— Within The Enemy's Lines - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... length be taught to fear; O race perfidious, who delight in war! Already noble deeds ye have perform'd; A princess raped transcends a navy storm'd: In such bold feats your impious might approve, Without th' assistance, or the fear of Jove. The violated rites, the ravish'd dame; Our heroes slaughter'd and our ships on flame, Crimes heap'd on crimes, shall bend your glory down, And whelm in ruins ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... know not, and who are what we know not? Beware, oh Queens, how ye tamper with the great majesty of the God, even before His high altar! There is a Power that is more than your power; there is a Justice that is higher than your justice. Beware how ye lift an impious hand against it! Let the ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard
... explicit, that there is no getting around them. Even Dr. Wayland, as we have seen, admits that the authority to take slaves seems to be a part of "this original, peculiar," and perhaps "anomalous grant." No wonder it appeared peculiar and anomalous. The only wonder is, that it did not appear impious and absurd. So it has appeared to some of his co-agitators, who, because they could not agree with Moses, have denied his mission as an inspired teacher, and ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... grotesque pantomime; the awe with which I contemplated the monumental statue on horseback of the murdered commander, gleaming by pale moonlight in the convent cemetery; how my heart quaked as he bowed his marble head, and accepted the impious invitation of Don Juan: how each footfall of the statue smote upon my heart, as I heard it approach, step by step, through the echoing corridor, and beheld it enter, and advance, a moving figure of stone, to the supper table! But then the convivial scene in the charnel-house, where Don Juan returned ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... gift of heaven, this peculiar blessing of the Romans should never be communicated to any foreign nation; that the prince and subject were alike bound to religious silence under the temporal and spiritual penalties of treason and sacrilege; and that the impious attempt would provoke the sudden and supernatural vengeance of the God of the Christians. By these precautions the secret was confined, above four hundred years, to the Romans of the East; and at the end of the eleventh century, the Pisans, to whom every sea and every art were familiar, ...
— A Brief Commentary on the Apocalypse • Sylvester Bliss
... ago it may seem since yesterday!" Do you need to be told on what dark day Miss Ailie discovered that? "I used to pray that I should be taken first, but I was both impious and selfish, for how could fragile Kitty have ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... revere the relics of a Borromeo at Milan, of a Francois de Sales at Annecy, of a Luigi Gonzaga, a Filippo Neri, a Camillo de Lellis at Rome, others respect the chair and table of Wickliffe at Lutterworth, or the room of Luther at Eisenach. If infidels unite in paying homage to the house of the impious philosopher of Ferney, let all Christians, however they may be otherwise unhappily divided, join in shewing their respect for the image of their Saviour, and for those instruments which touched his sacred body, and were sanctified by his precious blood. O let ...
— The Ceremonies of the Holy-Week at Rome • Charles Michael Baggs
... you, as long as I am able, the Roman Church, notwithstanding that I have already done so; for this is the most important duty you have to fufil in the sight of God and men. This is the true Spouse of Christ which he bought with his blood. This is the robe without seam, which the impious Jews would have torn, but could not. This is that ship of St. Peter, Prince of the Apostles, agitated and tossed by varied fortunes of the winds, but sustained by the Omnipotent God, so that she could never be submerged or shipwrecked. With all the strength ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... this they had good reason to complain, that he who called the Romans foreigners and barbarians, had himself so atrociously violated all rights, both divine and human, as, in his former inroad, to have waged an impious war against the infernal gods, in the latter, against those above. That the sepulchres and monuments of all within their country had been demolished, the graves laid open, and the bones left unprotected by the soil. There had been several temples, which, ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... Philip. "God is wise," he told himself. "God is merciful. He knows what is best for all of us. What are we poor impotent grasshoppers, that we dare pray to Him to change His great purposes? It is idle. It is impious.... While the child lives there will be security for no one. If it dies, there will be peace and rest and the beginning of content. The mother must be gone already, so the dark chapter of our lives will be closed at last God is all wise. God ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... shop door, he was well content that it was not Ezra Cohen. I confess, he particularly desired that Ezra Cohen should not keep a shop. Wishes are held to be ominous; according to which belief the order of the world is so arranged that if you have an impious objection to a squint, your offspring is the more likely to be born with one; also, that if you happened to desire a squint you would not get it. This desponding view of probability the hopeful entirely reject, taking their wishes as good and sufficient ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot |
