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More "Debase" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Its spirit walks the earth and haunts the institutions of to-day, in the great corporations, with the control of the National highways, their occupation of great domains, their power to tax, their cynical contempt for the law, their sorcery to debase most gifted men to the capacity of splendid slaves, their pollution of the ermine of the judge and the robe of the Senator, their aggregation in one man of wealth so enormous as to make Croesus seem a pauper, their picked, paid, and ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... be put in the Room of it: Hereby some of the chief Beauties and Excellencies of David's Poetry will be omitted and lost, which if not reviv'd again, or recompenc'd by some lively or pathetic Expression in the English, will necessarily debase the Divine Song into Dullness and Contempt: And hereby also it becomes so far different from the inspired Words in the Original Languages, that it is very hard for any Man to say, {243} that the Version of Hopkins and Sternhold, the New-England ...
— A Short Essay Toward the Improvement of Psalmody • Isaac Watts
... from the edge of Hampstead Hill, when in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, the design of the monstrous city flashes into vision - a glittering hieroglyph many square miles in extent; and when, to borrow and debase an image, all the evening street-lamps burst together into song! Such is the spectacle of the future, preluded the other day by the experiment in Pall Mall. Star-rise by electricity, the most romantic flight of civilisation; the ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... divine: And, where unchecked Beneficence had planned A home for creatures of a fragile race, Evoked from nothingness at His command, Nor care, nor want, nor anguish should have place, Nor fraud betray, nor violence oppress, Nor hate inflame, nor wallowing lust debase, Nor aught be found, save what conspired to bless The sentient clay, wrought surely for that end,— For wherefore ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton
... Murdred bodyes doth returne To accuse the Murderers, to right the Stage, And undeceive the long abused Age, Which casts thy praise on them, to whom thy Wit Gives not more Gold then they give drosse to it: Who not content like fellons to purloyne, Adde Treason to it, and debase thy Coyne. But whither am I strayd? I need not raise Trophies to thee from other Mens dispraise; Nor is thy fame on lesser Ruines built, Nor needs thy juster title the foule guilt Of Easterne Kings, who to secure their Raigne, Must have their Brothers, ...
— The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher in Ten Volumes - Volume I. • Beaumont and Fletcher
... that through dissembling I should thrive, Or, in praising you, myself of truth deprive! Let not your high thoughts debase A simple truth in me; Great is Beauty's grace, Truth is ...
— Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age • Various
... help me to realize the power of my life. I feel ashamed and alarmed when I think of the grievous wrongs I may have done for greed. May I have delight in the struggles I have made for the ways of righteousness. Make me careful to avoid the things that debase life. May I aspire for ...
— Leaves of Life - For Daily Inspiration • Margaret Bird Steinmetz
... females, of respectable appearance and dress, will be gazing upon these subjects; and now that the art of lithography is become fashionable, the print-shops of Paris will be deluged with an inundation of these odious representations, which threaten equally to debase the art and to corrupt morals. This cheap and wholesale circulation of what is mischievous, and of really most miserable execution, is much to be deplored. Even in the better part of art, lithography will have a pernicious effect. Not only a well-educated and distinguished engraver will find, ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... I will not perform. Do you suppose that I, by birth and marriage a royal princess, would debase myself so far as to ask for my son's wife the daughter of a harlot who drove the hapless queen to her grave? and to take her by the hand, and present her to the court as my daughter? I would rather absent myself forever from court, and I will certainly not attend the king's ball to-night." ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... is to mortify the self-love of the expected proselyte? I ask further, when such attempts have been made, whether they have not failed of success? The indignant heart repels the conviction that is believed to debase it.... Let me expostulate with gentlemen to admit, if it be only by way of supposition, and for a moment, that it is barely possible they have yielded too suddenly to their own alarms for the powers of this house; ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... tokens of respectful homage show On the behalf of Briton's col'ny here. (Enter Quezox) Francos: But Bonset, list! 'Twere well to let them wait: To quick respond will lower dignity. The British mind doth breed a rev'rence deep For form and etiquette which swift cognition Might debase, and thus we on their mental Vision might mayhap but feeble impress Make as envoys by most noble Caesar sent To rule these Isles with gravity and state. Quezox: Most noble Sire! If I might but suggest, 'Twere well for Bonset to inquire each ...
— 'A Comedy of Errors' in Seven Acts • Spokeshave (AKA Old Fogy)
... consider them only as concerned with questions of material production, is to forget that the products of industry are made for man, not man for industrial products; to ignore the close relationship between their fruitful investigations and the whole circle of the moral sciences; to debase them ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... investigation, yet in its progress he had already uncivilized a man whose eyes were beginning dimly to see the truth, had poisoned his mind with lies, and had hurled him into depths of Plutonian ignorance inconceivably more profound than his original estate; and now he was about to debase another fellow-creature of his own race, to tamper with his manhood, to confuse his identity, to render him among his own kindred and people perhaps tabooed, ostracised, despised—perhaps an object of pity. If he should succeed? Surely he had not come thus near success to suffer ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... in his shirt on winter nights. He wanted to have Gabriel get up in the cold mornings and bring him his breakfast in bed. He wanted to chain Gabriel to the car of his triumphal progress through school-life. He wanted to debase ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... Jerusalem, but of Sodom and Egypt. More than this, these strange children are enemies. They would break up the self-denying worship of the true God and rob the sanctuary of all its sacred garniture. They would corrupt the morals, debase the manners, and deprave the tastes of the young. "Their mouth speaketh vanity." They boast of their liberty. Their sinful indulgences are not restrained by law. They are free to do whatever the lust of the flesh and the eye may incline them to do. "Their right ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... well, if we could eradicate abuses and bring out our strength. A fatality, however, seems pursuing us. The blockade-runners drain the country of the little gold which is left in it; the forestallers run up prices, and debase the currency beyond hope; the able-bodied and healthy men who ought to be in the army, swarm in the streets; and the bitter foes of the President poison the public mind, and infuse into it despair. It is this, colonel, ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... dreams. Weak, weak imagination! be dissolved Like a chance snowflake in a sea of fire. Let the poor-spirited children of Despair Hang on the sepulchre of buried Hope The fadeless garlands of undying song. Though such gift turned on its pearly hinge Sweet Mercy's gate, I would not so debase me. Shut out from heaven, I, by the arch-fiend's wing, As by a star, would move, and radiantly Go down to sleep in Fame's bright arms the while Hard by, her handmaids, the still centuries Lilies and sunshine braided for my ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 5, July 29, 1850 • Various
... murderers, to right the stage, And undeceive the long-abused age, Which casts thy praise on them, to whom thy wit Gives not more gold than they give dross to it; Who not content, like felons, to purloin, Add treason to it, and debase the coin. But whither am I stray'd? I need not raise Trophies to thee from other men's dispraise; 20 Nor is thy fame on lesser ruins built, Nor needs thy juster title the foul guilt Of eastern kings, who, to secure their reign, Must have their brothers, ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... atheism teaches man to stand on his own feet, instills confidence in his reasoning powers, and forces him to conquer his environment. It teaches him not to subject himself and debase himself before mythical superhuman powers, for his reason is his power. The march from faith to reason is the march on which dwells the future hope ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... of jealousy, whether being wife of a man and mother of his children does not almost necessarily give a woman a feeling of exclusive possession in him, and whether, therefore, if we are earnest in our determination not to debase her, our last shred of polygamy does not vanish. From first to last, of course, it has been assumed that a prolific polygamy alone can be intended, for long before we have plumbed the bottom of the human heart we shall know enough to imagine what the ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells
... to regret that her best days were spent in riot and dissipation, in opposition or indifference to religion, by which so many debase their nature, offend their Maker, and ruin their souls: but while she contemplated the future without alarm, and perhaps with joy, she could review the ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox
... is much unworthy you, [Smiling scornfully. And, when you would, impossible to do. If force could bend me, you might think, with shame, That I debase the blood from whence I came. My soul is soft, which you may gently lay In your loose palm; but, when 'tis pressed to stay, Like water, it deludes your ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... danger may arise from playmates or school-fellows. This applies equally to children of either sex. Danger may also arise from adults, not only through systematic seduction on the part of grown persons who deliberately debase the mind of youth, but also in other ways. The conversations of adults often lead to sexual acts on the part of children, who understand far more of what is said in their presence than grownups commonly believe. While the child is to all appearance immersed in a book, while a girl is playing ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll
... most slaves were still buried in heathen ignorance. But extensive as was this so-called religious instruction, he did not see how the teaching of the slave to be obedient to his master could exert much power in raising one to the divinity of man. How slavery which tends to debase the mind of the bondman could prepare it for spiritual truth, or how he could comprehend the essential principles of love on hearing it from the lips of his selfish and unjust owner, were questions which no defender of the system ever answered ...
— The Education Of The Negro Prior To 1861 • Carter Godwin Woodson
... things to the one who hath erred, for every one who errs hath but missed the appointed path and wandered away. Reflect, and thou wilt discover that no one of these with whom thou art annoyed hath done aught to debase thy mind, and that is the only real evil ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... People whose Reputation (especially the Officers) has been industriously diminished, and their Persons, as well as their Employment, rendred contemptible on purpose to enhance the Value of those that serve for Pay; insomuch that few Gentlemen of Quality will now a-days debase themselves so much, as to accept of a Company, or a Regiment in the Militia. But for all this, I can never be persuaded that a Red Coat, and Three Pence a Day, infuses more Courage into the poor Swaggering Idler, than the having a Wife and Children, and ...
— Franco-Gallia • Francis Hotoman
... buttonholes him, enrols him willy-nilly. A cartoon of Boardman Robinson's shows Billy Sunday arrayed as a recruiting sergeant, dragging Christ by a halter and shouting: "I got him! He's plumb dippy over going to war." Fashionable folk, ladies included, are infatuated with this preacher; they delight to debase themselves in God's company. The ministers of religion, too, are on Billy Sunday's side. The exceptions may be counted on the fingers of one hand. Most notable among the exceptions is the pastor of ...
— The Forerunners • Romain Rolland
... and ye keep sweet youths to wait upon me, Sweet bred-up youths, to be a credit to me. There's your delight again, pray take him to ye, He never comes near me more to debase me. ...
— The Spanish Curate - A Comedy • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... to be the Basis of almost all their Tragedies. Nay, the Education of the People under such a Government, prevents their delighting in such Performances as pleased an Athenian or a Roman, and now delight us Britons. Thus every Thing conduces to debase Tragedy among them, as every Thing here contributes to form good Tragick Writers; yet how few have we! And what is very remarkable, each Nation takes Delight in that, which, in the Main, they the least excel in, ...
— Some Remarks on the Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Written by Mr. William Shakespeare (1736) • Anonymous
... of the National Assembly does not ask the King to grant to the Assembly liberty of speech, as is the case with the English House of Commons. The constitutional dignity of the National Assembly cannot debase itself. Speech is, in the first place, one of the natural rights of man always retained; and with respect to the National Assembly the use of it is their duty, and the nation is their authority. They were elected by the greatest body of men ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... sent the publisher to prison. Another English jury, for all practical purposes, decided that Dorian Gray was not immoral, and so on. The verdicts may be accepted. Twelve men, picked from an alphabetical list, may not be judges of art, but they will not debase morality. ...
— G. K. Chesterton, A Critical Study • Julius West
... imagination. There was something stimulating in the atmosphere of books and manuscripts and in that world of letters which seems so large to those who live in it. Fortunately, also, having a support, he was not tempted to debase his talent by sensational ventures. What he wrote for this or that magazine he wrote to please himself, and, although he saw no fortune that way, the little he received was an encouragement as well as an ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... from this study is unceasing, and so various, that it never tires the appetite. But it is unlike the low gratifications of sense in another respect: it elevates and refines our nature, while those hurt the health, debase the understanding, and corrupt the feelings; it teaches us to look upon all earthly objects as insignificant and below our notice, except the pursuit of knowledge and the cultivation of virtue, that is to say, the ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... here briefly what the service will not do. It will not change the nature of men, but it will mollify it into much that is exalted, that is noble, and that is good. It almost universally raises individual character; but it can never debase it. The world are too apt to generalise—and this generalisation has done much disservice to the British navy. It forms a notion, creates a beau-ideal—a very absurd one truly—and then tries every character ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... vengeance. I might be murdered or hanged, but it is impossible to degrade me. On a gibbet or in the palace of a Prince, seized by the executioner or dining with Sovereigns, I am, I will, and I must, always remain the same. Infamy cannot debase me, nor is it in the power of grandeur to exalt me." General, Ambassador, Field-marshal, First Consul, or Emperor, Lasnes will always be the same polluted, but daring individual; a stranger to remorse and repentance, as well as to honour and virtue. Where Bonaparte sends a banditto of such a stamp, ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... false, Leonardo had too grand a soul. A wretched woman in England, at the beginning of the last century, Mrs. Manley, systematically employed fiction as a cover for personal libel; but such an abuse of art as this could be practiced or countenanced only by the vile. Novelists, however, often debase fiction by obtruding their personal vanities, favouritisms, fanaticisms and antipathies. We had, the other day, a novel, the author of which introduced himself almost by name as a heroic character, with a description of his own personal appearance, residence, and habits as fond fancy painted ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... feelings, and prefer their complaints before we offer to redress them: they will not need to be prompted. I hope I shall not depart from the simplicity of official language, in saying, that the majesty of justice ought to be approached with solicitation, not descend to provoke or invite it, much less to debase itself by the suggestion of wrongs and the promise of redress, with the denunciation of punishment before trial, and even ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XII. (of XII.) • Edmund Burke
... life. They have learned from the Russians to lie, cheat, and steal; and from whalers to drink rum and be licentious. Besides all these vices, they eat the intoxicating Siberian toadstool in inordinate quantities, and this habit alone will in time debase and brutalise any body of men to the last degree. From nearly all these demoralising influences the Wandering Koraks are removed by the very nature of their life. They spend more of their time in the open air, they have healthier and better-balanced physical constitutions, ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... assures me that he could not find language to give me an idea of the gross debaucheries into which the lower order of people fall; and the promiscuous amours of the men of the middling class with their female servants debase both beyond measure, weakening every ...
— Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark • Mary Wollstonecraft
... performing. The Duke of Wellington proudly declared that truth was the characteristic of an English officer, that when he was bound by a parole he would not break his word; for the gentleman scorns to lie, in word or deed; and is ready to brave all consequences rather than debase himself by falsehood. ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... either equality shall reign, or I will die contending against protectors and tribunes. Tribunes! they are the worst enemies of the people. They flatter to enchain it. They spread suspicions of virtue, which will not debase itself. Remember who were Aristides and Phocion,—they did not ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... workmen. And then she described to me the beautiful marbles she had seen abroad, where the artist's inspiration was so chastely uttered by the purity of his material, declaring that a subject which coloring would debase might be worthily treated by the chisel. And when I exclaimed, that Autumn, with her glowing palette, was as pure an artist as the old sculptor Winter, chiselling in unvaried white, she reminded me that Nature was infinite, handling all themes with equal power and purity; but that man, in copying, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... has its use, it has its abuse also. If visions of truth and beauty can exalt, visions of vice can debase and degrade. In that picture where Faust and Satan battle together for the scholar's soul, the angels share in the conflict. Plucking the roses of Paradise, they fling them over the battlements down upon the heads of the combatants. When the roses fall on Faust they heal his wounds; when they fall ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis
... effects of these two impressions on the human heart are well known. Though I perfectly agree with Mr Godwin therefore in the evil of hard labour, yet I still think it a less evil, and less calculated to debase the human mind, than dependence, and every history of man that we have ever read places in a strong point of view the danger to which that mind is exposed which is ...
— An Essay on the Principle of Population • Thomas Malthus
... a matter of the greatest consequence to have correct notions of God and of self. As conversion relates to both, wrong notions of one will create wrong notions of the other. Those who have been taught to debase themselves under the pretext of giving glory to God, consider meanness and wrong as natural and inherent imperfections of their being, and attributable to Father Adam and Mother Eve, and neglect to exercise the powers at their command. Being taught that they ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume I, No. 12, December, 1880 • Various
... komerci. Deal out disdoni. Dealer komercisto. Dean fakultestro. Dear kara. Dear (person) karulo. Dear (price) multekosta. Dearth seneco. Death morto. Deathless senmorta. Debar eksigi. Debase malnobligi. Debate disputo. Debauch dibocxigi. Debauch dibocxo. Debility malforteco. Debit debito. Debris rubo—ajxo. Debt, to get into sxuldigxi. Debt sxuldo. Debtor sxuldanto. Debut komenco. Decadence kadukeco. Decalogue ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... on the other hand, though actuated in a measure by enthusiasm for the public weal, was driven into the contest mainly by a necessity to save himself. The calm disinterestedness which marks the career of Washington was wholly wanting in the Swedish king. His readiness to debase the currency, his efforts to humiliate the bishops, his confiscation of Church property, his intimacy with foreign courtiers,—all show a desire for personal aggrandizement inconsistent with an earnest longing to benefit his race. One must regret that the rare talents which he possessed, and ...
— The Swedish Revolution Under Gustavus Vasa • Paul Barron Watson
... father's violin, Felix. See to it that you never make your music the servant of the power of evil—never debase it to unworthy ends. For your responsibility is as your gift, and God will exact the accounting of it from you. Speak to the world in your own tongue through it, with truth and sincerity; and all I have hoped for you will be ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... all the freaks into which the passions of man almost constantly allure him, the ignorance which makes him the opinionated slave of custom and the continual dupe of those who wish to deceive him; were it not that his reason has led him into the most revolting errors, since we actually see him so debase himself as to worship animals, even the meanest, of addressing to them his prayers, and of imploring their aid; were it not, I say, for these considerations, should we feel authorized to raise any doubts as to the excellence of this special light which is the ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard
... Fox winnowed and sifted his phraseology with a care which seems hardly consistent with the simplicity and elevation of his mind, and of which the effect really was to debase and enfeeble his style, he was little on his guard against those more serious improprieties of manner into which a great orator who undertakes to write history is in danger of falling. There is about the whole ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... in which the Greenlanders transport their families, are always rowed by women; for a man will not debase himself by work, which requires neither skill nor courage. Anningait was therefore exposed by idleness to the ravages of passion. He went thrice to the stern of the boat, with an intent to leap into the water, and swim back ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... the power, even of an imagination like his, to go on investing with its own ideal glories a sentiment which,—more from daring and vanity than from any other impulse,—he had taken such pains to tarnish and debase in his own eyes. Accordingly, instead of being able, as once, to elevate and embellish all that interested him, to make an idol of every passing creature of his fancy, and mistake the form of love, which he so often ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... the children. Why not recall the hunger of eighteen years of age and give these youths the very bread of our own inner selves? Or do we, when they ask this bread, give them the stone of mere provision for their physical needs or the scorpion of careless indulgence in things that debase ...
— Religious Education in the Family • Henry F. Cope
... one does not seek inspiration in order to debase himself and lie. One writer has been imprisoned for having put a very obvious truth into verse. They may have called me a poet but they sha'n't ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... doctors, where the results of disease are unknown, and where death is little thought of. By nature a man bears pain bravely and dies in peace. It is the doctors with their rules, the philosophers with their precepts, the priests with their exhortations, who debase the heart and make ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... employments. I doubt the policy of shooting deserters in this war—better shoot the traitors in high positions. The indigent men of the South will fight, shoulder to shoulder with the wealthy, for Southern independence; but when the attempt is made to debase them to a ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... whilst in this place I saw one who was perfectly white. This peculiarity, however, is rarely witnessed in this country."[64] Thereafter the tendency seemed to be not to check promiscuous miscegenation but to debase the offspring ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... when we are sending a young man from the school into active life, lest he should do anything improperly, eat improperly, have improper intercourse with women; and lest the rags in which he is wrapped should debase him, lest fine garments should make him proud. This youth (if he acts thus) does not know his own God; he knows not with whom he sets out (into the world). But can we endure when he says, "I wish I had you (God) with me." Have you not ...
— A Selection from the Discourses of Epictetus With the Encheiridion • Epictetus
... wish him to proceed. She had esteemed him for so long, she cannot have him debase himself ...
— Quality Street - A Comedy • J. M. Barrie
... that gains what he pretends, Disgusts a thousand unpretending friends: And since no art can make a counterpass, Or add the weight of gold to mimic brass, When princes to bad ore their image join, They more debase the stamp, than raise the coin. Be thine the care, true merit to reward And gain the good—nor will that task be hard; Souls form'd alike so quick by nature blend, An honest man is more than half thy friend. Him, no mean views, or haste to rise, ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... because no place was made for the Negro element in its civil service. In the first issue of La Sentinelle, he wrote, "From day to day the Maurician Press develops a system entirely dangerous and which seems to have this for a foundation—to discredit and debase English institutions and the English Government in the eyes of all. Here are the consequences of this system—the government believing that the opinions of the press are those of all the inhabitants of ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various
... ancient poetry with an agreeable mixture, which made the moderns affect to give that of christianity a place also in their poems; but the true religion was not found to become fictitious so well as the false one had done, and all their attempts of this kind seemed, rather to debase religion than heighten poetry. Spenser endeavoured to supply this with morality, and to make instruction, instead of story the subject of an epic poem. His execution was excellent, and his flights of fancy very noble and high. But his design was poor; and ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume I. • Theophilus Cibber
... school of Christianity, which was, that all men are by nature equal; that they are wisely and justly endowed by their Creator with certain rights which are irrefragable, and no matter how human pride and avarice may depress and debase, still God is the author of good to man; and of evil, man is the artificer to himself and to his species. Unlike Plato and Socrates, his mind was free from the gloom that surrounded theirs. Let the name, the worth, the ...
— Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 (of 2) (1854) • Various
... might not be mistaken and know of a truth that it was God's will. I never found any soul rest until I wrote to Mrs. Nation, and told her the time was ripe for God and that we must attack Mahan's Wholesale Liquor House, that was helping to degrade so many women and debase so many men. This resulted in an attempt to carry out God's purpose on Sept. ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation
... were about to part, the minister said: "Mr. Lincoln, may I say one thing to you before we separate?" "Certainly; anything you please," was the response. "You have just spoken," said Mr. Gulliver, "of the tendency of political life in Washington to debase the moral convictions of our representatives there, by the admixture of considerations of mere political expediency. You have become, by the controversy with Mr. Douglas, one of our leaders in this great struggle with slavery, which is undoubtedly the struggle of the nation ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... make personal capital out of the passions of his fellow-men. He has lost the touch and ideal of America, for America was created to unite mankind by those passions which lift and not by the passions which separate and debase. We came to America, either ourselves or in the persons of our ancestors, to better the ideals of men, to make them see finer things than they had seen before, to get rid of the things that divide and to make sure of the things that ...
— President Wilson's Addresses • Woodrow Wilson
... adopted, the gold plank asserted: "We are unalterably opposed to every measure calculated to debase our currency or impair the credit of our country. We are, therefore, opposed to the free coinage of silver, except by international agreement with the leading commercial nations of the world, which we pledge ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... Denmark was to queen Anne, is her subject; and may be guilty of high treason against her: but, in the instance of conjugal fidelity, he is not subjected to the same penal restrictions. For which the reason seems to be, that, if a queen consort is unfaithful to the royal bed, this may debase or bastardize the heirs to the crown; but no such danger can be consequent on the infidelity of the ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... sacrifices familiar on a Japanese field of battle been made for his sake. Oyamada Takaiye gave his horse to the Nitta general and fell fighting in his stead, while Yoshisada rode away. At first sight these sacrifices seem to debase the saved as much as they exalt the saver. But, according to Japanese ethics, an institution was always more precious than the person of its representative, and a principle than the life of its exponent. Men sacrificed themselves in battle not so much to save the life of ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... authentic fact, that a bookseller to the Czar of Russia one Klostermann, actually sold books at fifty to one hundred roubles by the yard, according to the binding. The force of folly could no farther go, to debase the aims and degrade the intellect ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... possible reason for buying a book. Whether it is ever wise to buy a book, as Aulus Gellius used to do, simply because it is cheap, and regardless of its condition, is a debatable point, but to buy one dear at the mere bidding of a bookseller is to debase yourself. The result of this ungodly traffic has been to enlarge for the moment the circle of book-buyers by including in it men with commercial instincts, sham hobbyists. But these impostors have been lately ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... poison. The merchant or dealer who practises this dangerous sophistication, adds the crime of murder to that of fraud, and deliberately scatters the seeds of disease and death among those consumers who contribute to his emolument. If to debase the current coin of the realm be denounced as a capital offence, what punishment should be awarded against a practice which converts into poison a liquor ...
— A Treatise on Adulterations of Food, and Culinary Poisons • Fredrick Accum
... conceive, has originated partly from the competition of slave and free labor, but mainly, I presume, from the association of this class with the African population. There are other agencies, no doubt, which have contributed to debase and brutalize this class of the white population, but I judge, that the causes above indicated, are the principal ones. Some will, no doubt, attribute this in part to the disparity between the lower classes in the South, ...
— A Review of Uncle Tom's Cabin - or, An Essay on Slavery • A. Woodward
... dance may bring both treacherous perils and wonderful gifts to our community. It depends upon us whether we reenforce the dangerous elements of the dance, or the beneficial ones. It will depend on ourselves whether the dance will debase the nation, as it has so often done in the history of civilization, or whether it will help to lead it to new heights of beauty and harmony, as it has not seldom done before. Our social conscience must be wide awake; it will not be ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg
... Hell, insatiate power, Destroyer of the human race, Whose iron scourge and maddening hour Exalt the bad, the good debase: Thy mystic force, despotic sway, Courage and innocence dismay, And patriot monarchs vainly groan With pangs unfelt before, ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... neither personal excellence, superior courage, nor higher intellect. Though human inventions may serve to depress the less fortunate, God has given fixed limits to the means of men. He that would be greater than his kind, and illustrious by unnatural expedients, must debase others to attain his end. By different means than these there is no nobility, and he who is unwilling to admit an inferiority which exists only in idea can never be humbled by an artifice so shallow. On the subject of mere birth, as it is ordinarily estimated, whether it come from ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... a profusion of animal food has a tendency to vitiate and debase the nature and dispositions of men; notwithstanding, the lovers of flesh urge the names of many of the most eminent in literature and science, in opposition to ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 358 - Vol. XIII, No. 358., Saturday, February 28, 1829 • Various
... British navy; and had the invitation been accepted without explanation or a change of treatment, an inference might have been drawn that the charge of imposture was well founded; but in any case, having been grossly insulted both in my public and private character, I could not debase the situation I had the honour to hold by a tacit submission. When the aide-de-camp returned from carrying the above reply, he said that the general would invite me when set at liberty; but nothing was offered in the ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders
... pleased with this request, and gladly gave them his daughter; for in doing so, he does not debase himself, nor diminish his honour in any way. But he says that he had promised her to the Duke of Saxony, and that they would not be able to lead her away unless the emperor should come with a great army, so that the duke would be unable to do him any harm ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... such recompenses than of those wherein there was gain and profit, is not without very good ground and reason. If with the reward, which ought to be simply a recompense of honour, they should mix other commodities and add riches, this mixture, instead of procuring an increase of estimation, would debase and abate it. The Order of St. Michael, which has been so long in repute amongst us, had no greater commodity than that it had no communication with any other commodity, which produced this effect, that formerly there was no office ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... nobler, kinder, wiser than all. There are some here who are unworthy to bend and pick up the handkerchief you have just dropped. Why do you humiliate yourself like this, and place yourself lower than these people? Why do you debase yourself before them? ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... inspection of illuminating oil and gasoline;[916] a Kansas statute forbidding any moving picture film or reel to be exhibited in the State unless it had been examined by the State Superintendent of Instruction and certified by him as moral and instructive and not tending to debase or corrupt the morals.[917] A Minnesota statute, on the other hand, which forbade the sale in any city of the State of any beef, mutton, lamb, or pork which, had not been inspected on the hoof by local inspectors within twenty-four hours of slaughter, was held ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... actions to which sensual love will drive a man who is not strong enough to throw off its degrading chains. The whole of humanity seemed to her unclean as she thought of the obscene secrets of the senses, of the caresses which debase as they are given and received, and of all the mysteries which surround the ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... footstool. He was a piece of good advice; he was himself the instance that pointed and adorned his various talk. Nor could a young man have found elsewhere a place so set apart from envy, fear, discontent, or any of the passions that debase; a life so honest and composed; a soul like an ancient violin, so subdued to harmony, responding to a touch in music - as in that dining-room, with Mr. Hunter chatting at the eleventh hour, under the shadow of eternity, fearless ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson
... same proportion will crime decrease. But how is it to be improved when the tendencies of industrialism are to degrade the women who stand by nature at the head of it? Indifferent mothers cannot make children good citizens; and the present course of things industrial is slowly but surely tending to debase the fountain head of the race. At the International Conference concerning the regulation of labour held recently at Berlin, M. Jules Simon, at the close of an excellent speech to the delegates, pointed out ...
— Crime and Its Causes • William Douglas Morrison
... power, their property was seized on the plea for delinquent taxes and they were forced into the ghetto of towns and cities, as it became a crime punishable by social proscription to sell Negroes desirable residences. The aim was to debase all Negroes to the status of menial labor in conformity with the usual contention of the South that slavery is the normal condition of ...
— A Century of Negro Migration • Carter G. Woodson
... its fruits, ocean rolls in its magnificence, the heavens display their constellated canopy, and the grand animated spectacle of nature rises revealed before him, its varieties regulated, and its mysteries resolved! The phenomena which bewilder, the prejudices which debase, the superstitions which ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... of tutor and pupil was at an end, but that friendship for his person was incompatible with the respect due to his superior station, I can neither so far degrade the dignity of letters, nor, above all, so meanly debase the sanctity of my divine profession, as any longer to remain beneath your hospitable roof,—a guest not only unwelcome to, but insulted by, your relation and apparent heir. Suffer me to offer you my gratitude for the favours you have ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... suggested as desperate cases, but I can imagine no case where what is called corporal punishment should be inflicted, and the reason I am against it is this: I am opposed to any punishment that cannot be inflicted by a gentleman. I am opposed to any punishment the infliction of which tends to harden and debase the man who inflicts it. I am for no laws that have to be carried ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... plucked at her sisterly pride in him that he should, even by implication, debase himself, noting inequality of station between himself and her. She held the worldly aspects of the matter in contempt. They angered her, so that she impulsively banished reserve. Leaning forward, she bent her head, ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... there is the lover, and there is his lofty worship going on, unspeakable, but revealed in the brightness of the eye, the majesty of the presence, and the high temper of the discourse. Men have been ungrateful and perverse; they have done what they could to counteract, to debase, this most heavenly influence of their life; but the laws of their Maker are too strong, the benignity of their Father is too patient and fervent, for their opposition to withstand: and true love continues, and will continue, to ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... protect him against a tyrant's wrong, you bring us into contempt by your proclaiming virtue over the vice we acknowledge belongs to the institution. We know its defects-we fear them; but, in the name of heaven, do not defend them at the cost of virtue, truth, honesty. Do not debase us by proclaiming its glories over our heads;-do not take advantage of us by attempting to make wrong right." The deacon's feelings have become earnest; his face ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... no sense of duty, and was a stranger to self-command; and though she boasted refinement of mind, yet it was of that spurious sort which, far from elevating and purifying the heart, tends only to corrupt and debase the soul, while it sheds a false and dazzling lustre upon those perishable ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... legitimate temptations, they either compromise the honest women, and on this point we re-enter on the subject of this book, or else they debase themselves by a horrible intercourse with the five hundred thousand women of whom we spoke in the third category of the first Meditation, and in this case, have still considerable chance of visiting Switzerland, ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part I. • Honore de Balzac
... here to the end of the act triumphant.) If you knew how happy your rage is making me! How proud I am that you should humble me by every means in your power! You debase me as deep—as deep as a woman can be debased, for you hope you can then jump over me easier. But you have suffered unspeakably yourself from everything you just said to me. I see it in you. Already you are near the end of your self-command. Go! For your innocent ...
— Erdgeist (Earth-Spirit) - A Tragedy in Four Acts • Frank Wedekind
... influence. There must be more popular art, more of that art which is unimportant to the universe but important to the individual: for art can be second-rate yet genuine. Also, art must become less exclusively professional. That will not be achieved by bribing the best artists to debase themselves, but by enabling everyone to create such art as he can. It is probable that most are capable of expressing themselves, to some extent, in form; it is certain that in so doing they can find an extraordinary happiness. Those who have absolutely nothing to express and absolutely ...
— Art • Clive Bell
... classical era, could not preserve himself from colloquial inelegances; the greatest characters are levelled by the poverty of his style. Warburton, and his imitator Hurd, and other living critics of that school, are loaded with familiar idioms, which at present would debase even the style ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... "Wretches!" He cried "To debase this noble creature!" And running to the lion he snatched the sordid begging bowl from the royal jaws.... The two negroes, believing they were dealing with a thief, threw themselves on Tartarin with raised cudgels. ...
— Tartarin de Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet
... throne where Henri great and good, In glory sat—now sits this man of blood; Yet let not prejudice debase my line, As warrior, as statesman, let him shine,— Through all the world his mighty name resound, For arts of peace and deeds of arms renown'd: Mark with what steady hand he rules the State! Yet wants the stamp of Virtue ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 566, September 15, 1832 • Various
... the pathway of that madness, a brief passion. She was content, it seemed, that her lover should be wise, should be careful for the future, should take her life into his hands with a sort of quiet mastery as if he had a right to do so—a right, not to ruin and debase, such as is usually considered the privilege of that which is called a great passion and admired as such—but a right ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... powers. I really begin to feel that I know only part of you. First Lillian's Duty taught me some of your stern Scotch morality. Then Enid's Choice revealed to me your conception of the integrity of a good woman's soul—that nothing can debase it. Alessandra disclosed your learning and your imaginative power. Now here I feel the poet, the imaginative boy. I will not say this has increased my faith in you—it has added to my knowledge of you. But I must confess ...
— The Light of the Star - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... Aurora, indignantly. "What scent of tobacco or odor of wines has ever profaned the purity of his balmy breath? What does he know of billiards, of horse-racing, of actresses, and those other features of brutal men's lives? Father, he is pure and good and exalted; seek not to debase him by naming him ...
— The Holy Cross and Other Tales • Eugene Field
... McDowell, who was afterwards elected Governor of the State, thus portrays the personal relations of master and slave "You may place the slave where you please—you may put him under any process, which, without destroying his value as a slave, will debase and crush him as a rational being—you may do all this, and the idea that he was born to be free will survive it all. It is allied to his hope of immortality—it is the ethereal part of his nature which oppression cannot ...
— The Anti-Slavery Crusade - Volume 28 In The Chronicles Of America Series • Jesse Macy
... and visible sign was the creation of the Irish Home Rule party, which constituted itself separate and distinct from the rest of the House of Commons, the standard of which the new gang was to debase. Nor did they rest content until it became the scene of faction fights and organised obstruction in combination with the flagrant violation of all decencies of ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... way, and she set the fashion: fashion, which converts the ugliest dress into what is beautiful and charming, governs the public mode in morals and in manners; and thus, when great talents and high rank combine, they can debase or ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth
... opposite movements and contradictory principles, appears nowhere in a more clear light. If trade continued under restraint, their territorial revenues must suffer by checking the general prosperity of the country: if they set it free, means were taken to raise the price and debase the quality of the goods; and this again fell upon the revenues, out of which the payment for the goods was to arise. The observations of the Company on that occasion are just and sagacious; and they will not permit the least doubt concerning ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... reduced, and that Wallenstein should be dismissed from the command. Others were equally determined that the crown of the empire should not descend to the son of Ferdinand. The Duke of Bavaria headed the party who would debase Wallenstein; and Cardinal Richelieu, with all the potent influences of intrigue and bribery at the command of the French court, was the soul of the party resolved to wrest the crown of the empire from ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... are content to take the ornaments of your excellent nature from the most base and vile things, neither understand you what injury you do your Creator. He would have mankind to excel all earthly things; you debase your dignity under every meanest creature. For if it be manifest that the good of everything is more precious than that whose good it is, since you judge the vilest things that can be to be your goods, you deject yourselves under them in your own estimation, which questionless cometh ...
— The Theological Tractates and The Consolation of Philosophy • Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius
... mean by Dress coming under the direction of religion is, that our manners and style of Dress shall not interfere with the principles of true religion, shall not injure the body, corrupt the heart, debase the mind of the individual; shall not degrade society, nor work any evil influence in it, but, on the contrary, shall do good both to the individual and society. Now let us ask whether our present modes of Dress are thus brought under ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver
... Paris that meets you will be apt to jostle you, in order to make his court to the Cardinal d'Est. You ought not to have come to Rome if you had not had resolution and the means to support your dignity. I presume you do not make it a point of Christian humility to debase yourself. And let me tell you that I, the poor Cardinal Chigi, who have but 5,000 crowns revenue, and am one of the poorest in the College, and though I am sure to meet nobody in the streets who will be wanting in the respect due to the purple, yet I cannot go to my functions without ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz
... same flask that he used when tempting Richard Ashton at Charlotte, and he and John, jun. indulged so freely of its contents as soon to be considerably under its influence. Miss Sealy perceived the state they were in, and blaming the former for leading her brother to thus debase himself, gave him to understand his presence was extremely distasteful to her, and that he might consider their engagement broken off; for, no matter what influence might be brought to bear, she had made up her mind, after what had just transpired, ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... without encroaching on his fellows, and detracting from them or enriching themselves with the spoils of others. But to come to particulars: Heinsius and Dacier are the most principal of those who raise Horace above Juvenal and Persius. Scaliger the father, Rigaltius, and many others debase Horace that they may set up Juvenal; and Casaubon, who is almost single, throws dirt on Juvenal and Horace that he may exalt Persius, whom he understood particularly well, and better than any of his former ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden
... country? Is there not a tendency in the democracy of our country to low and vulgar pleasures and pursuits? Does not the contact of those more cultivated in mind and elevated in purpose with those who are less so, and to whom the former look for political favor and power, necessarily debase that cultivated mind and that elevation of purpose? When those are exalted to office who best can flatter the low appetites of the vulgar; when boorishness and ill manners are preferred to polish and refinement, and when, indeed, the latter, if not avowedly, are in reality made ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... the ideas of the people are of a peculiar cast; the soul becomes dark and narrow, and assumes a tone of savage brutality.... The most elevated and liberal Carolinians abhor slavery; they will not debase themselves by attempting to vindicate it." In 1789 William Pinckney said, in the Maryland Assembly: "Sir, by the eternal principles of natural justice, no master in the State has a right to hold his slave in bondage for a single hour." And he went on to speak of slavery in a way which, fifty years ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... and rule the world right and left as they do, they could also sound their H's properly, and knew a little orthography, if they could not be changed into such queens of grace, of intellect, of sovereign mind and splendid wit as were their prototypes when she whose name they debase held her rule in the City of the Violet Crown, and gathered about her Phidias the divine, haughty and eloquent Antipho, the gay Crates, the subtle Protagorus, Cratinus so acrid and yet so jovial, Damon of the silver lyre, and the ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... India. There are a host of these women (twelve thousand in South India alone) who, without their own consent, and in the sacred name of religion, have been handed over to this life of shame, to corrupt and debase the youth of the land. Their life is a loud cry against their mother-faith, which systematically devotes them to destruction of soul and body. Some educated men of the land denounce this as an evil which should be stopped. But the leaders ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones
... industriously diminished, and their Persons, as well as their Employment, rendred contemptible on purpose to enhance the Value of those that serve for Pay; insomuch that few Gentlemen of Quality will now a-days debase themselves so much, as to accept of a Company, or a Regiment in the Militia. But for all this, I can never be persuaded that a Red Coat, and Three Pence a Day, infuses more Courage into the poor Swaggering ...
— Franco-Gallia • Francis Hotoman
... doing so," said Catherine, "you debase a cause so noble, by naming along with it any lower or more selfish motive. Believe me," she said, with kindling eyes, and while the blood mantled on her cheek, "they think vilely and falsely of women—I mean of those who deserve the name—who deem that they love the gratification of their vanity, ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... declared that truth was the characteristic of an English officer, that when he was bound by a parole he would not break his word; for the gentleman scorns to lie, in word or deed; and is ready to brave all consequences rather than debase himself ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... a canker'd heart That can debase the excellence of art, Nor great in titles makes our worth obey, Since we have lines far more esteem'd than they. For there is hidden in a poet's name A spell that can command the wings of Fame, And maugre all oblivion's hated birth Begin their immortality on ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... railroad man myself, though I have no interest in this affair. My turn may come later. Will come later, I suppose. Isaac D. Worthington has a very little heart or soul or mercy himself; but the corporation which he means to set up will have none at all. It will grind the people and debase them and clog their progress a hundred times more than Jethro Bass has done. Mark my words, Carry. I'm running ahead of the times a little, but I can see it all as clearly as if it ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... in life is the possession of good manners, or timely thoughtfulness with human sympathy behind it. They are the kindly fruit of a refined nature, and are the open sesame to the best of society. Manners are what vex or soothe, exalt or debase, barbarize or refine us by a constant, steady, uniform, invincible operation like that of the air we breathe. Even power itself has not half the might of gentleness, that subtle oil which lubricates our relations with each ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... crumbling of the old deities and the looming of the Unknown,—are we to lie down content and docile and suffer this hybrid monster of Frankenstein, under guise of governing, to squat on our necks, bind our Titan limbs, bandage our awakening eyes, gag our free voices, sterilize our civic manhood, and debase us from sons of divine liberty into ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... not," assented Villiers promptly. "No poet, and indeed no author whatsoever, who lays claim to a fraction of conscience, writes for money ONLY. Those with whom money is the first consideration debase their Art into a coarse huckstering trade, and are no better than contentious bakers and cheesemongers, who jostle each other in a vulgar struggle as to which shall sell perishable goods at the highest profit. None of the lasting works of the ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... that our former relationship of tutor and pupil was at an end, but that friendship for his person was incompatible with the respect due to his superior station, I can neither so far degrade the dignity of letters, nor, above all, so meanly debase the sanctity of my divine profession, as any longer to remain beneath your hospitable roof,—a guest not only unwelcome to, but insulted by, your relation and apparent heir. Suffer me to offer you my gratitude for the favours you have hitherto bestowed on me, ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... One worthless man, that gains what he pretends, Disgusts a thousand unpretending friends: And since no art can make a counterpass, Or add the weight of gold to mimic brass, When princes to bad ore their image join, They more debase the stamp, than raise the coin. Be thine the care, true merit to reward And gain the good—nor will that task be hard; Souls form'd alike so quick by nature blend, An honest man is more than half thy friend. Him, no mean views, or haste to rise, shall ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... over the housewife. And here also comes the question of the quality of jealousy, whether being wife of a man and mother of his children does not almost necessarily give a woman a feeling of exclusive possession in him, and whether, therefore, if we are earnest in our determination not to debase her, our last shred of polygamy does not vanish. From first to last, of course, it has been assumed that a prolific polygamy alone can be intended, for long before we have plumbed the bottom of the human heart we shall know enough to imagine what the ugly and pointless consequences ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells
... poet, if he will; but let him not stake his all on success in that pursuit, but have a second line to fall back upon if driven from his first. Let him be so reared and trained that he may enter, if he will, upon some intellectual calling in the sustaining consciousness that he need not debase himself, nor do violence to his convictions, in order to achieve success therein, since he can live and thrive in another (if you choose, humbler) vocation, if driven from that of his choice. This buttress to integrity, ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... right the Stage, And undeceive the long abused Age, Which casts thy praise on them, to whom thy Wit Gives not more Gold then they give drosse to it: Who not content like fellons to purloyne, Adde Treason to it, and debase thy Coyne. But whither am I strayd? I need not raise Trophies to thee from other Mens dispraise; Nor is thy fame on lesser Ruines built, Nor needs thy juster title the foule guilt Of Easterne Kings, who to secure their ...
— The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher in Ten Volumes - Volume I. • Beaumont and Fletcher
... resided in this city some time, assures me that he could not find language to give me an idea of the gross debaucheries into which the lower order of people fall; and the promiscuous amours of the men of the middling class with their female servants debase both beyond measure, weakening ...
— Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark • Mary Wollstonecraft
... rolls in its magnificence, the heavens display their constellated canopy, and the grand animated spectacle of nature rises revealed before him, its varieties regulated, and its mysteries resolved! The phenomena which bewilder, the prejudices which debase, the superstitions ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... priest who with one wise opinion had indicated to him the method of escape from that labyrinth. And now appeared unexpectedly before him two powers, the interest of the state, which he had not felt thus far, though he was heir to the throne; and the priesthood, which he wished to debase ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus
... restored to them, and having invited the merchants of Rotterdam to join with them in this Deputation, the latter have answered, that with men capable of acting so ruffianlike, they would rather let them keep all that they had robbed, than debase themselves by courting the robbers. This noble answer would be still more so, if Rotterdam had lost as much at St Eustatia as Amsterdam; there being, as for that, a very ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. IX • Various
... love on Polly, Charlotte Bronte could not possibly have meant to debase her and efface her. How then did it happen that Polly was ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair
... with the passage of time and the influence of outside elements, the sects thus born undergo visible modifications. By turns sublime or outrageous, simple or depraved, they either aspire heavenwards or debase the human spirit to the level of its ...
— Modern Saints and Seers • Jean Finot
... shun the flabby gang That tricked your taste with cards and drink, When out of independence sprang A silly downfall. Think, Tom, think! While stupid lads debase their worth In feather-headed Folly's thicket, Get back your muscle and your mirth Beneath ...
— More Cricket Songs • Norman Gale
... minority report, and addressed the House in opposition to the proposed amendment of the Constitution. He thus presented his view of the object of the measure proposed: "It appears to have in its body, in its soul, and in its life only one great object and aim; that is, to debase and degrade the white race, and to place upon a higher footing than the white men are placed, under the Constitution, this African race. It is a proposition to change the organic law of the land with regard ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... Queen, is grief to me: Thy gain my greatest gain would be. Proud daughter of a princely line, The rights of consort queen are thine. How art thou, born of royal race, Blind to the crimes that kings debase? Thy lord is gracious, to deceive, And flatters, but thy soul to grieve, While thy pure heart that thinks no sin Knows not the snares that hem thee in. Thy husband's lips on thee bestow Soft soothing word, an empty show: The wealth, the substance, and the power ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... Sequestered from the world, neither its pageants nor its mortifications could have reached me there. I have seen thee, matchless Constantine! Like a bright planet, thou has passed before me!—like a being of a superior order! And I never, never can debase my nature to change that love. Thy image shall follow me into solitude—shall consecrate my soul to the practice of every virtue! I will emulate thy excellence, when, perhaps, thou hast forgotten ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... lesse to be Christians,) they must, will they nill they, ascribe vnto them this loue and affection towardes their children: if not, they doe not onely take from them the title and dignitie of men, but also they debase them vnder euery brute beast, which euen by the instinct of nature are bound with exceeding great loue, and tender affection towards their ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries - of the English Nation, v. 1, Northern Europe • Richard Hakluyt
... Siegmund.' She stroked his face, and kissed him softly. Siegmund lay in the molten daze of love. But Helena was, if it is not to debase the word, virtuous: an inconsistent virtue, cruel ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence
... Hawk—if such a term can be applied to the thoughts of the systematic and calculating man of dissipation, whose joys, regrets, pains, and pleasures, are all of self, and who would seem to retain nothing of the intellectual faculty but the power to debase himself, and to degrade the very nature whose outward semblance he wears—the reflections of Sir Mulberry Hawk turned upon Kate Nickleby, and were, in brief, that she was undoubtedly handsome; that her coyness ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... laboriously collected from the flowers of the field. It is not so recorded; but doubtless the nameless one in question was by profession a maker of opium pipes, for this person has observed from time to time how that occupation, above all others, tends to degrade the mental faculties, and to debase its followers to a lower position than that of the beasts of labour. Learn therefrom, O superficial Wang Yu, that wisdom lies in an intelligent perception of great principles, and not in a slavish imitation of details which are, for the most part, beyond your ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah
... where beauty of nature and classic treasures were heaped in profusion; whose loggie [Footnote: Arched colonnades.] glowed with the finest forms of Greek sculpture, resuscitated from the tombs of ages to inspire newer artists to perfection, but alas! also to debase the aim ...
— Fra Bartolommeo • Leader Scott (Re-Edited By Horace Shipp And Flora Kendrick)
... should not interfere in these matters. You simply debase you husband's high office. The distaff were more fitting for you. My lord, good morning." And before either of them could speak again, he was out of the room, and through the hall, and beyond the gate, and standing beneath the towers of the cathedral. Yes, he had, he thought, in truth ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... of existence. And whence is their excitement derived? From the most contemptible and silly frivolities, from balls, parties, visits, and gossip without end—excitements utterly selfish, which materialise the soul, debase its tastes, enervate its powers, rendering it incapable of all earnest labours or self-denial, and which incapacitate it from apprehending the purity, the majesty, and the surpassing wonder of spiritual realities. These are the ...
— Parish Papers • Norman Macleod
... reign over our fine country. Whether the nobility of the Bourbons take the step of expatriating itself again, or consent to live among us, is no concern of ours. The sacred cause of liberty, and of our independence, will no longer suffer from their fatal influence. They have endeavoured to debase our military glory; but they have found themselves mistaken. This glory is the fruit of labours too noble for us to lose the remembrance of it. Soldiers! those days are no more, when nations were governed by stifling their rights. Liberty is at length triumphant and Napoleon, ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... consent awaits their wills, retire to coverts, and to darkness, to complete their wishes? And shall such a sneaking passion as this, which can be so easily gratified by viler objects, be permitted to debase the noblest? ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... and forcible language, the great truths of Christianity, as opposed to the false teaching of Rome. He showed how the one must, when received, elevate and ennoble the human mind; while the other was calculated in every way to lower and debase it. He then, in eloquent language, called upon his countrymen to unite in overthrowing that fearful system, supported by the Pope and his cardinals, to which King Philip had completely subjected himself. "He who is a slave to such a system is unfit to rule his fellow-men!" he exclaimed. "Already ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston
... The adoption of a hypothesis and the making of a survey in order to prove it by a careful selection and manipulation of facts would not discredit survey as a means to the attainment of truth; it would only discredit and debase the moral character of the man who made ...
— Missionary Survey As An Aid To Intelligent Co-Operation In Foreign Missions • Roland Allen
... consistent with due subordination to the objects displayed. To enter a room in the Louvre is an education in itself; but two steps on the filthy floor and under the iron forks, half scaffold, half gallows, of the big Norwood glass bazaar, debase mind and eye at once below possibility of looking at anything with profit all the day afterwards. I have just heard that a French picture dealer is to have charge of the picture gallery there, and ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... be false, Leonardo had too grand a soul. A wretched woman in England, at the beginning of the last century, Mrs. Manley, systematically employed fiction as a cover for personal libel; but such an abuse of art as this could be practiced or countenanced only by the vile. Novelists, however, often debase fiction by obtruding their personal vanities, favouritisms, fanaticisms and antipathies. We had, the other day, a novel, the author of which introduced himself almost by name as a heroic character, with a description of his own personal appearance, residence, and habits ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... a poor man from his birth, and an exciseman from necessity; but—I will say it!—the sterling of his honest worth, poverty could not debase; and his independent British spirit oppression might bend, but could not ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... and made him sit down among them. And after the meeting was ended, and the Friends departed to their several homes, addressing himself to Mary Penington, as the mistress of the house, he could not enough magnify the bravery and courage of the Friends, nor sufficiently debase himself. He told her how long he had been a professor, what pains he had taken, what hazards he had run, in his youthful days, to get to meetings; how, when the ways were forelaid and passages stopped, he swam through rivers to reach a meeting; and now, said he, that I am grown old in the profession ...
— The History of Thomas Ellwood Written by Himself • Thomas Ellwood
... alone can point the dart, Whose hidden sting could wound no other heart— These, of all pains the sharpest we endure, The breast which now inflicts, would spring to cure.— No more deserted genius then, would fly To breathe in solitude his hopeless sigh; No more would Fortune's partial smile debase The spirit, rich in intellectual grace; Who views unmov'd from scenes where pleasures bloom, The flame of genius sunk in mis'ry's gloom; The soul heav'n form'd to soar, by want deprest, Nor heeds the wrongs that pierce a kindred breast.— Thou righteous ...
— Poems (1786), Volume I. • Helen Maria Williams
... state of nudity, without anything like sandals or mocassins to protect his feet from the flint stones and sharp shells, and under the burning rays of an intolerable sun. Blood marked his footsteps. The king met him and compelled him to debase himself by the most abject ceremonies of slavery. He was now overcome, and with a dogged indifference was ready to die. He could not, he would not walk back; his feet were lacerated, swollen, and almost in a state of putrefaction. ...
— The Call Of The South - 1908 • Louis Becke
... not hear you speak in that way, Charlotte. Of course I married her. Did you wish me to ruin and debase her? That, I suppose, you could have forgiven. My sin against the Sandals and society ...
— The Squire of Sandal-Side - A Pastoral Romance • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... to which sensual love will drive a man who is not strong enough to throw off its degrading chains. The whole of humanity seemed to her unclean as she thought of the obscene secrets of the senses, of the caresses which debase as they are given and received, and of all the mysteries which surround ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... col'ny here. (Enter Quezox) Francos: But Bonset, list! 'Twere well to let them wait: To quick respond will lower dignity. The British mind doth breed a rev'rence deep For form and etiquette which swift cognition Might debase, and thus we on their mental Vision might mayhap but feeble impress Make as envoys by most noble Caesar sent To rule these Isles with gravity and state. Quezox: Most noble Sire! If I might but suggest, 'Twere well for Bonset to inquire each name ...
— 'A Comedy of Errors' in Seven Acts • Spokeshave (AKA Old Fogy)
... enough to debase them; they must be so stupefied that they wish to be debased. The formidable autocracies of Egypt, Persia, and Syria, made playthings of the lives of millions of men; and the secret of their power lay in the supernatural light of their pseudo-divinity. From the extreme ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain
... are we afraid when we send a young man from the Schools into active life, lest he should indulge his appetites intemperately, lest he should debase himself by ragged clothing, or be puffed up by fine raiment? Knows he not the God within him; knows he not with whom he is starting on his way? Have we patience to hear him say to us, Would I had thee with me!—Hast thou not God ...
— The Golden Sayings of Epictetus • Epictetus
... whirling dervishes, in witnessing whose singular movements one is at a loss whether to sigh or to laugh. To the young the performance suggests that of the circus, and until wearied of the monotony of it, is perhaps as amusing; but to this more thoughtful observer it is melancholy to see men so debase themselves. The ring in which these people whirl about was full of deluded men, on the day of our visit, self-proclaimed disciples. About twenty of them commenced at a signal to turn rapidly about on their heels and toes, without a moment's pause, for a period of some thirty or forty ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... to ask what purpose in either case these heroic mantles subserved, and whether, in fact, they could not be dispensed with to advantage, he was soon made to know that his inquiry indicated ignorance, and a desire to debase in the one case Man, in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... of that madness, a brief passion. She was content, it seemed, that her lover should be wise, should be careful for the future, should take her life into his hands with a sort of quiet mastery as if he had a right to do so—a right, not to ruin and debase, such as is usually considered the privilege of that which is called a great passion and admired as such—but a right to ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... wants have been of a common sort, who are chiefly struggling to get better and more food, clothing, shelter, and bodily recreation, may lead to hasty measures for the sake of having things more fairly shared, which, even if they did not fail of their object, would at last debase the life of the nation. Do anything which will throw the classes who hold the treasures of knowledge—nay, I may say, the treasure of refined needs—into the background, cause them to withdraw from public affairs, stop too suddenly any of the sources ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... brandy. It was the same flask that he used when tempting Richard Ashton at Charlotte, and he and John, jun. indulged so freely of its contents as soon to be considerably under its influence. Miss Sealy perceived the state they were in, and blaming the former for leading her brother to thus debase himself, gave him to understand his presence was extremely distasteful to her, and that he might consider their engagement broken off; for, no matter what influence might be brought to bear, she had made up her mind, after ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... nobles, meanwhile, looking alone to the legislation of Heaven and to the laws of Scotland, which alike demand justice and mercy from all, will live the fathers of their country, teaching her brave sons that the only homage which does not debase a man, is that which he pays ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... of childhood, in which danger may arise from playmates or school-fellows. This applies equally to children of either sex. Danger may also arise from adults, not only through systematic seduction on the part of grown persons who deliberately debase the mind of youth, but also in other ways. The conversations of adults often lead to sexual acts on the part of children, who understand far more of what is said in their presence than grownups commonly believe. While the child is ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll
... prevail in an argument, whose scope and object is to mortify the self-love of the expected proselyte? I ask further, when such attempts have been made, whether they have not failed of success? The indignant heart repels the conviction that is believed to debase it.... Let me expostulate with gentlemen to admit, if it be only by way of supposition, and for a moment, that it is barely possible they have yielded too suddenly to their own alarms for the powers of this house; that the addresses which have been made ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... that ignorance in which it could be thus accredited, are past; for the leader of this Advancement is already unfolding his tradition, and opening his books; and he bids us debase his name no longer, into a name for these sordid fatuities. The Leader of ages that are yet to be,—ages whose nobler advancements, whose rational and scientific advancements to the dignity and perfection ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... walks the earth and haunts the institutions of to-day, in the great corporations, with the control of the National highways, their occupation of great domains, their power to tax, their cynical contempt for the law, their sorcery to debase most gifted men to the capacity of splendid slaves, their pollution of the ermine of the judge and the robe of the Senator, their aggregation in one man of wealth so enormous as to make Croesus seem a pauper, their picked, paid, and skilled retainers who are summoned ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... abode Has oft received, and yet receives a God; A God victorious of the Stygian race Here laid his sacred limbs, and sanctified the place, 710 This mean retreat did mighty Pan contain: Be emulous of him, and pomp disdain, And dare not to debase ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... every day (even among those we despise with so much reason), who reign with a scepter of iron, treat as slaves men who are attached to them, debase them by force of controlling them. Well, these are the women who are loved longer than the others. I am persuaded that a woman of refinement, well brought up, would never think of following such an example. That military manner is repugnant ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... is a vile, pernicious, Wicked and degraded rule, Tending to debase the vicious, And corrupt the harmless fool; If there is a hateful habit Making man a senseless tool, With the feelings of a rabbit And the wisdom of a mule; It's the rule which inculcates, It's the ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... blood nor pompous titles, but upon the work and personal merit of each one; a free society, where exist neither egotism nor personal politics which annihilate and crush, neither envy nor favoritism which debase, neither fanfaronade nor charlatanism which ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... youth whose anxious heart Labours with love's unpitied smart? Though now he stray by rills and bowers, And weeping waste the lonely hours, Or if the nymph her audience deign, Debase the story of his pain With slavish looks, discolour'd eyes, And accents faltering into sighs; 80 Yet thou, auspicious power, with ease Canst yield him happier arts to please, Inform his mien with manlier charms, Instruct his tongue with nobler arms, With more commanding passion move, And teach ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... Anne, is her subject; and may be guilty of high treason against her: but, in the instance of conjugal fidelity, he is not subjected to the same penal restrictions. For which the reason seems to be, that, if a queen consort is unfaithful to the royal bed, this may debase or bastardize the heirs to the crown; but no such danger can be consequent on the infidelity of the husband to a ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... was gain and profit, is not without very good ground and reason. If with the reward, which ought to be simply a recompense of honour, they should mix other commodities and add riches, this mixture, instead of procuring an increase of estimation, would debase and abate it. The Order of St. Michael, which has been so long in repute amongst us, had no greater commodity than that it had no communication with any other commodity, which produced this effect, that formerly there was no office or title whatever to which ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... mummeries, were beguil'd. Yet should the Satyrs so chastise their mirth, Temp'ring the jest that gives their sallies birth; Changing from grave to gay, so keep the mean, That God or Heroe of the lofty scene, In royal gold and purple seen but late, May ne'er in cots obscure debase his state, Lost in low language; nor in too much care To shun the ground, grasp clouds, and empty air. With an indignant pride, and coy disdain, Stern Tragedy rejects too light a vein: Like a grave Matron, destin'd to advance On solemn festivals to join the dance, Mixt with the shaggy tribe of Satyrs ...
— The Art Of Poetry An Epistle To The Pisos - Q. Horatii Flacci Epistola Ad Pisones, De Arte Poetica. • Horace
... the influences of civilised life to make an honourable, upright man, any more than it needs the influences of savage life to make a thorough scoundrel. Of course the tendency of civilisation is to elevate, of savagery to debase, nevertheless it is certain that as we occasionally see blackguards in the highest ranks, so we sometimes find men and women with exalted conceptions of right and wrong in the lowest circles ...
— The Walrus Hunters - A Romance of the Realms of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... clergymen, desiring it to be done with tolling of bell and putting out of candle, because these solemnities had the greater effect on the laity. This statute is a sad proof how much too cheaply sacred things were held, and how habit was leading even the clergy to debase them by over-frequent and frivolous use of the ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... the consistency of Burke, the identity of the first Whig. Most of this, I suppose, is undisputed, and calls for no enlargement. But the weight of opinion is against me when I exhort you never to debase the moral currency or to lower the standard of rectitude, but to try others by the final maxim that governs your own lives, and to suffer no man and no cause to escape the undying penalty which history has ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... content to take the ornaments of your excellent nature from the most base and vile things, neither understand you what injury you do your Creator. He would have mankind to excel all earthly things; you debase your dignity under every meanest creature. For if it be manifest that the good of everything is more precious than that whose good it is, since you judge the vilest things that can be to be your goods, you deject yourselves under them in your own estimation, which questionless ...
— The Theological Tractates and The Consolation of Philosophy • Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius
... whose faces we trace a resemblance to the portraits of Hume, Voltaire, and Gibbon. For this piece of flattery the painter was justly rebuked by Goldsmith, whose sympathies were certainly not on the side of infidelity. "It very ill becomeF a mann Of your eminence and character," said the poet, "to debase so high a genius as Voltaire before so mean a writer as Beattie. Beattie and his book will be forgotten in ten years, while Voltaire's fame will last for ever. Take care it does not perpetuate this picture, to the shame of such a man ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... be a strong man whom the sudden stare of Penury does not daunt and, in some measure, debase. Tarrant, whatever the possibilities of his nature, had fallen under a spell of indolent security, which declared its power only when he came face to face with the demand for vigorous action. The moment found him a sheer poltroon. 'What! Is it possible that ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... party in power, because no place was made for the Negro element in its civil service. In the first issue of La Sentinelle, he wrote, "From day to day the Maurician Press develops a system entirely dangerous and which seems to have this for a foundation—to discredit and debase English institutions and the English Government in the eyes of all. Here are the consequences of this system—the government believing that the opinions of the press are those of all the inhabitants of Maurice, has seen in us enemies rather than ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various
... the reason why Orange struck me so much; a place of which I had heard and read little or nothing. No attentive and intelligent cicerone anticipated our reflections in this place; nor did the creature-comforts of a good inn debase our Roman reveries, though we could well have pardoned their so doing. Madame Ran, of the Croix Blanche, was as mean and dirty as the hole in which she lived; and looked as malevolent as Canidia, Erichtho, or any other classical witch; and as to the ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes
... in these commands the language of enthusiasm of hyperbole? These maxims! are they not directly fitted to discourage, and debase a man? to degrade him in his own eyes, and those of others? to plunge him into despair? And would not the literal fulfillment of them prove destructive to society? What shall we say of that morality which orders the heart to detach itself from objects, which God, and reason, and ...
— The Grounds of Christianity Examined by Comparing The New Testament with the Old • George Bethune English
... however, proper to remark, that as his habitual meekness and command of his passions prevented indecent sallies of ungoverned anger towards those in the lowest state of subjection to him, by which some in high life do strangely debase themselves, and lose much of their authority, so the natural greatness of his mind made him solicitous to render their inferior stations as easy as he could: and so much the rather, because he considered all the children of Adam as standing upon ...
— The Life of Col. James Gardiner - Who Was Slain at the Battle of Prestonpans, September 21, 1745 • P. Doddridge
... But all would be well, if we could eradicate abuses and bring out our strength. A fatality, however, seems pursuing us. The blockade-runners drain the country of the little gold which is left in it; the forestallers run up prices, and debase the currency beyond hope; the able-bodied and healthy men who ought to be in the army, swarm in the streets; and the bitter foes of the President poison the public mind, and infuse into it despair. It is this, colonel, ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... taught to maintain, was looked upon as iniquitous extravagance. Nor was this, even in those bloody days, enough to condemn her. Lies of the basest kind were, with care and difficulty, contrived to debase her character—lies which have now been proved to be so, but which were then not only credible, but sure to receive credit from those who already believed that all royal blood was, from its nature, capable of ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... And undeceive the long-abused age, Which casts thy praise on them, to whom thy wit Gives not more gold than they give dross to it; Who not content, like felons, to purloin, Add treason to it, and debase the coin. But whither am I stray'd? I need not raise Trophies to thee from other men's dispraise; 20 Nor is thy fame on lesser ruins built, Nor needs thy juster title the foul guilt Of eastern kings, ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... happiness of society, to animate our hopes, to subdue our passions, to instruct man in the happy science of purifying the polluted recesses of a vitiated heart, to confirm him in his exalted notion of the dignity of his nature, and thereby to inspire him with sentiments averse to whatever may debase the excellence of his origin, the public would be indebted to you; your name would be recorded amongst the assertors of morality and religion; and I myself, though brought up in a different persuasion from yours, would be the first to offer my incense at the shrine of merit. ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... altered the face of the earth and accomplished works which make the creation more perfect. The President of the Court of Appeal has immortalised himself by condemning Ferdinand de Lesseps, for the nations will always demand the name of the man who was not afraid to debase his century by investing with the convict's cap an aged man, whose life redounded to ...
— The Crowd • Gustave le Bon
... however, the Negroes lost their political power, their property was seized on the plea for delinquent taxes and they were forced into the ghetto of towns and cities, as it became a crime punishable by social proscription to sell Negroes desirable residences. The aim was to debase all Negroes to the status of menial labor in conformity with the usual contention of the South that slavery is the ...
— A Century of Negro Migration • Carter G. Woodson
... buying a book. Whether it is ever wise to buy a book, as Aulus Gellius used to do, simply because it is cheap, and regardless of its condition, is a debatable point, but to buy one dear at the mere bidding of a bookseller is to debase yourself. The result of this ungodly traffic has been to enlarge for the moment the circle of book-buyers by including in it men with commercial instincts, sham hobbyists. But these impostors have been lately punished in ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... enervating their manhood by every artifice in their power. Thus they have successfully achieved the introduction into Germany of that most degraded form of self-worship—Chauvinism. They poison her morality by wisely organizing that every conscience, every conviction, should have its price. They debase her ideals by decreeing that henceforth the officer is to be the national patron saint to whom the people are to offer up their devotion and worship. The press, literature, art, lecturing-room—all preach the same gospel, that the highest product ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... to absolute princes, which he attributes to himself. Dixi quod Dii estis.'" (N. B. This axiom he applies to the kings of England.) Mr. Secretary Cecil said, "I am servant to the queen, and before I would speak and give consent to a case that should debase her prerogative, or abridge it, I would wish that my tongue were cut out of my head. I am sure there were law-makers before there were laws; (meaning, I suppose, that the sovereign was above the laws.) One gentleman went about to possess ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... beauty for whom, as it were, all nature plays the ham to the point that they say nothing in an ordinary way, imagine nothing in the way in which it is perceived outside of poems, but instead elevate, debase, alter, and clothe everything in a theatrical mask. For this reason we have excluded from this anthology a number of epigrams as too metaphorical: for example, these two by Daniel Heinsius, a man otherwise ...
— An Essay on True and Apparent Beauty in which from Settled Principles is Rendered the Grounds for Choosing and Rejecting Epigrams • Pierre Nicole
... difficulties, and do not satisfy them by telling us what is really the case. I have heard you charged with disrespect to the King of Prussia; and above all, to King William and the Revolution. My own objections are little more essential: they relate chiefly to inaccuracies of style, which either debase the expression or obscure the meaning. As to your argument@ most of the principal parts are made out with a clearness and evidence that no one would expect, where materials are so scarce. Yet I still suspect Richard of the murder of Henry ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... exclaimed Mr. DeVere. "I never would consent to acting in the moving pictures. I would not so debase my profession—a profession honored by Shakespeare. I never would consent to ...
— The Moving Picture Girls - First Appearances in Photo Dramas • Laura Lee Hope
... the existing institution is to be maintained in its greatest possible dignity and purity. We believe that with the establishment of truth and justice in the practical affairs of society; with the guarantee of pecuniary independence to all persons, the most fatal temptations to debase and profane this relation will be removed.... But to purer and nobler generations more upright, honorable and generous, we leave all legislation on this subject. It is for us to maintain the ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... treasure can provide, what can be brought on by the resurrection of misguided human intelligence, successively smothered and slain hitherto by infamous slavery, by the despicable infectious necessity of armed attack and defense, and by the privileges which debase human worth. You can have no notion what human intelligence may one day find of new adoration. The people's absolute reign will give to literature and the arts—whose harmonious shape is still but roughly sketched—a splendor boundless ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... purifies—it is the lamp of naphtha in the alabaster vase, glowing with fragrant odorous, but shining only through the purest vessels. No; it is not love, and it is not friendship, that Arbaces feels for Ione. Give it no name—earth has no name for it—it is not of earth—why debase it with ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... words. Words are your idols, the bricks out of which your idols and oracles are built. Listen, I will tell you what I have always found in towns. I have found words worshipped as something holy in themselves. Words were used to limit God, debase man. So is it in your town. Once man thought words; now words are beginning to think man. Once man conceived future progress; now your idol Progress is beginning to conceive future man. It is the same as with money; once man made money, but now ...
— A Tramp's Sketches • Stephen Graham
... added: "No man is now so wise and gifted that he can save this Nation from bankruptcy. * * * No borrowing system can save us. The scheme of making greenbacks a legal tender, which enabled the debtor to cheat his creditor, thereby playing the old game of kingcraft, to debase the currency in order to aid the designs of despotism, may float us for a while amidst the fluctuations and bubbles of the day; but as no one possesses the power to repeal the Law of the Almighty, which decrees (and as our ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
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